Stone Sky Gold Mountain by Mirandi Riwoe

Author:Mirandi Riwoe [Riwoe, Mirandi]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

The bullock meat Clem has brought sticks to the bottom of the pot, and Meriem can tell that no matter how long she cooks it for, it will remain tough. Its aroma, though, rises through the steam, filling her with hunger. How she misses roast lamb sandwiches, the slices of meat cool from the ice box, the soft bread lathered with butter and mustard. As soon as she has saved enough money to return to a proper town – in New South Wales, hopefully – she will buy herself a roast lamb sandwich in some reputable eating house. Follow it up with a large piece of sponge cake with fresh cream. Trying to ignore the ache that comes with the realisation that no sandwich or cake would ever taste as good as her mother’s, she jabs at the lumps of meat.

‘My friend here is right. Sure he is,’ says a rough voice in the next room.

Meriem shudders, hidden as she is in the scullery. She’s lucky nobody looked her way when Clem arrived with that man in tow. The very same man Meriem witnessed kicking the dog’s rump that day by his butcher tent. As soon as he pulled the wool cap from his head, the oily stink of his scalp filled the small room.

‘Thank ’e, Dermot,’ Clem says. ‘I cannae persuade Soph that there’s nothing good about them.’

They’re arguing about the Chinese again. The more that Dermot drinks, the more strident his voice becomes, the more his words slur. Meriem chops up two carrots, adds them to the meat with a little water and cornflour. Stirs the muck about, watching the swirl of oil rise to the top of the stock. She often wonders what Sophie would do if she were to fall pregnant to one of her Chinese customers. Doesn’t it fill her with fear? Meriem’s own eyes widen at the thought. She’s not sure how Sophie safeguards herself from pregnancy. Perhaps the next time she’s really drunk, Meriem will ask her. There’s a wry twist to her mouth as she thinks of how such information would have been useful to her a while back. A wisp of wheat hair comes to her mind. A plump, waxen cheek. She dries a damp dish on her apron and looks in on Sophie and her guests.

Dermot fills his pipe, tamping down the tobacco, and says, ‘I don’t know how anyone can tell the smelly buggers apart.’

Meriem recalls the Chinese boy who helped her after the dance. He was familiar somehow. Reminded her of a wood duck, with his tuft of dark hair at the back of his bald pate.

‘Dinna I read in The Week, Dermot, about the Chinese mob that robbed two hundred pounds from the warden?’ Clem says. ‘Tied his poor sod of an orderly up. Said they’d shoot ’im if ’e followed.’

‘Thievin’ rascals.’

Meriem places a plate of damper on the table.

‘The Chinese are probably trying to recoup some of the very money that the warden has stolen from them in the first place,’ Sophie says in a teasing voice.

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