by Lucy Walker
‘Yes,’ Mr Lawson said quietly. ‘Some things in life are tough to take, Mardie. For all of us. This is one of the tough ones for you. If you accept Jard’s offer of marriage, I know he will be a good husband. And that he’ll work at making you happy. He’s that kind of man. But you are entitled to know his reasons why; and to know what you are doing.’
‘Yes.’
‘I kept my own counsel about deciding to let you know the facts, Mardie.’
There was a long silence. Mardie looked at her hands. Then she looked up and met Mr Lawson’s eyes.
‘Yet you are not giving me advice, are you? You are not advising me what to say to Jard?’
‘That is so. It is your decision. I only wanted to make sure that you knew the facts.’
Mardie was calm still.
‘Lots of people have arranged marriages,’ she said unexpectedly. ‘And they work out. People learn to love one another afterwards. It is something to do with respect for one another, isn’t it? And tolerance. I’ve read about that somewhere.’
Mr Lawson was watching her closely. He was surprised at her thoughtfulness. Also her calm.
‘I would like to tell you something, Mr Lawson,’ she said. ‘Please listen carefully. It’s a confession. What those two men said about that night was, in part, true. It had to be that way because of the cold. Jard was suffering from shock. Shivers ‒ rigors ‒ that sort of thing. I want you to know that, but Jard could not possibly know it. He was not conscious. Mister Falldown knows it and he read it as the right thing for me to have done. He understood. The ground temperature would have been almost freezing. Jard’s face was white with sweat, yet he had those rigors. There was only one bush rug. I undid his shirt. I took off my top clothes and I lay close to him. I put my arms round him, and my legs wrapped round him. To keep him warm. For no other reason, whatever. Warmth is the correct treatment for shock, isn’t it?’
She paused. Then added sadly, ‘There weren’t any options, were there? Not open to me, anyway. It was that ‒ or let him die. Or so I feared. That’s how I saw it ‒ right or wrong.’
Mr Lawson put out his hand and caught Mardie’s two hands.
‘Then marry him, Mardie ‒ if you have any feeling for him ‒ and let that philosophy of respect and tolerance of yours work it out for you. That is, if you want to do that. But not otherwise.’
‘Yes. I would do that, except for one thing. It would be admitting there had been something between us that wasn’t proper, wouldn’t it? Also there is another girl, like you said. Joanna. That makes it different. How fair would it be to Joanna? How fair to Jard? It would be like having him on, like buying a bargain, wouldn’t it? A price for a price?’
Mr Lawson shook his head.
‘You are, of course, right,’ he said. ‘But you will have to live down something very unpleasant. That might take time.’
She met his eyes steadily.
‘Would you please tell me exactly why Jard had to discuss this with you? Why did he necessarily have a conscience about telling you first?’
‘Because he knows what you and I both know. What everyone in the district knows. I am not your guardian ‒ you are twenty-one and in law your own mistress. But I am the trustee of an estate in which you are involved. If Jard married you, he possibly stood to gain, material-wise. He, too, is in a very ambiguous situation. He knows I’m the trustee. He is an honourable man and he felt I should know the whole story, and of the circumstances that have put you both in such an unfortunate situation.’
Mardie really laughed this time. It was not a happy laugh. A rueful one.
‘The age of chivalry is not yet dead, in spite of the permissive society, is it?’
‘Not with a great many people. Irrespective of that, he did the right thing. The Breakaway is pegged for minerals in the name of your estate. He has this knowledge because of his connection with the Dig-in Exploration Company. It could look as if he were making use of this knowledge by …’
‘Ditching Joanna and marrying me? Poor Jard. He is in a fix, isn’t he? Marry a girl to save her good name, and at the same time be on a good thing if they make a nickel strike through that girl’s property.’
‘Now you understand why I had to tell you.’
Mardie smiled. ‘Please don’t worry any more, Mr Lawson. I shall turn him down flat and tell the world I’ve done it. That will let him out on all counts, won’t it? He can keep his honour in both worlds. And maybe …’ she faltered.
‘Yes?’
‘Maybe keep Joanna too.’ The expression on Mardie’s face was determined.
‘My dear, I’m sorry this had to happen to you.’
‘Don’t be sorry. I’ll live the crash episode down. You know something, Mr Lawson? I know the Richies will never think ill of me. And I know Mister Falldown will love me for it. That’s fine, because I love the old bushman too. Now it will be mutual, won’t it? I’ll always have three friends who’ll believe in me.’
Mr Lawson patted her hand. ‘Good girl, Mardie. I admire your courage,’ he said. He stood up and picked up his briefcase. ‘Now I must go. I have business with the Exploration Company’s city manager and David Ashton. They’re getting ready for a visitation from the Directors as a group. With your permission, I’m hiring The Breakaway’s utility and going out to the Dig-in. I don’t know how long I’ll be. This mining matter is business and sometimes it is complicated. But may I have the honour of booking in the first of the units built in your new motel? That is, when I can make it.’
Mardie kissed his cheek. ‘May we have the honour of recording you as our very first client? We have a new Registry book and if anyone else calls in we’ll leave the top space for you as already booked in Number One unit. That’s making history, isn’t it? I’ll persuade Mrs Richie to bring out her best bottle of Drambuie to celebrate the occasion when you do get back here.’
‘Let’s make it a good Australian vintage wine instead. After all, in spite of its fame and Mrs Richie’s reverence for it, Drambuie is a liqueur. We’ll need a long drink, won’t we?’
‘Yes. It shall be Houghton’s White Burgundy. That’s not only a first-prize winner, it’s a wine from this State.’
Mr Lawson grinned. ‘My … you’re coming on, Mardie! When you first came up, you didn’t know the difference between an orange drink and a Porphery Pearl. Now you’re on your way to putting down a cellar and becoming a connoisseur.’
‘That’ll be the day,’ Mardie said gaily.
When he had gone she stopped playing at being gay. The very thought of Jard ‒ with or without that night of the crash ‒ made her heart turn over. He would come in and formally ask her to marry him, and she would have to say, ‘Thank you very much, but I don’t love you. I’m afraid the answer will have to be no.’
And Joanna would never know how good a friend she had in the mistress of The Breakaway Stop-over.
Not now … because some through-travellers had just pulled in … but later, in bed tonight, she would cry into her pillow.
Was there inside her a destiny always to be alone?
Mr Lawson had gone. The through-travellers had had tea, filled up with petrol and gone. A truck had pulled in and the men had had their drinks, bought cigarettes, a drum of oil because their engine was running a knock, swapped a little gossip with the Richies, then also gone on their way. Mrs Mansell had a chat about this and that over the Session when it came on. A white Mercedes Benz stopped while its owner asked for directions to the track leading off to the Dig-in.
‘Take care,’ Mrs Richie had advised. ‘It’s a bulldozed gravel track, and rough. Not surfaced as yet. Can be dangerous in places.’
The man had nodded.
‘That’s why I buy a Mercedes Benz and buy it white. It has all the safety devices built in and white’s the only colour that can be seen clearly in any surroundings.’
Mrs Richie had looked disappointed. ‘I thought it was because you were rich. A pretty dollar those cars cost when you have to pay impo
rt duty on top of a high price.’
The man had looked amused in a knowing kind of way, but he made no reply. It occurred to Mardie that this might be the city manager of the Dig-in Exploration Company who was to meet Mr Lawson out at the camp. In which case he probably was rich … but certainly wasn’t saying so.
Her thoughts came back again to everyday reality. She must keep herself busy. The Breakaway was a wonderful place, she was thinking. One met the strangest people ‒ people she would never have met in that suburban house in that suburban street of suburban houses, down south where her father and his new wife lived. She hoped they lived in happiness now they were no longer embarrassed by herself ‒ the third person ‒ which had made one person too many for a parental pair on honeymoon terms.
Chapter Thirteen
The white Mitchell cockatoos with their lovely yellow combs were flying overhead in masses. This meant the sun was westering and soon it would be sundown. The kangaroos, the brush-turkeys, the emus and even the lizards and snakes would be beating their pads to the water-hole a halfmile west of the bitumen. Then after sundown it would be night. Till then Mardie could not allow herself to stop smiling. She had to keep pretending gaiety and unconcern. That was good business and she and The Breakaway were ‘in business’. Only when it was night and close-down time could she put her head on that pillow and have that little cry.
‘Only a little one,’ she promised herself. ‘I do have to have that courage Mr Lawson mentioned. I need to steel it up for when Jard does come in. And asks that hundred-dollar question.’
If only she knew when.
She could at least do herself up a little for the occasion. Wash her hair, and brush it till it shone. Make the best of her make-up the way Joanna would have done. All as a matter of principle only, of course. She could even, accidentally, have put on one of her prettiest dresses.
After all, if the Spartans could comb their hair before they went into battle, she, Mardie Forrester, could dress herself up a little to be able to say ‘no’ to Jard Hunter. And mean it.
Mean it? Dear God up there ‒ I don’t really want to be such an awful liar!
Mardie did not do any of these things, for along with the bush animals coming with the evening to the water-hole, and about the time the western sky was a blazoned wall of red ‒ when the mulga stood stiff and still against this sky like stick silhouettes ‒ Jard Hunter came. And with him came Mister Falldown together with Dingo Pup. But before them came Joanna.
The brilliance had died out of the sky and everything over the spinifex and in the bush had gone silent. There was not the sound of a creep or a crawl, nor the whir of a bird’s wings. Everything was still as if the world had not died but was standing quiet, motionless. It was the time of that statuesque silence of sundown in Australia. It was then Joanna came in the runabout from the Dig-in.
‘Hallo, Mardie!’ she said, walking straight into the office. She had left that whirligig hat of hers in the car so that Mardie knew this time she would not have to sit mesmerized by the twirling of a cotton-brimmed Thing on Joanna’s forefinger.
‘Hallo, Joanna. Nice to see you. Isn’t it a wonderful evening?’
‘Yes. It’s exactly the same as any evening outback. The world stops. That is, except for me,’ Joanna replied.
‘Do please sit down and don’t look as if something is bothering you. Shall I put on the tea jug or would you rather a drink in the sitting-room?’
‘Neither for the moment,’ Joanna said, sitting down in the chair angled by the windows so that whoever sat in it could see any comers from the outside world. She took out a cigarette and lit up.
‘This is not a business call on the store, nor exactly a social call.’ Joanna caught Mardie’s eyes. ‘Unless you like to turn it into that after I’ve said what I’ve come to say.’
‘Well, let’s hope,’ Mardie said steadily. ‘What is it you want to say, Joanna?’
‘It’s like this. I have a reputation for being blunt so please don’t mind if I’m just that. Here goes. What’s on with you and Jard? Half the outback’s talking about you. David Ashton’s been making as if he has a special claim on you, Mardie. I thought that was where your natural interest would be.’
And you’ve been talking and wondering too, Mardie thought, but not without a certain amount of sympathy.
‘I like David,’ she said, looking directly at Joanna. ‘Perhaps we could become good friends. Who knows? There’s nothing else to it but some word-flirtation over the radio ‒ as yet. All the same …’
‘Yes?’
‘All the same, what has it to do with people talking?’
‘Don’t play Dumb-Dora with me, Mardie. You’re sweet, unsophisticated and girlish. I suppose that’s a pretty way of saying you do have something ‒ and I like you for it. But you’re not dumb. You couldn’t have gone ahead with all this building round The Breakaway unless you had some brains.’
Mardie really smiled this time. ‘Thank you, Joanna. Do you know something? I’m the one who’s always been just that bit nervous of your brains.’
‘It’s not my brains that make me. It’s temperament, determination and drive. That’s what I have, Mardie. Drive. I’ll be honest. I like to get my own way, too, so I set about whatever I’m doing or wanting and get my own way.’
‘Good for you. But what is this all about, Joanna?’
‘The ’copter crash. And the aftermath. That’s what the outback’s talking about. And I want you to do something to put a stop to it. For Jard’s sake ‒ if for no one else’s.’
Not for my sake, Mardie thought. Everyone’s concerned for Jard. Except Jard.
‘How could I go about doing that?’ she asked quietly.
‘For one thing, you must know what it’s all about. Everyone north or south of Twenty-six knows The Breakaway is like any other stop-over. It’s a gossip exchange. So … they’re making something of the fact that you and Jard weren’t found after that ’copter crash till the following morning, as we all know. But, then found by a couple of baddies who happened to have a grievance against Jard. Which is where you come into it, of course.’
‘Of course. I agree. I was there.’
‘Exactly. Well, what I suggest to you is this. Pick on a couple you don’t happen to like round the station fraternity. They could be roustabouts, stockmen, even a jackeroo. But leave the station owners out. That wouldn’t pay off. They have too much influence and power out here.’
‘Pick on this unnamed couple ‒ for what?’ Mardie asked, puzzled.
‘You have that solicitor friend of yours in the area just now. He’s been out at the Dig-in preparing for a Company “Meeting on Location”, if you know what that means. It’s what happens sometimes when every Board Member wants first-hand knowledge of what’s going on. Lawson. Mr Lawson is the name. He’s trustee for your estate, isn’t he? That’s common knowledge too.’
‘Is there anything that isn’t common knowledge?’ Mardie asked, bewildered.
‘Nothing of anything newsworthy, that’s for certain,’ Joanna said drily. ‘Look, I think you can put that hot water jug on the boil, after all. I have a sudden hankering for tea.’
‘Of course.’ Mardie moved over to the side table and began the ritual of filling the electric jug with water, plugging it into the socket and switching on the current.
‘You haven’t explained everything,’ she said, her back still turned. ‘Why should I pick on one or two roustabouts, etc.? Also what’s Mr Lawson ‒ my trustee or not ‒ got to do with this roustabout-picking? Or would you advise …?’
‘I wouldn’t advise anything,’ Joanna said bluntly, ‘except I like you and I think you happen to need help in a sticky situation. It’s simple. What you need to do for your own good is this. Get your friend, Mr Lawson, in here before he goes south again, and instruct him to clap a couple of writs for libel ‒ or slander ‒ whichever, on any two nobodies you don’t happen to care for, and who happen to work around the stations or out with the prospe
ctors.’
Mardie turned and stared at Joanna. She was astonished. ‘Writs? But why?’
‘It will shut everyone else up, that’s why. Mardie, you’re not a fool. A writ out against one person, let alone two, will scare the daylights out of everyone else. You can always withdraw it later. It’s the only way to clamp down the gossip.’
‘The gossip being that the ’copter came down at sundown. And we weren’t found till sun-up the next day?’
‘That ‒ and what’s been added to it.’
Mardie had made the tea and now brought it to the table.
‘Sugar? Biscuits?’
‘No thanks. I’m thirsty only.’
‘And good at advice.’ Mardie smiled, determined to be friendly. Joanna was, after all, only fighting for her own. Jard was her own. And she had a right to fight for him. She herself had no rights except to her own heart which would keep on doing a turnover even at the mere mention of his name.
They might have sipped their tea in silence except that … more than usual … one truck after another thundered along the bitumen. Two of them stopped under the trees and the drivers with their mates went into The Breakaway where Mr Richie was doing duty behind the store counter.
‘I never knew such traffic,’ Mardie said lightly. ‘It could be People’s Day at the Royal Show and the pop singers at Parkerville, all thrown on in one …’ She broke off. There was the sound of another smaller vehicle, a utility, coming down the gravel cross-track to the bitumen. It could come from only one place. The back-track from the old abandoned gold mines out past Mister Falldown’s shack. It was not Mister Falldown’s day for coming in for stores. Neither did Mister Falldown drive a utility.
Joanna had lifted her head sharply, listening.
‘That’s one of the Dig-in’s utes,’ she said.
‘But coming from the wrong direction. How could you possibly know that?’ Mardie was wondering at Joanna’s skills again. Not doubting her. There seemed nothing with which Joanna was not accurately acquainted, either in matters of good judgment or technical know-how.