by Lucy Walker
All alone too, Mardie had thought.
That was all of three months ago, and now Mardie had been at The Breakaway but a few weeks.
The cat with its lifted head had been right.
Mr Lawson’s small Piper plane was wheeling in to land straight into the wind … just as the wind bag at the end of the landing ground indicated that it should land. One, two, three bumps and the Piper was down. Slowed. At rest. A gleaming gnat on a base of flat pebble ground.
Mardie had no divided thoughts about looking in the mirror strung to the back of the office door this time. She needed to look her best. She had to convince Mr Lawson all was well with her.
Ever since her father had married again ‒ after her mother’s long, long illness ‒ she had felt she had no real home. Her stepmother was good to her. Very kind. Thoughtful too. But Mardie knew she herself was the third person in that household ‒ which meant one too many. Her presence didn’t give them a chance. Not really. They had to hide their feelings for one another when she was in the same room with them. She was the lone one. They, her father and his new wife, had each other. She had lost all her own social contacts in the long illness of her own mother. Her friends had all gone away, or been married; found new friends and interests.
Now here at The Breakaway, she had a home of her own. It belonged to her, and she belonged to it.
Mardie called the Dig-in and let them know the camp’s utility had arrived. Mr Geologist wasn’t in his utility now so he wouldn’t hear her call. She wanted to ask the sixty-four dollar question.
‘Come in, Bickleys Brandy. Over to you.’ This was a new voice. A stranger.
‘Your utility has arrived …’ She hesitated, then asked: ‘Who was driving it?’
‘Same driver, Brandy. Goes by the name of Jard Hunter. Over.’
Mardie sighed. ‘I just wondered. Have you always sent the same driver? I’m the new owner here and am just learning the accounts. The account books tells me the stores he picks up go to his account. There’s a different account for the Dig-in Company.’
‘So what? It gets paid, sweetie. Not to worry. We’ll let you know each time we collect stores on the Camp’s account. Hunter’s is a special one. His needs are different on his job. He’s a hydro-geologist, exploring for water. Mostly along the mesa range line. So a different camp.’
‘I see. I wasn’t worrying about payment, you know. I just didn’t understand how it worked.’ Mardie’s voice faded in embarrassment. She couldn’t explain curiosity. It wasn’t an easy thing to explain. She did want to know about Jard Hunter ‒ the man whose face was always shadowed under the brim of that brown hat. Even the Richies were reticent about him. She’d come to call him her ‘mystery man’ in her mind. Unseen by her listener, Mardie’s face was pink with embarrassment. ‘We really are on a closed circuit, aren’t we?’ she asked. ‘I mean I didn’t want to broadcast business affairs to the world the way one does on the transceiver service. Over.’
She heard a laugh coming through from the other end.
‘Closed circuit all right, love. Why don’t you come out to the Dig-in some time and we’ll show you how it all works. He’s after underground water. We’re after nickel. We’d like to meet you, Mardie. You talk so nice. Anyone tell you that before?’
‘I think you’re all flatterers out there at the Dig-in. But thank you. I’d love to come. I haven’t seen an Exploration Camp yet. Do you think Jard Hunter might take me some time?’
‘Phew! You are asking something. He’s a loner ‒ that one. He doesn’t always come straight here, anyway. He’s at his out-camps most of the time. Why don’t you ask him yourself? Over.’
‘I might do just that. I’ll call Mansell Downs on the transceiver and let them know when he leaves. That’s a safety rule, isn’t it? Over.’
‘It’s just that … in case a kangaroo turns him over, or something. When anyone’s travelling distance out here it’s practical sense to have a line of communication. ’Bye now, nice voice. We’ll call you when to expect the big truck. Over and out, Mardie.’
‘Out, Red Wine.’ She added ‘dear’ under her breath. She only knew their voices but they were all so nice to her. A little bit teasing ‒ and full of flattery, of course. But somehow they ‒ voices on the air ‒ made her feel warm inside and wanted. Specially David Ashton. He generally had the latest joke story to tell her. He so often made her laugh ‒ which was a wonderful thing to do ‒ at any time.
Chapter Two
As she had been speaking she had seen Mr Lawson step down from the plane and come walking across the landing ground towards The Breakaway. She longed to get up, go through the door and along the trellised path towards the store part of the building. She could pretend this was in order to announce Mr Lawson’s arrival to the Richies. That way, she could come face to face with this Jard Hunter. There would have to be a meeting then, wouldn’t there?
But she was too late.
Mr Richie had come out of the store and looked towards the landing ground. He was short, grey-haired, and his face was grooved with lines ‒ all of them cheerful.
He turned and called, ‘Mardie! Here comes your VIP. Aren’t you going to meet him? Or will …’
‘I’m coming,’ Mardie answered. She put on a hurry-up.
She had to look straight ahead past that beckoning doorway beyond which Mr Mystery Man, hydro-geologist, was doing whatever it was he was doing this moment. She didn’t want to show her curiosity.
She ran to the bitumen, then over it as she waved her hand to the approaching man.
Mr Lawson, because of the heat, wore a spotless white shirt and shorts. No coat. His overnight bag and briefcase encumbered him somewhat, so his return wave was half-mast only. But his smile was broad.
‘Is a legal adviser allowed to kiss a client?’ he asked as Mardie ran up to him. ‘A member of the medical fraternity would get the sack if he tried that approach to a client.’
Mardie’s glad smile was truly winning. ‘I’ll do the kissing,’ she said happily. ‘It won’t be your crime then, will it?’
She stood on tip-toe and kissed his cheek, then took his satchel from him.
He slipped his freed arm round her shoulder and gave her a gentle hug. ‘My!’ he said. ‘How sun-tanned you are already. And you look happy. Are you happy, Mardie?’
‘Yes. I have something to which I belong. Besides belonging to you too, of course. You are my trustee, aren’t you, Mr Lawson?’
‘Just that technically, Mardie. But I have a belonging feeling towards you too. Do you mind that ‒ from an old codger?’ He smoothed down his greying hair which shone in the bright hot sun. His round kindly face beamed pleasure at meeting his young client again.
Mardie hugged his arm. ‘Thank you for it being that way,’ she said. ‘But I know what you’re going to ask next. Have I had enough of life at The Breakaway?’
‘Well, not next. But some time in the next hour.’
‘Well, the answer is … I love it. I’m going to stay, that is, unless …’
He looked at her quizzically. ‘Unless?’
‘Unless it’s too disturbing for the Richies. It’s their permanent home and I’ve already been through that worry of being the third person in a household. The sort of extra one. Not needed …’
‘I’ll put your mind at rest on that straight away. Mr Richie in his letter ‒ on legal matters ‒ made it happily clear that everything is working out well. They’re getting fond of you already, Mardie. He said they’re both feeling younger now there’s some young life around.’
‘That was sweet of him, wasn’t it?’ Mardie was surprised and touched. She wanted to stay at The Breakaway and build a home and a life for herself. Already she could see how she could make it pay better. For instance, put in some overnight accommodation for weary through-travellers. There was a half acre of space at the side. Put in six or even eight motel-type units …
They had reached the road and a great truck, followed by a low-loader piled wi
th steel girders, swept up the length of the bitumen. The whole thing swung angle-wise into the pass track at the side of The Breakaway, then came finally to a grinding halt under the white-trunked gum trees.
‘They all stop,’ Mardie explained to Mr Lawson, now excited to tell him the wonders of a lone store at the meeting of the ways. ‘Everything. Cars, trucks, freezer-vans, utilities, low-loaders. Even in the middle of the night. Everyone stops. Nothing goes past without someone buying something! Even only a little thing. Sometimes only one or two vehicles pass in a day. Sometimes lots. Some days there’s nothing ‒ absolutely nothing goes along the road at all. There’s only silence. It’s strange ‒ that silence. It’s like something that’s everywhere. As if the world, all-over, has stopped. Watching, waiting.’
‘Yes, I know. Those who do use the track have to keep The Breakaway here, Mardie. That’s against the moment of emergency when they’ll need it to be here. It’s nearer two hundred than one hundred miles to the next stop-over, isn’t it? They might need The Breakaway some day in a crisis situation. So they keep it going … all of them … by stopping. Regardless of real needs.’
‘Yes. But it’s rather wonderful, isn’t it?’
‘It’s what is called the “unwritten law” of the country, infant. Where there’s a safety valve it’s in everyone’s interest to keep it there. And ticking over too.’
‘It’s wonderful,’ Mardie said again, still awed at the unwritten law that everyone stopped and bought something. Anything. It was a rule that no one broke. The story of the long-distance roads of the outback!
They had reached the cement path under the trellis shade-way now.
A few yards ahead of them a tall figure emerged from the store’s doorway. It was Mr Mystery Man Geologist.
He barely turned his head so that all Mardie and Mr Lawson saw was the shadowed brown face, light on a pair of eyes, and the white line of teeth in a bare smile that quickly came and as quickly was gone.
He raised his hand in the familiar outback greeting of man to man in passing, and walked on down the far end of the cement.
He turned the corner of the building. And was gone.
Mr Lawson put his overnight bag down. They stood still for a moment while he looked over the front facade of The Breakaway. He took in the store, the resting place beside it, with the long timber seats against the store wall under the shade of trellised vines, for tired travellers. He glanced to the left at the small house attached to the west side of the main building. This small attached house of timber and iron-roof was Mardie’s home and the store’s ‘Office’.
‘He’s a strange one … that,’ Mardie said. She looked at the corner around which Jard Hunter had disappeared. Her head was bent as if listening to the fading sounds of heavy outback boots treading casually, yet somehow with intent, over the gravel which led to the utility standing under the shade of a white-trunked gum tree a little ahead of the truck-and-trailer.
Mr Lawson caught the puzzlement in her voice. He looked down at her. ‘Who is a “strange one”? You mean the young man who just came out?’
Mardie looked up quickly. ‘Young man?’ she demanded. ‘He’d be thirty, at least, I mean, I think so. I haven’t really seen him. He just comes and goes. Not quite silently, of course, you can always hear that tread. But nearly … sort of. Even if there’s another truck or car there he doesn’t seem to stop to talk. Just lifts his hand, like the way he did just now, and walks on.’
‘So that puzzles you? I thought all outback men were like that. Part of the great silence.’
‘Oh some ‒ yes! But not all. It’s just that he’s different. And he’s not a through-traveller. He’s a geologist, or something. Hydro-geologist they call him. He searches for underground water. Not minerals. There’s a big Mining Exploration Company over south-east of that mesa range out there. He comes in from some out-camp for light stores. He wouldn’t have lived all his life outback, would he?’
‘Could have. Might have been a prospector earlier. Or the son of a grazier or pastoralist. But why the interest?’
He was looking down at Mardie, his eyes inquiring.
Mardie laughed. ‘Don’t ask me why. Just something about the man, I suppose. Almost as if he were a mystery man ‒ which he is not, of course. He’s something to do with the Dig-in, I know. That’s what they call the exploration camp out there. They always call from the Dig-in on the closed circuit when he’s coming in. They sort of watch out for him.’
‘From the Dig-in?’
‘It’s miles and miles away really. Way past Mansell Downs Station. The Dig-in is a hundred miles on from there, I think, though they always talk in “hours” not “miles”. I haven’t seen it. Mr Richie told me …’
Mardie stopped. She realized there was real curiosity in Mr Lawson’s interest. There was something alert and watching in his eyes. Perhaps that was only because he was a solicitor!
She caught his arm impulsively. ‘He’s not all that interesting,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘Come on in and say “Hallo” to the Richies. They’re being tactful and deliberately not coming out so as to let us talk …’
‘Well, we mustn’t keep them waiting any longer. Mrs Richie will be rubbing up the brass again, I’ll bet. I know her of old. Expect a house visitor and she’ll give the place a spring clean ‒ and cook a dinner fit for kings.’
‘Except we don’t have spring here. Only summer all the time. Hot, hot summer.’
Mr and Mrs Richie, both grey-haired and cheerful, were waiting behind the tiny bar section of the store. Not for the first time Mardie thought, They really are sweeties. They beamed on Mr Lawson in a near identical manner. They held their hands palm down, waiting, on the edge of the bar. They were both of the same height ‒ she a little stout, and he thick-set and muscle-strong. They had changed into spotless clothes and were holding themselves as if about to receive royalty.
‘Good day, Mr and Mrs Richie!’ Mr Lawson returned their smiles as he put down his bag and reached across the bar to shake hands with them. ‘Nice to see you again. Looking well, as usual.’
‘You too, Mr Lawson.’ Mr Richie nodded his head as if to add emphasis to this important judgment on his part.
‘You’re looking fine ‒ as does your wife.’
‘You don’t even look tired, Mr Lawson,’ Mrs Richie said. ‘Travelling in those little planes makes most people tired. They bucket about so.’
Mr Lawson glanced round the room. It really was the most remarkable piece of construction. Over the ninety years The Breakaway had been here, there had been alteration added to alteration, piecemeal. All in the most fascinating way. One wall was made of wattle and daub, and the opposite one of old, old timber … beautifully maintained. Part of the floor was of old stone, each piece welded to the next by the passing of time and the tread of many heavy, booted feet. Another part ‒ added much later ‒ was made of cement slabs. The coming of motor traffic had made that change. The days of those who had passed through the Breakaway by horseback, horse-cart or even ‒ with the gold finds half a century ago ‒ by camel train, had gone. Each passing phase of The Breakaway’s history had left its mark on the place. Strange faded photographs hung in wooden frames, depicting miners, mining rigs; faded newspaper cuttings; somebody’s paintings of mulga trees and kangaroos. On a shelf were old bottles, stone flagons of bygone days, a lump of gold-bearing ore, and an Edwardian silver trophy some gold fossiker long gone had won in an outback horse race.
The inside wall dividing the bar from the dining-cum-sitting-room did not reach the ceiling. There was a two-foot gap there. Sitting on this ledge in the space between the two rooms was a row of ornaments. All brass. A bell, a kettle, a tobacco container, a cigarette box and countless smaller, stranger artefacts. The newly-polished brass shone lights into the rich green fern baskets hanging from the ceiling rafter. Two of the main walls were stone and daub. The other two were faced with pressed iron.
Mr Lawson looked around. ‘I could come to love this
place myself,’ he said soberly. ‘A museum in its own right. I suppose there are others like it through the old goldfields, but this is the only one I really know.’
‘Like the ghost towns!’ Mardie said sadly.
‘I wouldn’t want to live anywhere else,’ Jim Richie said firmly. ‘But it never was a town here, Mardie. Just a stopover. Nothing more.’
‘His father and his grandfather worked The Breakaway before him,’ Mrs Richie announced with an air of pride. ‘It was cut off from a corner of the Ben Parry Station property. The station’s gone of course. Crown land now. But The Breakaway stayed in the family.’
‘You’re not likely to live anywhere else, Mrs Richie, unless you wish it,’ Mr Lawson said. ‘Mr Ben Parry, the last of the family, has seen to that. I have the final papers, yet to be signed with me. Mardie, his godchild, owns the lease of the land from the Crown under my trusteeship while you and your husband live; which is here in your cottage at the north-east side of the store … where you’ve always lived. And you all three have your equal shares in the profits.’
He smiled amiably from Mardie to Mr and Mrs Richie. ‘It would be kind of you both to live for ever, Mrs Richie. That way I can have Mardie as my close friend for ever too.’ His smile came half circle back to the girl. ‘That is,’ he added, ‘if Mardie can think of a trustee as also a devoted friend.’
‘Of course!’ Mardie hugged his arm again.
‘Well now,’ Mr Richie said in his back-to-normal accent. ‘It’s brandy and dry, isn’t it, Mr Lawson?’
‘I think we’ll all have a drink … if we can go into your dining-room, Mrs Richie.’
‘On the house!’ Mardie and Mr Richie said together.
They all laughed.
Then laughed again because they’d all four laughed together.
They were still exchanging stories of the old days over their drinks in the adjoining room when the sound of a motor vehicle coming full belt from the north down the bitumen broke the outside silence.
