Stone Country

by Nicole Alexander

  She came over to face him. ‘I can go home,’ she said, when he didn’t speak immediately. ‘I should have given more thought to what you might want. I’m sorry. It was foolish of me.’

  Ross looked at the open suitcase.

  ‘I’ll make my own way,’ replied Darcey.

  ‘How, by pawning my grandmother’s ring?’

  Darcey tugged at the ring, twisting it around her finger. ‘I didn’t ask for it. Grandmother Bridget gave it to me as an engagement ring when I arrived here. She said she intended for Alastair to have it.’

  ‘Well, you’re not marrying Alastair,’ Ross found himself saying, calmly. ‘You’re marrying me. And I’ll be supplying my own ring.’

  Darcey’s arms fell to her side. He lifted her left hand and tried to remove the ring. When it couldn’t be freed he placed the ring finger in his mouth, moistening her skin. He could feel the heat of her body. There were beads of perspiration on her top lip. The ruby slid off into his hand and Ross placed the ring on the writing desk. ‘The wedding will be tomorrow.’

  He expected her to be pleased, to at the very least thank him. Instead, she looked as if she hadn’t understood what he’d said. ‘Tomorrow?’ she repeated.

  ‘There’s no point waiting and there won’t be a fuss, so don’t expect it,’ Ross told her. ‘I’ll be leaving soon after to go north. I don’t know how long I’ll be away. A few years, I expect.’

  A fine line appeared at the midpoint between Darcey’s eyes. ‘But why? I don’t understand. You’re marrying me and then you’re leaving?’

  ‘Yes. You have what you want.’

  ‘I could go with you.’

  Ross wondered what she was thinking. She was a woman, and a female was expected to stay within the boundaries that her sex dictated, unless they were his grandmother. ‘That won’t be possible. It’s not the place for you. Best you stay here.’

  ‘Why?’ she asked.

  ‘I just told you,’ he replied irritably.

  ‘I mean, after everything you said to me, why are you marrying me?’

  He looked at the woman standing opposite him with her incredulous expression and thought of his brother. ‘Because I have to,’ he replied.

  Chapter 13

  ‘There’s no point delaying it, Ross, you’ve married her, now it’s time to do your duty.’ Connor elbowed him. ‘The wedding bed, man. You can be assured you won’t be turned down and you dinnae have to pay for it.’

  Ross poured another dram and took a sip, ignoring his friend. They were in his father’s study, going through the files concerning the Territory property. At least, he was reading the records, while Connor was busy scrutinising the portraits on the wall and examining the leather-tooled spines of the bookcase’s contents.

  ‘Your father has a fine collection,’ said Connor. ‘I’ve only ever stood in front of this desk.’

  ‘Well, if you can draw yourself away from my father’s literary tastes perhaps you could sit down and start helping me,’ suggested Ross.

  Connor flipped the curtain, studied the sky. ‘Aye, you’re probably right. It’s a bit early for bed. A man cannae look too keen.’ He sat down on one of the leather chairs near the desk.

  Ross frowned at the remark. A cable had been forwarded, advising the manager up north that a Grant was finally coming to visit. Ross imagined the flurry of activity it would create after the staff had been left to their own devices for well over two decades. Morgan Grant liked the idea of sitting on a large parcel of land in an area yet to be considered truly conquered by men. And he wasn’t alone. The north of Australia had been carved up by wealthy investors. For many years great chunks of the country had been left in the hands of managers, with few owners bothering to take a step onto the soil they owned.

  ‘So it’s straight to business, is it?’ asked Connor. ‘Right. I know you would have liked to have gone by the Afghan Express, but it’s too unreliable and besides it will only get us to Oodnadatta. It’s camels after that, and I don’t think this Scottish arse was built for such travel.’

  Oodnadatta, 540 miles north of Adelaide, placed Ross in proximity to the Simpson Desert, a path his childhood hero Stuart once took. ‘I would have gone that way if I’d had the time.’

  ‘Aye, well thank the Lord there’s a steamer. Anyway, it’s just as well we’re leaving. What with the general ruckus your decision’s made. I thought Herself would be your stumbling block but if it’s as you say, I’m none too shy on leaving tomorrow. There’s going to be a fair skirmish here over the next few days.’

  The family was barely speaking to Ross or to each other. They’d been denied their society wedding which, it seemed, formed part of their restoration plans, and his grandmother agreeing to Ross’s unrestricted journey north when his place was in Adelaide with his new wife was not greeted favourably at all.

  ‘I hope you’re not in a rush to come back here, Connor,’ said Ross.

  Connor flipped his pipe from side to side in the palm of his hand. ‘You’ll return in a couple of years, Ross. Once the wanderlust is out of you.’

  ‘Care to wager on that?’

  Connor hunched his shoulders and began stuffing the pipe with tobacco.

  Laid out on the desk among maps and ledgers and daily newspapers was a stack of letters which, over the preceding years, had been sent monthly from up north. Ross was doing his best to read what he could before they left, hopeful of gaining a general idea of where they were headed and what to expect. The correspondence from the manager, Bill Sowden, was much the same and Ross imagined that if he were to match months and years an almost identical cycle of content would appear, rhythmic and scarcely altering like variations on a song handed down through the ages. Too hot for growth, too wet to move. Too much rain. Too little. And circling above each verse would be the refrain, the coming and eventual leaving of the monsoon.

  ‘Listen to this, Connor. Two hundred missing cows in 1910.’ Ross ran a finger over a ledger page. ‘One hundred and eighty-five in 1915. One hundred and ninety last year. Absentee owners.’ Ross searched under more papers, retrieving a copy of The Register. ‘Here.’ He tapped at a page. ‘The editor talks about it. That’s what’s ruined the Territory. People like my father buying up land and then sitting on it. Do you know that we’ve spent no money on improvements up there? Ever.’

  ‘Cheap to run then, eh?’

  ‘Connor,’ warned Ross.

  ‘I’m just saying, your father’s not stupid. Besides, it sounds like he’s not the only one biding his time. I’m betting the property is worth a small fortune by now.’

  ‘More cattle. We need to buy more.’ Ross was barely concentrating on what Connor was saying. ‘There’s a meatworks up there run by Vesty’s. The prices for beef went sky-high during the war and everything I’ve read suggests that cattle and mining still offer the best prospects for success.’

  ‘They’ve been searching for reefs of gold there for years, Ross. I’d stick to cattle.’ Connor lit the pipe, his cheeks hollowing as he inhaled. ‘You’ve got some learning to do, being the shepherd in the family.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘I’m not denying this is an opportunity for the both of us, but have you not thought that your father knows what he’s doing? He’s as shrewd as the next businessman and he’s a Scot.’

  ‘And he won’t be there with us,’ replied Ross. Up there he would be safe from any family interference, while his father concentrated on the three sheep properties he owned in the South and the grape-growing enterprise on the Adelaide Plains that he’d purchased from a German family during the war. Ross recalled the phrase ‘the tyranny of distance’, first heard in the schoolroom to explain the pitfalls of the early colonisation of Australia. But there was a clear benefit to distance, one that his teacher would never have foreseen.

  ‘And what about the vacant lots in Darwin your father owns?’ asked Connor.

  ‘He wants those sold. I’m wondering why someone hasn’t made an offer already,’ said
Ross.

  ‘I’ll tell you why, because a big cyclone is just as likely to come in and blow anything that’s built there flat.’

  ‘You’re full of good news, aren’t you?’

  ‘Excitement of the day,’ replied Connor. ‘I’m beginning to think that I’m far more enthusiastic about your wedding night than you are.’

  ‘That wouldn’t be hard,’ said Ross.

  ‘You do know what to do, dinnae you?’ asked Connor. He puffed out smoke when Ross hesitated. ‘Dinnae tell me you’ve not been with a woman.’ He tapped his skull. ‘It’s my fault. I should have asked you before this.’

  ‘I’ve been with a woman.’

  Connor raised an eyebrow. ‘As only a man can be with a woman?’

  ‘Yes,’ Ross lied.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘You don’t know her.’

  ‘Does she exist?’

  ‘Of course she exists.’

  ‘I’m only asking because I dinnae recall you stepping out with many girls before you left Adelaide.’

  ‘There wasn’t much of an opportunity then,’ replied Ross.

  ‘So who was this woman?’

  ‘A girl in Burra, but nothing came of it.’ Isobelle Watson had been partial to kissing him the year Alastair sailed for England but she would let him go no further than a hand on her breast and would have nothing more to do with him after war broke out and he didn’t enlist. Meg Carr was another Burra beauty but on the day he’d mustered the courage to ask her out she’d handed him a white feather. Ross avoided Burra and women after that. ‘I know enough.’

  Connor’s eyes widened. ‘She’ll be expecting more than that, for she won’t know anything.’ He lifted the whisky decanter and refilled their tumblers. ‘You best have another. The thing is,’ he said in a confidential tone, ‘women like romance. They like,’ he screwed up his nose, ‘kissing. Yes,’ he leant back contemplatively, ‘kissing. It’s daft I know but that’s what they expect. You’ll need to remember that for later when you try again, for she won’t always be so willing. Tonight, though, well, you can drop your strides and –’

  ‘Connor.’ Ross really doubted if Darcey would ever be willing. He certainly wasn’t. ‘The thing is, if I sleep with her then it’s done.’

  ‘Of course it’s done. That’s the whole point.’ Connor rubbed his palms together.

  ‘I mean there’s no going back.’

  His friend shook his head. ‘I hate to tell you this, Ross, but you’re already married. There is no going back.’

  Ross swirled the whisky, drinking the remains of it. He didn’t see things that way. Married he might be, but his father was in agreement that the Territory was no place for Mrs Darcey Grant. His new wife was to stay behind. Time and distance could alter many things. Ross was counting on it. He began shuffling the papers into a pile. His father was forwarding a telegram of introduction to the Territory Director tomorrow. The rest of the details regarding their arrival and travel to the property was to be arranged once they reached Darwin. Closing the ledger, Ross rolled the map and sat it on top.

  ‘Do you think your brother might have already, you know, had a poke?’ asked Connor.

  Ross hadn’t thought of the possibility but the question gnawed at him. In response he gave his friend a shrug, as if it didn’t matter to him. But it did. It mattered more than Ross cared to acknowledge.

  ‘It’s not something a woman would admit to,’ continued Connor. ‘Especially one as proud as she is.’

  ‘Proud?’ asked Ross. ‘Actually, I think she’s desperate.’

  Connor gave Ross a querying stare. ‘It’s a bumpy track you’ve started on. I should let you attend to your duties before you think some more with that brain of yours. I’ll be waking you before the birds flap a wing, so dinnae be up all night.’

  Once Connor was gone, Ross lay down on the leather sofa. It was a warm evening and the slight breeze barely stirred the air. The rest of the household had long retired and as the building cooled after the day’s heat, Ross lay quite still listening to the soft tread of someone walking. The footsteps stopped near the door before moving on and he wondered if it was Darcey seeking her husband on their wedding night. She’d worn a rather loose-fitting ivory gown and had spoken little, except to repeat the wedding vows. They’d held hands at the end but he’d not kissed her. Ross had fulfilled his side of the bargain and couldn’t see the need for unnecessary affection, although his grandmother rebuked him, saying he was puffed up with anger. It was Connor, the best man, who noted that the silver wedding horseshoe the bride carried was hanging the wrong way, upside down.

  Ross was leaving Adelaide with hardly anything. A change of clothes, a swag, a revolver and rifle. Having arrived with even fewer possessions than those, he’d examined the items on his bed and then for some inexplicable reason searched through Alastair’s collection of books, selecting a half-dozen of his brother’s favourites.

  ‘Start with Homer and Hesiod,’ Alastair had told him, the day before he sailed. ‘You’ll have plenty of time at Gleneagle to read and don’t stop there, nearly everyone does. Move on to Pythagoras and Plato, Mithras and the Mysteries, and don’t forget your near Eastern and Egyptian studies.’

  ‘And what will I do with all this knowledge?’ Ross had asked.

  ‘We’ll talk about it, you and me, as brothers should,’ Alastair had replied. ‘When I get home.’

  In the early hours of the next morning a gust of wind rustled the papers on the desk, waking Ross from a mostly sleepless night. When he had managed to sleep he’d been drawn into a room where his brother and Darcey lay entwined on a bed. In the dream he’d been desperate to know if Darcey was indeed a virgin or not, if she’d lain with his brother out of wedlock. But in the blush of daylight Ross contented himself with the thought that it didn’t matter. He was leaving and she was staying put. The union was doomed to fail.

  Part Two

  1919–1921

  Chapter 14

  Darwin, Northern Territory, 1919

  Ross and Connor walked the long strip of road that extended across the low bluff on which the settlement was built. The dirt sent up eddies of heat as they moved past the mix of buildings on Cavenagh Street. Dilapidated lean-to shops of galvanised iron and wood nestled alongside considerable stone buildings and within each of these stores a variety of trade was on offer. Tailors, bakers, builders, herbalists, jewellers and stonemasons were tucked in between restaurants, grocers and laundries. Outside one washing place, women were stringing up clothes from never-ending bins and as Ross and Connor passed by, a blast of debilitating hot air struck them forcefully from the doorway.

  ‘We could go back to the harbour,’ suggested Connor.

  ‘You should have been a sailor,’ replied Ross.

  Connor gave a chuckle. ‘I cannae swim. Just as well.’

  They’d already been advised that there was every chance a person would be attacked either by sharks or crocodiles if they were foolhardy enough to risk the ocean. Earlier they’d stopped at the northern end of Chinatown where the headland dropped to the blue sea and watched a steamer approach the wharf, the same creaking jetty that had greeted them on their arrival in Darwin nearly a week ago. The anticipated breeze was non-existent and Ross had been struck by the mass of water before them and what lay inland. He was pleased to be off the briny pond with its pitching waves and sudden squalls, while in Connor he detected a wistfulness. It was many years since the little Scotsman’s crossing to this new continent and Ross wondered if the memories of that long-ago voyage were stirred by their recent travels.

  ‘You’d think they could give a man some peace,’ protested Connor, as a shrill whistle punctuated the air. He’d already visited the docks to complain about the noisy locomotive that moved railway construction materials between the jetty and yards, puffing its way past the mangroves. ‘I know why they call it Sandfly, it’s blasted annoying. Ross, are you not going to say anything? You’ve barely spoken these last few days. I’m b
eginning to wonder if you even want to be here. Maybe you’re having second thoughts. Perhaps missing that young wife of yours, eh?’

  ‘I’m thinking,’ answered Ross. ‘And looking.’

  ‘Aye, there’s plenty to see. You won’t mind if I take a wander this evening and try my luck with the ladies. I’d ask you to join me but you being a married man and all I dinnae want to be the one to place temptation in your way.’ He tipped his hat at a passing woman, spinning on his heel to watch as she walked away.

  Crossing the road, they made their way past old men in tunics carrying baskets of fruit and vegetables balanced on poles slung across shoulders. Outside an emporium Ross admired the carved pearl shell and embroidered silk in the window as Connor commenced a monologue on the many races the community was home to. While his friend could spend hours watching the arrival and the departure of the mail steamers in the harbour or the pearling luggers drifting on the tide, it was the mix of cultures that most intrigued him.

  ‘Japanese,’ Connor pointed. ‘See. Look at her feet. Chinese, Greek, Chinese, English,’ he said as the pedestrians passed. ‘Chinese, two of those people from the islands, a blackfella. Take a look at his breastplate, will you. He’s a regular king. Well, he must be, dinnae you think?’

  Ross entered the emporium and purchased a small camphor box for his grandmother. When he caught up with his friend again Connor was bent forward, hands on knees, studying a book with brush lettering in a shopfront window.

  ‘Did you get her something then?’ asked Connor.

  ‘For my grandmother, yes,’ answered Ross. He caught the flattening of his friend’s mouth. They’d been in Darwin long enough to do some sightseeing, purchase a few supplies and make contact with Bill Sowden, the manager of Waybell Station, but Connor somehow managed to mention Darcey nearly every day.

  ‘You should write to her,’ persisted Connor.

  ‘I sent my father a telegram when we arrived. He knows not to expect to hear from us for a while,’ said Ross.