Colleen McCullough: The Thorn Birds

“Come on now, it’s time you went inside,” he told her, swinging her up into his arms and tucking the doll between his chest and hers. “We’ll get Mum to fix her up, eh? We’ll wash and iron her clothes, and glue on her hair again. I’ll make you some proper hairpins out of those pearls, too, so they can’t fall out and you can do her hair in all sorts of ways.”

Fiona Cleary was in the kitchen, peeling potatoes. She was a very handsome, very fair woman a little under medium height, but rather hard-faced and stern; she had an excellent figure with a tiny waist which had not thickened, in spite of the six babies she had carried beneath it. Her dress was grey calico, its skirts brushing the spotless floor, its front protected by an enormous starched white apron that looped around her neck and tied in the small of her spine with a crisp, perfect bow. From waking to sleeping she lived in the kitchen and back garden, her stout black boots beating a circular path from stove to laundry to vegetable patch to clotheslines and thence to the stove again.

She put her knife on the table and stared at Frank and Meggie, the corners of her beautiful mouth turning down.

“Meggie, I let you put on your Sunday-best dress this morning on one condition, that you didn’t get it dirty. And look at you! What a little grub you are!”

“Mum, it wasn’t her fault,” Frank protested. “Jack and Hughie took her doll away to try and find out how the arms and legs worked. I promised we’d fix it up as good as new. We can, can’t we?”

“Let me see.” Fee held out her hand for the doll.

She was a silent woman, not given to spontaneous conversation. What she thought, no one ever knew, even her husband; she left the disciplining of the children to him, and did whatever he commanded without comment or complaint unless the circumstances were most unusual. Meggie had heard the boys whispering that she stood in as much awe of Daddy as they did, but if that was true she hid it under a veneer of impenetrable, slightly dour calm. She never laughed, nor did she ever lose her temper.

Finished her inspection, Fee laid Agnes on the dresser near the stove and looked at Meggie.

“I’ll wash her clothes tomorrow morning, and do her hair again. Frank can glue the hair on after tea tonight, I suppose, and give her a bath.”

The words were matter-of-fact rather than comforting. Meggie nodded, smiling uncertainly; sometimes she wanted so badly to hear her mother laugh, but her mother never did. She sensed that they shared a special something not common to Daddy and the boys, but there was no reaching beyond that rigid back, those never still feet. Mum would nod absently and flip her voluminous skirts expertly from stove to table as she continued working, working, working.

What none of the children save Frank could realize was that Fee was permanently, incurably tired. There was so much to be done, hardly any money to do it with, not enough time, and only one pair of hands. She longed for the day when Meggie would be old enough to help; already the child did simple tasks, but at barely four years of age it couldn’t possibly lighten the load. Six children, and only one of them, the youngest at that, a girl. All her acquaintances were simultaneously sympathetic and envious, but that didn’t get the work done. Her sewing basket had a mountain of socks in it still undarned, her knitting needles held yet another sock, and there was Hughie growing out of his sweaters and Jack not ready to hand his down.

Padraic Cleary was to home the week of Meggie’s birthday, purely by chance. It was too early for the shearing season, and he had work locally, plowing and planting. By profession he was a shearer of sheep, a seasonal occupation which lasted from the middle of summer to the end of winter, after which came lambing. Usually he managed to find plenty of work to tide him over spring and the first month of summer; helping with lambing, plowing, or spelling a local dairy farmer from his endless twice-a-day milking. Where there was work he went, leaving his family in the big old house to fend for themselves; not as harsh an action as it seemed. Unless one was lucky enough to own land, that was what one had to do.

When he came in a little after sunset the lamps were lit, and shadows played flickering games around the high ceiling. The boys were clustered on the back veranda playing with a frog, except for Frank; Padraic knew where he was, because he could hear the steady clocking of an axe from the direction of the woodheap. He paused on the veranda only long enough to plant a kick on Jack’s backside and clip Bob’s ear.

“Go and help Frank with the wood, you lazy little scamps. And it had better be done before Mum has tea on the table, or there’ll be skin and hair flying.”

He nodded to Fiona, busy at the stove; he did not kiss or embrace her, for he regarded displays of affection between husband and wife as something suitable only for the bedroom. As he used the jack to haul off his mud-caked boots, Meggie came skipping with his slippers, and he grinned down at the little girl with the curious sense of wonder he always knew at sight of her. She was so pretty, such beautiful hair; he picked up a curl and pulled it out straight, then let it go, just to see it jiggle and bounce as it settled back into place. Picking the child up, he went to sit in the only comfortable chair the kitchen possessed, a Windsor chair with a cushion tied to its seat, drawn close to the fire. Sighing softly, he sat down in it and pulled out his pipe, carelessly tapping out the spent dottle of tobacco in its bowl onto the floor. Meggie cuddled down on his lap and wound her arms about his neck, her cool little face turned up to his as she played her nightly game of watching the light filter through his short stubble of golden beard.

“How are you, Fee?” Padraic Cleary asked his wife.

“All right, Paddy. Did you get the lower paddock done today?”

“Yes, all done. I can start on the upper first thing in the morning. Lord, but I’m tired!”

“I’ll bet. Did MacPherson give you the crotchety old mare again?”

“Too right. You don’t think he’d take the animal himself to let me have the roan, do you? My arms feel as if they’ve been pulled out of their sockets. I swear that mare has the hardest mouth in En Zed.”

“Never mind. Old Robertson’s horses are all good, and you’ll be there soon enough.”

“Can’t be soon enough.” He packed his pipe with coarse tobacco and pulled a taper from the big jar that stood near the stove. A quick flick inside the firebox door and it caught; he leaned back in his chair and sucked so deeply the pipe made bubbling noises. “How’s it feel to be four, Meggie?” he asked his daughter.

“Pretty good, Daddy.”

“Did Mum give you your present?”

“Oh, Daddy, how did you and Mum guess I wanted Agnes?”

“Agnes?” He looked swiftly toward Fee, smiling and quizzing her with his eyebrows. “Is that her name, Agnes?”

“Yes. She’s beautiful, Daddy. I want to look at her all day.”

“She’s lucky to have anything to look at,” Fee said grimly. “Jack and Hughie got hold of the doll before poor Meggie had a chance to see it properly.”

“Well, boys will be boys. Is the damage bad?”

“Nothing that can’t be mended. Frank caught them before it went too far.”

“Frank? What was he doing down here? He was supposed to be at the forge all day. Hunter wants his gates.”

“He was at the forge all day. He just came down for a tool of some sort,” Fee answered quickly; Padraic was too hard on Frank.

“Oh, Daddy, Frank is the best brother! He saved my Agnes from being killed, and he’s going to glue her hair on again for me after tea.”