The Shearer's Wife Read online

  Ian would come back to their small room, stinking of alcohol, and want sex. He’d tell her he loved her, and she’d tell him she didn’t like how much he drank or his choice of friends. Ian would call her a controlling wench. Then he’d fall into a drunken sleep, snoring as if he were trying to suck the walls in, while she would lie on her side trying to get comfortable and wondering why she was still with him.

  Rose pushed the car door open. ‘Come on,’ she said. ‘Let’s find where we’re sleeping and get everything unpacked.’

  ‘In a minute. I’ll just say g’day to the fellas.’ Ian strode over to the quarters, calling out as he went. ‘Where are you two bastards? Get out here!’

  A door flew open and a short, stocky man with a shock of red hair and lily-white legs stood in the entrance, wearing a blue singlet and a pair of stubby shorts. In one hand was a beer, the other a shearing comb.

  ‘Well, well, look who you see when you haven’t got a gun. Kiz, that Irish waster Paddy’s back again.’ Muzza plonked down his beer and they shook hands. ‘How’s it going, Paddy?’

  ‘Got a spare one of those?’ Ian asked, indicating the beer.

  ‘Always one for you, mate. Kiz! Where are you?’

  ‘Ian,’ Rose called out, trying to hide the desperation in her voice. If he started drinking now, he wouldn’t stop until he fell asleep. ‘Can we get unpacked first?’

  Ian didn’t turn around. ‘Later, sweet Rosie.’

  Kiz arrived with a beer. ‘Paddy,’ he said, touching his finger to his forehead in a salute. ‘See you’ve still got the ball ’n’ chain.’

  Rose slammed the car door extra hard, and a burst of laughter came from the men. She refused to look over at them; she knew what she would see. The three of them sitting on the edge of the wooden verandah, beers in hand, looking at her for a rise. She wouldn’t give it to them.

  Instead, she found the kitchen. Brushing the little black bush flies away from her face, then the blowies from the screen door, she let herself into the dim room.

  ‘Hello?’

  A crash sounded, then: ‘Oh, no! Bugger. Hi? Come in.’

  The cool of the thick-walled stone building was a relief. She waited while her eyes adjusted to the light and then walked down a small passageway into the kitchen. The cement floor was covered in peeled potatoes and a woman with long blonde hair was kneeling over the mess.

  ‘Can I help?’ Rose asked, looking around for a sponge.

  The woman glanced up. ‘I don’t think you should be bending down! I just dropped the damn pot of potatoes I was going to mash for tea tonight. Bugger it!’ The woman stood up and smiled. ‘I’m Ali Barton. You must be Rose and Ian Carter?’ She looked behind Rose. ‘Well, the Rose part of the Carters.’

  ‘Yep, that’s me. The other half is out catching up with his mates.’ Her stomach tightened again, this time a gripping pain radiating around her middle. She gasped without meaning to.

  ‘You all right?’ Ali pulled out a chair. ‘Here, sit down. Breathe. I’ll get you some water. How far off are you?’

  Rose waited until the feeling was gone, then looked at Ali, her eyes wide. ‘That was worse than earlier. Is that what it’s going to feel like?’

  ‘Nope,’ Ali said cheerfully. ‘It’ll be a lot worse!’

  Rose sat heavily on the chair. ‘Sorry to make such an entrance. I only wanted to know where we’re sleeping so I could unload the bags.’

  ‘You guys are away from the others. You’re the only married couple we’ve got. Unusual. Mostly it’s single men. You must be one tough cookie to be on the road with your husband and just about to calve.’ She pointed to a door on the other side of the kitchen. ‘At the end of the passageway. You’ll have to share the toilet and bathroom with the cook when she gets here.’

  ‘Oh, I thought …’

  ‘Nope. My husband owns the place. I’m just helping out until Faye can get here.’

  Heat flooded through Rose’s face. ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘What for? Now, are you in labour or not?’ Ali threw a tea-towel over her shoulder and put her hands on her hips, looking at Rose carefully.

  Wanting to laugh uncontrollably, but not knowing why, Rose assessed her body. ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘But you had another one of these pains today?’

  ‘Yeah. Only about an hour ago.’

  ‘Nothing in between?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well, that’s handy. I’d hate to think we were going to be dealing with shearing and a new baby in the same week. Why don’t you go and get settled and I’ll clean up this mess?’

  ‘Oh. Well, thank you,’ she said just as a loud round of laughter went up outside. Rearranging her face into a neutral expression, she left the kitchen and followed the passageway to the end, where she pushed open the door.

  The room was dark and small, with a tiny window in one wall. A double bed took up most of the room and was unmade. A small wardrobe meant there would be room for their clothes and nothing else.

  Where will we put the babies if they arrive while we’re still here? she wondered. Then it struck her—what would the twins even sleep in? Neither Ian nor her thoughts had gone beyond the impending birth.

  ‘Stupid girl!’ she muttered, as a trickle of fear ran through her. For the second time that day, tears started to fall. ‘Oh, no, no, no!’

  They hadn’t thought to do anything to get ready for life after the birth of their babies. Remembering her first doctor’s appointment, when the pregnancy was confirmed. The doctor hadn’t told her she was carrying two babies then. That news had come after she’d had a slight bleed and a second doctor had ordered an ultrasound. Each time had been a different town and a different doctor.

  She remembered leaving the hospital and walking to the pub to find Ian. ‘Twins,’ she’d told him over a lemonade.

  Ian hadn’t reacted at first. Only raised his beer for another sip. Finally, he’d looked at her. ‘Twins?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  It had taken him a long time to say, ‘That’s great news, sweet Rosie! Two little Kellys running around in the world,’ before lapsing into silence again. The startled atmosphere had continued for many days.

  Since then, they’d been on the road carrying on as normal, rarely speaking about the impending birth or even acknowledging Rose was pregnant.

  Maybe that wasn’t normal.

  As she sat on the edge of the bed, her head in her hands, a memory suddenly came to her. One of her friends, at the end of high school, had gone to live with her aunt in the Northern Territory. Rose remembered her rounded belly, thinking only that she had put on weight. Now, she was positive her friend had been pregnant and hidden away from the rest of the God-fearing, small-minded community. She had broken the unwritten code and paid the price.

  Why didn’t they tell us anything? she had wondered in frustration so many times since she left. None of the families spoke to their daughters about pregnancy and what happened during and after, because Rose and her friends were expected to be ‘good girls’ and wouldn’t need to know anything about it until they were married.

  Looking around the bleak room, Rose sighed as Evie’s words came back to her. ‘Some survive and some don’t.’ It suddenly hit her. This wasn’t a game. She was pregnant and soon enough there would be two little babies arriving. Two! There was no guarantee they would arrive on time, or healthy. Evie had made sure she’d understood that. Now Rose was an hour from town, from a hospital, with no way of getting there unless Ian took her. How irresponsible she’d been. And Ian had been. The lives of their babies were in their hands and no one else’s.

  Fear gave way to terror and she started to breathe quickly. Short, sharp breaths, until it was hard to take another. She groaned and wrapped her arms around her belly.

  ‘Oh, no, no, no,’ she muttered again, visualising a screaming little bundle being born in this tiny room, the next one following soon after. They would have nowhere to sleep. No clothes to wear. No blankets. N
o one to help deliver them.

  She would bet her last dollar that once the babies were born, Ian would bust open a bottle of rum. ‘To wet the babies’ heads, sweet Rosie.’ He’d be drunk and she’d be left alone to care for two little ones, with no idea what to do.

  The situation seemed more and more frightening, but she knew that somehow she had to get her thoughts under control. Rose’s grandmother’s voice echoed through her head. ‘Someone else is always worse off than you,’ she used to say.

  As comforting as that might be, Rose wasn’t sure what could be worse. She took a couple of steadying breaths and fanned her face with her hands.

  In and out, in and out. That’s right, Rose. Still, no point in worrying about any of that now, she thought as her heart rate and breathing began to slow. Make the best of a bad situation, as Grandma would say. Not much I can do about it now other than to get on. I’m about to be a mum and those little ones will be relying on me.

  The bed needed making. Glancing at the dirty mattress and stained pillows, she grimaced. Her babies were going to be born into this … Would she call it a lifestyle? Not the type of life Rose wanted for her two babies.

  She managed to get herself off the bed and out to the car. The men didn’t look up, so she dragged the suitcase out of the back herself. She looked at Ian’s shearing gear in the box for just a moment before deciding he could get that; the combs, cutters, handpiece and other equipment were too heavy for her.

  As she took the suitcase in, she wondered if she could use that as a crib for the babies. Would they both fit inside there together?

  Back in the room, she took the sheets from the case and started to make the bed. Bending forward was difficult. If Ian had been there, he could have lifted the mattress to help her. Or made the bloody thing himself.

  Rose gave a grim smile as she thought that. He wouldn’t know how to make a bed. Before she’d come on the road with him, he’d slept in a swag. Rose had put her foot down, refusing to sleep in the dirty sleeping bag.

  ‘How are you going?’ Ali knocked gently on the open door.

  ‘All sorted, thank you.’

  ‘You’ve been crying.’

  Rose didn’t know what to say. She’d never had much to do with the owners.

  ‘I had a phone call from Evie. She’s a good friend of mine.’

  ‘Evie?’ Rose’s mind was blank, then realisation dawned. ‘Oh, Evie from the service station.’

  ‘She told me to watch out for you, and I think she’s right. Now, I’ve had a couple of kids, but never twins. One is hard enough, let alone two and you being away from home.’

  Rose burst into tears at her gentle tone. ‘I haven’t got a crib, or clothes or …’

  Ali took her hand and pushed her back onto to the bed. ‘Sit down,’ she murmured, rubbing her shoulder. ‘Oh, you poor wee poppet. You’re just following that man of yours because you love him, aren’t you? No harm in that, chickie, but things are going to have to change, and soon.’

  Another ripple of pain forced its way through her middle and her tears stopped immediately. She cried out and Ali shot to her feet.

  ‘Okay, we’re not waiting until tomorrow. Stay there, I’ll get Ian for you.’

  ‘Don’t leave me!’ Rose grabbed her at her hand. ‘You can’t leave me.’

  ‘I won’t be long,’ Ali soothed.

  Before Rose knew it, she was alone in the room with nothing but her pain. Her head swam as the pain kept coming, starting with her belly and radiating down her legs and up to her chest.

  She tried to get up, but the cramps stopped her. Her need to stand was intense. Rolling over, she half fell to the floor and got onto her hands and knees, before crawling to the wall and trying to get up.

  Not able to, she groaned, the pain ripping through her, making everything around her fuzzy.

  ‘Ian,’ she muttered, as she planted her hands on the wall and again tried to force her heavy body upright.

  Nothing she tried worked.

  Registering a wetness between her legs, she looked down and saw a sea of red running out of her. ‘No,’ she tried to say, but her tongue was stuck to the roof of her mouth and everything in front of her was blurring. She knew she had to stop the flow somehow …

  The sheets. She dragged her body towards the bed, one arm outstretched in the hope of pulling the sheets towards her.

  Her hands met empty air.

  ‘Rosie?’

  Ian’s voice filtered through.

  ‘Help,’ she whispered.

  She was dimly aware of people coming into the room and voices around her.

  ‘Hospital, now.’

  ‘Too much blood.’

  And then there was nothing.

  Chapter 5

  2020

  The voice of the commentator from the shearing competition was distorted and Zara was having trouble understanding what he was saying. She wrapped her hands together and looked at the sky. White fluffy clouds were racing overhead, patches of blue showing through. The forecast was rain; after the previous couple of years of drought, the seasons seemed to have changed and the start to this winter had been wet.

  The mid north of South Australia had been spared the bushfires that had ravaged the rest of Australia that summer. Even if a fire had tried to take hold, there wouldn’t have been any fuel in the paddocks to carry it. Now with the rains beginning to seep through, the tractors were in the paddocks and everyone had an air of optimism rather than desolation as the bitter winds brought the cold front through.

  Why the Barker Agricultural Society held their local show in July was beyond Zara. The weather wasn’t pleasant: there were always frosts, and the wind coated everyone in freezing air.

  ‘Annddd … he’s … the long blow … We …’

  At the patter of applause, she craned her head to try to see who was on shearing, but there were too many people in her way. So, she hoisted her reporter’s bag higher on her shoulder and walked towards the shearing shed in the middle of the showgrounds, smiling and nodding at people as she went.

  A year ago, her brother Will would have been alongside her while she scanned the crowd for interesting people to interview. Not this year. His ashes had been spread in the creek below the homestead, as their father’s had been, and she was wandering the showground alone. The longing for him never left her.

  ‘Zara!’

  Hearing her name, Zara looked around. The music from a ride started up, loud and blurry, along with a simultaneous scream from all the kids on it, tipping them upside down as Zara automatically put her hand to her stomach. She felt sick just watching.

  ‘Zara!’

  This time she felt a hand on her arm, then a smiling face came into her line of sight.

  ‘I’ve been looking for you everywhere,’ Courtney Tappan said, thrusting a takeaway coffee into Zara’s hand.

  ‘You’re a lifesaver,’ Zara said, taking a sip and looking at her friend over the rim. ‘I needed something to warm me up.’

  They fell into step together.

  ‘Where are you going now?’

  ‘Shearing competition.’ Zara nodded in the direction she was headed and took another mouthful. ‘Got to interview the winner of the Quick Shears.’

  A pack of kids ran by, holding large stuffed toys and show bags on their arms, laughing. One of them knocked into Zara.

  ‘Sorry, Zara,’ the young girl called as they kept running.

  ‘You will be when I see your mother, Tori Jenkins!’ Zara called back, recognising the long plait of her next-door neighbour. To Courtney, she said, ‘Come on, I’ve got to get over there otherwise I might miss the finish. Can you understand what the commentator is even saying?’

  ‘Nope. Too loud. That’s the trouble with the showground PA systems, trying to be heard over the noise of sideshows and music.’ Courtney pushed her hair back from her face and stuck her free hand into the pocket of her coat as she walked. Both girls were dressed in jeans and jumpers with a Driza-Bone over t
he top. The boots were R.M. Williams and the leather souls clicked on the gravel as they walked.

  Zara looked at her friend and realised they could have been twins, with their matching outfits and hair colour. She tuned in to hear Courtney’s voice above the noise.

  ‘Have you interviewed anyone else yet?’

  Zara looked at the notebook as she walked. ‘I still need to get to the John Deere dealership, Young Farmers competition and Prime Lamb shed. And I want to try to grab someone from a merino stud. There’re a few that have come from out of town. It’ll be good to get a different perspective.’

  ‘I bet that’s got some of the local studs’ noses out of joint.’

  Zara shrugged. ‘It shouldn’t. All good competition. Sheep aren’t a one-size-fits-all, you know. A ram that one person likes, well, another will find fault with. Subjective.’

  They stopped at the tiered seating, right in front of the raised board of the shearing shed.

  Four men were crouched over, each with a ewe between his legs, sweat dripping onto the board despite the freezing wind. The names of the men competing were pinned near the shearing head, while the judge stood next to each shearer, a stopwatch in one hand and the cord to shut off the shearing head in the other.

  Zara and Courtney stood watching the men expertly run their handpiece over the belly, then use their hand to open the fleece up. A blink later and they were on the long blows, making their way down towards the back legs, and suddenly they were finished.

  Nodding towards the stand, which had the name Jesse Barnett on it, Zara said, ‘That’s the bloke I want to interview. He’s been the winner for the past ten years. And he’s held a couple of records at other shows as well. Turns up here with the same shearing team every year and has done since he was a kid. They shear at Jacksonville after the show.’

  ‘How’d you hear about him?’ Courtney asked, as she brought out a bag of donuts. She offered one to Zara. ‘Sugar fix?’