2011 - Theses - Flinders University

‘Righto.’ He juts his chin. ‘Pick you up there then,’ he says without looking at her, andturns to another customer along the long bar. Becky is glad to return to the sunlight, and thenext leg of her journey.The Mail coach stops at Louth, and the driver and other passengers are quickly soaked up bythe four pubs that perch along the high banks of the low Darling river. The soft hangingleaves of the huge gums lining the river banks move with the slow breeze, and Becky smellsthe tang of eucalypt mingled with the sickly sweet scent from the cordial factory, and theyeasty warmth of the several bakeries. For all this, she is told, Louth was not a town, but aland grant of one TA Matthews, a blacksmith, among other things, from County Louth inIreland. Two monstrous wool scourers on the river banks near the small wharf lie quiet likesleeping dogs, and she wonders when they might be cranked into life for the wool of thestation that lies all around TA’s town. Becky tries to imagine a boundary fence all the way tothe distant blue hills, but her gaze is taken by something much closer, and she sets offtowards it.Becky reaches a small cemetery, and looming some twenty feet high at its centre, is a hugegranite cross. She reaches out to stroke its smooth granite, and trace the marble heart hung atits base. She reads:‘Sacred to the memory of Mary Matthews, the wife of Thomas A Matthews of Louth, whodeparted this life August 15th 1868 aged 42 years. Dearly beloved by all who knew her. Avirtuous wife and indulgent mother. May she rest in peace.’Forty-two years old. I’m not far from that, Becky thinks. But nobody knows me here, and I’mno good wife or mother, either. I wonder poor dear did she ever think she would lie in peaceout here? She tilts her head towards the head of the Cross. And no reason to think her rough,37