A Thousand Miles Away

by Dorothy Cork

  Deliberately, the following morning, she didn’t breakfast with him, but later she presented herself at the hour he had nominated. She half expected him to praise her for being sensible, but he did no such thing and took her presence for granted. He saw her into the front seat of a dusty-looking four-wheel-drive vehicle, then took the driver’s seat and drove out of the town. As they passed a flourishing park, she wondered how all this plant life was supported. Travelling with Mark, and later with George, she had crossed many rivers, and every one of them had been dry—sandy beds with trees growing there. Where did the water come from to make all those gardens grow in Ansell—to keep all those houses supplied?

  She asked Larry.

  ‘It’s piped from bores sunk in the bed of the Fortescue River,’ he told her. ‘Don’t you know that the water of most of our rivers is under the ground? Haven’t you been to Carnavon where the banana plantations are watered from dry river beds?’

  ‘I haven’t been anywhere much,’ she admitted. ‘Perth and up on the coast—’

  ‘And currently you’ve been walkabout in the Pilbara,’ he said coolly. ‘But you don’t like my part of the world.’

  She moved uncomfortably. Actually, she found the Pilbara fascinating. It had been the glare—those crows—the feeling of being trapped that had shaken her. Now it gave her a tremendous thrill to be driving into ranges that looked older than time, to see them floating ahead mauve and pink and unreal, with heavenly blue shadows deepening to indigo in their clefts, but she didn’t feel like enthusing to Larry and merely said reservedly, ‘I wouldn’t say that, exactly. But—but don’t most people find it hard to live here? Even in Ansell, where there’s—everything—people don’t stay long, do they? George told me the labour turnover’s terribly high.’

  ‘George?’ She saw his face darken. ‘Who’s that? Your boy-friend?’

  ‘No. Just a—a man who gave me a lift,’ she said nervously.

  ‘Good God!’ He muttered something else under his breath, then told her grimly, ‘You’ll write to your father tonight. You’ll tell him that you’ve left Port Hedland and are now in my care.’

  Farrell sent him a wry look, but he didn’t see it. She couldn’t really believe that her father would be reassured by that kind of news, and heaven knew what Cecile would think!

  ‘Well?’ he said sharply.

  ‘Well what?’

  ‘Do you agree to write?’

  ‘No, of course I don’t.’

  ‘Then I shall have to make you write. There’s nothing admirable about young runaways who worry their parents sick by failing to keep reasonably in touch. Doesn’t it bother you that your father may be concerned about your safety and wellbeing?’

  ‘I’ve already written to my father,’ she said curtly.

  ‘And what did you tell him?’

  ‘There was nothing to tell—just that I hadn’t found work—’

  ‘Well, you’ll write another letter tonight. In fact, I’ll dictate it to you and you’ll write what I say.’

  ‘Dictating’s one of your strong points, isn’t it? Like dictating to me that I’m not to be allowed to fly out of Ansell. Well, I don’t like being dictated to—I’m just glad I didn’t wait about at my father’s for you to come back. I just might have been carried off to Quindalup whether I wanted it or not.’

  ‘That’s something that could still happen,’ he said sardonically, and Farrell glared at his profile as the four-wheel-drive hurtled along the gravel road.

  ‘I hardly think so. You’ve made it plain that’s all off.’

  ‘I’ve made it plain you’ve shattered the opinion I formed of you when we met initially.’

  Her colour flared. ‘Then isn’t it all quite simple? Let me go and forget about me.’

  ‘I wish he could,’ he said after a moment. ‘Unfortunately, I have a conscience—a sense of responsibility. The way I see it, you’ve taken a reckless step in the dark and you’ve fallen over the edge of a precipice. I prefer to help you back from the very narrow ledge you’re resting on rather than see you slip further down. Do you get my point?’

  ‘I’m not going to—slip further down,’ Farrell said tightly. ‘In fact, Mr. Sandfort, though it may surprise you, I—I haven’t fallen over the edge at all. You just don’t understand—’

  ‘I understand all right, Farrell,’ he said grimly. ‘Perhaps we see things differently. But I do know it’s never so hard to take the second false step as it is to take, the first, and if you’ve found the first step easy—well—’ He shrugged, and the discussion, if it could be called that, ended there, for they had reached the security gates of Ansell-Sandfort Mining.

  Once inside, they were both required to conform with regulations and were provided with yellow helmets and big sunglasses to protect their eyes. Soon, Larry was driving the dusty four-wheel-drive up a wide graded road into the mountain, and Farrell was glad to forget personalities and allow her natural interest to take over.

  She had expected dust in these bare red mountains that were being mined for their rich iron ore, but water trucks rumbled up and down the road constantly, spraying the surface to keep the dust to a minimum, and despite the heat it was not unpleasant.

  ‘As you see, we use the conventional open-pit mining methods on Mount Ansell,’ Larry told her as they drove towards the pit observation point. ‘Roughly speaking, the ore is blasted out of the ground, scooped up and loaded into trucks, then carried to the crushers you probably noticed down below. There it’s screened and stockpiled, and finally taken by company rail to the port.’

  Farrell nodded, listening absorbedly. At the observation point, high on the rocky mountainside that reflected back the glare of the sun, she climbed out at Larry’s invitation to see what was going on. Some distance down, huge diesel-electric shovels were loading ore into dump-trucks. From this height they looked tiny, men were no more than ants, yet Larry said the shovels collected fifteen tonnes of ore at a single bite, and that the trucks carting the ore carried a hundred tonnes in a load. Everything was red, except for the yellow of the machinery and the men’s helmets, and far-' below the tiny brilliant splash of a grassy park. This had been planted for psychological reasons, and as well to relieve the men’s eyes.

  Farrell understood now why so many of the men she had seen in town looked as if the red of the iron was ground into their tanned skins. It actually was. She could understand too why they didn’t stay too long working at Mount Ansell.

  She glanced at the man standing by her side, staring out over the great project that had started as a dream in one man’s mind before it had ever become a reality. He was almost totally unrecognisable in his yellow helmet, the big glasses covering the upper part of his face and giving him the air of a man from outer space. She suppressed a smile at the thought that she must look pretty weird too, as he turned towards her to ask, ‘Are you interested? Or is it too masculine a world for you?’

  ‘It is masculine—fearsomely so,’ she admitted. ‘But it’s fascinating—exciting,’ she added, half beneath her breath.

  ‘I almost expected to hear you let out a little female wail of pity because we’re pulling a mighty mountain to bits.’

  Farrell looked out thoughtfully over the immensity of ancient spinifex-dotted ranges that rippled and snaked, empty and desolate, away to the horizon and beyond. In that eternal landscape, the mining operations on Mount Ansell looked utterly insignificant.

  ‘It’s really a very small mountain, isn’t it?’ she commented. ‘It’s funny—it’s a huge project to us, yet it’s making no more than a tiny scar. We’re like ants with our earthworks.’

  He smiled a little. ‘Then you’re not unduly depressed by this desecration of the earth.’

  She shook her head. ‘I guess man has to use the minerals he finds. Our civilisation’s founded on what we got out of the ground.’

  Larry reached out and rested a hand casually on her shoulder. ‘You’ll be reaching for your notebook in a moment, Farrell.’
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  ‘My—notebook?’ she repeated.

  ‘Surely every would-be writer has a notebook! That was one reason why I brought you here—to add a different type of experience, of earthiness, to the kind you’ve been investigating for yourself.’

  Farrell didn’t have to work out what that was supposed to mean, but she wondered what he would think if he knew how she had reacted to that other kind of earthy experience.

  She turned away, the moment spoiled by this intrusion of the personal, and made her way back to the Landrover.

  He followed her, and asked casually as he got into the driver’s seat, ‘Were you in love with the man you went away with? Or was it all in the nature of an adventure?’

  He looked at her as he spoke, and she looked back at him, but it was like looking at a mask. She couldn’t discover his eyes behind the lashes, and the expression on his mouth was cynical. She said wearily, ‘It wasn’t an adventure. I was looking for work.’

  ‘And my other question,’ he said after a moment. ‘Were you in love with him?’

  Farrell hesitated. She had liked Mark at first. Now she didn’t know what she felt about him. Perhaps it would sound better if she said yes, but it would not be true. She sighed. ‘Does it matter? I don’t really have to answer your questions. It’s not as if—’

  ‘Not as if we were back to square one? No, things have changed somewhat, haven’t they?’

  She bent her head. ‘You should have let me go yesterday.’

  ‘Perhaps I should.’ Larry started up the motor and they began to descend the mountain.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Farrell was thankful when Larry told her later that he was going out to dinner that night, but she was chagrined when she went to the dining room to discover he had arranged for her to sit at a table occupied by two middle-aged couples doing a tour of the North-West.

  Dinner over, she went straight to her room. He had said she was to write to her father, and she had no doubt he would pounce on her and check up in the morning. Well, she would have a letter written, signed, and sealed, and what was in it was no concern of his. She wasn’t like Mark—she didn’t want Jo worry her father.

  She found it difficult to compose a letter because of all the tricky points involved—how she happened to be in Ansell, what she was now doing there, what her future plans were—She simply didn’t dare mention Larry Sandfort, she could imagine what Cecile would make of that, if she found it so easy to make something suggestive of the harmless relationship that had existed between Farrell and Mark.

  After some thought, she wrote, ‘Dear Daddy, I thought I had better let you know where I am. I got tired of trying to find work in Port Hedland and now I’m in Ansell, and haven’t quite made up my mind what to do next.’ That written, she sat staring at the wall and wondering futilely about what else she could say. From there, her thoughts strayed to Mark, who didn’t write home, and she wondered where he was now and what he was doing, and what he thought about the girl who had led him on and then reneged. Oh yes, Farrell had to admit she had given him the wrong impression when she had asked if she could come with him. He had probably wiped her from his mind now—he’d never pretended to be madly in love with her, or anything like that. In fact, she didn’t think Mark would classify as being a passionate sort of person. Not like Larry Sandfort. All the same, it didn’t look as if Farrell Fitzgerald needed to run to protect herself from Larry these days!

  The telephone rang and she jumped about a foot.

  ‘Farrell? This is Larry. Come over to the TV room, will you, and we’ll discuss that letter you’re going to write.’

  ‘I don’t need to discuss it with you,’ Farrell said promptly, and with a little feeling of triumph. ‘I’ve written it already,’ she added, stretching the truth slightly.

  ‘Have you? Well, I’d like to see it.’ He paused and Farrell said nothing. She merely seethed with resentment. Wasn’t this an—an invasion of privacy?’Either you bring it along or I come to your room,’ he said when she didn’t answer. ‘I’ll give you five minutes.’

  He rang off and Farrell hung up. She looked at her letter and grimaced. It wasn’t worth showing to anybody. She tore it slowly to shreds. She would have to go to the TV room, she supposed—she certainly didn’t want him coming here. She would see what suggestions he had to make, but quite definitely she wasn’t going to sit down and meekly write what he dictated. She combed out her curls and looked at herself critically in the mirror. She was wearing a long cotton dress, and she looked terribly young and more than a little lost, and that was exactly how she felt.

  When she reached the TV room it was crowded with viewers, all of them laughing their heads off over the Garry MacDonald show, and Larry Sandfort was waiting by the door.

  ‘I’m sorry about this, Farrell. This show’s just started—I looked in here before I phoned you and there wasn’t a soul in sight.’ He took her arm. ‘We’ll have to go to my suite. It’s too noisy in the bar, and it’s too cool outside. You’d catch a chill in that thin dress.’

  Farrell held back. ‘I don’t want to go to your suite. If you just tell me what you want me to say, I’ll manage without bothering you—though I’m not saying I’ll write it.’

  He raised his eyebrows. ‘I don’t particularly want you to come to my suite either, if that’s what’s bothering you. Could be that what you’ve already written will pass. Have you got your letter there? Let me take a look—’

  She coloured. ‘I—I tore it up. I wasn’t satisfied.’

  ‘Obviously you need a little help.’ His blue eyes flicked over her face and lingered on her mouth, then abruptly he turned away. ‘Come along.’ He didn’t take her arm again, and they walked without touching each other through the courtyard past the swimming pool. He ushered her politely into his suite, and she took the chair he indicated. There was a lamp on a low table and another on the cocktail cabinet, and Larry reached for cigarettes and offered one to Farrell before he sat down. She shook her head, and remarked as he lit up, ‘I didn’t know you smoked.’

  ‘I don’t as a rule. Only under stress.’ He smiled briefly, his teeth white against the tan of his face.

  Under stress! Farrell would have thought she was the one under stress!

  ‘Why are you under stress?’ she wanted to know.

  ‘I’m carrying it over from the business dinner I attended,’ he said lightly, and Farrell looked at him through her lashes as he sat down facing her. Was that true? She was not too sure.

  ‘Don’t look at me like that,’ he said sharply.

  ‘Like—like what?’

  ‘Like a woman summing a man up,’ he said tersely.

  She opened her eyes wide and smiled ingenuously. ‘I was summing you up.’

  Their eyes met and now in Larry’s there was exactly the expression Farrell had seen in them when she had first met him—that expression that had so fascinated and intrigued her. She found it difficult, in fact almost impossible, to look away from him. Finally he was the one to break the spell, moving impatiently to reach for an ashtray, and ashing his cigarette with unnecessary deliberation.

  ‘Have you a pen?’ he asked. ‘A writing pad?’

  She had neither, and he got up and found both for her. ‘Now let’s see—what do you call your father?’

  She didn’t answer, but she wrote, ‘Dear Daddy,’ noting uneasily that her writing was uneven. She glanced up expectantly, and found him looking at her searchingly, and she nervously took a handful of her fair hair and dragged at it.

  Larry asked unexpectedly, ‘Are those curls natural?’

  ‘Yes—they’re an awful nuisance sometimes. I have to wear my hair cut short or it’s impossible. I can’t even think of following hair fashions.’

  ‘Why should you want to when you can look like that?’

  ‘Like—like what?’ she stammered.

  Instead of answering he got to his feet and paced across the room. ‘Good God, Farrell,’ he said, his back to her, ‘you surely must
be aware how attractive you are. You look naive—but you’re obviously not. Didn’t the man you ran away with pay you compliments?’ He swung round and came to take her chin roughly and tilt her face up to his. ‘Didn’t he tell you your eyes are like—dreaming waters where ferns grow—that you have the lips and the bosom of a houri? Didn’t he want to kiss your lovely hair, to—’ He stopped abruptly, releasing her, his eyes lingering on her breast which by now was rising and falling quickly with her quickened breathing. What was this a prelude to?

  She heard herself breathe out, ‘Leave me alone! I wish you’d—I wish you’d just let me go my own way—’

  ‘Your own way? What is your own way?’ he asked savagely. He flung himself into a chair and his eyes smouldered at her. ‘I’m going to see that you count to more than ten before you set out on another journey, Farrell ... Come on now, let’s get this letter written. Tell your father this—that Larry Sandfort’s offered you sanctuary at Quindalup, his hideout in the gorges, while you make up your mind whether you want to go back to university or become a writer or a secretary or whatever. Tell him that I’m going to keep an eye on you.’

  They stared at each other, Farrell motionless though her heart was thudding, the man grim-lipped, his eyes dark, though some fire burned in their depths. The thought of going to Quindalup—or anywhere at all—with him terrified her, though she was not sure why. The thing was—how did you know what to expect of a man? She had thought herself so safe with Mark—

  ‘I—don’t want to go to Quindalup,’ she said huskily. ‘You talk as if I have to do what you say—as if I have no choice—’

  He crushed out his forgotten cigarette. ‘You don’t have a choice. I promise you, you can’t get out of this town unless you walk—and you know damned well you’d have to be out of your senses to do that.’