The mountain that went to the sea

by Walker, Lucy

  Jason obliged. He brought his hand, still open-palmed, inwards and down. The dog leapt forward, his white paws flashed through the air as his body streaked towards the veranda and his master.

  ‘I don’t think that was fair,’ Jeckie said reproachfully. `You gave him an order to do the impossible. I always thought you could ruin a good sheep dog doing that.’

  ‘In principle you are right,’ Jason said with a laugh. ‘But with Ranger, you’re wrong. He did that cast and trip for exercise. He knows that. He’s a very intelligent dog.’

  Jeckie looked at the dog now sitting near his master, his ears pricked and his nose still wanting to point some quarry somewhere else.

  Jeckie saw the affection in Jason’s face as he, too, watched the dog. Then she looked down the track to where the two Ashendens had finished saying to one

  another whatever it was they felt impelled to say. She glanced yet again at Jason and her heart warmed to him as she read his easy kindliness towards all people, even the Ashendens. He was not the sort of man, she thought, wilfully to hurt people. Specially relations. Why had he done what he had done about his share of the property? There had to be a good reason. He was that kind of man.

  She wondered why he was not yet married. He at least didn’t have to worry any more about shares in Mallibee or having to marry the right girl for Mallibee’s sake!

  Oh! The hidden mysteries of Mallibee!

  She watched Andrew straighten up as he pulled his head

  out of the Land-Rover’s window. Barton turned to his wheel.

  Three of them, Jeckie thought. A confrontation indeed! A moment in time!

  Barton — frank and teasing.

  Jason — kind and friendly.

  Andrew — aloof and reticent.

  Was Andrew keeping himself secluded and aside— as it were—for someone like Sheila? Sheila who had everything! Money, charm, social position. and that desirable share in Mallibee sometime in the future!

  Barton started up the Land-Rover. It moved forward, throwing out its usual cloud-tail of red dust. As it passed Jeckie on the track, Barton lifted a hand. She could barely see his face for the dust, but she was sure he wore his wickedest grin. She sensed an air-message that said … `Okay, this is where Andrew takes over. But tomorrow, and the day after and all next week, we’ll have some more talk and maybe some more fun — just you and me.’

  Jason turned on his heel as if to go back into the store. `Jason, please,’ Jeckie called. would like to say goodbye to Mrs Stringer. And the girl. What is her name?’

  `Albie.’

  `Albie? A sort-of different name, isn’t it? She and her mother were very kind to me. They let me doze in the rest room. They looked after me.’

  `They won’t expect it, but they’ll be really pleased if

  you thank them, Jeckie. Whatever their public utterances, they’re secretly very impressed by anyone from Mallibee. it can be a boring life out here on the tableland. A new arrival gives them something to talk about.’

  Jason held open the screen door as she went inside.

  Mrs Stringer was dusting the higher shelves this time. Albie was still following in her wake, rubbing with a cloth. They were ‘perpetual dusters’, Jeckie thought.

  Jason gave Jeckie a kindly wink that said Mrs Stringer and Albie had been watching through the window all that went on between, or not between, the members of the Ashenden family. It was one more instalment in Mallibee’s saga of who was on talking terms with whom.

  `Thank you so much for your kindness,’ Jeckie said, swinging her hair back over her shoulders. Actually, she felt suddenly a little shy herself. The two on the other side of the counter turned their heads and looked at her in their own kind of wary silence. ‘I had a lovely doze in the rest room. I wonder if I’ve left anything behind. Perhaps I’d better look …’

  ‘There’s nothing there, miss,’ Albie said, still unsmiling. `I’ve dusted and tidied in there — ‘

  ‘And you have your shoes on,’ Jason added. The twinkle in his eye caught at Jeckie’s heart.

  ‘Oh, Jason!’ she began impulsively. Then broke off. ‘I .

  I think I’d better be going. Andrew will be waiting for me.

  ‘And Andrew must not be kept waiting,’ Jason said, very solemn. ‘Under no circumstances whatever.’

  ‘That’s the way it always is … out there at Mallibee,’ Mrs Stringer said from behind the counter, back turned, and still busy with the duster. ‘Leastwise, that’s what I’ve always been told.’

  `That’s it,’ said Albie, following the course of the feather duster with a rub of the cloth. ‘Andrew’s the boss out there, an’ everyone — meaning Miss Isobel too— eats out of his hand.’

  Jeckie caught Jason’s eye. He was watching for her reaction, amused. She smiled a little uneasily, looked away quickly, and went towards the door.

  ‘Goodbye, Jason,’ she said over her shoulder.

  `Goodbye, Jeckie. You’ll come again, won’t you?’

  ‘Oh yes. I’ll come again … If you’ll ask me …’

  ‘There’s an open invitation on the record already, my dear.’

  Outside, Ranger, sitting watchful on the veranda, thumped his tail twice on the dry boards.

  He had called her ‘my dear’. Did it mean anything?

  ‘Goodbye to you, nice dog,’ Jeckie said. She dropped a pat, light as a feather, on his head. The tail thumped with pleasure. She bent down impulsively and dropped a kiss right between his ears — then fled down the step and across the track.

  Andrew opened the passenger door.

  ‘Now we will go home. To Mallibee,’ he said. It’s high time.’

  Jeckie had a feeling he was — with those words — conveying a message. But what message?

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  It was a long drive back to the homestead. The track crossed the plain — a line straight to the horizon as if ruler-drawn. The car swept on along it, mile upon mile. It was a red-brown land covered only with mats of yellowing spinifex, and broken here and there by a single twisted snake tree or ghost gum. Ant hills, feet high, were scattered over it like irregular brown tents on a desert chess board. They were anything from two feet to six feet high. However many ants did they house? How many thousands of ants did it take to build even one?

  Behind them the sun slid slowly down in the west. Ahead was the ribbon of track, and a purpling haze along the eastern horizon. There was something eerie about it all.

  How did those occasional ghost gums survive? What kept the scattered mulga alive? Why did the ants have to build such high castles?

  Jeckie wondered what would happen if the car stopped

  and she and Andrew were left here forever like those occasional outcrops of dark iron-red broken rock. Maybe they would become statues of Time and Stillness like everything else in the land?

  Andrew had not spoken for a long time. Once Jeckie glanced at him surreptitiously — a little embarrassed herself at the way-out thoughts she was having. Why was Andrew so silent? The land seemed to put a spell on everyone and everything.

  Jeckie did know why she herself could find nothing to say. She was not exactly intimidated by Andrew; a little afraid of his possible anger, and more so of his indifference perhaps. Actually, she was much too much drawn to him. He did absolutely nothing himself even to engage her attention.

  Besides, she didn’t want to be drawn to him.

  But —

  Some invisible electric current seemed to pass through the narrow space between them. Alas, it was only a one-way flow. It did not affect him.

  She stole another sideways glance at him — and something knocked at her heart. It could have been something precious asking to be let in.

  Yet she knew he would never make the one gesture necessary to unlock that door. Shyness? Dignity? Or just plain indifference? How would she ever know? Sheila, of course, would have the right technique. Sheila — being sophisticated — knew all the answers and had the know-how!

&nb
sp; He had a straight forehead, a straight nose and a straight-line chin: very firm. No — even Sheila would find it hard to crack that reserve unless he permitted it.

  His eyes, under the brim of his stetson hat, were narrowed — the way all the nor’westers narrowed their eyes when they looked into distances.

  His hands held the steering wheel. Long, brown, strong hands. Their very strength had a curious ‘electric’ effect on her.

  Why worry, anyway? That poor lacerated heart of hers had taken one beating already. Lacerated, bruised — and on the blink too! That’s what it was!

  They came to a sharp U turn: the track wound back on

  itself to round an outcrop of dark red ironstone. It would come out again at a higher level presently.

  When the car took the turn, for a full fifty yards now they were facing about, and looking into the western sky, their backs to Mallibee. The sky before them was a wild fury of red as if something tremendous over there below the horizon had burst into flame. This was the blazoning riot-colour of sunset.

  Andrew slowed the car to a stop. He leaned his arms on the steering wheel.

  `Look at that!’ he said. The first words in half an hour. `It’s wonderful,’ Jeckie said. Her voice wavered a little and she prayed he hadn’t noticed that.

  A wild burning crimson slash lit the western arc of sky. The sparse mulga clumps stood fixed still, black sticks silhouetted against this backdrop. Nothing moved. Silence waited. No insects crept and no birds winged away anywhere. The kangaroos and emus bided their time. Somewhere in their dozens the desert birds and animals and insects hid camouflaged in the low scrub and spinifex. Another track before them stretched singly and straight—down the long way to the edge of the tableland, then straight, mile upon mile upon mile, to the sea.

  It was all a dream of furious splendour there before her, Jeckie thought. It was something far distant, fading and unattainable. Like a love affair — it faded. It was so brilliant for a time, then all at once going, going, gone.

  Just gone. She knew all about that now. All that heartbreak had gone too! How could that be? And so soon! There should be some remnant of what had seemed so wonderful at the time.

  That had been the catch of course. It had only seemed.

  Now she had come into another world and another life. And everything — even her heart — had changed. It was sad — that such a thing could happen. A torn envelope, a trip in a plane — and phut I It was gone. She was a little ashamed of it.

  A lift of wind stirred the leaves on the mulga brush beside them. It rustled a dead leaf on the red bull-dust by the track.

  Finished, Jeckie thought. A red sky and a rustling

  leaf. Goodbye to all that!

  Her eyes were suddenly wet.

  She hadn’t cried once. She hadn’t even cried when she’d said to her mother : All right! I’ll go to this Mallibee place. I’ll meet my cousins. I’ll do and say all the right things. Then when I come home, don’t — please don’t reproach me any more. I will have done the right thing by the family.

  She had come. Here she was, and, strange — sitting in a car looking through a dusty windscreen at a strange and terribly wounded, but wonderful sky — she wanted to cry. Why now?

  ‘There aren’t any words to describe that sky, are there?’ Andrew said. After a moment’s silence he added quietly, `Take a few days to settle down in the homestead, Jeckie. After that we can show you some more of Mallibee.’

  She turned her head quickly and met his eyes. His voice had been almost gentle.

  `Now we finish the U turn and head east again,’ he added. ‘That’s towards the new day. Did you know that “new day” is what Mallibee means in the Aboriginal language? Rather good, I’ve always thought.’

  ‘I didn’t know that,’ Jeckie said, eager to get rid of her sad thoughts.

  `You had a bad moment there looking at the sunset, didn’t you? No, don’t answer. A private life is always very private. But while you’re here just think about Mallibee, will you? It’s not only a “new day” but it’s home to someone with a touch of Ashenden in them. I hope you’ll feel at home here.’

  Jeckie said nothing. She was afraid to speak for fear her voice would give her away.

  Why, she thought blinking her eyes. Andrew is human after all. Kind too.

  ‘I’m glad you came,’ Andrew went on, out of another silence.

  ‘Thank you. I wasn’t sure, when we met last night, that you were all that pleased, Andrew. I felt as if I were some kind of an invasion.’

  His eyes lit up with his momentary smile. It touched Jeckie somewhere deep inside her.

  ‘You need to be a lot taller, Jeckie, to pass off as

  an “invasion”,’ he said. He glanced down, and caught her eyes. `I’m a frantically busy man when we’re mustering, I’m afraid. Specially at the finishing end, which is now as far as the sheep are concerned. When I come in late, I’m tired. Very tired. I’m sorry if — that is, I apologize if I was remiss in welcoming you.’

  ‘Of course you weren’t remiss;’ Jeckie said quickly. She had forgiven him for last night — mostly on account of that elusive smile, of course.

  Another silence fell. He started up. Once again, as they rolled forward, the track — a red raddled ribbon — slid under them mile upon mile. They were facing east again, and pointing to a ‘new day’. To Mallibee!

  Andrew broke the silence. ‘So Barton took you out to the Westerly-Ann Mine?’

  ‘Yes — only as far as the rise overlooking those giant scoops eating into the cliff side. The train came by.’

  ‘Taking Mallibee Mountain to the sea?’

  ‘Yes. It was sad in a way. Huge scoops eating away at a whole mountain as if they were mice and it was cheese. That part of it was rather wonderful. Almost like the men going to the moon. All that technology!’

  ‘You mean the “bucket wheel reclaimers”. Did Barton explain all the hardware?’

  ‘Not that bit. But about the train, yes. Nearly a mile of it came past just after we arrived. It sort-of took our minds off the mountain itself. Those diesel engines! Those loaded waggons! A mile of it going past .

  ‘Well, don’t forget the mountain, Jeckie. Or where it once stood. Your great-great-grandfather was the first white man to see it. And stand on it. His Aboriginal trackers told him its name. As a sort-of rite they watched the sunrise from the top — a “new day” coming. It took my great-grandfather — your great-great one — nine months to get into this area, and nine months to get back out of it again. Horses and camels helped. The Government of the day gave him the freehold south of and including the mountain. That was in lieu of extra reward payment for his detailed surveying of what was, till then, unknown territory. For him and his party it must have been like going to the moon. It was a place where no white man had ever been.’

  ‘Yes. I knew that. Mother told me ages ago. Most stations are leasehold, aren’t they?’

  ‘Yes. There are only one or two freeholds in the whole State. They went to the first white men to cross the spinifex and the desert country to the east. Those explorers never knew from night stop to night stop whether they would find water to carry them on next day. Or bring them back for that matter. Nor whether the Aborigines would be friendly.’

  ‘That’s why you mind so much that Mallibee Mountain was sold to the mine? And that they’re taking it away?’

  ‘Anyone would mind seeing a living landmark being taken away. But there were other matters too. Human affairs that cut pretty deep. Aunt Isobel — or Jane — might possibly tell you about them later. But don’t press them, Jeckie. The wounds haven’t healed yet.’

  Jeckie had known from what her mother had told her that a certain part of the station freehold had been sold by the family company to one of the older generation cousins, and that cousin’s son had subsequently sold it out of the family. It had caused a fearful rumpus at the time. Since today, Jeckie knew this was why the family turned their backs on Jason. What a revelation th
at was! He was the wicked son of the cousin! Her mother had said she couldn’t understand what all the song and dance had been about! After all, you couldn’t graze sheep on the iron-topped mesa mountain, though there had been talk of experimenting with a new breed of cattle in the valley south of the holding. But this experimenting business had gone no further than talk — except for some cattle expert who’d been at Mallibee advising. He’d had to go, of course, when the mountain and its southern environs had been sold. There’d been nothing left for him to do!

  Jeckie, scratching at her memory, was beginning to recall some of the things her mother had told her, but which she’d almost forgotten.

  The closed-in, tight look that had come back to Andrew’s face warned her that it would not be tactful to ask him too many special sorts of questions just now. Maybe, out of the blue, he might start talking to her again some time — and explain more things to her. But she must

  be guarded — she could see that. Andrew had ‘deep feelings’ and every now and again he closed up like a book.

  ‘How many cousins do we have, Andrew?’ she asked lightly. ‘Has anyone ever worked it out?’

  ‘I don’t think so. We’re so far spread, and the girls in each generation have married off into other families. There are too many different surnames now even to remember them. My headmaster at school once told my father I was the twentieth descendant of Andrew Ashenden to be enrolled at the school. Not bad for three generations!’

  `But Andrew the First had seven children, didn’t he? They must have been very busy people at night time, don’t you think?’ Jeckie was so busy being surprised at herself using that archaic expression — Andrew the First — she didn’t at first realize what she had actually said.

  Andrew turned his head and looked at her. Jeckie laughed back, right into his eyes. She had dropped a real clanger, she realized, but thought it was more funny than wicked.

  `Well, weren’t they?’ she demanded. ‘Facts are facts. Actually, what I was really thinking of was all those laden dinner tables in all those different homes when Ashendens —male and distaff — scattered all over the country, came in from schools or work. But just now I see the point of what went on afterwards too.’