A Waltz for Matilda Read online

  To the seven generations of women who taught me the

  lessons in this book

  A love song to a land, and to a nation

  Contents

  Cover

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Apology

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Notes on the Text

  Publisher’s Note

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Other titles by Jackie French

  Copyright

  Apology

  This book is set from 1894 to 1915, a time of widespread racism, some of it quite unconscious. The desire to pass new comprehensive laws to ‘keep Australia white’ was one of the reasons many supported the federation of states that became the nation of Australia. Writing about those times has needed racist words and racist assumptions that are not — and should not be — in common use today. But without them it would be impossible to show the hatred of those times or the ideas that made today’s Australia.

  Jackie French

  Chapter 1

  AUGUST 1894

  Dear Dad,

  I hope you are well.

  Did you get my last letter? Mum and I are not at Aunt Ann’s now, we are living with Mrs Dawkins in Grinder’s Alley. It is a boarding house, we only have one room but Mrs Dawkins is kind, she found me a job. It is in a jam factory. I pretend I am fourteen not twelve so I get paid three shillings a week. The boys get six shillings, which is not fair.

  A bullock dray fell on Aunt Ann. She did not get better. Mum and I could not pay the rent. The bailiffs came and took our furniture. Mum had to go to hospital for an operation, but we do not have the money for doctors now. Mum is very thin and cannot do her sewing, but she says she will be better soon.

  I hope you are all right. We have not had a postal order from you for more than a year, that is why I wonder if you got my letters, and know what happened to Mum and Aunt Ann.

  It is very different in Grinder’s Alley from Aunt Ann’s, all the houses are squashed together. The smoke from the chimneys just sits above the houses. Our rent is a shilling a week, I buy day-old bread and spoiled vegetables to make soup and Mrs Dawkins lets me use her kitchen, but there is not enough money to buy medicines, so I hope you will send a postal order soon.

  I miss Aunt Ann and my friends at school. It is too far away for me to see them; also I have only Sunday off each week. I am worried about Mum too. She says she is all right but I do not think she is.

  Give my love to the sheep and the lambs, I wish I could see them and your farm some day, and you too.

  Do you have a dog? I like dogs.

  Your loving daughter,

  Matilda

  PS It is hard for Mum to breathe in Grinder’s Alley. If we could come to the farm I think she might be better.

  PPS If somebody else is reading this because Dad is away shearing could you send it to him please, I think maybe he does not know where we are now, or that Aunt Ann died.

  It was midnight in Grinder’s Alley. The gas lamps flickered in the darkness. Somewhere in those shadows lurked the larrikins of the Push, with their hot breath and cold knives.

  Matilda put her chin out. The jam factory was only three streets away from Mrs Dawkins’s. She’d managed to escape the Push before. She’d make it tonight too.

  She clutched her shawl closer as she slipped down the boarding-house steps. Since the bailiffs took their alarm clock, she didn’t dare sleep all night with Mum. There were too many women with hungry children who’d take her job if she was late.

  The houses crouched like mushrooms behind their iron railings. Matilda ran as fast as her skirts would let her, staying close to the fences, one shadow among many. The night air smelled of smoke from coal fires, and the big furnaces of the jam and tin factories. Someone was cooking sausages too. Her tummy clenched into a knot.

  She’d eaten nothing since Tommy’s sandwiches yesterday. She’d told Mum the factory gave the workers dinner. It was a lie: Mr Thrattle’s cockroaches ate better than his workers. But Mum was so thin these days. Two shillings a week only bought food for one.

  Why hadn’t Dad sent money? Shearers had to go places without post offices, but he’d always managed to get money to them every few months.

  A shadow moved in the dimness further up the alley. She stepped back into a shop doorway, then relaxed, as Ah Ching emerged from the darkness, pulling his vegetable cart.

  Aunt Ann had said that Chinese men wanted to kidnap white girls and sell them into slavery. Impossible to think of Ah Ching doing that.

  Mrs Dawkins said that when the Push had tried to steal Ah Ching’s vegetable cart, Ah Ching had moved like the wind, chopping, leaping, a knife of his own suddenly in his hand. Impossible to think of this small gentle man leaping with a knife too.

  But the Push never troubled Ah Ching now.

  Matilda watched the small, grey-headed man pulling the handles of the big cart, piled high with tight green cabbages, bunches of carrots, beetroot, leeks and wooden cases of fruit, each piece wrapped in newspaper to stop it bruising. Ah Ching’s wrinkles changed into a smile when he saw her.

  She bowed her head and right knee slightly, then looked down. ‘Qing An.’

  Ah Ching had taught her the words and how to bow properly weeks ago, when they first met. She had no idea what the words meant. But Ah Ching’s smile deepened when she bowed and spoke.

  ‘Qing An.’ He bowed back — a lower bow than hers — then reached into his cart. His hand brought out a crumple of newspaper. He bowed again as he handed it to her.

  Matilda unwrapped it carefully. A peach! Even by the lamplight she could see its blushed white skin, like Mum’s cheeks. She lifted it and smelled its sweetness.

  ‘Duo xie!’ She bowed again, wishing she knew more Chinese words to thank him properly, then slipped the peach into her bag.

  Ah Ching waved his hands. He said something she couldn’t understand, then made chewing motions. He meant that she should eat it now.

  How could she explain how badly Mum needed fruit like this, if she was to get well? She hesitated.

  Ah Ching’s smile changed: became deeper, gentler, rich in understanding. He picked out a se
cond peach, then held it out to her, bowing.

  She looked at him, speechless, then unwrapped it slowly, letting the smell seep into her nose. The first bite was like slipping into the waves at the beach or clean white sheets. The juice exploded down her chin. She wiped it, embarrassed.

  Ah Ching laughed softly, as though delighted at the compliment to his peach. He watched her steadily as she ate it all, using her nails to gouge out the last peach strings from the seed.

  Matilda bowed again. ‘Gai ri zai lai, qing zou hao.’ They were the only other Chinese words she knew.

  Ah Ching nodded. For a moment she thought he would say something more. But instead he simply bowed, and began to trot toward the market.

  Or maybe he’s going to sell his fruit and vegetables from house to house, thought Matilda, listening to the creak of the wheels fade out down the cobbles as she turned alone into the next shadowed street. She and Ah Ching knew nothing of each other, except this brief friendship of the night, linked by fruit and darkness.

  ‘Got her!’ A fist reached out of the darkness and grabbed her by her collar. Another boy’s hand seized her arms. Snagger Sam carried a bag of pennies, dangling from one hand. Mrs Dawkins said he’d blinded a cove with those. Todger Bailey held a knife. She didn’t know the names of the others, short-coated bullies with lengths of lead pipe or knotted cord and beery grins.

  Aunt Ann said drinking spirituous liquor drove men mad. Matilda gazed from one boy to another.

  No point struggling. No point screaming either. No one answered screams round here. The Push carried matches and cans of kerosene. If you crossed the Push you’d find your house burned down, and with you in it if you didn’t get out in time.

  ‘Out late again, little girl?’ Todger Bailey stuck his knife up to her throat. ‘You know what happens to little girls who go out in the dark?’

  Snagger Sam laughed. ‘They learn to do what they’re told. Ain’t that right, boys?’

  ‘You gunna do what we tells you?’ whispered Todger’s beery breath in her ear. ‘You gunna be nice, little girl?’

  She couldn’t let fear take her now. She had to get to the factory — and she couldn’t if she’d been taken by the Push. But Tommy had told her what to do. Tommy knew everything. Or she hoped he did.

  She let her body go limp.

  It worked.

  The hands let go of her for a precious second as she slumped into a bundle of skirts and shawl on the footpath. She rolled twice, till she was past their legs, then surged to her feet, lifting her skirts so she could run faster all in one movement. She was a yard away from them before they knew what had happened.

  Laughter echoed along the lane behind her. A twelve-year-old girl couldn’t out-run the Push, or not for long. But she only had one block to go before she reached the factory.

  She could hear the clomp of boots behind her, almost feel their hands reaching for her, but there was the factory, dark and silent at the end of the street, the metal fence around it.

  ‘Bruiser!’ she shrieked.

  She hurled herself over the fence, landing hard, heard boots thud onto the ground next to her. ‘Got yer, yer little —’

  Todger screamed. It was a good sound. Matilda stood, trying to get her breath, as Bruiser tugged and tore at the young man’s arm. Blood dripped onto the gravel.

  ‘Bruiser, down.’

  The big dog glanced at her with one yellow eye, as though to say, ‘Don’t stop me. This is fun!’ No one knew what sort of dog Bruiser was, not even Tommy. Part German shepherd, perhaps, or something even larger. Part lion, more likely, Matilda thought, escaped from a circus.

  ‘Let him go, Bruiser,’ she said again.

  Bruiser opened his mouth.

  The young man cradled his arm to his chest, his breath coming in deep sobs. Suddenly Matilda wanted to cry too, to run back to Aunt Ann’s and the safe days of love and buttered toast. But those days were gone. She had to stop the Push waiting for her again. Mum depended on her now.

  She tried to keep her voice steady. ‘Better get the doctor to disinfect that bite. Bruiser’s got rabies.’

  She stroked Bruiser’s ears. ‘See all his spit? That’s mad-dog spit. Anyone he bites goes mad, unless they get it disinfected fast. It’s called hydrophobia. If you see a drop of water you’ll start screaming and screaming and you won’t be able to stop.’ It wasn’t true, but she hoped it sounded terrifying. The other boys watched warily over the fence.

  Matilda smiled at them grimly. ‘If Todger touches you, you might go mad too. Better stay away.’

  She turned her back, forcing herself not to run. Bruiser followed at her heels as she walked to the factory doorway. By the time she’d sat down, with her shawl around her, the Push had gone.

  It was cold huddled in the doorway, even with Bruiser for comfort. The big dog gnawed the soup bone she had brought him. There was no meat on it — not after two days’ boiling on Mrs Dawkins’s wood stove — but the dog seemed to like it.

  Matilda stroked him again, the torn ears, the scars on his side from kickings. Bruiser cowered whenever Mr Thrattle came near. Anyone else he savaged. Except Matilda. Matilda was his friend.

  Now at last she could sleep. She huddled down, her shawl around her, trying to ignore the ache of her bruises and the cold of the concrete below her. She couldn’t afford to lose this job. Not with rent to pay and food for Mum.

  Matilda smiled in the gaslight shadows. Tonight Mum could eat the peach.

  ‘Oi! Wake up, young coot. Breakfast’s here.’

  Matilda opened her eyes. Tommy lounged in the doorway, grinning at her, showing off the gap in his teeth where one of the Push had hit him when he was a kid.

  Tommy was fifteen now, and the best mechanic around. If Snagger or Todger wanted to keep their precious bicycles on the road they needed to stay in good with Tommy these days. She stood up stiffly, and stretched.

  ‘Here.’ He handed her a packet wrapped in greaseproof paper. Tommy had brought her sandwiches since her second day at the factory, when he saw she didn’t have any lunch.

  Matilda bit into the first one eagerly, then grinned up at him. Roast lamb and chutney, with big cold hunks of butter. Six big chunks of bread, so lopsided he must have cut them himself. She’d eat two sandwiches now, keep one for her lunch.

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘No worries. Them arms of yours look like a match with the wood shaved off. We need to fatten you up.’

  Tommy nodded at Bruiser, standing at her side and growling at him softly. ‘Tie him up, will you, so I can get inside. Need to see to the big pulley afore I start the burners. That pulley’s almost rusted through, but the old bast— er … biscuit is too cheap to buy a new one. The whole dashed place runs on spit and rubber bands.’ He grinned again. ‘I got a new idea too.’

  Matilda swallowed the mouthful of bread and meat. ‘What is it?’ Tommy had built half the machinery here, even the big thing he called a ‘conveyer belt’ that carried the cans of hot jam. He was so full of ideas she expected to see them leak out of his pockets.

  ‘Grapples,’ he said triumphantly, then saw her blank face. ‘To hold the cans of jam with, like, so you girls don’t burn your hands all the time.’

  Matilda gazed down at her hands automatically. Three months had left them scarred and callused. ‘Can you make them today?’

  He shook his head. ‘Will on Sunday though.’

  Trust Tommy, she thought, to spend his only day off working. But for Tommy, machinery was never work.

  Tommy blew on his hands to warm them. ‘Come on then. I want a good scrounge in the junk heap for bits and pieces to make ‘em afore I light the burners.’

  Matilda nodded, her mouth full again. She led Bruiser over to the fence and tied the rope to his collar. She hated to do it. A dog like Bruiser needed to run. She’d go mad too, tied up all day. But the dog was Mr Thrattle’s, not hers.

  Behind her Tommy had already slipped inside the echoing factory. Matilda felt her eyes closing
again. Just a few moments more of sleep …

  ‘No time to be napping, young lady. This is a place of work. Put your apron on and look lively.’

  Matilda pushed herself to her feet. The sky was grey with dawn and smoke. ‘Yes, Mr Thrattle.’

  Women straggled along the street. Inside she could hear the whoosh as Tommy hosed down the floor.

  The day had begun.

  Six hours later her feet ached. Her back ached. Even her elbows ached from keeping them close to her side so she didn’t jostle the aproned women next to her.

  The world had shrunk to the few feet of space by the conveyer belt, can after can after can, the air thick with smoke from the fires under the giant vats of water and the steam from boiling fruit. Her hands stung from checking the seals on each hot can, then pressing on a label.

  The sooner Tommy worked out his grapple thing the better. She glanced around quickly, wondering where he was now — the pots of hot jam came too fast to look away for long.

  Men trundled boxes of fruit or barrows of coal, the older women slicing, slicing, slicing at the endless mounds of plums and chokos. Chokos were cheaper even than plums, and no one was supposed to know the difference, just like when Mr Thrattle added marrow to the strawberry jam, with red food colouring to make it look good.

  Another hour till lunch, then five hours more till she could go home. At least the endless stench of jam stopped her hunger. She’d never eat jam again …

  For a second she heard Tommy’s laughter close behind her. She hoped he didn’t come up and talk. The women weren’t allowed to speak while they were working. Mr Thrattle wouldn’t sack Tommy, but she didn’t dare attract the boss’s attention in case he docked her pay.

  She risked another glance up. Tommy winked at her, then moved away, past the vats where the fruit stewed, to the big coppers where the sugar was added. The mix had to be stirred by hand, two men working giant paddles back and forth, till the jam was thick and bubbling like a volcano, ready to be tipped out into the giant funnels that filled the cans.

  Matilda was glad she wasn’t on the filling station. Hot jam could burn you to the bone. Jam burns got infected. Mrs Dawkins had told her about one of the women who’d lost an arm, and two of the women worked nine fingered.