PART III
Letters and Numbers
Father and Mother and Miss Lefroy promptly set about preparing my future. Telegrams are sent to and fro and soon enough I am enrolled at the Sisters of Mercy for 1898 and expected to start in early February. This means I’ll still get to see Mr Forrest unveil the town clock but it won’t leave me much time to settle in Perth before school starts. Miss Lefroy says the Principal agrees, however, that the experience of greeting the first Premier of Western Australia warrants the delay.
Mr Forrest’s visit to Cue will be the second biggest event the Murchison has seen since the railway line opened last April. And for me, it will be a farewell. It’s only a few months before I leave so I am treasuring every day.
‘You won’t be gone forever, Cathleen Sophia,’ Mother reminds me.
But Granny says that, ‘life can change in a hurry, so you must be grateful for every day you wake up alive!’
And so I spend more time in the creek-bed and bring home more pretty rocks for Granny and go trapping with my brothers. I help father oil the harnesses and brush the horses as far as I can reach. I even help mother sweep the floor smooth and peg the washing. And now I know why she cries when a willy-willy blows through and turns the wet linen into sheets of red clay.
I go to town with Granny and help her with the grocery shopping. She talks different and Mr Allen, the grocer, can’t hear what she is saying. When he gives her a pencil and pad to write the order down, Granny gives me a dig with a knobbly elbow and pushes the pad to me because she doesn’t like writing.
‘And t’at’s why you need to learn all you can about t’ letters and numbers, Catie. So you’ll get along nicely in t’is world.’
With our brown bag of groceries and a new box of Beecham’s Pills for Granny’s heart, we stop for a look in the Ladies Warehouse.
‘We may as well see what we’ll be wearing when t’at gold nugget leaps up out of t’ ground and lands in our lap,’ she chuckles.
We always finish up at the Shamrock where the glowing Mr Kelly sits us down with a lemon squash. Together, he and Granny talk so fast and so funny I can barely catch a word they’re saying, except at the final drop when Granny raises her tumbler.
‘A gentleman from t’ Homeland is he, our fine friend Mr Kelly. God bless him and God bless Ireland!’
Granny’s stories of the Homeland are special but sad and Granny says she has to be in the right spirit otherwise she won’t sleep a wink worrying what became of her family and the farm. When she left for the New World, folk were fighting over food and families were starving to death. Everyone was hungry and poor and they blamed the English and hated them for it.
It’s the last night in my bush bed alongside Granny in our ‘girls’ room’. That’s what father calls it and it makes Granny giggle just like one. After ‘Amen’, Granny tells me a story I’ve never heard before.
‘Such a proud family man was your great-grandfat’er Bannon – God rests his soul. Always seeing to it t’at we had food in our bellies, even if it meant he went wit’out. He was always ready wit’ a joke and a grand whistler he was too. After supper time he’d tune his fiddle and have us in stitches with his ditties. “An ode to me Bridget,” he’d say t’en he’d stomp his big boots and play and sing:’
T’is an ode to me slight daughter fair
Me eldest born is my Bridget Mary
Eyes a’ blue and dark curls her hair
A breakin’ t’ lads’ hearts she’ll be
And if she does ever leave me here
Sails away from her sad green land
T’ ‘tatoes will grow from my tears
A breakin’ t’ heart of t’is old man
But she’ll never forget us I know
Her mot’er and brot’ers and me
Wherever a wanderin’ she may go
A breakin’ t’ hearts of her family
Granny sang so strong and so beautiful. I wanted to capture the sound of her voice forever.
‘Sing it again please Granny.’
And she did.
Granny sang her song again as big wet tears slipped down the corners of my eyes–blue like Bridget’s–and dampened my chaff bag mattress. She sang it again, and again, until sadness gave way to sleep.
PART IV
The Upset Heart
My first term at Boarding School seemed to last a life time and the train ride home, just as long. When the train stopped at Midland Junction to pick up more passengers, I could barely sit still. I was bursting to tell Granny about the city and the rain and the wide chocolaty river, the park on the hill with trees so tall and grass so green, the ice-cream van and my new best friends, Mamie and Patricia.
When at last the train rumbled into the Cue Station, I could see my father and my mother and my three brothers all lined up on the platform, waving and fidgeting. Granny wasn’t there but it was a warm day and I knew she didn’t like commotion.
‘Upsets me old heart,’ she’d say.
After the kisses and hugs and everyone talking at once, I asked if Granny was waiting at home. The sudden silence scared me. I looked to Edward and he looked at his feet, bottom lip quivering. Father nodded to Mother and then he looked at his feet too.
‘Where is Granny?’
Father placed a hand on Mother’s shoulder and Mother placed her hand on mine and drew a deep breath. I didn’t want to hear it, but I did, and my world spun and changed, forever.
‘Your grandmother became very ill. Doctor Roberts said she was determined to hang on but her heart was just too weak. You know how stubborn she is ... was. And you know how very proud she was of you, Cathleen dear. You were her sunshine and rain.’
We left the railway station, walking single file and silent; the excitement of my homecoming, gone. We passed by the new town clock and I decided I didn’t like change. It felt lonely. I scuffed my shiny black school shoes into the dusty red dirt and with head down and tears falling, I made up a sad ditty of my own:
And if she ev’r does leave me here
Alone in this dry brown country
Nev’r will I forget my Granny dear
A breakin’ my heart she’ll be.
The End
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Kylie Taylor
About the Author
Kylie Taylor is an enthusiastic West Australian who has a passion for the land and its people. She lives with her family on the outskirts of the Perth metropolitan area and is currently undertaking a Bachelor of Arts, majoring in Writing and History. When not studying, Kylie enjoys reading Tim Winton, spending time with family and pottering around the property they share with their dogs, an ageing horse, and numerous feathered friends. She also enjoys listening to good music on long road trips and camping in the North West with her husband of 25 years.
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