by Lucy Walker
‘Have you gone into a day-dream, Mardie?’ Joanna asked again in that controlled yet commanding voice.
‘Oh … I’m sorry. I was watching the water come to the boil again. I do hate tea made from water that’s not boiling. Yet if the water boils over some of it might get into the connection and we’d have a “short”.’
‘You’re actually scared you might get an electric shock? I don’t believe it!’
Mardie decided on the instant not to be put down like a little girl any more. She looked over her shoulder.
‘Yes,’ she said flatly. ‘How’s that for honesty?’
Joanna laughed. ‘Good for you!’ she said. ‘Just for your future piece of mind any shock you received from that line would do you more good than harm. It would snap you out of day-dreaming, and improve the elasticity of your mind. That’s all!’
Mardie never did answer that question of Joanna’s about Jard Hunter. Mrs Richie had come in to ask if the visitor would like a meal.
‘No, thank you,’ Joanna said, just that small bit bluntly. ‘I’ve had tea and biscuits and that’s about my ration figure-wise. Would you please tell Ben … that’s my truckie … not to waste too much time eating ‒ or drinking.’ She paused as she brushed crumbs from her frock, then went on: ‘He has to load up and he’s the one who has to manipulate the truck over that river crossing. It’s been on the side-dip ever since we had last season’s cyclone.’
Mardie noticed Mrs Richie’s back stiffen but she answered politely. After all, Mrs Richie would be reasoning that Miss Seddon was a customer and even out here in the Never the ‘customer was always right’.
‘I don’t like to give orders to your man, Miss Seddon,’ she said. ‘He is your man. But I will do so if you say so.’
‘I do say so,’ Joanna said. Her eyes were taking in Mrs Richie as if she were taking in all the aspects of the latest specimen from the depths of the Dig-in’s bore.
Mardie didn’t want to dislike Joanna but she very nearly did so then.
‘I’ll tell him, Mrs Richie,’ she offered cheerfully. ‘After all, I’ve met all the other truckies who pass through. I’d like to meet the one from the Dig-in.’
She moved towards the door with a light step. Joanna’s eyes did not miss Mardie’s readiness.
‘Don’t ask him any questions,’ she cautioned. ‘That is, other than about his health, or the state of the tracks.’
Mardie stopped in her tracks. She turned and looked at Joanna. ‘I beg your pardon?’ she said.
Joanna had not moved from her original posture in the chair. The tea-drinking was finished, and the brown cotton hat was twirling again on the forefinger.
‘The grapevine. Remember? Truckies are regarded by some people as the favourite source of information as to what is going on, where and how, in any mining exploration.’
‘You think I would ask that sort of question?’ Mardie said quietly. ‘I’m sorry, but you’re quite mistaken. I’m interested in The Breakaway as a stop-over and I hope to build some accommodation quarters for overnighters. That is the limit of my interests in the area, at the moment.’
Joanna laughed. ‘Well, don’t be hoity-toity, Mardie. Remember you’re the new girl up here and the mining exploration world is foreign territory to you. Ben would not answer unwise questions but it could save you a little embarrassment if I warned you in advance. He’s a snapper when he snaps. Believe you me.’
The stiffness went out of Mardie and her chin came back to normal. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I misunderstood you.’
‘Of course you did. That’s why I’m throwing out a few cautions. Most people new up here make mistakes. Isn’t that so, Mrs Richie? It’s better to be warned in advance.’
Mrs Richie looked from one girl to the other. ‘Of course they do, Miss Seddon,’ she agreed. ‘But we don’t make that kind of mistake at The Breakaway. We’d never survive on this corner if we were a source of gossip, or acted as informants about our customers. Very careful about that sort of thing is what we have to be.’
She turned her back while she returned the hot water jug to its proper place then gathered together the cups and saucers.
Her hands full of china, she departed ‒ head up, forward march ‒ through the door ahead of Mardie. Her manner truly matriarchal.
It was Mardie’s turn to look at the other girl with raised eyebrows.
Joanna laughed. When she did this her whole expression changed to something really attractive. Mardie laughed too.
‘She’s a wonder, she is!’ she said, meaning Mrs Richie. ‘I’m glad you are not offended. After all, the Dig-in … which means you at the moment … is our customer too.’
‘I’m not in the least bit offended. I like plain talking. You might have noticed that, Mardie. I make a thing of it myself, but I like to choose my time and place. Remember I have to stop being female and become a person ‒ something quite different ‒ when I’m out at the camp. You asked me how I managed with all those men. Well, now you know.’
‘I’d like to change places with you one day. It must be fun. Sort of playing two parts.’
‘Yes, but not at the same time. Well, come on …’ She lifted herself with her marked athletic ease from the chair. ‘Let’s go and see if Mrs Richie, in her own indomitable fashion, has now managed to quell Ben’s appetite for beer and food. There’s loading-up to be done.’
Time passed and Mardie heard no more from the Dig-in over the closed circuit. Occasionally she could pick them up talking on the open transceiver service to which all the people in the outback listened and talked on during the Open Session. The news of the day was whirled around the sound waves high above Mother Earth from homestead to homestead. And occasionally from exploration camp to exploration camp, giving friendly news but never business or geological facts.
A contractor had come up from the south to see Mardie about quoting for the erection of her accommodation section. This was to be built as motel-type units and along the north boundary. Mr Lawson had sent this particular contractor, which meant that he, Mr Lawson, was supporting Mardie in her project after all. He wrote that he had been impressed by Mardie’s determination but more so by her neat costing figures. Clearly she had done her homework and done it very well.
Light planes came and went on the landing ground across the bitumen. Trucks, cars, utilities, low-loaders, carrying mine-making equipment for every kind of ore body from iron to nickel north of Twenty-six, passed up and down the road from day to day. Sometimes there were no more than two vehicles a day. At other times there could be as many as a dozen through-travellers. They all stopped. They all bought something … and Mardie had grown to love them. Each time someone came in it was like meeting people from Mars … they had come such incredible distances, and yet had incredible distances to go. For them The Breakaway was what it was ‒ an oasis in the desert, a haven ‒ and they said so. ‘A ‘God-send’ they called the place. Mardie intended to improve on that. Soon really weary travellers from as far out as the Gibson Desert or as far north as the Kimberleys could get a night’s rest. She meant to make it a real stop-over. Real motel units. She hoped ‒ in some other world, wherever he was ‒ that her godfather was looking down and approving.
‘When I first came up here,’ Mardie said one day as she helped Mrs Richie polish the brasses, ‘a man driving through said that “nothing ever happens here in the outback.” Now just look what is happening! The Breakaway could be Main Street on Thursday. We even polish the already polished brasses because the workmen are arriving to put in the foundations for my “Motel”.’
‘Be thankful for an early start, Mardie. And I like the brass to shine all the time.’
‘Of course you do. Me too. I was thinking how flat-out busy we are. First the contractor, then Mister Falldown coming in with little injured Doggie. Next we had the store truck arriving from down south and the men camping overnight at the back. Now the Flying Vet is arriving. Mr Richie said The Breakaway will be full. All the peop
le coming in from the far reaches of the Never with their pet dogs, cats, kangaroos and parrots to see the Vet will call in here. It will be like a real party.’
‘Oh! We’ll make time for you to go to the Vet with Doggie. No owner seems to have come back to claim the poor little thing, so as we don’t look like parting with him, we’d better give him a proper name.’
‘Let’s call him after Mister Falldown. So appropriate. If Mister Falldown hadn’t once had a fall and lost his memory we wouldn’t have him living out there in the bush all alone, would we? He said Doggie would have fallen off someone’s truck.’
‘Which reminds me, Mister’s due in for stores on the last day of every month, Mardie. That’s next Tuesday. Mark it on the calendar with the red pencil, will you, dear? The police from North Port always radio in an enquiry the day after he’s due.’
Mardie went to the wall behind the bar counter. She put a large red ring round the Tuesday.
‘It seems silly the North-west police asking about anyone so harmless,’ Mardie said a little sadly. ‘He walked all those miles to bring Doggie in ‒ just in case its owner turned up again.’
‘Which its owner hasn’t done. Well, Mister will tell us if we can keep the dog when he comes in for the stores. The police only want to know if he’s all right. That’s why they radio. All those miles out in the bush ‒ on his own ‒ he could be ill or even dead before anyone knew. The police just check for his own good. If no one heard from Mister they’d go out to see if he’s all right.’
‘Yes, I know. Fifteen miles out there in the bush alone. It seems so strange, doesn’t it? I minded being alone before I came up here, yet I lived in a city suburb in a house with two other people.’
‘You just felt you didn’t belong. That’s the difference. Mister Falldown belongs in the bush. He knows every stick of mulga and every stone, insect, kangaroo, emu, lizard, parrot ‒ you name it ‒ for a hundred miles around. He’s not alone. He’s where he wants to be ‒ with the bush. That’s life to him and the only kind he knows. He was born out there in the first rush of the goldfields days. Everyone else dead and gone. But he stays on. He’s done no harm to anyone and …’
‘Does a lot of good. Like bringing in poor injured Doggie.’
‘Last time it was one of those explorers. Lost his way, did that one, and didn’t do what he should have done ‒ which was stay with his Land-Rover. Started off to walk in circles after the sun got him. Twenty-four hours is all you can last in that heat without water. Even the steep drop in temperature at night won’t save someone wandering.’
‘How often does that happen?’
‘Now and again. Last time it was a year or two back. Some Smart Alec set off from North Port with his wife and three kids. He took a new turn just because the track looked a better one. This new track had been made by oil explorers. They’d abandoned it. If he’d kept going, he’d have found it went nowhere but the Gibson Desert. Two aborigines went after that car because they saw new tracks, and knew it was all wrong. That feller and his whole family owe their lives to those two aborigines.’
‘I hope they realized it and showed they were grateful,’ Mardie said warmly.
‘They would have if they could. The two abos didn’t wait for any thanks after they brought them back as far as the right turning. They just disappeared in the bush again like they’d never been out of it.’
Mardie, back at the polishing, paused at her rubbing. ‘It must be terrifying to be lost out there in that wilderness,’ she said thoughtfully.
It was hot right now, but she felt a shiver run down her spine. Yet at night, in some seasons, the temperature could drop almost to freezing. Strange, strange land!
She didn’t believe in premonitions, let alone somebody’s classic proverb about ‘events casting their shadows before’. She shrugged off the uncomfortable feeling.
‘Well,’ she said, after a long pause, ‘shall we call Doggie “Digger”? He’ll have to have a name and address for the Vet.’
‘ “Digger”. I like the sound of it. Besides, it gives him a kind of purpose. That’s what they called the miners in the early days. That’s why the soldiers, when the war came, were called “diggers”. He’s a very dignified little doggie, isn’t he? I mean, the way he holds up his head, sideways sort of. Nothing hang-dog. And his leg must have caused him a lot of pain.’
‘That’s why he licks it all the time. It’s a dog’s way of curing sores. Something in the spittle has curing properties.’
‘But it won’t cure a broken bone, if it is broken. I can’t get to the Flying Vet quick enough to find out.’
When finally the news came over the transceiver as to the exact time and place of the Vet’s landing, Mardie set off with the little, half-grown blue-heeler in The Breakaway’s utility. The Vet was landing by the cross-tracks thirty miles up the bitumen.
‘Glad to see you have your survival kit in the back, Mardie,’ Mr Richie said. ‘Got the lot? Water, petrol, spade, shovel, crossbars? Food for girl and dog?’
‘Yes. And my wrist-watch in case I lose the compass.’ Mardie started up the engine and smiled back at her mentor.
Survival kits she knew weren’t a joke. Every police station provided the list free. But, after all, her journey was only up the bitumen and back. No cross-country tracks for her. Still, survival kits were regulation ‒ so she had one. Even though Mansell’s out-paddock where the Vet was landing had its west boundary bang on this same bitumen.
‘Mr Richie,’ she called through the window, ‘you didn’t mention the shade hat. I have the “custom of the country” one on the seat beside me.’
‘Which one’s that?’
‘Like Joanna Seddon’s hat. The same as the one Jard Hunter wears. And those other explorer types we see going through.’
‘Listen, love. Don’t you go exploring now. You stick around the Vet. No taking a walk in the bush to stretch your legs. Mansell Station is a million acres. You try looking for their homestead, or some such, you’ll need Mister Falldown or a couple of aborigines to find you.’
‘I won’t … unless I’m asked and someone takes me. I heard on the transceiver someone from Mansell is taking a kelpie sheep dog to the Vet. Who knows? I just might be invited.’
‘Good luck if you do. They’re a nice lot out there. But don’t forget to let us know.’
‘I’ll let you know. Don’t you forget to listen to the Session in case there’s a message.’
‘We won’t. Off you go, lass. Bring us back all the news. And give us some warning about how many of those Vet visitors are likely to come down later to The Breakaway for a drink and tucker.’
‘Of course. I won’t forget.’
‘By the way, Jard Hunter will be there. He always gets there when the Vet comes in. I’ve never known him miss. He’s an old schoolfriend or something. If you do go to the Mansell homestead he can call us on his two-way.’
‘Will do!’ Mardie hardly knew she said it. The name Jard Hunter did something to her adrenalin ‒ and not for the reasons Joanna Seddon had suggested. It was just this strange feeling about the man.
Anyway, she thought, as she speeded northwards, it’s something extra interesting to look forward to on this trip.
Who said nothing ever happens in the outback!
Chapter Five
The miles flew by. The scenery on either side did not change one whit. Miles and miles to east and west scattered mulga stood in clumps. In the distance, far to the northeast, lay the haze of mesa mountains. She could have been standing still outside The Breakaway for all the difference there was in the land. One gets the feeling, she thought, that this is the whole world for ever and ever. So empty!
No wonder people get lost.
Then unexpectedly the scene did change ‒ just that little bit. The ribbon of bitumen wasn’t straight any more. There was a curve coming up.
A quarter of a mile round the curve a fence stretched across the land from west to east, except for a gap where the road
ran over a sheep grid. At this point, she knew, Mansell Station began. The bitumen was actually running through its property.
Round another curve she came upon that wonder thing ‒ humanity again.
Fifty yards on the east side of the road were ‒ quite literally ‒ people. And trees! They were white-trunked shady gum trees like those along the boundary at The Breakaway. Under these trees were perhaps twenty people sitting on boulders, or bush rugs. They were grouped round a landed plane which was the same size, and had the look of the Flying Doctor’s ambulance. It was a white plane with an insignia painted on its side above the large printed name Flying Veterinary Service.
A man in a white coat was standing by a camp table examining a small animal on it. Beside him was a girl in a white coat handing him swabs.
Each and all of the people sitting about held some kind of animal or bird in their arms, or in cages, cat baskets, or on leashes.
Cars and utilities were scattered around on the paddock verge like large pieces of technological litter. The largest was a truck, on the tray of which stood a bull with a ring through its nose. A man sitting on the side of the truck was holding a rod tethered to the ring.
‘Of all things …’ Mardie said to herself as she swung the utility in and became part of the motor litter. She braked to a stop. She was staring at the bull ‒ the largest she had ever seen or dreamed possible. The most interesting thing about it was not the ring in its nose but a hump on its back just behind the shoulders. A brahmin bull!
The people sitting around, one and all, turned to look at the newcomer. Mardie scanned each face eagerly.
No. Jard Hunter was not there. She wondered why she felt disappointed.
Oh well! If Mr Richie hadn’t mentioned it she wouldn’t have thought of that mystery geologist … Beg pardon. Hydro-geologist.