by Amanda Doyle
‘Indeed I have, but you’ll have to wait till tea-time.’
‘Gee, Kerry, that’s an awful—awfully—long time to wait.’
‘And you must put on a pretty dress for tea, because after all, it’s a birthday tea, and I will, too. And Daddy says he’ll come in for tea today—and Andy, too.’
Hilary’s eyes shone.
‘Gee, Kerry!’ she said again. ‘I’ve never had a birthday tea before.’
She watched excitedly that morning while Kerry made tiny meringues, and funny little biscuits in animal shapes, with raisin eyes and blanched almond ears. She hadn’t seen the cake, though. That was hidden away.
‘We’ll have lemonade, too,’ Kerry informed her gaily. ‘One always has lemonade at birthday teas.’
‘Kerry, I wish we could have it right now.’
Hilary was more than eager to get dressed that afternoon. Normally she was not exactly co-operative about washing and changing; and brushing her hair, but not today! She bounced around the room, hardly able to contain herself.
When Kerry was seated in front of the mirror brushing out her own fair pony-tail, Hilary hovered critically at her shoulder.
‘Is it long enough to plait, Kerry?’
‘I suppose it is, really,’ replied Kerry absently. ‘Why, darling? Don’t you like my pony-tail?’
‘Mm, I do, Kerry, but wouldn’t it be nice, just seeing it’s my birthday tea, if you could plait it sort of, and put it around your head?’
Kerry swung around in the chair and smiled indulgently.
‘Is that what you’d like, poppet?’
Hilary nodded solemnly.
‘I guess I would, Kerry. It would look real—really—pretty.’
‘It’s your birthday, madam,’ responded Kerry, equally solemnly, ‘so you shall have your wish.’
‘And could you plait this nice bit of ribbon in, do you think?’ Hilary held up a long, narrow green ribbon in her brown fingers.
‘I suppose I could,’ conceded Kerry dubiously, ‘but would it go with this pink dress, do you think?’
‘I think it would. It’d look sort of party-ish, wouldn’t it, on my birthday?’
It would look kind of gay, yes,’ Kerry agreed tactfully, since the little girl was obviously hovering on the brink of a possible disappointment.
There was an air of repressed satisfaction in Hilary’s eyes as she looked on while Kerry’s nimble fingers went to work.
‘Not bad, is it?’ Kerry held a hand-mirror and inspected her profile.
Her hair was not long enough to wind the plait right around her head, but she had managed to tuck it in on top of her crown and secure it with a couple of hair-pins.
‘Quite elegant, in fact.’
‘Oh, yes! Yes, it is! Thank you, Kerry! I think it looks smashing that way!’ The child seemed disproportionately pleased. She put her arms around Kerry’s neck and hugged her hard. ‘I do love you, Kerry. You re such good fun.’
‘Come on, then.’ Kerry took the small hand in hers. ‘Now we’ll have some more fun, at your party, Hilary, and afterwards I’ll give you your present. It’s not as if we’re all dressed up with nowhere to go. We’re off to a birthday tea, aren’t we?’
The table was laid especially prettily today. Fluted paper napkins were tucked into the tall, coloured lemonade glasses. Gay crackers—obligingly purchased and brought in by the mail-pilot—decorated each plate. In the centre of the table, with eight white candles on the top, sat the pink birthday cake.
Kerry rang the bell, and Andy and Tad came in together. She guessed that they had been waiting outside, anxious to be punctual for Hilary’s sake.
Kerry knew that something was very wrong indeed the moment the two men entered the room. She had always prided herself on being sensitive to atmosphere, but even if she hadn’t been, one look at Tad’s face would have been enough to tell her that he was in a state of shock. His tan had receded completely, leaving him white and strained. His forehead had gone damp, and against his ghost-like pallor, his eyes—normally so expressive—were oddly haunted, fixed. They were fixed, indeed, upon Kerry herself, from his motionless stance just inside the door.
Andy, too, was staring at her, incredulously. He hadn’t even sat down. He was standing, near his chair, looking first at Kerry herself, disbelievingly, and then at Tad, with great concern.
What could be wrong? Kerry’s alarmed gaze swept over the table and back to the men.
‘Come on, Daddy! Sit down!’ shrieked Hilary, unaware, into the hiatus.
Tad’s hand came up in the old, painful gesture which Kerry hadn’t seen for so long now. In a dazed fashion he pressed his fingers to his temple, closed his eyes for a second.
‘I’m sorry, kitten, but—I can’t wait.’ He even had difficulty in bringing out those few words.
‘But, Tad, you said—?’ That was Kerry, stunned, almost accusing.
‘I said I can’t wait,’ he repeated harshly. Then, with a supreme effort, he seemed to master himself, and turned to Hilary. ‘Light the candles, sweetheart, so I can see how pretty they are. I want to see you blow them all out, too. And then you can cut me a big piece of cake and I’ll eat it on my way back to the mill. I’ve got to get the pump together again before dark.’
Obediently Hilary did as her father had asked. When she handed him the cake, Tad dropped a kiss on the top of her head.
‘Happy birthday, Hilary,’ he muttered huskily, and then he left the party without a backward look.
After he had gone they all carried on, pulling their crackers, drinking their lemonade. But it wasn’t the same—not with an empty place at the head of the table.
Hilary’s excitement had evaporated. Finally, when she had sampled the birthday cake, she slid from her chair and declared gloomily,
‘He didn’t like it, after all.’
Kerry’s hand, stacking the plates, was suddenly stilled.
‘What didn’t he like, pet?’ she asked carefully.
‘Your hair.’
Kerry didn’t know what she had been expecting the child to say, but it certainly wasn’t that! She felt as though she had received a blow between the eyes.
‘My—hair?’ Kerry’s question was breathless. She touched the plait with a hand that trembled, sought help from Andy, saw that none was forthcoming, took another breath. ‘What didn’t he like about it, Hilary?’
Hilary shook her head. She was close to tears.
‘I don’t know, but I did hope he would!’
‘Why, darling? Tell me why you hoped he would?’
‘’Cos he liked my mummy, and she always wore her hair done up in a plait with a green ribbon in. That’s what Bluebell told me, anyway. I asked her once, and that’s what she said—that Mummy always plaited a ribbon into her hair and kind of wound it up, and green was her favourite colour.’ Hilary’s thin shoulders slumped. ‘I wanted Daddy to like you, too, Kerry, so that you could be my mummy, seeing that I haven’t got one, but he didn’t like it, after all,’ she explained sadly, reasonably.
Kerry was appalled.
Oh, Tad! Tad!
With an effort she said calmly, ‘Never mind, Hilary. He loved your cake, didn’t he? He took a very big piece. Now, come into the kitchen and stay with Bluebell for a while, and I’ll give you the present I promised. It will keep you guessing for ages, you wait and see.’
Kerry didn’t remember, afterwards, whether she had stacked the remaining plates or not. When she returned to the dining-room Andy had gone, and she didn’t permit herself to think at all after that. She simply went to her room, packed her few belongings, and left her suitcase beside the dressing-chest.
Catching sight of her reflection as she passed by the mirror, she pulled out the hair-pins that secured the plait, wrenched at the ribbon and threw it on the bed, and then tumbled her hair loosely down her back.
Then she went down to Andy’s cottage.
‘Andy?’
‘That you, Kerry girl? Come on in. I was kind of
expecting you.’
‘Andy, I’m leaving,’ Kerry stated baldly. ‘Please take me out, Andy—on the plane. Will you?’
‘Now look here, Kerry, take it easy,’ the book-keeper tagged soothingly. ‘Let’s keep things in proportion. You can’t just walk out over a little thing like that.’
‘Sit down, Kerry.’ Andy put her into a chair. ‘Let’s be reasonable.’
‘I am being reasonable, Andy, but I—I—can’t go on like this. You saw what happened with your own eyes. I can’t ever face Tad again after what I did to him today.’
‘Yes, I saw what happened, Kerry, but it wasn’t your fault. You can’t wonder at a bloke skinning out like that when he’s confronted with a pretty fair reminder of his—er—dead wife, can you? But he’ll get over it.’
“You said she was beautiful, Andy.’
‘So are you, Kerry,’ he stated simply. ‘Didn’t you know?’
‘But not like her?’
‘No, not like her. It was just the ribbon—the fair hair, too, I guess.’
‘But you saw what it did to him, Andy. It was so cruel—so incredibly cruel!’
‘But it wasn’t your fault, lass. There’s no need to leave. He’ll get over it. Tad’s tough. Hilary sort of had you framed. When it’s explained to him, Tad’ll understand.’
‘Oh, Andy, how can you be so dim!’ Kerry was near the end of her tether. Her voice rose to a hysterical pitch. ‘I love him, Andy. I love Tad, do you hear me—but it’s no use, and it never will be. That’s what I found out, today, up there at the birthday party. I hurt him unbearably up there, but even if he gets over it, I won’t. I can never be anything to Tad, Andy—never compare, right here in flesh and blood, with even his memory of her. If I stay, I’ll just go on hurting myself, bruising myself, and I’m too much of a coward to do that, Andy. I couldn’t bear it, not for another single day!’
‘Great Scott!’ Andy uttered. ‘Well, I’ll be blowed!’ Then he lapsed into stunned silence.
‘Now will you take me out, Andy?’ Kerry pleaded urgently.
Andy’s freckled hand came up to the crown of his head, smoothed his thinning hair.
‘No, Kerry girl,’ he said, very gently, but very firmly. ‘I can’t do a thing like that. Tad’s my employer, and my friend. You can’t ask me, or expect me, to do that behind his back.’
‘I thought I was your friend, too,’ Kerry reminded him forlornly, standing up.
‘You’re my friend, too, of course you are.’ Andy came over and put his arms round her, and Kerry leaned her head forward, just for a moment, against his chest.
‘But you still won’t take me?’ she persisted, in muffled tones.
‘That’s right, I still won’t take you. I can’t. You must see that. My position here is a responsible one.’
‘Yes, I do see that,’ she admitted wearily, raising her head, drawing away. ‘I was foolish even to ask.’
Andy patted her shoulder kindly.
‘Sleep over it, Kerry.’
“Yes, I’ll do that, Andy.’ But she knew that she wasn’t going to do any such thing.
Numbly, she returned to the homestead, picked up her case, went round to the garage. She only hesitated a minute before she put the case into the back seat of the Holden, added a plastic jerry-can of petrol, one of water. The garage was on the side of the homestead away from Andy’s cottage, and the noise of the electricity engine would drown the sound of the car.
Kerry reversed out of the garage. Luckily the track she intended to take was on this side also. She couldn’t go very far wrong, because Brady’s Creek outstation was due west of the homestead, and with only a few hours of daylight left, she could calculate her direction from the sun’s position if the track petered out in places. No one would expect her to head this way. They would naturally think she’d take the bitumen road to Bindi-eye. If she could reach Bob Merrit, he would take her over the plain in his old ute to Kell’s place, and maybe Kell would help her to get to Sydney. Between her salary and the extra cheque at Christmas, she could pay for any favours, and, this way, she wouldn’t even be taking Tad’s Holden off the Gillgong property, so she wasn’t actually stealing it!
Kerry drove with wooden concentration, hardly daring to allow her thoughts to wander, even for a moment, from the indeterminate tracks that wound away in front of her over the plain. It was as well to keep her mind on the route. If it was occupied by the present necessity, those other more distressing images could not intrude—Tad’s stern face with his grim features pallidly congealed in a look of horror; Hilary’s, the eucalyptus-green eyes woefully disappointed, threatening tears; Andy’s, freckled, perplexed and sympathetic, but finally adamant nevertheless.
It was cooler driving once the sun sank down behind a bank of billowing elephant-coloured cloud. Before that, it had been piercing in through the dusty windscreen, and it was a relief to find that she could see without having to screw up her eyes, or even to lean her head right out the window to see the direction of the tracks, as she had been forced to do at several points.
The interval between sunset and total darkness was, as always, brief, and soon she found it necessary to turn on the headlights. Kerry had never driven with lights on, in darkness, before. There was a rather frightening solitude about the great empty stillness of the plains at night. The scattered, low-growing vegetation added a feeling of desolation to Kerry’s own loneliness, and in the barren sweep of the Holden’s beams the intermittent stands of scrub were weird and menacing, grotesque with moving shadows.
Dazed with fatigue, she pressed on.
When the first raindrops pattered against the screen, Kerry couldn’t think what they were, but then she remembered the big bank of heavy grey cloud into which she had been driving when the sun went down, and she realized that she must be heading right into some rain. Soon it was blurring her vision through the glass, and drumming on the roof of the estate car with relentless vigour. The tracks became greasy and treacherous, and several times the vehicle slewed sideways before Kerry’s timorous pressure on the brake finally brought it to a halt.
She would have to stop.
By the number of hours she had been driving, she worked out that she must be about three-quarters of the way to the outstation. She felt too weary to reckon it out exactly, but right now, what could it matter, anyway? She would have to wait here, either for dawn to break, or the rain to cease—whichever came first—and then she would press on.
Kerry dozed fitfully, cramped along the front seat. She was too keyed up and anxious to sleep properly, even if circumstances had permitted it, but worry that the rain might not stop at all, and a latent fear that, when she did reach Brady’s Creek, there might be nobody there, kept niggling at her distraught brain even when her eyes were closed. What she would do in either of those events, Kerry honestly did not know. She had decided she must keep calm, and cope with each problem singly, in the order in which it arose.
An hour or so before dawn, the sky cleared. It looked pale and luminous and cleanly washed, and Kerry could see the moon again, a poised sickle shape in a receding sprinkle of stars whose brightness was already being sapped by the encroaching gleam of sun-up.
The Holden was once more slithering over the muddy tracks, but now Kerry could see her way, and her heart gave a tiny leap of sheer relief and triumph as she recognized the line of trees that had appeared on her horizon. They were none other than the beautiful gums that fringed the dried-up bed of Brady’s Creek, feeling down with long roots to refresh themselves at the level of the water-table, away below the surface of the creek-bed. One could tell the direction that the Brady took, even when it was dry, because of those flanking lines of gums. When Kerry had seen it first, that day with Bob Merrit, she had thought it looked more like a majestic avenue such as a Roman Emperor might have made than an actual watercourse. Indeed, a four-wheeled chariot and fiery steeds would not have surprised her if they had come charging along the rough, tree-lined route.
Brady
’s Creek didn’t look like that this morning, though. Kerry could hear the whispering noise before she was very near at all, and when she got quite close, she could see to her dismay that the trees were in the very middle of a muddy sea of frothing water which gurgled and lapped at the base of their trunks. They were some twenty yards from where the tracks upon which the Holden lay disappeared into the churning brown stream, and on the other side, Bob Merrit’s shack and the neat, raised airstrip looked remote and unattainable.
Kerry kicked off her shoes, hitched the skirt of her pink cotton dress, and waded in experimentally. No, it wasn’t really very deep, and she decided, with a measure of cautious relief, that she had a good chance of getting through. It was spread out, alarmingly wide, but not very deep—not too deep, she prayed urgently.
She returned to the car, dried her feet on a duster from the panel-shelf, and put her shoes on again. Then she braced herself nervously and slid the car into gear, edging it gingerly forward into the creek. Soon she and Tad’s Holden were chugging slowly through the flooded Brady.
Kerry licked her dry lips, and kept her foot steady. When she got to the line of gums, the water became correspondingly deeper, as she traversed the bed of the creek itself. She tried to keep the vehicle in line with the tracks which ran out of the water ahead, towards Bob’s hut, and in doing that she bounced in and out of a hole in the creek-bed. Kerry felt the tyres grinding into, and out of, the hidden depression, and she clung to the steering-wheel as it threatened to slew around out of her grasp.
A few yards further—and the engine stopped.
It simply faltered once, coughed as though it were choking, and ceased altogether. She tried several times, unavailingly, to start it again, and then in desperation leant on the horn. The horn made a quaint, loud honking noise above the sighing of the swollen waters. It lifted a horde of angry crows out of the topmost branches of the trees behind her, and brought Bob Merrit running from his corrugated-iron hut.
He stopped short when he saw who had perpetrated the commotion, and then he came slowly down the tracks to the water’s edge in a casual, bandy-legged gait.