by Lucy Walker
‘She don’ want no brukfust, Miss Annabel. She don’ said she no hungry some more. She don’ eat all the food off’n the tray in the kitchun.’
The child was so exactly like Annabel she couldn’t have belonged to anyone else. Her thick brown hair was almost a weight on her head. Her skin was delicate and white, her mouth very red, like a doll’s.
‘Annabel! What lovely children! … Do you know, Hal didn’t even tell me you were married.’
‘Well, one can hardly call it that. My husband is never here.’
Her eyes were hard and resistant.
Kate said ‘Oh!’
‘He damn well no good that fellah,’ said Judity succinctly. ‘She’m better rid of that no good fellah Watson.’
‘That’ll do, Judity,’ said Annabel primly but without conviction. ‘The children can understand you.’
‘Yes’m. But he no good that fellah …’
‘Judity!’
‘Okay, miss’m.’
Annabel turned to her elder daughter. ‘Sugar, aren’t you going to have anything to eat?’
Sugar, who was looking at Kate and not at her mother, shook her head firmly.
‘Take her away, Judity, and wash her for her morning sleep. Go on, Sugar, and get washed.’
Annabel looked at Kate. ‘They’re up at a quarter to five in the summer time … they need a morning sleep. And we need a few hours’ respite from them.’
Without a word the child walked away around the veranda. Judity waddled barefooted after her. Annabel’s eyes met Kate’s. She shrugged her shoulders sadly.
‘You’ll hear all about it sometime, Kate. I’m surprised Hal didn’t tell you. But I think he’s a darling not to … all the same.’
‘So do I, Annabel. If it’s something personal and private to you, please don’t …’
‘There’s nothing to tell really. Tom Watson was the dentist in Blackwood. Everyone was horrified at the idea of a Weston marrying the local dentist. Everyone tried to stop me. I wouldn’t listen and I married him … without consent … and the day I turned eighteen. Tom was always on the defensive with the landowners. And I think, now, that they were on the defensive with him. He hated them as a class. And said so. He got angry and they got supercilious. His practice wasn’t a good one and when the babies came Mother and Hal helped me out financially. That made Tom worse. In the end he left and went down to Albany to start a new practice. I had to come home because of the babies. And I’ve stayed. That’s all there’s to it.’
Annabel was wiping up the food slopped in her tray by the baby. Somewhere inside her, Kate thought, she’s deeply hurt. Were these the circumstances that made Annabel into something of a handmaiden around the house? Was she earning her keep?
Kate banished the thought.
The window behind them slid up and Beatrix’s plump white arms appeared leaning on the sill.
‘You’re getting an early introduction to the family skeletons, Kate. Want to hear mine? I’m going … or I’m not going … to marry John Campbell from Kattanup. We’re in a see-saw state of engagement. A habit peculiar to people around here … you’ll find out. He gets by with the Westons because he’s a landowner, but that’s the only thing in favour of him. The facts against him are that he was in the RAAF during the war and he can’t keep out of the air now he’s a civilian. The war just never stopped for him.’
Annabel looked distressed as she wiped the baby’s face with its feeder. Her own face was flushed and her eyes a little hard. Kate decided that one could never tell the degree of feeling expressed in brown eyes. Blue eyes now … they told the whole story. She thought of her own, bewildered and hurt, as they had looked back at her from the mirror in her bedroom. And how she had stood for quite some minutes feigning pleasure to bring to her eyes a light that might hide the bushel of anxiety inside her. Annabel’s eyes now were a little angry. But how angry? One couldn’t really tell. They were too velvety brown.
‘Beatrix, do you have to talk like that?’ Annabel asked. ‘You make everything sound so much worse than it is. You really love John, and he adores you. I can’t imagine why you want to hurt yourself the way you do.’
Through the window Kate could see Beatrix’s sardonic smile.
‘I wish he did,’ she said bluntly. ‘The only thing he’ll ever adore is a kite.’
‘An aeroplane?’ asked Kate.
‘That’s the long way of saying it. They’re all mad on them round here. Half the population was up in them during the war and now they have a habit of flitting off to Adelaide or Melbourne to do the week-end shopping. I hate them.’
The brigade of soldiers clumped up the garden path.
‘Come on, Kate,’ Rick said. ‘The orchard is calling out for you!’
‘Yes, Kate, do go,’ Annabel said urgently. ‘Rick’ll take care of you, and it will fill in the morning. I do think it’s too bad of Hal not to have given up the day to you.’
‘I’ve got a very good substitute,’ Kate said as she went to the door.
‘Hey!’ called Beatrix. ‘Wait till I bring you a hat. You’ll burn that lily-white skin of yours if you go out uncovered.’
Kate looked up at Rick Benallen. She was nearly a head shorter than he.
‘Am I too pink and white?’ she asked him. ‘I know that it’s the right thing to be tanned in Australia. I just won’t tan. I burn.’
‘Peaches and cream!’ he said. ‘Ever hear of anyone turn down a dish of peaches and cream?’
Annabel had the little girl in her arms now. She stood looking at them a moment, her own fair, pretty face pressed against the child’s.
‘Have a good time,’ she said.
Beatrix came out with a sun-hat and Kate put it on her head. She took Rick’s arm.
‘On your way, mate!’ she said.
Lunch on the veranda. The same place where they had had breakfast, and in the same manner. Moreover, there was the same bowl of satsuma plums and the same bowl of cream. Replenished, of course. In addition there was cold lamb accompanied by an incredible array of salads, pickles, sauces and chutneys. The lamb was glorious. It seemed to melt in the mouth. It was accompanied by little freshly made, and still hot, bread rolls.
With the tea trays came Hal.
‘Changed your mind, Hal?’ Beatrix asked.
‘I have.’
‘And no reason given?’
‘Not enough time to go right out-back. Besides, I decided I wanted to go over with Rick this afternoon. You got those Southdowns in the home paddock, Rick?’
‘I have. I’m shifting them to-morrow. I’m taking them over to the York and Jam country.’
Kate wrinkled her nose in puzzlement. ‘York and Jam country?’
‘York trees. Jam trees,’ Hal said shortly. ‘They grow on good grazing country on the edge of the forest lands.’
Kate said ‘Oh!’ She felt chastened for her ignorance.
Rick gave her something that could be a wink.
‘You ask him what an elm tree looks like, Kate!’
Hal ignored all this.
‘Mind if I have a look at those sheep, Rick?’
‘No. What are you looking for? Some strays?’
‘Foot-rot.’
‘You’ve got foot-rot as a neurosis, Hal.’
Hal sat down in a cane chair beside Kate. His legs sprawled out in front of him. His wide-brimmed hat lay on the floor under the chair.
‘Would you like to ride out with Rick and me this afternoon?’ he asked.
Kate smiled brightly and hoped her smile didn’t look as if it would crack. It probably wasn’t condescension on Hal’s part at all … only that she herself was too highly sensitised to first impressions. That and the curiously persistent anxiety she had felt when she had set out on this long journey.
Was Hal different, or wasn’t he? Was it just the surroundings and circumstances that were different?
She’d find out sooner or later.
‘I’d love to ride,’ she said. ‘Do you thi
nk I’ll be too tired? Rick walked me halfway up the orchard hill … and it got very hot.’
Hal didn’t say he had seen Rick and Kate from the forest paddock beyond the orchard. Neither did he confess that this had brought him back to the homestead with an offer of entertainment from himself. He did not understand his own changes of mood. He was as capricious as a child and like a child he did not challenge or attempt to rationalise his moods. He merely indulged them.
‘Don’t you think it will be too much?’ Annabel interposed.
‘Nuts,’ said Beatrix. ‘Kate is a young, healthy, strapping woman. She can stand up to a walk and a ride in one day.’
‘A ride with Hal,’ Mrs. Weston interposed in her flat, monotonous, chilling voice, ‘is an experience for someone fresh and young. I’ve never known Hal be considerate with either horse or companion.’
Hal paid no attention to this. He grinned across the table at Rick Benallen.
‘You want a loan of Robin, Rick?’
‘She’ll do me, Hal.’
‘Good. We’ll saddle up Becca for Kate. Some spirit but not too much.’
‘I don’t think Becca’s a good horse at all for Kate,’ Annabel said. ‘Can’t she have Darkie?’
‘Darkie’s out to feed. Kate can manage Becca.’
He looked at her with raised eyebrows.
‘If you say so, Hal,’ Kate said, smiling back at him. Her own experience of riding had been with a riding school in Hyde Park. But she wasn’t going to cry small so soon. ‘The worst that can happen is that I get killed,’ she thought forlornly. She wondered if she could persuade someone to shorten her stirrup for her. She knew from observation how these Australians would ride.
She glanced at Hal. Lolling back in the chair his winsomeness fairly smote her in the region of the heart.
‘So fair to look at!’ she thought.
They rode away from the homestead in the direction Kate had seen the boundary rider galloping in the morning. They came out of the pine grove, crossed the stubble paddock and entered the forest by a wide track that led westwards into the sun. The trees, high, dark, and smelling of resin, eucalyptus and the dank earth, stood in graven and ancient silence. The creepers wound about their trunks and branches like strings of jewels. The sun caught in sharp shafts the sticky dew on the tiny flower faces festooning the creepers.
They had galloped mildly through the stubble paddock and Kate got the feel of Becca. She knew the mare was a good horse but a little touchy. She had resisted Kate at first, but by the time they came into the forest she was going nicely. Kate slackened the rein slightly.
She understood now the universal uses of the khakis and the heavy boots. In places the undergrowth was not only wet but also very prickly. The boots and short gaiters were a protection, the heavy cotton of the khaki pants made excellent riding breeches as well as walking wear. The men were also as much in the saddle as out of it.
‘Come on,’ said Hal unexpectedly. ‘Let her go!’
He lashed at his horse and kicked the animal with the heel of his boot. He wore no spurs but the boot was heavy. Kate suddenly caught her breath. The horse shot forward and Hal with it and they thundered down the track. In a minute they were around the bend and lost to view.
Rick rode beside Kate. She looked at him puzzled.
He shook his head.
‘I’m afraid that’s just Hal,’ he said. ‘Unpredictable.’
‘But his horse?’ Then she bit her lip. She was engaged to be married to Hal. She had to be loyal to him. She couldn’t even ask Rick what it all meant.
She touched Becca’s rump and galloped along the track. As it curved into the big trees it became narrower. She could hear Rick behind her, but Hal had disappeared from view.
They rode thus for ten minutes. Then at a cross-track Kate pulled up. She looked over her shoulder at Rick.
‘What now?’
‘I think we’ll have a smoke,’ he said, coming up to her. He hung the reins over the pummel and took out a tin of ‘makings’. He began to roll a cigarette. Kate looked around.
‘Where has Hal gone?’
‘He’ll turn up,’ said Rick, licking the cigarette paper. From their right came the sound of something crashing through the undergrowth. Rick looked up under his brim. There was a little smile at the corner of his mouth.
‘That’s him,’ he said. He handed Kate the cigarette, lighted. She could see Hal coming through the trees now. His horse was reined in tight but was still coming at some pace, twisting, turning, rearing to avoid the tree branches and fallen limbs.
Kate held her breath. She didn’t look at Rick.
Hal’s horse reared a little sideways as he came out on to the track. He pulled up sharply. His hat was on the back of his head. Across the pummel was a sheep.
He swung himself off the saddle and lifted the sheep down on to the road. One leg was gone.
‘A neurosis about foot-rot, hey?’ he said, challenging Rick. Rick swung himself down and squatted in the road beside the sheep. Kate watched the almost brutal way they twisted the animal’s head and threw it to the ground. Hal sat on its head while Rick examined the foot.
‘Ready to bet you that’s an injury from a piece of wire … festered,’ Rick said, standing up at last. He took out a handkerchief and drew it through the cleft of the hoof. He now folded the handkerchief carefully and put it in his breast pocket. ‘Soon see, anyway. We’ll get this swab to the vet in Blackwood sometime tomorrow.’
Hal kicked the sheep in the side. Limping, rickety and baa-ing, the creature ran off into the forest.
‘Do you run the sheep in there?’ Kate asked in bewilderment. ‘Or is that a stray?’
‘There’re about two hundred and fifty in there,’ said Hal. He mounted his horse again.
‘How do you muster them?’ asked Kate.
‘Beat them out,’ said Hal.
Rick smiled at Kate.
‘This is my turn-off,’ he said. ‘I guess I’ll be going now. I surely have wasted a day … a pleasant day, Kate.’
‘You mean you’ve wasted the day, but it’s been pleasant?’
‘That’s what I mean, Kate.’
‘We’ll take you to the rise, Rick,’ Hal said. ‘Might as well let Kate see what Allandale looks like.’
‘Right.’
They turned away from the corner fencing of the Weston’s estate and rode uphill along the western track. A few minutes later they topped the rise and in front of them the trees thinned out, became stubble paddocks, and then apple orchard. The homestead was a small red-roofed house about a hundred yards up the rise from the creek running through the bottom of the valley. Orchard swept away in serried ranks from the house and on either side of it the forest stood, packed, still and secret.
‘How lovely,’ Kate said. She turned to Rick. ‘These orchards and paddocks look as if they have been carved out of the forest.’
‘They have. In the early days it cost thirty shillings an acre to clear … after you’d got your own men and equipment here. Now it costs five pounds.’
‘So we don’t,’ said Hal.
‘You mean there are no more farms coming out of the forest?’
‘There’s plenty. But they don’t clear. They ring-bark, and then burn off.’
‘That takes a long time, I suppose.’
‘You’ll see something of it before you go back,’ Rick said rather grimly. ‘There’s ring-barked forest on the other side of the hill. There’re two hundred and fifty acres of it the other side of the homestead at Appleton.’
‘Who lives here, Rick?’ Kate asked.
‘Just Mother and myself.’
‘Oh!’
Kate felt at a loss for words. The estate did not seem large, but it was beautiful and, from the distance, it looked well cared for.
‘Okay, back home!’ said Hal, turning his horse.
‘I’ll bring Robin back sometime to-morrow, Hal,’ Rick said. ‘I’ll be sending the station waggon into Blackwood in the
morning and it can pick me up on the way out.’
‘Okay. See you to-morrow.’
‘Good-bye, Kate.’
‘Good-bye, Rick.’
She felt pleased she would be seeing him again to-morrow. Unaccountably he had become one of the family, as it were.
Hal galloped along the track to the cross-way. He pulled up sharply and, throwing a leg over the horse, slid down to the ground. He took Kate’s bridle and held her horse near the head.
‘Don’t you think it’s time you kissed me?’
‘Oh Hal!’
Kate looked down at him and her heart weakened.
She put her hands on his shoulders and he lifted her down. He was more than a head taller than Kate. He held her very tight against him.
Kate closed her eyes and wanted the kiss to go on for ever. Then somewhere obscurely inside her she realised it was she who was doing the kissing. Hal was on the receiving end.
She drew back, flicked the tip of his nose with her finger, then turned to mount her horse.
‘That’s all you deserve,’ she said. Hal held her mount. She leaned forward, pushing back his hat from his forehead and looked into his eyes for a long minute.
‘It was fun, wasn’t it?’
‘What was fun?’
‘Being in love.’
His eyebrows arched.
‘Sounds like conundrums.’
‘Perhaps that’s all it is. Come on, let’s away.’
He swung himself into the saddle and galloped madly down the track. After about a mile he signalled that he was turning into the trees at right angles. Kate followed him, thinking he must be finding his way to some by-path.
No track appeared, however, and Hal’s horse was driven faster. As she had seen him do earlier, he twisted, turned, reared and hurdled his way through the forest. Kate followed. At first she held to Hal’s track, but his mount was not only a good hurdler but evidently knew his rider. Kate did not know Becca so well. She was not quite confident and the mare knew it. She raced after Hal, but left too narrow a clearance between her flank and the trunks of the trees. Kate’s left leg twice took a mauling.
She caught her underlip between her teeth. She knew now that she was riding dangerously. She had never been in the forest before. The undergrowth obscured the ground. When her mount took a fallen log there was nothing to tell what lay under the creepers swarming around the fallen monster. Kate knew that Becca was nervous too.
