River Run

by Alexander, Nicole

  ‘I was there,’ Keith interrupted his wife, ‘when that blasted New Guard man, de Groot, slashed the ribbon at the opening of the Harbour Bridge. Well, we both were,’ he quickly corrected, pleasing his wife with a kindly smile.

  ‘God, wasn’t that an uproar,’ Colin agreed. ‘But even before that, the bush was getting caught up in the general political ruckus. Hell, we were shearing in ’29 on my father’s place when one of the shed-hands started harking back to the troubles of 1891. We were arguing about something that had occurred near-on forty years ago. Anyway, I had a fist-fight with the bloke out on the flat and sent the bugger packing.’

  ‘Colin, you didn’t?’ Georgia halted her search through a stack of records.

  ‘Yes, I know, my dear, Alan wouldn’t have done that, and you’re right, he didn’t dirty his hands. He handled the bets. Cleaned up pretty well too, I recall.’

  A shadow flickered across Georgia’s plump face.

  Keith burst out laughing. ‘The general strike of ’91,’ he began when he’d finished chuckling, ‘my father thought that was bloody marvellous.’

  ‘What happened?’ Eleanor queried. After the disagreement between the overseer and Georgia, it appeared everyone was ready to change the subject.

  ‘Well,’ Keith moved to the centre of the room, ‘the Queensland shearers and bush workers organised themselves into unions and, in response, the local graziers met in Barcaldine and formed the Pastoral Employers Association. They wanted to be able to employ men in sheds free of union rules, except that they pushed it a bit far by announcing wage reductions, refusing to negotiate and effectively challenging the union’s right to exist.’

  Eleanor was listening intently. ‘And then?’

  ‘The squatters were accused of attacking the union and they set up strike camps.’ Colin commandeered the story. ‘Over 4000 of them there were, camped out on the flat under their so-called Tree of Knowledge, an old Ghost Gum.’

  ‘So the colonial government sent in the army.’ Keith took up the yarn again. ‘Eventually the whole thing died down and a handful were arrested. Scabs were used to shear the clip at Coreena Station.’

  ‘If you ask me, the trade unions are top-heavy with communist sympathisers,’ Georgia declared. ‘Well, I mean they have to be when you think of union history. Here it is,’ she waved a record, ‘Doris Day, “Bewitched”.’

  ‘I adore that song,’ Margaret said enthusiastically. ‘I saw her in Tea for Two, you know. She’s a wonderful actress as well.’

  ‘There was something else I overheard at the shed.’ Eleanor twirled the glass stem between her fingers. ‘I heard that the man that Robbie shot could be a communist, and if he was, then the shooting hadn’t been accidental.’

  ‘It’s just talk, Eleanor,’ the overseer said as he finished his drink. ‘Something happens on a run, something out of the ordinary, and people’s minds go into overdrive. You know what it’s like out here. Not much happens in the bush most days and you add a bit of boredom and loneliness and grievances are quick to rise up. Dissatisfaction. That’s all it is.’

  ‘Exactly, Hugh.’ Colin sat tiredly on the sofa, oblivious to his wife’s annoyance at the filth of his clothes as he rested the walking stick against the upholstery. ‘Dissatisfaction breeds discontent.’

  ‘Which is exactly why I wouldn’t go firing anyone, Mrs Webber,’ the overseer suggested politely. ‘It doesn’t take much to rile men, not when there’s already talk. And we’ve only just started shearing.’

  ‘Just do it, Hugh,’ responded Georgia.

  Mr Goward made his excuses and left for the evening. He was yet to go to the shed and check the numbers yarded for the next day’s shearing with Mr Lomax, as well as today’s tally.

  ‘Well, he’s become quite opinionated.’ Colin stared at his wife. ‘You’ve created a monster.’

  The front door clicked closed. Eleanor worried that Hugh may have heard her stepfather’s comment and said so, as respectfully as possible.

  ‘And?’ came his blunt reply, as if Hugh Goward’s sensibilities were of any concern.

  ‘Entertaining staff, Colin, is something you introduced if you recall, not me. But that being said, Hugh is a major asset to River Run and I always pay attention to what he has to say, even if I don’t agree with him at times,’ Georgia stated.

  ‘Those times,’ her husband muttered, ‘are very few.’

  The air in the room grew stuffy with heat and cigarette smoke.

  ‘The ongoing success of the property is dependent on new ideas. What do you think, Keith?’ asked Georgia, clearly looking for support. ‘You’d have to agree?’

  Their house guest raised his hands in mock defence. ‘Two things a man never does, Georgia, interfere in another man’s business affairs or with his wife.’

  ‘Heaven’s, Keith, you’re so old-school.’ Margaret clasped a telescopic cigarette holder. ‘Wife-swapping is quite in vogue in the Eastern suburbs at the moment. It really takes the humdrum out of our housewifely lives.’ The holder dangled provocatively over the edge of the armchair. Margaret waited until the ash was just about to fall from the tip of the cigarette onto the silk-weave rug, before tapping the cinders into an ashtray. The action broke the silence and the atmosphere was instantly relieved by Keith’s full-throated laugh.

  The fact that Eleanor couldn’t actually tell if Mrs Winslow was serious or not was, however, both disturbing and intriguing.

  ‘She’s right, you know,’ Keith replied. ‘We’ve heard stories of dinner parties where they chase each other round the table. Catch ’em if you can.’ He winked at Eleanor. ‘Why, my father said it was all the rage in the twenties as well.’

  It was a fine attempt at lightening the mood but it didn’t last long.

  ‘All that aside, something had to be done with Robbie,’ Colin admitted sullenly, gazing into the dregs of his glass. ‘His behaviour is disappointing. Very disappointing.’

  ‘Well, I feel sorry for Robbie,’ Eleanor announced to raised eyebrows. ‘He’s only a kid and a lonely one at that. One minute we’re saying he’s done the wrong thing by sneaking from his room and hitting the shed overseer with a lump of dirt, and the next we’re calling those two men thieves. Robbie caught those men red-handed.’

  ‘So you think they should be fired too?’ Mr Winslow asked.

  ‘No. No, I think they should be given a warning,’ replied Eleanor.

  The 45 had finished playing but the scratchy noise of the needle on vinyl continued. Finally, Georgia turned the record player off.

  ‘Surely we have to ask how responsible he is for his recent actions. Why Robbie’s done what he’s done,’ Eleanor persevered. Her mother and uncle were staring at her while Keith poured another drink and Margaret continued fanning the magazine, the light wind stirring stray hairs about her face. ‘I don’t think he should have been given a rifle in the first place. He’s too young.’

  The glass Colin held landed on the leather-tooled top of the occasional table with a thud. ‘That’s rich coming from you, Eleanor. You know what I just found in his bedroom? Comics. A whole range of comics. Detective comics, crime comics, the hang ’em high, shoot ’em up Western comics that your mother strictly forbid in this house and which you gave him. If he is bored and as his imagination appears to have been most definitely running riot last Saturday, then may I suggest that his actions were probably not helped by that trash. The same trash you have hidden in your bedroom. That pulp fiction rubbish that you try to fob off as literature.’

  Eleanor stood. ‘You went through my things?’

  Georgia’s hand reached for the cross around her neck. ‘You’re still writing that, that –’

  ‘I think I might go and have a shower before dinner,’ Keith said amicably, gesturing to his wife to leave the room as well. But Margaret was having none of it. She crossed her legs, settled back in the sofa, smiling sweetly. ‘Refill please, Keith.’

  ‘No, you will not leave this room, Eleanor,’ Georgia said angrily
, waiting until her daughter sat back down. ‘You will respect the rules of this house when you are here and that is final.’

  ‘You do understand that you’re just being used by these second-tier publishers,’ her stepfather lectured. ‘Everyone, left and right, the rabble-rousers and church groups, everyone is against these lurid publications.’

  ‘This is the 1950s!’ Eleanor replied, outraged.

  ‘Don’t speak to your stepfather like that, Eleanor. Those trashy comics and novellas only appeal to the lower classes. Work like that is damaging to the fabric of society. It’s immoral. I blame myself for letting you run off to Sydney alone. I should have ensured you always had a chaperone. If I’d done that, you’d be married by now. Married, rearing children and safe.’

  ‘How wonderful, Mother,’ Eleanor retaliated. ‘And look at the extent of your domestic bliss. With a stranger unconscious in this very house shot by your son and your eldest daughter getting over a breakdown and all this on your second marriage to my uncle only months after Dad died. And you’re talking to me about morals? Bloody old Menzies should be the one shot, spouting the virtues of marriage and children as the fabric of society.’

  Georgia collapsed onto the sofa. Keith found something engrossing out the window. Even Margaret was agog, lighting another cigarette with a match from a River Run monogrammed matchbox. The flame burnt her fingers and she blew out the offending blaze with a loud ouch.

  ‘That’s enough,’ said Colin quietly.

  Eleanor stalked from the room and, once outside in the hallway, leant against the wall to catch her breath.

  Margaret was the first to speak. ‘Well,’ she drawled, ‘feisty little thing, isn’t she?’

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Eleanor walked furiously along the entrance hall until reaching the rear of the homestead, then she headed towards the kitchen. Mrs Howell and Nurse Pappas were eating dinner, a concoction of cold meat and hot vegetables that was also to be served up to their guests in the dining room in an hour’s time.

  ‘Eleanor, whatever is the matter?’ the housekeeper asked, knife and fork poised in the air.

  ‘Nothing.’ Eleanor glanced around the room, half inclined to find something breakable to throw.

  The seated women exchanged a brief glance as Eleanor moved from one side of the room to the other and back again.

  ‘Eleanor,’ the housekeeper reprimanded, placing her cutlery on the dinnerplate, ‘please be still. You’re reminding me of a dysfunctional cuckoo clock.’

  Taking up residence near the sink, Eleanor was considering marching straight back to the sitting room and telling her uncle exactly what she thought about his snooping.

  ‘We heard about Robbie, you mustn’t get so upset about –’

  ‘I’m not annoyed about that,’ Eleanor snapped at Mrs Howell. ‘Well, I suppose I am considering Robbie thought he was doing the right thing. It’s Colin. He went through my things. He actually went into my room and searched it,’ she told the women. ‘And practically blamed me for the shooting! Then, then, he and Mum gave me a dressing down in front of the Winslows. I can’t believe it. It’s the 1950s and what am I? A child?’

  Mrs Howell took a sip of water. ‘He found your writings?’

  Eleanor looked at Athena. That’s all she needed, for the village to start gossiping about her hobby as well.

  The nurse raised her hands. ‘This is not my business, Eleanor. I have problems enough of my own. Your mother is watching my every move. She dislikes me being here.’

  ‘My hands are tied when it comes to your mother and stepfather, Eleanor.’ The housekeeper poured a glass of water and gestured for Eleanor to drink it. ‘I can only say that, unfortunately, when you’re under this roof you have to abide by their wishes. You know that. Would you like a tray in your room later?’

  ‘I’m not hungry, Mrs Howell,’ she replied, refusing the water.

  ‘Perhaps a cup of tea?’ Athena offered.

  ‘No, thanks.’

  Mrs Howell sighed. ‘Well then, perhaps you could go and check on the patient so Nurse Pappas can enjoy a more leisurely meal, and if you’re still at loose ends in a couple of hours, you can come back and help with the washing-up. Alice has the night off.’

  ‘Fine.’ Leaving the kitchen, Eleanor walked smartly along the corridor. Mrs Howell and Athena were talking softly as she stepped inside the sickroom.

  The patient was awake as Eleanor drew a chair to his bedside. He coughed and winced, his breathing laboured.

  ‘Are you alright?’ asked Eleanor, feeling her anger subside at the sight of the wounded stranger. ‘You look very red in the face.’

  It seemed to take time for him to recognise her, which surprised Eleanor considering how alert he’d seemed earlier. ‘It’s the heat. It’s as if the world is burning up, with me in it.’ His voice was weak, barely a whisper.

  The patient’s voice was well-modulated, and Eleanor was sure there was the hint of an accent, but it was difficult to tell when he spoke so softly. ‘You’re not used to this type of weather then?’ Wringing out a cloth in the bowl on the washstand, Eleanor folded the damp material, resting it across the patient’s brow. He didn’t actually feel that hot and when Nurse Pappas had taken his temperature earlier in the afternoon it was normal. So then, she thought, if he wasn’t used to hot weather, he wasn’t from around these parts. ‘What’s your name?’

  He looked at her blankly. ‘I don’t remember.’ He lifted his uninjured arm slowly, tentatively touching the bandage on his head.

  ‘You hurt yourself pretty badly when you fell off your horse. Do you remember that?’ Eleanor didn’t want to be the person to tell him that it was her own brother who was responsible for his injuries.

  The man probed the back of his head as if only just realising how badly he was wounded. ‘My shoulder?’

  ‘You were shot. My brother,’ she said, her tone apologetic, ‘he’s only eleven, well, he shot you by mistake.’

  ‘By mistake,’ he repeated. ‘What day is it?’

  ‘Monday. The accident happened on Saturday.’ He stared at her as if he were having difficulty comprehending. ‘You don’t remember anything that happened? You were out riding on our property. Near the river. You said this morning that you remembered my voice from the paddock.’

  He shook his head. ‘I’m trying to remember, but …’

  ‘Don’t worry.’ Eleanor patted his arm. ‘Nurse Pappas said you’d given yourself a bad hit to the head. You’ve an old injury in the same spot.’

  ‘Nurse Pappas?’ he queried.

  ‘Yes, the Greek nurse. This morning you said she didn’t like you and that I wasn’t to tell anyone you could speak yet.’ It took some time for him to digest what Eleanor said and they sat in silence as he stared at the ceiling.

  ‘Where am I?’

  ‘River Run. It’s a sheep station. My family owns it. We just started shearing today.’

  The man ignored this, tracing instead the tubing that ran from the drip into the arm with the bandaged shoulder. ‘I heard shouting earlier,’ he said quietly.

  ‘That would be my stepfather. I write, well, scribbling he calls it, comic books and things like that.’ Eleanor shrugged. ‘He and my mother hate me doing it. Apparently I’m contributing to the downfall of society.’

  The patient tried to laugh. Eleanor smiled.

  ‘I used to paint,’ he shared. ‘My father thought it a waste of time.’

  ‘Used to?’ He gestured for water and Eleanor held the glass as he took a sip. Her gaze rested on the indentation of his throat, on the same intimate stretch of skin she’d touched only hours earlier. She felt him watching her and she withdrew the glass, resuming her seat.

  ‘It was a hobby, before the war.’

  ‘I knew it. I knew you’d fought on our side.’ Eleanor felt ridiculously vindicated, especially after all the absurd talk of the poor man before her being a communist.

  ‘What other side is there?’ he asked.

&
nbsp; Eleanor relaxed in the chair. ‘What other side indeed. I should let you rest. I’m tiring you.’

  He lifted a hand. ‘No, please stay. You talk and I will listen.’

  ‘Okay. So, what did you paint?’

  ‘Like Picasso. But very bad. And you, what are you writing?’

  Eleanor found herself talking of the novella she’d written and of Dante’s deception, doing her best to omit the strength of her feelings for the lover who’d stolen her work. ‘I didn’t think it was that great, to be honest. But I wrote what I knew. It was a story of a country girl who moves to the city. Anyway, the publisher liked it. He must think Dante has a terrific imagination for an Italian immigrant.’

  ‘Italian?’ the patient interrupted with obvious interest.

  ‘Yes, anyway, I was foolish I suppose. My girl-friends said I should have known better.’ The man was looking at her intently. ‘I guess I don’t have much time for Italians anymore.’

  ‘You were in love with him?’

  Eleanor felt her cheeks redden.

  ‘Forget him. You will write another work, a great work.’ He gave a raspy cough and grimaced.

  Eleanor gave him a grateful smile. ‘I should let you rest.’

  ‘You’ll come back?’ he asked, his eyes already sleepy.

  ‘Sure.’ It was nice to be needed, Eleanor decided, nice to talk to someone who understood her, who was not judgemental like her parents or perhaps trying to curry favour in hopes of a promotion. And if she were truthful, she had to admit that he was not unattractive. ‘I’ll be back,’ she promised, ‘tomorrow.’

  Only later did she wonder at his ability to recall his interest in art, when he was yet to remember his name.

  Tuesday

  Arrivals and Departures

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Tightening the girth strap, Eleanor did a couple of leg hops and pulled herself up into the saddle. Hilda whinnied in complaint and, with grudging slowness, walked forward only to stop again. No amount of coaxing would budge the mare until a quick jab in the flanks with the heel of her riding boots stirred the horse to action. Fingers tightening on the reins, Eleanor felt the snap of the horse’s head as the mare took the bit firmly in her mouth, stretching out hard and fast. As if to prove a point, Hilda’s surge in pace did not last very long and within seconds of the mare’s enthusiastic dash, horse and rider were back to a dawdling walk.