Home at Sundown: An Australian Outback Romance

by Lucy Walker

  ‘About Dr Andrews?’ she asked innocently. ‘Is he ‒?’

  ‘Not to worry!’ George interrupted her. ‘John always has that stone-wall effect on people when they first meet him. You have to get to know him. He’s really a splendid chap. Look at Myree for instance. She met him up at the Mount last year. I think she took quite a shine to him ‒ only that’s between you and me, of course.’

  The flick of Kim’s eyelashes indicated she did not particularly want to look at Myree just now. Nor at Dr Andrews. She knew, without looking, that the two were talking to one another with great interest. Also, as they did so, they had moved towards the group of younger men by the corner table, obviously intent on joining them for the meal.

  ‘Well …’ Kim said slowly. ‘Well … what I really wanted to know was this. Does the fact of having brains forgive one for being female? Like Myree for instance? He was quite flattening to me about not taking girls on an expedition. I came across him when I went up to the Mount with my application. I didn’t know who he was. Now he shows all the signs of welcoming Myree.’

  ‘Yes I know. I heard about his attitude at that time. It was quite a talking point at the Mount.’ George Crossman’s eyes were twinkling more than ever.

  ‘Please don’t tell me about it,’ Kim begged. ‘You see I know what happened. What I don’t know is why he ‒ I mean, why Dr Andrews ‒ changed his mind. That is ‒ about my coming ‒’

  George’s expression was suddenly wry but still amused. ‘Nobody knew who owned the name on the application but it was the only one that came in that was good enough,’ he said. ‘Experience in typing, tagging and pen drawing ‒ just everything. An excellent reference too ‒’

  ‘I know that,’ Kim said, now a little shame-faced. ‘One day I’ll tell you why it was so jolly good. Brilliant in fact. You think it was, don’t you?’

  ‘Sparkling with diamonds of rhetoric. No one knew Ralph Sinclair was so good at English composition.’ He smiled broadly. ‘Shall I go on?’

  ‘Please do. I’m ever so good at listening to things about myself. I have a largish family who have seen to that.’

  ‘For an out-of-season application it was almost too good to be true, so John Andrews said ‒ after C.O.C.R. had raised no objection ‒ “Check the damn’ thing with Ralph Sinclair and if it’s okay accept the applicant.” He did add ‒ “We don’t have any alternative offer as good”.’

  ‘Did he really say that?’ It was Kim’s turn to raise her eyebrows. ‘All in one breath too?’

  ‘My, oh my, Miss Wentworth! You really don’t like him do you?’

  ‘Call me Kim, please. Did Ralph Sinclair say I really was everything that was in the reference?’

  ‘Everything and more. That is, when he wasn’t almost in tears because you’d left him. He was using words not allowed in reputable dictionaries because we were taking you from him. That was enough for us ‒ even though we did discover from him that Mr Kim Wentworth was Miss Kimberley Wentworth, no less.’

  ‘Oh, I forgot to mention to Ralph that I’d temporarily changed my sex. On paper only,’ said Kim.

  ‘Well, to cut a long story short,’ George went on. ‘We informed headquarters at C.O.C.R. that the application they approved was from a “female”. They said “If it’s good go ahead and accept. The C.O.C.R. does not discriminate between sexes as a matter of policy.” We told John Andrews about the applicant being a female afterwards.’

  ‘Was he very angry?’

  ‘Blistering.’

  Kim smiled. ‘Good!’ she said with satisfaction.

  George Crossman looked startled.

  ‘I like to have an enemy around,’ Kim explained. ‘I’m used to it. A whole family of enemies, in fact. That is, except my brother Jeff and he isn’t always peaceable. It’s actually most beneficial to have a foe. It saves me treading on the cat or mutilating my beautiful plants when I’m frustrated. I just fume with fury against people instead.’

  ‘Please put me on the same side of the fence as your brother. I prefer to stay peaceable.’

  Kim smiled at him cheerfully. ‘It’s nice to have a friend as well. You really landed me this job, didn’t you?’

  ‘Not across John Andrews’ dead body. But certainly behind his back.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Kim said warmly. ‘I love you from now on. Purely in a platonic way, of course. You do understand how I feel, don’t you?’

  ‘Quite.’ He was more amused than ever but by this time was hiding it. He was beguiled by the curious expression of mixed wonder and seriousness in the girl’s very candid eyes. ‘Now you know,’ he went on. ‘why Myree Bolton was later allowed to join the Expedition. One female was disaster but two females might balance out any very dreadful consequences of that disaster. Besides ‒’

  ‘I know. Don’t tell me,’ Kim begged. ‘She has brains, and Dr Andrews forgives anyone for being the wrong sex if she has brains.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  Myree also has a pretty face, beautiful clothes and a fanciful figure ‒ Kim thought, taking a side look between lowered eyelids at Dr Andrews and Myree Bolton seemingly getting on very well together over at the far table. Two eager young brain-boxes made up the rest of their party. Six men of various ages were at the third table. There was yet another group at a fourth table. These were probably the men who’d come from the north: or the Eastern States.

  Kim suddenly opened her eyes wider. Then frowned.

  The young man facing her. She’d seen him before somewhere. Or had she? The tiny sprouting of a young Galahad’s beard was confusing of course. It was a light gingery one, barely discernible. His eyes had a sort of red-in-the-brown colour! And the too easy manner? If only he shaved clean she was sure she would remember.

  She thought and thought, forgetting to say ‘Thank you’ to George Crossman when he passed the salt.

  George watched with growing interest. His eyes didn’t twinkle just now. They were more serious. ‘Those wide dark-fringed eyes,’ he was thinking. ‘And the cheerful smile that hides a streak of stubbornness! Original too, or she would never have braved an application that had inevitably to be found out. She meant to come.’

  Kim shrugged her shoulders.

  ‘What does that philosophic shrugging gesture mean?’ he asked courteously.

  ‘Oh, just giving up a riddle that probably isn’t a riddle at all. I was trying to remember the young man with the attempt at a beard, and the brown eyes, over by the wall. Maybe I’ve seen someone like him. There are thousands of students round and about Crawley ‒’

  George Crossman turned round and looked at the far table.

  ‘The chap sitting opposite John Andrews? He’s Stephen Cole. I doubt if you’ve met him before. He’s come across from Sydney to join this Expedition. The whole two thousand miles of it. He works in a private herbarium over there in the east. Some tycoon owns it. Seems this tycoon is building himself a status symbol in the form of Private Botanical Gardens.’

  ‘I didn’t know the C.O.C.R. accepted people from private institutions.’

  Kim’s interest in the young man was waning. Tycoons were a foreign people to her ‒ except in books and newspapers.

  ‘This chap does have some qualifications,’ George Crossman continued speaking of the young man thoughtfully. ‘Seems he’s only one subject short of finishing his degree. His boss not only paid his way, but put in a contribution to the Expedition expenses. Did you ever hear of a research organisation, always short of funds, turning down a munificent gift cheque?’

  ‘No,’ Kim agreed, wrestling with a wing of brush turkey that was masquerading as roast chicken on her plate. ‘Hence Mr red-head Cole?’

  ‘Hence Mr Cole!’

  ‘And that’s where Dr Andrews’ principles about outsiders went down the drain?’

  George Crossman looked a little more serious.

  ‘It’s clear you don’t know John Andrews. Stop disliking him in advance, Kim, and to the peril of your digestion. When you know him you might
change your mind. All the other men are highly qualified. In any case C.O.C.R. probably wished this particular member on him. They got the cheque. Not John.’

  Kim smiled. It was the half inimical, half naive smile she had practised so often in the bathroom mirror at home. One day she hoped to perfect it and wear it as purely inimical.

  ‘When I do forgive him, I’ll let you be the first to know,’ she said. ‘That’s a promise.’

  ‘They’re all getting up,’ George Crossman said when the meal was finished. He pushed back his chair and stood up himself. ‘The others arranged before dinner to meet in Barney Sage’s room. It’s Number Fifteen, I think, but am not sure of the number, so check will you? We always have a Night-Before-Starting-Party. The last of frivolity till we get back to civilisation.’

  ‘Is everyone invited?’ Kim asked uncertainly.

  ‘Of course. That reminds me. I’d better check the caravans and see they’re okay for gear. John seems too taken up with My Fair Lady Bolten at the moment. Will you excuse me, Kim? I’ll see you later ‒’

  ‘Of course,’ Kim stood up too. ‘I want to go to the desk and send a message to my brother if it’s possible. He’ll tell the rest of the family I’m safely here ‒’

  ‘It’s Outpost-radio from this area. You’ll have to get the manager to fix it for you. Don’t forget every word rings round the whole north-west ‒ so can’t be private. Okay?’

  ‘Okay!’

  Kim went towards the door hoping that the manager was back from the airfield.

  Funny how she wanted to run away from her family; and swore she never wanted to see them again. Now she was here, she wanted to send them a telegram. She supposed she was perhaps fond of them after all. Also she wanted to thank Jeff for the ten dollars he had given her as a parting present.

  The others in the Expedition were streaming out past the desk, through the main entrance, to the courtyard. Dr Andrews passed her, deep in conversation with Myree.

  The impact I make on some people! Kim thought, glancing sideways at them. Like a cloud hitting a sunbeam. I just don’t.

  She waited by the desk, but no one came. Minutes went by and she rat-tatted with her fingernails on the counter again. There was no bell in sight.

  Everyone else had left the dining-room by now. Even the station people and their wives had gone. The two waitresses had disappeared into the nether regions to have their own meal, and there wasn’t any manager. He was not yet back from distant airfields.

  Kim went outside and looked round the semi-lighted courtyard.

  Five caravans, three Land-Rovers, a jeep, her own van and the right number of dust-smothered overlanding cars with tow-bars at the back and kangaroo bars in front, stood before various suite doors. There was no car with a Manutarra registration number that might credibly belong to the roadhouse manager. So he hadn’t come back yet. No manager, therefore no one to operate the radio-telephone!

  Ah well, to-morrow morning then‒

  She was disappointed. To offset this feeling she went round the cement walk to her own room with an air so bright it told nobody ‒ because nobody was about ‒ she hadn’t a care in the world. Myree had left the key in the door but she was not there either. ‘Gone to the party in a hurry!’ Kim thought. ‘Not so lady-like after all!’

  She washed her hands, did up her face a little and smoothed her hair somewhat. Then she set out round the cement walk.

  Number Fifteen was on the far side of the courtyard but her knock on the door brought only one of the wiry leathery tired-eyed station-owners to open it.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ Kim apologised. ‘I was looking for the rest of my party. I was told Number Fifteen ‒’

  ‘You mean that lot with the Botanical Expedition? I saw them around bringing some bottles and cans of drink, and other stuff, from one of the caravans. I’ve no idea which suite they went to.’

  ‘Not to worry,’ Kim said smiling. ‘I’ll find it.’

  The cement-brick walls of the roadhouse were built to withstand the cyclones that brushed across the north-west coast in the Wet. They were thick and impenetrable and were anchored to the walk, as the roof was anchored to the walls. So they were sound-proof. There was nothing that Kim could hear from any door. No one had thought to leave a door open for her ‒

  Well, be fair! They couldn’t! The roadhouse had its own generator so the suites were air-conditioned, and for that doors had to be kept closed.

  She knocked at another door and this time a station-owner’s wife came.

  ‘Your friends could be in any one of the suites on the other side of the courtyard,’ she said. ‘But aren’t you too young for this kind of bedroom party?’

  Kim felt as if a shutter had closed before her with a clang.

  Too young!

  Was she as damn’ childish-looking as all that?

  No one had come to see where she was, not even her room-mate Myree. Not even the friendly, kind, organic chemist, George Crossman.

  Too young!

  Kim had felt dreadful lots of times in her life. In self defence she had built a not-to-care manner as she faced the world. Deep inside her a still, small voice told her she was only making things worse. At these times she resolved that still, small voices were only invented to be smothered.

  But now? This minute? Standing alone in the courtyard with the gently rising east wind curling the fringes of dying grass, touching the leaves of the two gum trees, she felt more dreadful than she had ever felt before.

  Left out!

  Too young! Or just her absence not noticed?

  She bit her lip and went back to Number Seven. She fished in her dangle-bag for the key and let herself in.

  Not even George Crossman? And he’d seemed so nice! He had asked her to sit down with him for dinner. She had thought …

  He had only been discovering that she was a not-very-interesting person, after all! A mere bratto, as Jeff would have said.

  ‘A proper little chit,’ Celia would have remarked.

  Kim sat on the bed and kicked off her shoes. She was pleased with herself for automatically sitting on the bed near the window ‒ the one Myree intended to take from her. In a few minutes, when she was over feeling so dreadful, she would get up and put Myree’s things and Myree’s beastly reference book over on the other table. The one by the bed next to the far wall. That would tell Myree something anyway ‒ all worms were not to be trodden underfoot. The least of them would some day turn.

  She had had such a wonderful hope of escape: such a heavenly dream of adventure in the outback! She had meant to be a new person. Once in those working overalls, and the steering wheel of her own van under her hands …

  She lay back on the pillow and closed her eyes.

  She wouldn’t cry, of course. She never cried. Absolutely on principle! But it did hurt that George Crossman …

  She’d taken a special shine to him ‒

  She wouldn’t think about him. She’d think about the youngish man with the pretence of a beard, and the red-brown eyes. Where had she seen someone like him? Even with her few short peeks at him she had seen he had a sort of ready charm. It had seemed familiar. Or hadn’t it?

  There came an imperative knock on the door. Very commanding.

  Kim’s eyelids flew open, but she lay still on the bed and thought, ‘It’s not Myree, because the key is in the lock. Could it be George Crossman? Or just the beastly roadhouse manager who has come back from the nether reaches of the bitumen?’

  The knock came again. This time even more insistent. It was meant to be heard.

  Kim swung her legs off the bed. The rest of her followed automatically. The knock had a sort of ‘Open up!’ command about it.

  Actually she was fighting off going to that door. She couldn’t bear to be disappointed ‒ because in spite of what she was saying to herself there flickered a tiny hope that she had been invited after all.

  A third knock quite startled her. Well, she’d open it. If she didn’t straighten her h
air she wouldn’t be disappointed if it was only the manager, or one of the maids ‒

  Kim opened the door.

  Her grey eyes widened. She wished wildly she had swished a comb through her hair after all.

  It was Dr Andrews.

  He had one hand flat on the door jamb and was leaning against it. He was the picture of controlled patience.

  ‘Are you hiding out? We’ve been waiting for you for half an hour.’

  ‘For me? Kim sounded incredulous. ‘Why me? I mean, are you sure?’

  ‘You’re a member of the Expedition aren’t you? We’re having a party over in Sage’s suite. George Crossman said he told you ‒’

  ‘I couldn’t find it,’ Kim said lamely. ‘The suite, I mean ‒’

  ‘It’s Twenty-five. Not so easy to find because it’s the one tucked in the corner on the far side. An afterthought when they built the place.’

  He stopped leaning on the door jamb and straightened up.

  ‘Well, are you coming?’ he asked. ‘As a matter of fact that’s an order. I always give a few last-minute instructions on these night-before gatherings.’ His eyebrows went up fractionally, and he seemed really to look her over, as if he’d never seen her before. Kim resented this but refused to allow herself to show such feelings. Besides he was the boss, and had come for her!

  ‘You wouldn’t be feeling ill?’ he asked. He looked irritated at the possibility.

  ‘I’m never ill,’ Kim said firmly.

  ‘Good. Well, are you ready? Let’s go!’

  ‘I’d like to … well … to comb my hair. It’s quite two hours since I looked at my lipstick.’

  ‘Then get to it, young lady. I’ll wait.’

  ‘Oh no. Don’t do that. I’ll find my way now I know the right number.’

  He took a cigarette out of a packet from his shirt pocket and lit it leisurely.

  ‘I said I’ll wait.’ Unexpectedly his voice was almost, but not quite, gentle. It was dark outside but the light through Kim’s open door shed the kind of glow that made the expression on his face softer. It warmed the ice out of his eyes anyway.

  ‘I won’t be a minute,’ she said quickly. ‘One swish with the comb. One slash with the lipstick.’