Hester sighs. ‘Such a terrible tragedy, Jack. You poor boy.’
‘Jack, will you have another cuppa?’ Meg asks suddenly, hoping to lift the conversation to a brighter note. Jack shakes his head. ‘Mrs Bergman, I know what I’m going to say I shouldn’t. But I’m going off to the war ... and who knows? I want to say something about Jessica and Billy.’
Meg stretches out and touches the back of Jack’s hand. ‘There’s no need, Jack. You don’t have to say anything.’
‘No, no, I want to. I couldn’t maybe have said this in front of Jessica, but now she’s not here I can — I must.’ ‘Do you mean all the talk about what happened at the courthouse in Narrandera?’ Hester asks hurriedly. ‘There’s no need, Jack. It’s idle talk, you know how country people are. They love a bit of gossip. We haven’t taken it seriously.’
‘No, not that, Mrs Bergman. What the newspapers said after the trial, how Jessica stuck up for Billy. The newspapers reckon she’s had a nervous breakdown, saying she’s, well, you know, around the twist. Saying no one in their right mind could stick up for a murderer when he’s done what Billy did to my mother and sisters.’ ‘Jessica’s been under a great strain, Jack. She’s not been well. Please don’t blame her for defending Billy Simple,’ Hester says softly. Then, almost pleading, she adds, ‘Meg is very different to her sister, they’re chalk and cheese.’
‘Blame her?’ Jack looks bewildered. ‘I’m not blaming Jessie. What Billy did was wrong. It’s terrible sad that he’ll hang for it, but I suppose he must. But Jessica did the right thing by him. She told his side in the court.’ Jack looks at both of them in turn. ‘I know you think I shouldn’t be talking like this when it’s my mother and sisters he killed.’
‘Jack, there’s no need,’ Meg cries, ‘you’ve been through enough!’
‘No, no, I want to go on. I don’t want to go into it, you know, the badness of it all. It makes me too sad even to think about what was done to my family. Maybe, when I go to the war it’ll help me to forget. But, still and all, Billy did have a side and Jessie had the courage to say so.’
‘Jack, my daughter’s not well, she’s ... ‘
Jack, normally polite, talks over Hester. ‘What Jessie did, knowing she’d be hated and misunderstood by everyone, was very brave and I take my hat off to her.’
Jack pauses. Meg sees that he’s sweating and he wipes his hand over his face so that it comes away wet and he wipes it on his napkin. ‘The three of us were real good mates before what happened to Billy, and she stuck by him right to the last. She gave poor Billy some dignity to take to his grave. It was me who let him down.
I admire Jessie more than I can say.’ Jack is silent with his head bowed, then he raises it slowly and looks first at Meg and then at Hester. ‘That’s all I wanted to say, except that I’d like to leave her a note. To say goodbye. Will you let me do that?’
It is more than Jack has said in all the time they have known him.
After Jack has departed Hester tears open the sealed envelope he’s given her for Jessica and unfolds the single page within it. Hester is surprised at the very few words on the page. Jack’s hand is clear and well formed, the way they teach them at the King’s School.
Goodbye, Tea Leaf.
See you when I get back.
Yours, ever,
Jack.
Hester passes the note over to Meg. ‘Hmph! We should’ve told the stupid boy. We should’ve told him whose bastard she’s got in her stomach. That’d fix him proper! It looks like our fight’s not over yet, Meg.’
Meg looks up from the letter she holds. Her dark eyes are bright with her hatred, her voice close to tears. ‘No, Mama, it’s not over yet,’ she says fiercely. ‘Jack is mine!’
CHAPTER NINE
The date is announced for the hanging of Billy Simple. He will pay his final debt to society at the new Long Bay Prison in Sydney on the sixth of August, 1914. The announcement is made just two weeks after Jack Thomas has commenced training camp. By some terrible quirk of fate, he will be riding in his passing-out parade as the trapdoor opens to end Billy Simple’s short, sad life.
On the day Billy Simple’s hanging is announced, Jessica takes herself down to the river to weep. She has written to him on three occasions, hoping that her letters will be read to him, that they will comfort him in his loneliness. Joe had taken her letters and posted them — he’d even provided the pen and ink and paper, although he’d made her promise first that she wouldn’t try to write to Jack Thomas. However, after extracting her promise, he’d never asked her why she wanted the paper, though she’d told him it was to write to Billy Simple. Poor Billy has no one. His family up near the Lachlan have disowned him. Jessica sees him sitting forlorn in his death cell, not understanding. She has heard no word since the day he was sentenced in Wagga. She recalls how Joe had told her that day: ‘Best forget him, think of him as already dead, girlie.’
Jessica is now showing enough so that any experienced female eye will observe her condition and she is forced to wear a cotton skirt to accommodate her pregnancy. Joe is spending the days for the most part fixing up the boundary rider’s hut, though Jessica, busy on another part of the property, is not aware of this. She is kept close to the homestead and if anyone is seen to approach Hester makes her come indoors immediately and go to her room. If this is not possible, she has to remain out of sight until the visitor has departed. Already there are whispers in the farming community that she has taken leave of her senses. When Hester or Meg are asked about Jessica at St Stephen’s they pause briefly and seem strangely hesitant to speak about her, which heightens the suspicions of the stickybeaks.
The shearing season is almost upon them and, as usual, George Thomas has called for the locals to front up at the shearing shed. But Joe has been rejected for the first time in twenty years. For the past three years Jessica’s been his rouseabout and together they have managed to get through their quota, though with increasing difficulty as Joe’s back has grown worse each season. But now, without her, Joe is simply an old man with rheumatism who is unfortunate enough to have to depend on George Thomas, an employer without sentiment or loyalty. So Joe is given the heave-ho and his days as a shearer at Riverview Station are over. Joe is also aware that Jessica’s involvement with Billy Simple’s capture will have put the kybosh on further work from George Thomas. Without Jessica at his side on the farm, and with no money coming in from the shearing season, Joe is in a state of despair. The drought, except for a little winter rain, has gone on for three years and he has been forced to kill off his lambs. His cattle are four legs and a casement of skin and bone. What sheep are left won’t bring enough wool to buy feed for them through another summer of drought — and the mortgage payments on the property are already six months in arrears.
Joe has lapsed into a state of darkness where he can barely speak for the fear that tortures him. He rises in the morning in silence and returns home to stare at his plate for ten minutes before forcing himself to eat what is set before him. Then, after tea in the evenings, with a grunt, he is off to his sleep-out. Jessica, whose room is nearest to the back of the house, can hear him crying out in his sleep.
Joe no longer tolerates her working at his side, nor will he speak to her beyond the basic necessities. Jessica is isolated by her father’s private torture and his loss of trust in her, and even more so by Meg and Hester, who have placed her in purgatory ever since Jack Thomas departed for Sydney.
Shortly after sunrise one day in the same week as the date of Billy Simple’s hanging is announced, Meg enters the kitchen wide-eyed and sobbing. Hester, who is busy at the stove stirring porridge, puts down her wooden spoon and takes her in her arms.
‘What is it, precious?’ Hester asks in alarm.
‘Mama, my monthly has come!’ Meg wails.