by Lucy Walker
On the corner, next to the store, was the hotel. It had had a modern frontage attached to it in recent years and it now sported a glass-walled lounge from the deep arm-chairs of which the occupants could watch the passers-by in the street. Next to the hotel, the last building in the town, was the stone and brick edifice of the Shire offices and the town library.
Oliver drove his car behind the line of bowsers in the garage, got out and shut the door with a bang. He spoke to the mechanic who came out to attend to him, then crossed the wide brown street to the Shire offices. Not once did he look back towards the railway station or the shunting yards.
He had barely disappeared inside the main door of the Shire office when Jane Newbold drove in from the north end of the town and parked her car immediately behind Oliver’s in the garage.
As the mechanic came towards her she nodded towards Oliver’s car.
‘Mr. Reddin’s in town, I see,’ she said.
‘Yes, miss. Been in an hour or more. Saw him coming in round ten o’clock. He’s just left the car for filling.’
‘Fill my car up, will you?’ Jane asked, getting out. ‘And you’d better put in a pint of oil. Run it out on to the kerb when you’re finished. I may be an hour or so.’ She looked up casually. ‘Did Mr. Reddin come in alone? I’m on my way out to Two Creeks now, so I’ll look out for him.’
‘Yeah … he was alone. But I saw the Two Creeks horse-box come in about an hour later. Young lady in it. My boss said it was the new Mrs. Reddin.’
‘She wasn’t driving it?’
‘No, Jem Anderson was driving.’
‘Well, thanks very much. Put twenty-forty oil in, will you? This car likes the heavy stuff.’
She walked out on to the kerb and glanced up and down the street. She then turned south and walked the length of the main street, past the pepper trees and the old-timers; past the pastoral agency that handled the Two Creeks business. She glanced in but there was no sign of Oliver … or for that matter, Carey.
She crossed over the road and walked back to the hotel. She went into the lounge, chose herself a comfortable seat facing, but not too close to, the window wall and ordered coffee with a lacing of brandy.
She crossed her knees, took her cigarette-case from her handbag and carefully fitted a cigarette to a gold and ebony holder.
As she lit the cigarette she looked up through the smoke haze and saw Carey walking along the opposite side of the main street beside a big broad-shouldered man in khaki clothes and wearing a wide-brimmed hat.
Jane could see that Carey, although she was on the far side of the man, was looking eagerly up into his face and that her hand clung to his arm and that she was talking quickly and excitedly. The one glimpse of Carey’s face had shown that she was all smiles and the light in her eyes shone brightly enough to light up the shadows under the pepper trees.
Jane held the cigarette-holder away from her and gazed over its spiral of smoke to the scene in the street. She could see the bench sitters leaning forward watching Carey and her companion going farther along the street. They continued to watch them, as Jane did, until they turned into Smithson’s Stock Agency a little farther along.
‘Well, that’s not Jem Anderson,’ said Jane Newbold to herself. ‘Nor anyone else that I’ve ever seen on Two Creeks.’
Across the road, at an angle, she saw the garage mechanic run Oliver’s car, and then her own, out on to the street and park them one behind the other alongside the kerb under the pepper trees. Jane smiled.
‘Oliver can’t miss my car any more than I can miss his,’ she thought to herself.
She was sipping coffee when Oliver came along the footpath under the hotel window from the direction of the Shire offices. His head was turned away as he looked across the street at the two cars drawn up bumper to bumper. Jane got up, took the few steps to the window and rapped hard on it with the end of her cigarette-holder. Oliver turned his head, saw Jane and raised his hat.
Jane smiled brilliantly at him and motioned with her hand for him to come and join her. For a fraction of a second he hesitated, then turned on his heel and retraced his steps to the hotel entrance. A minute later he was putting his hat on the table in the foyer and then came across the lounge to Jane.
She was sitting down in her chair again, leaning back, and now turned sideways to greet him.
‘Hallo, old thing,’ she said. ‘How long will you be in town?’
Oliver reached the table and with a casual gesture Jane indicated the chair opposite her … one which had its back to the window.
Oliver sat down.
‘I’m ready to go back to Two Creeks as soon as they’ve delivered my engine parts to the car,’ he said. ‘And you? I suppose you’ve just come through from Mount Macedon, Jane?’
‘Yes, and I’m on my way to Two Creeks. They are expecting me, I hope?’
Oliver nodded.
‘Millicent will have killed the fatted calf.’ He lifted his finger and signalled the steward. ‘I’ll have tea, with some sandwiches. Jane?’ He raised a quizzical eyebrow. ‘That looks like coffee you’re drinking. May I order some more for you?’
‘Please. With sandwiches this time. We might as well make it a light lunch and be done with it. I’ve been sitting here since your car was filled, Oliver. There’s been no delivery to it. So you’ll have time to have your tea leisurely. When you’re ready to go … I’m ready. We might as well follow one another.’
‘Move off in convoy fashion, as it were,’ said Oliver, taking out his cigarette-case. He offered it to Jane. She shook her head.
‘In five minutes’ time,’ she said. ‘I’m not a chain smoker yet …’
She laughed, and Oliver smiled.
‘Is Carey with you?’ Jane asked. ‘By the way, who is the film star who walks along the street holding her hand? Big fellow who looks as if he’s come from the desert centre?’
Oliver’s smile, one which barely turned the corners of his mouth, did not freeze and there was no change in the clear cold depths of his eyes.
‘That,’ said Oliver, lighting his cigarette and putting the spent match in the ash-tray, ‘is Mr. Harry Martin from Wybong. An old family friend.’
‘Not so old, darling. You could give him a few years. All the same, in an outback kind of way, he’s rather attractive. Ah well … Carey’s rather a sweet child.’ She stopped, looked straight into Oliver’s eyes and said, ‘I suppose you’ve been married long enough to find that out. The very young can be very charming?’
Oliver’s expression did not change.
‘Did you enjoy your few days at Mount Macedon, Jane?’
‘Yes. I had a lovely rest. Why did you change the subject, Oliver?’
‘I think you know why.’
‘Yes … I think I do,’ said Jane. Then she laughed. ‘Come on, old thing, let me pour your tea for you. We’re getting far too serious.’
Over Oliver’s shoulder she saw Carey and Harry Martin emerge from Smithson’s Stock Agency and walk towards Oliver’s car. Carey stood beside it a minute and looked up and down the street. Then she spoke to Harry Martin, obviously telling him to whom the car belonged. Harry looked up and down the street.
Jane paid attention to the handing of Oliver’s cup and saucer to him, and then pushed the sandwiches an inch nearer him.
‘Tell me about the Shire Council, Oliver. You are to be the next president, aren’t you?’
‘It looks like it,’ Oliver said briefly.
‘Carey wouldn’t have had very much experience of town politics,’ Jane said with careful gentleness. ‘Even the old boys under the pepper trees can make or break a reputation in a country town. You’ll have to tell Carey not to hold hands with an old family friend when she’s the president’s wife. At least not in the main street.’
She looked up quickly.
‘I’m not being catty, Oliver. I want you to be successful. I want Carey to help you. I feel sure she will … when she understands in an adult way what are the implicat
ions of that position.’
She could see Carey and Harry get into Smithson’s utility which the agent had just driven down the street. The utility drove off in the direction of the railway yards.
‘Oliver …’ she said in a tone that commanded his eyes to meet hers. ‘I’m sorry I behaved the way I did at your wedding. I was jealous. You knew that, didn’t you? Well, the past is the past. We won’t speak of it again. You will let me help Carey if it’s necessary, won’t you? I have got the social know-how, you know.’
‘Carey has a way of managing her own affairs,’ Oliver said. ‘She seems to fill in her time quite happily at Two Creeks. And now she is likely to be absorbed in the refencing of her own farm. You know that Carey is a property owner in her own right, Jane?’
‘Yes, I do,’ Jane said. The steward had brought her fresh coffee and she now poured it. ‘Hence Mr. Martin?’
‘Hence Mr. Martin.’
‘Oh, well …’ said Jane, with a laugh. ‘That’s the way of life, isn’t it? Do you suppose they want us to wait for them before we return to Two Creeks?’
‘Unless they see me or my car in town they probably don’t know I’m here. Carey came in to meet Mr. Martin after I left Two Creeks. They’re probably lunching with a crate of wild horses down at the railway yards.’
‘And you don’t mind?’
‘Should I?’
‘By the way, Oliver,’ Jane said, glancing through the window, ‘there’s a truck pulled up in front of your car and a man has opened the boot of it.’
Oliver turned round in his seat and looked through the window behind him.
‘That’s what I’ve been waiting for. I can leave any time now. How about you, Jane?’ He turned back to her. ‘Would you rather do some shopping and follow later?’
‘Darling, if I can’t have your company … I’ll take your dust,’ Jane said, laughing. ‘Have you finished your lunch, Oliver? You haven’t had much.’
‘All I want, thank you. If you’re ready we can leave in the next ten minutes. If you’ll excuse me, Jane, I’ll just go across the street and see that stuff is stowed properly. If you pull out your car I’ll follow you.’ He was standing now and his smile as he looked down at Jane was faintly ironical. ‘I’m afraid chivalry demands that I take your dust, Jane, and not you mine.’
‘On your way, Sir Galahad,’ she laughed. ‘Give me fifteen minutes and two miles. I’ll see you at Two Creeks for dinner.’
Oliver paid the steward for his attentions, added a substantial tip and went out of the lounge without looking back.
Jane watched him cross the road and speak to the truck driver who had just finished loading into the boot of his car. Then he went on down the street to his own agency.
Jane went upstairs to the bathroom, rinsed her hands and remade up her face. When she was satisfied with what she saw in the mirror she retraced her steps back to the lounge and looked through the window. Oliver had not yet returned to his car.
She left the hotel, got into her own car and drove off, turned down a side street, swung right again along the railway line in the direction of the railway yards. Smithson’s grazing paddocks were on the far side of the shunting lines.
She could see three figures … Carey, Harry Martin and the agent Smithson leaning over the gate of the grazing paddock gazing at three young horses grouped a few yards away.
Jane slowed down to a crawl so that she would pass the gate at a slow pace. When she drew level she braked suddenly as if this was an unexpected stop. She leaned across the passenger seat beside her and called out.
‘Hallo there, Car-eey. What goes on?’
Carey turned round. She hesitated for a moment and then crossed the grass verge to Jane’s car.
‘Just trying to make a bargain with Mr. Smithson,’ she said.
‘Hard going?’
‘Oh, no. He wants my horses but he’s pretending not to want them. I don’t want to part with them either. Silly, I suppose. Are you going out to Two Creeks now, Jane?’
‘Right away. Want a lift?’
Carey looked uncertainly at the two men still standing by the gate.
‘I think I’ll wait and go with Harry,’ she said. ‘It’s a bit of a tight squeeze but Harry won’t mind. I saw Oliver’s car in the main street and wondered …’
‘Oh, he’ll be gone by now,’ Jane said airily. ‘We had lunch together. Very nice to have Oliver to myself for a few minutes. He’s so busy, isn’t he? He was on his way back to Two Creeks as I left the hotel.’
‘I see,’ said Carey thoughtfully. Then she looked up and smiled gravely. ‘Thank you for the offer of a lift, Jane. I think I’ll go with Harry. He hasn’t been to Two Creeks before.’
Jane touched the accelerator and hummed up the engine. She adjusted the gear into first position and gradually let in the clutch.
‘Be seeing you round about dinnertime,’ she said. ‘If I catch up with Oliver I’ll tell him I saw you.’
With a smooth glide the car moved forward. Carey stood watching it with a slightly worried frown on her forehead. Harry Martin left the fence and came over to her.
‘What’s the matter, Carey girl?’ he said. ‘You don’t look as if that lady left you too happy. Who is she … besides being a glamour queen?’
‘A friend of Millicent’s,’ said Carey, then added slowly: ‘And Oliver’s too, of course.’
She looked up into Harry Martin’s quizzical eyes and smiled.
‘I was worrying because we hadn’t really waited for Oliver, or gone looking for him when we saw his car in the main street. Perhaps we should have done that, Harry, but I … well … I did want to find someone to graze those ponies for me first. Then I could tell Oliver everything was all right about them.’
Harry Martin was a tall broad-shouldered man in his late twenties. His eyes were the faded blue of the outback man and they had a certain lazy easy-going expression in them. He smiled broadly now, showing a very good set of white teeth.
‘That husband of yours certainly must have something, Carey. You’re so anxious to please him. How do I get a wife I can wrap round my little finger? That fellow seems to have all the luck.’
He turned round and let his gaze move slowly over the paddocks where the brumbies were now quietly grazing.
‘They seem to be okay there, Carey,’ he said, nodding his head in the direction of the horses. ‘Smithson’s grazing charges are a bit steep … by Wybong standards … but it’ll give us a breathing space to look over those paddocks of yours. Well, now we’re through how about going home, eh?’
‘We’ll have to go back and get Jem and the horse-box. Thank you for paying for Jem’s lunch, Harry. I never thought to bring any money with me …’
‘Like most station people, hey? Never have any time for money. Just stick it on the account, or get the agent to foot the bill?’ He laughed teasingly.
‘Well, one doesn’t use money on a station, does one? I mean there’s nothing to spend it on. At Two Creeks everything is got out of the station store or sent out from Melbourne.’
‘Who is Reddin’s pastoral agent, Carey? There must be a representative in this town. There always is, in every country town. And you ought to carry your cheque-book. You have got one, haven’t you, Carey?’
‘Do you know I’ve never asked Oliver who his agent is,’ Carey said. ‘It just wasn’t necessary, Harry. Oliver looks after everything.’
As they walked back to Smithson’s utility Harry Martin noticed that Carey had not answered his question about the chequebook.
Paying for Jem Anderson’s lunch was nothing … but he couldn’t quite get over the look of anxiety in Carey’s eyes when she had realised that once in a country town she needed money. Not much, but enough for this and that. And she had become more than anxious when it was clear that Smithson wanted time to think over whether he would buy the brumbies or not.
He would charge for the grazing in the meantime.
Harry chewed his bottom lip as they drove
back into the railway yards to pick up the horse-box. He wondered what sort of a set-up it was out there at Two Creeks. He understood quick enough that a man who had a state-wide name for his stud stock would be chary of bringing brumbies on the place, but he didn’t understand the half-hidden anxiety in Carey. Carey was a girl who always looked happy and sunny back home. Was it the different climate down here that had caught her off her beat?
If anyone out there at Two Creeks was making Carey unhappy then, by golly, they’d have Harry Martin to reckon with. Harry Martin was a busy man with big contract deals on hand. No one on earth but Carey Fraser would have got him out of the Wybong district right now. If he was coming down here to do something for her then, by golly, he’d make a proper job of it. He lifted his hat to poke a long brown forefinger amongst his light brown hair that was already thinning out above the temples. With his hat on Harry Martin looked no more than his age but with it off the hair receding from his forehead made him look older and wiser.
Sitting there in the front seat of the horse-box as it rocketed over the uneven track to Two Creeks, Harry put his arm around Carey’s shoulder and gave her a hug.
‘Nice seeing you again, Carey,’ he said, smiling down at her where she sat happily squeezed between himself and the driver.
Carey smiled back at him.
‘You too, Harry,’ she said.
She slipped her hand into his when he let his own fall from her shoulder. Harry held it firmly and Carey let it lie confidently there all the rest of the way to Two Creeks.
Chapter Fourteen
When Carey and Harry Martin walked up from the stables to the homestead they could see Oliver’s big car at rest in the open garage. Jane’s car was beside it. The other big homestead car had been moved over to another corner of the shed and Millicent’s car lay behind it.