by Lucy Walker
‘I would like to go to Yulinga very much because I would like to have charge of Sandra,’ Cherry said a trifle primly.
A small muscle moved in Stephen Denton’s cheek.
Oh well! Why did she have to bother what he thought of her at all? She wouldn’t have to work for him. It would be his brother and his brother’s wife that mattered. And Sandra too.
The tall man who sat sun-baking on the beach had gone for ever, and in his place was this other man, easy, composed, subtly twisting herself and her mother into making themselves look foolish for his entertainment.
He was just as attractive as that other man, it was true, but Cherry, sitting straight-backed in her chair, would never let him do this to her again. Of that she was certain.
Just wait till she broke loose with that fifty pounds, not to mention the ten-pound note, in that fashion shop along the Highway where all the girls bought their slacks and shuffle shoes, and backless swimsuits.
Cherry looked past Stephen Denton to her mother. Suddenly she knew it was not only her nineteenth birthday, but she was grown up. Her parents had opened the cage of youth and invited the bird to go out into the world.
Cherry felt at that moment, far more than she had when she had woken early in the morning, that she truly stood on the doorstep of the gilded cage. Her wings were quivering for their first flight.
She would shed these quiet decorous clothes that were always worn an inch too long, and the shoes that were never quite one thing or the other, but breathed of quality, endurance and a polished life that went on for ever.
She would be a bird with gay plumage.
‘Yes, Mr. Denton,’ she thought, looking at him, unaware of the unexpected challenge in her eyes, the quick joyous uplift of her head. ‘Just wait till I get loose in that shop. You won’t ever laugh at me again.’
Chapter Three
Two weeks later Cherry was aloft in the M.M.A. Fokker Friendship plane heading for the north-west. She had a thousand miles to go up the coast, and then by a small feeder plane inland to Yulinga Station.
In her larger case, stored in the freight compartment, were those gaily coloured ‘stoves’. The saleswoman in that fashion shop in the Highway had done some educating of Cherry.
‘The trade name is, of course, slacks. But you’ll find your friends will call them “stoves” because of the stovepipe legs.’
There was a biscuit-coloured cotton pair, a dark green pair, for knockabout, and a heavenly pair of damson red velvet for ‘occasions’. Cherry hadn’t any idea what those occasions would be but the salesgirl had assured her they would occur and the lovely velvet form-fitting slacks were a ‘must’.
Then had followed the gay array of cotton blouses, some without sleeves and with pretty frills.
A dressmaker had been called in by the willing but bewildered Mrs. Landin and Cherry’s beautiful quality silk and cotton dresses had been recut in more fashionable line and length. To crown her dark unruly hair there had been a biscuit-coloured coolie straw hat and a small velvet thingummy for that special ‘occasion’ the salesgirl had promised her. For her feet there were thongs, suede casuals and one pair of Italian high-heeled shoes.
Stephen Denton was in a seat in the forward part of the plane and occasionally when Cherry could drag her eyes from the colourful wonder of the earth beneath to look at the back of his head she felt somewhat grateful for the fact he had been quietly laughing at her that day he had come to the house.
It had taken just that to jolt Cherry into true independence. Yes, she hadn’t altered her opinion that he was a superior if fascinating man in a godlike kind of a way, but he had done her a service when he had smiled inwardly at her and smiled outwardly at her mother.
She would show him from now on there was nothing to laugh at, or pity, in the Cherry Landin who was heading for Yulinga and who would take charge of young Sandra Denton.
She had boarded the plane in a simple linen frock with the coolie hat on her head at a jaunty angle.
She had been pleased to see the quickly veiled surprise in his eyes as he had risen from the deep arm-chair in the airport lounge as she had come in before the plane left.
Cherry’s hat was not the only jaunty thing about her. So was her honey-coloured satchel bag and the vagabond cut the hairdresser who worked next to the fashion shop had given her. It made her look just a little cheeky in a charming way and as Cherry had never been, let alone looked, cheeky before, this complete change gave her an excited kind of confidence.
‘And wait till he sees the rest of my hair piled up on the top of my head,’ she thought. ‘He’ll understand that the Street of the Pines is no longer thirteen thousand miles from Paris. It’s only two days by air.’
Stephen Denton had preceded Cherry on to the plane and found her seat for her. He put her hand baggage on the rack and brought the hostess, whom he evidently knew well, and committed Cherry to her care.
‘I’m going up forward,’ he said. ‘I know both pilots and we like to put the affairs of the pastoral world to rights on a long trip like this. Miss Sands will look after you but if there is anything I can do for you, let me know.’
It was a wonderful trip, smooth as a butterfly flying through silken air except on the short trip across a bay when they left Carnarvon.
Below, on the starboard side, the red earth flowed away mile upon thousand mile into incredible distances. On the port side was the sea coast, with its curves and bays, its gold, green and blue seas into which there occasionally emptied the iron-grey water of the snakelike rivers.
Cherry had never imagined such colours. Why, she wondered, hadn’t someone ever painted them? Or was there a paintbox anywhere that could contain such colours?
When they came down at the ports ‒ three times they landed on station strips apart from major ports ‒ Cherry was able to get a closer glimpse of the land. The earth was the same startling red but the clumps of mulga trees and spinifex, the dryness of that red earth, were a little frightening.
Not once through that long day did Stephen Denton come near Cherry. He had satisfactorily, if safely, wiped his hands of her when he had committed her to the care of the hostess. There had been nothing she needed but she nevertheless thought his aloofness was not exactly chivalrous or kind. Not that she wanted him to come near her, of course. All the same …
She laughed to herself. She was not being very logical, she knew, but there it was. He was a strange man, one who both attracted and repelled her. In a more reflective moment, she wondered why this was so.
It was sundown, with a glorious sunset over the red sea and against a flame, purple and aquamarine sky, when they landed at Dampier and changed to a small Dove plane for the trip inland. Again Stephen Denton was forward and Cherry aft. There was no hostess on this small plane but Cherry was tired now and when the colour had gone out of the world she fell asleep in her seat. If he looked to see if she needed anything she didn’t know.
Cherry had been fourteen hours in the air and had become so used to the landing and taking off, in spite of the thrumming in her ears each time they came down, that when the plane landed on Yulinga she remained dozing in her seat unaware of journey’s end.
Stephen Denton had to rouse her by gently shaking her shoulder. The air flight had begun to take its toll of Cherry now and she looked up at him dazedly. Where was she? And, heavens, what did she look like?
The coolie hat had long ago been shelved on the rack. The plane was not pressurised so the heat had brought discomfort not only to Cherry but to her clothes. Her linen dress must be crushed beyond all hope of achieving a smart, let alone a dignified, effect, she feared. Her hair felt damp on her scalp and she knew it was sticking in unhappy strands to her temples.
Stephen, coatless and with the stock gone from his open-necked shirt, looked cool and master of himself. Cherry could have cried for what she thought must be a sad comparison. Besides, she was hollow in the stomach. This must be some mild form of air-sickness for she had had plen
ty of refreshment throughout the day.
‘I guess I look green,’ she thought. ‘And of course I am green, going to sleep like that without giving myself a chance to tidy up before we land.’
She followed Stephen to the gangway and down the miniature flight of steps to the ground, where she stood blinking in the glare of truck and car lights. There were three vehicles, she thought. Vaguely she wondered why it took three big motor cars to collect Stephen and herself, for they were the last passengers to leave the plane.
Stephen and the air-pilot had carried her hand luggage and case out of the plane and they now put it with Stephen’s bags on the ground. There were a number of men about and when Cherry had gathered her wits she counted seven of them. They were grouped in the small space of the car lights and Cherry could feel that the shadows beyond those headlights stretched out and around them for ever, never reaching anything and going on, in all directions, to infinity.
That had been her last thought about the pindan, streaked with red earth tracks, as the Dove had circled Dampier and then flown out eastwards into the heart of the continent.
A tall, slim man, dressed in tight-fitting drill trousers, and open-necked shirt, was speaking.
‘How are you, Stephen? Everything all right down below? How’s the house? Fit for habitation? See you brought the girl with you.’
Cherry couldn’t see his face for his back was to the headlights of the parked cars.
Three other men were talking to the pilot and in the still night air, beyond the voice of the man talking to Stephen, she could hear the metallic drawling of their voices.
Stephen turned to her.
‘Well, here you are, Miss Landin. Here’s your boss. My brother, Hugh Denton.’
A long arm came forward and a hard hand gripped Cherry’s hand.
‘Glad you’ve come, Miss Landin. Guess you’re tired after that trip. We’ll pack you up in the overlander straight away.’ He turned and called to the other group, ‘Algy, get the Thermos out of the waggon, will you? Guess we’ll have some tea before we start. Ben, pack Miss Landin away in my bus, will you. Stow her luggage in the back. She can have a nap while we’re passing the Thermos.’
Did she look as sleepy and dazzled by the lights as all that? Cherry wondered. Nevertheless, she was glad to follow the man called Ben to the long streamlined station waggon drawn up at the side of the strip. He was another tall lean man but he was wordless. He opened the front door and held it while Cherry got in and after shutting it began immediately to move her luggage from the pile under the plane’s wing into the back of the waggon.
The night was warm and very still. Through the window on the far side Cherry could see into the purple world beyond the dazzle of lights. It looked like a vast black ground-map hooded with a sky so brilliant with stars it was like something painted in a tropical dream.
She turned her eyes back to the circle of light.
The men were now in a circle, sitting back on their heels, while one poured tea from a flask into a group of mugs on the ground. They were talking about mobs and bores and the price of cattle.
The man who poured the tea brought a mug over to Cherry and passed it to her through the window.
‘Here you are, miss. Pipin’ hot.’
‘Thank you,’ Cherry said gratefully. It was black tea with no sugar yet somehow it revived Cherry a little.
‘How odd,’ she thought, ‘sitting here in a car in the middle of nowhere while those men sit there talking to one another as if I didn’t exist.’
This was Cherry’s first experience of this feminine exclusion from men’s talk.
The tea was finished, dregs were emptied on the ground and the mugs and flask put back in ‘Algy’s’ car.
The pilot climbed back into the plane and suddenly all its fairy lights died as he extinguished them. He then climbed out again, folded the steps back into the body, and slammed the door shut.
He came towards the station waggon with Stephen and Mr. Hugh Denton. Without ceremony they all got into the car.
‘I’ll drive, Hugh,’ Stephen said and he got in beside Cherry.
‘Had another nap?’ he asked, looking at her by the light of the dashboard.
Cherry shook her head.
‘No,’ she said. ‘I was too interested ‒’
He had put the key in the ignition switch but he did not turn it. Cherry’s words seemed to have surprised him.
‘In what?’ he said. ‘You’re on Yulinga but you’re in the middle of nowhere. There’s nothing but anthill and sand to see for miles around.’
‘There was the plane, with its lights on, sitting there on the ground. It was very pretty. And that sky with all the stars. And you men drinking tea in a circle, all sitting on your heels ‒’
‘What’s odd about that?’
Cherry was silent a minute.
‘Well, you’d never know,’ she said. ‘You’re too used to it. It’s something I’ve never seen before.’
He turned the key and started up the engine thoughtfully. Hugh Denton and the pilot were talking to one another in the back seat. Their voices were quiet, a murmur against the engine.
‘Well, well,’ said Stephen. ‘So you found that interesting!’
Cherry could not tell him that as she had watched that scene from the car window she thought of the father she had never known. How often had he done that in the long ago before she was born? Had he sat on his heels like that? Emptied the dregs of his cup on an airstrip? Had he been tall and brown-skinned with hard hands and a soft drawling voice like these men? Looking at them had she been looking at the prototype of her own father?
‘Well, what do you think about it now?’ said Stephen later as he stepped up the pace and the car swung through a dust haze along a red track between the dark shadows that must have been spinifex.
‘I wasn’t thinking of it. I was thinking about a man,’ said Cherry, still a little saddened by the thought of that father who was, paradoxically, both nebulous and real in this empty half-lit world.
Stephen held the wheel with one hand while he fumbled for a cigarette, found it and lit it. He drew on the cigarette then glanced sideways and downwards at Cherry.
‘Homesick?’ he asked. Was that mockery or kindness in his voice? Cherry preferred to think it was the former.
‘I’m very happy to be here,’ she said firmly. ‘In about twelve months’ time I’ll start to get homesick.’
‘You might like the north. Some do, you know. It gets them like a disease. They can’t leave it.’ He was being objectively pleasant.
‘Not me,’ said Cherry. ‘You see, I’ve promised and that promise means more to me than anything else on earth.’
‘Hmm. Sounds like a man, again.’
‘It is,’ said Cherry. ‘The nicest man in the world.’ Then she added a trifle defiantly, for she felt sure that Mr. Stephen Denton’s attitude to her parents was still one of faint incredulity, ‘I love him. And in one year’s time I shall go back to him. I’ve promised but even if I hadn’t promised, that is what I would want to do.’
Stephen swung the waggon round a curve, still with only one hand on the wheel. With the other hand he flicked away the ash of his cigarette into the tray in the dashboard. Cherry had looked at him as she had spoken and she could see the sudden raised eyebrows and the quick amused bow of his mouth. He lifted the cigarette and drew on it again, taking a long time to expel the shaft of smoke.
‘Must be quite a man,’ he said, a mixture of astonishment and amusement in his voice.
‘He is,’ said Cherry emphatically.
Then she put a rein on herself.
What could it possibly matter to him what she thought about Dad? Why was she trying to impress him, for that was what she really was doing. In some oblique way she was defending her parents against no spoken accusation.
Let him think what he wanted. Besides, he was the brother of her employer, she couldn’t afford to antagonise him. He probably wouldn’t care anywa
y. He was only talking to her now for politeness’ sake though heaven knows, that kind of politeness had been absent from their relations since they had left Perth airport at six o’clock in the morning.
‘What am I worrying about?’ thought Cherry, irritated with herself. ‘Maybe this is a very big station. Maybe I won’t even see him again, except in the distance.’
Chapter Four
It was indeed a very big station as Cherry was already beginning to discover. They had half an hour’s fast driving through that dark magical night before they came to the homestead. Again the motion of the car and the silence that had now descended between them made Cherry feel sleepy. She was also drugged with changing altitudes, changing climates and long flying hours.
If she kept her eyes open all she could see was the shafts of light from the headlamps lighting up a red track and moving in a flickering dance of yellow motes against the background of dark nothing that stretched on either side of them. There were no trees, otherwise the lights would have picked them up. There was nothing but the great bowl of night, the red track and themselves moving through a desert land.
She closed her eyes. That way she could shut herself away from thought of the man next to her. He had made his small sporadic gesture at conversation, done his duty, and was now preoccupied with the business of driving the car to the station homestead at great speed. Once, when she glanced sideways, she noticed he was frowning.
The swinging motion of the car told Cherry they had turned a corner. A minute later the car braked and came to a standstill.
There was the sound of dogs barking on the night air, and a minute later two kelpies were at the doors.
‘Quiet, Blue! Quiet, Darkie!’ Hugh Denton said from the back seat as he swung open the side door and put his long legs out of the car on to the ground. He straightened up.
The dogs were instantly quiet, they stood rigid, their eyes watching the dark shadow of their boss. Not even their tails wagged.
Cherry amidst a blur of first impressions was very surprised at the dogs. Hugh Denton had spoken so softly, and the dogs had obeyed instantly.
