The Audrey of the Outback Collection

by Christine Harris

  Then there was a silence that Audrey immediately tried to fill. ‘Price, what’s in your letter from Jimmy?’

  He slipped down in the armchair. ‘Some bloke called Mawson went to the Antarctic.’

  ‘Is that near Adelaide?’

  Wood crackled on the fire, hissing sparks.

  ‘See what happens when you skip out on lessons, Audrey?’ Mum paused, with the needle and cotton firmly between her finger and thumb. ‘The Antarctic is a long way south of Adelaide. Right at the bottom of the world.’

  A gust of wind blew down the chimney and the fire burned more strongly. Wind was nature’s bellows, Dad sometimes said.

  ‘Mrs Paterson says in her letter that she wants to give me something,’ said Audrey. ‘It has four legs and barks.’ Normally she would’ve been more excited, but tonight her mind was on other things.

  ‘A new dog! Can we, Dad?’ Price sat up straight in his chair. He suddenly looked like a boy again.

  ‘Don’t see why not.’

  ‘And Jimmy sent me a picture from the newspaper.’ Audrey handed it to Bloke first. ‘This lady’s called Amy Johnson and she flyded a plane from Britain to Australia. All by herself. It took nineteen days.’

  ‘Now that is remarkable.’ Mum smiled. ‘But I believe the word is flew.’

  ‘She flewed the plane.’ Audrey looked again at the newspaper cutting in Bloke’s hands. Amy Johnson had shiny eyes and a determined mouth. Her eyebrows were long and thin, like someone had drawn them on her face with a pencil. Her fur collar went right up around her face. And she wore a tight cap with goggles on top. If Janet could fly a plane she could get home quick smart.

  ‘Listen!’ said Price.

  Audrey held her breath. Was it a car?

  No. It was rain on the roof. Gentle and steady.

  Dad’s nose hadn’t smelled this rain. Or, if it did, he hadn’t let on.

  Audrey worried again about Janet out in the cubby. It was solid, but the roof wouldn’t keep out all the rain. Janet would be wearing the red cardigan, and huddling under the thin old blanket. Cold water would be dripping on her. She could get sick. Then Audrey would have to tell her parents about Janet and why she was hiding.

  But if Audrey did that, she’d be breaking her promise to Janet. She hadn’t spat on her hand and promised to get warts. Janet hadn’t asked her to do that. But breaking a promise was like lying. And Audrey didn’t want to imagine what her parents would say if they found out that she’d let Janet hide in her cubby and sneaked her food from the kitchen. Janet might not be the only one to get into trouble.

  Janet limped up and down.

  Twenty-five

  Audrey looked back at her footprints and frowned. Last night’s rain had washed away traces of her old footprints. But it had made softer soil for new ones.

  There were other marks in the ground. One footprint and one small hole; then another footprint and small hole. Audrey smiled to herself. She knew just what had caused those marks.

  She came around a thick cluster of trees and saw Janet standing by the cubbyhouse, with a thin branch propped under one arm. She wore Audrey’s red cardigan over her own fawn one. It was too big for her so she’d folded back the sleeves.

  ‘G’day,’ called Audrey.

  ‘I been waitin’ to show you … look!’ Janet limped up and down, as though she was a guard on sentry duty in front of the cubbyhouse. But it was a big limp. She was almost hopping, and her mouth was tight. Each step was obviously painful.

  ‘You’re walking,’ said Audrey.

  ‘I been practising.’

  ‘And you look pretty in the red cardigan. But can we sit down now? I walked real fast.’ Audrey figured that Janet would sit if she did. ‘And cop this!’ She held up the lump of roasted kangaroo meat.

  ‘You gonna wipe your feet away?’

  Audrey glanced down at her laced boots. ‘They’re joined onto my legs.’

  ‘Your feet. In the ground.’

  ‘Oh, you mean my footprints.’

  ‘That’s what I said. Get some of that brush over there. Wipe your feet back to that rock. We’re done walking for now, so we should take those prints away.’

  Audrey hadn’t thought of doing that. She handed over the kangaroo meat. Then she grabbed a piece of broken brush and swept it, left and right, across the ground. The footprints disappeared.

  Behind her, Audrey heard Janet, hopping and ouching into the cubby. Then there was a loud grunt. She guessed that was Janet lowering herself to the ground.

  Backing up to the cubby, Audrey made sure all traces of their footsteps were gone. Then she lifted the brush door into place.

  ‘Some people, if they’re sneakin’, they walk backwards. Looks like they goin’ the other way. But tracker would still find them.’

  ‘Why did you want me to sweep away our footprints then?’ Audrey crossed her legs.

  Janet looked at Audrey from under half-closed lids. ‘Not everyone’s a tracker.’ She lifted the kangaroo meat and began to nibble at it.

  Audrey looked down at the notebook and pencils. The book lay open on the ground.

  ‘Oh, you drew a picture.’ Audrey pointed to the book. ‘It looks nice.’

  Janet paused between bites. ‘I drew a story. About me and you. See?’

  Audrey picked up the notebook. The patterns on the page were pretty. There were circles and lines, grouped around a larger ring in the centre of the page. ‘This line of marks here, that looks like footprints.’

  Janet kept chewing, but nodded.

  There was a second line of markings. A footprint then a dot, a footprint and dot. ‘That’s you! Your foot and the stick.’

  Janet looked pleased.

  ‘Um. This one with all the little lines, that has to be rain.’

  The pictures were telling a story.

  ‘I know this one. Bet that’s emu footprints. Seen them lots of times.’ Audrey studied the page, seeking more clues. ‘Is that one a bush?’

  ‘Those bushes out there.’

  ‘What are these little circles?’

  ‘Ants.’

  ‘Plenty of them around here. More than you could shake a stick at. And this one?’ Audrey did a ‘Dad’ squint. ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Possum feet. He runnin’ all over the top last night. Noisy fella.’

  ‘We had a possum on our roof last night.’

  Janet rested the remaining meat on her left knee. She rubbed her hands together. ‘You sure that was just possum?’

  ‘Sounded like a possum to me.’

  Janet leaned forward to whisper, ‘Spirit, maybe.’

  ‘Why would a spirit play on the roof?’

  Janet looked around as though she expected a ghostly figure to pop up beside them in the cubby. ‘They do what they want, spirits. Who gonna tell ’em not to go up there?’

  Audrey nodded, then flipped through more pages in the notebook. Janet had sketched as though she was lying on a cloud, looking down. The symbols were flat, like patterns. Familiar patterns.

  ‘This here …’ Audrey traced a path with her forefinger. ‘This is a square like our house. And that could be the tank stand. That one’s like the dunny.’ She looked up.

  Grease glistened on Janet’s chin.

  ‘This is my house!’ cried Audrey. ‘How do you know what it looks like?’

  ‘Been there. I seen something. A big light and it moved out the back of your place.’

  Shivers ran down Audrey’s spine. ‘I saw something too. And it was out the back. It was sort of pale and it moved above the ground. If you saw it too, then it is real.’

  She couldn’t wait to tell Price.

  Then she remembered that she couldn’t tell him anything about it. Janet was a secret.

  ‘But …’ Audrey rubbed at her forehead. ‘You can’t walk. When did you see my house?’

  ‘Night of the big dust storm.’

  ‘That’s the night I saw the ghost! If we both saw it at the same time, then …’ Audrey stopp
ed. She looked at Janet’s smock. At night, her legs wouldn’t show up, but the pale smock-dress would.

  ‘You’re the ghost.’

  ‘No!’ Janet shook her head. ‘I’m a girl.’

  ‘I mean, I reckon I saw you.’

  ‘You saw me?’

  ‘And you saw me.’

  ‘I only seen you here.’

  ‘I went out to the dunny on the night of the dust storm,’ explained Audrey. ‘And I was holding up a hurricane lamp. That was the light! You couldn’t see me properly, cos of the dust.’

  Janet gave a sheepish grin. ‘You and me, we gonna be friends till our teeth fall out. Even our spirits know each other.’

  Audrey smiled at Janet, but it quickly faded. ‘I might not see you again after you go. I don’t know where you live.’

  Janet blinked her thick eyelashes. ‘I know your place. One day, I’ll come back. First, I have to get out of here and go home.’ Leaning forward, Janet ran her fingers gently over her swollen ankle. ‘This gonna make me slow walkin’.’

  ‘You’ll get hungry.’

  ‘All the time, hungry.’

  ‘Me too,’ said Audrey. ‘You’ll need a bag to carry food. Mum’s got lots of hessian bags. I can get another one and start putting food in there so you can carry it.’

  ‘And water. I get thirsty when I’m walkin’.’

  Just talking about doing something made Audrey feel better, and Janet looked more cheerful.

  But even while they were talking, the police and a tracker were probably searching for Janet. If Janet’s ankle didn’t heal soon, the men would find her.

  Twenty-six

  Audrey dropped her pencil and flexed her fingers.

  Mum looked up from her sewing.

  ‘I’ve got prickles in my fingers,’ said Audrey. ‘I’m just stretching them.’

  ‘That’s all right, dear. Your arithmetic will still be waiting when you’re finished.’

  Audrey sighed.

  Douglas, playing trains with a small tin on the floor, hiccuped. Then he giggled.

  ‘Is a hiccup when your teeth are coughing, Everhilda?’ said Audrey.

  Price snorted and then pretended that he was coughing instead of laughing.

  Mum looked across the table at Audrey. Her expression was both mother and teacher. ‘When we’re having lessons, it would be better not to use my first name, dear.’ Her eyes twinkled. ‘I seem to remember a certain young lady wanting to be called Miss Barlow when she tried being teacher.’

  ‘But that didn’t work.’ Audrey rubbed her hands together. ‘Price was naughty.’

  Her brother’s head shot up. ‘I was not.’ The end of Price’s pencil was chewed. When he was stuck for answers, he nibbled it.

  Douglas hiccuped again.

  ‘Audrey, you’re not going outside till it’s finished,’ said Mum. ‘The longer you delay and cause distractions, the longer it will take you.’

  ‘Bloke saw snow when she went to Victoria,’ said Audrey. ‘What is snow?’

  ‘We’re doing numbers today.’

  ‘I can’t think about numbers cos there’s no room in my head. It keeps wondering about snow. Is snow when clouds shiver?’

  ‘Well, just pretend the numbers are snowflakes. Then you can add them up.’

  Audrey sighed, but gave in and tried to make sense of the numbers on her page. But then she looked up, startled. ‘What’s that noise?’

  ‘Audrey!’ Mum’s eyes widened in warning.

  ‘Hang on, I can hear something too,’ said Price.

  Audrey felt a chill that had nothing to do with snow or arithmetic and everything to do with being afraid. She felt frozen in her chair, unable to move, not even to stand up and check what was coming towards the house.

  Mum, Price and Audrey turned their heads towards the back of the house. Even Douglas stopped his tin ‘train’ to listen.

  Audrey looked towards the window where Stumpy usually stood during lessons. He often stuck his camel head between the curtains and pulled faces to make Audrey giggle. But today, Stumpy wasn’t there. Maybe he was watching over Janet out at the cubby.

  ‘Is that the mailman back again?’ Mum frowned. ‘He’s not due for two months.’

  Price jumped up, rushed to the door and flung it open.

  The goats were bleating their heads off, and Nimrod, the big rooster, crowed to show how tough he was.

  The sound of a motor became louder.

  ‘It’s a car!’ shouted Price.

  Audrey’s heart leapt. Her chest hurt.

  A big black car, covered in red dust, pulled to a stop.

  The driver’s door opened.

  A man got out.

  He wore a peaked hat that shaded his eyes. His shoes were unusually shiny. And his dark jacket had a long row of equally shiny buttons.

  Twenty-seven

  The policeman sat his cup back in the saucer. ‘That was delicious, Mrs Barlow.’

  Audrey’s mum smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes. She stood with her back to the bench. Usually when there were visitors, she sat with them at the table.

  ‘More tea?’ asked Mum.

  ‘I won’t say no. Thank you. It’s camel country out here, a long time between drinks.’ He laughed heartily. His teeth were yellow and higgledy-piggledy although the rest of him was neat, tidy and buttoned.

  Mum stepped to the table and picked up the teapot. Her cheeks were red even though the kitchen was cool. She poured strong, brown tea into the policeman’s cup. Her eyes fixed on his jacket buttons, then she raised them to look across at Audrey. Their eyes held. Then Audrey looked aside.

  Audrey thought hard. What could she do to warn Janet? Make an excuse to go to her room, then climb out the window and run to the cubby? No, that would look suspicious. The policeman could easily follow her and, with a car, he’d catch up to her in no time at all. He was here in the kitchen, so that meant he hadn’t found Janet yet. But he was close. Too close.

  Through the open kitchen door, Audrey saw Price run his hand along the car’s bonnet. His fingers left streaks in the dust.

  ‘Don’t touch the vehicle, young fellow,’ called the policeman. ‘We can’t have any damage. Government property, you know.’

  Price snatched back his hand.

  Audrey glanced out at the Aboriginal man, who had come with the policeman. The man stood by the car. His wide-brimmed hat was pushed back on his head. He had a small beard that was cut close to his face. He’d rolled up the sleeves of his fawn shirt as far as his elbows. He didn’t have shiny shoes, like the policeman. Instead, he wore pull-on boots that were as dusty as the car. The buckle on his trouser belt was shiny though, and so were his eyes. They looked everywhere, but he hadn’t spoken a word.

  Audrey swallowed over a lump in her throat. Her mouth was dry, but she didn’t want to draw attention to herself by asking for a drink.

  ‘Would your … would the other gentle man like some tea?’ asked Mum.

  ‘Oh. The tracker?’ said the policeman. ‘Your boy can give him some water outside.’

  Mum’s mouth tightened into a straight line. She turned to take another cup from the shelf and filled it with tea from the pot. ‘Audrey, dear, would you take this to the gentleman outside?’

  The policeman gave Mum a look that hinted that he wasn’t happy that she’d ignored him.

  Audrey looked down as she picked up the cup. From the corner of her eye, she saw the policeman dig out two large spoons of sugar from the bowl for his tea, stir it, then tap his spoon on the cup. He slurped, and then clicked the cup back onto the saucer.

  ‘Are you sure you haven’t seen the girl, Mrs Barlow?’ the policeman asked.

  Audrey’s mum shook her head. ‘I haven’t been far from the house lately.’

  The policeman stared at Mum’s round tummy. Audrey wanted to tell him not to, but she didn’t dare. That tummy belonged to the family. The baby was theirs. He wasn’t allowed to look.

  Mum’s face went even redder. ‘My
husband will be home soon.’

  ‘What about you, child?’

  Audrey froze.

  He was looking at her. Talking to her.

  But she couldn’t look at him. Her tongue seemed stuck to the roof of her mouth.

  ‘My daughter has been helping me quite a lot lately,’ said Mum. ‘Extra chores. My leg isn’t too good, you see. A tank stand fell on it some years ago and crushed it.’

  Audrey had never heard her mum say so many private words to a stranger. Mum seldom talked about the accident or whether her leg was painful.

  ‘Go on, dear. Take out that cup of tea before it goes cold.’ Mum sounded breathless.

  Douglas had lost interest in the visitors already. He’d gone back to playing trains on the dry mud floor. Audrey stepped around him, the cup held carefully in both hands. She felt prickly with perspiration.

  ‘We don’t see many visitors,’ said Mum. ‘The children are shy.’

  Audrey stepped outside.

  ‘This lost Aboriginal girl, she’s out there all alone. Anything could happen to her,’ said the policeman. ‘We’re taking her to a place where she’ll be looked after and she’ll learn to be useful. She needs discipline. It’s the best thing for her.’ He wiped tea from his mouth with one finger. ‘Perhaps the girl’s been around here and you haven’t realised. Have you had any food go missing, or clothes?’

  Mum cleared her throat.

  Audrey had her back to her mum, and she didn’t dare turn around. Her feet kept moving towards the man in the broad-brimmed hat by the car. If Mum told the policeman about the rabbit meat, he’d know Janet was nearby. He’d discover that Audrey had given food to Janet. Audrey didn’t know if they put little girls in gaol. They might. Janet had been in a place where they wouldn’t let her go home. Audrey figured they’d put her there too.

  ‘I think I’d notice if food went missing.’ Mum gave a tight laugh. It wasn’t her real laugh, but a stranger might think she was amused. ‘With five of us here and another on the way, we need every scrap we can find.’

  Audrey approached the Aboriginal man and held out the cup.

  She flicked a look at him, just for a second.

  His right eye twitched.