The Golden Soak

by Innes, Hammond;

  So she’d got the insurance, and now that she knew I was alive … ‘So you changed your mind. Why?’

  The dark eyes gleamed. Was it amusement, or something else? What the hell did she want? ‘I was curious, that’s all.’ That husky, almost throaty voice, so suited to the dark glow of a cocktail bar. Here it seemed strangely out of place. And yet … My legs felt weak, an ache growing deep inside me. Damn her! Damn her to hell! She always knew when I wanted her. I pulled myself together and went over and kissed her on the cheek. The same perfume and her hand on mine, a touch that was a promise of more intimate caresses. ‘You haven’t changed,’ she said. ‘And you’re still very much alive, aren’t you?’ The gleam in her eyes was sheer devilry. And then she looked across at Janet and in a cool voice said, ‘If we can’t have a drink, shall we feed? Now that we’re all here.’

  The girl’s cheeks flamed. ‘If you like.’ She looked across at me, her eyes pleading. There’s no beer, you see – they drank it all that night.’

  ‘I’ve a bottle of Scotch in the Land-Rover,’ I said.

  She looked relieved and without waiting to be asked Kennie went and got it. The Scotch helped, but it was an uncomfortable meal. I couldn’t help thinking of the last dinner party we had held at Drym, the furniture all good pieces and gleaming in the candlelight, silver on the table and Château Beychevel ’57 to go with the Diane. Right to the end we had done things in style, keeping up appearances. Here there was no style, everything run down and the old homestead haunted by memories and the reek of better days. Yet Drym was gone, Balavedra bankrupt, while here, in spite of everything, the house continued, a piece of Australian history that might yet come to life again if the Golden Soak reef continued.

  I looked at Rosa, wondering what she was thinking as she sat there talking to Kennie and drinking Janet’s instant coffee. She was so cool and composed, so very elegant – and that low-cut dress catching Kennie’s wandering eye. Was she, too, comparing this with Drym? The candles, almost burned out now, were beginning to gutter. In the uneven light I caught her eyes and she smiled. But there was no warmth in it, just amusement. And I wondered again what the hell had brought her all this way.

  Janet rose and snuffed out one of the candles. Moonlight filtered through the gaps in the hessian. ‘So romantic,’ Rosa murmured in her huskiest voice. ‘If you had pot plants here we might be in a rather primitive conservatory.’ Her words conjured visions of English country houses.

  ‘I’m afraid there’s nothing romantic about Jarra Jarra,’ Janet said in a small tight voice that sounded distinctly girlish. ‘And I have to be up early so I’m going to bed.’ She gave us candles and then she left us, a Cinderella-like exit-one minute she was there, the next she was gone.

  ‘What an extraordinary child,’ Rosa murmured, and I could have slapped her.

  ‘She just about runs the station,’ I said.

  ‘I’m sure she does.’ She smiled at me sweetly. ‘But not very well from what I’ve been told. Their cattle herded on to somebody else’s property and not enough fuel to run their lighting plant. And their future apparently in your hands.’

  ‘Who told you that?’

  ‘The boy who drove me here. The word seems to have got around that you’re a mining consultant. With your old firm, too.’ Her eyes reflected the guttering of the last candle so that I couldn’t see their expression. ‘It seems they’re very simple people out here.’

  I got to my feet. ‘We’ll be starting early, too.’

  She sighed and got out of her chair. ‘Do I go with you?’

  ‘You’d find it very hot and dusty.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘You don’t see at all,’ I said angrily. ‘We have to clear a track up a gully on the slopes of Mount Coondewanna.’

  She smiled, and it was still that cool smile of amusement. ‘I gather we’re in separate rooms, so goodnight then.’

  But it wasn’t goodnight. Stripped to my pants, I was sitting on my bed, smoking a cigarette and wondering what to do about her, when a shadow moved against the stars and I heard her voice, a whisper in the night: ‘Alec. Are you there?’ Something leapt inside of me, my blood pounding as I got to my feet and went to the verandah where she stood, quite still, just a shadow in the moonlight.

  ‘What is it? What do you want?’ But I knew. It had been like that from the moment we had first met, at a country club near her home in Hampshire. The chemistry of our bodies was something we had never been able to control. She didn’t answer, simply stepped past me into the deeper darkness of the room and then stood waiting. I followed her, knowing what would happen, the ache overwhelming, the sense of incompleteness. ‘I couldn’t talk to you out there,’ she breathed.

  ‘Do we have to talk?’

  She came closer, not touching me, but I could smell her scent and her hair loose over her face, the flimsy garment falling apart, the pale breasts exposed. ‘Not if you don’t want to, darling.’ The voice so soft, so inviting. Damn her! She was like a bitch on heat. She had always been like that when it came to the moment. And my need, all these weeks.… I reached for her grabbed hold of her, the softness of her yielding, coming against me, her lips on mine and her hands straying. And then we were on that narrow bed and she had the lumps as I took her in a fury of urgency. It wasn’t love. But it was something we both needed.

  Released at last, we lay close, the sweat on our bodies cooling. ‘I wonder what they’d say if they could see you now?’ The whisper of her words and her hands like silk. ‘So very much alive!’

  ‘Are you glad?’

  ‘Haven’t I shown it?’

  If she had kept her mouth shut we could have lain close like that all night. But her words had reminded me of the insurance money and I reached for a cigarette. If she could guess the truth, then others might reach a similar conclusion. The flare of the match showed our naked bodies and the spartan simplicity of the room. Even if she didn’t talk, her mere presence threatened everything I had achieved, the desperate attempt to rebuild my life.

  ‘I could do with a cigarette, too.’

  I gave her one, lighting it from my own, and the glow of it as she inhaled showed the relaxed beauty of her features. ‘What are you planning to do?’ I asked.

  ‘I’ll wait,’ she said.

  ‘What for?’

  ‘To see whether you make it. A new mine – by Easter.’ The tip of her cigarette glowed and I saw her eyes laughing up at me. ‘I was there, between two of those cowsheds, wool sheds, whatever they are.’ She raised herself on her elbow. ‘You think I’ll let a chit of a girl like that take over my husband when he’s struck it rich?’ She laughed. ‘I’ve got you, Alec, haven’t I? Still talking big and reaching for the sky. But here, in this mineral-crazy land, you might just prove as big as your words.’

  So that was it. She was going to hold that over me, and if I succeeded, we’d be back where we were before I’d lit that bloody candle and burned Drym to the ground. She’d be round my neck for ever then. And if I didn’t succeed, then I could rot for all she cared. ‘You can’t wait here,’ I said, keeping a tight hold on myself.

  ‘Of course not. Too damned uncomfortable.’

  ‘Where then?’

  ‘Perth. Or there’s an island called Rottnest. I met somebody on the plane who invited me there.’

  ‘A man?’

  She gave a soft laugh. ‘I’m a perfectly normal woman. You should know that by now.’

  My hands clenched, a cold fury sweeping over me. I could have taken her by the throat then. But suddenly the anger was gone, leaving only a feeling of disgust that she could still do this to me. And after that I didn’t say anything, the two of us lying there in silence until finally she leaned over me and stubbed out her cigarette. ‘I’ll leave you now. I’m sleepy and this bed is too small.’ She climbed over me and put on her dressing gown. ‘Goodnight, Alec.’

  I watched her shadow disappear into the night, and long after she had gone I could feel the touch of her body
as she had leaned over me.

  In the morning, when I woke, it all seemed like a dream. But I knew it wasn’t, and there to remind me was the stubbed-out butt of her cigarette, red with lipstick. I got up, dressing slowly, wondering how I was going to face Janet. But at least I was spared that. Kennie was waiting for me, a pot of tea on the table. ‘Janet went about an hour ago. She left this note.’ He handed it to me: Sorry, but you’ll have to fend for yourselves. Back this evening. He poured me a cup of tea. ‘She was riding that camel of hers and she had Tom and one of the boys with her.’

  The tea was lukewarm and I drank it quickly. ‘Well, let’s go,’ I said. ‘We’ve work to do.’ A hell of a lot, in fact, if that rig was going to be able to reach the drill site. ‘We’ll breakfast up the top of the gully.’

  He nodded and got to his feet. ‘What about your wife?’

  But that was a problem I didn’t want to face at this hour of the morning and I was hoping to God she was still asleep as I went out into the arid, blinding sunlight. A moment later we were in the Land-Rover and heading down the track towards Golden Soak.

  THREE

  We began drilling at dawn on Wednesday, January 21, in the hollow on the north-eastward running spur of Mt Coondewanna. My choice of site had been limited by the terrain, the projected line of the reef cutting diagonally across the sloping shoulder of the mountain and the rig only able to operate on reasonably flat ground. Drilling on the back of the spur had one advantage. Here erosion had probably occurred in situ, so that there was every chance that the surface samples I had taken from the hollow were a true indication of the rock formation below. But it was all Archaean country of great antiquity and I had no means of knowing how Mt Coondewanna had been formed or what changes in its formation had occurred over the millennia. In the circumstances, the odds against a single drill hole proving successful were very long indeed.

  I reckoned that if we did intersect the reef it would be at a depth of about 700 feet. Ed Garetty had found it at the Golden Soak third level, 300 feet below the surface, and where we were now was a good 400 feet above the mine entrance. When we started we were drilling into the weathered mantle, so that progress was rapid, a new 10-foot length of pipe being added almost every hour.

  From that hollow we could just see the top of Coondewanna above an outcropping ridge of rock that gradually changed from the black of shadow to the red of full sunlight. It was hot, but there was a slight breeze and the flies were not too bad, particularly when Kennie got a fire going. By lunchtime we were already down over 60 feet and Duhamel and his second team runner, Josh Meyer, ate one at a time, the diesel thundering and the rods turning steadily as the drill ground its way down into the bowels of the earth.

  Anybody who has ever watched a drilling operation will understand the fascination. But to see this single rig operating in the immense loneliness of the Pilbara, the twin mountains of Coondewanna and Padtherung blocking our view to the west, and all to the east the country stretching out into infinity, not a sign of life, a fiat emptiness of antediluvian antiquity blistered with heat, arid as a desert – what hope had we, flying thus in the face of nature? But the drillers did not see it that way. To them it was just another job, accustomed as they were to the country and the climate. Watching the drill go down foot by foot, I could barely face the huge steak Kennie grilled for me. At this rate we’d be down to 700 feet with the prospect of the dust sample piles showing the glitter of gold in quartz inside of three days, and if we did strike the reef, then I could get a good price out of Freeman or anybody else, or we could lease on a royalty basis that would give the Garretys a stake in the mine. I could even form a company, operate it myself.

  Strange how you dream in the heat. Or was it nervous exhaustion? I had finished my steak. I had had two beers, but I didn’t feel sleepy. The tension in me was too great and at that moment I wasn’t thinking of anybody else, how they might react, or the pitfalls that lay ahead. Even Rosalind’s presence meant nothing to me any more. I had picked her up the day before on my way into Mt Newman to meet Duhamel, and having seen her on to the MMA plane to Perth, had wiped her right out of my mind. All I could think about now was the success of the operation, and I sat there, watching, my eyes on the drill.

  Then Kennie’s voice: ‘Alec. Sombody coming.’ I turned to find him buttoning up his flies as he emerged from a patch of mallee. ‘Down in the gully. A ute by the look of it.’

  It never occurred to me it would be anybody but Ed Garrety. He still hadn’t returned from Port Hedland when I had picked Rosalind up at Jarra Jarra and I had asked Janet to tell him what I was doing so that he could come up and see for himself as soon as he did get back. We watched as the ute appeared on the back of the spur, bumping its way slowly along the track we had cleared. It stopped on the rim of the hollow and Chris Culpin got out. His face was brick red in the sun, the same hat pushed back on his bullet head, his stomach bulging over the broad leather belt as he came towards us.

  ‘Thought I’d come and see how you were getting on.’ He was smiling.

  ‘Who told you where to come?’

  ‘Girl at the homestead. That’d be Garrety’s daughter, eh?’ His eyes shifted to the rig. ‘Looking for my son, see, so she told me where he was.’ He didn’t even glance at Kennie, his eyes all the time on the rig.

  ‘There’s nothing for you here,’ I said.

  ‘Not yet perhaps. You’re still drilling.’

  ‘Nothing at all,’ I repeated

  He was standing close to me now. ‘Have you told Ferdie what you’re up to?’

  ‘It’s nothing to do With him.’

  ‘Suits me. But it may not suit him.’ He leaned closer, the stubble on his chin dark against the sun-reddened skin. ‘An’ he’s got you, pal. Got you cold if ever they rumble the Blackridge deal.’

  ‘What the hell are you talking about?’

  ‘You can think that out for yourself. Meantime, I’ll hang around for a bit, see how you’re making out. Mebbe collect a few samples for myself.’ And when I told him to get the hell out, he was on private property, he just laughed. ‘This isn’t the Old Country. This is Crown land and I got a prospector’s licence, see.’

  ‘Golden Soak belongs to Ed Garrety,’ I said.

  ‘That’s right.’ He nodded. ‘He owns the mine and all the flat land below it. But not up here. Not according to Smithie. This is leasehold, and leaseholders don’t own mineral rights. You got to claim.’ His small eyes narrowed. ‘You registered a claim? I don’t see no claim pegs.’ He stood there, staring at me, waiting for me to say something. ‘You ain’t even got a prospector’s licence.’

  ‘I don’t need one,’ I answered angrily. ‘Not here.’

  ‘We’ll see about that. I’ll be in Nullagine this evening and I’ll check just what Garrety does own. An’ if Smithie’s right, then I’ll go on to Marble Bar and have a look at the Mining Register. I don’t reckon Garrety’s put in a claim, ’cause if he had he’d be required to spend money on development.’ And at that moment Duhamel appeared at my elbow.

  ‘We’re through the soft stuff. It’s hard rock now.’

  I thought of Balavedra, all those weeks hoping against hope, the luck gone sour on me. And now here. Only a few minutes ago I had been dreaming of a strike in two days’ time. I watched Culpin go back to his ute. He drove it under the shade of a mulga and set about preparing his lunch. Nothing I could do about him. Nothing I could do about the hard rock country the drill had entered. And Rosalind in Perth, waiting. I went over to the Land-Rover, tugged the ring seal off another can of beer and stood there drinking it, watching the percussion drill, its progress imperceptible now, and Kennie clearing up on his own, white-faced and unhappy. His father hadn’t said a word to him, not a single word. He had behaved as though the boy didn’t exist.

  I finished my beer, went over to the shelter we’d built with branches of gum brought up from the gully and lay down. Nothing to do now but wait – and hope. The noise of the drill was lik
e the drone of a huge insect, a solid roaring hum in the heat, and I dozed off. When I woke Culpin had gone and Kennie was sitting beside me, smoking a cigarette.

  ‘Where’s your father?’ I asked.

  He shrugged.

  ‘Gone to Nullagine, has he?’

  ‘He was down at the rig talking to Georges, then he loaded up and drove off. He didn’t tell me where he was going.’

  And from Nullagine he’d go on to Marble Bar. I knew damn well Ed Garrety hadn’t pegged the area. I got to my feet, watching the drillers busy about the rig, sweating in the afternoon sun as they added another rod. ‘How far are they down?’

  ‘Seventy – seventy-five maybe.’

  At that rate he had all the time in the world. ‘He’ll be back,’ I said.

  ‘Oh, sure. He’ll be back. Pa wouldn’t miss a chance like this.’ Kennie looked at me. ‘What are you going to do? You can’t stop him coming here, and if he thinks you’re on to something …’ He hesitated, and then, his voice barely audible: ‘You want to watch it, Alec. He’s a real bastard when he smells money, and he doesn’t give a damn about people. That’s the trouble with Australia – men like my father, and that man Kadek, they don’t care who they hurt, what they destroy, s’long as they get what they want. I tried to tell him – that night. But it’s like I was speaking a different language. It’s a free country, they say. Christ! I’d rather it was Communist.’

  ‘Then you’d have bureaucracy. And that’s just as soulless.

  ‘So what’s the answer?’

  ‘Same as it’s always been,’ I said. ‘You fight. To survive in this world you’ve got to be a fighter.’

  ‘And you think I’m not?’ He was staring at me very directly.

  ‘I didn’t say that.’

  ‘No, but you implied it.’ His gaze wandered to Coondewanna, the escarpment of red rock like a battlement. ‘And you’re right. I’ve never stood up to him. Not really. I’m not a fighter. I’m a bit of a coward, I suppose.’ And he added, softly, ‘Mum, now – she’s a fighter. All her life she’s struggled to make a go of it. And the strange thing is she still loves him.’