The Touch

by Colleen McCullough

Suddenly Alexander called out. “Lee!”

  Lee halted and twisted to look at him.

  “It’s Dolly’s birthday today. Four o’clock at the house.”

  I HAD FORGOTTEN Dolly’s birthday, thought Lee wearily as he donned a dark suit; with the festivities due to start at four, no evening dress, though of course the adults would sit down for dinner after the birthday party. Constance Dewy would be there.

  He encountered Ruby coming down the corridor from her rooms, and waited for her. How beautiful she was! Her figure had improved, if that were possible, its bones carrying a little less weight than in his childhood, when voluptuousness was in fashion and men could indulge their natural preference for it. Her dress was of French crepe as green as her eyes, its bodice and leg-o’-mutton sleeves inlaid with pink and its knee-length skirt cut in long teeth ending in tassels. The under-dress, all the way to the ground, was pink, and her kid gloves were pink. A small green hat with a curled brim sat on her red-gold hair, its front adorned with pink roses.

  “You look good enough to eat,” he said, kissing a silken cheek with eyes closed to savor the scent of gardenias.

  She gurgled. “I hope Alexander thinks the same.”

  “You shouldn’t say things like that to your son.”

  “Well, at least you know what I mean, which augurs well for your birds of paradise.”

  “My birds of paradise prefer the thrill of diamonds.”

  They traveled up in the cable car to find Alexander, Elizabeth and Constance in the small dining room, decked with bunting. Everyone had to wear a party hat. Constance had brought them from Bathurst, where an enterprising Chinese shopkeeper had taken advantage of the Chinese skill in making tissue-thin colored paper; he sold streamers, party hats, fancy paper tablecloths and napkins, exquisite wrapping paper for gifts.

  When Peony led Dolly in on some pretext they commenced a chorus of happy birthdays and showered the delighted child with presents. But it was a sad birthday party too: Dolly didn’t know any children around her own age. What does one give a seven-year-old? Lee had found a nest of Russian dolls that appeared, ever smaller, each from inside a bigger one. Ruby produced a German porcelain doll with jointed arms and legs, clad in the latest fashion, with a mop of real hair, real eyelashes around striated blue eyes that closed, and red lips parted to reveal teeth and a tongue that actually wobbled when it was pushed. From Alexander, a tricycle, and from Elizabeth, a gold bracelet of linked hearts that bore its first charm, a golden horseshoe for luck. Constance handed over a huge tin of bonbons.

  Dolly blew out the seven candles on her cake, lovingly made by Chang and iced in her favorite color, pink.

  “She’ll undoubtedly spend the night being sick,” Constance said as they repaired to the drawing room after games and a visit to the stables to see Dolly’s main gift, a Shetland pony.

  “Never mind,” said Elizabeth comfortably. “Peony will dose her with some of Hung Chee’s magic bilious potion after she’s sicked up the worst of so much sweet stuff, and she’ll settle for a good sleep.”

  Not even Alexander could have detected that his wife was conducting an affair, Lee thought. Not once did she let her gaze rest on him for longer than was proper.

  The dinner was somewhat sparser than usual; birthday cake and fairy sandwiches do not make a good beginner. The moment the main course was cleared away, Alexander rose.

  “If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to the mine. I have some work to do.”

  “I’ll go with you and lighten the load,” Lee offered.

  “Thanks, but this is my party. A solitary one.”

  “Not even Summers?” Lee asked.

  “Not even Summers.”

  “How is his poor wife?” Constance asked.

  “Mad as a hatter, but remarkably healthy.”

  “A sad business.”

  “Indeed,” said Alexander, and disappeared.

  LEE’S CONFESSION had come out of the blue, and though he had listened imperturbably, Alexander’s mind reeled. He had never dreamed that Elizabeth was in love with Lee. She has good taste, he remembered thinking as Lee talked; this is a completely honest and decent man. Nor had Lee been crass enough to mention Alexander’s mother and her secret, though obviously it worked on him powerfully. Love was supposed to be blind, yet Lee’s love was perceptive enough to see Elizabeth’s liking for secrecy. If a child did come and Lee had said nothing, Elizabeth would have kept the secret of its father to the bitter end. Because she was all bound up in secrets. That was what happened when youthful confessions were punished without mercy, when the confessions were not seen as a wish to tell the truth, and therefore were not deemed praiseworthy. So she had learned not to confess; instead, she had learned to keep secrets so well that she hardly knew even her own motives.

  And he, Alexander, had not made a friend of her. Too busy outfitting her appropriately, showering her with jewels, training her to be his chatelaine. When he had talked to her, it had been as a teacher upon subjects far from her ken—geology, mining, his ambitions. The sons they would have to share his interests. What did she care if this cliff was Permian and that layer Silurian? Yet that was what he had talked about on the journey to Kinross. Not things she could respond to, but things that he loved. Oh, to turn the clock back! To have only known that he was the very image of old man Murray’s drawing of Satan! And she had come to the marriage bed so utterly unprepared, even if she had been informed of the mechanics. Young girls in rural Scotland were so sheltered, so ignorant. Between the description, probably outlined by some misanthropic bitch, and the act, lay a gulf bridged only by long preparation.

  Preparation he hadn’t bothered with. He hadn’t wooed her, but had simply claimed her. A gold mine ready to dig. There should have been a period of quiet dinners together, of flowers rather than diamonds, of kisses given after permission to kiss, of a slow awakening that predisposed her to greater intimacies. But no, not the great Alexander Kinross! He had met her, he had married her the next day, and climbed into her bed after one kiss in the church. There to prove himself an animal in her eyes. One mistake after another, that was the story of his relationship with Elizabeth. And Ruby had always meant more.

  But it was only in the aftermath of Elizabeth’s disappearance that he really understood what he had done to her. The pain, the disappointment. She hadn’t had the chance to choose for herself.

  It’s no wonder she disliked me from the first. It’s no wonder she was so ill when she carried my children. She didn’t want me as their father, though she hadn’t found a man she did want. Now that I know about Lee I am positive that she can carry babies, even at her age, without a scrap of trouble. I’m so glad I learned about Lee before today! He’s perfect for her.

  NUMBER ONE tunnel was a refuge that he had completely to himself; the shift wasn’t due to change until midnight and the miners, in number five and number seven, knew he was working number one. Unless he summoned a man, he would be left alone.

  The compressor was a beauty; it delivered sufficient air pressure to the drill even at such a distance, and he was delighted at the performance of this particular Ingersoll drill. Almost new, it had been run in very smoothly.

  He had intended to bore his charge holes twelve feet in, positioning them as he had mapped out several days ago; for that reason he had refused Lee’s help. Lee would have queried him—he knew too much. Anyway, he didn’t need help, he knew exactly what he was doing, and he could do it better, faster. Then, on the first hole, the drill bit punched into a void at eleven feet—he was right, there was a fault in there! But he continued the holes, each time punching into that void around eleven feet in. And as he kept on drilling, he kept on thinking.

  What a grand life I’ve had! What a vindication! They’re an effective recipe for success, are hard work, intelligence and ambition. I haven’t put a foot wrong in any of my ventures from gold to rubber, and if there has to be a failure, I’d rather it was in my private life. Sir Alexander Kinross of the Thistl
e—didn’t I look braw in my robes? How much I’ve enjoyed myself! The triumphs, the travel, the wild adventures, the gold piling up in the Bank of England, the satisfaction of building a model town a generation ahead of its time, the knowledge that all public men have a price, and the pleasure of buying them, the rapacious fools. What does money matter, if in taking it a man sells himself as another man’s creature? Yes, I’ve had a grand time of it for fifty-five years.

  He paused to tie a bandanna around his forehead, then went on working, each movement sure and fluid.

  For all the misery that marriage had caused Elizabeth, she had gifted him with a wonderful daughter who would go far in her chosen profession—if, that is, she didn’t choose to turn into a crusader instead. Nell, he had noticed, was an altruist, and that she had to get from her mother. The only goal he hadn’t achieved was a son and heir of his own blood. He should never have sent to Scotland for a bride; he should have married Ruby, the wife of his heart, for she held it along with his mind in that busty, lusty body. But not because of that busty, lusty body. Because of her bawdy sparkling wit, her trenchant wisdom, her sense of the ridiculous, her gargantuan zest for life. One in many millions, Ruby. He had failed her too, as great a grief as knowing he had failed Elizabeth. Loved both, failed both.

  But he owed Elizabeth a debt, and it was high time he paid it. To love her yet fail to make her happy was inexcusable. At least Ruby was happy. Lee was perfect for Elizabeth, yes, but could he deal with her secretiveness? He was fathoms deep in love with her, but it was that courtly love of medieval times, a hopeless pining at a chaste distance. Could he make the transition from no hope to hope fulfilled? Was the Elizabeth he had dreamed of for seventeen years the Elizabeth he’d have to live with? That, Alexander couldn’t know. Didn’t want to, either.

  Sung popped into his mind. Good old Sung! No man had ever had a better partner with whom to start such a massive enterprise. That was where Lee got his sense of honor from, of course. Odd, when the father hadn’t personally supervised his half-caste son nor indeed taken much interest in him at all. Sung’s Chinese sons were, if anything, more foreign than Sung was—a different upbringing entirely. Alexander was inclined to think that Lee had had the best of the bargain. Things would get worse for the Chinese after the colonies federated, but Alexander was sure now that those already in Australia would stay in Australia. How stupid, to ignore the brains and talent in the non-white world!

  Anna came and went like an instrument of torture, muddled up with Jade, Sam O’Donnell, Theodora Jenkins. Now she was a case of what love could do to ruin a life! The foolish woman had left Kinross and now existed in abject poverty in Bathurst taking in mending and teaching piano. All because she wouldn’t see the truth about her charming handy-man. Jade, a little black body twirling gently at the end of a rope, ashes soaking into Sam O’Donnell’s cheap coffin. Clever of Sung, that had been. After this record rain, O’Donnell’s moldering bones would be locked in the webby embrace of his executioner.

  What was there to make of Anna? Poor, innocent wee mite. A tragedy as inevitable and inexorable as a mass of ice grinding down a valley. For that alone he was in debt to Elizabeth, who had borne the brunt. Well, he had to give her her chance and pray that it hadn’t come too late. Lee was hers to the death, but would she want that once she had him? Would he too start to pinch and constrain her? Not, he thought, if she can give him children. They’ll be the babies of her heart. I wonder if one will look like Ruby? I’d like that!

  THE HOLES were done. Alexander trudged down the tunnel to where Summers had just arrived with a four-wheeled dolly that held a case of dynamite, a paste of salts, gun cotton, platinum wire and detonators. How time flies! Alexander thought, looking at his watch. Its hands were mated at half past six. Nine hours to do the drilling. Not bad for an old man.

  “Your note did say a full case of the sixty percent, Sir Alexander, but isn’t that rather a lot?”

  “Far too much, Summers, but I wasn’t happy with the stuff in the open case. Here, let’s have a look.” He prised the stout wooden lid off the case and stared at the orderly rows of brown sticks, lifted one to feel it and smell it, nodded. “This lot is fine. I’ll take it in on the dolly.”

  “I wish I wasn’t such a duffer about explosives,” Summers said dolefully, and started to pull the dolly into number one.

  Alexander stopped him. “Thank you, Summers, I can manage.”

  “What about the Ingersoll? Dismantling the air pipe?”

  “I moved the Ingersoll myself, and dismantled the air pipe.”

  “You shouldn’t, Sir Alexander, you really shouldn’t.”

  “At my age, you mean?” Alexander said with a grin, and began to pull the dolly.

  Summers stood watching his figure dwindle in the brilliant light until the tunnel curved and he disappeared.

  Back at the rock face again, Alexander took a stick of this maximum-strength explosive and slit its wrapping up one side with a sharp knife. He pushed it into the hole fairly easily, picked up the very long tamper bar and rammed it all the way to the void. Then another stick, another, another, working now as quickly as he could, filling the hole until there was room for one more stick only. To its end he crimped the fulminate of mercury detonator cap, a primer of salts, and two wire terminals connected by a platinum filament atop a bed of gun cotton. And on to the next hole.

  The sweat rolled off him, his muscles screamed from the exertion, but he placed his charges as he wanted, each hole trailing a length of wire, until 156 sticks, each containing 60 percent nitroglycerin, lay inside the rock face. Then he stripped six inches of insulation from each wire and twisted them together to make just one bundle. After that he stripped the insulation from the end of the wire that he would soon unroll as he went back to the gallery, where it would be connected to the terminal that would trigger the blast. There! Done. He gazed at his work with approval, nodded.

  Kicking the spool of wire ahead of him, he trod the sloppy ground to the gallery. Summers, Lee and Prentice were waiting for him; Prentice brought the spool to the terminal and bent to cut the wire, intending to do the connecting himself. Alexander took the wire from him, stripped it, and connected it. What a fussy, cantankerous bugger he is! thought Prentice. Has to do it all himself, just as if no one else could.

  “She’s ready to go, dear old number one,” Alexander said crisply, smiling at them. He looked dirty and dog-tired, but jubilant.

  Prentice sounded the siren that warned everyone a blast was coming; when finally it ceased its howl, Alexander flipped the switch on the terminal and the ammeter said current was flowing. They stood with their hands over their ears, as did forty other men, but no blast came. The maw of number one tunnel sat dark and empty, its lights now disconnected.

  “Fuck!” said Alexander. “There’s a break in the wire.”

  “Wait!” Lee cried sharply. “Alexander, wait a moment! It might be a hang fire.”

  For answer Alexander switched the current off; the ammeter needle slumped to zero. “I’ll fix it,” he said, took a lamp and started into the tunnel. “This is my blast. All of you are to stay right where you are, is that clear?”

  This time he covered the ground at a lope, grinning, filled with power and purpose. What the men behind him didn’t know was that the current still flowed; he had wired a bypass inside the terminal, activated when he had thrown the switch to its off position. It bypassed the ammeter too.

  The two wires lay on the ground, their naked copper ends pinkly glittering in the light of the lamp. He put it down and picked up the wires in either hand.

  “Better this by far than living to piss on my shoes,” he said, and touched the wires together with fierce pleasure.

  The whole tunnel erupted, chunks of rock flung three hundred yards as the mountain, fatally flawed eleven feet beyond the rock face, tried to collapse in on itself as the force of the massive amount of explosive drove it apart. The first shock of shrieking air was followed by the shatter
ing noise; the men in the gallery were tossed about like bubbles in boiling water as the space was deluged in flying particles and a huge pall of dust rolled through it, up the shafts to the poppet heads, down into the skip tunnel and out the adit. The roar was heard in Kinross, heard faintly on top of the mountain. Yet when it was over and Lee picked himself up, ears ringing, he saw that the gallery stood undamaged. The outside sirens were screaming and men came running from the town—oh, Jesus, not a cave-in! Who was dead, how many tunnels and shafts were under tons of rock?

  The first thing was to ascertain safety; when Lee, the mining engineers and the supervisors made their inspection, they found that nothing had come down except number one tunnel. Elsewhere there wasn’t a crack in a beam, a rent in a canvas sheet, a buckle in a skip rail. The entire force of the blast was confined to number one tunnel.

  The man’s a genius, Lee thought dully as he and Summers went as far into number one as they could—about ninety feet of what had been a thousand feet. Alexander had set his charges to wreak maximum havoc in minimum space. Not one part of the Apocalypse had suffered apart from his original tunnel. “Dear old number one. She likes me, the bitch.”

  Summers was howling like a small boy and most of the men in the gallery were weeping, but Lee couldn’t. While Prentice and the other supervisors started to get ready to try to dig Alexander out, Lee walked unobtrusively to the terminal and pulled out the cable connecting it to the generator shed. Turning it over in his hands, he unscrewed the bottom plate and saw what Alexander had done. You never missed a trick, did you? No one was watching him; Lee dismantled the bypass and tucked it into his pants pocket, then reassembled the device. When someone thought to examine it, test it in the laboratory, it would behave exactly as it ought. I’ll bet you even worked out that it would be me to find this. Because, Alexander Kinross, you wanted to die in an accident—luck’s caprice, no one’s fault. I’ll aid and abet you. I owe you that, and much, much more.