The River is Down

by Lucy Walker

  She moved back her chair and stood up. Then she hesitated.

  ‘I’m not sure whether Mr. Brent needs me. For work, I mean. Is the conference ‒?’

  ‘The men from down south are winding up their own affairs this morning. They’re packing up, staff and all, and flying out this afternoon. They’re using the same chartered plane Mr. Brent had yesterday. He ‒ Mr. Brent ‒ has already cleared out your office room. I think he’s round at the garage having his Land-Rover checked again.’

  ‘Then ‒ Miss Alexander?’

  ‘She didn’t fly back with Mr. Brent. I understand she was dropped off at Marana. That’s her station ‒’ Mrs. Mollison broke off. Then added ‒ ‘Everyone calls it her station, but actually it’s quite as much her father’s station ‒’

  ‘I know,’ Cindie said. She felt as if a siege had been lifted from her heart ‒ all because Erica was not here. ‘But she’s the brains, so they say. I expect Mr. Alexander sometimes gets very annoyed about that.’

  ‘Not enough to put a curb on Her Majesty, I’m afraid. It takes Mr. Brent to use strong-man tactics. He has a way with her ‒’

  ‘I’ve no doubt he’s very good at that,’ Cindie conceded reluctantly. She could hardly explain to Mrs. Mollison that if Erica was what Jim called Enemy Number One, then Nick, alas was Enemy Number Two. Two enemies combined in one sortie could spell Bindaroo. If only she could forget ‒ just for a little while!

  ‘Well, off you go,’ Mrs. Mollison said kindly, seeing the troubled look flit across Cindie’s face again. ‘If Mr. Brent comes in I’ll tell him where you are. You know he’s checked you both out, as from to-morrow after breakfast? They’ll fly Flan down south to-night. You’re going back to the construction camp with Mr. Brent, of course. Another long drive, I’m afraid ‒’

  Cindie thought about this as she walked to the hospital. The east wind was blowing hot against her cheeks ‒ drying out Bindaroo, the claypans, and probably the river too.

  If her plans to try to reach Bindaroo from Mulga Gorges were a flop, at least there might soon be a way to get there cross-country from the camp. She hoped the Wet on the upper tableland wouldn’t have obliterated the station tracks up that way. She didn’t want to be rescued from another kind of no-man’s-land. First the river, then the gorge! No, Nick wouldn’t stand for a third, and probably even Jim would be tired of playing knight-errant by that time. It would be good-bye to her permanent job at the camp, too.

  Flan was tucked up in bed in a calico nightgown which tied at the back, and which he spoke of in some highly colourful language.

  Cindie, in the act of sitting down beside him, couldn’t help but laugh. He looked such a shrimp, and the hospital gown was miles too big.

  ‘What do you think of my baby?’ Flan demanded, pointing to his splinted and bandaged foot which hung in a sling from an overhead pulley. ‘Bigger than the rest of me ‒ the raking thing!’

  ‘It’s very impressive, Flan. At least it makes you look interesting to the other patients.’ He had been positively embarrassed when she had leaned over him and kissed him ‒ with all those others looking on.

  ‘Remind me to tell you something about that kissing business,’ he told her gruffly. He had a large transistor radio by his pillow, and had turned the sound down to talk to her.

  ‘I’m receiving from all over the raking north with that thing,’ he said, eyeing the radio balefully. ‘I’m used to a two-way. I can’t talk back.’

  ‘You’re getting all the news about yourself, I suppose?’

  ‘Yes, and about some girl called Cindie Brown who held me in her arms for about ten hours ‒’

  ‘Not her arms, Flan. Your head was on her lap.’

  ‘You see to it you tell the world that, when you get the chance, my girl. Otherwise they’ll be thinking ‒ well ‒ they couldn’t be wronger, anyway. Except for ‒’ He broke off, then his hand came across the short distance and squeezed Cindie’s. ‘You know what I mean, lass. Only I can’t find the right words to thank you.’

  ‘Please don’t, Flan. It would embarrass me. I’m the grateful one. I had an opportunity to discover I could do something really useful. One never knows till one’s put to the test, does one? I was always full of doubts about myself ‒’

  They smiled at one another, both understanding. They had shared a unique experience.

  ‘What was it you were going to tell me about that kissing, Flan? Did you really mind?’ Cindie only wanted to change the subject, but suddenly Flan was no longer alternately swearing or teasing. His face, in its funny wizened way, was quite serious.

  ‘That business with Jim Vernon. You’d better cut it out. You better get this straight, Cindie ‒’

  ‘You mean that those little friendly exchanges between Jim and me are known all round the camp?’

  ‘Well, yes! You have three wives there ‒ good-hearted and all though they may be at time ‒ peeking and prying just to keep themselves from boredom. They could cause trouble, you know.’

  Cindie stared at Flan, startled.

  ‘What trouble?’ she asked curiously.

  ‘With Mary, for one. Jim too, maybe!’

  Cindie’s eyes opened world-wide.

  ‘With Mary?’ She was incredulous. Had she heard right?

  ‘Yeah. She kinda claimed that voice-on-the-air as her own. That is till you came along. You snaffled the overseer from Baanya from right under her nose. She’d been waiting months for him to come across. ’Scuse me being blunt, Cindie. But someone had to say it.’

  Cindie’s hand had flown to her mouth. She stared at Flan in shocked dismay.

  ‘Oh, no! Mary didn’t think …? Oh, no, Flan! I couldn’t bear Mary to think I did that. I didn’t know she had any interest in Jim. I didn’t even ‒ You see, he came across the river to help me about something personal.’

  ‘Rats to that, Cindie girl! He came across the river, when he had you as an excuse, to see someone else. Well, maybe … Well, darned if I really know …’

  Cindie was stunned.

  She saw herself as perhaps others saw her. She was someone who had run into Jim’s arms, then monopolised him ‒ when all the time ‒

  ‘Oh, no!’ she kept saying. Everyone would think she was that kind of a girl.

  She couldn’t bear to think of it. She was appalled at such a mistake.

  ‘Flan,’ she implored. ‘I didn’t know! I didn’t know anything about anyone at Baanya, or at the construction camp. I was in a spot of trouble. I was terribly anxious about something. I knew Jim could help me. He was such a darling. In a way I loved him, and sort of clung to him as a life-line. But I didn’t mean anything else …’ She stared at the little man’s face as it lay chin-deep in an oversize calico gown sunk into pillows that were too big and too soft. ‘Flan …’ she begged. ‘You believe me, don’t you?’

  His shrewd little eyes had been watching her.

  ‘Like you sort of hung on to me on that raking path?’

  ‘Well ‒ the other way round, Flan,’ Cindie said distressed. ‘You were hurt, in trouble, all those hours. So you were mine. You belonged to me ‒ for that little while. I loved you because you were mine. Perhaps in an unthinking way I was grateful to you because you were mine to care for. I think Jim felt that way. You do understand, Flan? He likes being Big Brother. He has that kind of nature. And I needed Big Brother ‒’

  There was knowledge in the little roustabout’s eyes as he watched the girl’s face.

  ‘That’s life, Cindie. The hurt one is always the loved one ‒ while hurt. You reckon that’s how it was with you and Jim?’

  She nodded.

  ‘Okay, Cindie. I understand.’ Then he grinned. ‘Jim’s at that construction camp now, and you’re here. Maybe someone else is in need of solace, or understanding, or something ‒ this’ll be her chance.’

  ‘Mary! You needn’t tell me any more, Flan. I’ll keep away from Jim. I’ll play with the children ‒ Anything ‒’

  ‘That reminds me,’ said Flan
with a sudden new interest. ‘Talking of children. You know what else has gone on down in that darn place, since we came up here?’

  ‘Go on, tell me. Jinx and Myrtle in trouble? The wives?’

  ‘Darn the wives! With the dry-out, their husbands will be packing them off to Hedland any day. No, it’s that raking lizard out in the spinifex.’

  ‘Swell? Don’t tell me he’s had a fire again?’

  ‘Bet you thought Swell was a him?’

  ‘Jinx said ‒’

  ‘Well, Jinx was wrong. Swell is a lady and she’s had pups.’

  ‘Pups?’ Cindie was incredulous.

  ‘Little ones. A whole nest of ’em, except Jinx and Myrtle can’t get near ’em to count ’em. Blow me, if Swell doesn’t open his ‒ her ‒ mouth and swallow the litter every time those kids of Mary’s get anywhere near him ‒ her …’

  ‘How did you know, Flan?’

  ‘This little old transistor told me on the short wave.’

  Cindie sat back in her chair and laughed. She laughed and laughed till she had to wipe her eyes.

  ‘Oh, isn’t it lovely, Flan,’ she said at last. ‘Darling Swell, with babies ‒’

  ‘You think a whole host more frilled lizards is lovely!’ Flan declared in exasperation. ‘You women! Anything that breathes has a baby, and you go all wet-eyed!’

  Cindie wiped her eyes again as the nurse came primly down the ward.

  ‘The patient has to have further medication in a few minutes, Miss Brown. I’m afraid visitors must leave now.’

  Flan winked at Cindie as she stood up.

  ‘By the long word she means that little old needle. Same as the one you were using like a pick-axe down the gorge, Cindie. Hers gives me strength to eat and talk ‒’

  ‘To sleep this time,’ the nurse said firmly, tucking in Flan’s sheets. ‘I think I’d better take that transistor away for a while, too.’

  ‘See what I mean?’ Flan demanded as Cindie blew a kiss to him, then retreated towards the door. ‘She doesn’t sit down and hold my hand, let alone my head. She just bullies me. Pick-axe every four hours! And now no radio! Nick’d better be here at two o’clock sharp like he promised. Elsewise they’ll have me so dominated in this hospital I’ll never be the same man again.’

  Cindie walked back to the hotel for lunch. In a bewildered way she felt like a multicoloured ball of wool ‒ a number of different threads rolled into one strand.

  She loved Swell, because Swell was a mother. She loved Flan because for ten hours he had been hers. She wasn’t in love with Jim, because she had never been that way. But she loved him: like Flan and Swell. Something quite different from being in love. She loved Jim just the same now, even though he had really come across that river for reasons that had little to do with the troubles of Cynthia Davenport. He was that kind of dear arm-hugging person.

  So we’re all double-dealers. Jim, me, Mary, and of course, Nick! Who now can throw stones at the other? Only dear Swell, with a frill round his ‒ her ‒ neck behaves naturally.

  Chapter Sixteen

  The rest of that day flew on wings. Cindie went to the store and bought presents for Mary, Jinx and Myrtle. She chose polished gem-stones that came from the mines. She sent some coloured postcards of Mulga Gorges, and a telegram to her mother.

  Back at the hotel she found the girls in a flurry of packing their business equipment, and later, their bags. The tycoons were whooping it up in the private bar with the mining magnates who had come from Mount Tom Price and the asbestos mines.

  Such a funny little isolated desert place! Cindie thought musingly, of Mulga Gorges. Yet where else would anyone find so many near-millionaires ‒ or representatives of millionaires; and of Government? In so tiny a hotel bar, too.

  Strange how they just looked, through the open door, like ordinary men ‒ no different from anyone else.

  Nick was nowhere to be seen. He had left a message to say he’d be dining at the hospital with Dr. Britton and his staff. Would Cindie have her own bags packed ready. They’d be leaving immediately after breakfast in the morning.

  For all his absence, he was still in her mind. He was the Enemy, and all day to-morrow she had to travel with him alone in that Land-Rover. Cynthia Davenport would be more unhappy, and very much on guard about that. She would keep herself strictly at arm’s length.

  Yet Cindie Brown, her other self, now, this very minute, kept thinking of his arms around her as he had carried her up that path, and the willing pressure of her own cheek against his warm, powerful shoulder. She had been tired and exhausted ‒ in some pain, too ‒ but she had known what she was doing. She could have stopped herself, but didn’t. She had given in.

  It had not been her heart, of course, only a kind of magic, that had betrayed her. He was so attractive that way. She could not run away from the truth now ‒ because she’d brought it out into the daylight ‒ on the gorge path, and later, in her room.

  Like Erica’s perfume! It was all something in the air, that wantonly beguiled.

  A stronger mind, and she could have kept her anger and suspicion as a barrier between her cheek and that warm shoulder; and those careful, kind, cradling arms.

  It was the compassion in his voice that had done it, of course.

  Cindie, all through the many happenings of the afternoon, kept brushing her hands across her eyes as if that gesture might wipe away unwanted misty thoughts.

  She would ask herself, What’s all the bother about? He belongs to Erica, anyway. No it isn’t that! It’s my own perfidy against my own self. One can’t be two persons at the same time. It just doesn’t work out!

  At half past five, when the sun, still fierce in its heat, was westering beyond the crimson mesa-ranges, Cindie went out to the air-field to wave off the plane carrying away the three secretaries. She had grown to like them so much during the last week, she was sad to part from them. They had all exchanged addresses and promised to keep in touch.

  The last thing the cheery blonde girl said, as she kissed Cindie’s cheek, was:

  ‘You and your chief are on your own now, Cindie. Don’t be a goose! Go, go, go, girl, and make the best of it. I would, if I were in your shoes. Besides, he sometimes has a certain look in his eye ‒ when he thinks no one is looking!’

  What this girl didn’t know, Cindie thought, was that she herself was in two pairs of shoes. That way a heart was divided against itself into two different blood-thumping beings. If Nick did have a certain look in his eye, neither of her selves wanted to see it. It was for someone else. Neither of her two selves liked that other person one bit. Only one of her two selves liked Nick. Alas, too much. To the other self, he was the Enemy.

  It was a long, long way home. That was for sure.

  The Land-Rover raced along the rough iron-stone road that led away from the town to where Nick’s southern track joined this major one. The feeling of going home gave Cindie a sense of comfort. This was because Mary, Jinx and Myrtle would be there. And Jim Vernon too ‒ Big Brother! Flan might not be so very long away down south. Swell and her babies would be nearby. Cindie had an almost nostalgic longing to see Swell puff up so that the beautiful frilled collar would stand up around her throat like an Elizabethan queen’s. And the babies! That really was magic. Cindie longed to see them. If Swell hadn’t swallowed them for keeps. Horrid thought! Some lizards did do that, but not darling Swell, of course.

  They were all her family now.

  Well, for the time being.

  She wondered what Nick was thinking about. They had spoken very little since that moment when she and her bags had been put in the car; then Nick had climbed in behind the drive wheel, waved his hand to the Mollisons standing at the front door, slammed his own car door, released the brakes, started up and driven away.

  It had all been like that. Nick was in a hurry to be gone. So he went.

  After a short while, Cindie began to notice something different. The sun was in the wrong place. They were travelling west.

&nbs
p; ‘Are we taking a different route home, Nick?’ she asked, breaking the silence.

  ‘A detour. I want to show you something ‒’

  ‘Me?’ She was so surprised she sounded it.

  He glanced at her. His face lost its look of absolute concentration. It almost softened.

  ‘You did miss out seeing those gorges,’ he said with some regret. ‘I thought I might make up for that if I took you to see one extra rather special ‒ sight. It’s a longer way round. A longer drive, I’m afraid.’

  ‘That’s very kind of you, Nick.’ Cindie was a little embarrassed. ‘Won’t it affect your most precious asset ‒ time?’

  ‘There are exceptions,’ he said briefly. ‘This is one of them. You may not come this way again.’ He glanced down at her with a smile easing the muscles of his face. ‘I’ll be sorry for that, Cindie. You were a good secretary. Have I thanked you?’

  ‘I had so little to do ‒’ she protested.

  ‘Enough, anyway.’ He glanced at her again. ‘Enough is enough, always.’

  He was talking in conundrums, she thought. Moreover, some challenge had crept into the air between them. It bothered Cindie for the many more miles on their way to that ‘extra sight’ he had said he wanted her to see. Why should he do this for her, anyway? Reward? As if she wanted that! It was mean of her to suspect his motives, she knew. Yet she did, because one moment he was silent, almost stern-faced, then the next he would glance at her with something wary, yet very human, in his eyes. As if making some decision. There was no mask now, at all.

  There had always been something about Nick that defied definition, she thought. More now than ever. He was subtle, sometimes quietly ruthless in getting his own way: kind to the point of compassion ‒

  No. She must not think of that moment when he picked her up on the path! He would have been like that to anybody ‒

  She shrugged those thoughts away.

  Today was today. Tomorrow could look after itself.

  It was noon when they swung round a hillside, making a three-quarter-circle turn, then ran in between two monstrous monoliths and braked to a stop.