To the Wild Sky

by Ivan Southall

  At the present moment, the trouble was that she didn’t really want to go to Coonabibba. It might be fun to fly 300 miles there and back in the aeroplane – if she managed not to be air-sick – and to stay for three days on a famous sheep station, but it all came back to Gerald Hennessy, didn’t it? And how could she cut Gerald Hennessy out of it? It was his home. It was his week-end. It was his party.

  She had never been greatly impressed by Gerald Hennessy. There seemed to be something phoney about him, though it wasn’t anything she could really name with fairness. He was just too clever, too good looking, too free with his money and too well dressed.

  None of it was Gerald’s fault, he couldn’t help being born intelligent and generous and handsome, nor was he to be blamed for all that the accident of his circumstances had blessed him with. It was not his fault that his father had inherited the Crown leasehold of 800 square miles of semi-desert grasslands and saltbush west of the River Darling, ideally suited to the growth of fine merino wool. But in a way Janet did hold these things against him (and his father as well), even though Bruce, her brother, was one of Gerald’s best friends.

  She didn’t think it was right that people should have everything so easy when her own father was twice the man Mr Hennessy would ever be, yet was always struggling to pay the bills. Just as Bruce – so like his father – would one day have to struggle to pay his bills, while Gerald would lord it over his inherited kingdom out in the glowing west where the sun set.

  She didn’t believe for a moment that it was Gerald himself who had thought of inviting her to his fourteenth birthday party. He would have invited Carol Bancroft – Carol was his type. Carol might not have a wealthy family behind her, but she had poise and polish and maturity way ahead of her thirteen years. By contrast and in her company, Janet often felt like something that the cat had dragged in. It was not that she was jealous – of Gerald or of Carol – but something about them both made her mad.

  She believed her own invitation was a sympathy invitation from Gerald’s mother, perhaps based on the mistaken hope that Janet would be good company for Carol, or because she was Bruce Martin’s twin sister. (People spoke of obligations where twins were concerned.) It was not that Janet actually feared her week-end at Coonabibba; there were occasions when she felt very excited about it, when she thought of sheep and horses and desert sunrises, but she felt out of it, rather like a gatecrasher, as though she had not the slightest right to be going there.

  Bruce burst in. ‘Come on, Jan. Stir yourself. Mum’s havin’ hysterics. The lunch is spoiling, she says.’

  *

  The taxi tooted for Gerald at twelve-fifty and his aunt said, ‘Bye-bye, darling. Happy birthday tomorrow.’ Then she pecked him on the cheek and shut the door before he reached the front gate. He heard the door close and stopped for a moment in his stride. Yes, the door was certainly shut and she had gone back to her ancestral parlour where the blinds were drawn, back to her midday film on television, a drippy old film made in the year dot about a poor little rich girl who had everything in the world she wanted, absolutely everything, happiness and all. Of course she was terribly miserable about it. That was the point of the story. It didn’t make sense to Gerald, or to anyone else probably, except to people like his aunt. She’d rushed back to it to shed another tear or two.

  Gerald shrugged his shoulders (what did he care?) and smiled, not awkwardly, but with self-consciousness at the taxi driver. He knew the driver. Bert. Everybody called him Bert. What his other name was Gerald had no idea. Unless it was Taxis. That was how he was listed in the phone book.

  ‘Hi,’ said Gerald; but he knew that Bert expected more of him. He could see it from the look on the man’s face, that twisted look, caused by more than the midday glare. ‘Oh, her,’ he said, ‘don’t take any notice of her. There’s a film on.’

  But Bert hadn’t come down in the last shower. He knew. There was a woman like it in his own family. ‘Does she ever wave good-bye, or is there always a film on?’

  ‘Gosh,’ said Gerald. ‘I’m only going for three days.’

  ‘That’s not the point, kid.’

  Gerald shrugged. ‘Maybe not, but I don’t care.’ He didn’t either. What was the use of caring? His aunt would never change. There was always a conversation something like this when he rode in Bert’s taxi.

  The man tossed him the key. ‘Put your bag in the boot, kid.’ Bert was like that. Independent. He was noted for it. No one took offence as a rule. Then Gerald slid on to the front seat beside him.

  ‘Who next, kid?’

  ‘Do you know the Bancrofts?’

  ‘In Macquarie Street?’

  Gerald nodded. ‘Then the Kerrs at number fourteen Jacaranda Street and the Martins at twenty-three Waratah Street. O.K.?’

  ‘Yep.’ Bert moved off and squinted at the boy. ‘Don’t pick your friends from the toffee-noses, do you?’

  Gerald shrugged again. Some things were difficult to answer. He wasn’t nervous of Bert, not actually nervous, but usually in his company he found himself moving slightly to the defensive. Bert knew he was a Hennessy, of a long line of Hennessys. Bert himself was a working man – or called himself one – with no great love of the Squatting Class. Of course, no one called the Hennessys squatters any more, but pastoralist had the same sort of ring about it, the same aura of privilege and wealth that angered certain people. That Bert employed labour himself and owned six taxis didn’t count. Not to Bert. Not when he was baiting Gerald. ‘Does Dad approve of your friends, kid? Takin’ them home to the baronial hall?’

  ‘Of course.’ (There had been questions; but Gerald had no intention of discussing them with Bert.)

  ‘I’d have thought the toffs here on Phillip Street would have been more in your line.’

  ‘You thought wrong, didn’t you?’

  ‘Yep,’ said Bert, ‘I did, didn’t I? How come you don’t go to one of them posh colleges in Sydney?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Gerald, ‘too far, I suppose.’

  ‘The Richmonds send their kids and the Kingsfords send theirs and they’re farther west than you are.’

  ‘The Richmond boys and the Kingsfords only get home three times a year,’ Gerald said. ‘I like to get home once a month.’

  ‘That figures,’ said Bert, ‘livin’ in that old crow’s nest I guess you’d want to get home once a month.’

  ‘That’s not fair! You’ll apologize for that!’

  Bert flashed a grin. ‘I’m only pullin’ your leg, kid. You’re all right. You’ll do. Any kid of a squatter who’s in High School must be all right.’

  Bert still wasn’t saying the right things, not as far as Gerald was concerned, but he wasn’t keen for an argument. Gerald got flustered in arguments, particularly in arguments with men who had faces like Bert, and Bert knew it. It was a coarse face, the sort of face that came out of the gutters of London a century and a half ago. ‘There’s a breed,’ Gerald’s father had once said, ‘that will wear that face until the end of time. Coarseness. It’s in them. Steer clear of them, son.’

  Why should Gerald think of that now?

  The taxi tooted again. They had come to the Bancrofts’ house in Macquarie Street and Carol was already moving off the porch with her mother. Carol was carrying her own bag and was wearing a flouncy floral frock, too old for her years, but not too old for Carol. Girls, as a rule, didn’t interest Gerald over much, but everything about Carol excited him – she was good to know – and he hurried from the car to take the bag from her.

  ‘Hullo, Carol,’ he said. ‘Hullo, Mrs Bancroft . . . so nice of you to allow Carol to come.’

  Mrs Bancroft didn’t mind! Not where anything with people like the Hennessys was concerned. ‘She’ll be in good hands,’ she simpered, ‘and it’ll be a marvellous experience for her. You’ve never been on a sheep station before, have you, Carol?’

  ‘No, Mother.’

  They were not at all alike, mother and daughter, though Mrs Bancroft had probabl
y looked like Carol once. Carol already had poise that her mother would never acquire. Carol had a feeling for words, a tactfulness and a quality of voice that in a very quiet way apologized for her mother’s manner, without actually humiliating her mother. Of course, not everyone realized that; and Gerald was not old enough to see it or to suspect it. The Mrs Bancroft he knew and the mother that Carol knew were two different people. Even the Carol that Gerald knew and the real Carol were two different people.

  Bert tossed the key out again. Gerald caught it in his free hand and dropped Carol’s bag into the luggage boot.

  ‘Don’t spoil her, Gerald,’ Mrs Bancroft said, ‘she’s spoilt enough already, you know.’

  Gerald smiled warmly.

  ‘I know you’ll both have a perfectly wonderful time. You do seem to go together so well.’

  Gerald didn’t mind hearing that either, but Bert grimaced and ran a finger round his collar, and Carol said, ‘Good-bye, Mother, don’t worry, and I’ll keep a slice of birthday cake for you . . . I suppose there is a cake, Gerald?’

  ‘Gosh,’ said Gerald, ‘if there isn’t I’ll want to know why.’

  In a few moments the car was moving again and Mrs Bancroft was left at the kerb, alone and faintly nervous. She was jealous of her daughter and of what her daughter might become, but she loved her in a frightened way just the same.

  Carol sat beside Gerald and Bert said, ‘So it’s a birthday you’re havin’?’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Gerald.

  ‘And you’re takin’ your schoolmates home for the celebration?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Horse ridin’ and tennis parties and barbecues and all?’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘Very democratic,’ said Bert, ‘but six of you won’t make a very big party.’

  ‘There are others,’ said Gerald, with renewed caution.

  ‘Ah,’ said Bert, ‘mixin’ ’em up, eh? The blue-bloods and the hoi polloi.’

  ‘Oh for Pete’s sake,’ flared Gerald, ‘what have I ever done to you? What do you always want to be picking on me for?’

  Bert grinned. ‘I’m not pickin’ on you, kid. I’m the sort of friend a kid like you needs. What do you say, miss?’

  ‘I say you have a strange way of behaving like a friend.’

  ‘Yep,’ said Bert, ‘put a silly question and get a silly answer . . . Kerr’s place, you said?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Bert tooted, but there wasn’t any need. Mark was erupting from the house and Mrs Kerr was to be seen behind him with fingers clenched to her temples, a not uncommon attitude for her. She had problems, poor woman, and all of them began with Mark. Bert said, ‘Here comes the holy terror.’ And Mrs Kerr screeched, ‘Mark! Wait for Colin.’ And Colin, in his best suit, endeavouring without success to give the impression that Mark belonged to someone else, walked with dignity to the gate with a book in one hand and a suitcase in the other.

  ‘Hi,’ he said to Gerald and Carol, but wasn’t heard. It was Mark’s moment – not Colin’s – Mark scrambling into the back seat declaring, ‘Coonabibba, here we come!’

  ‘Take them feet off the seat,’ barked Bert, ‘or you’ll be goin’ nowhere, not even to the air-strip.’

  Colin at last caught Gerald’s eye and wiggled his suitcase. ‘What can I do with this?’

  The key came out to Colin, then he turned and waved to his mother. ‘Good-bye!’

  ‘So long, Mum,’ shrilled Mark.

  ‘Good-bye,’ she called, and they drove away.

  She stood as though stunned, for a surprising length of time, then went back inside and put the kettle on for a cup of tea.

  At 23 Waratah Street, where the Martins lived, it was different again. There Bert tooted twice and would have tooted a third time if Bruce had not appeared at the door to shout, ‘Coming! Won’t be a tick. Jan’s got something in her eye.’

  Janet was crying. She didn’t want to go. This she had decided suddenly, but refused to say why. ‘I don’t want to go, that’s all.’

  It was Carol. Carol was a lady and Janet was a crumb. Janet didn’t want to look like something that the cat had dragged in for three whole days.

  Funny; much the same sort of face on Bruce looked just right; on her it was a calamity. But she had not allowed her face to upset her life before. It had made her miserable often enough but never to the point that it had involved other people.

  ‘But why?’ cried her mother. ‘You must have a reason. People don’t get into a state like yours without a reason. You’ve been so excited about it.’

  ‘I haven’t. I don’t want to go. I don’t want to go.’

  ‘Are you frightened of the aeroplane or something?’ She had covered every other possibility. How could a mother guess the real reason? She thought Janet was beautiful!

  ‘No, no,’ said Janet.

  ‘Have you had a dream or anything?’ (Janet’s dreams interested Mrs Martin; she was sure the child was psychic.) ‘A premonition of danger or anything?’

  ‘No, no, no.’

  ‘Well what has it to do with?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter.’

  ‘It does matter.’

  ‘I just don’t want to go.’ With tight lips and teeth showing.

  ‘But you will, you know,’ roared Bruce, ‘by crikey you will.’

  ‘I’d like to see you make me!’

  ‘Janet,’ said her mother fiercely, ‘an invitation has been issued, you have accepted it and you will honour it. You are to go to the bathroom, you are to wash your face, and you are to come at once to the door.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Janet, I order you!’

  That was final in the Martin household; it always had been; so Janet went, sobbing, and Bruce said to his mother, ‘For crying out loud, what’s wrong with her?’

  ‘It’s her age.’ That was the desperate sort of generalization that covered everything when nothing else fitted.

  ‘I don’t know what her age has got to do with it. She’s the same age as me. What’s so special about it?’

  ‘You wouldn’t understand.’

  ‘You can say that again.’

  ‘She’s a girl; not a boy. Neither child nor woman.’

  ‘And what does that make me?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know, I don’t know. I’m not worried about you. Go on down to the car and tell them she’s coming. Take the luggage! Don’t leave it for me to carry. Janet’s too.’

  Bruce groaned, mumbled something under his breath, then snatched at the bags and stalked out.

  Mrs Martin went to the bathroom and found Janet sobbing into the washbasin. ‘What is it, darling?’ she said. ‘Come on. Tell me.’

  ‘I can’t. You’d be angry. Or you’d laugh.’

  ‘Mothers don’t laugh at daughters. They were girls themselves once, you know.’

  ‘I can’t tell you, Mummy. I can’t.’

  ‘Very well. Wash that face and dry it. Hurry on. You’re behaving badly. You’re delaying other people.’

  ‘Oh, Mummy,’ said Janet.

  ‘It’s the aeroplane, isn’t it, or you have had a dream?’

  ‘No.’

  Janet washed her face and took the towel from her mother’s hand and somehow managed to stifle her sobbing, to hold it down. It wasn’t easy, because everything had got away from her; problems seemed so much bigger than they had been before.

  ‘Are you composed?’

  She wasn’t, but she nodded. ‘Very well; we’ll discuss this at a later date. Come along.’

  After the car had gone, the woman turned quickly indoors and rang her husband. ‘Len,’ she said, ‘I’m worried. I’ve had a terrible scene with Janet. I’m convinced she’s been dreaming again.’

  He sighed, just a little.

  ‘I’m sure she’s had a premonition. Probably about the aeroplane.’

  ‘Look here,’ he said, ‘what if she has? What does it prove? She’s gone, hasn’t she?’

  ‘Yes.’

/>   ‘Well, for heaven’s sake stop worrying.’

  Later, she was to reproach him for that.

  2.

  Carol

  Carol was apparently full of concern for Jan’s swollen eyes and Jan was furious about it. (She was never known as Janet except at home.) ‘No, no, no,’ she protested. ‘It’s all right now. Honest it is. It was only an insect. It’s gone now.’

  ‘But it must have hurt so.’

  ‘It hurt all right,’ said Bruce. ‘You should have heard her.’

  ‘But it’s in both eyes,’ persisted Carol, ‘not one.’

  ‘I cried,’ said Jan desperately. She could take anybody’s sympathy but Carol Bancroft’s. ‘You know what it’s like when something’s in your eye.’

  Carol did know, that was the point, and she didn’t think it was something to cry about with both eyes, not when you were thirteen years old, but it was so difficult to talk to Jan about anything.

  ‘Forget it,’ Jan said. ‘Please. I was a bit of a baby but I couldn’t help it.’

  Carol wasn’t really being nasty but she could see that Jan thought she was. It was a shame that Jan was in the crowd. She would probably end up spoiling the week-end for everybody. That twins could be so unlike one another was a mystery. Bruce was good fun. Admittedly, he wasn’t like Gerald – Gerald was rather special – but Bruce was good company just the same and sometimes the life and soul of the party. When people were having fun they never counted Bruce out.

  Bert chipped in. He knew something was up and he didn’t want a howling match – or a stand-up fight – in his taxi. ‘I wouldn’t say you were bein’ a baby about it, miss. I have trouble with me left eye with things gettin’ in it, and the other one always starts up in sympathy. Tears pourin’ down me cheeks. Embarrassin’, I can tell you.’

  ‘Huh,’ sniffed Mark, to whom all tears, except his own, were a mark of weakness. ‘Wouldn’t catch me cryin’ just for somethin’ in me eye.’

  ‘You’re usually too busy howling, anyway,’ said Colin, ‘to take time off for that.’