The Unexpected Education of Emily Dean Page 8

  As the car slid away Emily caught a glimpse in the driver’s seat of batwing sunglasses and a cap of dark hair. It was all so unexpected that she continued to stare down the empty street even after the car was long gone.

  She was still standing at the corner when a boy ran past shouting, ‘The dagoes are fighting.’ More boys raced by, all in the direction of the Catholic church, and even parishioners who’d begun to walk home were turning around and retracing their steps. There was a crackle of excitement in the air, and she soon found herself swept up by the rush of bodies on either side.

  She reached the gate to the Catholic churchyard where boys were leaping the fence to avoid the bottleneck. Someone shoved her from behind and she almost fell as they jostled through the narrow gate, surging towards the growing crowd in front of the church.

  By the time she got there, adult bodies blocked her way; there was nothing to see but the bony bottoms of old farmers and the well-padded rumps of the district’s matrons. A tow-haired boy beside her dived through a gap in the adult ranks and she followed his lead. Squeezing and burrowing, she made it to the front of the large circle that had formed around a dozen Italian POWs.

  As the crowd increased, she felt herself merging with those beside her until she was not exactly sure where her body began or ended. She glimpsed two of the Italians at the centre of the group circling each other. Dust rose as their boots scraped the hard dry ground, and the small group of their countrymen yelled and gestured, urging them on. The rest of the crowd joined in, whistling and hooting.

  With a shout, one of the two Italians rushed towards the other, fists swinging. His opponent sidestepped and the fist-swinger careened into onlookers near her. She heard the dull thump of bodies colliding, the grunt of expelled breath. Hands grabbed the fighter and threw him back into the fray and for a split second she saw his face. It was Claudio, covered in dust and dirt, his shirt torn at the shoulder.

  The other man saw his chance and leaped forwards, and suddenly they were locked together, staggering around like two performing bears. Shouts went up from the Italians. Emily heard something about the Madonna and other indecipherable Italian words. She felt the push of bodies behind her, certain she was going to be trampled.

  Around her the Italian men urged the fighters on. ‘Vincenzo, Vincenzo,’ they chanted.

  It was a shock to realise that they were urging on Claudio’s enemy. The fighters wrestled to and fro, grunting and gasping. Vincenzo spat out a stream of words and, in the babble of language, she recognised that one was repeated: communista. The men broke away and circled each other, waiting for the opportunity to attack. Communista.

  At first it was just a foreign word but, hearing Vincenzo hurl it like a curse, she remembered she’d heard a word like that before. Communist. Her father and his friend, the Very Reverend, going on about the Russians and Uncle Joe, which meant Stalin. The communists were the new threat and, after the Allies had defeated the fascists, it was the commies they’d need to worry about. ‘Make no mistake,’ she’d heard her father telling the Very Rev, ‘they’re godless atheists. World domination is their aim.’ The Very Rev had agreed wholeheartedly. Only a fool would trust Uncle Joe. Surely Claudio would defend himself against the communista slur, but he was silent. Vincenzo’s tirade of abuse seemed to bounce off him like a handful of gravel.

  And then Claudio stopped fighting. He stepped back with a shrug as if accepting defeat. Vincenzo grinned and dropped his fists; his body relaxed and he looked across at his supporters with a cocky grin. It was the moment Claudio must have anticipated. He sprang at his opponent, shouting. Again, one word rose above the rest: ‘Fascista, fascista, sporco fascista.’

  A cloud of dust rose as Vincenzo hit the ground. Claudio was on him like a madman. Italian voices rang out and, although she could not understand the words, she knew they were urging their man to get up, to fight. She watched, horrified and yet spellbound at the sight of the two men rolling on the ground, kicking and thrashing about. The crowd swelled and she was pushed even further forwards, specks of blood splattering across her dress and the toes of her shoes. Swept up in the turmoil, she experienced an excited madness that made her want to shout out along with the others, thrilled and terrified by the wild violence of it all.

  Claudio and Vincenzo were still fighting when a change swept through the crowd. The cries died away and a hush fell as Father O’Gorman and a small group of his local parishioners arrived at the scene. The Australian men, no longer young but with bodies hardened by physical toil, grabbed the two fighters and pulled them apart like stringless puppets.

  Vincenzo’s right eye was already closing, and he pushed the men aside and staggered away. The crowd began to disperse. Italian prisoners were claimed by their farm bosses and hustled off to waiting conveyances. Regular churchgoers recovered themselves, remembering it was Sunday, which after all was meant to be a day of rest.

  Claudio remained kneeling on the ground, blood streaming from his nose. She looked around at the departing crowd. Was nobody going to help him? And then someone bumped against her and took hold of her arm.

  A familiar voice whispered urgently in her ear. ‘If anyone asks, we’ve been together.’

  She turned to see Lydia, her cheeks red, breathing hard as if she’d been running.

  Lydia squeezed her arm. ‘Emily?’

  She nodded, but her thoughts were for Claudio, and she gestured towards him. ‘He’s …’

  That was all she managed to say before Lydia let go of her arm and crouched down beside him, taking a white handkerchief from her bag.

  ‘Tilt your head back,’ she said.

  Blood squirted over Lydia’s fingers and onto her dress, but she did not seem to notice. Emily was not surprised; she knew her aunt was not squeamish. What startled her was the tender way Lydia held her white linen handkerchief to Claudio’s bloody nose – as if she really cared.

  They were still kneeling in the dust together when Grandmother, with Eunice hot on her heels, arrived on the scene. Grandmother cleared her throat to signal her presence and watched on with frosty disapproval as Lydia and Claudio stood up.

  ‘Della is waiting,’ she said to Claudio.

  He nodded and, as he was about to set off, glanced at the blood-stained handkerchief in his hand, as if wondering what to do with it. He made a vague gesture towards Lydia and then stuffed it in his pocket before hurrying away in the direction of Della and the gig.

  Grandmother watched him leave before turning her attention back to Lydia. ‘Just look at you.’ Her voice trembled with suppressed emotion. Her gaze swept over Emily too, taking in her blood-spattered shoes. ‘Both of you, covered in blood.’

  ‘Blood,’ Eunice echoed, trying and failing to contain her excitement.

  ‘Come along then, before you disgrace yourselves even further,’ Grandmother said, and taking Lydia by the arm set off towards the black Packard.

  ‘You too,’ Eunice said and, slipping a skinny chicken-bone arm through Emily’s, jerked her along behind the others.

  On the trip home, there was no discussion of the sermon or local news from members of the congregation. Instead, the Italians were the sole topic of conversation and, in particular, Claudio, and what should be done about him. Now that he’d displayed a violent streak, they’d have to send him back to the camp. It simply wasn’t safe.

  ‘I should have taken more notice of the Army’s directions,’ Grandmother said.

  ‘Sly and objectionable if badly handled,’ quoted Eunice.

  ‘It’s a damn shame,’ Uncle Cec added. ‘Losing a useful chap is a damn nuisance when we’re so short-handed. The place is going to rack and ruin as it is.’

  Lydia said nothing and gazed out of the window as if she wasn’t even listening. Emily felt her heart beginning to beat faster. She had been sure Lydia would spring to his defence. She remembered how Claudio had looked after her that first day when she had tried to run away. If Lydia would not help, then it was up to her. She had
to say something. Grandmother was speaking.

  ‘You’ll have to ring the military fellow first thing tomorrow, Cecil –’

  ‘You can’t send him back. It wasn’t his fault.’

  ‘Not his fault?’ Uncle Cec glanced at her in the rear-vision mirror. ‘What makes you say that?’

  She had no clue how the fight had started or whose fault it was. For all she knew, Claudio could have been to blame. The way he had smashed Vincenzo to the ground after lulling him into a false sense of security was not exactly reassuring.

  ‘Speak up, lass,’ Uncle Cec said. ‘Can’t try a man without hearing the facts.’

  Grandmother swivelled round and peered over the front seat, while Eunice gave her a sharp nudge.

  ‘Emily?’

  But having rushed to Claudio’s defence, she could think of nothing more to say.

  ‘Well, that’s settled then,’ Grandmother said.

  ‘He’ll have to go,’ Eunice added.

  ‘They called him a communist. He was defending himself.’ It was all she could think of, and she had a suspicion she’d twisted it somehow, but Uncle Cec enthusiastically grasped the straw.

  ‘Fellow’s got to be able to defend himself from insults of that sort,’ he said with feeling. ‘Be a poor sort of cove otherwise. Can’t send a man back to camp for protecting his honour.’

  Emily thought Grandmother would surely protest but, after a look from Uncle Cec, she seemed to subside slightly in her seat and said nothing more. Lydia raised her eyebrows and appeared quietly amused. It seemed she had been listening all along.

  10

  SUNDAY LUNCH WAS FINISHED. EMILY dangled a leg over the side of the swinging seat until her foot touched the verandah and pushed off. The seat rocked gently back and forth. She had resumed Middlemarch, forcing herself to return to the page she’d actually reached and not jump ahead to Will Ladislaw and the plot possibilities offered by his presence. Despite her best efforts she had got no further than Dorothea’s enthusiastic acceptance of Mr Casaubon’s proposal of marriage. And in truth, her ‘best efforts’ with Middlemarch had been hijacked by the books in William’s workshop. Novels by an American called F. Scott Fitzgerald, and The Good Earth by Pearl Buck. She was quite sure they were not in the school library. It was only by sticking to a self-imposed rule not to remove William’s books from the workshop that she’d been able to continue with Middlemarch at all. She turned the page, and doubtless an onlooker would have assumed that she was deeply absorbed in reading. However, no information about Dorothea or Mr Casaubon had reached her brain for some time. She had begun to think about Claudio and the fight and whether he was alright. Had anyone thought that he might need a doctor?

  There were other thoughts too, about Lydia and who she had driven off with after church. Why was it a secret? It did not seem to make sense. Nevertheless, it meant she had a pact with her aunt, an exciting development and a major step forwards in her fantasies of friendship. She only wished she understood what was at stake and had been deliberating whether to ask Lydia straight out. As yet there had been no opportunity for, as soon as lunch was over, Eunice had shooed her off to get changed into work clothes. ‘It’s high time you made a start on sweeping the verandahs,’ Eunice had declared.

  Making a start seemed to be her fate, for like Sisyphus with his boulder, she had discovered that the task of sweeping the verandahs was never-ending. The fact that she was now lying on the swinging seat was a reckless act of rebellion. The verandahs were still littered with summer leaves, dust, and mounds of fairy grass that had blown in from the dry parts of the swamp.

  Her pretend reading of Middlemarch was interrupted by the crunch of the wheelbarrow over gravel. Grandmother and Eunice had moved to a nearby garden bed where she knew they would be dead-heading roses. As luck would have it, she was shielded from their sight by the back of the swinging seat. She heard the sharp snip, snip of secateurs as they began to talk about someone called Alma who was coming to stay the night, although she did not catch when the visit was to take place.

  ‘We’ll put her in the pink room,’ she heard Grandmother say. ‘I don’t want Alma reporting that standards have slipped just because there’s a war on.’

  ‘Wouldn’t the blue room be better?’ Eunice enquired in a meek but determined voice.

  Emily knew that the blue room was shabby and had a nasty stain on the ceiling where a possum had got into the roof cavity and peed. She wasn’t surprised to hear Grandmother question how Eunice would even suggest such a thing, and she couldn’t help smiling when Grandmother said snappily that, really, sometimes she did not know what went on in Eunice’s head. After that the two women stopped talking and continued snipping off the dead blooms in silence. Then the plinking of the secateurs stopped and the sound of the wheelbarrow on the gravel grew fainter.

  Emily went back to Middlemarch, telling herself that she must try to concentrate. She hoped that in the next chapter there would be less of the ghastly Mr Casaubon.

  A considerable number of pages later, she heard a door bang close by, followed by the sound of footsteps. She sprang up, grabbing the straw broom abandoned earlier, and swished vigorously in case it was Eunice coming to check on her progress. She was so busy pretending to be absorbed in her work that Lydia’s voice came as a surprise.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Sweeping.’

  ‘Making a mess, more like it. I would have thought you have to sweep in one direction, not all over the place.’

  It was true: she had been randomly swishing the broom about and the leaves and fairy grass were now more dispersed than ever.

  ‘Anyway, I didn’t come about that. What are you reading?’ Lydia picked up the copy of Middlemarch lying on the swinging seat.

  Before she could answer, Lydia had already tossed it back on the seat.

  ‘Thrilling.’

  Emily felt a powerful urge both to defend the book and at the same time denigrate it. She was still trying to untangle her thoughts and put them into words when Lydia plopped herself onto the seat, pushing off with her toes. On the forwards swing she sprang up again.

  ‘I’m sure Ma’s got the latest Agatha Christie. You should try that.’ She took a few steps towards the edge of the verandah and jumped up, plucking a grape from a bunch hanging just below the eaves, and then tossing it away before twirling around the verandah post. Emily heard her mother saying, For heaven’s sake, you’re like a flea in a fit, as Lydia launched herself across the space between them and landed back on the swinging seat.

  ‘They’re such busybodies. That’s all. Not you, I don’t mean you. Which is why I know I can rely on you.’ Lydia shot her a piercing glance. ‘I can rely on you, can’t I?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Good. Because I really cannot stand people wanting to know my business.’ Lydia fixed her with an intense look, and she knew that whatever happened, she had to quell her curiosity, for if Lydia did not want to confide in her, then so be it. She must never ask.

  ‘Anyway,’ Lydia jumped up yet again, ‘you’d better get on with the sweeping. You wouldn’t want to disappoint Eunice.’ With that, she threw Emily a smile and disappeared around the corner of the verandah.

  11

  THE NEXT MORNING, AFTER THE chooks, Emily snuck off to the workshop where she intended to continue the letter to Dorothy and was already writing details of the fight between Claudio and Vincenzo in her head. She was sure that Dorothy would never have experienced anything as exhilarating, a thought that was giving her a great deal of gratification. She was up to the part where she’d gone to Claudio’s aid and was kneeling beside him as blood poured from his wounds.

  She entered the yard, closing the garden gate behind her. As she neared the stables, she saw Dapple harnessed to the cart. Lydia was checking the shafts and greeted her with a friendly wave. Emily felt a pleasurable frisson and waved back too eagerly.

  ‘You’re just in time,’ Lydia said, ignoring the over-enthusiastic wa
ve.

  On reaching the cart, Emily saw the bundle of rabbit traps on the tray and the frisson turned from pleasure to anxiety.

  ‘You can make up for your last effort,’ Lydia continued, swinging up onto the driver’s seat as if there was no question about it. She whistled to Mrs Flynn, who jumped onto the tray of the cart.

  After the last time, which was also the first time, Emily had made a firm decision never again to go rabbiting. Anyway, she wanted to write to Dorothy. All of which made climbing onto the cart beside Lydia inexplicable. It was somewhat unnerving that her body had a mind of its own.

  ‘Where are we going?’ she asked as they set off down the drive.

  ‘Back of the swamp,’ Lydia replied. ‘The rotten things are in plague proportions.’

  They reached the archway and turned onto the road. Clip-clopping along, small bush flies buzzed around Dapple’s head, and the scent of eucalyptus wafted through the air, mingling with Lydia’s particular smell – dark and heady. It was the perfect time to bring Emily’s fantasies of sisterly intimacy to life. How could she begin a conversation that was worthy of the occasion? What did she know that would interest Lydia? Nothing. She glanced across, hoping that Lydia might initiate something, but so far she showed no inclination to do so.

  Sitting there dumbly, as they headed off to undertake a task she abhorred, all in the futile hope of Lydia’s friendship, she felt a fool. She repeated the word fool twice under her breath. It was a word her mother often used. Sometimes she would say it in a light-hearted way: Oh, what a fool I am, when really she meant no such thing. And at other times, it was uttered with loathing: What a fool I am, what a useless fool. Emily knew that the line between the gay remark, tossed off with a laugh, and the desperate angry curse was thin as tissue paper. It was impossible to comfort her mother when the gay fool became the stupid useless fool, and any attempt brought forth lacerating fury. Yet she preferred even this fury to the grim silence when her mother closed in on herself and became a wraith that no longer seemed to see or hear her.