Just after one o’clock in the morning she slides carefully from the big double bed and walks quietly through the house to wake Joe out back. Joe is not asleep and he sits up at her first whispered call and climbs from his narrow cot. Together they return to Hester’s room, the bedchamber from which Joe has been banished for so long. Hester takes up the pillow. It has already been decided that Joe will pin the old woma
n to the bed to stop her from thrashing about. He will lie on top of Mrs Baker and pin her arms and clamp her legs together with his own while Hester smothers her, bearing all her weight down on the pillow covering her face.
‘Do not bruise her,’ Hester cautions Joe in a whisper. Joe nods and Hester counts to three and clamps the pillow over the old woman’s face while Joe places his huge body over hers and pushes her shoulders deeply into the mattress.
This is the final step for Joe, the point of no return.
He’s always thought himself a half-decent man, but now he knows he hasn’t the strength to fight his wife, nor the character to save his youngest daughter from Hester’s evil.
No more than four or five muffled grunts escape from under the pillow — it is at once clear that Mrs Baker doesn’t possess the strength to combat Joe’s weight. In a surprisingly short time the old lady gives a convulsive shudder and Joe feels her rigid body suddenly relax under him. Hester keeps the pillow pressed down over Mrs Baker’s face for a further minute or so and then lifts it carefully.
Mrs Baker stares pop-eyed back at her, her mouth wide open with her dentures pushed at a weird angle halfway down her throat. ‘Get up,’ Hester whispers urgently to Joe. ‘She’s gone.’
Joe lifts himself off Mrs Baker and for some reason he cannot explain he whistles ‘Onward Christian Soldiers’, in a breath only just audible. It is not that he thinks the incident is humorous — in fact, he is very close to panic — it is just something to clear his mind and keep him from thinking that he’s gone completely insane.
‘Hush, Joe!’ Hester whispers, though he can sense the relief in her voice. With the stupid hymn gone from his lips, Joe tries to push all thought of what they’ve done from his mind. He watches as Hester fits Mrs Baker’s false teeth back into her mouth and tries to think only that what he ,has done is for Jessica and her unborn child. That Billy Simple’s child will have Jack as its father, and will grow up to be one of the high and mighty Thomases. If Jessie has a son he’ll be a member of the squattocracy, landed gentry, no less. He’ll go to the King’s School and eventually be master of Riverview Station. Joe tries to comfort himself with these thoughts as Hester straightens the bed and arranges Mrs Baker’s stringy grey hair, unplaited for the night, neatly about the pillow. For all the world she now appears to be an old lady fast asleep. The morning light will show a small cut at the corner of her mouth sustained from her false teeth jarring, though it is too small even to bleed.
Shortly after dawn Joe taps on Jessica’s door. ‘Get up, girlie.’ He waits for her response, then adds, ‘Fold and bring your blankets and all your clothes.’
Joe hears Jessica shout, ‘Wait on, Father,’ and shortly after her head appears from behind the door. ‘What for?’ she asks him.
‘Do as I say, Jessie. All your blankets and clobber. I’m taking you somewhere — be ready in ten minutes, eh?’
Jessica dresses hurriedly and pulls a tattered sheepskin coat over her cotton dress. She folds the three blankets she uses against the cold and places them next to the door. Then she finds an old canvas bag and folds and bundles the two old dresses Hester has let out at the front to accommodate her stomach, her hairbrush and a few odds and ends along with her Sunday boots and two sets of bloomers into it. Two small towels follow and she has just about reached the extent of her personal possessions but for her two books, Wuthering Heights and Oliver Twist, both battered from having been read a dozen times. She puts them into the bag and looks about her. Then, as an afterthought, she throws in her moleskins and two flannel shirts.
Joe taps on the door shortly afterwards. ‘Come, girlie,’ is all he says, then, ‘bring what you can, I’ll take the rest.’
Jessica comes into the yard carrying her canvas bag to see that Joe has the sulky outside with Napoleon already harnessed, his nostrils puffing cold air. Joe follows a few moments later with her blankets, which he tosses into the back of the sulky. Jessica sees that the large wicker hamper has been packed and that there’s a spare axe as well.
‘Climb in,’ Joe commands, then moves over to his side, steps up into the sulky and takes up the reins. ‘Haya!’ he says to Napoleon, lightly flicking the pony’s rump with the take-up from the leather straps.
‘Where are we going, Father?’ Jessica asks again. ‘It’s hardly light. Are we going to Narrandera?’
Joe ignores her question and Jessica knows better than to persist. They are headed in the wrong direction and soon leave the rutted path and proceed across open ground towards the creek that runs down the edge of their selection. After about ten minutes Joe reins in the pony. The light is beginning to grow more rapidly now and in the distance Jessica can hear the currawongs beginning to call. It will be half an hour yet to sunrise and the morning is bitterly cold with a low mist hovering above the cow paddock. She pulls the sheepskin coat about her, making sure her stomach is covered and warm.
‘Jessie, I want to talk to you,’ Joe begins. He is looking downwards as though he’s inspecting his broken nails. ‘Yes, Father?’
‘This morning your mother found Mrs Baker dead in her bed.’
Jessica mistakes Joe’s meaning. ‘Mother stayed with Mrs Baker last night?’
‘No, no, Mrs Baker stayed with us last night, she slept with your mother in the big bed.’ Joe looks up briefly. ‘She musta died in her sleep, heart attack or somethin’. ‘
Jessica brings her fingers to her lips. ‘Oh my Gawd!’ she gasps.
‘Yes,’ Joe lies, ‘it were a terrible shock for your mother.’
‘I must go to her,’ Jessica cries.
‘No!’ Joe says quickly. ‘No, that’s why you must leave.’
‘Leave? Leave the house? But why can’t I stay in my room like before?’
‘There’ll be people coming. We’ll have to report the death. The house will be full of people, stickybeaks, you mustn’t be seen.’ Joe now pauses and looks over to where a curtain of mist obscures the trees that grow beside the distant creek. ‘Not in your condition, your mother won’t allow it,’ he says softly, as though the quieter tone of his voice might comfort her.
‘Where will you take me? How long will I be away?’
Joe sighs. ‘The old boundary rider’s hut. I’ve fixed it some, yiz’ll be okay for a few days. Make a fire, it’s warm enough with a good fire going. I’ve chopped and split all the wood, you’ll have no need to chop, the hard work’s done.’ Joe flicks his thumb to indicate the rear of the sulky. ‘There’s plenty of tucker, you won’t starve. Maybe only a few days, eh girlie? Yiz’ll come to no harm and I’ll be down to see yiz from time to time.’