by Amanda Doyle
‘What in tarnation d’yer reckon yer doin’ out there, Kerry?’ he called, cupping his hands to throw out the words.
‘Oh, Bob!’ Kerry’s voice was a wail. She had so nearly made it that she felt tearful with frustration. She had been so near to success, and now she was stuck.
‘I’m stuck!’ she yelled back, somewhat obviously.
‘Too right yer flamin’ well stuck!’ averred Bob. ‘What are yer doin’ there anyway? Can’t yer see she’s down?’
Kerry looked about her anxiously.
‘Who’s down?’
‘Cor luv us, give me patience! The Brady, of course—what else?’ Bob pushed his hat to the back of his head, and regarded Kerry with mounting irritation. ‘Trust a sheila ter go gettin’ ’erself stranded in the middle of the Brady when she’s comin’ down! An’ yer ain’t even got the fan-belt off, I’ll betcher! Yer’ll ’ave ter get ’er out on the starter most likely, Kerry, if she’ll come out even that way. Give ’er a go.’
‘How, Bob?’ She leaned out of the window and blinked at him helplessly.
With commendable patience, Bob began to shout instructions.
‘Put ’er into gear, Kerry—low, mind. Yer done that? Now, switch ’er on, and press the starter, an’ if yer’ve any luck she’ll come out. Get it? Keep jabbin’ at that starter, Kerry, with yer foot off of all the pedals.’
To her delight, Bob’s advice brought results.
Kerry came bounding out of the creek in a series of jolting leaps, like a hesitating kangaroo. Once clear of the water she stopped, opened the door, and clambered wearily out.
‘It worked!’ she stated jubilantly, smiling into the other’s gloomy countenance. Bob didn’t appear to share her feeling of triumph.
‘Yeah, it worked,’ he agreed darkly. ‘But yer better not let on ter Tad that yer did it, Kerry. It ain’t a good thing ter do even when yer in a jam—rough as hell on the battery.’
‘I won’t let on, Bob. In fact,’ Kerry confided tiredly, ‘I won’t be seeing Tad again.’
Bob stroked his grizzled chin, squinting at her thoughtfully.
‘Won’t yer now!’ He took her arm, and turned her in the direction of the hut. ‘Yer better tell me what gives, Kerry. A bloke don’t like ter be kept in the dark.’
While she sat on the sagging bed inside the shack, sipping a mug of tea which Bob had brewed up for her, she told him primly her reason for coming. She omitted all the details, simply stating that she was no longer happy at Gillgong and that she wanted to get back to Sydney.
‘I can pay you, of course—I insist on that,’ she assured him, when she mentioned the lift in his utility over to Kell Hunter’s. ‘You will take me, won’t you, Bob? Please?’
He scratched his head, finally nodded.
‘Reckon it’ll ’ave ter be later, though, Kerry. I got things I gotter do first.’
‘That’s all right, Bob.’ She felt weak with relief. ‘I’ll wait. Maybe I’ll even have a sleep while I’m waiting—that’s if you wouldn’t mind?’ She eyed the dirty grey blanket upon which she was sitting without even a qualm of distaste, so tired was she.
‘Sure, you do that, Kerry,’ Bob agreed amiably. ‘You get a bit of shut-eye, while I get these other things off of me mind. It’s a long way ter Kell’s place, as yer know, an’ yer look plain tuckered out ter me!’
Thankfully she stretched out on the lumpy bed. It smelt of dogs and leather and sweat, but she didn’t mind. She didn’t even think about any of those things, because in a matter of minutes she was asleep.
Kerry supposed, afterwards, that she must have slept for a very long time. For hours! Even then, when she felt Bob’s hand shaking her roughly by the shoulder, and sat up quickly, she was muzzy with sleep, clammy with perspiration, and unrefreshed. The sun beating down on the small iron dwelling had rendered it as airless and hot as the inside of an oven.
She pushed back a limp tendril of hair, blinked at Bob.
‘Yer better get up, Kerry, I reckon. The boss is here.’
‘The-boss?’
‘Yeah, the boss. Tad,’ he reminded her helpfully. He slid her a peculiar look. ‘T’ain’t me ’e’s come ter see, either, Kerry, I reckon—it’s you.’
‘Me? But—but how could he know I’m here? How could he possibly know?’ She was still too sleepy, too bewildered, to think.
‘ ’Cos I told ’im you was ’ere, that’s ’ow,’ Bob proclaimed tersely.
She put her hands to her throbbing head, staring at him in horror. All the colour had seeped from her face. She felt quite light-headed.
‘You—? How?’ Even now she didn’t believe him—not until he jerked his head to the corner, where she saw the thing which up till now had remained unnoticed, a part of the sparse amount of furniture, tucked into the darkness at the other side of the room. It was a small radio transmitter.
‘I called ’im up on me set,’ she was blandly informed. ‘Did yer think me an’ Tad sends each other messages by the blinkin’ crows, or what, Kerry?’
Kerry didn’t care about how! All she wanted to know was why!
‘But why, Bob? Why, when you said—?’
She was never to learn Bob Merrit’s precise reason. At that moment a shadow blocked most of the light out of the doorway, the shadow of a tall, broad form that could only be Tad’s.
Kerry, panic-stricken, swung her legs off the bed, looking round for somewhere to hide. There was nowhere, of course—just this one small room, hardly big enough for herself and Bob and Tad to be in it all at the same time.
Tad must have thought this, too.
‘Thanks, Bob. Go and ride the boundary or something like a decent feller, will you?’ His voice was a calm, deep drawl.
‘Sure thing, boss.’ Tad stood aside for the other man to pass, and then he and Kerry were quite alone.
For one long moment Tad just stood there, twirling the broad-brimmed hat that he had removed from his head through his square-tipped brown fingers, watching Kerry silently. Then he sent the hat spinning deftly across to land on a butter-box that served as Bob’s chair, and came to sit beside her.
His tan was a pale, yellowish tan today, not his usual deep mahogany one. She could see, too, that there were grim lines carved about his mouth, giving it a tight, uncompromising set.
‘Well, Kerry?’ he said gravely—and waited.
It was awful, this stillness. Nerve-racking. As nerve-racking as Tad’s sudden, unexpected appearance. As nerve-racking as his nearness, right here beside her on the grey-blanketed bed, although he made no attempt to come any nearer, or even to touch her.
A fluttering hand came up to her throat.
‘Tad, I—I’m sorry. Sorry you c-came out here, I mean.’ She was stammering unhappily. ‘I w-wish you hadn’t, but it makes no difference. I sh-should have handed in my notice, Tad, I realize that now. It wasn’t the proper way to l-leave, I know, but it makes very little difference, really, because I’m leaving anyway. I hope you didn’t think I’d s-stolen the car, Tad? I would never do a thing like that, but I suppose that’s what Bob must have thought. I suppose that’s why he rang—er—called you up. But I wasn’t going to take it any further than this, truly. I just sort of borrowed it, to help me to leave Gillgong, you see. I’m not a—a suitable girl for Gillgong, Tad, just like you said I wouldn’t be, so it seemed the sensible thing to do, to leave.’
A faint smile creased the corners of Tad’s stern mouth. It was reflected in a softness that crept into the gum-leaf-grey gravity of his eyes, which never wavered from her face.
He shook his head slowly.
‘I know why you left Gillgong, Kerry,’ he replied carefully, ‘and it was anything but a sensible thing to do.’
‘You—know?’ Kerry whispered, her eyes wide, round with awe, as his own held them locked in a mesmeric regard.
‘Yes, I know.’
‘How could you possibly know—except, I mean, of course, that I’m not suitable?’ she added hastily.
‘Be
cause Andy told me, you see, Kerry,’ he said to her very gently. ‘You told Andy, and Andy told me—that’s what happened. And if Andy hadn’t told me—’ he paused, his voice deepening to an odd, rough note—‘If Andy hadn’t told me, maybe I’d have to believe what you’re saying just now. Maybe I’d have had to believe you, and let you go, without ever telling you what I feel myself.’ Tad ran an impatient hand through his hair, leaving it in ruffled disorder. ‘God! To think if I’d only spoken to you two nights ago, as I meant to do, this need never have happened. If you knew what I’ve been through, Kerry, since last night, when I came home and found you gone! One hell of a chase out on the Bindi-eye road, only to discover you hadn’t gone that way, and by the time I got back it was pitch dark and raining. I hunted around all night, Kerry, but by then there was no clue—the rain had washed out all the tracks. I kept thinking of all the things that could have happened to you, all the accidents you might have had, out there alone in the darkness, and—dear heaven!—it doesn’t bear even thinking about!’
Tad got up, took a restless turn around the confined space, hands in pockets, broad shoulders hunched.
What a strange way to behave! Kerry thought, eyeing him apprehensively. There was a peculiar indistinctness in his voice, a queer glitter in his greeny eyes, a strained impatience about the way he was walking and turning. Naturally he was tired, if he had been up searching all night, imagining that some sort of trouble had befallen her. He probably felt responsible for his employees until they had actually left the property. Very likely he was angry at being summoned out here by Bob, too, and of course there was also the fact that she had borrowed the car without his permission. All of those things combined were probably enough to cause Tad to act in this frightening and unfamiliar way.
‘I’m—sorry,’ said Kerry, inadequately.
‘Sorry?’ Tad wheeled around abruptly. ‘Is that all you can say, after the hell you’ve put me through? Sorry, indeed! What sort of a way was that to treat the man who loves you?’
‘The man who—what?’ She blinked up, met Tad’s scowl.
‘You heard.’
‘I—thought I did,’ she said weakly, and then, as Tad sat down again beside her and took both her hands in his, she changed that just the tiniest bit. ‘Oh, Tad, I hope I did,’ she breathed softly, gazing into his face which was very near to hers.
‘I’m going to kiss you, Kerry,’ he muttered, right beside her ear. ‘I’ve had enough of being careful.’ Kerry hadn’t time to puzzle out that last remark. Tad’s lips touched her cheek with that light, warm, butterfly touch, as they had done one time before, on Christmas Day. Then they travelled down to the corner of her mouth, lingered there just for a moment before they sought and found her own lips.
At first, Tad’s kiss was gentle. And then Kerry felt his arms tightening about her, and he kissed her with a mastery and passion that left her trembling and breathless in his hold. Afterwards, she put her arms around his neck and hid her confused face against his shirt, while his fingers stroked her nape and husky endearments were murmured into her hair.
Finally he put her away from him, studying her upturned face, after which he gave a funny little deep chuckle of satisfaction.
‘My heaven! So Andy was right! It seems too good, too unbelievable, to be true. Tell me it is true, Kerry,’ he commanded tenderly.
She blushed. Inside, her heart felt sore with the pain of loving.
‘It’s true, Tad. I love you. I love you so very much it hurts. That’s how—that’s why—I was running away.’ Tad eyed her gravely.
“You shouldn’t have done that, darling. You shouldn’t have tried to run away, because I can’t let you. I’m not going to let you go. I’ve loved you for a long time, Kerry—almost from the very day you came, although I fought against it,’ he told her now, and Kerry had to believe him.
‘But, Tad, I thought—thought—’
‘What did you think, my sweet one?’
‘I thought—’ Kerry took a deep breath, proceeded with resolution—‘I thought that you—your wife—’ She couldn’t say it. ‘Oh, Tad, I’m sorry about yesterday, so desperately sorry. I caused you such a deep hurt, and I didn’t mean to. And it could happen again, Tad, don’t you see? Those memories will always be there, coming between us at the most unexpected times. I’d fail you. Tad. I’m not old enough, mature enough, to know how to cope. I’d hurt you again, and I couldn’t bear that.’ Tad was watching her thoughtfully.
Just for a moment, when she stopped speaking, he appeared to hesitate, and then he did a strange thing. He took her hand, locked her fingers through his, and put his other arm around her, settling her comfortably against his shoulder.
‘Now, Kerry,’ he said firmly, ‘I’m going to tell you something that nobody knows but myself—not even Andy—and while I’m telling you I just want you to listen quietly, and then afterwards we need never worry about it again. Do you understand?’
‘Yes, Tad.’
Very well, then.’ He kept his eyes upon their intertwined fingers and began to speak slowly. ‘Hilary’s mother was a very beautiful girl, as you’ve perhaps heard, one way or another. Her name was Ingrid. I met her at a party one night, in Sydney—an Old Boys’ dance at the school I used to go to. We were both young, and I was quite carried away by her beauty. From that moment I began to date her frequently, and when I asked her to marry me and she agreed, I was too overcome to even pause to think what sort of wife she would make against my own country background. If I hadn’t been so young, impetuous, deeply in love, I might have considered these things, but as I’ve already admitted, I did not. From the very start, Kerry, it was brought home to me that I should have done. So long as we were engaged and I was visiting Ingrid in the city, she was enchanted with me—flaunted me as a sort of “catch”, you know—wealthy grazier, big station in the outback, flies a smart plane, that sort of thing. It all sounded good against her scintillating Sydney backcloth, but it was a very different thing when Ingrid tried to become a part of my own pastoral life. I’m not blaming her—I’ve tried never to let myself do that. It might not have been her fault—it just didn’t work out. She was bored stiff with Gillgong, hated the solitude, the climate, the drinking water, the lack of surfing and nightclubs.
‘At first, we made frequent trips to Sydney, and then, when Hilary was coming, those trips became fewer for obvious reasons. Our bitterest words were over Hilary, because Ingrid didn’t want a baby. She accused me then of trying to trap her, to force her into my own way of life. She used to cry and say her figure would be ruined, that that was what I wanted and hoped for, so that she couldn’t show her face in Sydney society again, or go on the beach without becoming a laughing-stock. She said all sorts of extravagant things at that time, but I kept hoping that once the baby came, she would change, settle down, and that we would find happiness as a family.’
Tad closed his eyes for a minute, then forced himself to continue. ‘Well, things didn’t change, Kerry—or not for the better, anyway. Ingrid resented the baby, although she was a most lovable little scrap. She fretted for the city, made a fetish of dieting and exercising until she was satisfied with herself in her favourite dresses—and then she issued an ultimatum. I was either to sell Gillgong and take her and Hilary to the city for good, or she would leave me and return there herself. She couldn’t and wouldn’t go on living here. I told her I would need to think it over—just for a night, Kerry, a single night to make a decision that could affect my entire future way of life.’ Tad’s lips twisted into a bitter, cynical smile. ‘I might, for Hilary’s sake at least, have done as Ingrid demanded. I reckoned I could compromise maybe, fly up from Sydney to keep an eye on the place, install a good manager. As it turned out, I hadn’t to make the final decision at all. Ingrid made it for me. She couldn’t even wait that one night for me to make up my mind, after all. She had actually left us when she was killed, Kerry. Her car hit a milestone at the side of the road near Bindi-eye and overturned. She was driving mu
ch too fast, and she was killed instantly, without time to suffer. She had left me an explicit little note to say she was leaving, that she cared nothing for either me or the baby, and that in due course I could divorce her for desertion. I was horrified that she could leave her own tiny daughter, and when I learned that she had died in this accident I decided I should keep that knowledge to myself. I wanted to let Hilary grow up thinking that her own beautiful mother had been as beautiful inside as she was in her physical aspect, that she had loved Hilary as a normal mother would. Can you understand me wanting to do that, Kerry?’
‘Yes, Tad,’ Kerry nodded quietly.
‘I didn’t want Hilary to be pitied by people—as I think I once told you, pity can have a demoralizing effect on one’s personality. I didn’t want that to happen. It wasn’t hard to deceive Hilary as she grew up and began to ask questions, and the others have never suspected—not even Andy. But I couldn’t bear to have photographs around so that I should have to be reminded all the time. That was asking too much! When I first saw you, Kerry, when you first stepped down out of my plane, with that ridiculous city hat and little white gloves, and your beautiful silky blonde hair, I thought, God forgive me, here comes another one, another empty beauty—you are beautiful, Kerry, you know—enchanted with the glamorous idea of life in the outback, the dazzle of a private aeroplane and thousands of heads of cattle and picnic race meetings and dust and loneliness—enchanted with the idea, but unprepared to make the sacrifices that this sort of life necessitates—in fact, demands.’ Tad raised his eyes, gave her one of those direct green looks that set her heart thudding. ‘I knew you were different, Kerry, by the end of that very first evening. I knew, because you rallied so gamely after you passed right out at my feet that evening. You never said a word about that great ugly bash on your forehead, or the scratch on your leg. You just let me go on thinking what I chose to think, without excusing yourself in any way, and it was very chastening to discover I’d been wrong about you. Even though I wouldn’t admit it, I knew then what Bob had meant when he said to Andy that there was more stuffing in you than there looked! I think I began to love you, Kerry, from that very first evening.’