Jessica is too dumbstruck to speak. Joe takes up the reins again and urges the pony on and they bounce and rattle across the paddock, hitting rabbit holes. Joe has not spoken this much to her in weeks and, at first, she thinks she must be grateful, as his voice has been kind. But then her stubborn nature overcomes her and she grows suddenly angry, fed up to the back teeth. She’s tired of the shit she’s had to cop from Hester and Meg and Joe’s increasing darkness.
‘Father, why are you doing this to me? I ain’t done nothing Meg ’asn’t done! Why does she cop it sweet and I’m in the shit all the time? It’s not fair and you know it!’
Jessica shouts, tears coming to her eyes. ‘It ain’t right!’ ‘Hush, Jessie. Meg’s married, you ain’t, that’s all.’
‘Married? She and Hester shanghaied Jack. You know it as well as I do, they trapped him into getting her pregnant! She dropped her bloomers for him!’
‘There’s no crime in that, Jessie. Some folk would say it were bloody clever of your sister. Jack was the big catch. You can’t say she hasn’t been working at it a good while.’ ‘And I’m the stupid one ‘cause I didn’t do the same? What about when she didn’t want him no more and she give him to me and then took him back when he was gunna be rich again? Was that fair?’
Joe rubs
the stubble on his chin. ‘You should have took your chance when yer got it, Jessie, like your sister.’
‘But Father, Jack said he couldn’t have a wife and children, him going off to war an’ all. It ain’t fair, not responsible, he said.’
‘Fair? Nothing’s fair in love and war, Jessie.’ Joe now looks up at Jessica and shrugs. ‘You was already pregnant to Billy Simple anyway. That wouldn’t have been fair to Jack neither, would it?’
‘I didn’t say it were Billy Simple’s. I never said that,’ Jessica protests.
‘You didn’t say whose it was.’ Joe pauses and looks directly at Jessica. ‘Whose is it, girlie?’ he demands.
Jessica folds her arms across her chest. ‘I can’t say, Father. I swore on my child’s life I’d never tell nobody, never, unless it’s the man I marry. He’d have to know.’ Joe looks at Jessica and she can see he is close to tears. Joe close to tears is almost more than she can bear. ‘Jessie, I need to know. You must tell me, it could make all the difference.’
Jessica feels her heart must surely break. ‘Father, I can’t. I swore on my baby’s life.’
Joe turns away and looks into the misty distance. The sun is just coming up over the river and the first rays are warm on the back of their necks. ‘Please, Father — I can’t,’ she sobs.
Joe turns and Jessica can see his face is set hard. ‘Well, it’s a bastard and it’s not welcome. You’ll stay out of the way until it’s born and then we’ll see what we will see.’
Jessica looks tearfully at Joe but her eyes are now set as hard as her father’s. ‘Tell Mother she won’t take my child away from me. I’ll kill her if she tries.’
Joe has seen his youngest daughter stubborn before, although he’s never seen the expression she now wears. But he’s felt it, he instinctively knows it must be the same expression he carried on the day he killed the foreman of the Great Peter’s Run. He knows for certain Jessica means what she says. His daughter never tries anything on. It’s just the same as he felt when he was aiming for the foreman’s head and not some soft wound that would leave him harmless but alive. Jessica could kill her mother if Hester meddles with her child.
Joe is suddenly overcome with the frustration and the lies of the last three weeks and his temper rises. He wants to smash his huge fist into someone’s face — not Jessica’s, he loves her, but someone’s. His huge fist closes and draws back and all he can see in front of him is her distended stomach, the madman’s bastard child growing in her stomach. His fist begins to move in an arc and Jessica screams, for she can see where it will land. Then, at the last moment, Joe’s fist flies open and he desperately grabs at the tattered sheepskin coat and begins to shake Jessica. ‘You’ll stay away from your mother ... and your sister, you hear me, Jessie.’ Joe now pulls her into him so that his face is almost up against her own, and Jessica can smell his rancid morning breath. ‘If you don’t, I swear I’ll flay the madman’s bastard right out of yiz!’
He finally lets go of Jessica, who slumps into a heap with her head cupped into her hands. Joe yanks on the reins and shouts furiously at Napoleon to move on.
It is some time before they get to the tin shack. The hut is well known to Jessica, for it has stood there throughout her childhood. Joe has now added a door to it, and a bit of a chimney, which looks slightly ridiculous as it sticks out of the corrugated-iron roof at a curious angle. Beside the door is a stack of split logs as high as the roof line and continuing all the way along one side of the hut — it is enough firewood to last the remainder of the winter. Joe climbs down from the sulky and removes the hamper and places it outside the door, not venturing into the hut. Then he adds a sack of flour, a frying pan, a kettle and a pot as well as a cast-iron camp oven. ‘Git yer blankets and stuff,’ he now says through clenched teeth.
Jessica has wiped away her tears — crying in front of Joe makes her ashamed. She removes the blankets and the canvas bag and enters the hut alone. It is several moments before her eyes adjust to the dark interior.
Inside Joe has built a cot which contains a hessian mattress stuffed tight with straw. He has also constructed a small table and chair and a couple of shelves. Later she will find nails hammered into the back of the door for hanging her clothes. In addition Joe has built a small hearth with its ridiculous chimney to carry away the smoke. If Joe built it, it will work, Jessica thinks to herself. The hut is so small there is barely space for her to move about, but with a fire going it will warm nicely.
How Joe, with his huge, clumsy frame, could have managed the work he has done in the interior Jessica cannot imagine.
She shivers suddenly, for the winter sun has not yet reached the hut and it is bitterly cold inside. Jessica sees that Joe has prepared kindling on the hearth and stacked several small logs for the fire. A hurricane lamp hangs from a post beside the hearth and she supposes there must be a bottle of kerosene somewhere about, so she won’t be alone in the dark.
Joe’s head appears suddenly at the door and he holds the four-ten shotgun which he now props against the crude door-frame. ‘For the snakes,’ he says, dropping a small canvas bag to the ground beside the gun. ‘There’s ten cartridges, I’ll bring more soon.’
Jessica comes to the door of the hut and then moves outside just as Joe climbs back into the sulky. ‘You’re not to come near the house, Jessie. Stay away, ya hear? I’ll come by from time to time and bring yer rations, once a week, maybe a bit more.’ Then, without bidding her farewell, Joe moves away.
Jessica picks up the shotgun and breaks it. The lighter four-ten is much easier for her to manage than the twelve-bore. She knows its range well enough, no more than fifty feet. She quickly slips two cartridges into the barrel, locks it and cocks the hammers. Joe is only just within range for the pellets to reach him with some fury left in them. Jessica fires the first barrel at his back — she knows the pellets will do no more than sting him, real bad she hopes, make him aware of her defiance. She lets him have the second barrel straight off and has the satisfaction of seeing his hat fly from his head to land spinning in a clump of saltbush. ‘Bastards!’ she shouts. ‘Bloody mongrel bastards, yiz can all get fucked!’
Joe lifts one hand in acknowledgement but he doesn’t turn or stop to retrieve his hat. He doesn’t want Jessica to see his pride at her rebellion. His neck, peppered with birdshot, stings furiously and he is hard put not to grab at it. He can feel several warm trickles of blood running down the back of his neck. But Joe hasn’t felt better in weeks. ‘That’s my girlie,’ he grins to himself. ‘Don’t let the bastards get yiz down.’
CHAPTER ELEVEN
On Thursday 6 August 1914, news reaches Australia that war is declared against Germany and Billy Simple’s hanging takes place on the dawn of the same day. The war against Kaiser Bill is announced on all the news vendors’ posters for the Sydney Morning Herald in letters five inches high.