‘Milk, sugar?’ the man — presumably Skinny Dredgeasks, placing the steaming mug of tea on the counter. Jessica is too confused to answer. ‘How many?’ the man asks irritably again, but Jessica doesn’t understand. ‘C’mon miss, I ain’t got all day, you want sugar, how many?’ Jessica now realises that she’s expected to drink the tea on the spot and that she can’t, as she’d hoped, wrap the pie and bun in the newspaper and take the lot back to the bench on the platform to eat in seclusion.
She is suddenly terrified at the idea of eating with other people milling about her. Flustered, she leaves the steaming mug of tea on the counter and quickly wraps the bun and pie in the newspaper and, with the manila envelope clasped under her arm, she flees back to the isolation of the platform. ‘Hey, yer tea! Ya forgot yer tea, miss,’ she hears Skinny Dredge calling after her.
When she’s eaten her first meal out of captivity, Jessica feels strong enough to open the big, brown threatening envelope. She tears it open very slowly, removing only a sliver from across one end of the envelope, watching as the thin strip of paper curls over her thumb, frightened about what the envelope might contain.
Jessica gasps as she peers inside and sees what appears to be at least two dozen letters. Her mouth goes dry and her heart begins to pound. She quickly pulls one of the letters out and sees that it is stamped Australian Comforts Fund and is dated and addressed to her in a handwriting she doesn’t recognise. She pulls out a second and it, too, has the same stamp and date, and is also addressed to her, though in yet another person’s handwriting.
Jessica up-ends the contents of the envelope onto her lap and sees they’ve all been treated in the same way. When she begins to sort the envelopes she finds they cover a span of two years, from 1915 to 1917, and that there are twenty-seven letters in all.
She is not to know that letters from soldiers overseas were censored by the army and then sent back to Australia in bulk, where they were given to the Comforts Fund by the Post Office to address and send on. Jessica’s hands tremble as she opens the first letter and when she sees that it is in Jack’s boyish hand, she promptly bursts into tears.
Jessica reads between sobs for an hour and it soon becomes apparent that Jack has not forsaken her and that he always loved her. After reading each letter, Jessica folds it and pushes it back into its envelope and returns it to the larger manila one. She is about to open Jack’s last letter when she hears a shout.
‘Miss Bergman, we come!’ Jessica looks up to see Solly and Moishe Goldberg hurrying down the platform towards her. She brushes away her tears, anxious that they not see she’s been crying, that her eyes don’t betray her.
Moishe arrives twenty feet ahead of his father. ‘We come, Jessie!’ He smiles. ‘I’m sorry we didn’t come to Callan Park. It’s Shabbat, we may not ride on the Sabbath.’
Jessica grins, happy that her friends have come to see her off. ‘I knew it was a Sa
turday, that you couldn’t come.’ She looks up at Moishe, her expression concerned. ‘Did you break a Jewish rule to come or something?’
Just then Solly Goldberg arrives, red-faced and puffing and in his usual lather of sweat. He carries the familiar wicker basket, which he now places at his feet. ‘Compliments Mrs Goldberg!’ he announces breathlessly and then straightens up and spreads his hands to take in Jessica. ‘Such wonderful news, you out that place, a miracle from God, no less!’
‘Oh, I am so happy we got here in time, Jessie, that we haven’t missed you,’ Moishe says in a rare display of emotion.
‘How did you know? I mean, I didn’t even know the train times myself,’ Jessica asks.
Moishe grins and shrugs his shoulders. ‘You know me, Mr Check-everything-twice-over. I looked up the train timetable and just prayed the nine p.m. train was the right one. It’s the only one that leaves overnight for the west and goes all the way to Narrandera. I was going to come anyway, but Sabbath ends at sunset,’ he turns to acknowledge Solly Goldberg, ‘so my father could also come.’
‘For a Communist, a clever boychick,’ Solly says happily.
At eight o’clock the conductor appears, looking important in his uniform. By now the platform has become quite crowded and he walks along opening the carriage doors so that the passengers may climb aboard, even though the train’s not due to leave for an hour. Moishe climbs aboard and finds a second-class compartment with a seat by a window and Solly Goldberg hands up the ‘Compliments Mrs Goldberg’ basket. Moisht places it on the seat next to the window, reserving it for Jessica.
‘But your beautiful picnic basket?’ Jessica cries. ‘I won’t be able to give it back.’
‘Tush!’ Solly exclaims. ‘A keepsake. Miss Bergman, my dear, we miss you. The boychick and me, also Mrs Goldberg.’ He fishes for his bandanna and wipes at the corner of his eye. ‘So much we miss you, my dear.’
Jessica looks at Solly and then at Moishe, and tears begin to roll slowly down her cheeks. ‘Oh dear, I’ve cried too much already and now I’m gunna cry again.’
In an attempt to cheer her up Solly Goldberg suddenly declares, ‘So now we got a plan.’ Jessica looks up and sniffs. ‘A plan?’ ‘Turkeys!’
Jessica looks over to Moishe for an explanation. ‘He wants you to breed turkeys, kosher turkeys for the shop. I told him you had ten acres. You know, like you told me, by the creek?’
Astonished, Jessica turns to Solly Goldberg. ‘But how? How will I get them to you?’
Moishe laughs. ‘Me again. I’ve worked out you’re only a few miles from the railway line, if you can manage to get the turkeys to Yanco Siding. To be kosher they must arrive alive here in Sydney, so they can be killed by the Shoshet according to the Jewish faith. We’ve worked out we can make a couple of wood and wire crates for you,’ he stretches his arms wide, ‘big ones that you can use to send us your turkeys once a week and we’ll send back the empty crates. It’s only an overnight trip and the experts say that with enough water the turkeys should arrive hale and hearty. I’ve written to the Hawkesbury Agricultural College for the know-how,’ he explains enthusiastically, then adds, ‘we’ll pay the rail charges, of course.’
‘But will it be profitable? I mean, the turkeys comin’ all that way?’
Solly Goldberg has remained silent while his son explains the plan to Jessica. Now he says, ‘Miss Bergman, you make for me a nice turkey, we make money — we got a nice business.’
‘Turkeys, eh?’ Jessica muses, not altogether displeased by the notion. ‘Joe said turkeys are the dumbest things there is.’
Solly shrugs his shoulders. ‘So? We don’t tell them what happens, they think maybe they come to make a holiday by the seaside.’ He laughs at his own joke, his jowls wobbling in unison with his great belly.
‘Mr Goldberg, I owe you and Moishe so much!’
‘Owe? Tush, we are your friends. From friends you don’t owe.’ He looks over at Moishe and then back at Jessica. ‘Miss Bergman, you give me back my boychick, it is me who owes you! Believe me, I know what I am saying.’