Escape to Koolonga

by Amanda Doyle

  ‘Urgent to me. Important to me,’ she broke in huskily. Oh, if only he could know how important!

  Something in her expression caused his eyes to narrow, making her wriggle uncomfortably.

  ‘Yes, that’s what I mean,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘Just why, I ask myself, should a broken-down shack in the back of beyond attain that sort of importance to anyone? What’s behind it? Why have you come here, Miss—Emily? Are you running away from something?’

  ‘That’s my affair.’

  She managed a quiet dignity, but she couldn’t meet those keen, glittery eyes, for all that. What if she admitted it? What if she’d said yes, my family, that’s what I’m running away from? My brilliant, oppressive, possessive, stultifying family, whom you know and admire along with all the rest of the world. He’d sell her out, wouldn’t he, if he knew? He’d regard it as his bounden duty, of course, to return the straying black sheep to the comfortable, cloying, unadventurous fold, where she was never allowed to emerge as a real person.

  ‘It must be something big to send you haring out here with that look of desperation. What is it? A man?’

  ‘It’s my business, as I’ve already said.’ She shrugged, for all she found herself completely startled at the sheer impossibility. The shy, obscure little Emmie Montfort never tangled with men, but he needn’t know that, need he? She didn’t deny it, and he could now assume what he liked. It had been his idea, after all, not hers, and she hadn’t even had to lie. Better that he should think a man was the reason than that he should suspect her connection with those other Montforts, whom he had known and liked from past associations.

  ‘You’ve made it my business too.’ He was summing her up again with that long, speculative look. ‘It must have been one hell of a shattering affair, emotionally I mean, to make you drop everything and run out on him like this. Are you sure you know what you’re doing?’

  ‘Positive! Now look, Mr. Fenton----’

  ‘Ridd.’

  ‘Ridd. I’m tired. As you can see, if you’d only bother to look around you, I’ve had a busy afternoon. I’ve chopped wood, top, as well as all this dusting and scrubbing. I’m also hungry, and dirty. I need a bath, and --- ’

  ‘And we’re going to thrash out this affair. If you think you’ll talk more sense clean—well, go and get spruced up. That bandage is dirty, by the way. I’ll put a clean one on for you after your bath. I’ve a kit in the jeep.’

  She was taken aback.

  ‘I’m—I’m asking you to go.’

  ‘And I’ve said I’ll wait,’ he retorted tersely. ‘If you don’t go and get in that tub, I’ll take you there and put you in myself. Now, get going, Emily.’

  Emily did. In some haste. She could see that it wasn’t safe to argue a moment longer. You didn’t dawdle when the Ridd Fentons of this world said to ‘get going’ in that particular kind of voice. You didn’t wait to see if they meant it, because something told you that that wasn’t safe, either! Emmie pulled a quilted housecoat out of her case, grabbed her satin mules from the corner where she had stuffed them to save space and departed.

  When she came back, she was fresh and clean and in a humbler frame of mind. Her hair clung damply to her nape and her skin felt pleasantly smooth and fragrant under a liberal dusting of the expensive powder which Lissa had given her last Christmas. There had been an enormous drum of the stuff, with its own large, splendid swansdown puff which was inclined to disperse its burden everywhere but on target. The air in the bathroom was thick with it this minute, and there were several white blotches of it at the base of Emmie’s throat, plus a dab near her ear which she hadn’t bothered to remove, just in case the man thought she was being—well, ‘Eve’-ish. Seductive, if you like. It was hardly proper, finding oneself alone with a man in this outlandish place at this hour, but you could hardly be accused of seductiveness if you’d blobbed your powder on in careless blotches, and left your hair in tiny unkempt tendrils without even bothering to run a comb through it. And her nose was terribly sunburnt on the tip, too. It would probably peel later, because the shantung baku hat wasn’t intended for a country sunstopper, at all.

  The intermingling smell of Lissa’s powder and the carbolic which had hitherto predominated was an oddly reassuring mixture to Emmie just then. Much more reassuring than the keen look she received from the dark, unfathomable man who was waiting for her in one of Millie’s shabby chairs.

  For the second time she was forced to allow him to deal with her hand.

  ‘You’d better sit this time,’ he instructed, in a clipped, impersonal way, and Emmie did so.

  When he had finished, he resumed his own chair and looked at her squarely.

  ‘I’ll see it again in a day or two. Just see that you keep it covered and clean. That’s if you’re still here in a day or two,’ he added as an afterthought.

  Emmie flushed. ‘What makes you think I won’t be?’

  ‘What makes you think you will be?’

  ‘I’m my own mistress, aren’t I?’ she replied with deceptive meekness. ‘I’ve told you already, I intend to make my home here. And a home for those children too, of course.’

  ‘Aha!’ He pounced. ‘And now we’re coming to the point.’ ‘What point?’

  ‘How can I be sure that you’ll be a suitable guardian for those children?’

  ‘You can’t be sure, but I know that I can be, and you will just have to take me on trust.’ She pushed her damp hair back wearily. ‘Don’t you ever take anyone on trust, Mr. Fenton?’ ‘Ridd.’

  ‘Don’t you, Ridd? Not ever?’

  ‘Yes, sometimes I do, when the evidence points to it being warranted. In this instance--- ’ His doubt hung in the air, a fraught silence between them.

  ‘You aren’t sure.’ She finished the sentence for him.

  ‘That’s right, I’m not sure.’

  ‘No one can be sure of anything in this life. No one can be sure of tomorrow, sure that the sun will even rise. No one can be sure that there’s even a God. You’ve got to take some things on trust.’ Emmie found herself warming to her theme. Sadly, he wasn’t impressed.

  ‘Some things, I agree. But we happen to be discussing things temporal, not things spiritual,’ he pointed out dryly. ‘It’s easier to pin down the material possibilities.’ Relentlessly, he began to do some of that pinning down. ‘Have you, for instance, any previous experience with children?’

  ‘Oh, heaps and heaps,’ she assured him airily.

  And what experience!

  She pushed aside the mental vision of Lorna’s tiny fist clutching a defiant handful of best blue ostrich feathers from her best blue hat while she worked on, unaided, at those wretched piles of sandwiches, thrust away the memory of her calculated smack on her niece’s white-frilled bottom, and the resulting defiant gesture that had brought all Lorna’s raspberry squash down over her delightful white organdie party-dress.

  ‘Lots of experience,’ she repeated, in heartfelt tones.

  ‘I see.’ His mouth twitched, and there was a betraying glint in his eye. ‘A wealth of experience with children,’ he murmured, ‘though hardly more than a child herself. Right, then, that’s that point taken care of. Now for the next. Presumably you’ll have some form of transport, to get you and them about?’

  Emmie stared blankly. She should have thought of that, but somehow she hadn’t. The need for a car had never occurred to

  her, because she had imagined that she’d be in the middle of a small country town, a close-knit community, where the bell on Millie’s little shop door would be ringing incessantly with people going in and out. She hadn’t budgeted for a car. It would certainly eat a large hole in her capital, unless ----

  ‘Millie’s, perhaps? Miss Millicent’s?’

  ‘It was sold to pay for incidentals at the finalising of her estate.’

  ‘Oh. I see.’ She swallowed. ‘Well, I—I—naturally I’d get a car, of course. I can see that one would be more or less essential out here.’

  �
�You hadn’t expected to be quite so far out, in fact?’ It was only half a question. The man was sure of his ground— unpleasantly so—and in any case her telltale flush must have told him all he wanted to know. His gaze was probing as he pursued his quarry a step further. ‘You’d get an allowance, of course, for fostering the children. On the other hand, the Far-out Homes like to satisfy themselves that the foster parent has an—er—a certain financial stability of his or her, preferably their, own. Are you with me?’

  ‘With you?’ Emmie blinked.

  ‘You do understand what I’m getting at?’

  Yes, she understood all right. Only too well.

  ‘I believe, if I buy a second-hand car, and run the store with reasonable efficiency—’

  Ridd Fenton got to his feet.

  ‘I rather meant without the store,’ he told her pointedly, coming over to where she too was now standing, and looking down at her blandly. ‘The store is kaput. It’s finished. Without our custom, that is—the Bruces’ and mine. And I think I’ve already told you that we’ve transferred to Berroola Junction now.’

  Emmie gazed up at him, her eyes wide. There was no mercy in that deeply tanned, granite face. None at all. His eyes were locked with hers, holding them in a penetrating, unwavering look that seemed to see right into her chaotically racing mind.

  Without their custom --- ?

  No, she’d never manage, and Emmie knew it. She had been banking on the weekly turnover from that prosperous little shop in that friendly little community. Without their custom

  ----------- ?

  She was trapped. She had come to the end of the road. Or rather, into the corner where Riddley Fenton had been steadily nudging her.

  It was useless to think of contacting Robert or Mark. They’d never back her up, or agree to her selling the stocks which her father had left her, or to buying her out of her share of the family home, or—or anything. They’d be like he was, this man here. They’d say she was nothing but a crazy child, that she’d better come back home and look after them again, and in return she’d have no financial responsibilities, they’d take care of that side, as they always had.

  Emmie dropped her eyes, turning away. Her shoulders slumped.

  ‘Without the store,’ she admitted hollowly, ‘I couldn’t do it. I’d need to have the turnover. I’d been c-counting on it.’

  Her voice thickened in a betraying way.

  Emmie walked over to the window and stared out. She wasn’t really seeing anything, just blinking into the darkness and fighting for control. It was the sheer hopelessness of defeat, the disappointment, that had brought her to this pass, she told herself miserably. To have got this far, and to know that you’d lost out, after all, was surely justification enough for a voice that had begun to wobble perilously, and eyes that stung with unshed tears.

  ‘Emily?’

  Ridd Fenton’s hands came down on her shoulders and turned her towards him.

  ‘Look at me,’ he commanded, and Emmie had to raise her face and obey.

  His image was misty, blurred. Just a wide-shouldered frame that blocked her shimmering vision.

  ‘You want this very much.’ The deep voice spoke above her. ‘Why?’

  ‘I—I’ve told you,’ she murmured helplessly. ‘The

  children---- ’

  ‘Good God, girl!’ The brown hands tightened roughly,

  gave her a sudden, savage little shake. ‘That’s no reason at all. At your age you should be thinking of having a family of. your own- your own kids, not some motley bunch of half nourished unfortunates whose mothers saw fit to dump them on a doorstep or foist them on an already long-suffering community practically the minute they were born. There are others to do that, Emily, older women, more Miss Millicents--- ’

  ‘I—I want them,’ she reiterated, passionately, hopelessly. ‘Please?’

  Oh, what was the use? She could see, by the set of the lean hard jaw, the levelled mouth, that further argument would be fruitless. Emmie could only stare into Riddley Fenton’s unrelenting countenance with eyes that were wide, misty, beseeching, dewy-lashed where clung the tears that she had no intention of allowing to fall. To cry would be unthinkable in front of him.

  A tiny muscle flickered in his swarthy cheek.

  ‘How do I know you’ll stick to them?’ he queried impatiently. ‘What guarantee have I got that you won’t go back to this chap who’s got you acting crazy to get away just now? How can I be sure that you won’t go tearing back into his arms as smartly as you ran out of them?’

  ‘Oh, I wouldn’t do that.’

  ‘It happens, you know. A lovers’ tiff, then forgiveness all round. The glorious reconciliation.’ His eyes were hard, mocking—as mocking as the irony in his smoothly taunting voice. ‘The younger they come, the harder they fall.’

  Emmie’s colour rose, and then faded, leaving her small oval face as pale and still as a gardenia bud.

  ‘I can give you a categorical assurance that such a thing just isn’t possible.’

  You couldn’t go back after a lovers’ tiff if there’d been no lover in the first place, could you? The ludicrous ambiguity of her reply caused Emmie to smile wanly in spite of herself. She wasn’t given to dallying with the truth like this, but he had asked for it, all along the line. She found that she was even deriving a certain bitter pleasure from deceiving him, since he was the sole, and intentional, stumbling block to her entire future here.

  Riddley Fenton’s eyes had narrowed. There was quite the strangest expression in them now.

  Then, surprisingly, he smiled. It was the faintest of smiles, a twist of the lips merely.

  ‘Well, Emily, in the face of that categorical assurance, I’m prepared to co-operate, but only up to a point.’ He sighed resignedly. ‘I’ll list the goods you’ll need to stock, and you can start up in business right away. I won’t bother Sid Bruce in the meantime. I reckon Koolonga’s requirements alone will keep the wheels turning for you, for a while at least.’

  ‘You mean----?’

  She was suddenly breathless as she tried to take in what he was saying.

  ‘I mean that presumably you have sufficient capital to restock this store with supplies for Koolonga Station, plus enough sundries to deal with the odd traveller’s demands. You won’t even need to keep strictly to hours. Most people in the outback expect the stores to open up at any time they happen to be passing, in any case, so if you’re actually living here, you’ll be around.’

  ‘Ridd—I---- ’ She found that she could hardly speak for

  the sudden constriction in her throat. ‘I don’t know what to say. Th-thank you, Ridd.’

  ‘You needn’t thank me.’ He was abrupt. ‘Not yet. It mightn’t last. Remember, you’re strictly on approbation, for the kids’ sakes. I know Sue doesn’t want them on her hands forever. If you default with them, you’re out, though. It’s as simple as that.’

  He reached for his hat and gained the doorway. There he clapped the hat on his head at its familiar, concealing angle, turned.

  ‘Oh, and—Emily?’

  ‘Yes, Ridd?’

  ‘Another thing ---- ’

  ‘Yes, Ridd?’

  ‘Just remember that the customer is always right, will you?’ ‘You being the customer?’

  White teeth flashed in the darkness of the doorway.

  ‘Good girl,’ approved Ridd Fenton, with maddening civility. ‘You got it in one!’

  And, gritting her teeth in a rush of pure irritation, Emmie heard him whistling softly as he went away.

  She walked back to her chair, sank down into its faded depths.

  It was humiliating to find that she was trembling. Hunger had left her. She leaned forward, head in hands, and forced herself to review the misery of her position.

  How dreadful to be beholden to a man like Riddley Fenton! How vexing to find that your brave bid for a new and independent life had ended in such a compromise! To realise that without that man’s reluctant offer to put busi
ness your way, you couldn’t run this little store at all. To know that one slip—one default, he had said, hadn’t he?—and you were out, just like that. Not out of the shop as a dwelling-place, of course. Not even he could force her out of there. But without an adequate income on the capital she was about to expend, there’d be no alternative but to give up, would there? They’d never let her keep the children, either, not when she couldn’t even keep herself, and Millie had left them in her care, she was sure, although she hadn’t actually said so, in so many words. She had bequeathed Emmie a moral legacy, along with this strange little broken-down shop, a trust to look after her orphan family for her and to keep that family together in happiness and love and security.

  Security? She sighed. It could have been the most worthwhile thing Emmie had ever been able to do in the whole of her life—her dull, uneventful, predictable life—couldn’t it, if only Koolonga had been a warm-hearted, thriving country town, if only this store had been a dear little white house with beds of agapanthus and a wistaria and an apricot tree and a bell that rang all the time as people came and went. It could have

  been----

  ‘Emily?’

  The man’s voice, speaking quietly right beside her, made her jerk her head up with a start of surprise.

  Ridd Fenton was there. Back again, looking down at her.

  ‘I thought you’d gone.’ Her voice was dull.

  ‘Obviously.’ A pause. ‘I just came back to tell you that I’m starting up the electric light plant, in case you happened to be startled by the sudden noise. I’ll leave it charging all night, and switch it off in the morning when I’m passing. You needn’t let my comings and goings disturb you. I’ll be stopping it before you’re even awake tomorrow, most likely. You can turn on the lights here in a few minutes, and put those Tilleys out, if you like.’

  ‘Thank you, Ridd.’

  He frowned. ‘Nothing else worrying you, is there?’