Down by the Creek

It was 1944, and perhaps it was the absence of the father, or the radio in the kitchen crackling news of the war, but a restlessness had taken residency within the Smith household.

“Margaret! Go down to the creek and help your brother out, won’t you?”

She was sitting on the veranda of the old cottage; its white stone walls cool to the touch despite the heat of the day. The kitchen window that overlooked the porch was open, and Margaret could hear the clang of pans as her mother prepared dinner. The faint buzz of the radio interchanged into the third song of the afternoon.

Margaret placed her book down on the seat and left.

Frank Sinatra followed her, a trail of song that could be heard far down the track from the house.

I’m blue every Monday

She mouthed the next words to herself, skipping her feet to the beat.

Thinkn’ over Sunday. .

Her shoes scuffed the dirt, and up from the house she heard her mother’s voice calling out for her to quit ruining her shoes. A smile pulled at her lips as she bounded off, leaving her mother and Sinatra behind.

At the creek, she found her brother pulling the trap out of the water. Inside, she could see the dozen or so yabbies scrabbling at the wire, crawling over themselves. They were muddy with a sheen of blue, the colour of old, mouldy seaweed.

She snuck up, treading carefully, her feet following the indented footprints of her brother from his earlier trek to the water. The mud of the embankment squelched and it was then her brother stood.

He rounded, grabbing a large stick and pointing it at her. He held it as if a rifle.

“Oh, geez, Marge, what you are doing down here?” he asked, chucking the stick away and kneeling back to the trap. His shirt was rolled up to the elbows, but were dampened, stained yellow from the water of the creek.

“Mother told me to come and help.” She approached, hands behind her back. She didn’t mind if her shoes and socks got ruined, or the skirt of her dress for that matter.

She came forward and knelt beside him. She reached for the trap, putting her fingers through the gaps. The yabbies’ long antennae tickled her hand.

“Marge, leave them alone.” Her brother swiped her prying hand away.

“Patrick, let me help, please.” She pinned him with a stare, her eyes large and doting. He sighed, shaking his head with a smile.

“Fine, help me put them into the bucket.”

She jumped up, racing back up the embankment. She grabbed the round bucket and brought it to her brother. He opened the trap and began pulling the yabbies’ out. They squirmed around in his hands, their pincers waving.

“Do you want to grab one?”

She nodded. When she reached forward to grab one though, it pinched her, immediately drawing blood.

“Ow! Patrick, it got me!” She pulled her hand up to her chest and inspected the small cut. It dribbled a slow trickle of blood. Patrick snorted at the sight and waved his hand for her to leave.

“Just go home, Marge. You’re more nuisance than help.”

She frowned. “But what about my hand?”

“Mother will sort it out, just go, ok?”

Margaret moved to leave, but the low glow of the sun across the eucalyptus trees made her pause. “It’s getting late, Pat. Are you going to be ok in the dark?”

He chucked a glance over his shoulder. “I’m the man of the house now, Marge. You gotta trust me to look after myself.”

She stood for a few moments, waiting for him to change his mind. In the distance, the cackle of a kookaburra could be heard. When she realised he wasn’t going to beg for her to stay, she left, following the dirt track from the creek back to the house.

The landscape slowly changed. Down by the creek, the trees loomed large and crowded against each other. But as she headed back to the house, they thinned, opening out onto a vast, horizon of farmland.

The golden hue of the wheat glowed against the lowering sun. In the distance, the house was a speck of black. Margaret could see the porch light was on though, the truck parked in the driveway.

As she approached, she realised the truck wasn’t their own. It was a faded blue, Ford. Too new to be their own. Ever since their father had left to fight, money had been tight.

She bounded up the porch steps, stopping at the door to remove her shoes. They were caked in mud, and reeked a foul, bitterness. From the open window she heard her mother’s laugh, and then a stranger’s voice asking a question. The clatter of a teacup being placed upon a plate.

When she entered the house, she found her mother seated at the dinner table with a woman and girl.

“Ah, Margaret you’re home. Where’s your brother?”

Margaret stared at the strangers. The woman was well in her early forties, dressed immaculately in a bright, yellow day dress. Her hair was pulled back into an elaborate pompadour. She did not fit into the shabbiness of the dining room. The old wooden table had too many dents and scuffs, the cutlery and plates not fine enough for her tastes.

The girl though, was demure. She sat at the dinner table, her head bowed and shoulders rounded. She was small, and when she looked up, Margaret was temporarily stunned by the largeness of her eyes. The cut on her hand from the yabbie had dried, and remained forgotten.

“Margaret?” her mother called.

She removed herself from the stare of the girl and faced her mother. “Yes?”

“I asked where your brother was?”

She came forward and rested her hand on the back of her mother’s chair. “Oh, well he’s still by the creek. Bringing in the yabbies.”

“Yabbies?” the woman spoke. Her nose had upturned at the word, as if it emitted its own horrible smell. “What on earth is that?”

Her mother chuckled, bringing the cup up to her lips and taking a sip. “Yes, I do forget. Margaret, this is Lynne Jones and her daughter Florence. They’ve recently moved from the city.”

“Pleasure to meet you both.” Margaret moved from her mother’s side and took the seat beside the girl, Florence. The girl offered her a small, smile before returning to her tea.

“And Lynne, you will soon see of what we speak of when it concerns yabbies,” explained her mother. She sent a wink towards Margaret, who only shook her head. She reached for the plate of biscuits and took one, offering it to her guests. Both declined.

The two women never got to see the yabbies. The lateness of the hour beckoned them home. They left with promises to visit again and mother and daughter stood upon the porch, waving goodbye as the blue, truck made its way up the dirt road and out of sight.

Just as it turned its corner and vanished, Patrick appeared. He slugged up the hill, a bucket in each hand and a grin spread wide across his face.

“We’re going to be eating like kings tonight!” he yelled. Margaret ran out to meet him, taking a bucket and helping him. At the porch, their mother reached forward to place a kiss upon each child’s head.

“Come along then, go get cleaned up, the both of you. Dinner will be ready soon.”

The next day was greeted by the caw of magpies. They had nested in the tree beside Margaret’s room and swooped her each time she walked the back of the house to the shed. Her brother had so kindly offered to create a contraption of sorts, a helmet with sticks, to ward the horrible birds away. But her hair was already prone to the humidity of the summer days and needed no encouragement to become mangled from a helmet.

At lunch, Patrick dashed into the house.

“Margaret, Margaret! You’ll never believe!” he came to stand behind her in the kitchen, shaking her shoulders.

She shrugged him away, swiping at him with the wooden spoon in her hand. “Oh, what is it?”

“You know the beautiful lass who works at the corner store?”

“Yes, I do.” She stirred the contents of the pot, awaiting Patrick. A silence bloomed between them, and when Margaret turned to face him, she saw the smirk that had captured his lips. “Oh, Patrick, what did you do?”

He laughed. “Oh, nothing, really! Just…”

“Just what?” she raised an eyebrow, a hand on her hip.

“Well, you know…” he began. He leaned forward to whisper in her ear and what she heard caused her to gasp.

“You little scoundrel!” she whacked him with the spoon and he jumped away with a cackle.

“Oh, come on, Marge, don’t act like you don’t want to hear the details,” joked Pat.

She ignored him, returning to the pot. But now that he had mentioned it, she did want to hear more about it.

“Well, go on then, but speak quietly, or mother will hear!”

Pat leaned forward and began to explain every little detail about his adventure with the corner shop girl. It left Margaret feeling particularly scandalous.

Later that same afternoon, their mother found them sprawled in the lounge room. Pat seated against the couch on the floor, his sister laying across it with a book in her hands.

“Ah, there you both are. Come into the kitchen, won’t you?”

The siblings jumped up, jostling each other.

In the kitchen, their mother held a pot in her hands. “I want you both to deliver this to the Jones’s household. They live on the property next to us.”

Margaret stepped forward to inspect it. Her nose rumpled at the smell. “Oh Lord, what is it?”

Her mother gave Margaret a stern look. ‘Don’t use the Lord’s name in vain. But,” she continued sounding almost shy, “it is a welcome meal. Yabbie and potato soup.”

The two siblings looked at one another. It was unlike their mother to be so welcoming to newcomers. But who were they to question her motives? Pat took the pot and heading out of the house they grabbed their bikes, strapping the meal into the front basket of Margaret’s.

It only took them a couple of minutes to the reach the Jones’s property, but by the time they had arrived Margaret was sweaty, her dress clinging to her pits and thighs. She blamed this all on Pat and his insistent need to ride the bikes hard and fast.

At the door, it was Florence who answered. Again, Margaret was caught by the stare of the girl, the colour of her eyes, so reminiscent of the blue gums around their home. The sight of her left Margaret feeling almost shaky, but she likened this to the ride over.

“Please, come in,” Florence opened the door wider and Margaret went to move, but Pat held her back. She stared at him with a frown.

“We really mustn’t, it was just a quick stop by to deliver this. A welcome gift from our mother,” Pat explained.

Margaret felt her stomach drop when she saw Florence wilt, backing into the home. “Oh, well of course. I understand.” She reached forward to take the pot from Margaret, their hands briefly touching, Florence’s fingers tickling the cut from the yabbie.

Their eyes met and Florence smiled. “Thank you… for the dinner. I’ll make sure to bring the pot back tomorrow.”

“I look forward to it,” Margaret said, almost a little too eagerly. Her brother gave her a pointed stare. The siblings left, Margaret waving goodbye.

As they were riding home, Margaret had the queerest of thoughts. She voiced as such to her brother. “Pat, is it normal for a girl to like another girl?”

He was up ahead, but glanced back when she asked the question. He seemed to ponder it, before shrugging. “I don’t know, never thought about it. Why’s that?”

Margaret let her eyes wander the world around her. She thought about what Pat had described earlier, about the kiss he had shared with the corner shop girl and found herself imagining what it would feel like to do so with Florence.

“I don’t know… I think I like Florence.”

Pat laughed. “Yeah, I figured as much, with the way you were ogling her.”

“I was not!” retorted Margaret, but she couldn’t help smiling.

“Yeah, you were! Race you to the creek?”

Margaret pushed against the pedals of her bike, picking up the pace. “You’re on.”