An Innocent Masquerade. Paula Marshall

‘Time will tell.’

      Fred didn’t object to Mac. He couldn’t remember him as unkind, but the hard-faced man caused him obvious distress when he appeared one day.

      Fred told Geordie that he thought that the police had been very unkind to him before he came to Ballarat, but careful and quiet questioning of him when the others were not about, continued to show that Fred’s memories were all very recent.

      Big Sister bawled at him once when he annoyed her by refusing to hand over a particularly dirty shirt to be washed. ‘Brought up in a pigsty, were you?’

      Great hilarity greeted his solemn answer, ‘Don’t know, Big Sister. Perhaps?’

      ‘Can it be true?’ Kirstie said to Geordie later, ‘Can he really not remember anything? Or is it that, like some, he’s quiet about the past because he’s got a dreadful secret in it which he doesn’t want to reveal to us?’

      Like me, thought Geordie, but said aloud, ‘I don’t know why, Kirsteen. I thought that it was because he’d had a head injury that he couldn’t remember anything, but I’m not sure that the injury was bad enough for that. I think that perhaps he doesn’t want to remember. Don’t question him. It makes him unhappy. Perhaps, one day…’ and he shrugged. ‘I think that he’s already beginning to change a little, which is a good sign.’

      Kirstie thought it all very odd. She continued to be kind to Fred that evening which made Fred very happy. Indeed, what surprised Kirstie the most was how contented Fred usually was—unless he was questioned about his past.

      She remarked to Geordie that perhaps it was because Fred could remember so little that he was happy—which was not the first time that she surprised Geordie by her perception. She had already grasped that it was her memories which made her miserable, whether they were of the loss of her mother, or her dead older sister, Kathleen, or the farm, or her brother Jem, who had deserted them after his marriage to a wealthy farmer’s daughter.

      In the noisy press of their active life she and the others gradually forgot Fred’s strange loss of his past, particularly since living with their little group began to educate him, to make him more responsible and a little less artless. It was not only Geordie who noticed that, when Fred stopped referring to himself as ‘Fred’ so often and began to use ‘I’ instead, much of his oddity disappeared.

      He helped Kirstie in many little ways from that very first evening onwards. He also liked to tease her, as though she were his little sister, but he would always give over if he thought that it made her unhappy. As for his drinking, that had stopped altogether, and even though Geordie had hoped that his attempt to cure Fred might work, he was a little puzzled by how effective it had been. He had never seen a case like this since the days when…well, those days, anyway—he tried not to remember them.

      What Fred did not tell Geordie, or anyone else, for they might think him mad, was that when he thought of having a drink a cold, hard voice in his head told him he was to do no such thing. ‘You’ve had quite enough of that, Fred Waring,’ it said. ‘You don’t need any more.’

      Fred wondered who the voice belonged to. It wasn’t Geordie’s, that was for sure. Geordie’s voice to Fred was always kind. This was a nasty voice. It belonged to a right nasty and arrogant bastard, the sort of person Fred disliked most. It reminded him of the magistrate in Melbourne, or the Commissioner and the police who rode about the diggings being unpleasant to people.

      It was so harsh that Fred was frightened into obeying it. Who knew what might happen if he didn’t do as he was told? Perhaps it was a pity that he didn’t tell Geordie about the voice, for it would have confirmed Geordie’s growing belief about what was really wrong with Fred.

      Fred puzzled for a long time about who the voice might belong to, and then gave up the struggle. Life was too interesting, and there was so much fun to be had, that it would be a pity to waste it worrying about voices. After a time this one began to fade, but Fred was still careful never to take a drink—he didn’t want it back again.

      Fred discovered fun with women quite early on, and like everything to do with Fred, it came about in the oddest manner. Geordie Farquhar was one of the few clean-shaven men in the diggings; most could not be troubled to take the time, or make the effort, to shave off their beards and moustaches once they had reached Ballarat. Thus Big Sister’s dismissal of men as large hairy monsters seemed particularly apt.

      Geordie, however, always kept himself trim—he tried not to become too dirt-encrusted, even if, like everyone else, he fought a losing battle with mud and/or dust.

      Fred, however, once he emerged from his liquor-induced semi-coma began to see the world—and himself—quite clearly. Consequently he started to chafe at his enforced dirtiness and to grieve over his damaged hands, but he had to accept that there was nothing he could do about them, committed to digging as he was. He also disliked intensely his unkempt and unruly black hair and beard. He was vaguely sure that there had been a time when he hadn’t possessed them.

      One day, watching Geordie shave, he came to the conclusion that he, too, would like to rid himself of his beard and shorten his long hair.

      ‘Could you show me how to do that?’ he asked Geordie plaintively.

      ‘Surely,’ said Geordie. ‘Let me do it for you first, Fred, and then you’ll know how to keep in trim yourself.’

      It was a lengthy and painful business, Fred discovered, losing his whiskers, but Geordie’s handiwork transformed him completely. Kirstie was not the only person to stare at the new handsome Fred it revealed to the world. That his teeth were good had always been plain, but that the rest of him was so personable was a surprise.

      Beards could be grown to hide weak, lumpy, and ugly faces, and Big Sister often thought that some men were happy to grow them in order to disguise their facial shortcomings. Trimmed, Fred’s hair fell into loose black curls, which added to the attractiveness of a strong and handsome face.

      ‘Looks a different man, doesn’t he?’ said Sam to Bart. Both of them had ‘run wild’ as Kirstie disparagingly put it, and had luxuriant hairy growths.

      ‘You could say so,’ agreed Bart sadly.

      It had been easy to patronise Fred when he was so vague and looked so wild, but the new man who had emerged from Geordie’s ministrations—like a handsome butterfly breaking out of a cocoon—was not someone you could easily look down on.

      Women turned to stare at Fred when he walked through the diggings, and Kirstie thought that this was what started Fred on his road to ruin with them. Not that Fred was vain. He seemed in some mysterious way innocent of most of the minor sins, vanity included. Perhaps what principally distinguished him was his happiness—it was difficult to upset him other than by being naughty with his food which Kirstie sometimes was in order to punish him for anything she thought was a misdemeanour. Kirstie considered all those in her care, from Sam, Bart and Geordie downwards, to be little more than her children to be kept in order for their own good.

      Fred liked to eat and, whilst not over-fastidious, he always looked glum if he was given the least attractive portions or didn’t get what he considered to be enough. He was big, worked hard and loved his grub. He was always ready for it, and was always the first to hold out his plate for seconds.

      ‘You’re greedy, Fred Waring,’ Kirstie snapped at him once.

      ‘Now, now, Big Sister,’ said Sam mildly. ‘Fred’s a big fellow. He needs his grub and he works hard. Don’t grudge it to him, girl.’

      She half-flung more damper at Fred which he took thankfully. Damper wasn’t exciting, but it was better than nothing. He decided that Big Sister for all her grudging manner deserved a smile, so he gave her one. The effect was dazzling, but didn’t mollify her.

      ‘You needn’t grin at me, Fred Waring! You’ll get your share, no more.’

      ‘I don’t want any more,’ said Fred, who was feeling restless. He didn’t know why, but somehow it was connected with the sheep’s eyes