by Lucy Walker
Suddenly she understood all Bern Malin’s caution. And her own ignorance.
‘What are you thinking about, Katie? You’ve been silent a long time.’
She had forgotten he was there. She shook her head to bring herself back in time and place.
‘I’m awfully sorry, Tom. I must have been thinking of something ‒’
‘You said you had promised someone something. What did you promise? Who did you promise? Something that matters so much that you go off into a trance?’
‘Did I say that? Oh, yes ‒ it was only that I would stay here till Bern came back. I know I broke it, in a way, but only in a tiny way by going out to the diggings. That’s not like going to a town more than two hundred miles away, is it? That is, without letting him know. Without sort of asking him, because he is looking after Andrew ‒’
Katie broke off, troubled. However she put it she somehow involved Bern Malin in being something more than he had been before she had given Gideon Dent that promise. Suddenly now it seemed as if Bern Malin was Andrew’s guardian: not Gideon any more.
‘Tom, I’m dreadfully tired, and muddly. I suppose it is the long ride: more than three hours of it.’
‘That’ll be it,’ Tom said pushing back his chair and standing up. He held out his hand to Katie to help her rise. ‘You go and have a rest while I hunt up Andrew and Secretary and see whether they’re tracking or painting or just having an hour’s shut-eye in the shade.’
‘You’re a dear, Tom. I think I will do that.’
Tom still held her hand.
‘Who was it you saw up at the diggings, Katie?’ his eyes were searching hers. ‘No one ‒ well, unexpected ‒ I suppose?’
‘Why no. Of course not. The diggers were there. They’re awfully interesting people; like characters out of a book ‒’
He was still looking at her closely.
‘Don’t you believe me, Tom?’ she asked, a little bewildered that it should matter to him.
His face had a quick sharp interest in it, an expression that was foreign to Tom. Then suddenly it changed back to his grin.
‘Just so long as they treated you well, and you didn’t find things too rough. There was no one else around there, to take boredom off your hands?’
‘Who could be at the camp but the diggers? Itinerant prospectors perhaps, but not while I was there.’
‘That’s right. They come through Ryde’s Place first, as often as not. Sometimes they’re asking for that nebulous noman Gideon Dent. You didn’t see any myths or legends while you were out there, by any chance?’ He was grinning now, as if teasing her.
‘No myths or legends, Tom. Everything’s very realistic in the bush. There weren’t even any bunyips.’
‘Kangaroos, more like it,’ he said. ‘You wait till we try getting home from Pandanning at seventy miles an hour with kangaroos heading for the headlights like they want sudden death badly. Ever raced an emu? You will.’
Katie could hardly hide her relief that now Tom was on to other subjects. She hated deceiving him. It was a mean thing to have to keep confidences from one’s friends. Perhaps Bern felt this way ‒
‘I believe you are talking me into that trip to Pandanning.’ She smiled happily at him.
‘It will be more than an ordinary trip,’ Tom promised. ‘We do things in a hurry outback.’
‘What things?’ Katie asked, amused.
‘I’ll be back in a fortnight’s time,’ was all Tom replied to that question. ‘I’ll tell you then.’
Twelve days passed. The only thing that varied the quiet order of each day at Malin’s Outpost was the quantity of paper Andrew covered with his drawings and his paints.
Katie was surprised at the wonderful colours he seemed to conjure from that paint box. He was constantly mixing and remixing the primaries in the tiny pallets and from the tubes.
‘By crikey, that Andrew has put down real trees!’ Secretary said, full of admiration for the young painter. ‘You look how the wind blows through them this way, like out in the bush when the Sou’easter comes up. That grass fair crackles too. I tell you truly, Miss Katie, one day I take this Andrew to Calajira. He sees what Calajira sees. The big colours. Not just pale, but bright like they hurt. The same as the colours out there at the Gap when the sun is half-way going down.’
Katie was amazed that Andrew had remembered the fine details of the Gap. The dark crevices, the nobbly rocks, the split cliffs; the shadows and the bright cliff faces.
‘Perhaps I should have bought him some paints long ago,’ she told Mrs. Potts. ‘I knew he could draw ‒ but look how he gives up the whole of his time to it. How will he ever learn to be something in life?’
‘That’s what I’d like to know,’ Mrs. Potts said flatly. ‘He has to earn his living one day. I never heard of anyone much could make a living out of a paint brush. They do say there’s an aborigine up country makes quite a lot. They say people come from as far as Sydney and Melbourne to see his paintings. All very well for an aborigine. All he’s got to do is eat off the bush ‒ if so he wants.’
‘Is his name Calajira?’
‘Yes, now that you remind me, that’s it. Calajira. There’s been quite a lot of talk about him.’
‘Secretary wants to take Andrew to see him, some time.’
‘You smartly forget all about that, Miss Katie. You don’t want that boy turning into a swagman. He needs to go to school, and learn something useful.’
‘Yes. I’m beginning to realise that myself,’ Katie said thoughtfully. ‘About going to school, I mean. I was against it at first because I was afraid school would be a prison to him. I still am afraid.’ All the same, Andrew couldn’t be allowed to spend his whole days wandering in the bush; investigating the hidden life creeping and crawling in it. Then painting, painting, painting. Katie saw that too.
Bern was wiser than she had wanted to think. Gideon Dent was right. She must take Bern’s advice, and try to believe in it.
If only he would understand Andrew had to be prepared ‒ gradually.
Thirteen days after Katie’s return, Bern came riding down that track from the diggers’ camp.
Long before he came through the trees, Andrew prone on the floor busy with the paint brush again, said ‒
‘Bern Malin’s coming home to-day. He’s about a mile up the track.’
‘Andrew,’ Katie said in exasperation. ‘How much have you been learning from Secretary that you know that? If you can learn so much about the bush why don’t you be interested in other things? There’s a machinery shed out there: and books in the case in the office ‒’
‘I’m not interested in other things.’
‘Don’t you understand you have to know about many things to live in the modern world?’
‘I’m going to live in the bush.’
‘But you still have to have knowledge. Motor cars, for instance; and how to earn money for clothes and food and shoes and even for paint boxes. Do you expect someone to give them to you all your life, Andrew?’
‘Guess you’d always give me enough, Katie.’
‘Don’t you want to earn your own living ‒ at anything, Andrew?’
‘No. I want to find out about the bush and the things in the ground. You know what, Katie? It’s easy to find out about things on top of the ground because you can see what they do if you watch long enough. But under the ground it’s harder. You have to go down ‒ right down. Some of those shafts seem big enough for one man only. But they’re a thousand feet down ‒ some of them. That’s where Gideon Dent found the first reef gold. A thousand feet down.’
Shades of all past Gideon Dents! Katie thought. Is this another of them? A whole family of them? How did she make Andrew understand he had to learn first? Sinking one-man shafts was not enough these days, even if they did go down a thousand feet. One had to have the know-how.
If it was true that Bern Malin was coming down the track and would be home any minute, Katie would be one very pleased person to see him.
Oh, my! Katie, she thought. How changed you have become!
Was five minutes with Gideon Dent such magic?
Mrs. Potts appeared in the doorway.
‘Secretary says Mr. Bern is coming down the track. He’ll be here in about half an hour. I’ll put the kettle on, Miss Katie. The first thing Mr. Bern always likes is three cups of tea, one after the other ‒ black, strong, and with three teaspoons of sugar in each.’
‘I’ll come and help,’ Katie said jumping up. She was delighted to find something to take her mind from Andrew, forever prone these days; forever painting. ‘Is there time for a batch of scones in the oven? It’s my turn to make them, remember? This time I’ll make fruit scones for a change.’
She followed Mrs. Potts into the kitchen. By making scones she was running away from the longing to go to that small front veranda to watch the track where it ran like a narrow red ribbon between the banks of grey bush that stretched away into the Never.
As she deftly rubbed butter into flour in the mixing bowl she wished Mrs. Potts would keep on talking instead of lapsing into thoughtful silences. That way Katie wouldn’t be listening for the sound of a horse’s feet cantering down the track to the homestead.
From time to time Mrs. Potts, stoking the fire, then lifting down cups and saucers and filling a small bowl with sugar, glanced at the young girl’s face as it bent thoughtfully, yet so troubled, over the floured board.
Mrs. Potts shook her head as she talked to herself.
‘It won’t do,’ she said. ‘It won’t do. Here she’s all of a stir because Mr. Bern’s coming home. Meantime there’s Tom Ryde ‒ as nice a chap as ever rode a good horse ‒ waiting to fall like a ripe plum right in her lap.’
She rattled cups and saucers to work off her feelings. An unattached girl in the bush meant upset. It always did; and it always had in the past.
‘Trouble with Miss Stella means trouble at the Rydes’.’
She went on tormenting herself. ‘That means trouble at the diggings, and Mr. Bern in big trouble. That makes it twice as bad for the boys out at the diggings; and for Bill Potts and me. I wouldn’t be half a woman if I didn’t do something about it. We want peace here ‒’
The scones were in the oven and Katie was at the kitchen sink washing the dough from her hands. She could look up through the window now to where the track came through from the trees.
Bern Malin was riding along it. She could see him coming, wrapped in his own dust cloud, a nebulous figure but so unmistakable with that upright carriage, the legs long in the stirrups, the hat down on his brow.
It was like watching someone coming home from travel in distant places.
She had a sudden desperate feeling of unreality.
‘I’ll go and brush up,’ she said to Mrs. Potts. ‘After all, it is a home-coming for the master of the house, isn’t it?’
‘Yes. You do that. I’ll watch the oven.’
‘They’re my scones,’ Katie said proudly, pleased to have done something helpful. ‘I’ll be back in time to rescue them from being a burnt offering only.’
She brushed her hair quickly, and made up her face lightly. She was back in the kitchen when she heard the horse go past the house. Presently she heard Bern’s voice as he spoke to Secretary.
Then came his footsteps on to the veranda and into the house, and Mrs. Potts’s cheerful welcome.
After that there was silence for Bern had gone into the living-room. He was probably taken aback at Andrew painting in the bright hours of the day instead of being outside learning the mechanics of cars, or grooming, from Secretary.
Katie took the scones from the oven, quickly buttered them, then made the tea. She was on the point of lifting the tray when Mrs. Potts came back to the kitchen.
‘He’s getting an eyeful of what Andrew’s up to,’ she said with a whisper of caution. ‘He hasn’t said a word and young master Andrew hasn’t even noticed he’s come in. Guess that young feller’s the only person in this part of the world who doesn’t know when Mr. Bern’s around.’
‘If Bern said “Hallo” first, I’m sure Andrew would ‒’
‘Andrew would do just what it suits him, Miss Katie, and it’s time you knew that. If ever there was a self-centred young creature ‒’
She glanced at Katie’s face.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I guess you meant well by him ‒ the way you brought him up. For the life of me I can’t see how a young girl could know how ‒ even if he was a normal child.’
Katie bit her lips.
‘He’s more than normal. He’s very clever,’ she said, defending her brother quickly. ‘Shall I take the tray in?’
‘No. You go in and have yourself waited on. Once you’re married ‒ which you will be one day ‒ you’ll do all the waiting, I can tell you. You might as well have a spell while you can.’
Katie went, a little uncertainly, towards the living-room.
There was Andrew lying on the floor as she had left him half an hour before. The painting on the paper had grown in detail and in brighter colours. Bern Malin stood by the boy, looking down, watching him at work. There was absolute silence in the room. Katie was inside the door before Bern turned and noticed her.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I thought it was Mrs. Potts coming back.’
He stood looking at her, one hand dangling his hat. There was something in his eyes that made her heart bump unexpectedly. She looked back at him, puzzled, held by his curious expression. It was as if, when he had last seen her, their relationship had been different from what she had thought; something warm and kindly.
Katie shook her head as if shaking away cobwebs. It was the light and the way it came so brightly through the window, of course. It softened the grey of his eyes.
She came to her own defence against whatever illusion there was in the air. A misleading illusion, she decided.
‘I’m so glad you’re back,’ she said formally. To her astonished ears her voice sounded almost defiant. She didn’t feel that way one bit.
‘I’m glad to be back. How are you, Katie?’
‘Very well, thank you. Don’t I look it? I suppose you’re cross with Andrew for not being outside learning something from Secretary ‒’
‘Not at all. I was interested in what he was doing.’
Bern turned again to the small boy who had not taken the slightest notice of anything going on in the room except the dipping and stroking of his own paint brush.
‘How many more of these pictures have you done, Andrew?’ Bern asked. Andrew hadn’t heard him. His mind was on other things.
‘I thought ‒’ Katie said quickly to cover up Andrew’s bad manners. ‘I thought you wanted him to learn about car engines; and grooming the horses ‒’
‘That was before it occurred to me the boy could draw and possibly paint.’ He glanced up from Andrew to Katie again. ‘I think we have an artist on our hands. We’ll have to do something about it.’
Katie was so astonished she couldn’t move. She stood in the middle of the room looking at the man and the boy as if she had seen two oddities emerge from the unreal land of imagination.
‘Do something?’ she asked bewildered.
Bern was watching Andrew work.
‘Yes. It might be a good idea to take him to Calajira, as Secretary suggested.’
Katie sat down on a chair.
She was lost.
Was Bern Malin suddenly mad? Or was it herself?
Wasn’t he the practical man who believed only in practical work?
At that moment Mrs. Potts came in with the tea-tray.
‘I’ll put it on the table and you pour, Miss Katie,’ she said. ‘I’ve a big dinner to get now we have the Boss home.’ She looked at Andrew sternly. ‘Up, young feller, and out and wash your hands. I’ll give you something to eat in the kitchen ‒ if you’re clean enough.’
‘Let him be, Mrs. Potts,’ Bern said mildly turning to the table and sitting down. He cart-wheeled his hat on t
o a chair in the far corner. ‘When he’s hungry he’ll speak up. I don’t know anyone who doesn’t ‒ sooner or later.’ He glanced at Katie but she avoided meeting his eyes. What was he playing at? The lion being the lamb?
‘Well, I never!’ said Mrs. Potts. ‘So you’ve joined up with Miss Katie to spoil the young feller ‒’
‘Not yet,’ Bern replied quietly.
The tray was on the table beside Katie. She lifted the teapot. She was too surprised at this change in Bern to want to look at anything but the tea-tray. Had he gone through a transformation act, or something?
Mrs. Potts’s manner said the Boss, now he was home, ought to exercise that silent and silencing authority of his, as he generally did when he was around. Now, he was actually and peaceably interested in a lazy young boy painting. Mrs. Potts’s face was quite a study.
‘Miss Katie tell you about the plans to go to Pandanning?’ she asked, determined to throw a bomb into this too-pretty domestic scene. ‘Tom Ryde’s going to take her. Did she tell you?’
Bern lifted his eyes. ‘We haven’t had time to talk about anything,’ he said with much gravity. ‘I’ve just come in, Mrs. Potts. You might have noticed.’
‘Well …’ Mrs. Potts was at a loss. ‘I was helping Miss Katie get over the hurdle of telling you,’ she went on. ‘Not easy to be staying in a person’s house one minute and gallivanting off to another, then up to town for a spree, the next. All the same, that’s what she wants to do, Mr. Bern, so don’t you go standing in her way.’
‘Thank you, Mrs. Potts.’ Katie’s smile was very faint. ‘You’ve well and truly jumped the hurdle for me. I’m grateful.’
‘It’s Tom Ryde who’ll be grateful,’ Mrs. Potts said in a voice full of meaning. With that she turned and disappeared through the door as if suddenly remembering Mr. Potts would like his tea too. He liked it like the Boss ‒ black, hot, strong and with three teaspoons of sugar.
Katie poured the tea, and Bern watched the top of her head. When she looked up to pass him his cup, she saw the old remembered sardonic gleam in his eyes.
She supposed it had been there all the time. The light from the window had misled her.