He had sat down on the ground at the beginning of the argument between Kirstie and Sam and it was now passing back and forth over his head.
‘Yes, he ought to be fed,’ said Sam. ‘Do him good. Set him up for work tomorrow.’
Big Sister whirled on them all, shaking a rebuking finger, either at Fred or the other men, it didn’t matter which. They were all as bad as one another.
‘You see! You see!’ she exclaimed. ‘The first thing he wants is food—and I’m to cook it for him, I suppose.’
‘You will?’ said Fred hopefully. ‘That’s kind of you, Big Sister.’
The three men collapsed into laughter, whether at Fred’s sublime innocence or Kirstie’s anger they could not have said.
She shot into the hut and shot out again carrying two cold lamb chops and a damper—the diggings’ primitive version of bread—on a tin plate.
‘Will that do?’ she demanded, thrusting it at him.
‘Nice,’ said Fred, beginning to demolish the food where he sat.
Kirstie stared down at him, watching him cheerfully chewing his way through the grub. For the first time her face softened a little.
‘Are you sure that he’s not simple?’ she demanded of Geordie, who had been watching Fred with a trained eye ever since he had helped to haul him out of the dray. ‘He seems simple.’
‘No, Big Sister,’ he said quietly. ‘I don’t think that he’s simple. He may have been injured recently, though.’
He squatted down by the sitting Fred.
‘Had a knock on the head lately, old fellow?’
Fred looked up. ‘Think so. Not sure. Fred’s had lots of knocks lately.’ He was impatient to finish his chop.
‘Mind if I take a look at your head? I promise not to hurt you.’
‘Don’t mind,’ said Fred, still chewing busily. He smiled at Big Sister again. ‘Nice, I like this.’
Geordie’s long and skilful fingers explored Fred’s skull gently. He soon found a tender spot. Fred winced and pulled away.
‘You said that you wouldn’t hurt Fred,’ he mumbled reproachfully through his last mouthful of chop.
Geordie looked thoughtfully at him before breaking one of the diggings’ major rules. ‘Do you remember your home, Fred—where you come from? Did you live in Melbourne, or did you go there because of the gold rush?’
Fred pushed his empty plate away and hung his head, muttering, ‘My head hurts when you ask me that, Geordie.’
His distress was so plain that even Kirstie began to feel sorry for him.
‘Do you remember anything at all, Fred?’
‘Yes.’ Fred’s voice was so low that they had to strain to hear him. ‘But not much. It hurts when I try to remember.’ He looked around him agitatedly. ‘Where’s my bottle? Who took my bottle away?’
Geordie stood up, shaking his head. ‘It’s all right, Fred, don’t worry. You can tell me another time, perhaps.’
Fred shook his head agitatedly. ‘No, no, nasty—Fred doesn’t want to remember. No one was kind to him. They didn’t give him chops—not like Big Sister.’
‘What’s wrong with him?’ asked Sam. ‘Is he ill? Or what?’
‘Not exactly ill, no, but he needs looking after. He’s lost his memory, you see. He might get over it, and then again he might not. It depends on whether he wants to.’
He looked sadly at Fred, who had cringed into himself, his head on his chest and his knees drawn up to his chin. ‘He’s had a blow on his head, a severe one, and I think that that was what caused him to lose his memory. He’s obviously forgotten who he is—or rather was.’
Big Sister was suddenly sorry for the unkind way in which she had spoken to Fred ever since they had freed him from the nick.
‘He’s not really ill, then, Geordie?’
‘No, Big Sister,’ said Geordie gently. ‘He’s not really ill, but he does need looking after.’
He looked sharply at her. ‘I think that what he might need most of all is kindness.’
‘Will he get his memory back?’ asked Sam.
Geordie shrugged his shoulders. ‘Who knows? He might, and he might not. Only time will tell.’
The gun went off when he finished speaking, so they couldn’t put Fred to work that day, even if they had wanted to, or thought that he was fit to begin digging. When Fred uncoiled himself Bart took him on one side and explained to him that they had freed him from the nick, washed, clothed and fed him, and in return they expected him to work for their syndicate.
‘We’ll pay you a weekly wage, of course,’ Sam added. ‘We’ll see you right.’
Fred nodded agreeably.
‘I’ll try to be good,’ he said.
Geordie had hurt him a little, but these days his head had begun to pain him less and less. The vague feeling of unexplained misery, which had plagued him during his memory of his recent past and which had led to his drinking to forget it, was also beginning to disappear. Besides that, since the Moore party had washed him he had become aware of Ballarat for the first time, rather than seeing it as a blur of unmeaning noise and colour.
Kirstie watched him demolish another large plateful of stodge with every appearance of pleasure, and his reputation as a man who loved his grub was already on the make. He looked happily around while he ate and listened carefully to Bart, Sam, and Geordie when they told him what they expected of him. None of them, even Geordie, had any notion of how much of their instructions he understood.
In all directions lights had come on. There were small fires everywhere. People sat in the open, eating, laughing and talking. Music drifted from a big canvas tent nearby. Ginger Tate, who worked the claim next to theirs, was playing a banjo; the hard drinking and high living which followed the day’s work had already begun.
The lights pleased Fred. He stopped listening to the talk around the fire and pointed his knife at near and distant flames.
‘Pretty,’ he said to Big Sister who was gathering up the dirty plates and cutlery.
‘What is?’ she asked him when he obediently handed her his plate and tin cup.
‘The lights.’ He struggled a minute, attempting to find words to express his pleasure. ‘They’re beautiful.’ He smiled at her so winningly that this time, despite herself, she smiled back at him. She wondered what he would look like if his long black hair and his straggling beard were trimmed. He was certainly a fine figure of a man, justifying Sam’s belief that he would be an asset to the syndicate if he were able to work properly.
‘That’s better,’ he said encouragingly.
‘What’s better?’
‘You. When you smile you look pretty. Do it more often—for Fred.’ His artlessness robbed the words of any ulterior meaning.
‘I need something to smile at, Fred Waring,’ she snapped back at him, but it was only a little snap, nothing like those with which she had treated him when they had fetched him from the nick, before Sam and the others had cleaned him up and had discovered that he had lost his memory.
Allie helped her to collect the pots and carry them into the kitchen of the rude hut which the men had built for her. A large hand appeared in front of her when she bent over the washbowl. It was Fred’s.
‘Help?’ he queried. ‘You need help, Big Sister?’