by Lucy Walker
Oh, the pretty one!
Katie shook her head to banish that thought.
‘Please go on, Bern. Does Mr. Barnes do business at two in the morning?’
Bern broke his toast. He glanced up and caught Katie’s blue eyes looking at him with a mixture of incredulity and something much more personal to herself ‒ uncertainty.
‘If it’s urgent and mine is urgent ‒ yes. So is your business and Andrew’s business.’ He was serious now ‒ making a point firmly, as if he was aware that Katie’s early morning thoughts had not been pinned to what he had been saying.
‘Barnes is making an appointment for me to see the director of the art school at eleven o’clock. That is, if Andrew can scrape his wits together and be with me at that time. Andrew and I have other business to do later, and we may not be in again until after lunch. We could lunch somewhere in the town. Meantime would you like to go shopping, Katie?’
So Andrew and Bern had business to do together!
Andrew was hers, the only human thing she really had; but she could go shopping.
Katie said ‒ ‘Steak, with one egg, please,’ to the steward, and let her blue eyes wander round the table, round the room, avoiding Bern, then coming back to Andrew.
As usual he had said practically nothing during the meal. When he hadn’t been eating he had been watching each person enter and leave the room: his eyes had investigated the flowers in their big bowls on stands in the corners, the gilt ornamentation of the ceiling and walls, the mosaic of colours in the carpet pattern and each piece of silver and china on the table.
‘Andrew,’ Katie said gently. ‘Bern said you and he have business together.’
‘Yes, that’s right. We’re going to see some people about my paintings. Bern’s also going to show me a collection of rocks they have in the Mines Department. Coloured ones like felspars and micas. Some polished fossils too ‒ and zircons. Did you know zircons aren’t easily distinguished from diamonds, Katie? They have blue and green and mauve lights in them ‒’
Katie’s ears heard Andrew’s words but her mind would not accept them.
He was hers. Yet, some time before breakfast he had been talking to Bern and they had made arrangements ‒ without her ‒
The apron strings were loose, looser ‒
It had to happen one day. The only thing that hurt was that to-day was the day ‒ when she wasn’t quite ready.
Time had caught up with Andrew, while she wasn’t looking.
‘I hope you have a nice day,’ she said.
‘Oh, I will. Don’t you worry about that. Bern and I might get around to seeing the museum in the Mines Department too. We’re going there in any case.’
So they were going there in any case! She was excluded.
The Mines Department?
That was where one filed claims, wasn’t it? Mining rights for land pegged out prior to anyone else?
Gideon Dent’s claims?
Katie shook her head and brought her eyes back to Bern Malin’s face. He was looking down, stirring too much sugar in his coffee.
It was a good face, strong, sometimes kind even tender, sometimes cold and aloof. But it was an honourable face. She mustn’t let herself think anything so dreadful again.
She resisted him, hated him and loved him; but he had a wonderful face. He would not do that to Gideon Dent. He could even be doing business for Gideon Dent.
That was a better thought. She felt happier now.
Katie went shopping, as Bern had suggested. She bought herself a new summer dress at the sales: also a very nice pair of off-white shoes. She had a hair-set and bought a light linen hat to wear out in the Never. She carried that in her hand because to put it on would have spoilt the hair-set. She hadn’t very much money to waste but now, if ever, was the time to be personally extravagant. There was only one kind of armour a girl could wear. It consisted of a hat and dress and shoes in which, though they were not so very expensive, she felt she could face a world that was without the purpose of looking after Andrew, or her father, or someone. The engagement between herself and Bern was, of course, merely a mad night’s dramatics.
What does one do if one has no one?
Bern and Andrew did not return to the hotel for lunch so Katie took herself to a cinema in Hay Street. The film was about a girl who was very much in love with an airman. At the end of the film, the airman was killed in an air crash over Korea. It was so sad that someone sobbed four seats down the line from Katie.
Then she too cried ‒ gallons.
It wasn’t for the airman, but for all the little sorrows of her own quiet world.
She came out of the cinema blowing her nose and not looking in the gilt-framed mirrors in the foyer for fear of seeing the awful effect of swollen eyes; and lipstick probably in a frightful mess.
Worse, she couldn’t remember which turning she took to find her way back to the hotel and had to ask someone the way. The someone was a man and he wanted to walk back with her, and have a drink with her. Katie was so alarmed she nearly ran.
As she walked into the hotel entrance she knew that cities, even a small lovely one like Perth, were not for her. In the outback she was never afraid. Here, the films were too sad, and strange men too friendly. Also, without Bern and Andrew, she knew no one. In the outback she knew the kelpie dogs, Secretary and Taciturn, when he came over. Even the diggers up at the copper mine were friends now. She knew the birds and the horses out in the home paddock and the track the Rydes took when they came across for a picnic. She knew the pad the kangaroos and the iguanas, and even the snakes, made on their way down to the soak to drink at night.
She wanted to go back to Malin’s Outpost very badly and hoped her pride wouldn’t be up in arms again if Bern proposed properly ‒ of his own free will, this time.
But, of course, he wouldn’t do that.
All the same, she would go back to Malin’s Outpost, even if it was only to wait for Gideon Dent.
It was strange what magic that name was!
All of a sudden, she felt better.
If she could have a shower without spoiling her hair-set she would do that. She would put on a fresh lot of make-up; some more lotion on her hands, and wear the new dress and new shoes.
That way she would show Andrew and Bern that she didn’t care that she was mere girl and was left out of goings, comings and male conferences.
She did all these things about her toilet, then went downstairs intending to wait in the lounge for the dinner gong. She would even order herself a drink and get the steward to bring her a packet of cigarettes and a box of matches. She felt dreadful but would pretend she felt wonderful.
Sitting in the lounge, his feet sprawled out in front of him, his broad-brimmed outback hat hanging on the wall peg beside him, was Tom Ryde.
This time Katie could have cried with relief. Someone she knew.
‘Oh, Tom!’ She held out both her hands, her pleasure shining like blue and silver lights in her eyes. He took both her hands and wrung them in a good outback way.
‘Well, Katie James,’ he drawled. ‘I guessed I’d find you here. The best hotel in town. Bern Malin wouldn’t do himself anything less than the best hotel. That’s his style.’
‘A very nice style too, as I’m part of it,’ Katie said quickly. ‘Please, Tom, let me sit down. Will you order me a drink?’
‘Of course. Katie, you look beautiful. What have you been doing? I’ve never seen you look so pretty.’
‘You mean you haven’t seen me in an extra pretty dress before? Mostly you’ve only seen me in shirt and hipsters. Come to think of it, Tom, I don’t think I’ve ever had anything else on when you’ve been around, have I?’
Tom scratched his head.
‘Come to think of it, I don’t think you have, except that first night when Taciturn brought you and Jill from Malin’s Outpost. You, Stella and Jill, are always tricked up like boys. But there’s something about a girl in a dress ‒’
They were sitting
down now and Tom had given Katie one of his own cigarettes; the menthol mixture kind.
Presently the steward brought a cocktail for Katie and a double whisky for Tom. They were sitting thus, cigarette smoke wreathing upwards, glasses in their hands, when Bern Malin strode in.
‘Hallo, Tom!’ he said, nodding briefly. ‘Katie, if you’re ready I’d like you to come now. Barnes’s typist is here and there are documents for you to sign.’
‘But Bern ‒’ Katie sat quite still and stared at him.
What documents? That pretty typist again!
He took Katie’s cocktail out of her hand and put it on the table. She had let her cigarette rest on the lip of the ash-tray so Bern stubbed it out. He took her elbow as if he meant her to come, and now.
‘Excuse me, Tom,’ he said perfunctorily. ‘Katie has business to attend to ‒’
‘That’s all right by me, old chap,’ Tom said affably from the depths of his comfortable chair. He had not risen because Bern Malin had arrived. ‘It’s up to Katie, of course, whether she stays or goes ‒’
He said this last slowly, in a meaningful way.
Katie’s eyes were mesmerised by Bern, but she dragged them away to Tom.
‘Katie will come with me,’ Bern said.
‘It’s up to you, Katie,’ Tom said again quietly.
Katie wavered. She could not let Bern do this to Tom. Her eyes took in Tom’s round comfortable, easy-going face, then came back to Bern.
There it was again ‒ the thing she had seen at breakfast. The good face, the strong face ‒ and worse, the face she loved.
‘Excuse me, Tom,’ she said, almost sadly. ‘I must go with Bern.’
It was a defeat and a decision all in one. He said ‒ Come ‒ and she came. It was as simple as that. Where was her pride now? To-night, when she was alone and had a pillow to herself in a dark room she would cry ‒ infinitely more than she had cried in the cinema this afternoon. There could be nothing left of that red in her hair any more.
Bern, still holding her arm as if he were her escort, walked with her to the door. They went through it, to the lift and up to a small drawing-room on the first floor.
He shut the door and leaned against it, his hands holding the door knob behind him.
‘I’ll not let you have any meeting with Tom Ryde while we’re in Perth, Katie.’ It was as blunt as that. His determination was formidable.
She rested herself against the table in the centre of the room. She needed support.
‘Are you my master, Bern?’ she asked. ‘You cannot order me ‒’
‘For certain purposes I am your master, yes. I won’t have Tom Ryde, or anyone else, using you for information ‒ at this present time.’
Katie’s eyes were wide as circles round the moon on nights that preceded rain.
‘For information?’ She was astonished.
‘I have never told you anything, Katie, about my work out in the Never past Malin’s Outpost. I’ve not told you anything much about Gideon Dent, or what you may expect from him: or even what your future could be. That was not because I did not trust you,’ he paused, then went on grimly. ‘It was because I would not put you in the position of being jockeyed into making an innocent slip ‒ something of which everyone on earth is capable ‒ if the delver is clever enough. I would not have you used.’
‘But Tom Ryde is nice. He’s kind and ‒’
‘And is in love with you? At the best he would be a wooden husband. He is wrapped up in his sisters and his mother and they’ll be the only women who’ll get the best in devotion and loyalty from him. That they’ll get in plenty. Tom Ryde might be attracted to you, Katie. I’m sure he is, but what he wants from you is more than that ‒’ He broke off, suddenly tired, the anger dying out of him like an ebb flow.
He leaned his head back against the door and closed his eyes.
‘Forgive me, Katie,’ he said a little wryly. ‘Put it down to being possessive, will you?’
There was a long silence.
‘What you just said about making an innocent slip is quite right, Bern,’ Katie said quietly: honestly. ‘I understand that, and I’m glad you have told me nothing. After I met Gideon Dent that night, I very nearly did let slip I had seen him. That would have meant telling he was nearby, wouldn’t it ‒ to anyone who wanted to know?’
Bern brought his hands round from the door knob behind him, searched for a cigarette, then lit it. His hand, cupping the light and hiding the lower part of his face, sent a quiver of memory through Katie. He had put his arms round her at the motel; he had held her loosely but his hands had touched her. She had felt at that moment as if she wanted Time to stop. She had had to stand perfectly still and give no sign.
‘Gideon Dent and his whereabouts!’ Bern said dryly. ‘Can’t you get that fellow out of your head, Katie? He’s all for himself, that man; a shadow in the bush. If he was kind to you in that two minute meeting, it was because he wanted to be kind. Something for himself ‒’
He broke off, looking at her over the wavering light of the dying match.
‘I ought to tell you about him,’ he said with a touch of exasperation. ‘I went flat-out doing business in the middle of the night ‒ putting my name on dotted lines to-day, because I thought I’d tell you the whole thing to-night. Now I can’t ‒’
‘Because of Tom Ryde?’
‘Partly because of Tom Ryde and partly because there’s been a time delay in putting the last full-stop to my business. This was something I did not anticipate. You’ll have to trust me, Katie, and keep your patience.’
‘Of course!’ She was carefully correct about that. ‘Now, being blissfully ignorant and innocent, am I safe enough to go and finish my drink with Tom, Bern? That is what I would really like to do ‒ just now, at any rate.’
Chapter Seventeen
Bern’s eyes were suddenly like grey metal.
‘Tom will get bored with waiting; and go. Let him go. I have documents for you to sign. Apart from that, while you are here, you are mine‒’
Their eyes met. Katie’s were startled.
He had said ‒ mine. And he had meant it. They had come to a certain moment in time when both knew something had changed now, for keeps. It was as sudden as that.
Bern came to the table, flicked the dead match into the ashtray.
‘A master does not choose to sleep when someone is about to set fire to his house,’ he said slowly, almost with menace. ‘I am like Gideon Dent. We are the same. What we find we keep. Tom Ryde has no welcome here: at this time.’
Katie stood frozen by the cold anger-light in his eyes. Yet she was waiting too. What came next would be inevitable: she knew that. It was like waiting for the thunder to crash after lightning had threatened.
‘You mean ‒ you are like Gideon Dent, the father?’ she said.
‘Father and son: they are both the same.’
He stared down at her.
The power was still in him, but the tenseness was gone. Very slowly he took the cigarette out of his mouth and held it to Katie’s lips.
His eyes were inscrutable. ‘What we have we share now.’
Katie drew on his cigarette. The smoke floated away like a dream, lost and gone, towards the ceiling.
It wasn’t a game any more; or a heart’s fantasy.
He meant what he said. He had a will of iron.
There was a long, long silence.
Bern hurled the cigarette into the fire grate, and suddenly his arms went round her; his mouth was down on hers. He held her in his arms till it hurt.
So this was what had to happen!
On the screen of her eyelids she saw again his back as he had walked away into the bush that night when he brought her to the Gap from Malley’s Find. That night, the first night she had known him, had been the key to all their relationship. He had walked away from a girl who had no privacy of her own, and for whom he was responsible.
She wanted to draw away: yet could not.
This was it:
the need of man for woman.
There was no place in the bush for an unattached girl. Men were too lonely. Mrs. Potts said so. She had meant Katie to understand.
Now she understood.
Wasn’t passion, and need, enough upon which to build a marriage?
Katie’s eyes flew open.
Was she mad to think, even hope, such a thing?
Was there no one who could explain to her? Advise her?
Only Gideon Dent ‒ her kinsman.
Bern lifted his head. He took her chin in his hand and looked at her.
Something had gone out of him.
‘There was a spark but not a fire in your kiss, Katie,’ he said, almost as if tired. ‘Are you so young? Or do you really love Tom Ryde?’
‘I was thinking ‒’
‘Thinking?’ He dropped his hand. ‘Dear God in Heaven!’
There was a peremptory knock at the door. The handle turned and a woman came in.
‘Oh, I beg your pardon. Am I interrupting?’ she asked. Bern had turned with a sharp movement.
‘I waited for you in the drawing-room on the second floor, Mr. Malin,’ she went on apologetically. ‘When you didn’t come I thought you must have said the first floor. The Commercial room is booked, as you know’
She was round, not very well corseted, very plain and about fifty. She carried a brief-case in one hand and a very large shabby handbag in the other. She was clearly the typist.
Katie wanted to laugh, not at the newcomer but at herself. She put her handkerchief to her mouth because Bern’s kiss had bruised her lips. Only now ‒ belatedly, maddeningly ‒ did something in her rise to meet that kiss and give back just what she had received.
Now was her moment if Bern could have kissed her again.
Instead, she had to look across a small carpeted floor at a plain, dowdy but very polite person who was Mr. Barnes’s secretary.
‘Katie ‒ this is Mrs. Powers,’ Bern said. ‘Mrs. Powers, this is the young lady who is the one concerned in the documents. If we could all three sit down we could get on with business.’
The business, it appeared, was for Katie to supply particulars about the date and place of her birth, the names of her parents and their parents’ names too; if she knew them. Her nationality was quite important since her parents as well as herself had been born in England, not Australia.