by Lucy Walker
‘Not yet.’
‘Not yet?’
‘It’s easy … if you read the Children’s Page in the Sunday Independent. They have a special column for jokes sent in by the children.’
‘You think that’s where David gets his jokes?’
‘Well … some of them.’
‘So you read them too?’
‘Some of them.’
‘Then I’ll take your advice. Get The Breakaway store to order the journal for me, will you?’
Mardie really laughed this time.
‘Oh, Jard,’ she said, ‘you really are funny. There! You’ve made me laugh. You see? It’s easy. You’re on the way to being a funny man already.’
He was silent for almost a minute. Then he took Mardie’s arm, but he said nothing. He knew how to draw into the background. How to listen. But what was he actually thinking?
She longed to hug his hand to her, where it rested in the bend of her elbow, but dared not. If it had been David she was sure it would have been easy. Different. It wouldn’t have meant anything but fun-making and friendship. With Jard it would almost mean violation of that deep inner reserve that was part of his make-up.
The moon had risen now. She didn’t dare look away from him, nor quite at him.
‘What are you thinking, Mardie?’
‘Thinking? Why, I don’t think I really know …’
She could not tell him about all those awkward sorrows that touched a girl’s heart when she knew, or feared, she had fallen in love with someone. And for no very good reason except that once she had held him and cradled him as if he were then ‒ at the time ‒ a wounded child. And one who cares for a wounded child loves that child. This because, for that little while, it belongs.
Yet Jard was a man. Infinitely higher up in the world of affairs than she was herself.
In the daylight, striding across that tarmac, whirling the ute in under the trees by The Breakaway, quietly talking within the walls of that same Breakaway … or even nursing an old bushman’s dingo pup … there was something superior about him. His eyes were kind but aloof. They reasoned with one ‒ though gently. They were far away. High up.
How could she dare to think of him as one would think of a wounded child!
In the bright moonlight his eyes took her in. What did he think he saw? What would those eyes look like if he fell in love?
Ah! But he had said he had fallen in love … with a face. Does a man marry someone just because she has the right kind of face?
‘I think we’d better go back now, don’t you?’ she said, so quietly her voice didn’t sound like her own at all. It might be safer to insist on going back. Then he would have lost all opportunity to put that fateful question.
She had to ward him off somehow!
‘I wanted to ask you something,’ he said as they turned, retracing their footsteps. Mardie’s heart nearly stopped stone dead. It was coming after all ‒ that question.
‘Yes?’
‘Would you let me take you out to see the Dig-in? From the ground view this time. We could go in the ute if you don’t mind a rough trip. It’s a bulldozed track only ‒ gravel for about half the distance. I could show you then where we could bring the water through for a temporary period. Enough to set up for diamond drilling along the strike line they’ve already tested. That is, if the Company Directors are satisfied with Joanna’s assays. They’ll have seen the cuttings we’ve brought up from the percussion drilling. They’ll take at least two lots back with them to Company headquarters ‒ all packed in neat little plastic bags.’
‘Is that why the Directors are arriving? Not just to hold a “Meeting-on-Location”?’
‘In effect they will have had a “Meeting on Location”. That will be to decide whether or not diamond drilling is justified. And to take possession of the relevant cuttings. These days Directors have to be doubly careful before they make their reports public. There’s been a few misleading statements made by other Companies in the past. Hence the blow-up on the Stock Markets. Senate Inquiry Committees and all that. Many burned fingers, I’m afraid.’
‘Yes … I’ve sort of read the headlines. I’m afraid I don’t understand it very much.’
She could see there was something whimsical about his smile.
‘But you’d like to understand more?’ he asked.
‘Oh … only because I live here. It’s my territory, isn’t it? I don’t want information like those exploration spies …’ she broke off. Inadvertently she’d brought herself back to that one dangerous topic. The baddies who had come, gone, and spread nasty rumours.
This time he really laughed. And it was a glorious sound. He wasn’t up-tight any more.
‘I must explain,’ he said. ‘I want to make amends for spoiling our last excursion out into the Never, when that blasted ’copter crashed. I want to take you out safely this time ‒ four wheels on the ground ‒ and show you the Exploration camp at ground level.’ His eyes were watching her and for once she had the idiotic idea there was a touch of mischief in them.
‘That way I won’t have to pay you fifty dollars for your nursing services, will I?’ he added.
‘Now you’re teasing me. You know I didn’t really mean that.’
‘Of course I knew it. But … you’re really smiling now. I’m beginning to make the grade at getting acquainted with laughter after all. Who knows? I might catch up with David in your esteem.’
Mardie was so surprised she was silent. Jard ‒ almost hearing the silence ‒ lost his smile.
‘That is, unless David is destined always to have priority in matters of laughter. Am I right, Mardie? Is it David who will always come first in your category of the male being who is the number one entertainer?’
She knew there was a serious query beyond his surface words. In one way it alarmed her.
‘Please, please, Jard! Don’t tell David I’ve been talking about him this way, will you? He might think …’
‘Yes? Think what?’
‘Well … I don’t want to embarrass him.’
‘I shan’t tell him anything, Mardie. But apart from that, I’ve not known David to be serious about anything on earth except how much and to what value there is nickel under that ground out there at the Dig-in. I could, of course, throw in his urgent need of constant and plentiful water available somewhere within the immediate environment. That is, if the Directors decide to go ahead with the diamond drilling. That could ultimately lead to creating a mine. And that’s what exploration is all about.’
Somehow, almost without noticing it, they were back at The Breakaway.
Jard held out his hand to say good night. She put her hand in his. It was a hard, strong hand and it held hers firmly. He looked straight into her eyes.
‘Thank you for a lovely evening,’ he said gently. ‘And thank you for being you, Mardie … specially for that night after the ’copter crash. And, you will let me take you out to the Dig-in? They’re putting on a film show for the workers and the station people round about. They’re all coming. It will be quite a party, and I think you’ll enjoy it.’
‘Thank you for asking me. Yes, I’ll come. With pleasure.’ Her hand was still in his. He was still holding it, almost as if meaning to keep it.
‘Good,’ he said at length. ‘I’ll let David know. He’ll be delighted, I’m sure.’
He dropped her hand and turned away as if to cross the gravel to his ute. Mardie stood fixed to the spot.
With that talk about David I’ve put him off the question about marriage, she thought. But poor David. What have I done to him? There’s still that ugly rumour. Even if David liked me ‒ in that certain way ‒ he’d be the one stuck with spots tarnishing a once ‘fair name’, wouldn’t he? I can almost hear them already ‒ ‘That girl! How many men does she sleep with before she gets to the altar?’
She watched the tall shadowy figure cross the gravel and open the ute’s drive door. She heard the engine start up and the odd irregular miss of one cylin
der not firing. She watched him swing the ute round, throw up gravel and dust, then speed out through The Breakaway’s drive-in then on to the bitumen. For minutes afterwards she heard the sound of his going, growing fainter and fainter. Then fading out to silence.
It was like listening to Love … Going, going, gone!
She’d managed it all herself. She had saved him from having to appease his honour by herself refusing to salvage her own. All by the gentle art of misrepresentation. She had misrepresented, very subtly she hoped, her feelings for David. Joanna, here I come! I’m not as clever as you about scientific matters, but I’m just as clever, if not more so, about handling difficult situations. Even if I had to do it at poor darling David’s expense.
As she turned and went into The Breakaway she didn’t feel proud of her so-clever achievement She wanted to reach for her pillow ‒ and cry into it.
The next morning David came over the air to Mardie in her office.
‘Red Wine to Bickleys Brandy. Come in, if you’re there.’
‘Bickleys Brandy. I’m here, David. How are you all getting on with your Board of Directors? I believe they’ve all arrived. Did you give them a good breakfast? Mrs Richie insists that a good breakfast puts everyone in a good mood for the day.’
‘You bet we did. And at the Company’s expense ‒ which they probably noted. However, Joanna kept the peace. She’s a wizard at playing political chess when the game’s on.’
‘It wouldn’t be good politics always to beat the Directors at the game, would it?’
‘No. That’s where her brilliance comes in. She loses on purpose. So that’s a win really, isn’t it?’
‘Oh David, I think you’re having me on again! What can The Breakaway do for the Dig-in today? Get another load of stores ready?’
‘You have your miserable penny-pinching mind on commerce again, sweetheart. Just forget The Breakaway for once and think of a few breaking hearts out here on the flat of the spinifex desert. We’re in need of you. Badly.’
‘Badly? I can’t believe it. But, David dear … if you-all out there need me I’m at the ready. What can I do for you?’
‘Like I said. Come out here and be seen. Jard said you’d come out for the film show ‒ if he brought you.’
‘Did he put that proviso on it ‒ that he was to bring me?’
‘He did.’
‘Why?’
‘I don’t know. I thought you’d tell me.’
‘I’d tell you everything you wanted to know, David dear, so long as I knew the answer to give.’
‘That means you’ve already cooked it up with him, hey?’
‘It means he invited me. And he said he’d take me out there. And I said, “Thank you very much I’d like to go”.’
‘Ho hum! So that cuts me out, doesn’t it?’ David’s voice pretended to be doleful.
‘It means he asked me first, David darling, that’s all. When is it?’
‘Wednesday. Too late for you to buy a new dress, but wear your prettiest, won’t you? I want to show you off.’
‘Whatever for? I mean to whom, and why?’
‘I’ll tell you when I see you. I’ve a special Special waiting for you, darl. It’s a personal question so I can’t ask it over the air. There just might be someone who can cut in on our wave length. Bring the Richies, won’t you? Over and out, sweetie.’
‘You’re full of mystery this morning, David. But I’ll be there wearing my very best. ’Bye for now. Over and out.’
Mardie hitched the speaker to its hook and sat looking at the two-way in silence.
What did he mean?
She had a sudden feeling of terror. Jard hadn’t been dropping David hints that she, Mardie, was head over heels in love with him? Dear heaven! She had indeed scrambled the omelette in giving Jard a cause not to ask her that certain question. Had she gone too far and made a mud mixture instead?
She sat and worried. Then had a bright idea.
She could be going ‒ right up to the last minute. Then be ill. The only sort of illness one could collect at short notice was a headache. And didn’t a ‘headache’ sound too weak an excuse? Besides, she wanted to go. The Richies would want to go and if she said she had a headache, or any other ailment, one of them would insist on staying back and looking after her.
So go she must.
The decision made, Mardie felt better. In fact she began to feel happy, and this in spite of her guilty feeling. She wanted to see the Dig-in at ground level. She wanted to wear her nicest dress and be gay and have fun. She would go, and she would just have to keep her wits about her as she had when she’d taken that walk with Jard. Then somehow ‒ like Joanna playing political chess ‒ ward them both off. David and Jard. Jard and David.
Suddenly she felt sad again.
Wasn’t it a wonderful thing to have two men … two marvellous men … wanting you for their girl friend? One of them only thinking he ought to propose marriage, though for the wrong reasons entirely. The other perhaps pretending just for the fun of this week’s latest joke.
But it was wonderful all the same, for whatever motive.
Lots of girls had no one at all. She hadn’t had anyone at home. Because of her mother’s long illness she had had to rush home straight from work. Her father worked back at night so often she could rarely go out at night herself. She had lost all contacts during that tragic time.
But now she had two nice people who wanted to be kind and friendly, as with David. Kind and honourable, as with Jard.
She wasn’t alone any more. That old, old adage ‒ ‘Better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all’. It wouldn’t be a case of having ‘lost’ with Jard. Honesty had won. That was quite something to mark up for herself.
Ah well!
Chapter Fifteen
The day for the visit to the Dig-in came.
Mardie began to feel excited. The prospect of seeing a mining exploration camp at work lifted her spirits. She almost forgot to think about her relationships with David and Jard. She feared her present plight might be bordering on the ridiculous: so best try and forget it. Easier said than done, most of the time. She knew that night of the ’copter crash had not been something ridiculous. It had been something that would stay with her for ever. So was important. She just wanted to stop being hurt by it. If only she knew how!
You could love a hundred people, she reasoned. But ever only be in love with one. Well, maybe.
Now here was something coming that could be one more adventure ‒ and even be fun. A trip to the Dig-in ground level.
The furniture experts had departed from the motel units and until their wares ultimately arrived and were set in place each in its own home, the units were closed up. However Number One, the king-suite, had been ‘booked’ for Mr Lawson and the firm’s specimen furniture installed in it. He had had to return south unexpectedly and had been flown from the Dig-in in a Company plane. He was expected back shortly and had promised Mardie he would call in at The Breakaway first in order to be the first to inhabit that special suite.
Mr Richie refused point blank to leave The Breakaway for the whole day and evening outing to the Dig-in. He could not be budged.
‘Never since The Breakaway was first built has it been closed to night callers,’ he said flatly. ‘All anyone ever has to do to open us up is ring the bell, and that fact is known from the top end of the State to the Southern Ocean. I’ll not risk it to any stand-in who might stuff cotton wool in his ears before he falls asleep come sundown.’
‘But ‒’
‘As for the daytime hours! Well, yes. I can find a stand-in all right. I’ll borrow someone from the pub at Pindarra. I’ll need that and we can give him double pay. You agree, Mardie? We’re all three partners in the store side of this property, aren’t we?’
‘By which you mean you have your vote on a decision not to close up even for one evening. And your dear darling wife would support you. Two to one against me, I can’t win, can I? All right, darling M
r Richie, I give in without any vote being taken. But everyone will be sorry you won’t be there for the barbecue. They’ll miss you.’
‘Sure. But they’ll all come in here a week later to make up for it. Think of the business we’ll do that day!’
Mardie laughed and called him a ‘money-minded rogue’. Yet because Mr Richie was staying behind she felt proud. The Breakaway in its history had never been closed against a knock, or a push of the bell. It would live up to its reputation.
Jard came early in the morning. Not long after sun-up actually.
‘You must have left before moon-down,’ Mrs Richie said reprovingly. ‘Man, you’ll be worn out before the day’s done. Not much fun in that for you.’
‘I’ll take you for a moonlight drive some time in the small hours of the morning, Mrs Richie,’ Jard said with a grin. ‘That’s when earth and heaven are at peace with one another. The best time of all. To see the false dawn …’ He broke off.
What had crossed his mind? Mardie wondered. It had been false dawn when those two rifle-carrying baddies had come. And he, Jard, had opened his eyes and looked at her. Had he remembered?
Oh no! He had closed his eyes again. He had dipped back into semi-consciousness again ‒ if he’d ever even reached that stage when he opened his eyes.
He couldn’t possibly have known or recognized the fact of her partly unclad body holding him close to her. He just wasn’t with it.
There was room for all three of them in the passenger seat of Jard’s ute as they drove out shortly after nine o’clock.
‘You sit in the middle, Mardie,’ Jard had said, looking down at her. ‘You’re the smallest. We must give Mrs Richie plenty of room to fall out comfortably if the door-lock gives way.’
He was joking but his smile as he looked down at Mardie, now cushioned comfortably against his shoulder, seemed to hold something special in it. She wondered what? But then she was beyond ever interpreting the expressions in Jard’s eyes. At first he had seemed such a reserved and silent man. She thought he was still that person, but events had thrown them together in a strange situation. Maybe the difference in him, and what she could read in his eyes, was due to some changes those events had brought about. From indifference to kindness? Yes, she thought, that was it!