Joe counts out the silver coins. He has the exact amount, two half-crowns and a sixpenny bit, and places the coins down on the desk.
‘You may have a receipt if you wish, though in these circumstances evidence of a doctor’s visit can sometimes prove a botheration. What do you think?’ ‘No, it don’t matter, doctor.’
‘We’ll keep it to ourselves then,’ he says, adding kindly, ‘until further notice, eh?’
‘Yes, thank you, sir.’ Joe nods to Jessica to follow him. They cross the small room and Joe allows Jessica to leave the surgery. He pauses with his hand on the doorknob, turning back. ‘Are you real sure, Dr Merrick? Are you, I mean, positive, like?’
The old physician removes his eyeglasses and begins to polish them slowly using a clean gauze dressing. He looks up at Joe quizzically. ‘As positive as fifty years of practice in my profession can make me, Joe Bergman. Two and a half months, I’ll stand by that.’ Joe remains at the door a moment longer and seems to hesitate. Noting Joe’s worried expression, the old physician looks sternly at him. ‘Mr Bergman, is there something you haven’t told me? Have you and the girl ... ? I think you know what I’m trying to say. Can we expect a normal child?’
‘Right,’ Joe says absently, not understanding the implications of the old doctor’s question. ‘Right then, doctor, we’ll be off.’ He closes the door behind him. Jessica is waiting for him outside and follows him to the sulky and climbs up into the seat. Her head is bowed, and she is trying with all her strength not to cry. Without a word or a look to his youngest daughter, Joe climbs aboard, takes the reins and turns the pony for home. They stop briefly at the Oatbank Brewery beside the river on the edge of town where Joe purchases a bottle of brandy. He is not a drinking man normally — two glasses of milk stout of a Sunday with Jack Thomas is about his limit. Feeling her father’s shame, and there being nothing she can possibly say that will comfort Joe, Jessica begins to sob.
It is almost four hours before Joe feels able to speak, by which time Jessica has stopped crying. ‘Jessie, who done it to you? Who is the father of your bastard?’ Joe tries to keep his voice even but his anger comes through and Jessica draws back as though his words alone have the capacity to harm her. She remains silent, staring miserably out at the flat, remorseless landscape, where the saltbush seems to be dancing in the heat.
‘Jessie, dammit, speak to me. Who put you up the duff?’ Jessica shakes her head. ‘I can’t say,’ she replies quietly, trying not to cry again.
‘Can’t say, or won’t say? Look at me, girl!’ Joe demands.
Jessica does not reply and bites her bottom lip, refusing to look at Joe.
‘Can’t or won’t? Answer me, will ya!’ Joe thunders.
‘Won’t, Father,’ Jessica says softly, then gives a small involuntary sob.
With the reins in his right hand, Joe suddenly reaches out and grabs her by the throat, very nearly pushing her from the sulky. ‘I’ll not take that from you! You tell me now, Jessie!’ With his left hand, he pulls Jessica around so that she looks directly at him. His thumb and forefinger are pushing against he
r windpipe. ‘You tell your father, or I’ll thrash you, girl!’ Joe stares straight down into Jessica’s eyes. They are red-rimmed from weeping, but there’s something he’s seen in them before — Jessica isn’t afraid. He knows she’s not going to tell him. His fingers close tighter around her slender neck and he begins to shake her as though the information he needs can be forced from her. He realises that Jessica is going blue, her tongue is protruding from her mouth. She claws frantically at his hand, her eyes filled with terror.
Panting, Joe releases her throat and sees the deep scarlet marks his thumb and finger have made on her neck.
He’s gripped her too hard and he is shocked to think he might have killed her. There’ll be bruises to show for it, the marks on her throat clear for weeks. Jessica bends over and coughs violently, clasping at her throat with both hands. Then she leans quickly over the moving sulky and vomits.
Joe pulls to a halt and waits for his daughter to recover, getting down from the sulky and bringing her the canvas water bag hanging from the back. ‘Here, drink this,’ he says gruffly, the anger gone from his voice.
Jessica rinses her mouth and spits, then takes a sip of water and winces at the pain of swallowing. She hands the water bag back to Joe before wiping her mouth using her pinny, but doesn’t once look at her father. Joe is feeling remorse, realising that he’s hurt her, but seeing her recovered, his anxiety turns back into fresh anger. ‘You’ll tell us or you’ll be punished, girl, you understand?’ he says roughly. ‘Your mother will not forgive you ever, you hear? She’s a proud woman and you’ve shamed her terribly. She’ll make you answer for this!’
Jessica turns to face him. ‘I can’t never tell, Father,’ she rasps, her voice barely above a whisper.
Joe stands silent, holding the water bag. The doctor’s words keep repeating in his head. Two and a half months — exactly the time when Jessica took Billy Simple into Narrandera. Jessica has been fucked by the idiot and now she carries a murderer’s child.
Joe clears his throat and looks across the flat land, shimmering in the afternoon heat. Jessica will bring a shame upon the family from which they can never recover. Hester has been right all along, Joe thinks. His youngest daughter is no good, a rotten apple, and now it’s too late. She’s destroyed them all and no decent family will consider the notion of Meg as a wife for their son and heir. What Jessica’s done will haunt them for the rest of their lives. They will be outcast from society. He has been alone before — he knows he can survive. But Hester will be destroyed and so will Meg, their hopes dashed forever. The foreigner’s family tainted with his bad blood, that’s what they’ll think of us, Joe tells himself harshly.
‘It’s five hours before we get home. By that time you better have the answer or you’ll be sorry.’ Joe doesn’t shout. His voice is cold and Jessica knows it’s his stubbornness against hers, his Bergman will against her own. Joe is going back into his darkness. ‘You’ll tell your mother who it was, or I’ll take the stockwhip to you and thrash you to within an inch of your life.’
He walks around the back of the sulky, hanging the water bag back on its hook. Then he climbs in and holds the reins loosely, not yet urging the pony on. ‘Jessica, is it ... ?’ He cannot bring himself to say Billy Simple’s name.
Jessica is silent for a while, then she turns to Joe, her hand clasped to her throat. ‘You can kill me, but I ain’t never gunna tell, Father,’ she says in a hoarse whisper. When Jessica and Joe arrive home Jessica sits outside while Joe goes in to tell Hester of Jessica’s pregnancy. Jessica already knows that she’s reached the final point with Hester, that her mother cannot forgive her. She also knows that her mother’s anger will be more to do with how her pregnancy affects Meg’s chances than with any humiliation it brings on the family.
Joe comes back outside and brings Jessica in to sit at the kitchen table to face her mother.
‘Who is it?’ Hester asks in a savage voice. ‘Tell me — or your father will give you a belting you’ll never forget.’ Jessica does not respond, but stares stubbornly at her boots.
‘Is it that vile creature, Billy Simple?’ She does not wait for an answer. ‘Hanging is too good for him and now he has destroyed us as well.’
Jessica does not answer and Hester continues, ‘How could you do this to us? You are possessed by the Devil. You are the Devil’s child!’ She turns to Joe, seated at the end of the table. ‘Jessica’s gone quite mad! She cannot be trusted to live with us. She must receive a whipping and then be banished! She must be put away from decent folk.’
Jessica looks up, frightened. She has expected the whipping, but not that she will be cast out from her family. Surely Joe will not allow this to happen? She looks over to where he sits at the end of the table. But Joe has his head bowed and he has his hands in his lap.
Jessica’s heart sinks — Joe has given up on her.