Black Diamonds Read online

  FRANCINE

  I have to go to the Ackermans’ this morning, since the garden fellow is coming at two. Father scratches out a little map on the back of the envelope he’s holding, to show me where to go. And hands it to me; this contains the cheque: branded with my ignorance before I even step outside.

  Hayseed appears impartial when he sees me; but then he sighs as we set off. He’s right. This won’t do, there must be more of me in this, so I stop in town to buy … I don’t know what’s appropriate so I take nothing but the cheque. Mr Symes sees me as I pass the post office, but he needn’t worry. I’m off to bother someone else today, several miles away.

  I could turn around and go home, tell Father that I became impossibly lost and vaporous, claiming unspecific feminine deficiency. That won’t do either. For the first time I can’t come home glib. Father sent me off with a kiss on the top of my head as assurance that I will fulfil his unfathomable plans for me, while he spends the day doing the rounds of the other two widows. This is too awful.

  What does he want me to do? I know what I want to do: slip the envelope under the door and run away.

  The houses are dark brown brick along Dell Street, miniatures of ours. Gables and windows trimmed with plain white fretwork, whiter for the shade of the hill they sit snug beneath. There’s no grey film on anything here, so far from the smokestacks. The house I’m after is at the end of the road, which breaks away from the hill and opens to a gully that funnels the sun. Here we are then.

  There are two camellias either side of the small front verandah and a huge climbing rose covering the fence on the left-hand side, all well trimmed in preparation for winter, only a few blooms left on the climber which are so pale they might look white but for the gable above that shows they are pink. It’s in better shape than the front of my house. On the right there is no fence; the ground tumbles away into the scrub as if this really is the end of civilisation. Well, that’s about it for procrastination upon the flora, and I broach the front step.

  The door knocker is cold in the palm of my hand and I bang it once, too softy, how pathetic. I bang it again, twice. How bad can this be? These are people with well-cared-for shrubbery; they won’t bite me. And it seems they are not home! What luck, I think before I hear: ‘Come round the back.’

  It’s The Lad. Said with the same sharp, tight-jawed truculence as I need to piss. This cannot go well. I should just leave. Take myself and my faulty, disappointing mind back to my father and demand to know what on God’s earth he hopes to achieve by making such a fool of me.

  But I can’t. I look down at the envelope I’m holding and it appears rather more important than my own distress. I shall simply go round, deliver it, ask after his health and bid him good day. Him, who appears to exert a greater influence upon my existence than I do at present, I think as I plod along the gully side, snagging my sleeve on a gnarl-laden tree opposite one of the windows. I can see a neat vegetable plot and there’s a black and white cow tethered a few yards off down the back; she looks up and moos at me as I reach the rear of the house. She’s in on this too.

  And there he is. Oh —

  I stop dead still at the sight. He is wearing no shirt, which is shocking enough in itself, but he’s so … sculpted; he looks as if he is cut from marble or cast in bronze and should be adorning a fountain rather than a lean-to verandah at the back of this little house. An image confused by his broken leg, which is propped on another chair and startling as it emerges from the cut-off trousers; and he appears to be whittling a little knife into a small block of wood. He is utterly sun-drenched and I see that his hair is not black at all, but a very dark auburn. Then he looks across at me and I’m sure I’ve just gasped. My face is a waratah in full fire beneath my sunburn.

  He picks up his shirt and puts it on, far too slowly; says, ‘The sun,’ gesturing at it by way of explanation. And says nothing else. Goes back to whittling.

  I drag up my voice from somewhere in the pit of me and very quickly get to the point, the quicker to get out of here. ‘My father would like you and your mother to have this,’ I say quite levelly, considering, moving a few steps towards him, holding out the envelope. ‘Is your mother in?’

  ‘She’s burying her husband,’ he says, still whittling.

  ‘Oh.’ I breathe out the sound that snuffs my self-absorption. ‘I’m so sorry,’ I say, and mean it to my core, for his loss and my tactless intrusion upon it at this time; Father should have checked such arrangements … I should have guessed. My eyes settle on him properly again, a little more easily now; I can see the bruise on his grazed cheek purpling and I feel compelled to touch him in some way so that he knows I mean it. But there is an ugly chasm between us.

  He doesn’t look up.

  ‘If there’s anything you need, anything at all, you must let my father know,’ I say, and somehow I know this is precisely what I should say. I put the envelope on the chair, the corner tip tucked just under his leg. It’s the only place I can put it without giving it to him or leaving it on the ground.

  ‘Well …’ I get that far and I can’t say good day because my throat is completely closed over with the agony of this. It’s done, then, and I’ll leave now.

  DANIEL

  ‘Wait,’ I say. I didn’t want to make her cry. It’s not her fault the rock fell down, is it. I’ve been enough of a pig to her already. A pig all round. I’ve had all morning since Mum left to wonder about that and make me want to lift my game.

  She stops and looks at me, and she’s close enough that I can see it’s sunburn not blushing all over her face now. She’s an odd one. She squeaked at seeing me half naked, and I couldn’t help that; spending most days underground makes you want the light on you when it’s there. But then she’s here on her father’s business and very direct about it too, and then she’s barely holding in tears. And she’s something to look at, even with the sunburn.

  ‘Thanks,’ I say, looking at the envelope. Then I look at her again. ‘I would like you to do something for me, if that’s all right,’ I say and her eyebrows go up, blue eyes blinking. She is a doll. ‘You couldn’t get me a drink, could you?’

  I couldn’t be arsed dragging myself back inside for one — it took me long enough to get myself out here in the first place — and it’ll give me an excuse to thank her again.

  ‘Of course,’ she says. Blink, blink. And I tell her where she’ll find a glass inside and that the tap’s just here by the back wall. She goes in and I hear her rootling around, then the crash of something heavy. And, ‘Oh dear.’

  ‘You right?’ I call out to her.

  ‘Yes,’ she says as she comes out, ‘I knocked the kettle off the stove.’ As if she does that every day; as if that’s an easy thing to do. Then she goes to the tap and fills the glass, her hair coming out of its coil again and falling down her back. I feel like the worst pig remembering I wanted to yank it. Was that only yesterday?

  ‘Thanks,’ I say, and I don’t have trouble smiling at her. My face feels like it hasn’t smiled in ages. Probably hasn’t.

  She says: ‘That’s a pleasure.’ And stands there. I don’t know what to say to her, so I just drink it.

  Then she says, ‘What are you making?’ pointing at the carving. I pick it up and show her. She laughs: like a bell.

  She’s an odd one, she is.

  FRANCINE

  It’s a tiny kookaburra … its head popping out above the wood block, rough and only just begun. He looks at me like I am a lunatic. Him and the kookaburra both. I can’t explain myself to him; where would I begin? And I doubt very much that he’d be in the least interested. But relief is sweet: he does not hate me, and I have accomplished my mission.

  Then he smiles at me again, that same about-to-say-something smile from the street. That does me in. It’s an outrage that I should ever have not wanted to see it before; and it’s an outrage that I want to see it now.

  Before the thought is formed in my wayward brain, I say: ‘I have to go now. But I co
uld visit again, if you like.’

  Looking at me like I am a lunatic again. Why did I say that? What an impertinence. How could I presume that he would even want me to. The Boss’s Daughter no less. What must he think of such brazenness? Now I’ve insulted him, yet again.

  ‘Suit yourself,’ he says, but bemusement seems to creep into his frown.

  I leave him then and I am a walking scandal. Not sure that’s exactly what Father intended I achieve this morning.

  My heart is thumping to burst and I am swimmy-headed enough to drown, and I don’t care how utterly inappropriate that is. This Lithgow conspiracy is too strong and I’ll just have to surrender.

  DANIEL

  Three hundred pounds. I didn’t expect it would be that much. There goes the balance of payments on Mum’s piano. Bugger that. It could buy Mum this house, if they’ll sell it to her. It will cover us for months, a year, more. I don’t understand this amount of money in one go, not that we don’t deserve it, but … It’s too much and not enough, and Dad has died for it. I don’t know what to think. One and a half times more than I can earn in an ordinary year. Mum puts her face in her hands when she sees it, and that says it all. I look at the cheque again; I can’t remember having ever even seen a cheque before. It’s drawn on the Bank of New South Wales by Francis Patrick Connolly — there’s a Mick — in favour of Mrs H Ackerman. Dad looks up out of the paper at me. H for Harry, or Heinrich as he really is, was. Mum called him that whenever she had something serious to say. He says to me now, ‘What are you looking at?’ the traces of his accent making flat words flatter. And I think I see him stalk across the room as I’ve seen him do thousands of times. Well, he’s not in any heaven, that’s certain. He’s on the face of a cheque and on my face and in the shape of my body and in my dreams and in the dust in the mine and in this room. And in this bloody payout.

  Evan, who’s come home with Mum, says: ‘Connolly told me he wanted to make it more, but three hundred was all he could afford each split between all of you. It’s come out of his own pocket. How about that? Says this is all very “unofficial”. Can you believe it?’

  Out of his own pocket? I can’t hold anything else Evan’s saying for a minute. Connolly, as well as his daughter, must be dippy. But I’m not complaining on either count.

  Evan’s going on: ‘If only there were men of his sort filling the parliament, to make it official, eh. It’s only commonsense — that such payouts force better safety all round; and better safety means men stay on; men who stay on are better at what they do, and so it goes. Better for everyone.’

  I hear that all right. And so it doesn’t go. Dad was the best, the safest, the most reliable, and no act of parliament could stop the coal from killing him or anyone else one way or another. I’ve made a decision: I’m not going back in. Not ever.

  ‘You deserve every penny of that,’ Evan says to us both, and his Taffy accent rolls out the words as much as Dad’s would have squashed them. ‘Harry was champion, he was.’

  Amen. But I’m not going back in.

  FRANCINE

  By the time I get home I have regained my wits, sort of. Of course I cannot have an acquaintance with a miner. That’s plain ridiculous. What would we possibly talk about? How black was the coal today? Oh, quite black. That’s good. Anyone killed or maimed today? No, not today. We have nothing in common. I shan’t see him again, and he won’t really expect me to.

  The garden fellow, a Mr Saunders, arrives promptly and we roam around the backyard discussing magnolias and rhododendrons and all things frost-hardy, since the frosts are bitter and it snows once or twice in winter, sometimes heavily. He suggests massed bulbs: daffodils and irises. Ornamental maples. Dwarfed conifers. Box hedge at the verandah edge leading out to … it all floats about in my head, unframed and nonsensical, and I say: ‘And an apple — over there, in the very centre.’

  ‘An apple tree?’ he asks, flummoxed by my interruption upon his vision.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Just one, on its own?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘It might appear … perhaps … a little out of place there. A little common. Ordinary.’ And he doesn’t care how rude and patronising that sounds.

  ‘Well, make it two then,’ I tell him.

  And I know then that I am not quite recovered from my incident with The Lad. I want red bobbles to remember him always and this is not a higher thought — it is nauseatingly romantic and daft. But when this Mr Saunders from Bathurst persists with, ‘It’s not the most attractive tree, for a formal garden, Miss Connolly. A pair of maples, I’m sure, will be better there, as a subtle focal point. Shall we let your father have a say too?’, he speaks as if to a child and that steels me.

  ‘I want two apples trees,’ I say. ‘Red ones.’ And that’s final. ‘My father would not know the difference between an apple and a maple if it hit him across the face. But by all means, ask him if you think it’s for the best.’

  ‘Very well,’ he says, cowed and surprised. ‘We’ll include these apples, if you wish.’ I do wish, and I’m delighted. But it’s a hollow victory. I’m not altogether certain what an apple tree looks like. Apples, they are such a staple, but where do they grow? How do they grow? I have a vague idea of the fruit on the branches, but what does the tree itself look like? Perhaps they don’t grow on trees at all but the devil pours them into the bins at the grocers when we are not looking.

  The obsequious Mr Saunders slithers away with his instructions and says that he’ll contact my father with a quote next week — he needs to confer with Beelzebub first. The fun’s gone out of it altogether. Perhaps I won’t have a garden at this house at all. I look up at the gums drooping over the stubbly brown grass and I droop too.

  Father putters home, he looks tired and painfully sober, and suggests we retire to the parlour for a sprawl. He pours himself a fat finger of malt and it disappears into him before he says: ‘So how did it go with the Ackermans, my girl?’

  I tell him all about it, leaving out my idiotic rhapsody at the end, of course, and emphasising that The Lad appeared vastly improved in spirits, leaving out that he appeared magnificent, actually.

  ‘Good, good,’ he nods, well pleased with me. Why, I don’t know; it seems such a simple exchange as I told it just now. What lessons as to the tangled world and poverty and hypocrisy was I supposed to take from it? The questions are on the tip of my tongue when he says: ‘It’d be a fine idea to go back in a week or two to pay a call on Mrs Ackerman, introduce yourself and let her know she’s not forgotten, hmm?’

  I stare.

  ‘The lad’ll be starved for company too no doubt.’

  Hmm indeed. The Lithgow conspiracy envelops me again and I am fast beginning to suspect that my father is its ringleader.

  DANIEL

  She’s come back all right. I’m exactly where I was before, exactly a week later, except I’m fully clothed, because it’s freezing, waiting to see who’s coming round the back. And bloody grateful now that someone’s coming because I’ve never been so bored in all my life. It’s just me and Mum all week: I watch her cooking, sweeping, dusting, and in the garden, and milking Beatrice, and doing the washing, folding it and putting it away, then reading something or other out here in the sun, and I realise something as I watch her: she’s peaceful in her quietness, and maybe she steadies herself in her routines. I’m lost without mine. And out of sorts about it. Which side of my arse needs a break now? How long will it take for that itch under the cast to shove off? If it happens beyond my knee, I can’t reach it with anything. Jesus. And every time I get up and lurch around, my head spins from the rush of blood. Mum says: ‘Stay put. It will heal quicker.’ No it bloody won’t. I’m nearly ready to beg to be let back in the Wattle. And that thought turns my head inside out, running through everything again. Shut it off. I even wonder once or twice if Dad got the better deal. I don’t really, I’m just that bloody bored. Soon I won’t be able to sit out here at all; winter’ll be here in the next five min
utes; don’t want to think about what I’ll be like indoors.

  Mum’s gone on her peaceful and steady way up to town to get flour and eggs, half her luck, and I hear that pony and trap pull up. I think I’m imagining it, I’m that badly hopeful, then I think it must be Mrs Moran, who said she’d stop by again to check my circulation. On Saturday she told me it was important I keep moving my toes, meaning that failure to do this might result in worse things. That’s been another thing to think about. But when I hear the knock I know it’s Francine Connolly. Still, I don’t believe it. Until she comes round, trips up a bit on nothing that I can see on the ground, like she does it every day, and says: ‘Hello.’

  And I don’t know what to say. All I can think of is that I haven’t had a shave yet today, which is very unlike me; won’t let that go again. After ten years I make my face smile and say hello back. I’ve spent that much time thinking things I should not think about her. She is that far out of bounds.

  ‘Is your mother in?’

  Obviously not. ‘She’s gone up the road.’

  ‘Oh. I was hoping she would be here.’

  Why? She doesn’t say; she looks at Beatrice the cow, like she might want to talk to her instead. She’s … something to look at all right. Like you wouldn’t believe. I can’t tell you what she looks like.

  She looks at me again. Blink, blink. And says: ‘So how are you?’ Lips round and pink over the words.

  You really don’t want to know. I say: ‘Good.’ Barely.

  ‘How’s the kookaburra?’ she says.

  I don’t know where I get the reflex from but I pick it up from the ground beside me and toss it to her. I oiled it yesterday, and it’s only just dry. She’s so close. She nearly drops it, but doesn’t. And laughs again; it’s a loud sound that you wouldn’t think would come out of her. But it does.