‘Will you come again, Mary? Come and see me?’
Mary smiles. ‘You good to me and my mob, missus Jessie. My memory good. I don’t forget what you done.’
She looks about her. The sun is beginning to set and the creek is a silver ribbon with the river gums bathed in a soft golden light. The birds are settling early for the night, making the usual fuss high up in the branches.
Mary now points to the creek. ‘I make you a fish trap. There’s yellow-belly in there for sure, I show you how to catch the buggers. Good tucker, yellow-belly.’ ‘Yeah, I remember,’ Jessica says.
‘You have good memory, Jessie. One of them boys caught you that fish, he’s dead now.’
‘Oh. I’m so sorry, Mary,’ Jessica exclaims.
‘TB,’ Mary says, ‘cough hisself to death.’
‘Come any time you like, you hear, any time,’ Jessica pleads with the black woman.
Mary takes a step towards Jessica and pats her on the stomach. ‘This women’s things, I help you, eh Jessie?’ ‘Oh, yes please, Mary.’ Jessica smiles, and the Aboriginal woman can see she’s close to tears.
‘Don’t you worry, you’ll be good,’ Mary says smiling. ‘You got a nice one in there, Jessie.’
And so a friendship begins between Jessica Bergman and Mary Simpson that is to last for many years. The Aboriginal woman comes almost every day towards the end of Jessica’s pregnancy. She shows her how she must squat when the baby comes and makes her practise, the two of them laughing their heads off when at first Jessica falls over and tumbles in the dust. But after a while, as Mary instructs her in the tribal ways of giving birth, Jessica becomes accustomed to it and finds it more comfortable to squat. It feels more and more natural as her hips begin to expand with the baby pressing downwards.
‘I’ll be with you, Jessie, don’t worry about nothing, you hear? It ain’t so hard, just listen when I talk, do what I say.’ Mary pats her on the shoulder, comforting her.
‘You gunna be real good and I give you stuff after to make you better, bush medicine.’ She laughs. ‘Women’s stuff the aunties know about.’
JessiCa hasn’t told Joe about Mary’s visits, so when he arrives one morning happy with the news that it’s time for her to come home he is surprised at her reaction.
‘Jessie, your mother and I, we’d like you home for Christmas.’
‘What, for Christmas dinner?’
‘Nah, by Christmas. You’re to stay on — the baby’s due soon.’
‘I ain’t coming,’ Jessica says defiantly.
Joe’s been aware of Jessica’s increasing independence, but he’s still taken aback by her answer. ‘What you saying, girlie?’ he asks. ‘What you mean, yer not coming?’ Jessica places her hands on her hips, her legs are spaced wide and her baby is sticking out like a stolen pumpkin concealed under her dress. Joe knows the look of old — it’s Bergman versus Bergman and he doesn’t know if he’s got the upper hand any more.
‘No!’ Jessica says defiantly. ‘You can’t make me.’
‘I’m asking nicely, girlie,’ Joe threatens. ‘I don’t want to have to fetch ya, tie ya up and drag ya back.’ ‘If you do I’ll tell the whole world about my baby.’ Joe shrugs and gives a bitter laugh. ‘You know something, girlie? Them two have done such a good job on you to the folk in the district that they won’t believe you. They all think you’ve gone loony, them at the church. All your mother would say is that you’re not well, that you’re making it up, that you’re hysterical about Meg having a child and they’d believe her right off.’ Joe pauses. ‘They know Meg’s expecting, Hester has made a big thing of it. They’ll just think her baby’s come early, that’s all.’
‘Come early? But she’s still got this big stomach stickin’ out?’ Jessica says scornfully, disappointed at Joe’s stupidity. ‘What’s she gunna do? Have its twin two months later?’
Joe sighs, but his heart beats rapidly as he’s damn nearly spilled the beans. ‘That ain’t a problem beyond your mother. She’d find a way, you know that, girlie,’ Joe growls. He wants to get off the subject fast in case Jessica twigs to what’s going to happen. ‘Jessica, I ain’t asking, I’m telling ya, yer to be home for Christmas and then yer stayin’ on, ya hear me?’
Jessica’s eyes narrow as she looks at Joe and she can feel the anger welling up in her chest. ‘You’ve let me stay out here four and a half months, in the freezin’ cold and now in the heat. In the spring, with the snakes breeding and cranky as hell, you left me alone. One day I shot ten, all of them near enough to the door. What was you hoping for? That one would get me? Jessie dead to a mulga?
‘You brought me rations twice a week like a bloody swaggie, sometimes you didn’t even talk to me! It was what Hester and Meg wanted, that was good enough by you. Now they want me back. Can’t let it happen in a tin hut, can we — it ain’t Christian. Can’t leave me to have my baby alone, or folk might hear about it.’ Jessica tries to fight back her tears, but a single sob escapes like a hiccup. ‘You’ve taken Hester’s side against me. I dunno what I’ve done to you, Father. I’ve always loved you,’ she cries.
Joe starts to protest. ‘No,’ Jessica raises her hand, ‘let me go on.’ She is suddenly calm again. ‘Hester pushed Meg into Jack’s arms so she’d get pregnant to him — planned it every step, I reckon. Meg ain’t got the imagination to do it without her. Now she’s Mrs Jack Thomas and a bloody heroine knitting baby booties.’ Jessica pauses. ‘But me? What I done, that’s dirty, that’s a disgrace. Meg’s a lady, so it’s all right for her to trap Jack into a marriage he don’t want, but Jessica’s a slut! And you? You go along with it, you take their side, like I done something terrible and Meg done something glorious.’
Jessica takes a deep breath, her chest heaving with her anger. ‘Now you tell me I’ve got to come home because that’s what Hester wants.’ Jessica draws breath again then continues, ‘Well let me tell you something, that’s not what she wants. She wants my baby dead. That’s what she wants! If I come home, to have my baby she’ll kill it — it won’t draw ten breaths before she puts a pillow over its face. Poor mad Jessie, the Lord took her baby in childbirth. The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away.’ Jessica points her finger at Joe, not caring what he thinks. ‘You won’t kill my baby, Father. I’m not bloody coming home for Christmas, so fuck you, fuck the lot of yiz!’
Joe can’t believe what’ he’s hearing. He’s confused, but he knows what Jessica is saying must seem right to her, must seem logical. In fact, he’s glad she’s said it, got it off her chest and had the guts to stand up to Hester, to him, to all of them. But he tells himself she doesn’t know what’s at stake. That if he lets her keep her baby they’ll all be destroyed, her included. If he wants to save Jessie, save his little girlie, Hester must get her baby for Meg to claim as her own.
‘Jessie, I swear on my life your baby will live. We won’t let it die, come what may. If it’s healthy born, it will live, I swear to you on me life. I’ll be in the room, I’ll hold your hand.’
Jessica can’t believe what her father has just said, that he’ll be in the room to watch out for her. She senses that Joe is no longer trying to threaten her and that he knows what she’s said about Hester is true. That, for all his weakness, in this one important thing she should trust him again. But she’s been hurt too badly by Joe’s neglect of her and doesn’t know if she can or even wants to believe him now.