Free Black Diamonds by Kim Kelly Page A

defence that he tempts me. That God created him so well to punish me. I see apples rolling into my skirt — his hands putting them there. I am no Eve — he gave them to me! God is conspicuously quiet on the matter, as always. I should, like Father, give this farce away. There is no God that puts some people in mines and kills them, while others gather the profits in the parlour; no God that gives a widow compensation money only to have her pay it back to the mine responsible for her husband’s death, so that she might have what should be hers anyway: her home. No God that delivers me Achilles in the flesh and then says I can’t look at him.
    So much for Mass. Seems I’m being converted to, what’s that fashionable hoity-Melbourne heathen philosophy called again? Socialism? I have also just had a glimpse of the highest thought I’ve had to date. Father is right, it is a tangle, and I should know more of what things mean beyond myself. For the first time I see the vast realms of my ignorance and I am not afraid. Why should I be? They, at least, are mine.
    Even still, when Friday comes around again I find myself in a bother over what to wear. Despite the fact that I will be going now on serious business — I will carry the Transfer of the Title Deed with me. After calling in on Mrs Ackerman to agree on a price, Father went to the lawyers in Sydney during the week to arrange the papers, and he’s given me instructions as to where Mrs Ackerman will have to sign, and she will give me her bank cheque for one hundred and eighty pounds, and it will be done. I was surprised — what can surprise me next? — that he didn’t want to take it himself, pronounce his good news with a fanfare in his pipe, but perhaps, as he’d said to Mr Drummond, it’s not personal thanks he’s after in this. What then? My education in the tangle? Blow’d if I know, as they say in the classics. Father is a tangly paradox in himself. With a magic hand for all but me. Evidently there was no problem with Mr Drummond, and I find myself remembering the outraged way he talked about the miners that night; that gives me a bit of a chill now. I do know that business is designed to make money, rather than give it away, but it also seems to me that human beings should be rather less expendable than he was suggesting.
    In any case, my thoughts are quickly swamped by remembering my own appalling behaviour at that time. He’s a miner? Filthy, nameless. Please see that Mr Ackerman gets lunch & clothes: and is forthwith removed from my conscience. It calms me a little to self-flagellate about my craven incompetence. Keeps me from dwelling upon the impossibility of my Great Romance. I am, today, extremely grateful to have a significant purpose to my visit: I can’t have Achilles but I can hand over his house to his mother. Well, you can’t have everything, can you?
    The kookaburra looks at me.
    I feel my throat close over.

 
    DANIEL
    She’s sitting there with Mum at the table, showing her where to sign. She’s wearing a brown jacket buttoned right up her throat, the sort that makes a girl look like she actually wants to be a spinster; bloody awful, but somehow she makes even that look all right. Little splash of freckles on her nose. Not that it matters what I think. I’m over in the corner like a spare shovel. She hasn’t looked at me square on since she got here; just a quick hello and into the business. So much for dreaming; she really was after Mum, and was only being polite last time.
    â€˜And that’s it, Mrs Ackerman,’ she says, packing her flash fountain pen away in her pencil box. She looks up at Mum again and smiles, regret in the blink. Mum smiles back and says to her: ‘You and your father have made this so easy. I can’t thank you enough.’
    I can’t believe I’ve been hanging on a line all week for this.
    â€˜It’s the very least