by Judy Nunn
‘Yeah, well, they’ll need fifty quid an acre before they’ll shift me,’ he said. ‘But I’ll tell you something else for nothing, Lucky.’ He lowered his voice, more for dramatic effect than anything. ‘There’s a conspiracy going on with that mob.’
‘Oh? Really?’ Lucky was most interested.
‘Yep.’ Cam was pleased that he’d captured the German’s attention. Despite his wonky eye, there was something about the bloke that commanded respect, he thought. He was a man’s man, Cam decided, that was it. ‘Right from the start of the Scheme,’ he said, ‘when they approached us farmers, they told us that the alpine pastures’d be virtually unaffected.’ He snorted derisively. ‘Dumb cockies, that’s what they think of us, the bastards. And they’re right, we are. Or rather we were: we bloody well believed them. How dumb’s that?’ He took several gulps of beer to calm himself down. ‘The high country’s important to us, Lucky,’ he explained, ‘it’s our summer grazing land. We take the cattle and sheep up there to feed on the new grass after the thaw, and we leave them up there for a good five months. That way the lower land regenerates and we get top feed for the herds during winter.’
Lucky remained attentively silent, aware that Cam Campbell was bent on letting off steam and didn’t require a reply, but he was recalling a particular conversation he’d had with Rob Harvey. It had been several months ago now, shortly before young Pietro had arrived at Spring Hill, and he and Rob had been sitting upstairs at the Australian Hotel. ‘Life is going to change for the Snowy River men,’ Rob had said, looking down at the broad avenue of Sharp Street and the convoy of trucks carting supplies newly arrived by rail to the work camps out of town. He’d been in a reflective mood, as he often was with Lucky. ‘In a few years, there’ll be no more stockmen droving sheep and cattle by the thousands up to the high country. There’ll be no more herds of wild brumbies rounded up on the plains. It’ll be the end of an era.’ He’d looked sad as he’d said it. ‘The days of the mountain horsemen are numbered, Lucky. The trouble is, no-one’s told them that yet.’
‘And now they’re talking about banning us from the high country,’ Cam continued, outraged. ‘They reckon the stock’s causing soil erosion. Soil erosion! How’s that for a joke?’ He was getting carried away again. ‘Have you seen the damage those bastards are doing up there? They’re murdering this land, and they know it. What’s more, they know that we know it. And that’s why they’re trying to ban alpine grazing,’ he finished triumphantly. ‘It’s got bugger all to do with soil erosion! They don’t want us up there because they don’t want the truth to get out. It’s a conspiracy, mate!’
The man’s passion was understandable and Lucky was sympathetic to his predicament, but he didn’t at all agree with Cam’s theory. It was a simple fact that thousands of stock wandering the mountains would certainly cause erosion problems, and eventually siltation of the dams, which in the long term would affect the power stations. He’d said as much to Rob Harvey. ‘It is the price of progress, Rob,’ he’d said realistically, even as he’d agreed with Rob that the passing of the mountain man’s era was regretful. ‘But there may be a far greater price to pay one day. Who can tell what the future has in store for an undertaking as vast as the Snowy Scheme?’
Their conversation that day had remained vivid in Lucky’s mind because it had been the one and only time either of them had spoken negatively about the very reason they were all there in the mountains.
‘To alter the course of a river is to play a dangerous game with nature,’ he’d said, not sure how Rob, staunchly loyal to the Scheme, would respond. ‘Engineering projects in other parts of the world have proved it to be so,’ he’d added, as if to back himself up in case he’d offended.
But no offence had been taken. Rob had merely wondered, yet again, why a university-educated man like Lucky continued to work as a labourer when he’d long since served out his Displaced Persons contract. Lucky himself always shrugged off any queries, saying it kept him fit. Rob had nodded in his lackadaisical way, ‘Yep, it could be a worry.’
As Cam Campbell continued rabbiting on about his conspiracy theory, Rob’s words came back to Lucky, and he rather wished it was Rob he was talking to now. Cam’s one-sided view was wearingly dogmatic.
Deep down, Rob Harvey had agreed with Lucky’s comments on the Scheme’s possible long-term repercussions. Having initially studied geology and zoology before deciding on an engineering degree, Rob was more environmentally aware than most. ‘You can’t take all the water from one place and dump it somewhere else without asking for some sort of problems down the track,’ he’d said.
The two had remained quiet for several moments, both feeling somehow disloyal – they were, after all, Snowy men – and it had been Rob who’d broken the guilty silence.
‘Course I might be wrong,’ he shrugged. ‘I probably am.’
‘You hope you are,’ Lucky smiled.
‘Too right, I do.’ And they’d drunk to it.
‘A bloody conspiracy, that’s what it is!’ Cam concluded now, looking about belligerently, prepared to challenge any disagreement, but as the band struck up in the nearby pavilion no-one was paying him the slightest attention. ‘They’re not only a bunch of crooks out to rob us of our land, they’re liars and hypocrites into the bargain. Well, bugger them! Bugger every bloody one of them!’ He drained his glass and then nudged Lucky boisterously. ‘Hey, you haven’t finished your beer, mate. Drink up, my shout.’
Lucky, who was not a heavy drinker, looked at his untouched beer. The thought of downing it and embarking upon a third inside twenty minutes made him feel slightly bilious, but he knew that to knock back the offer of a beer was considered almost as rude as not returning a shout. Sighing inwardly, he took a few sips from his glass. No matter how ‘assimilated’ he might appear to the locals, and many congratulated him on the fact that he was, he knew he would never become accustomed to the drinking etiquette of the Australian male.
‘Lucky!’
Saved, he thought thankfully as Peggy ran up to him and grabbed his hand.
‘I’m terribly, terribly sorry, I didn’t mean to desert you for so long, but they were short of help setting up and …’ She broke off as she registered Cam Campbell. ‘Oh hello, Cam.’ She released Lucky’s hand and shook Cam’s warmly. ‘I didn’t see you at the show, but then I was stuck in the kitchen most of the time. I heard you picked up half the blue ribbons in the cattle section as usual,’ she laughed.
‘Hello, Peggy.’ He didn’t return her laugh. Cam Campbell’s face was a mask. The shutters had gone down as his eyes flickered from Peggy to Lucky and back again. He couldn’t disguise his shock and outrage and he didn’t attempt to. Peggy Minchin was having it off with the German. But she was a school mistress! The most proper, the most respectable of school mistresses, a woman whom Cam had deeply admired. She’d taught his own daughter for two years; young Vi still worshipped the ground ‘Miss Minchin’ walked on, and ‘Miss bloody Minchin’ was having it off with a Kraut. The way she’d looked at him when she’d grabbed his hand. Brazen. Cam couldn’t believe it.
So much for not giving a bugger where a bloke came from, Lucky thought, and so much for the hypocrisy of the SMA. The animosity that emanated from Cam Campbell was palpable; the man was the biggest hypocrite of them all.
Lucky had suffered many a bigot in the past, particularly when he’d first arrived in Australia. Bigotry was nothing new to him and he felt little more than annoyance at having been so easily taken in by Cam Campbell’s bluster. But he was angry for Peggy. Why should Peggy be judged by the company she kept? And he was angry with himself. He should not have come to the ball, he should not have placed her in this compromising situation. Above all, he was angered by his powerlessness. He dared not call the man a fraud, much as he longed to – any form of confrontation would create a scene, and that would be far more damaging for Peggy. So he smiled instead.
‘There is no need to apologise, Peggy,’ he said. ‘I have been exc
ellently entertained by Mr Campbell.’ He couldn’t bring himself to call the man by his nickname, and as he turned to Cam the smile froze on his lips.
You smarmy bastard, Cam thought. Pretending to be a good, honest, working bloke, sharing a beer, listening to a man pour out his troubles, and all the time you’re fucking the school mistress, you dirty rotten Kraut. Cam wanted to belt him one.
‘Thank you for looking after Lucky, Cam, I’m most obliged.’ Peggy’s smile was bright and her crisp schoolteacher’s voice held no added edge. ‘How’s Vi?’
‘You tell me. Since she’s moved into town you’d see her more often than I would now, wouldn’t you?’ Cam’s animosity was plainly not reserved for Lucky.
‘Yes, of course I would,’ Peggy agreed, undeterred, ‘and I do. But you’ll have seen her yourself during the show, and you must be very proud. She won several events, I heard.’
‘Two jumps and one dressage. She only entered three this year.’
‘Cam’s daughter, Vi, is a wonderful horsewoman,’ Peggy said to Lucky. ‘It runs in the family.’ Another bright smile. ‘And she’s looking so pretty lately, isn’t she? I see her around town a lot. Quite the young lady.’
‘She should be back home where she belongs.’
‘Don’t worry about her too much, Cam, she’s just turned eighteen, she wants to grow up.’ Peggy’s tone, while still briskly polite, was caring. It always was when she spoke of her ex-students. Each and every one was special to her, and Violet Campbell was no exception. ‘She’ll come back when she’s ready.’
He did not respond. To think that less than a year ago he’d been telling young Vi to heed every word Peggy Minchin uttered. ‘You listen to Miss Minchin, Vi,’ he’d said time and again, ‘she’s a real lady, and she’s got brains, what’s more.’ Well Miss bloody Minchin had now lost the right to offer any form of advice whatsoever where his daughter was concerned.
Cam was staring sullenly at the ground, so Peggy didn’t wait for a reply. Turning to Lucky, she said, ‘The band’s playing and you haven’t even asked me to dance.’
‘May I have the pleasure?’ he asked.
‘You may.’
As she took his arm and they walked off to the pavilion, Lucky didn’t look at Cam, but he could sense the farmer’s eyes burning a hole in his back.
He whirled her onto the dance floor and into a speedy quickstep to the tune of ‘Don’t Let the Stars Get in Your Eyes’. Lucky was an excellent dancer and, as the band continued to play up-tempo numbers for most of the bracket, Lucky and Peggy didn’t even think of taking a break – they danced to every single one. It was only when they’d finished waltzing to ‘How Much is That Doggie in the Window’, and the band announced it was taking a break, that they were forced to leave the dance floor.
‘I have never danced for so long and with such energy – I’m thoroughly exhausted,’ Peggy panted as they walked outside to buy a soft drink from one of the booths.
She was radiant. She didn’t know it, Lucky thought, but she was wearing her femininity like a badge. Her bosom heaving, her face glistening with perspiration, her eyes gleaming excitedly, she looked as wanton and womanly as she did after they made love. He wished he could capture the image, he would have liked to have shown it to her. Not that she would have believed him, he thought – she would simply have said that she looked ‘untidy’.
But, as he watched her, Lucky realised that he’d learned something new about Peggy tonight. His fears that he might compromise her had been unwarranted. She didn’t need his protection. She didn’t want it. She had brought him to the ball for the very purpose of social confrontation. By openly admitting to their relationship, she had defied others to disapprove, and he had a feeling that she’d enjoyed testing them. Even those who’d been found wanting, like Cam Campbell. Lucky realised, possibly for the first time since he’d met her, what a truly liberated woman Peggy Minchin was.
‘“Charmaine”.’ As the band struck up the first chords of its Mantovani bracket, Peggy put her glass of lemonade on the counter and started swaying to the music. ‘Golly it’s a pretty tune, isn’t it?’
He offered her his arm and wordlessly escorted her back into the pavilion. If only, he thought, she could be liberated from her views on herself.
I wonder why you keep me waiting, Charmaine, my Charmaine …
A singer who sounded remarkably like Perry Como had stepped up to the microphone – it was young Chris, a local boy who was very popular with the crowd.
I wonder when bluebirds are mating, will you come back again …
It was a slow waltz and, no longer concerned about appearances, Lucky held Peggy close. If the odd disapproving look from others didn’t bother her, then it certainly didn’t bother him.
I wonder if I keep on praying, will our dreams be the same …
Peggy felt him draw her closer than he usually did when they danced in public, and she was glad that he was throwing caution to the winds and no longer being overprotective. She didn’t want Lucky to feel he was in any way responsible for her.
I wonder if you ever think of me too. I’m waiting, my Charmaine, for you.
Or did she? she wondered briefly as their bodies moved about the floor in perfect harmony with each other and the music. But just as briefly she dismissed the notion as fanciful romantic nonsense. She and Lucky were strictly ‘an affair’ and she knew it.
It was one o’clock in the morning when they left the ball, Peggy swearing she couldn’t dance another step, which was a lie – she could have, but she wanted to be alone with him. They talked non-stop during the ten-minute walk down Murray Street to the small weather-board house she rented just around the corner from the school. They agreed that the evening had been an unmitigated success and that they’d both enjoyed every minute of it.
‘And you certainly achieved your purpose,’ Lucky said meaningfully.
‘Which was?’ She stopped and looked at him.
‘What is that wonderful English saying? You have …’ Lucky also halted while he searched for the phrase. ‘You have put a cat among the pigeons. Yes, that’s it. That’s just what you have done.’
‘And that was my purpose, was it?’
‘Yes, I believe so.’
She laughed. She wasn’t really sure if that had been her conscious intention. ‘Well, if it was, and if I did, then I’m glad,’ she said defiantly. They started walking again. ‘But I don’t actually think I upset many, Lucky,’ she added. ‘People are less narrow-minded than they used to be. The Snowy has taught them tolerance.’
Lucky didn’t agree. ‘What about Cam Campbell?’
He’d chosen the perfect example and Peggy had no immediate answer. She’d always liked Cam, and she didn’t want to admit that the force of his reaction had surprised and disappointed her.
‘Cam is a product of his times,’ she said carefully. ‘He’s an old-fashioned man, set in his ways, and we shocked him. I suppose I fitted his image of the perfect schoolteacher and …’ She tailed off with a shrug and a laugh. ‘Let’s face it, Lucky, I fit the schoolteacher image for most people, and so I should, I’ve worked all my life to do just that, so no wonder the poor man was shocked.’
Lucky didn’t reply as they arrived at the house. In his mind, there was no legitimising Cam Campbell’s behaviour: there had been too much hatred in it. And the legitimising of hatred was something Lucky had seen far too often in the past.
Later, however, when they’d made love and he lay on his side, one leg nestled between her thighs, raking his fingers through her hair splayed on the pillow, he decided that the man was not worth taking seriously.
‘I wonder what Cam Campbell would say about his perfect schoolteacher now?’ he smiled.
‘I dread to think.’ Peggy laughed, breathless, still recovering from the passion which continued to surprise her. ‘Let’s not tell him.’
The discovery of Peggy’s passion had surprised them both. The first time Lucky had kissed her, tenderly and with
affection, he’d been making no conscious sexual advance, and he’d been taken aback by the hunger of her response. He’d also been aroused, and when they’d made love, he’d been further surprised, and further aroused, by the depth of her passion.
But Peggy’s surprise had far outweighed his. Peggy Minchin’s discovery of her sexuality had been a total awakening. Her one previous experiment with a man had been a disappointment and she had never explored her own body, never fantasised about its potential. The fact that it could be brought to rapturous orgasm with relative ease had never crossed her mind – such states of sexual euphoria belonged only in books. Now, three months later, the force of her passion remained a never-ending source of amazement and pleasure.
He kissed her softly, and lay back, cradling her in his arms. Soon he would drift off to sleep, and she would remain, head nestled against his shoulder, until she could hear the change in the rhythm of his breathing; then she would gently ease her body away from his. They would sleep for several hours, Lucky rising before daylight to return to the hostel, trying unsuccessfully not to wake her, and insisting that she remain in bed. ‘Sweet dreams, pretty Peggy,’ he would whisper before he left.
She could hear the steadiness of his breathing now, and feel the rise and fall of his chest beneath her fingertips. Carefully, she slid to the other side of the bed. Her body was still unaccustomed to sleeping in close proximity with another.
Sated as she was, she always tried to stay awake, just for a little while. She liked to relive her rapture, to relish the fact that never in her life had she felt so alive, but sleep usually claimed her after only a few moments.
Tonight, however, was different. Tonight sleep eluded her, her brain refusing to wallow in rapturous recall and choosing instead to think of the evening’s events.
Was Lucky right? she wondered. Had she been making a statement? Had she deliberately set out to ‘put a cat among the pigeons’ as he’d said? And, if so, what had been her aim?
As the answer occurred to her, Peggy felt herself cringe with embarrassment. By so openly flaunting her relationship with Lucky, she was forcing not only the township to accept them as a couple, but also Lucky himself. Had it really been her intention, to seek a commitment from him? She hadn’t been aware of it at the time, but if that had been her ulterior motive in inviting him to the ball, then it had been very wrong of her. She had thrown herself at him the first time they’d kissed, and not once had there been any talk of commitment. He had never told her he loved her, and she had never burdened him by professing her own love; it would not have been fair.
