children coughing, on and on, that was the only sound. The women turned away. One of them reached forward and moved something in the ashes. The man never moved, never took his eyes off me.
The others caught up to me. I heard Bub go Oooh!
Come away, Dolly, Johnny said. Quick, we best go back.
Bold as I was, something about this place, the man staring, made me glad to leave. We started back, Mary running, blister or no blister, and none of us looking behind.
Back on our place we all got brave again.
What was you running for Mary? Johnny said. Think he’d eat you? God, that old feller?
Bub and I laughed along with him, but all of us avoiding each others’ eyes.
We never told Ma or Pa. Never talked about it among ourselves. But never went along that track again.
The only blacks we knew to speak to was the two fellers worked in our stables. Pa learned to ride late in life, it was like oranges, something else he hadn’t grown up with. But riding was what gentry did, so he’d got a stableful of horses, and Jingles and Phillip to look after them. Been with us since I could remember, lived in the stables along with the darkie boy who did the firewood.
Jingles was very big, very black. A thick beard with threads of grey and his eyes set deep. Don’t think I ever heard more than six words together from him, and those few mumbled in his throat. Kindly enough, but I never saw him smile. Nothing jingly about him that I ever saw.
Phillip was a different make altogether. Younger than Jingles and nowhere near as dark. Must of had one parent white. A tall sinewy feller, amazing the weight he could move round with those skinny arms. Lift a saddle as if it was nothing. His face long and clever in the shade of his hat, the skin yellow, with black freckles the size of farthings.
He was a charmer, Phillip. Thin as a lizard, with a smile that could melt stone.
My word Phillip had a good way with the horses. I watched him with one just come in, never had as much as a halter on, that big eyeball swivelling and the scared poor thing tittupping around all left-footed with fright, and Phillip so patient. Walking him in the horse-yard talking softly to him by the hour. Next thing I knew he had the halter on and the horse pacing beside him as nice as ever you saw.
Pa rode now and then, but he was never at ease. He was frightened of his big thoroughbred Star, you could see it in the way he mounted, needed Phillip to hold the horse beside a stump so he could get up in the saddle. Once he was astride he was awkward, perched up like a cherry on a cake.
Will didn’t get on a horse if he could be on a boat, said he got seasick in a saddle, but Bub and Johnny rode. Riding meant they could come and go as they pleased, Bub off to the end paddocks with his hoe and Johnny up the hill on the Sydney road, he’d go as far as Martin’s Corner, work the horse too hard on the hill and get in strife from Pa when he brought it back all of a lather.
I couldn’t wait for the day I was old enough to ride. Knew the world would be a bigger place once I had legs under me longer than my own. I’d go down the stables, talk to the horses, feed them bits of apple off my hand, the way Phillip showed me.
Ma didn’t like that. No place for you girls, she’d say. I catch you in the yard with them blacks, you’ll get a hiding you won’t forget.
Why, Ma? I’d say. Why can’t we? But she wouldn’t say, just press her lips together.
When Pa thought we was old enough—I’d of been around eight, Mary ten or eleven—he got us a couple of ponies. I’d never seen a sidesaddle before. That funny bent post sticking out of it, and the stirrups on the same side.
What’s this thing for, Jingles, I said. I want a proper saddle.
How ladies ride, Phillip said. Hook your knee round, see? Legs together. More polite.
Damn that for a lark, I said, something I’d heard Pa say, and Mary looked at me as if the lightning would come down and strike me dead.
I’ll ride the way the boys do, I said. Or I damn well won’t ride!
Plonked myself down on the stones of the yard. Mary was already up on Belle with a knee bent round the post on the saddle but I wouldn’t get on Queenie, wouldn’t go near her, never mind how Phillip coaxed me, and never mind how I wanted more than anything in the world to ride.
Phillip went up to the house. Stood at the back door tapping until Mrs Devlin stuck her head out the kitchen window and called what did he want. Then Ma come and talked to him through the window.
She walked down to me very brisk.
Get up this minute, Dolly Thornhill, she said. Making an exhibit of yourself in front of the blacks!
Grabbed at my wrist, but I leaned my weight back against her. Phillip and Jingles watching, and Ma getting red in the face.
Your pa’s the one to settle this, she said. You come along with me, my girl, that’s if you don’t want me to fetch him down here.
Pa cranky was one thing. Pa cranky and hauled away from his bench would be another, so I went with her. He laughed when he saw me.
My word Dolly, he said. You could sit on that bottom lip!
Ma put it to him, it wasn’t ladylike for a girl to ride astride.
But Pa, I said, I don’t want to be a lady!
For a little thing, I had a good dose of cunning.
Old Loveday’s a gentleman, I said, but you always say, who’d you rather be?
No doubt about you, Dolly, he said. Got all the answers. Look, Meg, way I see it, what’s the odds how they ride? Long as they got the best bloodstock under them. Hold their own with anyone if they got that.
Ma knew how to choose her battles. Grumbled about me being a hobbledehoy, but let me have a pair of Bub’s old trousers to wear under my skirt.
Heaven knows what kind of end you’ll come to, Dolly, you’re that wilful, she said. All’s I can do is make sure you’re decent.
That first day we went out on the horses, Pa rode along with us. Star rolled his eyes and trampled and Pa shouted out, Steady! Whoa! Steady now Star! so the horse got even more flighty. Jingles led us out on Lightning, then Mary on Belle and me on Queenie, then Pa, and Phillip coming along behind on Valiant.
When we got to the rocks where Thornhill’s finished, Jingles kept going, the horses picking their way along the stony track. Thought I’d hear Pa call for us to stop, but he didn’t.
Hoy, Jingles, I said, where are we going?
Didn’t answer.
When we got to the clearing it seemed no one was about. Then a woman crouched out of one of the humpies, her skinny legs and arms like sticks poking out of the dress. Didn’t seem surprised to see us. Spoke sharp and quick back into the humpy and out come the crooked feller. Hung on the stick, watching the ground. The woman bent and went back into the humpy. Watched us through the opening.
Pa got down off Star, gave the reins to Jingles. Had something wrapped in a cloth from the kitchen. Stood with the fire between him and the man.
Good-day to you my old friend, he called.
His voice too loud for the place. I thought, how come he knows that man?
Wish you a mighty good day of it, he said, and here’s your bite to eat.
Held the bundle out but the man took no notice. Seemed he could lean on his stick all day while Pa watched him across the fire, the smoke rising into the still air. Pa put the bundle on the ground, unwrapped it, laid the things out. Bread, meat. Potatoes. A twist of baccy. They lay on the ground like so much rubbish.
Pa looked up at Jingles on the horse.
I’ve asked you before and I’m asking you again, he said. You talk this feller’s tongue. Tell him I mean well.