As everything went black her only thought was for the boys; they had already lost their father ...
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"Hold still, Mrs Beazley," a voice muffled by the fog in her brain, "just need to set this leg." A tug, pain and warmth, then blackness again.
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She wasn't sure what time it was or how long she had been asleep but the sun was low in the sky when she opened her eyes again. Her mouth was dry, her head ached and her leg felt strangely heavy.
It took a moment to register there was someone else in the room and that the room was in the hospital.
"Hello?" she croaked.
"Ah, we're awake, good," a practical, condescending voice hummed.
"You maybe," Jean thought huffily, 'I'm not so sure about me.'
The nurse took her wrist and checked her pulse.
"Water?" Jean licked her dry lips.
"Of course, dear." A glass was pressed to her bottom lip and she relished the cool liquid on her tongue and round her teeth.
"What happened?"
"According to your son, you tripped and fell."
"Christopher?"
"The elder one, yes," she nodded.
"Are they alright, I mean ..." her heart began to race, "my husband ... the Solomons ..." she began to cry.
"Sister Josephine will take care of them."
"The orphanage! Oh no, my sister ..."
"She wasn't available, she says ..."
Jean and her sister were often at odds. Annie was the good girl the one who didn't date lots of boys (in all fairness Jean had only dated one boy before Christopher Beazley) and waited until she wed Reg Parkes before 'going all the way'. But Jean was a little wilder, she was inquisitive from the day she was born – or as her father put it – "A right little sticky beak." She wanted to explore, to travel but the first time she let Christopher touch her she sealed her fate. Four months later, her best Sunday dress straining across her belly, she stood at the altar in Sacred Heart and promised herself to Christopher Beazley, forsaking all others. That baby had been born far too early, hadn't even cried and Jean was told it was God's punishment for going against the tenets of the church. Now Annie had let her down, and she hadn't tripped, she'd been disciplining Jack, her younger son, and he had pushed her causing her to fall off the step at the back door of the house. Christopher had lied to keep his brother out of trouble.
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By the time she was well enough to go back home the crops had died in the fields and there was storm damage to the barn. She hadn't seen here sons as children weren't allowed in the hospital, all she had were reports from Sister Josephine that they were well and attending school.
There was nothing for it; she couldn't run the farm alone, Family Welfare wouldn't let her have the boys back to live in such a place, she had to sell. She didn't get half what she thought it was worth but it was all she was offered, so she sold the farm and house to Ben and Ruth Dempster, packed her few clothes and possessions and went to throw herself on Sister Josephine's mercy. She offered to cook and mend clothes in turn for shelter and the chance to see her boys.
"I'm a hard worker, Sister," she sighed, "and I can cook."
"We don't have elaborate ingredients here, Mrs Beazley," Sister Josephine looked her up and down, she knew her story.
"I didn't on the farm, either," Jean hummed, "fruit and vegetables, I made my own bread..."
"Hm," the nun frowned.
"I'm not asking anything above bed and board, Sister, and the chance to see my boys."
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She worked hard, her cooking was good and she was able to stretch the ingredients further than the nun who usually did the cooking, so the children were well fed. She spent as much time as she could with Christopher and Jack, though Jack was often in trouble, playing truant, being cheeky at school and disobedient, he was caught stealing from the greengrocers and subjected to a firm talking to by Superintendant Ashby, ran with a bad crowd ...
Jean tried hard to help him see the error of his ways, set him to work in the kitchen garden she had started at the orphanage, but he was not a farmer and could be found hiding behind a shed smoking stolen cigarettes. The situation came to a head two years later; Christopher joined the army at sixteen, kissed his mother and headed off to what he hoped was a better life.
"I'll write, mum," he kissed her tear streaked cheek, "there's nothing for me here, in Ballarat, but I'll come and see you, when I'm on leave."
"Be careful, Christopher," she sniffed, "please."
"I'll be fine, mum," he smiled.
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Jack still caused her trouble, but it was trouble she could deal with, she thought, until she was called down to see Superintendant Ashby and Senior Constable Lawson.
"The last straw, Jean," Constable Matthew Lawson sighed. He'd known Jean for years, admired her, they were friends, "Jack got hold of a gun, he shot a window out at school."
She gasped and put her hand over her mouth.
"What's going to happen to him, Matthew, he's too young to go to jail?"
"Ashby's sending him to the reform school in Melbourne, you won't be able to see him ..."
"He's my son, Matthew, isn't there anything you can do?"
"I'm only a lowly constable Jean, I don't make the rules ..."
"Neither does Doug Ashby," she snapped.
"He's following protocol as much as he has to, he could send him to court but that would only see him in jail, reform school is the only other option. I'm sorry."
She could see he truly was sorry, "I tried, Matthew, honestly, but after we lost his father he just went off the rails."
"It seemed to get worse when you fell," Matthew touched her arm.
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There was nothing Jean could do but watch Jack be taken by police van to Melbourne, she doubted very much that a reform school would do him any good and knowing that she would not be able to see him, to see if he was alright made it even worse. The only thing she could do was speak to him before he went and tell him to work hard and reflect on his behaviour.
"I love you, Jack," she sighed, holding back the tears, "you are my son, but the things you have been doing are wrong. We can write, so please, just a line or two to let me know you are well."
Jack slumped in his seat and scowled. He'd argued that it wasn't his gun, but everybody else said he was the one that took it and bragged that he knew how to shoot and Jean didn't doubt that, Jack had used the farm gun once when he thought his mother wasn't looking. She had sold it to the gunsmiths, she didn't need it, her husband had used it to put down animals that were sick or injured but she could ask a neighbour to do that for her. He didn't return her good bye hug but as he was taken away Matthew put his arm around her shoulders.
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With Christopher away in the army and Jack gone from her care, Jean felt lost. She continued to cook and sew for the orphanage but she did wonder if there was something other than this servitude for her.
More often than not, she shopped for the orphanage on market days and close to closing time, that way she could make the little money Sister Josephine gave her go further. She would take two or three of the older boys with her to carry the purchases and haggle with the stallholders over the price of damaged produce or fruit that was going over that she could make into pies or crumbles. As the boys were given as much as they could carry she sent them off to put the groceries into the back of the ancient pick-up truck she used, the one she had taken from her farm for their use and she would pass the butcher's shop to see if she could bargain for some meat, cuts that the wealthier housewives turned their noses up at.
On this particular day she perused the notices in the newsagents, old furniture for sale, litters of puppies or kittens that needed homes and occasionally a job. The jobs were usually for paperboys or errand boys, Saturday jobs for teenagers, but this time there was a position advertised for a housekeeper and receptionist at a doctor's surgery. There were few details but she took note of them and wrote down the phone number in her little diary and thought she might ring and see what it was all about.
Everybody knew old Dr Blake. He had had a French wife who had died years ago, and a son who he had sent to boarding school and was next seen finishing his schooling at Ballarat West before leaving Ballarat. He was known to be crusty, grumpy and quick-tempered, but he was a good doctor.
"All done, Mrs Beazley," the boys stood waiting.
"Two minutes, boys," she smiled, "I just have to make a phone call."
"Right-ho," they grinned.
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Jean always carried a little of her own money with her, from the sale of the farm usually for her own personal purchases so a penny or two for a phone call was available.
The phone was answered quickly, the tone of the man she spoke to was irritable, but he agreed to see her the next morning, she had to be on time or she could forget it.
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She wore her best suit, the one she wore for serious occasions, polished her shoes and made sure her hair was neat. She had a little make-up, some lipstick that she rarely wore and face powder.
"I have an appointment in town," she told Sister Josephine when she remarked she wasn't dressed for cleaning. "I shall finish my chores when I return."
She felt, since the trouble with Jack, that her list of chores seemed to have got longer. She had gone to cook and sew for the occupants, but lately she had found she was cleaning the church silver, cleaning the floors and doing the laundry, a housekeeper in all but name – and unpaid except for bed and board. She knew she was worth more than that, but the church frowned on women who got themselves in the family way before having a ring on their finger, and troubled children were, of course, the mother's fault. This was her punishment. The church was run by men, what would they know?
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Jean stood in the porch and thought the hanging basket needed water, the door furniture could do with a good clean and the floor needed sweeping. She smoothed down her skirt and jacket and knocked.
"Surgery isn't 'til two," the man who opened the door grunted.
"Dr Blake?" she extended her hand and smiled sweetly, "Mrs Jean Beazley, we spoke yesterday."
"Huh," he stepped back, "you'd better come in."
"Thank you," she stepped into a dark, gloomy hall with a side table that held a small dish in which were a set of car keys.
"So, you think you can be a housekeeper, eh?"
"I can keep house, yes," she nodded, "I cook, clean, laundry unless you use the laundrette ..."
"I don't, the woman who is going washed," he huffed, and stormed off into the house, "keep up, girl," he snapped.
She followed smiling at being addressed as 'girl'.
"Right, there's the kitchen, do something?"
Jean took her jacket off and went to the back door where she could see an apron on the hook. She put the kettle on and set it to boil while she ran a bowl of hot water into the sink and cleaned the table, before finding a tray, cleaning that, searching through the drawers in the dresser and finding all she needed to set a neat tea tray, with cup, saucer, milk and sugar. She warmed the pot and put the tea into it, then poured on the boiling water and set the pot on the tray.
He pulled out a chair by him at the head of the table and waited. She took this as she should also sit.
"How do you take your tea, doctor?" she smiled.
"Milk, no sugar," he grunted.
She poured the drink and slid the cup and saucer over to him.
"You not having one?"
"Thank you, doctor," she stood up and got another cup and saucer out of the cupboard, poured her own cup and added sugar.
"Bad for you," he huffed, "too much sugar, diabetes."
"I shall bear that in mind," she smiled.
They drank their tea in silence, then he got up and pulled a book, a ledger, out of a drawer. He set it down, opened it at a recent page, gave her a pencil and told her to do the accounts for the previous week.
She took the pencil, read down the figures, did a few little sums on the page; calculated his income from the surgery, his outgoings for the rates, telephone, power and what his current, or previous, housekeeper had spent on groceries.
"There," she pushed to book over to him, "too much spent on the groceries, if there's only you here, though I assume your housekeeper eats with you?"
"Only lunch," he scrutinised her work, "too much you say?"
"Do you really get through that much meat?" she pointed to the butcher's bill, "how much is thrown away," she got up and went to check the kitchen bin where she found the remains of a meat pie. "When did you have meat pie?"
"Last night," he watched her, "why?"
"Well the rest is in the bin, it could have fed you today, kept in the fridge it would last a couple of days, a waste, Dr Blake," it was her turn to huff. She went over to the refrigerator and checked the contents, "hm," she frowned, "there's a lot of cheese here, and a whole pound of sausages at least, bacon, chops, three pints of milk, a pound of butter and a chicken for roasting." She went and looked in the vegetable basket, "these need using or they will be over," she lifted some carrots and a cabbage.
"You seem to know your way around food, Mrs Beazley, and economics."
"I've had to, doctor, I ran a farm, they don't make much you know, and at the moment I cook for Sister Josephine and I have to make the food stretch."
"Why are you working for that woman?" he scowled.
"I fell, broke my leg, the boys, I have two sons, one's in the army now the other is, I am afraid to say ... well he's a troubled boy," she blushed, "my husband died in the Solomons and I couldn't run the place alone so as the boys had been taken to the orphanage while I recovered. The boys were taken there by Family Welfare, I offered to cook for my bed and board."
"So your other boy has been in trouble with the police has he?"
"Yessir," she whispered.
"Doubt it was your fault, Mrs Beazley, you don't seem to be the type raising criminals; so, the post can be live in, if you want, I need someone to cook and clean, do the laundry, arrange the surgery appointments, do the filing, do the accounts and take the phone calls for which I shall pay you ten pounds a week, higher than average but you are doing more than one job ..."
"Goodness, Dr Blake," she gasped, she hadn't twigged him as such a generous employer.
"I am the Police Surgeon as well, Mrs Beazley," he continued, "so some of my appointments have to be re-scheduled if I am called out by Ashby."
"I see," she hummed, "well, that seems to be fair, would the end of this week be acceptable, for me to start. I oughtn't to just drop Sister Josephine in it."
"I suppose so; do you want to live in?"
"I think that would be sensible, doctor, I have no other place to go and if the phone goes during the night ..."
"Well, I shall give you a tour of the house and you can choose a room, upstairs."
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Jean sat in the truck while she thought what she was going to say to Sister Josephine. Part of her felt she was being ungrateful but part of her thought Sister Josephine was taking advantage of her initial desperate need. She heaved a sigh and decided she would just have to tell her straight then get on with the chores.
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Jean left all her recipes written down for whoever was going to take over the cooking, she left the church silver gleaming, the floors swept and the laundry washed, ironed and folded – Sister Josephine had no complaints but she still wasn't particularly happy that she had lost the best, and cheapest, worker.
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Dr Blake could not believe his eyes when he returned from his hospital rounds. He'd let Mrs Beazley into the house, apologised and headed out to Ballarat General.
"I'll be back after my rounds," he unlocked the car door and got in. She watched him drive out onto the road, sighed and went inside. Upstairs, in the little room she had chosen she left her suitcases on the bed and went down to see where she should start.
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"Doctor?" she called when she heard him open the front door, "tea?"
Dr Blake looked around the hall; it was polished, the rugs had been beaten, the side table had a beautiful arrangement of garden flowers on it. It seemed lighter than when he had left it.
"Mrs Beazley," he cleared his throat and sat down to take his tea, "I see you've started." The kitchen seemed tidier too.
"I didn't think you employed me to sit and wait for instructions, Dr Blake," she hummed, "I shall start on the living room after lunch, if that's acceptable."
"Yes, but you will be seeing patients in and out this afternoon," he reminded her of one of her other duties.
"Surgery starts at two?"
"It does."
"In that case I don't have time to sit around drinking tea, I'll do the waiting room now."
He blinked and she was gone.
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Jean wasn't sure what Dr Blake's previous housekeeper had done, but she didn't think it was much above spending his money on too many groceries and drinking tea. By the end of the first week she had cleaned the house from top to bottom, reordered his filing system to one that made sense and started to feed him with well cooked meals that were tasty and didn't cost the earth.
He found her efficient, the patients liked her and she was pleasant company in the evenings when he invited her to join him in a sherry.
It was during these quiet times he found out about her life, the farm, her marriage to Christopher, her boys and he in turn told her about his wife, who he plainly adored still, his son who troubled him with his time in the army, in the POW camp and his Chinese wife and half-caste daughter.
"I write," he sighed, "but he just sends the letters back unopened. I don't know why."
Jean didn't want to say but he had told her he sent Lucien to boarding school almost immediately after his wife died and he had voiced his disapproval of his marrying an oriental, so she wasn't really surprised young Dr Blake refused to read the letters. Perhaps if he had remembered he had brought a foreign woman home to be his wife he may not have been so judgemental about Lucien marrying a Chinese woman. But it wasn't for her to say, so she kept her own council.
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As time went on Dr Blake found he relied on the young housekeeper more and more. She became more than just an employee, she became a friend. She was never seriously ill, so he never had to treat her for anything above a bout of flu once and a twisted ankle when she stepped off the stool after putting something on a high shelf. She kept his waiting room and surgery sparkling, his supplies well stocked and there was always a pile of cleaned and pressed sheets for the examination table. She also would assist in the treatment of burns and cuts that some patients came with, preferring not to take their sons or daughters to the hospital, in some cases he left her to it while he dealt with another case that required medical training.
Her cooking was superb, hearty stews in the cold weather, light salads in the summer time and recipes to suit other times of the year. She made jams with the fruit from the garden which she tended with the same care she tended the house and him, she baked her own bread and cakes; the biscuit tin was kept well stocked though he was judicious in his use of it. She usually put a couple of treats on his mid surgery tea tray, and for small, upset children there was always a treat to make them smile and forget their ills. He observed one evening, after a little girl had been soothed with the offer of a jam thumbprint biscuit, that his sons had been lucky to have such an excellent baker for a mother.
Jean just smiled and said she enjoyed baking.
In time he called her 'Jean' and she called him 'Thomas' though not in front of the patients, in front of his clients they kept up the professional relationship which was all it was. Thomas was old enough to be her father and that was what she told those who gossiped about her sharing the house with a single male. They would look her up and down, her smart well tailored coat, or her pretty summer dress – surely there was more going on in the house? But it was what it should be, her wardrobe was better now, she could afford to buy nice fabric to sew new clothes or to buy a good winter coat and shoes, but she was never over dressed, never flashy – Thomas paid her well to be his housekeeper and receptionist and she had no extra outgoings for her accommodation.
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Her old truck finally gave up; it had served her well but no longer would it take her into town to do the shopping.
"Best use the Riley," Thomas grunted as they watched the scrap dealer tow it away, "no need for you to get another."
"You pay me well, Thomas," she smiled, "but not that well."
"Ah," he nodded, "quite."
"I can use the bus, or walk, it's no distance," she hummed, "but, yes, if the car is available and I have a lot to get..."
"Good ..."
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"And how is young Christopher?" he asked one evening as she read the latest letter from her eldest son.
"He is well, thank you, he has some leave next month ..."
"Does he want to come and see you, I hope he does?" Thomas frowned; so far Christopher had only written he had never visited or suggested he might do so.
"He says it would be nice to see me," she sighed.
"Then invite him to stay, he can use one of the rooms upstairs," he grunted, blushed and sipped his nightly whisky.
"That's very kind of you, Thomas ..."
"He's your son, Jean, you should get to see him some time without travelling all the way to Adelaide and staying in a guest house. Tell him he can stay here."
It was true, she would take a few days to go to Adelaide and stay in a cheap hotel when he had some leave a couple of times a year, but other than that she never saw Christopher. Of Jack she heard nothing, not even after he left the reform school. She worried about him, what he was doing? who he was associating with? but he couldn't live with her, she couldn't ask that of Thomas.
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Christopher stood outside the house and wondered on his mother's relationship with Dr Blake. She sounded happy in her letters, she enjoyed her work, she looked well when he did see her and Dr Blake was a generous employer.
"Christopher!" she opened the door, a huge smile on her face. She looked better than he'd seen her look in ages. "Come in love, it's so good to see you."
"Hello, mum," he bent a kissed her cheek, "you sure it's alright for me to stay?"
"It was the doctor's idea," she took him through the house and up to his room, next to hers. "This is for you while you are here, the bathroom's down the hall ..."
"Looks lovely, mum," he dropped his bag on the floor.
"I'll put the kettle on while you freshen up," she squeezed his arm, "I'm so glad you came."
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He found the kitchen easily enough and there was tea waiting, fresh biscuits and the smell of a roast on the go.
"Quite a big house for you to look after on your own," he hummed, helping himself to another biscuit.
"Once I had it all properly cleaned it became easy," she smiled, "and I have my routine for when things are done ..."
"Washing on Monday, ironing on Tuesday ..." he grinned, "I remember."
"It works," she laughed.
"It always did," he agreed.
"I expect you will want to go and see some of your old friends, while you're here," she watched him look all around the kitchen.
"If that's ok, I mean as I am here it would be nice to see how Sam is doing and Artie, you just tell me when I have to be back for dinner and I'll be here."
"I think you should," she smiled, "dinner is at half past five, on the dot, that's how the doctor likes it, then we usually just sit and talk over a drink in the evenings, but if you want to go out you are free to do so, I can give you my key."
"You sure, mum?" he frowned.
"The doctor has told me that you are to be able to come and go freely but please don't come back the worse for drink, Christopher."
"I won't," he patted her hand reassuringly.
"Do you ever hear from Jack? He never writes, it worries me."
"No, but how would he know where to find me?"
"I put it in one of my letters, when he was still at the school. I do wish Ashby hadn't sent him there, I'm sure he met some boys who were worse than he was."
"Mum," Christopher sighed, "Jack's an adult now, you can't protect him, not from himself. I don't know why he went the way he did ..."
"Too much like your father," she hummed, "he needed a firmer hand than I had ..."
"You were no push over, mum, we knew what you expected of us, Jack just didn't want to behave. He thought that you would push him to take on the farm, even after you had sold it ..."
"He was never going to be a farmer, and that's alright, I didn't plan on being a housekeeper, but it suits me. We sometimes find our place in the most obscure ways."
"What did you want to do, mum? When you were younger?"
"I wanted to travel to world, see all the amazing places I had read about in books, but it was a dream, Christopher, farm girls like me don't get to see the world, and your father was happy here."
Christopher felt there was something that happened all those years ago that cornered his mother. He thought perhaps, she might have had the chance to travel if something very serious hadn't happened, or been done to her. He couldn't ask it was for her to volunteer the information, whatever it was it had trapped her right where she didn't want to be. Now he saw she was happier than she had been in a long time, perhaps she as where she should be, at least for now.
Dr Blake arrived back from a home visit; Jean introduced him to her son and made a fresh pot of tea while the doctor went through the few messages that had been taken.
"Ah, Miss Nell," he hummed, "make an appointment for her Jean, please, she knows I won't prescribe her medication without a check up." He put the note to one side, "some of my older patients, Christopher, think they can get away with murder."
"I do hope not, Thomas," Jean teased. "And I have already done so; she will be here tomorrow at two thirty."
"You know what I mean," he laughed, "Miss Nell Clasby is the worst for trying to get her prescriptions made up over the phone."
Christopher noted the ease with which his mother spoke to the doctor and the less than formal way he spoke to Jean; unlike many he saw nothing wrong with this, all he saw was an employer and employee who worked well together.
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The days that Christopher spent with his mother went well, he saw his old friends in town, helped her with her shopping one day and treated her and the doctor to a meal at the hotel.
"Good of you, boy," Thomas nodded, "and kind of you to invite me."
"Glad to have you along, sir," Christopher nodded.
Jean noted that the two men got along tolerably well, Thomas asked about life in the army and she knew he was thinking about his own son and Christopher said it suited him and that he had found a talent for languages so was assigned to intelligence.
"Excellent lad," Thomas grinned, "only managed French myself, but that was my wife, she was from Paris."
"Ah," Christopher nodded, his mother had told him as much as she knew about the late Mrs Genevieve Blake, "I speak Korean," he smiled, "and I'm learning Mandarin ..."
"Get 'em mixed up?"
"At the moment too often," he laughed, "but that's ok, I'll sort it our eventually."
"Of course you will." Thomas thought for a moment, "I expect my boy, Lucien, will speak Malay or some such dialect, served in Singapore ..." he hummed.
"Sounds about right," Christopher agreed, "maybe a Chinese dialect too."
"Hm," Thomas nodded.
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The night before he left, Christopher thanked Dr Blake for allowing him to stay, it had been kind of him, he said.
"Glad to have you, boy," Thomas nodded, "anytime, you are most welcome."
"Thank you, sir."
"Besides, how else is your mother supposed to feed you," he laughed.
"Yeah, gotta admit I miss mum's cooking."
Jean blushed and laughed.
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And so the years rolled on, Jean and Thomas worked in harmony, patients came and went, Doug Ashby retired and Matthew Lawson was promoted to inspector, much to Jean's relief; police surgeon cases didn't interrupt them to much but there was always the spectre of his son, Lucien in the background. Thomas wrote monthly, and each month the letters were returned, unopened.
"I don't know how to reach out to him, Jean," he sighed.
"I understand," she hummed.
"You do? Of course, Jack, I'm sorry Jean, I should have considered your feelings."
"No, it is of no matter," she shifted in her seat, "Jack is the one who is turning his back on me, as Lucien is with you. But, what about his daughter, surely you would not stop him trying to find her. When Singapore fell, you said he was taken prisoner, what happened to his wife, his child?"
"All I have found out is that his wife died at the hands of the invading forces and the child went missing, possibly to an orphanage."
"And you have searched? The child needs her family, Thomas, whatever you think of Lucien's marriage she is a child ..."
"She will be sixteen, Jean, and I have never even seen her," tears filled his eyes as he thought of a child, a young girl, alone – prey to whoever – "dear God, Jean, what have I done?"
"Stop, self recrimination will not do you any good, Thomas, we need a plan," she stood up and poured him another whisky and helped herself to an extra sherry.
And so the plan was formed. Rather than Thomas write to the orphanages around Singapore and into China, Jean did, but nothing was written to Lucien.
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There were piles of letters, written in poor English, but none could say where Li Blake was now. She had been in an orphanage, but when she turned fifteen had been sent out into the world, the new world, to make her own way. Jean wrote to the British Consulate asking for their help, after all Lucien had served with the British army.
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She saw Thomas off to his rounds at the hospital and turned her attention to the laundry, as Christopher had noted, it was Monday.
The twin tub she had finally persuaded Thomas to invest in was on the go, she had vacuumed the living room and was just about to put the kettle on when there was a knock at the door ...