Wild Lands Read Online Free PDF Page A

beginning to think about other things, white fleshy things, things she couldn’t easily wipe from her mind.
    Finally Madge paused in her eating, one hand knuckle-deep in the soup as the bread she held grew soggy in the meat-flavoured water. Her head tilted sideways and with the movement Madge’s curly hair poked out from beneath the mob cap.
    â€˜You went in there, didn’t you, Kate? Nicked Mrs Lambeth’s shawl and then left it in the Reverend’s parlour so he’d think she was out to steal something.’
    â€˜Madge,’ the cook cautioned, ‘remember who she is.’
    â€˜I never,’ Kate retorted; she felt her cheeks turn red.
    â€˜Caught, you are, good and caught. But you know it won’t do no good what I say, or anyone else, ’cause you’re her daughter and she’s with ’im. Oh yeah, we know all about it. Your mother lays with him, she does. The God-fearing man what calls ’imself theReverend. Reverend !’ Madge spat on the dirt floor. ‘And your pretty mother opens her legs for ’im and says Amen.’
    â€˜She does not,’ Kate cried.
    â€˜Lambeth ’ere will be punished for your doings. She’ll be sent to the Female Factory in Parramatta with the rest of the sluts and the whores who’ve done wrong and they’ll shave her head if she even points her little finger in the wrong direction. She’ll spend her days making rope and carded wool. Isn’t that right, Mrs Lambeth?’
    The cook’s eyes grew wide with fear. ‘I thought them women did sewing and the like there now?’
    â€˜Sleep on piles of wool she will, eat slops that a pig wouldn’t touch. I always said you’d get us into trouble, you with your native-born ways, sneaking about, thinking you can go anywhere and do anything.’
    â€˜I never,’ Kate replied, shrinking back from Madge’s anger.
    â€˜Maybe if she said something,’ Lambeth began thoughtfully, her gaze resting on Kate. Her lower eyelids drooped so that the red inner part of the eyeball revealed itself. ‘Her mother has the ear of the Reverend, like you say.’
    â€˜She’s got a lot more than an earful,’ Madge replied knowingly. ‘Turn a trick that woman can. And who would have thought it? Native born, better than us, eh? I don’t think so. Lesley Carter’s no different to the rest of us. In the end the only thing a woman has that’s worth a spit is what’s between her legs.’
    The two women stared at Kate from across the table. The room was stuffy with the heat from the fire. Sweat dripped from Kate’s hairline and ran down her cheek. She wanted to tell these women that they were wrong. That her mother wasn’t like them, that she would never be like them because Lesley Carter was free-born.
    â€˜Look what you’ve done, Madge, you’ve made her cry,’ Lambeth tutted.
    â€˜Go on. You could say something, you know.’ Madge’s voice grew soft and wheedling. ‘Help Mrs Lambeth out. She does feed you and care for you in her own way.’
    â€˜Yeah, in me own way.’ The cook leant across the table, reached out a crinkly skinned arm.
    Kate pulled away from the woman’s touch.
    Madge’s cracked smile revealed a line of broken teeth. ‘We could all be friends then, eh? You show us you’re willing to help one of us and we’ll be more kindly towards you, won’t we, Mrs Lambeth?’
    â€˜Yes, yes, of course.’ The cook stacked the chipped bowls and wiped the table of crumbs, tipping them into the pot bubbling over the fire.
    â€˜You being so pretty and all,’ Madge continued, ‘well, how could the Reverend say no to you?’ She turned to the cook. ‘Spitting image of her mother. Ain’t she the spitting image of her mother? That long dark hair and them big eyes.’
    Dipping the bowls in a basin of water, the cook wiped them