by Lucy Walker
‘There’s plenty of time,’ Katie said easily. ‘You see, the fact that I’m a minor might make him also think I’m not grown up yet. You could perhaps tell him ‒’
‘I’ll do that, Katie. I’ll tell him the exact facts of the situation.’
That sounded as if he might be laughing at her again!
She unhooked her feet from the stool bar, stubbed her cigarette in the ash-tray, and stood up. She felt very tall, almost as if she was stretching, except that that wouldn’t have been a very nice thing to do to a man who had just proposed to her. He might have thought she was trying to ‒ well, trying to be physically attractive to him.
‘I’ll have my coffee,’ she said with mustered dignity, turning away to the bench.
Bern watched her slim trim figure as she went to the bench, the bent head as she added a dash of milk to the top of her coffee.
He pushed his own cup aside and stood up.
‘You won’t forget I said you were very lovable, will you, Katie?’
Her shoulders seemed to droop as if suddenly she was tired.
He came and stood behind her, very close, and put his arms around her. He held her loosely, yet gently.
‘Not the arms of a lover ‒’ she thought. ‘Not like Gideon Dent. No passion ‒’ Nothing on earth would have made her turn round, because then he could have seen her face. She leaned her head back and rested it against him.
It was very lovely, like this all the same: if only her heart hadn’t been so sad.
Funny, minutes ago there had been a spirit in her like fire. Now she was just a sad sap, leaning back against a nice man ‒ one whom she might marry though she wasn’t at all certain about that yet. He was not really the loving kind: though he was gentle, sometimes.
‘Good night, Katie,’ Bern said. ‘Think about it all, won’t you?’
Think about it? In the name of heaven, what did he think a girl did when a man asked her to marry him? Especially a man who found her ‘lovable’ like you find a small child lovable?
Meantime, over in room eighteen Tom Ryde stretched himself easily in the arm-chair. Jill sat upright on the stool by the table and Stella sat on the bed, crossed legs tucked under her.
‘Bern’s gone somewhere visiting,’ Jill said. ‘Maybe he met an old crony from the bush and is having a drink with him. Make up your mind, Tom. Slip off now and don’t let him know you’ve been; or dig in, then say you were bored with Pandanning and came down to meet us. He could walk in any minute.’
‘I’ll give it another ten minutes and play it either way,’ Tom said grinning easily. He was his very affable self. ‘Anyone would think by your faces, girls, we were doing something outside the law. We’re not. It’s all square and above board except you have to hide your hand and get your timing right. Bern Malin, and Gideon Dent Ltd., are doing exactly the same.’
‘Oh, yes. We know all about that,’ Stella said irritably. ‘It’s the timing business that gets me bothered. Tom, for goodness’ sake, you like Katie? Why don’t you marry her? A big diamond ring, a rush licence and you could do it before she had time to think about it. She’d marry you bang-off, if asked. You’re a grazier. You have property, and quite a lot of money invested. She’s a nobody with absolutely nothing. She’d jump if asked.’
‘If she jumped, then okay by me,’ said Jill. ‘But I wouldn’t have her bulldozed into it even if it did mean we had a side view on to everything that Bern Malin and Gideon Dent Ltd. did. She’s a nice girl.’
‘No girl’s nice,’ said Stella shortly, ‘when she’s in the jungle on the husband hunt. That’s what Katie is, isn’t she? Tom, why don’t you let yourself be caught? You’d be happy, and it would be the making of us all.’
‘Katie doesn’t show symptoms of being on the hunt to me,’ Jill said pointedly.
‘Look, girls,’ Tom interrupted peaceably. ‘Stop sparring now. We Rydes all stick together in moments of crisis. Right? Okay! Now is the time. Impending crisis anyway. If Bern’s going through to Perth, then I’m going through on his heels and I want you girls to cover up for me. I’ll collect a gold ring on my way back. If it pans out the way I think it will I’ll come back a richer man, and share the spoils. Right?’
‘Right!’
‘Meantime, Stella, try and put a halter on Bern yourself. Nothing like a second angle to the side view on Malin’s Outpost ‒ and what goes on there.’
Jill jumped up and went to the work bench.
‘I’ll make a second lot of coffee now and if Bern doesn’t come then you shoot through, Tom. I’d rather have it that way. I hate too many lies. I could turn red and give the show away.’
‘Don’t worry, old girl. You stopped turning red when you used to pan the gold specks from old man Dent’s tailings found the reef when you were ten years old.’
‘I wish it was gold now, and not all those other minerals with the odd, if glamorous, names.’
‘More money in them by a long chalk these days.’
‘Ilmenite, monozite, zircon, rutile? What do they mean anyway?’
‘Money.’
‘Beautiful money,’ said Stella reminiscently. ‘I’ve heard about it but I haven’t seen much of it lately.’
‘Keep trying, sister, and you will,’ Tom said optimistically. ‘We can’t sell the U.S. market enough ilmenite. They use the titanium in it for high-speed aircraft ‒ space-age stuff; and the dioxide for pigments in paints.’
‘How much do you think Bern has?’ Stella asked looking at her brother thoughtfully. ‘I mean money, not ilmenite.’
‘I wouldn’t know, but plenty. You needn’t worry about that.’
‘Drink your coffee and stop talking about it,’ Jill said bringing the refilled cups to them. ‘He might walk in any moment. Changing the subject on the click of a door latch is never as easy as it seems. Not for me, anyway. In spite of the gold specks, I happen to have an honest streak in me.’
‘Phooey to that!’ Stella was scathing. ‘In love, money and war no one is truly honest. Come on, sister Jill, would you lie still and take it if I went after Alan Renshaw, so handsome, dapper and kingly in that accountant’s dug-out in the bank? Would you say no to a handsome profit on a legitimate share deal?’
‘You keep your eyes from bedazzling Alan, Stella,’ Jill said, signs of temper fraying her words. ‘I might find out something about myself ‒ namely that the bitten can bite back, and don’t you forget it.’
‘Hey! That’ll do, girls,’ Tom said placatingly. ‘Stella will keep away from the bank if I have to keep her away, Jill. Don’t you worry. She has admirers enough of her own in Pandanning. One or two of them sizeable prizes at that ‒’
‘I wasn’t talking about prizes,’ retorted Jill. ‘I was talking about Katie. As time goes on I’d just as soon you both left her alone. That is, Tom, unless she really likes you: and you can honour, love and do your best by her, including young Andrew.’
‘Ye Gods!’ Stella said. ‘Young Andrew! The child’s unnatural. What does he sit and think about? Why doesn’t he go and play hop-scotch?’
‘It’s out of fashion,’ Jill said flatly. ‘He’s keeping with-it his own way. He has a pile of hurried-up paintings in that bag of his ‒ knee-deep.’
Tom had finished his coffee, most of it down in one boiling gulp.
‘Look, girls, I think I’ll shoot through. I’ll watch out to see what Bern’s next move is when he hits Pandanning. If he takes straight off for Perth I’ll be along in his dust cloud.’
Chapter Sixteen
Bern Malin had made up his mind what he would do next long before the party reached Pandanning.
When he arrived at the girls’ coffee party, scarcely five minutes after Tom had made his hurried departure, he said nothing about certain shadows on the window that had told him three-quarters of an hour earlier that Tom Ryde had arrived at One Gum Hill to visit his sisters. Neither did he hint at the fact that the aroma of cigarette smoke in the room was not of any brand he knew the girls smoked.
He did not mention Tom’s name to the girls as he drank Jill’s third brew of coffee; the second that night for him. Neither did he mention Katie, Andrew or when he would take off for Perth.
He talked instead of hay-ricks, sheep-trains and why didn’t Stella and Jill go to bed early.
‘Tired lines are strictly for the kangaroos,’ he said parting from them at quite an early hour. ‘See you in the morning, girls. We leave crack-on six. Did you get your chits in for an early breakfast?’
‘We did,’ both said warily, in unison. There were times when Bern made the pace too hard. They hadn’t wanted to go to bed early; but then they didn’t want to rise at six either.
‘Oh, well,’ Stella said philosophically. ‘At least we’ll get there in time for a hair-do before sundown. You ought to suggest it to Katie, Bern. She’d improve no end with a soft perm and a fashion set. These country girls ‒’
‘For crying out loud!’ Jill laughed. ‘What are we, if not country girls? My goodness ‒ hundreds of miles from the nearest town ‒’
They were reluctant to let Bern go, and Stella was reluctant to give up the theme of Katie’s shortcomings. She had an awful suspicion that Bern might have been over there talking to Katie in his long but opportune absence after dinner.
‘Give it up, Stella,’ Jill said in exasperation. ‘Good night, Bern. See you in the morning.’
Without letting Stella say another word Jill firmly closed the door on Bern’s departing footsteps.
‘You don’t play your hand very well, Stella,’ was her last statement for the night. ‘Cracks about Katie don’t get anyone anywhere with Bern. She’s on his hands and he has far too many good manners to let us think he does anything but like it. Take that from me, sister. I happen to have a noticing eye.’
Before going to his own room Bern made a long-distance call from the telephone on the desk in the motel. The line was an outpost line and had to go by radio to Pandanning. He asked for a small chartered plane to be on the ready about the time he estimated he would get to the town.
‘No Moth,’ he added to his message. ‘I want a Cessna.’ He had always found that to ask high meant you generally had something. Start low and you had nothing.
The drive from One Gum Hill was much the same as the drive from Ryde’s Place except that the farther they went the more fertile the paddocks appeared. There were more trees, and occasional farmsteads surrounded by beautiful gardens, watered from artesian bores.
It was strange, Katie thought, how she felt like the luggage again once they were all aboard the car. It was something to do with the possessive attitude Jill, and especially Stella, had to Bern Malin. Bern did not reject them, yet in some elusive way still seemed to be in a masterful world of his own behind that steering wheel. He was the driver, so remained aloof.
Andrew was in his day-dream world.
Nice to be Andrew! Katie thought, not for the first time in her life.
At Pandanning Bern went into action at top speed, as soon as he pulled up outside the hotel.
‘You unload first, Stella, and Jill next,’ he said. ‘I’ll drive the car round to the car-park at the back and leave it there for Tom. The keys will be at the front office. Katie, will you and Andrew leave your bags on the footpath while I go up to town to make a few inquiries? I shouldn’t be more than ten minutes.’
‘The hotel’s not booked out,’ protested Jill. ‘There must be rooms for Katie and Andrew ‒’
‘I don’t know what Tom has done about bookings. You’d better see if you can contact him. If I can manage a flight to Perth I’ll take Katie and Andrew with me. It’s a matter of a few days only, but they have business to do, as I have. Tom will understand.’
Stella and Jill, standing side by side, stared at Bern as he removed bags and cases from the boot of the car at top speed.
‘You’ve made up your mind about that pretty quick, haven’t you, Bern?’ Stella asked coldly.
‘I have, but then I always do.’
It was as simple as that. He was taking Katie and Andrew to Perth. He announced it now for the first time. Except for a mollifying smile in Stella’s direction, and something nearly a wink for Jill, he did not explain himself.
‘Bring me back a bouquet of flowers, Bern,’ Stella called to his receding back.
He turned, grinned, then raised his hat.
‘I’ll bring you back a forest of flowers,’ he said.
Stella bestowed on Katie an air of warning. It said she, Stella, wasn’t bested yet. Not by a long chalk.
‘He will bring the flowers. He always does,’ she said. ‘A not very changeable person is Bern: and he always comes back to me. In the end!’
‘Take note,’ Jill whispered in Katie’s ear as she picked up her bag. ‘Leastways, that’s what you’re meant to do.’
The flight in the Cessna was wonderful. The plane was a bird itself, very tiny yet very comfortable. The pilot had immediately asked Andrew if he would like to sit up in the seat next to him. That was the end of Andrew for the two and a half hour flight.
It passed like a dream for Katie. Bern said very little except now and again to point out, through the tiny window, things that might interest her. The farmlands, intermittently broken by great stretches of sand-plain or bush, were patch-work quilts laid out on the ground. The roads and tracks were tiny fine brown snakes winding over a cardboard land.
After they arrived at the airport all was anti-climax.
‘Are you all right, Katie?’ Bern asked once as they drove into the city.
‘Yes. But dreadfully tired ‒ that’s all.’
All day she had wondered if he had forgotten what had taken place last night at the motel. If he remembered, did he think it had been no more than a game of charades? Who had proposed to whom ‒ she wondered a dozen times.
She knew what was wrong with her now. She was in a daze. Bed, she gladly thought, was the best place. In the morning she might get back to being normal. She’d be Katie with her head up, at least.
‘I’ll have to ask you to excuse me as soon as I have booked you and Andrew into your rooms,’ Bern said. ‘I’ve very urgent business to attend to and I think I can catch a man I need to contact some time to-night. I’ll see you both at breakfast in the morning and tell you what arrangements I’ll make for the next few days. Will that be all right?’
Katie nodded. Of course it would be all right. Engaged people didn’t kiss one another good night when they were engaged the way she and Bern were. In fact they didn’t kiss at all.
If they were engaged.
Katie, almost in a dream from exhaustion, wondered how did she take back that dreadful question of hers ‒ Then, why don’t you?
He shouldn’t have said he’d sooner marry her than see her marry Tom, of course. It was enough to challenge any girl with spirit.
Oh, bother! She was too tired to think. To-morrow she would worry about it. To-morrow was always another day.
It was, indeed.
Bern was what Mrs. Potts was fond of calling him ‒ flat-out busy.
Over breakfast he told Katie he had not come in from his business talks till two in the morning. Moreover he had arranged for the loan of a typist. The typist had arrived at seven-thirty this morning and he had only finished working with her in one of the upstairs commercial rooms ten minutes before breakfast.
Katie blinked.
‘She must be an early riser.’
Bern grinned.
‘She was. So was I. I was waiting for her fifteen minutes before she arrived.’
Katie thought Bern looked very bathed and shaven ‒ quite immaculate in fact.
‘Do you always do things like this?’ Katie asked, perplexed.
‘Not always. This time is special.’ His grey eyes, over the silverware on the table, had that smile in them. It amused him to see Katie’s surprise.
She too had risen early and found a housemaid who could press the best of her light summer dresses for her. She had washed her ha
ir under the shower and brushed and combed it till she was sure the glimpse of red in it would show up once she was in the right light. She made up her face carefully, put lotion on her hands and polished her fingernails.
She had to look her best, now she was in the city. The grooming was a war paint as much as anything else. The fun-making role, she decided, was the one with which she had to talk to Bern about that ridiculous situation into which they had both landed themselves in the motel.
They’d laugh the whole thing off this morning. She would keep her dignity, and he would keep his freedom.
She wasn’t thinking of Stella Ryde either. She had forgotten her, temporarily. She was thinking of herself.
Be careful, Katie, a small voice whispered. Don’t do something you’ll regret all your life. You love him. You’re suffering from wounded vanity, that’s all.
She listened while Bern continued to tell her about his late hours and his early morning typist.
I suppose she’s pretty too! Katie thought, over her grapefruit.
Katie! Katie! What has become of you? Catty about a typist you’ve never seen!
She remembered Gideon Dent. She loved him too, didn’t she? That would be enough to sustain her. She’d have to think about that all day while Bern managed the affairs he was describing to her; and until her courage ‒ and wisdom, if she had any ‒ came back.
She lifted her head suddenly.
What had he just said?
‘It’s a matter of luck,’ he was continuing. ‘I told Barnes I wanted to take young Andrew to Calajira and would need to charter that Cessna again. He told me Calajira was currently giving an exhibition in a private gallery in South Street. He could be found ‒ at a pinch: though he’s elusive and shy.’
‘You mean Calajira’s here? In Perth?’ Katie asked, incredulous.
‘Gone to earth in the outer suburbs, but Barnes thinks he can find him for me.’
‘I must have been day-dreaming when you were talking about Mr. Barnes. Who is he, Bern?’
‘He’s a lawyer and accountant, all in one. He does my business for me. It was his typist I borrowed.’