Free Listening to Mondrian by Nadia Wheatley Page A

at the other end of Mr Mace’s land.
    I will finish now, as there seems little point writing when I do not know how I will ever post this to you.
    Your Son, Seamus Murphy.
    Mace’s Farm
Coxs River
New South Wales
17 April 1832
    Dear Mother,
I hope you are well. It is three months now since last I wrote to you but there is little News, as one day here is very much the same as the next.
    I have a little hut of bark and thatch, and my job is to keep an eye on the sheep by day and herd the flock into their pen at night in case the dingoes get them. It is easy work, compared to building the road, but boring and lonely, for my only companions are the sheep and the flies, the snakes and mosquitoes.
    Once a week Mr Mace rides out to check up on me and bring me supplies. I am entitled to 1 pound of beef or mutton a day but he sometimes brings kangaroo instead. This meat is very rich and has a good taste, a bit like oxtail. The problem is that in the hot summer months the meat is flyblown within hours, so I subsist on damper-bread and fish that I catch in the nearby river.
    So that is really all I can tell you of my life here, for nothing ever happens. Sometimes at night when I am in the hut I think of our cottage, by itself on the hillside. After Dad died, I guess you and I got used to the loneliness, but it’s a different feeling, to be alone here.
    I write hoping that one day I might meet someone who can take my letters to you. As an assigned servant, I have no money, and just one small box of belongings. I play the tin whistle that you gave me, but as you know I have no musical Talent. Remember Dad, and how he would play his fiddle for all the dances!
    Your loving Son, Seamus Murphy.
    Mace’s Farm
Coxs River
New South Wales
17 July 1832
    Dear Ma,
Since I have come here I have realised how important it is to read and write and I am thankful that you forced me to go to Father Malarkey, and learn. Though I still do not know how I will ever send these letters to you, it is a comfort to me, just to write them.
    Tonight there is a tremendous Storm, and I am afraid. I could not have said this to you, at home, but here sometimes things are frightening. Do you remember how the sea would crash against the cliffs, on our headland? Well, here sometimes it feels as if the very land is our enemy. And I feel like an alien in it. I wish you were here.
    Love from Seamus.
    ‘Here,’ Mum said. We’d eaten the stew and spuds as I’d been writing, and she’d made a pot of coffee. ‘A dash of the Irish,’ she said. And blow me down if she didn’t get out the bottle of whisky she’d won in the Volunteer Bushfire Brigade Christmas raffle and pour a slurp into each of our mugs. Now this was weird – Mum being against grog as she is – but what was even weirder was that she passed across a letter that seemed to be written exactly to me, Seamus.
    c/- St Josephs Presbytery
Ballyfermough
Connemara
17 July 1832
    My Dear Son,
Father Malarkey has kindly offered to write this letter for me, for as you know I have no schooling, and he says that if I send it care of the Governor of New South Wales it may reach you. It is some years now since you left, to go to the city, and then after your trouble, they took you far away, and though I have not heard from you since then and sometimes wonder if you are still alive, I just want you to know that I think of you and pray for you.
    We are all struggling by here, as usual. His Lordship has raised the rent again and the MacBrides have been evicted. Last winter was the worst I ever remember. I think of you there in the sun, and I know it seems wrong to say this, but at times I think we should all break the law and be transported, for no punishment could be worse than what we endure. Still, I should not dwell on our troubles, for I know that your time out there will not be easy, amongst the snakes and the heathens. And we hear tales of savage beatings, and I pray that you are safe.
    Oh my Son, I was