The Touch

by Colleen McCullough

  Ruby looked quizzical. “Nineteen hundred, or nineteen hundred and one?” she asked.

  “Ah, that’s the big stumbling block,” Lee said, smiling and deciding to go for a laugh. “There’s a group who say the new century begins in nineteen hundred, another that it doesn’t begin until nineteen hundred and one. It all depends, you see, whether there was a Year Nought between One B.C. and One A.D. The church people plump for no Year Nought, whereas the mathematicians and atheists say there had to be a Year Nought. The best argument I’ve heard is that if there was no Year Nought, then Jesus Christ didn’t have His first birthday until December twenty-fifth of Two A.D., and was actually only thirty-one when He went to the cross eight months before His thirty-three A.D. birthday.”

  Ruby roared, Elizabeth managed a smile, but Alexander looked scornful. “Claptrap!” he said. “They’ll federate in nineteen hundred and one no matter what year Jesus Christ was born.”

  After which the conversation died.

  “He hates being home,” said Ruby to Lee in the cable car.

  “I know, but it’s the outside of enough when he takes out his spleen on poor Elizabeth, Mum. She just curled up.”

  “He’s bored, Lee, frightfully bored.”

  “He’s a boor!”

  “Put up with him, please! He will settle down,” said Ruby.

  LEE PUT UP with Alexander’s frightful boredom as best he could, which was by handing over all financial decisions to him (Alexander had demanded that he do so anyway) and staying as far out of reach as he could. If Alexander was in the mine, Lee was at the sewage treatment plant, and if Alexander was in the cyanide refinery, Lee was rebuilding the railway bridge. He had had a victory there; even in his new mood of economizing, Alexander could see that the structure was too weak to be repaired.

  For Elizabeth it was harder because she couldn’t get away from her husband in the evenings. He had quarrelled with Ruby, who taxed him over his treatment of Lee and got told to mind her own business, namely the Kinross Hotel. She retaliated by barring him from her bed. Elizabeth’s lot was made harder by Nell, who was overjoyed at Daddy’s return and stuck to him like glue outside school hours. Nell and her mother had been getting along together better while Alexander was away, now that vanished. Chiefly due to Elizabeth’s protesting strongly against Alexander’s intention to send Nell up to university to commence engineering in March of next year, when she would be a mere fifteen. Of course Nell was avid to go, fell all over her father when he said she could, and didn’t possess sufficient tact not to crow about it to her mother.

  “It’s cruel to send a child into a man’s world at fifteen,” Elizabeth said to Alexander when she thought he was in a good mood. “I know she’s bright enough to top the state in her matriculation exams this year, but she’s four years too early. It wouldn’t do her any harm to stay here another year.”

  “You’re such a Job’s comforter, Elizabeth. Nell is raring to go, and I need her qualified as soon as possible now that Lee is such a disappointment.”

  “Lee, a disappointment? Alexander, that’s unfair!”

  “No, it’s bloody not! If I let Lee have his way, Apocalypse Enterprises would turn into a beneficent society for international socialism! It’s all the workers this, and the workers that—my employees get paid better wages than anyone else’s, live in a better and cheaper town—they’re home on the pig’s back! And what thanks have I received? None!” Alexander said, snarling.

  “This isn’t like you,” Elizabeth said dully.

  “It’s like the new me. We’re in for mighty hard times, and I do not intend to go under.”

  “Lee aside, I beg you not to let Nell go up next year.”

  “Nell is going up next year, and that’s that. I’m having her and the Chinese boys taught to defend themselves—Donny Wilkins too. They’ll be properly housed and absolutely safe. Now go away, Elizabeth, and leave me alone!”

  AND SO MATTERS stood until that July of 1890, when everything seemed to happen almost at once.

  It began with Dragonfly, who developed heart trouble and was told by Hung Chee in the Chinese medicine shop that she must not work for at least six months. With Alexander in a permanent bad temper—he still hadn’t managed to climb back into Ruby’s bed—Elizabeth knew that she couldn’t apply to Lee for a replacement; she had no choice but to apply to Alexander. Who looked at her as if she were mad.

  “I’m sure Dragonfly has been a great help—she’s taken all the load of Anna, which has freed you and Jade up, hasn’t it?” he asked, voice biting. “Well, back to work the pair of you go. There was never any need to pay an extra wage for yet another minder—this house costs a fortune to run!”

  “But Alexander, Dragonfly became someone Anna didn’t even see, that’s why Dragonfly was so successful!” Elizabeth protested, feeling tears gather and determined not to shed them. “When Jade and I supervise Anna, she tricks us—truly, she’s cunning! And she can’t be allowed to wander. What if she has an accident?”

  “How far can the girl go?” Alexander asked, brows raised in his devil’s look. “I’ll issue orders that anyone who sees her at the poppet heads or in town is to return her to Summers or you.”

  “I’m so sorry, Jade,” Elizabeth said a few minutes later. “You and I are back on patrol with Anna.”

  “She’ll escape,” said Jade miserably.

  “Yes, she’ll escape. Still, I daresay Sir Alexander is right when he says she can come to no harm.”

  “Miss Lizzy, I’ll make sure she doesn’t trick me!”

  “I just worry that she’ll take a fall in the bush and break something. Oh, for Dragonfly!”

  TWO DAYS LATER Alexander held a board meeting; only Sung, Ruby and Lee were present, Sophia Dewy’s husband too far away to get to Kinross in time. Alexander did not intend to have more opposition than necessary.

  “I’m reducing Apocalypse Mine production by half,” he said in the tone that brooked no argument. “The price of gold is falling and it’s going to fall even lower as time goes on. In view of this, we pull in our horns before someone chops them off. If you include the coal mine, we have a work force of five hundred and fourteen. That will go down to two hundred and thirty. The town employs another two hundred, almost all Chinese. That will go down to one hundred.”

  For a long moment no one said a word, then Sung spoke.

  “Alexander, Apocalypse Enterprises can survive a worldwide slump for many years. The gold is a relatively insignificant part of our profits these days, so why can’t we continue to mine it? We have vaults here, we can stockpile it if necessary.”

  “And deplete it for the future? No,” said Alexander.

  “How does stockpiling it deplete it?” Sung asked.

  “Because it’s coming out of the ground.”

  Lee folded his hands on the table, striving to maintain his calm. “One of the purposes of expanding Apocalypse Enterprises into so many different avenues was to sustain certain of our companies and holdings through bad patches,” he said levelly. “If the Apocalypse Mine needs to be sustained now, we should do it.”

  “You don’t run enterprises at a loss,” said Alexander.

  “Not if you cut production by half, I agree. But our work force is so skilled, Alexander! We have the best men in the gold-mining business. Why lose them for a temporary expedient? And why destroy goodwill? We’ve never had difficulties with the trade unions—in fact, our employees are so well treated that they don’t bother joining trade unions.”

  The look on Alexander’s face didn’t change, but Lee struggled on. “I’ve always prized the fact that we have never treated our employees like second-class citizens. There’s no need for greed, Alexander. Apocalypse Enterprises is quite capable of supporting our present life-styles even if we run the mine at a loss.”

  Ruby butted in. “Lee’s right, but he doesn’t go far enough. The Apocalypse and Kinross were the beginning of it all, Alexander, we owe everything we are to them. I for one won
’t consent to cuts that are a drop in the bucket when you consider the extent of the Company. I mean, it’s everywhere! The mine and Kinross are your babies! You’ve put so much of yourself into them. Now you act as if they’ve committed a crime, and that’s criminal.”

  “Sheer sentiment!” Alexander snapped.

  “I agree, it is,” said Sung, “but good sentiment, Alexander. Your people and my people have a good life here. It must go on being a good life, and that means preserving goodwill.”

  “You’re over-using the word ‘good,’ Sung.”

  “And I do not apologize for over-using it.”

  “So I take it, since you own the majority share, Alexander, that you’re about to sack two hundred and eighty-four mining men and one hundred town employees?” Lee asked.

  “Correct.”

  “I register my disapproval.”

  “And I,” said Sung.

  “And I,” said Ruby. “I also register Dewy disapproval.”

  “None of which matters a hoot,” said Alexander.

  “Do you intend to do anything for those you let go?” Lee asked.

  “Of course. I’m not entirely a Simon Legree. They’ll all receive severance pay according to years of service, skills and even size of family.”

  “That’s something,” said Lee. “Does it extend to the coal mine as well?”

  “No. Just to Kinross employees.”

  “Jesus, Alexander, it’s the coal miners will make the most trouble!” Ruby cried.

  “Which is precisely why they won’t benefit from my generosity.”

  “You sound like the mill owner from Yorkshire,” said Ruby.

  “Alexander, what’s gotten into you?” Lee asked.

  “Awareness of the gulf between the Haves and Have-nots.”

  “A more stupid answer would be hard to find!”

  “That’s bordering on impudence, young man.”

  “Not so young at twenty-six.” Lee got up, face set. “I do realize that everything I am I owe to you, from my education to my share in Apocalypse Enterprises. But I can’t continue to give you loyalty if you persist in such unkindness. If you do persist, I’m done with you, Alexander.”

  “That’s absolute bullshit, Lee. With the labor movement organizing itself to go into politics and the unions feeling their oats, industrial giants like this Company are threatened from all sides. If we don’t act now, it will be too late to act. Do you want some tom-fool clique of socialists running businesses from banks to bakeries? Labor has to be taught a lesson, and the sooner, the better. This is one of my contributions,” said Alexander.

  “One of your contributions?” Ruby asked.

  “I have others. I do not intend to go under.”

  “How can Apocalypse Enterprises go under?” Lee demanded. “It has so many irons in so many fires that a genuine apocalypse couldn’t smash it to smithereeens.”

  “I’ve made my decision, and I stand by it,” said Alexander.

  “Then I stand by mine.” Lee walked to the door. “I hereby resign from the board, and from all participation in the Company.”

  “Then sell me your share, Lee.”

  “In a pig’s eye, I will! That you gave my mother in trust for me, and that she transferred to me when I turned twenty-one. It’s pay-back for the services my mother renders you, and it’s not negotiable.”

  Lee quit the room quietly, leaving Alexander chewing his lip, Sung contemplating the far wall, and Ruby glaring at Alexander.

  “That was not well done, Alexander,” Sung said.

  “I think you’re off your head” from Ruby.

  Alexander gathered his papers together briskly. “If there’s no more business, the meeting is over,” he said.

  “THE TROUBLE IS,” mourned Ruby to Lee, “that Alexander has begun to form a crust of—of—oh, I don’t know how to explain it! His altruism is gone, thanks to chumming up with his fellow tycoons. Profits and power have come to mean more to him than human beings do. He’s losing sight of people, he finds his joy—no, his excitement—in manipulating vast numbers of people for his own ends. When I met him, he was full of idealism and high principles, but not anymore. If he’d had a happier marriage and a couple of sons of his own, things would be different. He’d be busy teaching them ideals and high principles.”

  “There’s Nell,” said Lee, leaning back with eyes closed.

  “Nell is female, and I don’t mean that in a derogatory sense. Only that she’s inherited Alexander’s steel in a feminine way. She’ll never rise to head Apocalypse Enterprises, I know it in my bones. Oh, she’ll excel at engineering and she’ll try hard to please him because she adores him. But in the end it will come to nothing, Lee. It can’t do else.”

  “Mum the prophet.”

  “No, Mum the exponent of reality,” said Ruby, serious for once. “What do you intend to do, Lee?”

  “As I’m certainly not short of money, I can do anything that I fancy,” said Lee, opening his eyes and gazing at her with the look she always associated with her little jade kitten. “I might travel in Asia, visit some of my friends from Proctor’s.”

  “Oh, don’t leave Kinross!” she cried.

  “I have to, Mum. If I don’t, Alexander will come down on me like a ton of bricks. Let him reap the whirlwind he’s busy sowing.”

  “That will sour him even more.”

  “Then don’t stay to see it, Mum. Come with me.”

  “No, I’ll stay here. Quite honestly, one trip was one too many. I’m two years older than Alexander, and I feel those two years as if they were twenty. Besides, he’s going to fall down with a crash, and if I’m not here to pick up the pieces, do you think Elizabeth will?”

  “I have no idea,” said Lee, “what she would or would not do.”

  UNLIKE ALEXANDER, Lee did not set much value on possessions, so packing was quick and easy. Just one large and one small case—less, did he not feel that he might need evening dress, suits for different occasions. Though it was queer not to look forward to meeting Alexander somewhere.

  On his last morning he walked up the snake path and into the bush. The sun had a winter smolder to it, a dull glare that reddened the soft pink unfolding leaves of this year’s new crop of eucalyptus foliage. Spring was around the corner already, the boronia budding and the northeast side of scattered rocks bearing exquisite creamy spikes of dendrobium orchids. So beautiful. Everything was so beautiful. And always hard to leave.

  He sat down amid the clumps of orchids on a huge boulder and folded his arms around his knees.

  The one thing I cannot eradicate is my love for Elizabeth, which goes on shaping my life. Nomadic, solitary, free. Yet I would not be free. I would have Elizabeth if I could. I would give everything I own and am for the chance to have Elizabeth. Her body, her mind, her heart, her very soul.

  He climbed to his feet like an old man; he had to go and say goodbye to his beloved.

  Whom he found in a distracted mood. Anna had gone missing.

  “What happened to Dragonfly?” he asked.

  Her eyes widened. “Don’t you know?”

  “Apparently not,” he said, but gently.

  “She had trouble with her heart and Hung Chee says she can’t work for six months. Alexander said hiring her was ridiculous anyway, and forbade me to replace her.”

  “What is the matter with the man?” Lee cried, fists clenched.

  “His age, I think, Lee. I suspect he feels old, and there are no more worlds to conquer. But it will pass.”

  “I’m going away for good,” he said abruptly.

  Her skin was always white, but it seemed suddenly to empty to an eerie transparency. Lee’s response was instinctive; he reached out and took her hands, held them strongly. “Are you well, Elizabeth?”

  “Not very, this morning,” she whispered. “I worry for Anna. It’s Alexander, isn’t it? He’s forced you to go away.”

  “Until he comes to his senses, yes.”

  “He will, though I hat
e to think of the price he’ll pay. Oh, Lee, your mother! This will break her heart.”

  “No, only Alexander can do that. My going will make it far easier for her to reconcile with him, you know.”

  “It’s not right! He needs you, Lee.”

  “But I don’t need him.”

  “I understand that.” Her eyes fell to her hands; without his realizing it, Lee’s thumbs were moving on the inside of her wrists in small, caressing circles. She seemed fascinated.

  Drawn there by the fixity of her regard, Lee looked down and saw what he was doing. He put a smile on his face, lifted one of her hands and then the other to kiss them lightly.

  “Goodbye, Elizabeth,” he said.

  “Goodbye, Lee. Look after yourself.”

  He walked away without turning to see her, and she stood in the middle of the lawn watching him go, no thought of Anna in her head. Lee filled it, just as her eyes were filled with tears.

  “YOU KNOW,” said Alexander to her in the drawing room that night before dinner, “you improve with age, Elizabeth.”

  “Do I?” she asked tranquilly, guard up.

  “Yes, definitely. You’ve turned into what I glimpsed once in the middle of cursing you for a mouse—a quiet lion.”

  “I am sorry that Lee is gone” was her answer.

  “I’m not. It was inevitable. We came to the parting of the ways—he wants peace at any price, I’m spoiling for a fight.”

  “An unquiet lion.”

  “How would you describe Lee?”

  The line of her jaw changed as she put her head back, a movement of such grace that he felt a flash of desire. Down went her lashes as her mouth tilted up in an enigmatic smile. “As the golden serpent in the Garden of Eden.”

  “Was the serpent golden?”

  “I have no idea, but you asked me for an animal metaphor.”

  “It’s apt, he does have a serpentine quality. You’ve never indicated whether you like him, come to think of it. Do you?”