To the Wild Sky

by Ivan Southall

  ‘I am not,’ shouted Mark.

  ‘Sit still,’ said Bert, ‘and keep your voice down. I can’t stand shriekin’ kids. If you want to ride in a taxi with grown-ups behave like one.’

  ‘Grown-ups?’ howled Mark, ‘What grown-ups?’

  ‘All right,’ barked Bert. ‘Shriek again and out! One more time, that’s all!’

  Mark grumbled and felt self-conscious and shrank into his corner, then realized that Carol had turned her head and was looking at him sternly. Just like a bloomin’ schoolteacher. It was going to be a great week-end if a fella couldn’t open his mouth. Carol was thinking much the same sort of thing, though from a different angle. She was thinking that Colin Kerr was all right in a quiet sort of way, but that the one thing wrong with him was his brother. Mark was a pest. Between the two of them – Mark and Jan – the week-end at Coonabibba had a shadow over it even before it started. She couldn’t work out why the Hennessys had asked either of them. They were both misfits. There wasn’t much to pick between the two of them.

  ‘What’s your book, Colin?’ said Bruce, to change the subject.

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘Your book?’

  ‘Oh. Oliver Twist.’

  ‘Crikey. You haven’t brought your school-work with you, have you?’

  ‘Not exactly. I didn’t think it’d hurt to read it, though. We’ve got to read it sometime, haven’t we?’

  ‘Gee. You’re keen.’

  ‘Well, Mr Crampton did say it, didn’t he? That if he gave us the time off to get away early we had to make it up.’

  ‘He was only joking,’ said Gerald. ‘He didn’t mean it. He always lets me off half a day early when I’m going home. You won’t have time to read, anyway, not with everything that Mother’s got planned for us.’

  ‘What?’ said Mark with interest. ‘What’s planned?’

  ‘All sorts of things. Even a friend for you.’

  ‘Fair dinkum?’

  ‘Lesley Harrington’ll be there,’ said Gerald.

  ‘Who’s he?’

  ‘She lives at Vernon – that’s the next property.’

  ‘A girl!’ wailed Mark.

  ‘Well, don’t go reckoning on sticking in my pocket for the week-end,’ growled Colin. ‘You can forget that idea.’

  Mark was about to shriek again but Bert’s peaked cap caught his eye and Gerald said, ‘Lesley’s brother will be there, but he’s younger, of course.’

  ‘How much younger?’

  ‘Six.’

  ‘Swipe me,’ moaned Mark and sank back in his corner, pouting.

  Colin said, ‘Who else will be there?’

  ‘A crowd,’ said Gerald, ‘a really good crowd. Mother knows how to do these things, you know. There’ll be a few older ones – about thirty all told, I reckon. They’re coming from miles around. From as far as the Mannings’, 200 miles up-country.’

  ‘Gee,’ said Bruce, ‘I didn’t know that. Why didn’t you tell a fellow?’

  ‘Beaut,’ said Colin with a sideways glance at Jan. He had had a sneaking suspicion that his fate was to have been linked with hers for the week-end, but with the odds lengthening at this rate there was a chance that it wouldn’t be. ‘Oh, beaut,’ he said. ‘Yeah, you could have told us, Gerald.’

  ‘And spoil half your fun? No fear. The Hennessys know how to run a party. It’s a week-end of surprises.’ Gerald grinned. ‘Maybe surprises for me, too. I don’t know. Mother just loves dropping things on you without warning.’

  Bert looked sour as Gerald went on talking. ‘Then on Sunday we’re going out to Silver Creek. It’s a drive of ninety miles in the old blitz buggy. A real thrill.’

  ‘Where the opals come from?’

  ‘That’s right. Be able to pick yourselves up a few chips.’

  ‘Real opals?’ said Jan, shaking herself out of her misery for the first time.

  ‘Real opals,’ said Gerald, and gave Carol a nudge that might have meant that more surprises were in store, that not only chips were to be found. That was what she took the nudge to mean, anyway. An opal on a pendant or an opal on a ring was a nice kind of thought.

  ‘Really got it organized, kid,’ said Bert, ‘haven’t you?’

  ‘I suppose so. Why not?’

  ‘I’m all for it,’ said Bert, ‘I’m not criticizin’. All depends though, doesn’t it?’

  ‘On what?’

  ‘On the aeroplane turnin’ up?’

  ‘Golly,’ said Bruce, ‘won’t it? It’ll turn up, won’t it, Gerald?’

  ‘It’ll be there,’ said Gerald. ‘Probably there by now.’

  ‘How are you goin’ to fit all this lot in?’ said Bert, for the devil of it. ‘It’s not a bloomin’ air liner.’

  ‘They’ll fit.’

  Mark sat up and took notice. If there wasn’t room for everybody he knew who’d get left behind!

  ‘Kids,’ sniffed Bert, ‘flyin’ here and there in aeroplanes just like they were pushbikes. In my time we walked or stayed home. Stayed home mostly. Kids these days get it easy. Unless they’re like them, of course!’ And jerked his thumb at Shanty Town on the north shore flats of the lake. ‘Yeh, unless you’re an abo kid, I guess.’

  ‘Come off it, Bert,’ said Gerald. And Gerald really meant it. With sudden anger. Shanty Town made him sick. He always turned his head away when he passed. ‘And what have you ever done for the aborigines, anyway, except take their money off them?’

  ‘You hold your tongue! I give ’em somethin’ for their money. I never robbed a man in me life, black or white. I give ’em a ride and treat ’em square. It’s more than your mob’s ever done for ’em.’

  That wasn’t fair of Bert; he was a man nearly fifty years of age and he should have known better. The boy might have been rude, but there was more to it than simple anger. Much more. Sensitive things that belonged to the good heart of a boy that men like Bert had forgotten or had never felt or had never known.

  The car fell silent.

  And Carol blushed. It was stupid of her. The burning flush came up and she could not suppress it. It burned until her eyes smarted.

  They saw it; they couldn’t help but see it. But they didn’t understand. They thought she felt for Gerald. (Crumbs, thought Jan, she’s human.) They knew nothing of the skeleton in the Bancrofts’ cupboard, the great-grandmother in the family tree.

  ‘She’s beautiful,’ her mother had whispered on the day that Carol had been born. ‘She’s white.’

  Silly woman. (As if Carol could have been anything else.) She should never have told the girl.

  3.

  Colin

  They were not sorry to reach the air-strip. Bert was an old sourpuss. Of course, he was renowned for it; always picking on kids; always moaning about something. He had spoilt everything for the time being, and now they knew things wouldn’t start looking up until they got rid of him.

  ‘Old crumb he is,’ mumbled Mark under his breath, ‘maybe he’s got a bellyache or somethin’.’ Or perhaps it was the sort of day when all grown-ups had bellyaches. His mum had been the same: nag, nag, nag. And Mrs Martin had come down the path bashing Jan’s ear, hardly stopping for breath. Maybe Jan had been crying for that, rather than for what she’d got in her eye. Mark liked Jan. She didn’t have tickets on herself. Not like that other fussy-britches, that Carol, with the long-nosed glare and the hoity-toity ways. She even wore lip-stick . . . and sun-glasses like birds’ wings. Enough to give a fella the creeps.

  The Egret was there all right. They knew it was there even before they arrived (which was one in the eye for old Bert) because they saw the man from the oil depot driving his utility truck away. Not that he waved when he passed; not that he smiled or anything. Didn’t even nod at Bert. Just roared past in a cloud of dust going about fifty miles an hour when thirty would have been enough. That was something else for Bert to snarl about, because his car was black and polished like a mirror, and the air was too still to clear the dust from the track. He nosed into a fog of it and they
had to wind up the windows. It had been a dry summer, a hard summer for dust in the west, with frequent high winds and stifling calms. It was just about due to break, surely. The plains were burnt to a crisp, grass was brown or earth bare even along the river banks, and in the marshes black mud had set like crazed concrete and turned to grey. Only the trees were green, though their foliage was dusty and dirty. It wasn’t a real drought, but it could become one if rain held off for much longer.

  The car run out on to the strip, into clearer air, and the Egret came into view, a small, high-winged monoplane with a radial engine and a closed cabin. She had a yellow fuselage, white rudder and black wings and tailplane. The colours were an insult to the eye, deliberately so. The plane was painted, not to merge into the western landscape, but to be distinct from it, to be clearly visible on the ground in the event of mishap or forced landing. Not that the Egret made a habit of that sort of thing. It was a particularly good little aeroplane, reliable and robust, a lucky little aeroplane with a history entirely free of incidents and accidents.

  ‘There she is,’ said Gerald needlessly.

  She was a great sight. She spelt adventure, and escape from Bert and his taxi. For once, Bert knew that he had gone too far, but the art of making an apology was not his strength. He did try to smooth things over but it didn’t work out. Gerald paid the fare and Bert said, ‘You’ll be back about eight o’clock Monday morning, I suppose?’

  ‘I expect so.’

  ‘O.K. I’ll be waiting for you.’

  ‘You can wait if you like, but not for me. I’d rather walk.’

  By then the others were out, the boys were heaving the luggage from the boot, and the pilot of the aeroplane had wandered over from the shade of the wing for a chat. Or at least that appeared to have been his intention until he heard the tone of Gerald’s voice. Then he turned away.

  Bert had nothing more to say. He pocketed the fare and drove off with a brow as black as thunder, leaving his passengers grouped together, like people marooned on a railway platform between trains. It was a strange sensation. Momentarily, they felt lost. Every one was out of sorts, even the pilot. One look at his face was enough to tell them that.

  ‘Ready?’ he said, as though he didn’t care one way or the other.

  ‘Yes,’ said Gerald, ‘but that taxi driver!’

  ‘What’s up with him?’

  ‘It’s what he said.’

  Jim Butler saw that as an invitation to pursue the topic, but he couldn’t be bothered; he’d had troubles enough of his own with the character from the oil depot. Not that it had come to words, but there had been an undercurrent of irritability, a lack of patience and of common courtesy. Perhaps the fault had been Jim’s. He was honest enough to admit that. He didn’t feel his usual self. It was one of those days. And now a plane-load of children to cap it off. They’d better behave!

  ‘Have you all flown before?’ he said. And something in his voice warned them that here was yet another grown-up of uncertain humour. Though he looked a nice enough man, rather like somebody’s fond father, they knew he wasn’t. Gerald had told them that he was a drifter, an adventurer who had turned his hand to a dozen jobs in as many countries round the world.

  Colin said, indicating Mark, ‘We haven’t been up before.’

  Jim grunted. ‘But the rest of you have?’

  It appeared that they had, if nods meant anything.

  ‘Any of you get air-sick?’

  Jan looked awkward. ‘Sometimes,’ she said.

  ‘Yeh,’ agreed Bruce. ‘All times, she means.’

  ‘Air-sick?’ squealed Mark. ‘How can air make you sick?’

  ‘The aeroplane, son,’ said Jim, taking the lad’s measure. Mischief written all over him. Give him an inch and he’d take a mile. Jim marked him down mentally as a character to be dealt with severely. ‘It’s the aeroplane, son, not the air. Just as it’s the ship, not the sea . . . Anyway, we’ll soon find out. And so will you. What’s your name?’

  ‘Mark.’

  ‘Sorry,’ said Gerald, ‘I should have introduced you, but that Bert’s got me all stewed up. No matter what he says he’s always having a shot at you.’

  Jim shrugged. ‘I’ll pick them up as we go along and then I’ll remember them. You, lassie?’

  ‘Jan Martin.’

  ‘I think you’d better sit up front with me, Jan. If you’ve got something to watch maybe you’ll feel less like being sick.’ This was a disappointment for Gerald. That was his seat. Sometimes Jim let him fly! ‘And there’s one thing you’re all to remember,’ Jim went on. ‘Stay put. She’s no air liner; if you start moving round you’ll upset the trim; and I want a nice, steady flight. No excitement, no horseplay. You’ll be in the air for three hours. I want three hours of good behaviour. And you – Mark – any nonsense and I’ll chuck you over the side.’

  ‘Crikey,’ wailed Mark, ‘what have I done, mister?’

  ‘Nothing,’ said Jim, ‘and that’s the way I want it. And call me Jim. No frills. Plain Jim.’

  Jan didn’t know about that. She doubted whether she could call a man old enough to be her father by his Christian name, and oddly enough she caught Colin’s eye. Colin’s expression seemed to suggest the same doubts. Then Carol said, ‘I’ve brought some barley sugar, Jim. Perhaps that’ll help the ones who might feel sick.’

  ‘Just the thing. Hand it round. You’re —?’

  ‘Carol.’

  ‘Very thoughtful of you, Carol. All right, all aboard. See to the luggage, will you, Gerald, and see if you can do it without my having to restack it!’

  Jim took the Egret to the end of the strip, Jan beside him in the right-hand seat, tense and erect, her piece of barley sugar already crushed between her teeth, her pulse already quickening, her safety belt, if anything, too tightly drawn.

  Was this really why she had not wanted to go? Was it the fear of physical wretchedness, this awful sickness that was at the bottom of it, rather than Gerald or Carol or looking like something that the cat had dragged in? Perhaps it was the aeroplane all the time. Perhaps her mother was right. Perhaps everything else was just an excuse to conceal the real fear.

  The lake was scarcely a hundred yards away. Birds disturbed from the shore-line reeds scattered across the open water in a flurry of beating wings – a soundless flurry. They could hear nothing but the rumble and crack of the Egret. She had a healthy engine, with a snarl in the exhaust. It was an engine like a predator in its prime, sound in wind and limb, vocal, full of fight.

  Jim throttled back and stood cross-wind – not that there was any surface wind to speak of – and checked his cockpit. The altimeter, he noticed with surprise, required an adjustment of several hundred feet: that meant the barometer was falling. A weather report would be useful, but he couldn’t get one here, not without the long-range transmitter that the Egret lacked. Wealthy people were sometimes mean in curious ways. Hennessy had said, ‘Too expensive. No call for it.’ It was a statement that Jim had felt like rubbishing.

  He throttled fully back and shouted, ‘Who heard the midday news? Anyone?’

  ‘I did,’ Colin yelled from behind.

  ‘What’d they say about the weather?’

  ‘Continuing hot, I think.’

  ‘Lot of drongos,’ said Jim, ‘barometer’s falling like a brick.’

  He advanced the throttle, turned the aircraft a few degrees, then locked the brakes again. That brought the sky in the south and the west into view. He was right: cirrus was coming in at about 15,000 feet. The blue was whitening. ‘See that,’ he yelled, ‘weather’s coming! I hope you’ve packed your gum boots.’

  ‘No,’ said Jan, wide-eyed.

  Jim turned a keen eye on her and smiled reassuringly. ‘Just my joke, lass. O.K. everybody. Take off!’

  It was as sudden as that. Colin had expected something more of a preamble, perhaps hoped for it, a pause of suspense or anticipation, a bristling of feathers perhaps. Instead, the Egret swung on to the strip, roared migh
tily, and lumbered off dragging her tail along the ground like a log of wood, jolting and jarring and vibrating, as though determined to shake Colin’s teeth from his head. Colin sat on the floor, squashed up among shoes and legs, his best suit already soiled with dust. There were four seats at the back but Colin made the fifth and – so often the perfect gentleman – had insisted upon his own discomfort, though for weeks he had longed to watch the take-off, to treasure the first golden moment of flight.

  Oh, the movements down there on the floor were most peculiar; the change from rough to smooth, the hard and shattering assault of sound. Dust puffed over him, his back bent in the middle, his stomach dropped a foot until he was sure he was sitting on it. He felt giddy, bloodless, and suddenly sick, and he had to swallow very, very firmly, and close his eyes tightly. The Egret might have been a hundred feet up or a hundred feet underground. He didn’t know and he didn’t care.

  In a moment he felt a hand on his shoulder and looked up, panting. It was Gerald. His lips seemed to be framing the words, ‘Are you all right?’

  Colin didn’t know whether he was all right or not. It was too soon to say. Oh, it was an awful, awful feeling. Gerald bent lower. His face came very close and looked strained. ‘Take my seat!’

  Gerald started struggling out of his seat, trying not to stand on Colin. There was so little room and so much noise, and the aircraft was climbing so steeply that Colin was scared to move, almost too scared to breathe. He was going to be sick.

  He groaned for air. He felt terrible, ashamed, weak, sore. And he couldn’t stop. ‘I’m sorry,’ he moaned, but no one heard him. They couldn’t hear him and didn’t want to, anyway.

  If he had been sick in any other way it would have been different. If he had broken a leg or caught a fever it would have been quite another thing. Their thoughts then would not have been for themselves. Even the shame they felt now was for themselves; that they knew him.

  All Gerald could do was to fall back in his seat and turn his head away, dismayed and angry, sorry that he had ever asked the Kerrs, either of them, Colin or his pest of a brother. That was what his eyes said to Carol: ‘Who would have guessed it?’