The Tartan Touch

by Isobel Chace

  “A fortnight maybe,” she said. “You’ll soon get the hang of it. We spend the whole time cooking for the gang, or that’s what it feels like. But it’s fun!”

  “I enjoy cooking,” I said with satisfaction.

  “Not for those brutes, you won’t! They put away the most enormous quantities of food, the duller the better.” She laughed. “If they don’t get the right food, there’s trouble, and then Andrew goes spare!”

  “I see,” I said. I would have to ask Andrew to tell exactly what the men ate, if I was to do a good job, I thought. When I knew what they ate and the times of their meals, I would plan my campaign carefully to please them. I was used to hard work and I felt completely at home in a kitchen. To be honest, I welcomed the prospect of having something to do that would take my mind off the problems of being the temporary Mrs. Andrew Fraser.

  But that was the last I heard about the shearing for the first week that I was on Mirrabooka. I occupied myself by making a garden in front of the house, digging the rough ground in the evenings when it was a little cooler. Mary would have nothing to do with the project, but, to my surprise, Andrew took quite an interest, even taking the trouble to divert some of the water from the reservoir (which also served as the swimming pool), to irrigate the beds of flowers I put in.

  We were fortunate on Mirrabooka not to be short of water. It seemed that when they had been prospecting for minerals on the land, they had found this shelf of water, deep down beneath the first layer of hard rock. An artesian well had soon followed and now there was a windmill too to pump the water up to the surface. You can see these windmills all over the Outback and hear their sails beating against the lightest breeze.

  But having water didn’t make the heat any less. True, it was a dry heat, dry and dusty. It was a climate to turn the most abstemious man into a beer-drinker. If he was a rich man, he drank it by the schooner, if he was poor, he had to make do with a pony, but he still wasn’t doing too badly to my way of thinking. I drank it only under protest, and, after a while, even Andrew gave up trying to make me like it.

  “Perhaps you’re wise to stick to apples,” he said to me.

  “And flagons,” I said without thought.

  “Flagons of what?”

  I blushed. “J-just flagons. Of raisins, I think, so I suppose they are flagons of wine.”

  He gave me a look of pure pleasure. “Ah,” he said. “You’ve been reading more improper literature!”

  “I was joking,” I said hastily.

  “I’m shocked,” he reproved me. “It’s not a subject for joking.”

  “Wh-what isn’t?” I stammered.

  “Love,” he said simply.

  I turned my back on him, determined not to allow him to unsettle me. If he could quote Robbie Burns, then surely I could quote from the Song of Solomon without him making so much of it.

  But mostly he didn’t tease me. He was kind, but he was distant. More often than not he and Mary would make conversation with each other every evening, while I sat outside that magic ring, trying not to call attention to myself. There was no more talk of Mary having to leave the Station and going to live with her mother, so I supposed that Andrew’s purpose had been successful and that I was considered to be a fitting chaperone for her. If I could do that much for him I was satisfied. Our bargain had been for four years and the MacTaggarts had always honoured their word. And so I concentrated on my garden. In four years I would have flowers for the house and a burst of colour outside the door. It would be my gift to Andrew and to his kingdom of Mirrabooka.

  Then, just as suddenly, the whole place burst into life and the shearers were due to arrive within a matter of hours. Andrew was hardly in the homestead at all, so busy was he in arranging the quarters for the whole outfit and in seeing that they had everything they needed.

  The men arrived in a convoy of lorries and Mary and I went out to meet them. Their clothes were stiff with the grease from the wool and their faces were black from the sun. They were a tough body of men who spoke almost entirely in monosyllables and who had little time for women.

  Their foreman was suspicious that a woman would be able to cook for them.

  “They won’t clean up their language for a whole pack of females,” he told me.

  “Of course not,” I answered gently.

  “I’ll speak to Andy about it,” he went on, chewing on a piece of biltong in a way which I found quite revolting.

  “I can see that you’re a hungry man,” I agreed. “If you tell me the menus that you expect, I’ll serve it to you.”

  He shook his head. “We work hard, ma’am,” he said. “When we’re done we like to relax, and we can’t do that if we have to watch our tongues and take off our hats to eat.”

  “I see,” I said. “I think I’ll speak to Mr. Fraser myself about it.”

  “Do that,” he advised briefly.

  It was hard to convince Andrew that I needed the work as much as the men needed the money they earned from shearing sheep. And what money! The sums they clocked up in a week would make one gasp! Even the roustabouts, the boys whose work it was to carry away the newly shorn fleeces and to clean up, earned more than any man I had heard about in Scotland.

  “You’re a glutton for work,” Andrew said gravely. “I didn’t bring you here to wear you out. Why don’t you enjoy yourself doing nothing for a change?”

  “If I don’t serve the meals myself, why shouldn’t I cook them at least?” I countered. “They could hardly complain about that!”

  He looked at me solemnly for a long moment. “Okay,” he said. “We’ll try it. But if it doesn’t work out, don’t break your heart over it. Right?”

  I stood up very straight beside him. “Right,” I said. And so it was arranged. It was a compromise that pleased all of us. The men were served by one of Andrew’s own men, and ate the food they were accustomed to, large platefuls of steaks and eggs for breakfast, more meat for their midday break, sometimes cold, and yet more steaks in the evening. But I had my way too. I cooked some of the things I had always cooked, remembering that Andrew had liked them well enough. At first only the young men, those who would eat anything, would taste my cakes and scones, but they were soon disappearing as fast as the steaks that Andrew had cut up for me every morning.

  “I think you’re winning,” Mary said at last, noting the pile of empty plates that came back from the men’s dining-room.

  “‘Andrew says that if the men are pleased with the food they’ll come back again,” I told her. “These are the best team he’s ever had.”

  She sat on the table, watching me as I washed the dishes, a job which she had no taste for herself.

  “You know, Kirsty,” she said, “you worry too much!”

  “In what way?” I asked her.

  “I don’t think you’d even breathe if you thought it would displease Andy!” she pronounced. “You ought to stand up for yourself more!”

  “Andrew has a right to my loyalty,” I said uneasily. I found it hard to speak of any part of my relationship with Andrew Fraser.

  “And your work? And your sympathy? And the sweat of your brow?” she went on with a lordly air.

  “All that!” I agreed.

  “But what do you get in return?” she demanded.

  I was surprised that she couldn’t see it for herself. “What do you want from the man you marry?” I asked her quietly.

  “His love,” she said. “And his money!”

  She laughed, and I laughed with her. It was not her way to be serious for long.

  “And his protection, and his care, and his name,” I added, returning to the washing-up.

  She was silent for a long moment. “It’s funny,” she said after a while, “but I do want to bear his name, even though I don’t like it very much! Didn’t you resent having to give up the name of MacTaggart?”

  I swallowed. “I did, of course,” I admitted. I crossed my fingers in the soapy water. “One is not a wife until one bears one’s man
’s name,” I remarked. “No matter who calls one Mrs. Fraser!” I added with sudden passion.

  Mary took up a cloth, idly wrapping it around a pile of dishes and dabbing at the more obvious streaks of wet on theme

  “Kirsty MacTaggart!” she said absently, almost as if she were trying the name out for herself. “I prefer Kirsty Fraser, don’t you?”

  “I’m not saying,” I grunted.

  She grinned at me, her green eyes sparkling. “You don’t have to!” she said lightly. “You may be the wise one, Kirsty darling, but I’m not a complete fool!” She threw down the cloth and, kissing me lightly on the cheek, she was gone.

  Andrew took me through the shearing sheds himself. I was as proud that day as I had been when a MacTaggart had beaten the lot of them at the Highland Games, even though he had not been known to me. I had read it in the papers and had cut the piece out and had kept it by me for a couple of years, until my father had found it and had burned it before my eyes.

  The sheep that Andrew ran on his station were crossbreds that he had imported from a friend of his in New Zealand. They were merino sheep, but their faces were clean, making them easier to handle. He pointed out to me the various merits of their fleeces, but all I knew was that they were fine and very heavy. The wool fell away from the sheep at a touch from the electric shears, and was left on the floor like a hearthrug until the roustabout came and cleared it away. It was hard work for all concerned.

  The shearers were men who lived for their work. They wagered huge sums of money on their own skill and speed. Once a week they went into the nearest town and soaked themselves in beer, returning in the small hours of the morning to waken the whole station with their noise. They were men apart and had little to do with the Mirrabooka workers. They had their own life, going from station to station right across Western Australia, wherever there were any sheep to shear. What they did with themselves at other times of the year, I never discovered.

  In the sheds they were stone cold sober. The sheep were brought to them where they stood, and were sat down firmly on their rumps while the shears neatly robbed them of their wool. In no more than a minute the beast was released, looking strange and clean, to join the others who had already passed through the lines.

  The roustabouts took the fleeces to the woolpressers whose job was to take the new-shorn fleeces, to sort them for quality, and then to press them into compact bales, covered with burlap ready for transportation.

  “What happens to them then?” I asked Andrew. I had a proprietorial interest in them by now, for this was wool that had grown on my husband’s land.

  “A few years ago they were all shipped to London and sold there, but now we have our own market over here. We sell through a local agent. His head office is still in the City in England, but as England turns towards Europe, we have had to find other markets.”

  The grease from the wool made the floors slippery and I skidded as I tried to step out of the way of one of the roustabouts.

  “Sorry, ma’am,” he said softly.

  I shook my head at him. I had never seen men move quicker than these young men, running from end to end of the shed with the heavy fleeces.

  “I was in your way,” I said.

  His face crinkled into a near smile, typical of the Outback Australian.

  “Any time, lady,” he said. “A beauty like yourself is always welcome. My word, yes!”

  His words flattered me, but I enjoyed his interest all the same. He was no more than a boy, and not to be taken seriously, but he did a man’s work and he did it well.

  “Are you hurt?” Andrew asked me.

  “No,” I answered him. But he put his arm round my waist all the same, to prevent any further accidents, he said, unaware of the sly, amused glances of the men all round him.

  I freed myself the moment we left the shed, knowing that my embarrassment showed in my face, no matter how hard I tried to look composed.

  “I shall have to watch you,” Andrew said with a half-smile, “It’s as well you’re firmly shackled to me, or we’d have half the Outback coming to call!”

  I gulped, unable to fill my lungs with air, shocked by the sheer injustice of his remark. I faced him angrily. “I’ll have you know, Andrew Fraser—”

  “That you’re not as puritan as you pretend?” he interrupted me. “You don’t turn a hair when the men come home drunk. Nor do you mind when they swear a blue streak outside the kitchen door!”

  I couldn’t tell if he was angry or not. “They mean no harm!” I protested.

  “And how do you know that?” he retorted.

  How did I know? I couldn’t begin to explain! How could I tell him about the occasional Ceilidh I had known back home, when the whole district would join together for a gossip and a good sing-song? There a man could drink his fill and no one would think any the worse of him. Why should they? It was a man’s way. “They work very hard all day,” I said mutinously.

  “And what has that got to do with it?”

  “It makes them wild,” I explained. “It’s right that they should be or they’d break under the strain.”

  Andrew put up a hand and brushed away a lock of hair that had fallen across my face, “And is that why they all make eyes at you?” he asked me.

  “Andrew Fraser!” I exclaimed, shocked.

  “All right,” he said. “But just remember that I have eyes too, and that you are Mrs. Andrew Fraser of Mirrabooka!” He sounded more mocking than angry, despite his words.

  “I’m not likely to forget it!” I answered, crushed.

  He gave me one of his rare smiles. “See that you don’t!”

  I was glad to get back to the kitchen after that. I took out my rage on the kitchen range and beating all sense out of the bread-dough I had left to rise in the warmth from the fire. Didn’t he know that his name was safe enough with me? That I’d return it to him untarnished when the four years came to an end? And how glad I’d be to be once again plain Miss Kirsty MacTaggart, with no one to please but myself! Why then I’d be truly happy, without any interfering male to tell me what to do!

  “Is the Boss Cocky about?”

  I looked over my shoulder to see who was speaking. The eggs sizzled angrily in the pan in front of me. Another two days, Mary had said, and the shearers would be gone for another year.

  “Who is it wanting him?” I countered.

  “I think he’d better come himself,” the man said without haste. “Can you tell him he’s wanted?”

  “I will,” I agreed reluctantly. I shoved the pan of nearly done eggs on to the cool part of the range and wiped my hands on my apron.

  “He’d better hurry,” the man added, “or he’ll have a murder on his hands.”

  His words sent me scurrying into the house to find Andrew. He was in the office, his chair tilted back and with his feet on the desk,

  “I think there’s a fight!” I announced from the doorway.

  He swung his legs on to the floor and stood up in a single movement. “Stay there!” he commanded me in a voice that brooked no argument. And then he had gone, loping down the corridor and out into the yard at the back.

  I didn’t dare move until he came back. In an agony of indecision I worked on the problem of whether he had intended me to stay in the office, or whether I could safely dart back into the kitchen and rescue the now hard eggs. I sat down on the chair he had vacated and glanced down at the papers on his desk. They were all to do with wool and mining, his business concerns, and of little interest to me. But then I saw another paper, half hidden by the others, and I drew it out guiltily, knowing that I had no right to pry.

  It was a letter from Margaret Fraser, written on heavy writing paper in bright green ink.

  “Andy darling,” it began. I held the sheet of paper so tightly that I saw my nails had made little marks in the paper and I hastily dropped it back on to the desk.

  “Andy darling,

  From all that Mary says, your marriage sounds a strange affair inde
ed! I rather think that I shall come to Mirrabooka and have a look for myself. Expect me when you see me, for I don’t want the bride to be forewarned of my arrival. I think she must have enough trouble on her hands!”

  There was more on the other side of the page, but I couldn’t bring myself to turn the letter over. Instead, I bunched the papers back into a pile, wishing that I had not given way to the temptation of reading even that far.

  Then Andrew came back into the room, his fists raw and the corner of his mouth bleeding a little.

  “Oh, Andrew!” I exclaimed. It seemed to me that his hurt was quick retribution for my shabby behaviour. “Oh, Andrew, are you hurt?”

  “I reckon not!” he laughed at me. “It wasn’t a serious fracas. To tell the truth, I quite enjoyed it!”

  “Oh, Andrew!” I said again.

  He glanced down at the desk in front of me and picked out Margaret Fraser’s letter with a flick of his fingers.

  “I meant to tell you,” he said. “Margaret’s coming any time now—”

  “I know,” I confessed, bitterly ashamed. I swallowed hard. “I read it!”

  His grey eyes met mine. “Then you’ll know how to behave while she’s here!” he said dryly.

  I didn’t answer. I fled down the corridor, back to the kitchen and the ruined eggs.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Mrs. Fraser flew up to Cue from Perth the day before the shearers left Mirrabooka. Andrew and Mary went to Cue to meet her. Mary had been strangely silent all day and I worried about her.

  "It will be good for you to have your mother with you!” I told her cheerfully as she waited for Andrew to come out to the car.

  “No, it won’t!” she said sharply.

  I chose to ignore that. “She loves you very dearly—” I began.

  Mary looked as though she was going to cry. “She makes trouble between me and Andy every time she comes!” she interrupted me, a queer kind of desperation in her voice.

  “Well, she won’t this time,” I said matter-of-factly.

  She tried to laugh. “Will you stop her, Kirsty?”

  “I won’t have to. When one understands another person really well, no one can make trouble between them!”