by Barbara Wood
While Sarah got down from the buggy and went to the children, Joanna watched Hugh talk to the architect, Mr. Hackett. Seeing the tension in her husband's body reminded her of the desire he had expressed recently to take a trip up to Queensland and visit the "tracks of his youth." Although "One Tree Plain" had been received wonderfully, Hugh had written it nearly four years ago; he had written nothing since. "I want to go back to Queensland," he had said suddenly one night. "I don't know why. Maybe it has to do with turning forty soon, and realizing that my youth is gone. But I've been feeling nostalgic for Queensland lately. I want to take you there, Joanna—just the two of us, without the children—and show you where I grew up, the towns, the people, the isolated stations, to see it all before it vanishes forever."
But when could they ever find time to go on such a journey? For it would take weeks at least. It seemed that Hugh was always needed at Merinda; and so, in fact, was she. And now, the house was going to be built at last. It had taken them several years, but they had finally recovered from the financial loss of the storm—recovered so well, in fact, that by the time Joanna's inheritance finally came from India, she was able to put it away for Beth's future, since they agreed that Adam was going to inherit the station.
But when they had been able to start to build again, using Philip McNeal's concrete footings and plans, the river had flooded and the site had been destabilized. They had worked for more than a year preparing the ground and reinforcing the footings, and then an influenza epidemic had swept through Victoria, forcing so many men to their beds that all work in the district, whether it was harvesting, shearing or building, had been brought to a halt. And then a false gold strike up near Horsham had taken many men out of the district, leaving most stations with only the barest and most loyal crew. But men were available to build the house now, and Hugh had the money. But another problem had arisen: Hugh was having difficulty finding an architect who would work with McNeal's plans. No one, it seemed, thought it practical to build on this site. Everyone advised razing the Aboriginal ruins and building there. Which was what Hugh was in the middle of arguing with Mr. Hackett about, when Joanna arrived.
She waited until Mr. Hackett stalked away—angrily, she noticed—then she went up to Hugh, and put an arm around him. He turned to her and asked, "And so how is Fanny Drummond?"
"Not as lucky as I am," she said, and he drew her against him, and the frown vanished from his face. Joanna always made Hugh think of a phrase from the Bible, something about bringing peace like a river. Joanna was like that, he thought, calming, restorative.
A hot wind blew, unusual for March. The rains were not coming, and the summer heat was lingering. As Hugh stood with his arm around Joanna, he felt the dryness and dust in the air; there was not a cloud in the sky. The billabong had shrunk, and the river that fed into it was dwindling to a trickle. In all his years at Merinda he had never known such a severe dry spell. He reached down and scooped up a handful of soil. It felt powdery and lifeless in his hand. He thought of his grazing pastures standing yellow and parched in the sun, and the sheep, trying to find food and water. He looked up at the cloudless sky and thought that if rain didn't come soon, he was going to start losing stock.
Damn Colin MacGregor, he thought, as his eyes stung with dust.
Hugh had clashed with Colin at the last meeting of the Graziers' Association, when Hugh had made a speech about irresponsible destruction of the land. MacGregor was chopping down the trees that grew along the Kilmarnock side of the river to sell as timber for a high price. He had cut down so many trees that he had thinned out the windbreak. Every time Hugh tried to plant, the wind carried away the topsoil and the seeds.
Hugh looked at the place along the river where a forest had once stood when he had first come to Victoria, nearly twenty years ago. Now it was just a plain of tree stumps. The face of the countryside was changing. Hugh remembered more trees being here then, and fewer fences. The animals, too, were becoming scarcer. He couldn't recall the last time he had seen a kangaroo. They were being driven away by human habitation, by the loss of their feeding grounds to sheep, and worst of all, by the massive hunts that the local gentry continued to consider good sport.
The land is being underplanted and overgrazed, Hugh thought. Nature needs to be kept in balance. The Aborigines knew that. If they came upon a waterhole where there was abundant fish and wildlife, they stayed only a while, and then moved on before they cleaned the place out. They didn't return to that spot, even though it was a good one, until they were sure the wildlife and fish were plentiful again. They gave nature time to heal. But the white man doesn't.
"You're very quiet," Joanna said. "How are things going with Mr. Hackett?"
"I just fired him. He insisted we build over there, where the ruins are. I knew I wouldn't be able to work with him."
Joanna regarded the moss-covered walls that stood beside the billa-bong, glints of broken sunlight playing on its surface. In the six-and-a-half years since Philip McNeal had left, they had heard from him only once, four years ago, a letter informing them of his mother's death.
Hugh said, "They all think we're wrong in the head. They don't want to hear about songlines and the Dreaming. And to tell you the truth, Joanna, I'm not all that sure that I do, either! But the house will be built, I promise you that."
"Without an architect? There are so few competent men available, it seems. They're all in Melbourne, building housing tracts."
Hugh smiled and reached into his pocket. "Well, I happen to have good news," he said, as he brought out an envelope. "This came in the post while you were at the Drummond farm. It's from McNeal."
"Philip McNeal?" Joanna said as she opened the letter. Then, "Oh Hugh," she said as she read, "he's coming to Melbourne for the International Exhibition! He says he wants to visit Merinda!"
"I'm going to ask him if he'll stay on for a while and build the house. After all, the foundation is his."
Joanna waved to Sarah and called out, "Come here, there's good news!"
When Sarah read the letter, her face broke into a smile. "Philip is coming back. I knew he would." She read further. "He says he'll be accompanied by his wife and son." Sarah looked at Joanna. "He's married," she said. "I wonder what his wife is like. He doesn't say anything about her, not even her name. All he says is that his wife and son will be coming with him."
Sarah looked at the silver-and-turquoise bracelet, which she often wore, and recalled the day Philip had given it to her. She had been fifteen then, and hopelessly in love. She had often thought about Philip over the years, wondering where he was, what he was doing. She thought now: It will be nice to see him again.
"We'd better go in," Joanna said. "We have a lot to do to get ready for our trip tomorrow." As they walked back to the house, Joanna said to Hugh, "I wish you would come to Melbourne with us."
"I wish I could. But some of the bores are starting to silt up, and the five-mile well has gone completely dry. We have to muster the sheep farther distances to water them. But don't worry," Hugh said as he took her hand, "I'll be all right here. You just make sure you and the children have a good time at the exhibition."
As Beth skipped ahead, chanting, "We're going to Melbourne! We're going to Melbourne!" Joanna found her joy overshadowed once again by the memory of her nightmares, and what they might portend.
They took a suite at the King George Hotel on Elizabeth Street, with Joanna and Sarah sharing one bedroom, Beth and Adam in the other. On the first morning of the exhibition they went directly to the Hall of Art and Architecture, where, after fighting the crowds and making their way to the American booth, they were told that Mr. McNeal had gone up to Sydney, and wasn't expected back until the end of the week.
It was a week of adventures and marvels. As if Melbourne weren't enough—that noisy city with its traffic and sidewalks full of people and tall buildings—the exhibition grounds and buildings were nothing short of miraculous. Foreigners with strange speech and colorful clothes w
ere crammed into the exhibition halls; there were foods from all nations; a constant thumping of music and folksinging; and the pulse of an excited populace dizzied by the new scientific age. There were things to gawk at, exhibits displaying inventions and machines and the mysteries of the universe; and there were entertainments to stare at in wonder, such as the team of young men sitting at machines called typewriters, clacking out marvelous sheets of perfect printing right before your eyes; and a man in a checkered jacket throwing dirt on a perfectly good carpet and then sweeping it clean like magic with something called a carpet sweeper. There was a cooling box from America, called a refrigerator, which somehow kept food cold, and there was a contraption called a vacuum cleaner, demonstrated by a woman in a maid's uniform and a small boy who operated the bellows with his feet. And then there was the "electric candle," which burned without a flame, pure and white and bright, and ran not on oil or kerosene but from something called an electric generator.
Joanna and Sarah had trouble keeping up with the children. Adam and Beth went from exhibit to exhibit, shouting and pointing. In one booth there were demonstrations of the "telephone," and in the next an American was showing off the wonders of what he called a "gramophone." He had a gentleman in the crowd talk into a box while he cranked a handle, and moments later out came that man's voice!
And there were funny things, too, such as the rocking chair with a woman sitting in it and knitting, while the rockers somehow worked a butter churn. And an alarm clock that poured cold water on the sleeper's face and then jerked up the foot of the bed. And a machine with wheels and a seat and a smoking motor that carried one man around in a ring, like a train without a track, and which the rider said was going to be the transportation of the future.
But there were awesome exhibits as well: Adam stood and stared for a long time at the skeleton of a dinosaur that was part of a French science exhibit. There was also a replica of a human ancestor, found in a place in France called Cro-Magnon, and the sign beneath it read: "Believed to be 35,000 years old."
They passed under an enormous arched doorway, and Joanna glimpsed their reflection in a tall, gilt-framed looking glass. My family! she thought with pride.
Adam in his first long pants, his tawny hair smartly combed; Beth in a drop-waist dress with a big bow at the back, ringlets dancing on her shoulders. Dusky Sarah, so serene and beautiful, turning men's heads as she walked by in a long, bustled dress with a small waist, and a feathered bonnet set forward on her crown of red-brown braids. And Joanna herself, still slender at twenty-eight, the hem of her blue velvet dress sweeping the marble floor. If only Hugh were here, she thought, then the picture would be perfect.
Their last day arrived all too soon; tomorrow they were going to leave for the Western District. Joanna was looking forward to going home. The visit to the city had been exciting, but she was anxious to be back at Merinda with Hugh.
The nightmare, with its phantoms of Rainbow Serpents and savage dogs, had followed her to Melbourne. Joanna had wakened several times, suddenly, her heart pounding, to look around the hotel room and wonder where she was. She would hear the unfamiliar street sounds outside, and she would feel cut off from Hugh, Merinda and familiar things. Although the dream varied each time, the same basic elements were always present—the dogs, the Rainbow Serpent, the opal—along with a very real terror that did not immediately leave when she woke up. As she lay in bed listening to her galloping pulse, she imagined that she sensed the presence of the Rainbow Serpent lurking nearby in the darkness.
It can't be real, she told herself. It was all in her imagination, the result of reading her mother's diary. But Joanna knew that, as Sarah had suggested, this was beside the point, because the results were the same: a growing fear for her safety and the safety of her daughter. Joanna knew that she either had to find the source of the poison-song and put an end to it, or somehow convince her unconscious mind that the poison-song no longer existed.
The fact that the opal appeared in her dreams had made her wonder if it would lead her to that source. Had the gemstone in fact come from Australia, or had her parents come by it in India? Unfortunately, inquiries around the exhibition, among geologists, gem experts and representatives of various countries, had failed to give her any idea of the opal's origins.
Now, there remained one last thing to do before going home: find Philip McNeal.
"Oh, look!" Beth cried, her voice rising up to join the thousands of other voices echoing beneath the domed ceiling of the rotunda. She took her brother's hand and pulled him toward a large exhibit.
The Westbrook party gathered around to admire the striking tableaux which formed an exhibit entitled, "The Melbourne Times Proudly Presents: Melbourne Through the Ages." Four life-sized dioramas had been constructed, and they took up nearly the length of one hall. Visitors were invited to enter by way of a velvet rope, and to walk slowly along and admire the historic phases of Melbourne—"Sylvan Solitude, 1800," which showed nearly naked Aborigines throwing boomerangs and painting their bodies; "Primitive Village, 1830," where a few white men lived in huts; "Modest Town, 1845," with a real reconstructed general store and a live horse tethered out front; and finally "Topsy-Turvy City, 1870," which was a painted backdrop showing the beginnings of a skyline juxtaposed against the masts and ships' funnels of the busy harbor.
A penny guidebook explained that this "expensive exhibit" had been invented and created by Frank Downs, publisher of the Times. What the book did not mention, however, was that the idea had really come from an unknown artist named Ivy Dearborn.
After a tea of lemonade and cream puffs, they strolled through the Hall of Health, where the children were astounded to discover that there were commercial medicines to cure what seemed like every ailment known to humankind. Exhibits showed demonstrations of doctors washing their hands with Ivory Soap, and children in hospital beds cheerfully munching Dr. Graham's Crackers. There were demonstrations of electric belts and hernia trusses. Salesmen stood on boxes and shouted over the heads of the audience, defying anyone to step forward and disprove the efficacy of the Kickapoo Indian Cure or Dr. Foote's Cancer Cure. An American named Kellogg had invented a new flaky breakfast cereal that was "guaranteed to lower the sex drive." There were books on sale with such baffling titles as The Turkish Way of Making Love and The Meaning of Dreams. And free samples were handed out to the adults—packets of "Gono, Man's Friend" for the men, and tubes of "Dr. Cooper's Guaranteed Scalp Food" for the ladies—while the children received colorful trading cards advertising "Mrs. Winslow's Children Quietener" and "Dr. Smiley's Pink Pills for Pale People."
There was a group of French physicians there, giving talks on the new "germ theory," which their countryman, Louis Pasteur, had recently formulated. Joanna listened to explanations about bacteria and bacilli, microbes and cells, and how it had been discovered that they caused disease. The example that was used was the typhoid bacillus, of which there were large diagrams, and Joanna thought of David Ramsey, and how he had given his life for medicine, dying too soon, his ideas later being brought to fruition by men who became famous in medicine.
In the next hall they came upon a series of small booths that were really nothing more than tables and chairs separated by ropes. Banners identified the exhibitors as socially concerned societies, such as the Women's Temperance League and St. Joseph's Lunatic Asylum. Joanna noticed one in particular: the British Indian Mission Society. It was situated between the Ladies' Orphan Relief Aid, a charity to which Joanna sometimes gave money, and the Salvation Army, which she had never heard of. Joanna brought her group to a halt in front of a sign that read, "India Famine Relief Fund," and while she struck up a conversation with the man and woman who were minding the booth, missionaries who had "devoted twenty years to God's service in the Punjab," the children became bored. Adam wished they could go back to the Royal Exploration Society exhibit, where they had real New Guinea headhunters on display.
Joanna was saying to the missionaries, upon hearing
their account of the famine in India, "I had no idea. Of course, I shall do what I can to help," while Beth and Adam decided to wander down to the end of the hall, and take a closer look at an exhibit that was set up like a little farm.
A compound had been created, with real post-and-rail fencing, and dirt was spread on the floor. There were bails of hay, a horse and a plow, and dogs running loose. Some boys were shearing sheep and milking cows, and there were demonstrations of wood cutting, wheat threshing and winnowing. There was a long table where boys sat at microscopes examining samples of soil and grain and grass. Another group of boys was studying the large anatomical chart of a ram. And there were gentlemen in black coats who were explaining to onlookers that they were "witnessing the latest and most modern methods of progressive education known in the world." Beth and Adam read the sign over the exhibit—Tongarra Agricultural School. There was a smaller sign that said take one. And beneath it was a stack of pamphlets.
Adam picked one up. It was full of illustrations of boys shearing sheep, riding horses and sitting atop modern plows. There was a scene showing boys singing in a chapel, and another showing them playing cricket on a lawn. Finally, there was a page of small, round illustrations, which were photographs of classrooms.
Beth and Adam walked along the fence, fascinated that such an outdoor scene was actually inside a building. "This looks like a wonderful school, Lizzie," Adam said. "Perhaps I should go here, instead of Cameron Town Secondary."
"I'll go here, too!" said Beth.
"You can't go here, silly."
"Why not?"
"Because it's only for boys. See?" Adam pointed out that only boys were involved in the demonstrations, and that there were no pictures of girls or women in the pamphlet. "When you're old enough, you're going to go to a girls' academy," Adam said.
