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The Thorn Birds
Colleen Mccullough
for
“big sister”
Jean Easthope
Contents
There is a legend…
v
One: 1915–1917 Meggie
1
1
3
2
23
Two: 1921–1928 Ralph
63
3
65
4
93
5
115
6
136
7
168
Three: 1929–1932 Paddy
213
8
215
9
245
Four: 1933–1938 Luke
281
10
283
11
315
12
353
13
387
Five: 1938–1953 Fee
425
14
427
15
441
16
478
Six: 1954–1965 Dane
523
17
525
18
593
Seven: 1965–1969 Justine
653
19
655
E-Book Extra: Colleen McCullough On…
693
About the Author
695
Praise for The Thorn Birds
696
By Colleen McCullough
699
Front Cover
1
Copyright
700
About the Publisher
701
THERE IS A LEGEND
There is a legend about a bird which sings just once in its life, more
sweetly than any other creature on the face of the earth. From the
moment it leaves the nest it searches for a thorn tree, and does not
rest until it has found one. Then, singing among the savage branches,
it impales itself upon the longest, sharpest spine. And, dying, it rises
above its own agony to outcarol the lark and the nightingale. One
superlative song, existence the price. But the whole world stills to
listen, and God in His heaven smiles. For the best is only bought at
the cost of great pain…. Or so says the legend.
ONE
1915–1917 MEGGIE
1
On December 8th, 1915, Meggie Cleary had her fourth birthday.
After the breakfast dishes were put away her mother silently thrust
a brown paper parcel into her arms and ordered her outside. So
Meggie squatted down behind the gorse bush next to the front gate
and tugged impatiently. Her fingers were clumsy, the wrapping
heavy; it smelled faintly of the Wahine general store, which told
her that whatever lay inside the parcel had miraculously been
bought, not homemade or donated.
Something fine and mistily gold began to poke through a corner;
she attacked the paper faster, peeling it away in long, ragged strips.
“Agnes! Oh, Agnes!” she said lovingly, blinking at the doll lying
there in a tattered nest.
A miracle indeed. Only once in her life had Meggie been into
Wahine; all the way back in May, because she had been a very
good girl. So perched in the buggy beside her mother, on her best
behavior, she had been too excited to see or remember much. Except for Agnes, the beautiful ’doll sitting on the store counter,
dressed in a crinoline of pink satin with cream lace frills all over it.
Right then and there in her mind she had christened it Agnes, the
only name she knew elegant enough for such a peerless creature.
Yet over the ensuing
3
4 / COLLEEN MCCULLOUGH
months her yearning after Agnes contained nothing of hope; Meggie
didn’t own a doll and had no idea little girls and dolls belonged
together. She played happily with the whistles and slingshots and
battered soldiers her brothers discarded, got her hands dirty and
her boots muddy.
It never occurred to her that Agnes was to play with. Stroking
the bright pink folds of the dress, grander than any she had ever
seen on a human woman, she picked Agnes up tenderly. The doll
had jointed arms and legs which could be moved anywhere; even
her neck and tiny, shapely waist were jointed. Her golden hair was
exquisitely dressed in a high pompadour studded with pearls, her
pale bosom peeped out of a foaming fichu of cream lace fastened
with a pearl pin. The finely painted bone china face was beautiful,
left unglazed to give the delicately tinted skin a natural matte texture. Astonishingly lifelike blue eyes shone between lashes of real
hair, their irises streaked and circled with a darker blue; fascinated,
Meggie discovered that when Agnes lay back far enough, her eyes
closed. High on one faintly flushed cheek she had a black beauty
mark, and her dusky mouth was parted slightly to show tiny white
teeth. Meggie put the doll gently on her lap, crossed her feet under
her comfortably, and sat just looking.
She was still sitting behind the gorse bush when Jack and
Hughie came rustling through the grass where it was too close to
the fence to feel a scythe. Her hair was the typical Cleary beacon,
all the Cleary children save Frank being martyred by a thatch some
shade of red; Jack nudged his brother and pointed gleefully. They
separated, grinning at each other, and pretended they were troopers
after a Maori renegade. Meggie would not have heard them anyway,
so engrossed was she in Agnes, humming softly to herself.
“What’s that you’ve got, Meggie?” Jack shouted, pouncing. “Show
us!”
“Yes, show us!” Hughie giggled, outflanking her.
THE THORN BIRDS / 5
She clasped the doll against her chest and shook her head. “No,
she’s mine! I got her for my birthday!”
“Show us, go on! We just want to have a look.”
Pride and joy won out. She held the doll so her brothers could
see. “Look, isn’t she beautiful? Her name is Agnes.”
“Agnes? Agnes?” Jack gagged realistically. “What a soppy name!
Why don’t you call her Margaret or Betty?”
“Because she’s Agnes!”
Hughie noticed the joint in the doll’s wrist, and whistled. “Hey,
Jack, look! It can move its hand!”
“Where? Let’s see.”
“No!” Meggie hugged the doll close again, tears forming. “No,
you’ll break her! Oh, Jack, don’t take her away—you’ll break her!”
“Pooh!” His dirty brown hands locked about her wrists, closing
tightly. “Want a Chinese burn? And don’t be such a crybaby, or
I’ll tell Bob.” He squeezed her skin in opposite directions until it
stretched whitely, as Hughie got hold of the doll’s skirts and pulled.
“Gimme, or I’ll do it really hard!”
“No! Don’t, Jack, please don’t! You’ll break her, I know you
will! Oh, please leave her alone! Don’t take her, please!” In spite
of the cruel grip on her wrists she clung to the doll, sobbing and
kicking.
“Got it” Hughie whooped, as the doll slid under Meggie’s crossed
forearms.
Jack and Hughie found her just as fascinating as Meggie had; off
came the dress, the petticoats and long, frilly drawers. Agnes lay
naked while the boys pushed and pulled at her, forcing one foot
round the back of her head, making her look down her spine, every
possible contortion they could think of. They took no notice of
Meggie as she stood crying; it did not occur to her to seek help, for
in the Cleary family those who could not fight their own battles
got scant aid or sympathy, and that went for girls, too.
6 / COLLEEN MCCULLOUGH
The doll’s golden hair tumbled down, the pearls flew winking
into the long grass and disappeared. A dusty boot came down
thoughtlessly on the abandoned dress, smearing grease from the
smithy across its satin. Meggie dropped to her knees, scrabbling
frantically to collect the miniature clothes before more damage was
done them, then she began picking among the grass blades where
she thought the pearls might have fallen. Her tears were blinding
her, the grief in her heart new, for until now she had never owned
anything worth grieving for.
Frank threw the shoe hissing into cold water and straightened his
back; it didn’t ache these days, so perhaps he was used to smithying.
Not before time, his father would have said, after six months at it.
But Frank knew very well how long it was since his introduction
to the forge and anvil; he had measured the time in hatred and resentment. Throwing the hammer into its box, he pushed the lank
black hair off his brow with a trembling hand and dragged the old
leather apron from around his neck. His shirt lay on a heap of straw
in the corner; he plodded across to it and stood for a moment
staring at the splintering barn wall as if it did not exist, his black
eyes wide and fixed.
He was very small, not above five feet three inches, and thin still
as striplings are, but the bare shoulders and arms had muscles
already knotted from working with the hammer, and the pale,
flawless skin gleamed with sweat. The darkness of his hair and eyes
had a foreign tang, his full-lipped mouth and wide-bridged nose
not the usual family shape, but there was Maori blood on his
mother’s side and in him it showed. He was nearly sixteen years
old, where Bob was barely eleven, Jack ten, Hughie nine, Stuart
five and little Meggie three. Then he remembered that today Meggie
was four; it was December 8th. He put on his shirt and left the
barn.
THE THORN BIRDS / 7
The house lay on top of a small hill about one hundred feet
higher than the barn and stables. Like all New Zealand houses, it
was wooden, rambling over many squares and of one story only,
on the theory that if an earthquake struck, some of it might be left
standing. Around it gorse grew everywhere, at the moment
smothered in rich yellow flowers; the grass was green and luxuriant,
like all New Zealand grass. Not even in the middle of winter, when
the frost sometimes lay unmelted all day in the shade, did the grass
turn brown, and the long, mild summer only tinted it an even
richer green. The rains fell gently without bruising the tender
sweetness of all growing things, there was no snow, and the sun
had just enough strength to cherish, never enough to sap. New
Zealand’s scourges thundered up out of the bowels of the earth
rather than descended from the skies. There was always a suffocated
sense of waiting, an intangible shuddering and thumping that actually transmitted itself through the feet. For beneath the ground lay
awesome power, power of such magnitude that thirty years before
a whole towering mountain had disappeared; steam gushed howling
out of cracks in the sides of innocent hills, volcanoes spumed smoke
into the sky and the alpine streams ran warm. Huge lakes of mud
boiled oilily, the seas lapped uncertainly at cliffs which might not
be there to greet the next incoming tide, and in places the earth’s
crust was only nine hundred feet thick.
Yet it was a gentle, gracious land. Beyond the house stretched
an undulating plain as green as the emerald in Fiona Cleary’s engagement ring, dotted with thousands of creamy bundles close
proximity revealed as sheep. Where the curving hills scalloped the
edge of the light-blue sky Mount Egmont soared ten thousand feet,
sloping into the clouds, its sides still white with snow, its symmetry
so perfect that even those like Frank who saw it every day of their
lives never ceased to marvel.
It was quite a pull from the barn to the house, but
8 / COLLEEN MCCULLOUGH
Frank hurried because he knew he ought not to be going; his father’s
orders were explicit. Then as he rounded the corner of the house
he saw the little group by the gorse bush.
Frank had driven his mother into Wahine to buy Meggie’s doll,
and he was still wondering what had prompted her to do it. She
wasn’t given to impractical birthday presents, there wasn’t the
money for them, and she had never given a toy to anyone before.
They all got clothes; birthdays and Christmases replenished sparse
wardrobes. But apparently Meggie had seen the doll on her one
and only trip into town, and Fiona had not forgotten. When Frank
questioned her, she muttered something about a girl needing a doll,
and quickly changed the subject.
Jack and Hughie had the doll between them on the front path,
manipulating its joints callously. All Frank could see of Meggie was
her back, as she stood watching her brothers desecrate Agnes. Her
neat white socks had slipped in crinkled folds around her little black
boots, and the pink of her legs was visible for three or four inches
below the hem of her brown velvet Sunday dress. Down her back
cascaded a mane of carefully curled hair, sparkling in the sun; not
red and not gold, but somewhere in between. The white taffeta
bow which held the front curls back from her face hung draggled
and limp; dust smeared her dress. She held the doll’s clothes tightly
in one hand, the other pushing vainly at Hughie.
“You bloody little bastards!”
Jack and Hughie scrambled to their feet and ran, the doll forgotten; when Frank swore it was politic to run.
“If I catch you flaming little twerps touching that doll again I’ll
brand your shitty little arses!” Frank yelled after them.
He bent down and took Meggie’s shoulders between his hands,
shaking her gently.
“Here, here there’s no need to cry! Come on now,
THE THORN BIRDS / 9
they’ve gone and they’ll never touch your dolly again, I promise.
Give me a smile for your birthday, eh?”
Her face was swollen, her eyes running; she stared at Frank out
of grey eyes so large and full of tragedy that he felt his throat
tighten. Pulling a dirty rag from his breeches pocket, he rubbed it
clumsily over her face, then pinched her nose between its folds.
“Blow!”
She did as she was told, hiccuping noisily as her tears dried. “Oh,
Fruh-Fruh-Frank, they too-too-took Agnes away from me!” She
sniffled. “Her huh-huh-hair all falled down and she loh-loh-lost all
the pretty widdle puh-puh-pearls in it! They all falled in the gruhgruh-grass and I can’t find them!”
The tears welled up again, splashing on Frank’s hand; he stared
at his wet skin for a moment, then licked the drops off.
“Well, we’ll have to find them, won’t we? But you can’t find
anything while you’re crying, you know, and what’s all this baby
talk? I haven’t heard you say ‘widdle’ instead of ‘little’ for six
months! Here, blow your nose again and then pick up poor…Agnes? If you don’t put her clothes on, she’ll get sunburned.”
He made her sit on the edge of the path and gave her the doll
gently, then he crawled about searching the grass until he gave a
triumphant whoop and held up a pearl.
“There! First one! We’ll find them all, you wait and see.”
Meggie watched her oldest brother adoringly while he picked
among the grass blades, holding up each pearl as he found it; then
she remembered how delicate Agnes’s skin must be, how easily it
must burn, and bent her attention on clothing the doll. There did
not seem any real injury. Her hair was tangled and loose, her arms
and legs dirty where the boys had pushed and pulled at them, but
everything still worked. A tortoise-shell comb nestled above each
of Meggie’s ears; she
10 / COLLEEN MCCULLOUGH
tugged at one until it came free, and began to comb Agnes’s hair,
which was genuine human hair, skillfully knotted onto a base of
glue and gauze, and bleached until it was the color of gilded straw.
She was yanking inexpertly at a large knot when the dreadful
thing happened. Off came the hair, all of it, dangling in a tousled
clump from the teeth of the comb. Above Agnes’s smooth broad
brow there was nothing; no head, no bald skull. Just an awful,
yawning hole. Shivering in terror, Meggie leaned forward to peer
inside the doll’s cranium. The inverted contours of cheeks and chin
showed dimly, light glittered between the parted lips with their
teeth a black, animal silhouette, and above all this were Agnes’s
eyes, two horrible clicking balls speared by a wire rod that cruelly
pierced her head.
Meggie’s scream was high and thin, unchildlike; she flung Agnes
away and went on screaming, hands covering her face, shaking
and shuddering. Then she felt Frank pull at her fingers and take
her into his arms, pushing her face into the side of his neck.
Wrapping her arms about him, she took comfort from him until
his nearness calmed her enough to become aware of how nice he
smelled, all horses and sweat and iron.
When she quietened, Frank made her tell him what was the
matter; he picked up the doll and stared into its empty head in
wonder, trying to remember if his infant universe had been so beset
by strange terrors. But his unpleasant phantoms were of people
and whispers and cold glances. Of his mother’s face pinched and
shrinking, her hand trembling as it held his, the set of her shoulders.
What had Meggie seen, to make her take on so? He fancied she
would not have been nearly so upset if poor Agnes had only bled
when she lost her hair. Bleeding was a fact; someone in the Cleary
family bled copiously at least once a week.
“Her eyes, her eyes!” Meggie whispered, refusing to look at the
doll.
THE THORN BIRDS / 11
“She’s a bloody marvel, Meggie,” he murmured, his face nuzzling
into her hair. How fine it was, how rich and full of color!
It took him half an hour of cajoling to make her look at Agnes,
and half an hour more elapsed before he could persuade her to
peer into the scalped hole. He showed her how the eyes worked,
how very carefully they had been aligned to fit snugly yet swing
easily opened or closed.
“Come on now, it’s time you went inside,” he told her, swinging
her up into his arms and tucking the doll between his chest and
hers. “We’ll get Mum to fix her up, eh? We’ll wash and iron her
clothes, and glue on her hair again. I’ll make you some proper
hairpins out of those pearls, too, so they can’t fall out and you can
do her hair in all sorts of ways.”
Fiona Cleary was in the kitchen, peeling potatoes. She was a very
handsome, very fair woman a little under medium height, but rather
hard-faced and stern; she had an excellent figure with a tiny waist
which had not thickened, in spite of the six babies she had carried
beneath it. Her dress was grey calico, its skirts brushing the spotless
floor, its front protected by an enormous starched white apron that
looped around her neck and tied in the small of her spine with a
crisp, perfect bow. From waking to sleeping she lived in the kitchen
and back garden, her stout black boots beating a circular path from
stove to laundry to vegetable patch to clotheslines and thence to
the stove again.
She put her knife on the table and stared at Frank and Meggie,
the corners of her beautiful mouth turning down.
“Meggie, I let you put on your Sunday-best dress this morning
on one condition, that you didn’t get it dirty. And look at you!
What a little grub you are!”
“Mum, it wasn’t her fault,” Frank protested. “Jack and Hughie
took her doll away to try and find out how
12 / COLLEEN MCCULLOUGH
the arms and legs worked. I promised we’d fix it up as good as
new. We can, can’t we?”
“Let me see.” Fee held out her hand for the doll.
She was a silent woman, not given to spontaneous conversation.
What she thought, no one ever knew, even her husband; she left
the disciplining of the children to him, and did whatever he commanded without comment or complaint unless the circumstances
were most unusual. Meggie had heard the boys whispering that
she stood in as much awe of Daddy as they did, but if that was
true she hid it under a veneer of impenetrable, slightly dour calm.
She never laughed, nor did she ever lose her temper.
Finished her inspection, Fee laid Agnes on the dresser near the
stove and looked at Meggie.
“I’ll wash her clothes tomorrow morning, and do her hair again.
Frank can glue the hair on after tea tonight, I suppose, and give
her a bath.”
The words were matter-of-fact rather than comforting. Meggie
nodded, smiling uncertainly; sometimes she wanted so badly to
hear her mother laugh, but her mother never did. She sensed that
they shared a special something not common to Daddy and the
boys, but there was no reaching beyond that rigid back, those
never still feet. Mum would nod absently and flip her voluminous
skirts expertly from stove to table as she continued working,
working, working.
What none of the children save Frank could realize was that Fee
was permanently, incurably tired. There was so much to be done,
hardly any money to do it with, not enough time, and only one
pair of hands. She longed for the day when Meggie would be old
enough to help; already the child did simple tasks, but at barely
four years of age it couldn’t possibly lighten the load. Six children,
and only one of them, the youngest at that, a girl. All her acquaintances were simultaneously sympathetic and envious, but that didn’t
get the work done. Her sewing basket had a mountain of socks in
it still
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