by Amanda Doyle
He always switched the engine off altogether when he passed the windmill near the saddling paddock, and all you could hear then was the clanking of the tail-board’s chains against the sides of the vehicle. And when the steady clanking altered to a louder series of jerky clanks, you knew that the lorry was coasting over the ruts near the fowl-run. And soon after that, there would be a triumphant and prolonged squealing of brakes, followed by silence, and you knew that it had swooped in a wide circle right round the big heaven-tree, and settled itself in the patch of shade.
Mattie busied herself now, preparing the mail-bag that was to go. That meant going to the office and collecting the letters—mostly orders or accounts—that she had written on her father’s behalf during the week. Aunt Allie had written one to her sister also, and had laid it beside Mattie’s own on the filing cabinet.
Mattie tied the pile of envelopes together neatly with a piece of string, and slipped the package into the big canvas bag that hung on a hook on the wall. Then she snibbed the padlock shut around the collar of the bag, and carried it over to the kitchen. Stan always brought in her groceries for her, and at the same time exchanged the incoming bag for the outgoing one. He had his lunch at the Moxton’s place, on the way to Twin Rivers, but Mattie always gave him a pot of tea and some cake and biscuits, and because there was still some summer heat, she left a can of beer and a tin-opener on the table in the “men’s dining-room,” so that Stan could help himself.
Mattie did not usually go down to where the lorry was parked, because she knew the men liked to get Stan to themselves for a “bit of a jaw,” as they would say. He had a comprehensive knowledge of all that was going on along his route, and wasn’t slow to pass on his news. While all the yarning was going on, he did a roaring trade in tobacco and cigarette papers and matches, and if the men wanted to post letters, they gave them to Stan with some money for stamps, and he obligingly stuck some on for them when he returned to his general store at Baradoo, and saw them safely dispatched. He also regaled them with the latest “form” on the racing, and every now and then notes passed from one hardened brown palm to another in bets either lost or won. Mattie had been there once or twice when that was going on, and had determined not to go again, well aware of the sheepish and uncomfortable glances passed in her direction while the money was changing hands. That was why she was annoyed with herself today for forgetting to ask Stan for some butter.
Reluctantly, she walked down towards the small gathering at the “stop.”
Gib was there, too, she discovered.
As she approached, he was handing Stan a sealed envelope and some change. Mattie was mildly surprised, because she had already told him that the occupants of the homestead left their outgoing letters on the filing cabinet, ready to go into the bag. Stupidly, she had not thought to offer him stamps. If she had only thought about it, it would have occurred to her that swagmen probably did not carry postage stamps around with them as a part of their normal accoutrement. Why should they, indeed? Some of them wouldn’t even know how to write, and the ones that did maybe used “a thumbnail dipped in tar,” as Clancy’s shearing hand had done in the poem. Gib had obviously used ink. Mattie caught a glimpse of the thick, black, slanted handwriting before Stan pushed the envelope into the pile he had collected and tied it with twine, much as Mattie had just done to her own ones. He leaned into the cab of the lorry, and put the bundle on the shelf below the dashboard, and then turned to her.
“Butter, is it, Mattie? Sure, I got plenty and t’spare, if she ain’t melted clear away by now.”
Stan did not sound worried by that possibility. He kept his butter and other perishables in a wooden chest, in which stood a large block of ice embedded in sawdust. And on top of the ice-block sat the perishables. Although Twin Rivers was the last property on his run, he was confident that, even in the hottest weather, he could hand over a pack of butter without it. running out over the edges of the wrapper. Sometimes it was soft, but it never actually ran.
He climbed into the back of the lorry and delved into the chest, pushing his hat well to the back of his head so that it would not fall in. It was an old hat with a greasy sweat-band, and it wouldn’t do for it to fall amongst the perishables. Stan had his own quite particular standards of hygiene where his customers were concerned.
“There y’are, Mattie—six, is it? Wait on, an’ I’ll wrap some newspaper round ’em for yer. And how’s yer Dad? Gettin’ on, is ’e? That’s swell. Tell ’im I was askin’ fer ’im, will yer? Not back on ’is terbacco yet, I reckon? Tell ’im I got ’is favourite brand in stock, just waitin’ fer ’im, will yer? S’long, Mattie.”
“So long, Stan. See you next week.”
“Too right, Mattie.”
Stan stood in the back of the lorry and watched her retreating figure appreciatively. Some instinct was telling Mattie that Gib looked after her, too—not so appreciatively.
There had been an odd constraint between them this morning, even though she couldn’t find fault with his politeness. That had been as much in evidence as ever. Mattie realized that it was a part of the man, that considerate, thoughtful manner. Even his anger was a polite sort of anger. Mattie shivered a little. She hoped she would not be unlucky enough to come up against , it again during Gib’s sojourn here—this morning’s cold formality was bad enough!
She wondered why she should mind so much. She had discovered last night that he had the power to make her miserable—just as he had had the power to comfort her, when she thought she was beyond the comfort of words from anyone. No man had ever had that power over Mattie before, and it alarmed her. It had done that right from the start, since that moment when Gib had stepped into the office and pushed her into a chair. The fright was a peculiar sort of fright, though—a tingling apprehension rather than actual fear. Mattie had never feared anyone in her life, except perhaps Bryn, that last day, when he had been so unwilling to be convinced that she meant what she said. Even her father didn’t frighten her so much as bewilder her.
Men had figured largely in Mattie’s existence, from Nick’s mad young friends who were openly moonstruck over her face and figure, to the sophisticated playboys and debauched sugar-daddy types that she had run across in Sydney. And in all those relationships, she had been the one with the power, and they had had to toe the line. Most of them, let it be said, did that more than willingly, for the mere pleasure of being seen in her company. Mattie had steered clear of any of the deeper physical involvements, partly because that side of life was a complete mystery to her, not included in Miss Mottram’s tuition course, and partly because she had innately high moral standards of her own which some instinct told her were worth hanging on to, even in the face of teasing from some of her more sophisticated associates. She set her own standards, and unless her companions chose to abide by those standards, then they did not have the pleasure of a date with Roselle, Mattie had been the one to decide. She had been the master of her own fate.
Now the position was reversed and it was humiliating to think that it had been reversed by a man such as this—a sun-bronzed man from the dusts of nowhere, with crinkly far-seeing eyes, and a stern mouth that could utter tender, comforting phrases or lashing reproaches, and both with devastating effect. Mattie pondered over the reason for her reaction, and decided that it must be this grudging respect she had for Gib. Nick’s friends had been too young and callow to warrant respect, and most of the men she had met in connection with her career seldom engendered it, either. They made no secret of the fact that they were out to exploit her physical charms.
She wished now, mournfully and much too late, that she had bowed to her feeling of respect for Gib, and trusted him with the information about the dam. Then he wouldn’t be looking at her so aloofly with those grey-frost eyes.
Maybe her father was right after all, when he accused her of knowing little about human nature, at least as regarded the male of the species. Mattie had come to the same unwilling conclusion herself. Although she
had received a vast amount of attention from men, she knew little about their nature. It wasn’t an aspect you tried to analyse when you were bobbing around, held much too closely, on the smoky, pocket-sized dance-floor of a crowded and fashionable nightclub, temporarily blinded by the photographers’ flashlights.
Mattie drank a cup of tea out of the pot she had left for Stan, and felt a little bit more cheerful. She took the canvas mail-bag over to the office, and began to sort the letters. The unsealed ones were mostly circulars, or receipts.
Mattie dealt with those first, and then turned her attention to the others.
Nora, her flat-mate, had written just the sort of things she had known she would—“having a marvellous time, but missing you, pet—golf yesterday, then dinner at Natalio’s—yachting with Bob on Saturday, fabulous—a late surf at Bondi with the crowd, then a barbecue at the Lacey’s heaven!”—and so on, until she signed herself off with oceans of love.
There was also a cheque covering her last modelling assignments. It was a very generous cheque, and Mattie fingered it absently, marvelling at how little happiness mere money could buy when you were filled with inner longings and dissatisfaction over your relationships with people. The truth was that you needed someone to love, and someone to love you. The longing to be needed was a bitter pain in Mattie, just then.
She slipped the cheque back into the envelope, and picked up Lex’s other letters, sifting through them briefly.
Then she came to one that made her stop sifting.
It was from the people who had been commissioned to carry out the survey for the water conservation scheme, and it said that they were sending up a party of four people on the eighteenth. They would be grateful if Mr. Bennett could provide them with accommodation over the period it would take them to complete their studies, and they were bringing their own independent transport, and would inconvenience him as little as possible. His co-operation would be greatly appreciated, etcetera, etcetera.
Mattie took the letter to her father’s bedroom.
Aunt Allie had heard her coming and opened the door, saying brightly to Lex as she did so,
“Here’s Mattie to see you, Lex. I’ll just give you another pillow—there—so that you’ll be in a more comfortable position to talk. Not for long, now, Mattie, there’s a dear.”
“No, Aunt Allie,” Mattie replied obediently, as the nurse went back to her embroidery at the window-seat.
She showed her father the letter, reading it out to him slowly, and watching him a little anxiously.
He passed a tired hand over his forehead, and brought it down over his face to rest across his mouth.
It was a characteristic gesture of Lex’s whenever he was deep in thought. There was nothing in his face to show just how he had received this news, but when he spoke his voice, to Mattie, sounded heavy.
“That’s it, then, Mattie—the beginning of the end of Twin Rivers. And maybe the beginning of the end of Lex Bennett, as a grazier, at any rate.”
“Don’t say that, Father,” pleaded Mattie, feeling helpless to comfort him. “You know that’s not right. You’ll begin again, build up in some other place.”
Lex shot her a fierce look from beneath his craggy brows.
“Build up, is it? Huh! Right now I’m as weak as a cat. I can’t even get out of this bed and walk, dammit, let alone build up another property to the peak I’ve got this one at.” Mattie didn’t dare reply, and Lex didn’t seem to expect it. He went on, almost as if to himself. “You don’t understand, though. It takes a man to understand just what it means to have everything he’s worked for coming to an end. Gib, for instance—he understands. We were talking about it last night, and he knows how I feel. I’d like to be well enough to hand it over myself, all the same. I’ve made it what it is, and I’m going to be the one to deal with any formal takeover.”
“Not if you go on talking, and getting worked up, you won’t,” stated Aunt Allie positively from the windowseat. “You promised last night that you’d let Gib handle it for you when the time came.”
“Yes, that’s right, I did. And he’ll do it as well as I could, if it comes to that.” Lex turned his head towards Mattie, brisk once more. “You can leave the men to Gib when they come, Mattie. He’ll deal with them on my behalf. Write and tell them we’ll be ready for them. All you’ll need to do is fix them up with a place to sleep, and provide meals, and so forth—that’s a woman’s department. As regards anything on the place outside, I’ll expect you to co-operate in every way with Gib. Do you understand? That way, we’ll manage to get this survey over and done with, with the minimum of fuss all round.”
“Yes, Father.”
“And remember, Mattie—these men will be here to work. Just because they’re from the city it doesn’t mean they have all the time in the world to knock about in, like some of those useless parasites you run around with down there. They’ve a job on hand, so you just keep in the background, and don’t distract them.”
Mattie choked back a bitter retort, and said, “No, of course I won’t,” at the same time as Aunt Allie said, “Now, Lex, that’s a bit hard,” in her defence.
“Hard it may seem, but I believe in plain speaking, and the girl’s as well to know what I think,” he returned irascibly.
Mattie made for the door, her eyes bright with unshed tears. The way her father had referred to her as “the girl” had been almost too much for her. She must try to remember the bitterness of the news she had brought him. There he was, after all, chained to his bed when there was so much to be done outside, and now he had heard that these men were coming, implementing the first official steps that would eventually lead to the flooding of the property he loved so much—his home, with all his efforts and hopes and memories built into it. She must be generous and forgiving, and must excuse him for trying to vent his frustration and weakness on her.
That’s all she was, really. The girl. She didn’t fit in anywhere now. Her father had lavished expense on her education and grooming. His money had made her what she was, had given her this beautiful veneer, this lovely image, this apparent sophistication, and he didn’t like it after all. That was what his plain speaking had been meant to imply.
Mattie was sad to know he did not like it, because she couldn’t change now. The meticulous care she gave to her complexion and hair; the careful grooming of hands and nails in spite of the rough work they did in the old-fashioned kitchen; the panache with which she wore even her old overall; the proud carriage of her slim shoulders; all these things had become a part of her, and Lex didn’t like them. She wished that somehow he could know that, underneath all that glamour, there was the same simple person who had always been there, someone who wanted to belong to him. His daughter.
Well, she never had belonged, really, had she? Even before the transformation had taken place, when she was a brown-skinned, thin little tomboy with fair plaits and knobby knees—she hadn’t belonged then, either. She was, even then, “the girl.” She had wanted so much to believe what Gib had said to her the other day, but it was difficult to do in the light of Lex’s “plain speaking.” It would have been nice to think that her presence at Twin Rivers was a comfort to her father, even though he didn’t say so, but he had spoken to her just now as though it were more of a nuisance than anything else.
In a way, she could see her father’s point. It was because of her that Bryn had had to go, and now her father found himself depending on a complete stranger to help him over a critical period. And he was afraid that when these other men came, the same thing might happen again—Mattie’s presence might be “distracting.” Such thoughts made Mattie feel, somehow, insulted and unclean. They were cheap and—and—sordid, and quite foreign to Mattie.
She rushed blindly around the corner of the veranda and cannoned straight into Gib. The impact was so great that it nearly knocked them both off balance; and Gib’s hands had to grip her arms hard to keep them on their feet.
“Hey there!” he drawled. “Wha
t’s the hurry?”
Then he looked down at her and his face suddenly changed. The teasing light had gone from his eyes, and there was only concern there now. Mattie had been too slow in banishing that haunting hurt from her face.
“What’s the matter?” he asked abruptly, still holding her arms firmly so that she couldn’t turn away.
“N-nothing,” she hedged awkwardly.
Gib let her go.
“You came round there looking as though someone had pointed the bone at you, at the very least,” he corrected her quietly.
Mattie pushed back her hair with one hand and met his eye.
“In a way, that’s true, Gib—about the bone, I mean. Only it’s been pointed at Twin Rivers, not at me. There was a letter from the surveyors today—they’re coming on the eighteenth, four of them, to draw up plans,” she told him. “In its way, that’s the same thing as if they had pointed the bone, isn’t it? From that moment Twin Rivers will start to die—a slow, inevitable death.”
Gib glanced at her sharply.
“Yes, Mattie, that’s so. It’s inevitable. But it’s something you’ve known for a while now, something you’ve learned to accept. That’s not what made you come haring around the corner with that look on your face,” he stated positively. “Would it help if you told me what did? Sometimes it can help to unburden yourself to someone, you know, and you can trust me not to repeat what you say. I might even be able to unravel things a bit for you. Outsiders are often in the best position for doing that, Mattie, because they don’t mean anything to you, and in their turn they can look at situations objectively. Care to try me?”
Gib’s voice was casual, but his eyes were watchful. It was the old, kind Gib back again, the one she had wanted back, instead of this morning’s formal stranger. In a way, she was tempted, because there was no one else, and he was so patient and understanding when he was in one of these kind moods. Only she couldn’t, could she? She would die of shame if she had to repeat what her father had said. Lex had hinted that she had encouraged Bryn out of sheer boredom with country life, and that she might do the same to amuse herself when the men came to survey the site. As he saw it, her presence was a complication, not a comfort. Gib’s own words nagged at the back of her mind, too, and added to her determination to say nothing. He had called her a youthful sophisticate in a voice that said that was the next best thing to being a siren. Perhaps he saw her in the same light as her father did? Who could know? He wasn’t blunt like Lex, and he didn’t know her well enough to speak plainly as her father had, but he might think the same, mightn’t he? He might think of her as a hollow ornament, whose proper place was—where?
