Tea groaned, shoved the memory away, and tried to find a comfortable position on the lumpy mattress. Arm flung across her eyes against the glare of the single beeswax candle – was there anything on this farm they didn’t make themselves? It was too early to be lying down but there was nowhere else she could put her body. Plans for the dance at the Palmerston town hall: scuppered. Distance between the water tank, the copper, and the girls’ bath: too far.
She’d managed to wash her few work clothes before collapsing in exhaustion. It would be like that for a week or more until Mum could send on her more useful gear, the things she had helpfully unpacked. Thankfully her gumboots made it; she didn’t have the rations to get another pair of the strictly rationed footwear. Her only useful shirt was already yellowing around the collar and armpits, and smelled like sheep no matter how well she scrubbed.
“Knock knock?” A voice of soft light.
Tea swallowed a sigh. Why expect privacy here? “Door is open.”
The weight of sunshine in her doorway. “I thought you had gone to the dance.”
Tea waved Izzy forward. Izzy didn’t have to wait to be invited over the threshold, but she always did. “Could say the same of you. Alison and Carmel took their horses hours ago.”
“Need some Tiger Balm?”
Izzy knew.
Tea swung her legs off the bed and waited for the twinkles at the corners of her vision to subside. That had been happening a lot more this week, and it wasn’t usually when she was tired or upset. “No, thank you. It’s too hard to come by. It’s just a few aches. I’ll push through.”
“Don’t be a goose.” Izzy held out a tin reeking of menthol. “Take a scoop. I don’t use it much.”
Tea’s hand hovered over the tin. “Are you sure?”
“Tea!” A laugh and a warning all at the same time.
“Thank you.”
The emollient burned into the skin of Tea’s shoulders and neck, and she let out a relieved sigh.
“Good.” Izzy tossed the tin on Tea’s nightstand as if it wasn’t as precious as gold. “Ready for an adventure, then?”
“I beg your pardon?” Tea laughed.
“She laughs! Hallelujah!” Izzy raised her arms and danced back out the door.
That smell again! Sweet like Robbie’s sweat after a night of dancing. Warm like linens fresh from the washing line. Deep as the chocolate Tea had almost forgotten the taste of.
“Have I really been such a grumble guts?” Tea asked. “Mum would be so displeased.”
A thin crease appeared above Izzy’s freckled nose – like dark stars – but it disappeared into a wicked smile. “Then it’s a good thing your mum isn’t here. Come on, the coals will be ready.”
Tea snuffed her candle and the cottage pitched into darkness. The huge southern sky embraced the hills, stars immaculate in the moonless night. Did Robbie watch these same stars too, upside down wherever he was?
Izzy hissed at her to move quietly as they approached the farmhouse. Glenn Miller whined from the wireless in the forbidden living room.
Izzy hunched into the hydrangeas and beckoned Tea over. A tiny chink of light showed through a scratch in the black paint, so neat it had to be deliberate.
Tea froze, shaking her head. What sort of adventure was this?
“You’re such a chicken,” Izzy whispered, leading Tea away with a pinch of her elbow. “It’s Saturday night. They’ll be glued to those chairs for hours until the girls come home. It’s about the only time they spend together, alone. You know Mr MacGregor sleeps in the shearer’s quarters mostly.”
“No?”
“It’s true! They love each other, you know. Mrs M was tired of pushing out boys, and now they’re all gone off to war. Why do you think there are so many land girls working here?”
“Alright, that’s enough.” Tea didn’t mean for her low chuckle to come out awkward. Love? That didn’t sound right. Love was for princesses and movie stars.
Izzy tiptoed round to the kitchen door. “It’s hard enough to get placement for one land girl. The farmers don’t like us much. Four on one station is nigh on a miracle.”
Izzy was full of all these strange titbits about the Land Service. Sometimes it sounded like she criticised the government. Was that the treason the posters warned her too look out for? She didn’t think so, but she’d been wrong many times before.
Tea slipped off her gumboots and went pad-foot across the veranda.
“Hey, what are you doing?”
“Liberating the pantry!” Izzy made it sound like some battle.
Tea planted her feet. “I am not stealing from the MacGregors! That’s not fair to everyone.”
Silence. Whatever Izzy was doing in the pantry, she did it well. Tea hated the thought she’d had practise at stealing. More treason? Should she alert Mrs MacGregor? But that would get Izzy in trouble, maybe fired, and there was already barely enough manpower to make the farm function at proper capacity.
Tea’s breath rushed back when Izzy reappeared, a basket of goodies in her hand. Izzy nodded towards the milk can in the cool room.
Saliva flooded Tea’s mouth at the thought of thick and frothy cream. Before she knew what she was doing, she grabbed an enamelled cup, dipped, and dashed back out.
Izzy’s grin flashed like a falling star.
With two of the quieter dogs following and Tea constantly looking back over her shoulder, Izzy humped her creaking basket of goodies over two fences and down a small hill to the creek that cut through a stand of native bush towards the river. The little stone bridge had given Tea pause each time she’d chased a bevy of forlornly shorn sheep into the holding paddock. The thought of the squirming inky bodies of eels below her feet should have disgusted her, but she often found herself bound by the hush and sway of the creek. She had missed the sound of running water without even realising it.
An impish glow beckoned from the edge of the bush. The hill and bridge did a fine job of hiding the sparks spitting skyward when Izzy nudged rocks aside with the toe of her rough work boot. A real campfire!
“Do you know how to make damper?” Izzy broke an egg into a mound of flour and gestured for the milk. Fork scraped against tin plate.
“I heard about it. Robbie said he used to make it when he was mustering up-country.”
A sprinkle of raisins went into the dough, then Izzy wound the sticky mass onto two stakes, propping them over the coals. A billy of water, snuggled into the side of the fire, completed the illicit supper. Tea couldn’t ignore the smells mixing with the delicious green damp from the bush. There was jam in the basket, too. The temptation from the leftover milk became too great and she took a sip. Heaven.