Larrikin Mary Always in my Heart

Always in my Heart

GeminiGirl

This is the last one in my series of stories about Joe Byrne and Kate, a barmaid at The Commercial in Beechworth.

It felt like time to bring things to a close.

always
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The sadness still overwhelms me at times, after all these years. I moved away from Beechworth and deliberately shut the door on all the memories because there is no point in dwelling on the tragedy of what happened. Most of the time I am able to leave the past in the past but there are days when something takes me back there – the smell of lavender at dusk, a whisper in the wind, a dream that comes unbidden and makes me wake up reaching for him. Those days I find any excuse I can to be alone with my thoughts, clutching the only thing I have left of him, the smooth stone from the creek he once gave me. I allow myself to remember and to let the tears fall.

I don’t know if what they did made any difference in the end, I suppose only time will tell if the Kelly Gang will still be remembered a hundred years from now or if their names will fade into obscurity. Those who have the power are determined to wipe away every trace of them, having first gloated over their victory. Seeing Joe’s body strung up on the Benalla lockup door is not something I will ever be able to forget, no matter how hard I try. I know his soul was long gone by then but it was still the last time I saw him and I had no chance to say goodbye. I was alone in my grief because there was no one I could share it with, I was just one of ‘Byrne’s wh0res’ in the eyes of the establishment and one of ‘Joe’s barmaids’ in the eyes of the sympathizers, if they even knew about me at all. It was too painful to stay in Beechworth, to be confronted by memories in all the places where I had spent time with him.

I moved away, far enough to not be able to give in to the temptation to go back and visit, and made a new life for myself. In time I met someone who fell in love with me and we got married and had children. He is a good man and I love him, just not the way I loved Joe. I did not lie to him about my past but I did not tell him the whole truth either. I do not want to hurt him by telling him that a part of my heart will always belong to someone else. Joe is dead so what would be the point? Anyway, I have a good life and am happy. I have learned to live with the sadness and I don’t think it will ever go away but it has lessened over the years. I do not know what would have happened had things been different and Joe not died, whether we would have ended up together or not. I know he had other women in his life and I could pretend I was special in some way but the truth is Joe was not the marrying kind. Maybe he would have gotten around to it as he got older, I do not know. I am not even sure how he really felt about me but I never had the chance to fall out of love with him, things were left incomplete between us. Sometimes I wish it were not so, that he had done something to make me stop loving him, that I had not met him at all, so that I would not have this longing for him in my heart…

All I have to do is close my eyes and I can see Joe clearly; the way he was when I first met him on that road to Beechworth, his head bent over my injured foot, and later me sitting in front of him on his horse when he took me into town. The first time we lay together, upstairs in my room at The Commercial. When he found me in the bush with that horrible man. When I made him take his clothes off with me watching. When I had police protection on my way to meet him on the Woolshed road. When Aaron would not leave me alone and he turned up and sent him away and we made love against the door. When he took me to the Whorouly races and we stayed the night at that fancy hotel, courtesy of Victoria Police. Or that time in the Woolshed, when I had no underwear and he carried me into the creek. And when he tried to make me leave him and almost succeeded… All the other times when I waited and he did not come, instead seeking solace from the opium or from someone else. And the last few times when I saw him, when I knew there would be no happy ending for us but I kept pretending, for his sake as well as mine.

I hope there will come a day when I can think of Joe and just smile. We had lots of lovely moments together and no matter what happens, no one can take those away from me. I do not see or hear ghosts but I swear I can feel Joe’s presence sometimes and hear his voice in my head. Actually I think it may be him laughing.

“Come now lass, this is not good for my reputation! Let it be said that I kissed the girls breathless but most of all that I gave them something to smile about!”

That is true. He did kiss me breathless but most of all he gave me something to smile about. Thank you, Joe