by Amanda Doyle
‘Who? Rod? Of course he likes women—and they adore him!’ averred the old lady indignantly, as though Lindsay had been guilty of casting some sort of aspersion upon her beloved employer. ‘Why, he’s got those lovely Brisbane belles eating out of his hand. They just fall over themselves to go out with him—he’s very eligible, you know. It’s a wonder he hasn’t settled down with one of them before now, because some of them have been quite gorgeous. They sometimes come out here to stay, when the Races are on. He can pick and choose, really, Lindsay, a man like him, but I must say he’s taking quite a time making up his mind. There hasn’t been a single girl who has come out to stay at Gundooee who wasn’t quite irresistibly beautiful and charming,’ stated Mannie with pride.
Then it must be her that he didn’t like, thought Lindsay sadly. Her, in particular, if it wasn’t all women.
She sighed inwardly. Life was not going to be very easy if her employer had taken a dislike to her at the outset! Things weren’t going to be easy in any respect, come to that. Lindsay was just beginning to realise how abysmally ignorant she was of all things pertaining to station life. This heat, for instance, when it was only just spring in Sydney. How much hotter would, or could, it get, when the summer really developed? Already her cotton shirt was clinging to her shoulders as she pushed the laden trolley through a long passage, across a narrow covered-way, to the kitchen block; through another gauze door, and into a large, surprisingly modern kitchen, warm in spite of the big whirring fans and the hum of an air-conditioning unit.
Sibbie and Bella were there already, chattering like magpies in the laundry off the far end of the room, giggling together as they washed the cotton overalls they had been wearing yesterday, and squeezed the soapsuds into amusing shapes with artful black fingers.
Every morning, when they came up to the homestead, Mannie would give them a clean overall to put on, and while they were waiting for the lunch dishes, they would wash the garments they had worn on the previous day. Then they would hang them out on the line, where the hot sun soon dried them, drawing out the bright, treasured colour in the process. When the colours became disappointingly faded from the constant washings, Sibbie and Bella would lose interest in the washing of their overalls, and become careless. Then Mannie would have to send them to the store for some new ones.
‘This youngfella missus name belonga Lindsay,’ Mannie was telling them now, and they clutched the wrung-out washing to their drooping bosoms, screeching with mirth as though Lindsay was quite the funniest name on earth. Their smiles were wide and beautifully white and unmistakably friendly, and Lindsay found her own mouth curving into a warm, answering greeting before following Mannie back into the kitchen.
‘Shall I help with the washing-up?’ she asked shyly.
‘No, my dear, I wouldn’t start that if I were you. Ids best to leave them to the things they can do well, I find, and believe me, you’ll have plenty to occupy your time once you settle in. I’m just going to get Rod’s scones ready for his tucker-bag, and if I were you I’d unpack your things, and then go down to the store and check-in today’s supplies.’
‘Yes, of course. Just one thing, Mannie. I’d like to let my—er—cousin know that I’ve arrived safely, if that’s possible.’ Lindsay couldn’t help sounding as dubious as she felt about that Gundooee seemed like the end of the world—or the deserted centre of it!—and short of sending a message by one of the crows that cawed hardily on the tankstand outside, there seemed little prospect of communication.
The city, and her life there, had already taken on the fragile substance of a dream. The present was the only reality—the drumming heat, the sweltering outbuildings, the rambling homestead with its green lawns, dim, air-conditioned interior, gauzed verandas; the brown, smiling, wrinkled face of the dear old lady here beside her; the suppressed giggling of Sibbie and Bella in the laundry beyond; the disapproving assessment of Rod Bennett’s critical, unfriendly eyes—all these were real, involving her in a need for present thought and action.
The aunt and uncle, the spiteful Carleen, that hypocritical photographer, (whatever Rod Bennett might think of her, at least he wasn’t hypocritical enough to pretend I) had all become faint, distant figures in her shadowed, unhappy past. Already she was finding that the miles that now lay between them had caused a subtle alteration in her relationship with those people. No longer had they the power to hurt her, as they formerly had. Almost, she could feel sorry for them, and the motives which drove them, and coloured their associations with their fellows. The jealousies, the comparisons, the petty quarrels that resulted, were washed into nothingness by the great blue vastness of the sky outside the window of the Gundooee kitchen. That sky seemed to dome itself right over its own world, shutting it off from the ‘elsewhere’. It was a world that was inhabited by a comparative handful of people, forced by their very intimacy with each other to live by a different standard altogether, because the horizon they shared was frighteningly vast, lonely, humbling in its very magnitude.
‘I don’t suppose it’s possible to send a message?’ she said again.
Mannie turned in surprise, laughing with genuine amusement.
‘Of course it’s possible!’ she told Lindsay. ‘We’re very much in touch here, really, you know. You just write out what you want to say, and I’ll send a telegram for you over the transceiver—that’s what we call the modern form of pedal wireless, Lindsay, because they hardly ever use pedal sets any more. I don’t suppose you needed them at Batlow, did you? Ah well, here we depend on them for almost everything—telegrams and messages, and to summon the Flying Doctor or the Air Ambulance, and of course we have the galah session, and the school of the air.’
‘School? You mean, proper lessons?’ Lindsay looked her surprise.
‘Oh yes, proper lessons, just the same as if the children were in class together. Each pupil has his own call-sign, you see, and one by one the children are called in by the School-of-the-Air teacher. They participate in discussions, have questions and answers just as in a normal class—they even learn poetry and do plays. They have correspondence lessons by post, too, of course.’
‘But that’s marvellous!’ Lindsay was impressed. ‘And the galah session? Was that what you called it?’
‘Yes, the galah—or sometimes it’s termed the magpie. Now that’s different again, and mostly for adults—housewives, in fact. They have an open session at a certain time each day, and all the women from near and far join in, swapping gossip and bits of news. There’s nothing private about the Outback, Lindsay, even when you’re miles from your nearest neighbour! Everyone knows what everyone else is doing, and the galah session is largely responsible. We call it that after those flocks of chattering pink and grey parrots, and believe me, the noise of human voices, the static, the calling-in of the signs, can sometimes be as noisy as any flock of birds! Even the tiniest detail can seem a meaty piece of gossip on the galah. It’s the true bush telegraph!’
‘They—they won’t have heard about me?’ asked Lindsay diffidently.
Poor Lindsay! Her ideas about bush life were being shattered every minute.
‘Oh yes, they will—if not today, then tomorrow. Everyone knew that Gundooee was getting a new book-keeper. And very soon they will know that not only did the new bookkeeper arrive, but that he turned out to be a girl instead of a man.’ Mannie chuckled irrepressibly. ‘That should set them by the ears!’
Lindsay shuddered.
‘W-will they know that Mr. Bennett was very angry when he found out?’ she asked somewhat dismally.
Mannie’s wrinkled face was still creased with humour.
‘Was he angry?’ she countered mildly. ‘I don’t think so. Rod is a very controlled person, and doesn’t give away his feelings very easily. He has to be controlled, Lindsay, being in charge of a large number of people of such varying types, you see. It’s a position of great responsibility, Rod’s. He’s got to know how to do everything he expects his men to do, and be able to do it better,
so that they respect him. And he’s got to be a bit of a psychologist, too. He often says it’s part of his job to know what his men are thinking, almost before they know it themselves, and that way he can keep the path smooth, anticipating little troubles, and ironing them out before they can grow into big ones. I must say he’s very good at doing that—almost uncanny, in fact—but on the other hand, it’s very difficult to tell what’s going on in his own mind. He’s adept at concealing his feelings, and that gives him an immediate advantage in dealing with the grievances of others. All his men respect him, and depend upon his judgment to a greater or lesser extent, and his own temperament gives them encouragement to confide in him. I’d be very surprised to hear that he was angry—and in front of a mere girl, too!’
Mannie’s paragon could apparently do no wrong in her eyes!
Lindsay swallowed, remembering.
‘He was angry, all right,’ she asserted feelingly.
‘You were probably tired and a little overwrought, and imagined it,’ Mannie told her comfortingly. ‘In any case, although you will have been mentioned on the galah, nobody would dare to discuss Rod or his affairs so frivolously. They have far too much respect for him to do such a thing. They’ll only have heard that Mr. Dutten turned out to be a Miss, and after all, what harm is there in them hearing that? It was a most unfortunate misunderstanding, nothing more.’
‘Er—yes—most unfortunate.’
Lindsay moved her slender shoulders as if thereby she could ease her miserable load of guilt. If only Mannie knew! If only Mannie could guess how little misunderstanding there had really been! If only she could know how calculated had been Lindsay’s deception from the outset! And if he should ever suspect—well, he’d pack her out of here on his very own plane before she could even say ‘Ned Kelly’, and it didn’t take very long to say that!
‘The message, dear?’ came Mannie’s gentle interruption to her thoughts. ‘And you can follow it up with a more detailed letter on mail-day. Right?’
‘Yes, thank you, Mannie.’
What a kind and helpful person Mannie was, reflected Lindsay to herself as she completed the unpacking of her meagre wardrobe later.
Mannie had told her that she used once to be governess to the Bennett family when they were small. Rod had been the youngest of three brothers, and when his parents died he had invited Mannie, who was by then widowed and struggling to maintain herself on a small pension, to return to Gundooee to act as his housekeeper. She had been grateful to accept. The old days spent at the station held happy memories for her, and now that she was in real need of a home and companionship, she could think of no place she would rather be.
There was little enough that she could do for Rod in return, she had confided to Lindsay, but he never allowed her to feel beholden in any way. Indeed, the reverse was the case. He acted as though Mannie herself was doing him a great favour in just being there, making her own quiet contribution to the running of the property. He had actually wanted Mannie to return to Gundooee, thought Lindsay wanly, even though she happened to be a woman. He had wanted—and invited—her.
He hadn’t wanted Lindsay though. He hadn’t exactly invited her, either, she had to admit. In a way she had invited herself, Lindsay supposed. She had gone into this with her eyes open, except that she had imagined that all country places were the same. That had been her big mistake. She had been thankful to leave the city behind her, had revelled in the scenery over the Mountains and through the Central West, had actually enjoyed herself until the train angled off into the ‘never-never’, (or what seemed to Lindsay’s inexperienced observation to be the ‘never-never’!) and at the end of that frightening and lonely journey, Emmadanda had been a surprise, and not a pleasant one.
Gundooee now seemed like an oasis in the desert of her hopes. She knew instinctively that she could be happy here the very moment she stepped out of that plane. Even the peculiar gleam in the eyes of all those men couldn’t detract from the welcome in their smiles, could it? They had been the bush friends, about to greet her with their kindly voices, only something had spoilt it all, something had prevented them. Someone. The man who hadn’t had a smile for her. The man whose grey eyes had held no strange gleam. Rod Bennett himself. And he had turned out to be the Boss.
Lindsay placed her nylon tights carefully in one of the big mahogany drawers, and mourned her luck. Why had she to run into such a man as he? Things could have been so different, except for him. Instead of a new, happy, ‘bush’ atmosphere, he made her feel virtually stateless, unwanted. She had cut the other ties that bound in order to come to Gundooee, and now the manager was going to try to freeze her out with his cold words of censure, his chilly grey gaze, his thoroughly unfriendly attitude, his Miss Dutten! Why, he had already refused even to let her have that dear little cottage that the book-keeper had always had. And it wasn’t because she was a woman, whatever he liked to pretend. Hadn’t Mannie told her that he liked girls, as a rule? All those lovely Brisbane belles—he must like those girls, mustn’t he, to invite them out here to Gundooee for the Races just as he must like Mannie to have asked her to live here.
He liked those other girls, and he liked Mannie, too. It was Lindsay he didn't like! His antipathy was almost a living thing between them, and there was little that Lindsay could do about that.
She stood up, smoothed down her denim skirt and walked over to the mirror, gazed wistfully at her reflection.
What she saw was strangely depressing—a slender, girlish figure in a white shirt, a schoolgirl outfit!—guileless green eyes, wounded and apprehensive; coltish bare legs and arms too skinny to ever be seductive; an innocent mouth; bright brown, unmanageable hair that refused to be coaxed into a more elegant coiffure.
No, she certainly was no belle, but an ugly duckling for sure. And as for those clothes! Clothes didn’t make a beauty, but they certainly must help! If only she still had some of Carleen’s, they might have helped a little bit towards a more sophisticated image.
She had so wanted to be liked, to find herself among friends. She had found some, too—Mannie, with her wrinkled, gentle face, Sibbie and Bella with their watermelon smiles and gay giggles, all those men who had surrounded her when she stepped out of the plane.
All except for one person alone.
Slumping disconsolately down upon the bed, unable to understand herself or the reason for her own misery, Lindsay admitted to her chagrin how unkind Fate could be—admitted that the very person whose friendship she would really like to have was the man whose antagonism was so chillingly obvious.
Rod Bennett.
CHAPTER 5
Lindsay got up early next morning, mainly because she could not sleep. Depression gripped her, but she could also admit to an underlying determination to make a good impression on her boss at the first opportunity.
Sun-up was preluded by the whining and whimpering of the dogs in the settlement down at the creek. Their barking reached Lindsay’s ears even before the first traditional crowing of the cock in the fowl-run or the shrill chattering of the birds which nested in the shrubs and saplings outside the window. She slipped from her bed and padded quietly out on to the veranda.
The birds’ noise seemed to be concentrated around the banks of the big ground-tank beyond the garden. In the first faint light, Lindsay could not see the birds themselves, only the raised edges of the tank and the silhouette of the windmill that towered at one end. The sails were stirring lazily in the breath of dawn. The shaft of warm air from the plains could hardly be called a breeze, and was not sufficiently strong to blow the sails into revolutions, and the pump-rod groaned every now and then—a deep, baritone interruption to the trilling and cheeping of the birds—as though frustrated by its own inactivity.
A splash at the far end of the tank sent the birds chittering away into the trees. Lindsay pressed her nose against the gauze and peered out curiously.
Someone was swimming in the tank.
She could just discern a dark hea
d moving, arms cleaving the water with long, easy, powerful strokes that scarcely disturbed the surface. That head, and the foot-splash, told her that whoever the swimmer was, he was certainly moving fast, up to one end, then back, then up again, without apparent effort.
After a time the figure stopped swimming, climbed out of the water and towelled itself perfunctorily. Then it came towards the house.
Lindsay waited only long enough to perceive that the dawn swimmer was none other than Rod Bennett himself, clad in brief black trunks, his tanned body glistening with wetness, the towel that had only half performed its task slung carelessly around his neck.
As he approached, she turned quietly and hastened back to her room. It would be awful if he caught her spying on him!
After she had dressed, she walked down towards the store. In the pocket of her denim skirt she carried the keys of both the store and the little cottage. The manager had given them to her the previous afternoon with an off-hand suggestion that she had better ‘get started’, and Lindsay had wondered, as she eyed the rows of unfamiliar bottles, cans, packs, and tins, the assortment of clothing and bedding, the drugs and chemicals, just where one did start, and how!
She had locked the store again hastily, and had gone instead to the cottage, relieved to find herself in the more familiar world of accounts, receipts, and statements.
Today she planned an early assault on the problem of that store. There was little to be gained by putting off the evil moment any longer. After all, it was possible that someone might ask for something at any time, and she would feel very stupid if she had not at least familiarised herself with the layout.
