by Dorothy Cork
‘The bamboos aren’t indigenous, as I suppose you realise,’ Larry said, as Farrell stood entranced. ‘They were planted here years ago, and because of the water they flourished. The same goes for the waterlilies.’
The waterlilies looked as if they belonged here. They floated serene and lovely on the shining water, and beneath them, the glassy green water-plants showed dazzlingly clear. It seemed to Farrell to be a long time since she had known a pleasure so intense as she felt now, and she glanced at Larry, wondering if he felt as she did, or if all this was too familiar to him. The strangely moody expression on his face made her realise that this was one of the places where he had planned they would discover each other. It was an utterly romantic place, and somehow he seemed to be very much a part of it.
Farrell, stooping to dip her fingers in the water, reflected that he was something of an enigma. Who would suspect so utterly masculine and realistic a man capable of making the kind of wildly romantic proposal he had once made to her? As well, there were the volumes of poetry on his bookshelves, and odd words and phrases he had used in speech to her floated back into her mind. ‘I’ll make your life a Song of Solomon’—‘I’ll love you and cherish you until the day I die’...
A shiver—a strange shiver of delight ran down her spine and glancing up, she caught his eye and stayed motionless for a timeless moment, her hand trailing in the glass-clear water.. There was that expression in his eyes again—that expression that had drawn her to him the very first time she had ever seen him. Something madly romantic, madly idealistic ... Was that what it was?
She straightened up slowly, her eyes not leaving his face, and then, abruptly, he moved and broke the spell. He picked up a small pebble and tossed it into the water, and reflection from the spreading ripples made flickers of light that danced across his face.
When he looked at her again there was a remoteness in his expression that chilled her.
‘Shall we go?’ he asked shortly, 'and without waiting for her to answer, he began to move away. Farrell followed him feeling strangely forlorn and rebuffed. He didn’t want her here. Her idiotic musings had been right out of context, as far as he was concerned. Her mind turned to Helen, and she wondered if Larry was possibly thinking of her too, comparing the two girls to Farrell’s disadvantage. Actually, she had no real idea whether Helen meant anything to him or not. Her inference that she did was based purely on that birthday card claiming her as his lovely Helen, and on Mrs. Adams’ expectations that he would bring Helen back from Perth with him. It was very shaky evidence, when she looked at it sanely, in the light of day. She thought of saying casually, ‘Now that you don’t want me to marry you, is there someone else on your mind? Helen Adams, for instance?’
Instead, as they neared the thicket of bamboos, she asked him lamely, ‘The Tiger Eye, Larry—will you show me the way up over the rocks?’
He paused and made a careless gesture. ‘There where that patch of mullamullas is growing against the slope—do you see? The path starts there. It goes up to where the ghost gum’s growing from that overhanging shelf of rock. That’s the place to look.’
Farrell wanted to ask if they could climb up now, but she didn’t, and though he asked, "‘Do you want to make the climb now?’ she sensed it was merely out of politeness, and that he didn’t want to take her there. He had had enough of her.
‘No, thank you,’ she said carefully. ‘I’ll go on my own another time.’
‘That wouldn’t be wise,’ he said sharply. ‘You’ll go with me, if you must go.’
But not today, she noted, as he resumed the trek back through the gorge with her following meekly behind.
He didn’t offer to take her to look for Tiger Eye during the two days that followed either, nor did they go back to the lily ponds, though Farrell would have liked to do so. They swam, and they walked, and in the evenings they listened to music, talked generalities, and played a couple of games of Scrabble. On the whole, she found him surprisingly easy to be with, and there were often moments—long moments—when Farrell even felt she could live here, like this, for ever.
Mrs. Adams never intruded. She might not have been there, for the most part, except that the house was always cleaned, the meals were always prepared, there was always a supply of cold drinks both at the bungalow and in the sun shelter. Farrell began to understand to the full why Larry had been so sure they would get to know each other at Quindalup—as well as any couple who ever contemplated marriage. She understood even why he had claimed he could teach her to love him. Somehow here, in this beautiful lost world, such a thing could happen. Yet occasionally, generally at the very moment when they were most relaxed with each other, a constraint would come between them, and Farrell didn’t know whether it was Mark or Helen who was at the root of it.
One evening after she had defeated him at Scrabble—she had learned he took defeat from a woman in very good part—he mixed a small jug of punch instead of settling for the usual coffee. Farrell watched interestedly as he combined dark rum with a mixture of lime, orange and pineapple juices, added a little sugar syrup, and shook it all up with crushed ice. The resultant drink, she presently discovered, was delicious, but when she had thirstily finished one tall glass of it and he offered her another, she shook her head laughingly.
‘It has a definitely stupefying effect. If I have any more, I shan’t be capable of taking myself off to bed.’ As she smiled up at him, he reached out to lake her hands and draw her to her feet, and she felt her heart begin to beat fast. He was going to kiss her, and she knew she badly wanted it to happen, and blamed her unexpected feeling of compliance on the punch.
But it didn’t happen. She had lifted her head and half closed her eyes when suddenly, and quite inexplicably, Larry let her go. Her lids flew up and her cheeks burned. His eyes, that had been full of warmth a moment ago, were suddenly veiled, and somehow she was as certain as if he had told her that he was thinking of that other man—Mark Smith—making love to her. She felt an almost desperate compulsion to tell him the whole story, but before she could think how to begin, he let her hands slip out of his and told her with sudden aloofness, ‘I guess you’d better take yourself off then, Farrell. Goodnight.’
There was nothing for her to do but to go, but in her room, long after she had gone to bed, she had a feeling of sick restlessness that kept her awake for a long time.
Next morning they walked into the gorge again, though they didn’t go as far as the lily pools. It was a stifling hot day but pleasantly cool and restful in the shade of the trees that sheltered against the high red rock walls. Neither of them had anything much to say, Farrell because she was feeling languid with the heat and because she hadn’t slept well the previous night, Larry because—well, how was she to know what kept him so quiet? She thought he had something on his mind, but she had no idea what it was. It could have been business, it could have been the problem of what to do with her, it could have been Helen Adams. At all events, he didn’t want to talk, and proclaimed that he was looking for some particular wildflower that Mrs. Adams wanted to incorporate in a painting she was doing. He didn’t give Farrell a description of the flower, and after a while she wandered away from him, feeling slightly hurt. She had practically made up her mind to climb the path up the gorge wall to where he had said Tiger Eye was to be found when he called to her that he had found the flower he was looking for and they would go back to the bungalow.
They walked back almost in silence. Farrell hadn’t enjoyed her morning and she felt like telling him so. She felt curiously aggrieved and unhappy, and she didn’t really know why, unless it had something to do with the enervating heat. By the time they reached the house, she felt almost too exhausted to eat the salad that was laid out on a table in the cool of the verandah. She half expected Larry to say something about going back to Ansell over the meal, but he didn’t.
She slept on her bed after lunch and woke when Larry knocked on the door and asked if she were coming for a swim.
It was still somnolently hot, and she splashed her face with cold water in the bathroom before getting into her black bikini. On an impulse, she put the yellow and white robe around her shoulders before she went to join him at the pool. The birthday card was no longer in the pocket—she had put it in the top drawer of the dressing table, as she had worn the robe several times before Larry came. She passed Mrs. Adams painting on the verandah and stepped out in the heat that seemed to have increased, so that the earth glowed dull red and there was a heaviness like reflections from copper in the hazy sky.
When she found Larry, he was carrying two li-los from the shelter, to set up on the very edge of the water in the shade of the trees. He wore brief oatmeal-coloured swimming shorts that looked pale against his darkly tanned body and legs. Conscious of the robe she was wearing, Farrell stood and watched him, waiting till he had turned and seen her before she began to slip it off. Slight colour rose in her cheeks as his glance took in the garment, but his expression didn’t change and he made no comment.
She tossed the robe down so carelessly it fell on the ground, and she was aware of intense frustration. Why didn’t he say something? Yet what had she expected? That he’d be angry to see her in Helen’s robe? That he’d look startled, or even guilty? But why should he?
He had told her that night at the Lobster Pot that she’d be able to ask him any questions she liked at Quindalup—that he’d answer her honestly. But she could hardly hold him to such a promise now, because they were at Quindalup under very different circumstances from the ones he had been envisaging then. With a feeling of futility, she left the robe where it had fallen and went into the water.
She was floating on her back, her eyes closed, When she became aware that Larry was near her. Opening her eyes, she saw him, chest-deep in the water, his hair darkened, his eyelashes wet.
‘Is it going to storm?’ she asked him languidly.
‘Not a chance. It’s just one of those oppressive days that knock you to pieces. This is the best place to be. You’ll feel better when your blood’s cooled down.’
‘I expect so,’ she agreed on a breath.
They stayed in the water for some time, swimming, floating, drifting, scarcely speaking. On the surface, it was not so different from other days, yet Farrell knew that it was not the same at all. The silence between them was loaded, it was no longer comfortable. Larry left the water before she did, but after a few minutes she followed him, though she hadn’t meant to. He was stretched out on his back on one of the li-los, his eyes closed, and for a moment she stood looking at him. A moment that seemed like an eternity.
She had seen him half-naked like this often enough, so nothing was different. Yet suddenly everything was different. For some inexplicable reason, today, the sight of his narrow hips, his broad muscular chest, the hairs on his thighs shining golden in the sun, set her pulses racing. A dazed and paralysing weakness crept into every part of her body, so that it required an immense effort for her to take the few steps that brought her to the other li-lo, and commit herself to it. As she lay there, she had a vivid and almost tangible sensation of being held against Larry’s body. Her breath caught in her throat and she closed her eyes and bit hard on her lip. Last night, she had wanted him to kiss her, but now—
Oh God! Had she fallen in love with him?
There were leaping flames along her nerves, and when she opened her eyes, Larry was sitting up, looking at her. Something told her that he knew—heaven knew how—what she was feeling. Just as he had known that night in Ansell when they were dancing. But he didn’t—couldn’t—know why she was feeling it. Or that in just a few days Quindalup had worked some spell on her so that she had become—addicted to his company, and worse. Something that he didn’t now want to happen...
Her breast rose and fell and there was perspiration on her forehead, on her upper lip, and under her eyes. Because it was hot? But hadn’t her blood been cooled by the water?
Larry, sitting on the edge of the li-lo, his hands on his knees, continued to stare at her. Farrell had the most peculiar sensation of being naked. Her hands tingled as if they must move—to cover a nakedness that didn’t exist. It was only with a tremendous effort that she forced herself to he still with Larry looking at her the way he was.
‘Tell me something, Farrell,’ he said almost musingly, narrowing his eyes now and thereby releasing her from the spell that seemed to be holding her. ‘Exactly what were you after when you left Perth? You’ve told me sufficient about the set-up there for me to catch on you didn’t have a lot of fun. Were you out to make up for lost time—to lash out and experiment with all the things that had been, I take it, forbidden to you then?’
Farrell shook her head, making an effort at composure. She forgot her feeling of nakedness as she groped for words to answer him, confused as she was by his questions, his insinuations. ‘I—I just wanted to—to find myself, to make my own decisions. To—to choose for myself what I wanted to do, not to be—led. I admire my aunt—her coolness, her remoteness, her—dedication. But I don’t want to be—I can’t be—like that. So—’
‘I see,’ he said, when she paused. He was looking at her differently now, narrowly, thoughtfully. ‘Then if it wasn’t simply a matter of throwing yourself headlong into sexual experiments—you thought yourself in love with this man you ran away with? Is that it?’
Farrell had a feeling of helplessness. She sat up, swinging her feet to the ground, knowing she had coloured. It looked as if her opportunity to tell him the truth about herself and Mark was right here, at this instant, and it seemed important she shouldn’t miss it. She said with slow deliberation, looking him straight in the face, ‘I didn’t run away with him. You keep saying that, but I didn’t. I just—I had to get myself out of Cecile’s hair, and this chance came up to get to Port Hedland, so I—I took it. That’s all.’
Larry listened without comment, but his look was sceptical, and Farrell realised that to him, it wasn’t nearly as simple as she had tried to make out. After all, she had deceived her father—and she had shared a room with Mark. That latter point was the cause of the whole problem, so perhaps if she made light of it—
She drew a deep breath and continued, ‘We both just happened to be looking for work—he didn’t mind giving me a lift.’
He raised his eyebrows. ‘Then why didn’t you stay in Port Hedland if you were seriously looking for work, instead of—Good God, Farrell,’ he exclaimed explosively, ‘you came inland, where you must surely have known you’d have the devil’s own job finding any kind of work at all. You were sharing a room with this man who—merely gave you a lift.’
She was pale now, and she twisted her hands together nervously. ‘Yes, but—but that doesn’t mean we—’ She stopped and tried again, wishing she had the sophistication not to falter. ‘We didn’t—he didn’t—’
‘He didn’t what? Make love to you? Is that what you mean?’
She nodded desperately. ‘There was nothing—nothing like that.’ To her shame, she flushed painfully as she said it, aware that it was not altogether true, particularly from Mark’s angle. Aware too that his eyes were taking in every fleeting expression that crossed her face.
‘You mean,’ he said, after a moment, ‘that there was not even a kiss, not a skirmish—in bed or out of it—between you? I find that more than a little hard to swallow.’ His glance travelled with slow thoroughness over her body, and down the slender length of her suntanned legs, then returned to her face, her cap of curling fair hair already dried by the heat of the sun and wisping delicately over her forehead. He smiled crookedly. ‘A man wouldn’t even need to be in love with you to want to possess your body, Farrell—and you certainly put temptation in his way. Your boyfriend would have to be either decidedly undersexed or to have more self-control than is usual to leave you untouched, and from your stepmother’s comments, I gathered he was perfectly normal.’ His eyes found hers and searched them deeply. ‘Why have you waited till now to protest your innocence
? Why didn’t you speak up that day I found you in Ansell, if I maligned you?’
‘You didn’t give me a chance, you—you jumped to conclusions,’ she said. And she, she remembered, still unnerved by that king-sized pass Mark had made at her the night before, and by his disappearance in the morning—she had looked so guilty there was only one possible conclusion for him to have jumped to. ‘You’re a—a cynic,’ she said wearily.
‘You’re quite right, I am a cynic. Unfortunately, when I’m not being a cynic I’m a romantic. And there, if you’re interested, is my dilemma. The romantic in me finds the ideal, the cynic points out the feet of clay.’
Farrell looked at him wordlessly. Had he seen her as an ideal—when she was merely a hopelessly inexperienced girl apt to make the stupidest of mistakes? She shook her head bewilderedly.
‘What was the idea in sharing a bedroom, for God’s sake? What would anyone think? And don’t tell me it was a matter of economy. Your father wouldn’t let you go short of cash.’
Farrell’s heart sank. Her determination to set the record straight didn’t seem to be going too well at all. ‘There was only one vacancy at the hotel in Port Hedland,’ she said on a sigh, knowing now, when it was far too late, how foolish she had been. ‘There was nothing else to do.’
He grimaced. ‘He told you that, I suppose, and you believed it.’
‘Yes—because it was true,’ she said obstinately. Had it been true, though? She really had no idea, and she wondered what her eyes were telling him. His eyes were sending her a message that was very plain to read. He didn’t believe a word she said...
Suddenly she exclaimed frustratedly, ‘Oh, what’s the use? You can believe what you like. I don’t care. If you choose to think I’m a liar, or anything else, I can’t help it. I know I’m not perfect, but then neither is anyone, and I’m sick of having you grill me. I—I could ask you a whole lot of embarrassing questions too, if I thought I had any right.’
