by Amanda Doyle
Chad was striding ahead swiftly as he was speaking, and after that, Rennie didn’t even try to keep up. She followed slowly, unbelievably shaken.
Magda had actually turned away from her! She had turned away from Rennie to Chad—even though he had spoken to her like that! Even though he had spoken to her in that way, in her time of distress it was to him she had turned. Chad had forged a bond of silken delicacy but tensile strength between himself and his little niece—the child of the wild young brother he had loved so much. This man, this child, they understood each other. They didn’t need anyone else.
Rennie knew now, knew it for sure, that there was no longer any legitimate reason to keep her at Barrindilloo. The knowledge, instead of delighting her as it should have done, had a curiously depressing effect. Or perhaps it was just reaction after her terrible fright. She needn’t feel this way, really, for wasn’t Magda already running away, with Chad in mock pursuit, giggling shrilly as he pretended that he couldn’t catch her.
As Rennie sank down on to the grass and pulled on her towelling beach-robe that matched the yellow swimsuit, she felt weary to her very bones. A hand came down behind her somewhere, guided her arm into the sleeve of her wrap and pulled the garment up about her shoulders. Chad.
She looked up, smiled her thinks tremulously as she fastened the sash.
‘Take it easy, Renata.’ His voice was strangely gruff, and his eyes were watching her face in the way they had done before. Gently, with that same mysterious message. ‘It’s not the end of the world, you know, so don’t tear yourself to pieces over something that didn’t happen.’
Her eyes filled unaccountably. She could only gaze at him, wet-lashed, grateful, unable to reply.
‘I believe you love that kid, after all, don’t you?’ he said slowly, on a note of discovery, searching her face with an intent look.
‘Of course I love her!’ Rennie was indignant now. ‘I always have loved her, whatever you think of me, Chad. Oh, yes, I know your opinion of me! I suppose you assume it was just to spite you that I didn’t want to give her up?’
‘And it wasn’t? He grinned suddenly, his eyes quizzical.
‘I wanted to see, to assure myself, that this was a suitable home for her to grow up in, that’s all,’ she replied with dignity, adding in a small voice, ‘and I can see now that it is.’
‘And what is that supposed to mean?’ The green eyes dissected her thoughtfully. They made her want to look away, but she forced herself to meet them unflinchingly.
‘Just what I say,’ she replied firmly. ‘I can realize, now that I’ve got to know what life is like at Barrindilloo, that Magda will be well cared for here. Better cared for than I could possibly do. She’ll settle down all right, regard it as her home. She’ll be h-happy.’
There was a tiny break in her voice. Rennie hoped he hadn’t noticed it.
Chad turned her towards him, regarded her soberly. She was acutely aware of his hands resting upon her shoulders.
‘What about you, Renata?’ he asked unexpectedly. ‘Could you ever come to regard it as your home? Could you ever be happy here?’
She? Rennie? What was he saying? There was no place for her at Barrindilloo, not with himself and Leith. Leith had already been at pains to point that out, on his behalf as well as her own! Leith and Chad. Keith and Rennie. Rennie minus Magda.
Rennie minus Magda equals Keith. It was like one of those subtraction sums you learned at school!
‘I?’ she queried lightly, and gave an abrupt laugh which, even to her own ears, sounded unpredictably brittle. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever given the question a single thought, since the possibility of my living here is hardly likely to arise, is it?’
And with that, she picked up the little hold-all she had brought and walked quickly after Magda, aware that Chad had remained exactly where he was.
Out of the corner of her eye she could see that his long, brown fingers were stroking his chin as he stood there, looking after her.
CHAPTER EIGHT
The morning of the race meeting dawned clear, accompanied by all the customary inaugural bush sounds that heralded another day.
Chad and Ash had been away for the previous couple of days, preparing in advance for the social invasion that could be expected. They arrived back, tired but satisfied, in the dusty four-wheel-drive Blitz, which had gone out on each of those days laden with supplies, to the site at the Yogill Bore.
‘Is everything all right, Ash? Have you done all you have to out there now?’
Rennie could not help sounding excited. The whole homestead seemed to breathe excitement just now, and all hands—except Rennie’s—had apparently been needed to do the thousand and one things necessary before all the people arrived.
Rennie, in her innocence, had no idea that already a lot of those people had arrived! There were trainers and jockeys out there right now, with strings of horses, and others from surrounding stations and drovers’ plants were making their way to the Yogill Bore racetrack with all sorts and descriptions of animals. Each and every rider and trainer who was headed in that direction cherished the secret hope that his own horse was going to win! The air resounded to the echoes of hammers on tent-pegs as the visiting population set about making camp in the surrounding area. The choicest spots were quickly bagged, and the whole place was a bussing hive of activity. Soon the rush-roofed bar went up, and beside it the canvas-tent ‘Tote’. The grandstand and pavilion, the ablutions, the starter’s and judges’ boxes on the track itself were permanencies that did not need to be erected every year.
When Rennie and the rest of the people from Barrindilloo homestead arrived that day, there was a veritable village of tents, and to her astonishment Chad gravely ushered Rennie to one of her own—or rather, one which she was evidently to share with Leith, and in which the girls would change into their evening dresses for the dance that night.
‘You can leave your things there now, Renata. They’ll be quite safe. Hang anything up if you want. There are a couple of makeshift hooks there, you see, above those airbeds. It’s rough and ready, but the girls always vow it’s adequate for all the time they spend here! Close the flap behind you when you come out, though,’ he grinned. ‘It helps to keep out the dust!’
‘Yes, Chad. When do things really begin?’
She stepped out of the tent with him, looked about her in awe.
There were people swarming about everywhere. The women were in their smartest dresses and some sported quite devastating hats, but the men, like Chad himself, appeared to favour the ubiquitous open-necked white shirt with rolled-up sleeves, and moleskins or khaki drills. It was almost a uniform amongst the male fraternity! Bookies were already occupied in calling odds in rusty voices, and outside the Tote a couple of men were writing busily with chalk on a big blackboard.
‘The bar, as you can see, has begun to do a brisk trade already, but the first race isn’t till one o’clock.’ He paused, looking down at her in that courteous, yet uncomfortably intent way he had, and seeming to divine her unspoken question, added drily, ‘The charter flight from Sydney is due in about half an hour. It lands over there.’
‘Oh. Er —thank you.’ Rennie blushed.
‘Don’t mention it.’ Chad lifted his hat, walked away. Rennie stood for a moment outside her tent, eyes drawn with a sort of helplessness from that tall, retreating figure to the place where he had said the flight—Keith's flight—would land.
Already there were a number of light aircraft on the ground. It seemed to Rennie’s amazed eyes that they were coming in and parking as neatly as if they had been cars! There were cars, too, of course. Every sort of vehicle, in fact, from jeeps and station waggons to battered trucks and gleaming limousines. She marvelled that there could possibly be so many, away out here on this lonely property. So many people, too! Where had they all come from?
She stepped inside the tent again, and proceeded to hang up the frocks she had brought, as Chad had suggested she should. Then she brush
ed her hair, and went, hatless, out into the sun again to await that plane.
When it arrived, Rennie caught her breath at the sight of the band of sophisticated girls who stepped carefully down. They were without exception elegantly dressed, beautifully groomed. Just for one moment she thought of her own professional wardrobe, back there in the flat with Viv, regretted the simplicity of her button-through linen—and then she forgot all about it, as the men followed the girls from the aircraft, and Keith himself walked towards her. In handsome sophistication, he somehow complemented those pretty girls with whom he had travelled. Rennie had almost forgotten just how handsome, in a marvellously classic and conventional way, Keith was! He wore a light-weight tropic suit whose jacket he carried neatly over one arm, and in his pastel shirt and broad floral tie he was smart, and just a little conspicuous, amongst all those open necks and rolled-up sleeves and country trousers and elastic-sided boots.
Rennie couldn’t refrain from smiling at the expression on Keith’s face as he looked about him. He was obviously aware of his sartorial superiority, not to say enjoying the fact! Keith was an extrovert. He liked to be conspicuous!
He gave her one of those blatantly admiring looks that turned her limbs to jelly, and kissed her.
‘Hello, beautiful! I made it, as you can see!’
Over his shoulder, Rennie could see Chad talking to Ash in the shade of a tree nearby. His broad-brimmed hat was pushed to the back of his head, and he was gesturing about something. She was thankful to see that he had now taken a notebook from his hip pocket, and was engaged in jotting something down in it, so it was unlikely that he had even noticed her standing there. She didn’t quite know why, but she’d have felt embarrassed if he had happened to see that bold embrace of Keith’s. She had discovered that some of these country people had somewhat quaint and old-fashioned ideas about such things! They were—well, almost reserved, in a way. They might not understand, or might misunderstand, an exuberant, extrovert sort of person like Keith, mightn’t they? Rennie had no wish to embarrass any of Chad’s guests there today.
As she walked contentedly at Keith’s side in the direction of some shade also, she saw that a third person had now joined Chad and Ash.
It was Leith. Rennie couldn’t actually see her face, because she was wearing a pair of quite enormous sunglasses, but she knew it must be Leith because of the fiery glimmer of deep auburn hair that peeped from under the brim of a pretty cream straw hat. The hat had a band of openly mock fruits clustered around the crown. It was an extravagant hat. Very lovely indeed.
‘Now, Rennie, my sweet, we’re going to get us a nice cold drink and carry it over to that seat there, and then you’re going to tell me how much you’ve been missing me!’
Keith took her hand and led her in the direction of the makeshift bar.
Once the racing started, the afternoon passed swiftly. There was much laughter and chatter, as people introduced each other, placed bets, leaned on the rails at the track, sat in the stand or at vantage points upon trucks and cars, ate picnics or patronized the barbecue.
The bar was perhaps the busiest and rowdiest place of all. There was a crowd surrounding that particular lean-to shed quite continuously, and several times Rennie caught a glimpse of Murtie’s bow-legged figure shambling about its outskirts, beer-can in hand, yarning with his stockman cronies. Once, as she passed by with Keith, he caught her eye and winked, giving her one of those yellow-toothed, rather wickedly leering grins of which he was all too capable.
‘Good God! Don’t tell me you’re on winking terms with the natives! Who’s that disreputable character?’
Rennie laughed. ‘That’s only Murtie. He’s a stockman, and he’s not disreputable, Keith. He’s my friend.’
Keith stared after him, frowning.
‘In that case, the sooner you’re out of here, the better.’
Rennie glanced at him in some surprise. She had spoken jokingly, but there was no doubting the fact that Keith’s eyes were serious, almost accusing.
‘Oh, darling, don’t be so stuffy! You don’t really mean, that.’
‘Actually, I do, Rennie.’ He had stopped now, and he was looking down at her in an odd way. ‘I do mean it, my pet. You seem different, somehow, out here. Not quite my Rennie.’ He glanced fleetingly at her bare head. ‘Where’s your hat, by the way, sweetie?’
Rennie put her hand to the top of her bare head, as if to make sure of his question. Her crown felt silky-warm where the sun had been beating down upon it.
‘I haven’t got one with me,’ she confessed, laughing. ‘Nothing suitable, that is. Only a beach-hat, and that wouldn’t have done—and most of the clothes I brought are too warm to wear. You—you don’t mind, do you?’
‘I suppose not, if you didn’t bring one. There was a time, though, Rennie, when you’d have minded yourself. When you’d have taken a pride in looking the pick of the bunch, the outstanding girl in the crowd.’
Why, he sounded almost critical! Rennie hid her amazement under a gently appeasing smile. Perhaps she hadn’t done Keith justice on this occasion, she admitted—faintly miserable—to herself. In her hatless state, in her plain linen shirtwaister, she could hardly be termed the outstanding girl in this particular crowd! But she had to stifle a tiny pang of hurt, all the same, that it should matter. After all, she was the same person underneath, wasn’t she, even if the clothes she wore did not happen to lead the field today?
She was standing at the rail, watching the fourth successive false start in a line of half-trained, prancing horses, when Ash elbowed his way through the crowd to her side.
‘Hullo, Rennie, how goes it? Are you making your fortune?’
Ash looked hot, slightly harassed.
‘Not yet, I’m afraid.’ Rennie shook her head, smiling. ‘And the one I’ve picked in that present lot seems determined to let me down right at the starting-tape itself!’
The book-keeper chuckled.
‘A motley lot, aren’t they? Some are old-timers at this game, and do the whole circuit at this time of year. Others aren’t so biddable, being simply station horses whose owners are stuck with the idea that they could fluke a win!’ He sighed. ‘I guess I’m getting too old to be Chad’s deputy at this sort of thing. Between finding lost tote tickets for tearful ladies and tent accommodation that isn’t here and all the rest of it, I’m beginning to feel the weight of my advancing years.’
‘What rubbish, Ash!’
‘No, dinkum, Rennie. Chad’ll be glad when it’s over successfully, too. It’s late enough in the season for this sort of thing. We get most of our rain in summer, you know—when we get any, that is!—and he’s anxious to muster the Dilloo outstation before the end of the month.’
‘Well, it certainly won’t rain today, Ash, anyway. Just look at that sky!’
‘A good thing it’s cloudless, and tomorrow will be, too, by the look of things. Even so, my guess is that they’ll be leaving for Dilloo just as soon as possible once it’s all over.’
When Ash had left her, Rennie looked about to see if she could see Chad anywhere. She found herself gazing around in search of Leith’s pretty cream straw hat, too, but she couldn’t seem to see the hat or its owner or Chad anywhere at all. She supposed he must be somewhere behind the scenes organizing something, and very probably Leith would have set herself the voluntary task of helping him.
In the evening there were long queues of people taking turns at the showers. It was marvellous to feel that warmish bore-water cascading down upon one, washing away the dirt and grime. There was no doubt in Rennie’s mind that a country race meeting could be an incredibly dusty affair, and by the close of the first day the grounds were soft with a finely churned powder that clung to one’s clothes and shoes.
When she returned to the tent, Leith was there, too. She had bathed earlier, and was in the process of making up her face before putting on the evening gown which was hanging up beside Rennie’s own. She had brought several additional items with her, Renn
ie noted, all of which were calculated to bring a more civilized atmosphere to the canvas interior. A battery-powered lamp stood on the butter-box which served as a table, and a narrow mirror had been propped against the rear pole. A polythene bag had been ingeniously nailed-up to do duty as a waste-bin.
‘We might as well be as comfortable as possible,’ observed Leith with a smile, popping a used tissue into the bag as she spoke. ‘When you’ve been coming to these functions as long as I have, you soon learn to bring a few of the more necessary conveniences along with you!’
That dance in the evening was a happy and informal affair. The main one, Rennie had discovered, was to take place on the second night, to mark the end of the races for another year. She supposed, as she slipped her own dress over her head carefully, that sheer excitement must keep the crowd going for two days and nights, almost non-stop, but as Leith explained, tonight’s ‘hop’ did not go on for as long as the main one, and again the first race would not take place until the afternoon, so one had all the morning to recover from the previous evening’s activities.
Rennie checked her appearance in the small mirror as best she could, and then followed the others who were making their way amongst the tents, under the stars, to the place where the music was already sounding.
This evening she wore a cleverly-cut sharkskin dress with a plain, sleeveless top and classically slim, straight skirt. The matt white material showed her smoothly tanned arms to advantage, and the high mandarin collar, heavily jewel-encrusted, was her only adornment. It was a superbly simple gown from one of the world’s most famous fashion houses, and was what Rennie secretly termed her ‘go-anywhere dress’. As she stepped into the hall, she was satisfied that it looked every bit as correct in an Outback dancing-shed as it might have done at Les Ambassadeurs, and Keith’s low whistle verified the fact as he came up immediately to claim her.
‘Wow!’ was actually all he said, as he was given to doing when something pleased him, but the inflection he gave the word tonight sent a flush of pleasure to Rennie’s cheeks. She had not let him down, appearance-wise, this time, at any rate, it seemed!
