The Mutual Look

by Dingwell, Joyce

  There was no change ... not apparently. Maureen asked Jane for her formula for feeding. She asked several other pertinent questions. It was as if nothing had happened. And yet ... Jane could not put a finger on it, she did not even know why she thought it, Maureen was as pleasant and as nice to know as ever, but somewhere there was a withdrawal. She could be imagining it, Jane told herself, but there was no outgoing any more from the younger girl to Jane. It was a pity. That night she had opened her bedroom door and found Maureen there had been a very precious moment, Jane knew in retrospect. A younger girl coming to an older one is always an intrinsic thing.

  But it was not like that now. Maureen, though she sought Jane out, asked for advice, nodded agreement, thanked Jane, all the time looked away. Had she not found herself suddenly very busy, Jane could have fretted over that.

  Her first consignment was now entirely in her care, and the seven weeks they had been out of training would take some catching up, Jane soon found. Gretel had put on weight and needed exercise to reduce that tub she had achieved; San Marco, who had won several country events in U.K. and had revelled in activity, had grown lazy, and Ruthven of the good connections was only showing outward signs of the bad sides of his families.

  `You slackers are going to wake up,' Jane said sternly.

  That week went as though it was a day. As soon as she was off Gretel, Jane was on San Marco, San finished she tackled Ruthven. They protested at first, they had become used to the dolce vita, but slowly they sniffed the old sweetness of dew-wet, herby-breathed morning paddocks (for meadow or paddock the sweetness was still the same) and the indolence they had got into dropped away. They be-

  came Jane's fellows again.

  She was exhausted every evening, and sometimes she nearly fell asleep over the feeding of Wendy's Pride, who was coming along very nicely, and making the second hand-fed orphan, Billy Boy, attended by Maureen, look very junior indeed. Jane wondered how the lucky foal who had won himself a mother and not an attendant with a feed bottle was faring, and went out to the east paddock where Persian Princess and Little Persia, as the adopted foal had been named, were domiciled.

  When she reached the sliprail, she stood and laughed. Persian Princess was every inch a princess. Her mother had been a queen, Jane had learned, Queen of Persia, her sire something equally regal. The Princess moved haughtily, even when she cantered it was with royal dignity. But now a lot of the protocol was wiped out, wiped out by a rather shaggy, ridiculously spindly-legged, mischievous, distinctly plebeian bundle of colthood, name of Little Persia, rollicking by her side. They just didn't match, that pair, the top drawer mother, the bottom drawer baby, and when they ran together it was almost buffoonery. Jane laughed till the tears came to her eyes.

  `And yet,' pointed out a voice at Jane's side, 'the Princess is as proud as Punch, or as proud, anyway, as if she had her own elegant offspring beside her, not the product of Scaramouch out of Ragamuffin.'

  `Is that the baby's line?'

  'Yes.' It was William Bower who had joined Jane.

  'Little Persia wouldn't change mammas either,' Jane said, smiling at the odd couple. 'It's strange, when they're so unlike.'

  'It must be that mutual look that did it,' he offered, "... when hearts are of each other sure." '

  rather think it's a sure meal as far as Little Persia is concerned.'

  'How factual we are today !' William looked at Jane more closely. 'Or is it weariness making you see only the

  business side? I've been watching you, Miss Sidney, you really are working your fellows hard, aren't you? What's the incentive? Is it because they personally belong?'

  `Only a fifth of them. No, not entirely. They were in shocking condition.'

  `Were?'

  `I believe they've improved.'

  `I believe so, too. I was looking them over'—Jane fumed privately at that, but had to add in all fairness that he had every right to, he owned more of them than she did.

  `Yes?' she asked.

  `Gretel is losing her tub.' A sly pause. 'Easier to get rid of it, I would say, than Dotsy's.'

  `You are saying that, Mr. Bower, I'm not. Not yet.' `Have you written to my uncle asking him?'

  `I will.'

  He nodded, and resumed once more.

  `San Marco looks fine. So does Ruthven. Which brings up a subject I would like to discuss.'

  `Yes, Mr. Bower?'

  `I'd like to try those two fellows out at a few meets. How does your one-fifth feel about that?'

  `Four to one doesn't give me much scope to feel anything,' Jane said.

  `That's a different story from what you boasted before, then your fifth had the final say. Seriously, though, would you have any objection?'

  `Of course not. I want them to race. It's what Rusty bred them for.'

  `There's a few provincials coming up, I'd like to try out their reaction.'

  `How do you mean? They've both raced before.'

  `Try their reactions to the various courses, which you'll soon see down here can be categorized as good, medium, then problem, or poor. I don't know how it is over in U.K., but in some of our more inferior backgrounds there are still some excellent prizes offering. Also, though the going is

  rough, some horses actually like it rough.' William Bower looked at her.

  `Yes, I believe Ruthven could be one,' mused Jane, `though I don't know how rough.'

  `We can try them out, gradually lessening the standard of fields. I may as well tell you now what I'm really after. I'd like finally to enter one, or the two, of them in the coming Farley Downs event.'

  `Downs don't sound rugged to me,' she commented. `Your downs mightn't, but these are in our red centre, and more sand and spinifex than turf.'

  `Oh,' Jane said.

  `Anyway, think it over while we do the preliminary trials. There's a meet on Friday at Lilyborne, down the coast, a very pretty, very green picnic race sort of place, that I'm sure you'll like as well as San Marco and Ruthven. It won't be so much different from your own plusher courses. After we get over Lilyborne we'll ... but one thing at a time, the next can wait.' He looked at her. 'Yes?'

  `Yes,' Jane agreed.

  As taking the horses down to Lilyborne would entail an entire day and an early start, Jane asked Maureen to take over the feeding of Wendy's Pride. Maureen already had the Fetherfell foal in her care, but she agreed at once ... yet still, Jane somehow felt, with that slight withdrawal.

  `Maureen,' she wanted to say, 'what is it? Can't we sort this thing out?'

  But almost as if she anticipated something, the younger strapper assured her : 'Don't worry, Jane,' and left Jane standing and watching her go. And worrying.

  It was useless asking Kate, who was so enthralled in her twin-minding and valley excursions that Jane wondered how she would take to stabling again when the children's parents returned, so Jane just let it pass.

  The take-off down to Lilyborne was to be very early, and it was still dark when Harry tapped on Jane's door and said that breakfast was ready.

  Jane had it standing up. William was there and standing up as he ate already. Within ten minutes they were on the road. The journey down the valley, their only exit, because of the half light was negotiated very carefully, but by the time they reached the coast all the morning shadows had gone, and it was a shiny day full of sunny premonitions for a shiny afternoon.

  They went down the south coast road, San Marco and Ruthven in open boxes so they could enjoy the morning as well. A soft explosion of little waves came up at them from the strings of yellow beaches beside the road, a musical scrabbling of surf-sifted pebbles. It was a beautiful ringing sort of day.

  suppose we're mad,' laughed William Bower, in a ringing mood, too, Jane saw, 'apart from your exercising our two fellows are practically untrained.'

  `They were trained at Little Down.'

  `Untrained to our methods,' he explained. 'However, it will be experience, and, let's hope, a profitable one.'

  It was. San
Marco came in third in the race that Bower selected, and the newchum Ruthven actually shared a first.

  `Now we can go down a grade,' said William on their way back, 'try a meeting with less of that English plush and lush.'

  Jacumba, west this time, was selected, and here San Marco showed definite distaste for anything but green fields, but Ruthven frankly enjoyed himself, no place admittedly, but demonstrating a distinct lack of dismay over clumps of billy buttons and last year's thistle.

  `The Downs now for Ruthven,' William decided. `Agreed?'

  There was no need for Jane to pretend to contemplate, she was as keen as Bower was.

  `How long will that take?' she asked.

  `Longer, of course. I'll have us flown, us comprising you, me, Ruthven, the previous day, then stay a day, then return the next day.'

  `You won't pilot the plane yourself ?'

  'In a journey as far away as the Centre, no. I'll charter a larger craft, and just sit back.'

  'Won't all that be expensive?'

  'Thinking of your fifth, Miss Sidney?'

  could be.'

  'Then hope to recoup it all in the race that I have my eye on. Anyway, tallying up what the boys have already won you, you should break even, even if we lose.'

  'That's all right,' Jane assured him, 'I'm well aware that in this business you have to take a risk.'

  `... Only in this business?'

  Something in his voice stopped Jane from answering him with a question of her own, a question as to what he meant by that question. Instead she asked when and where.

  'Tuesday next. We'll leave early again and pick up the craft at Quinton.—By the way, Miss Sidney.'

  'Yes, Mr. Bower?'

  `These Centre meets are social as well as racing events. I'd pack something more than jodhpurs.'

  She would have liked him to be more explicit, but he turned and went.

  She asked Maureen that night. It was good to have something to ask the girl, Jane thought; the way things were now, Maureen growing progressively more and more withdrawn, apart from the feeding of the foal and the problems to be discussed, they never spoke with each other.

  'Long dress,' Maureen said abruptly.

  haven't brought one.'

  'You can have mine. It's long and white.' Maureen's voice was more clipped than ever.

  `That sounds like a wedding dress.'

  'It was.'

  'Maureen ... Maureen dear ...'

  It was no use, the girl had left. When Jane went along to Maureen's room and tapped on the door, she was not answered.

  They drove to Quinton the next morning, Ruthven looking regally pleased with himself riding along in a float intended for three. William Bower had taken the extra precaution of padding the box in case Ruthven in his solitary state bumped around over any rough patches, but he had still left Ruthven with a good viewing section. Jane was pleased about that; she had inherited from Rusty a firm belief in horses having an unrestricted view when they travelled.

  They passed through the valley beneath eucalypts, blackwoods and sassafras, waved to millmen milling big logs and piling pale hummocks of sawdust, called to the children from farms and hopfields hanging out mailbags for the mailman, then reached the coast with its soft burst of waves and washing pebbles again.

  Quinton, much larger than the rural strips Jane had encountered so far, was not far distant. When they got to the field a moderate-sized freighter was awaiting them, with a crew of two, the second pilot doubling for a wireless navigator, a comfortable section for Ruthven and two easy seats for the passengers. The engines whirred, they taxied, rose above the coast and at once set off west.

  They crossed the Divide, and for a while rural centres displayed their pattern of streets and parks fairly frequently, then the country cities disappeared, the flats flattened out even further, and salt pans, and clay pans, and eventually the desert took over. Jane stared down fascinated at red ochre sand, purple patches of Calamity Jane, or so William Bower told her, and outcrops of rocks taking on almost unbelievable colours.

  only hope,' said William, 'that Ruthven is as impressed as you seem to be.'

  `Oh,' breathed Jane, really am.'

  Several hours afterwards the engines changed their beat and Jane knew they must be ready to put down. She could see little to descend to, only a few scattered buildings, surrounded, as was everything here in the Centre it seemed, with endless space.

  'Is this Farley Downs?'

  'Yes. You mightn't think much of it commercially, but it's still the recognized hub for a thousand mile square. Also, it's the accepted social centre.' A slight laugh. `Believe it or not, people will be attending this meet from even further than those thousand miles.'

  `How do they get here?' she asked.

  `By truck, jeep, 'rover, plane, whatever means they can rustle up. We won't be the only charter, either, you'll find a dozen of them flying in, some carrying as many as six horses. Then, of course, there'll be the sideshow men in caravans, the picture showman, Ahmed the Afghan, and the last, I think, of his breed in the west, with his covered waggon full of pretties.'

  'What kind of pretties?'

  `Dresses for milady. You didn't think,' William laughed, `there were shops out here?'

  `I thought there might be a vestibule in the hotel.' Jane was thinking of the very attractive shopping she had encountered in many hotels.

  'No hotels here,' said William, 'only pubs.'

  `Aren't they the same?'

  'There is,' William Bower said cagily, `a subtle difference, Miss Sidney. You'll see.'

  `Are we booked into one?'

  `There is only one. And no, we're not. Thank heaven.' `But why? Then where are we to stop?'

  `Why, because I, anyway, want some rest, and rest you can't expect when Centralians who haven't seen each other since last year meet up again. No, we're rooming at the Marriotts', old customers of mine. I sold them a winner two years ago, since when I'm an even more welcome guest. I say even more, for everyone is welcome in the west.'

  When the plane put down, Jane could see why William Bower had been glad of the Marriotts. The landing paddock was practically in the town, if you could call one weathered timber hotel and one small post-office that, and

  already the town was humming

  The hotel—pub has swinging doors !' delighted Jane.

  `And a well-worn counter.' William watched her fascination at the ten-gallon hats with their owners underneath coming out of the dusty street with frothing glasses.

  `You must try a beer,' he said, 'they have a very fine art of putting on big white collars to them here.' When she shook her head, he agreed, too, to wait.

  `Until we celebrate our win,' he grinned.

  They found a truck willing to take them out to the Marriott's.

  `Ruthven?' Jane asked.

  `Bob Marriott has a stable here in town and has agreed to put Ruthven with his fellows.'

  It was not far out, William said, to the Marriotts'; they were lucky there, for most of the other entrants, unless they had secured a hotel room, which was unlikely as each room was pre-booked from the previous year, and even then never catered for less than seven or eight on beds, sofas, divans and what-have-you, would be up to a hundred miles away.

  `And you think Plateau is isolated,' he finished. `I've never said so.'

  `No,' he agreed after some thought, 'you haven't. Actually, Miss Sidney, you don't say much at all.'

  `Is it required?' she asked.

  He pretended to be thinking. 'I can't recall it on the agreement,' he said at last.

  The Marriotts had what William told Jane was a fairly typical Downs home. It was wide, one-storeyed, spread over what seemed an immense space, with green polished cement floors and coolness, a lot of bamboo and many bright rag mats. Mrs. Marriott, middle-aged and eager for female company, at once asked Jane about her dress for the hop.

  `I should say the Race Ball,' she corrected, giggling. `I haven't brought one.'

&n
bsp; This caused Mrs. Marriott to cry out with disappointment and William Bower to say dourly : 'But I told you, Miss Sidney.'

  `I know, but I hadn't one' ... for a moment Jane wondered what would have been the reaction if she had worn Maureen's wedding dress ... 'and there was nowhere in Plateau to buy anything.'

  `Nor anywhere here,' said Mrs. Marriott. She added thoughtfully, 'Unless—'

  `Unless I go in the afternoon dress that I did pack?'

  `Oh no, dear, it has to be an occasion dress. A long one. You might find it hard to believe, but there won't be a woman at the dance who hasn't been planning her get-up all the year.' Her eyes met William's 'I wonder ' she said.

  `It's too late for David Jones, Marry,' discouraged William.

  `But Ahmed?'

  `Ahmed? Would he have anything for Miss Sidney?' `It's not all bargain basement he carries, Bill, I've seen several things I wouldn't mind buying myself.'

  `He's at the course, I expect.'

  `Along with all the other itinerants.'

  `We'll go now,' said William Bower, not asking Jane whether she wanted a new dress, for that matter whether she wanted to attend the ball.

  There were plenty of cars at the Marriotts', belonging both to them and their staff, so getting back to Farley was no difficulty. Finding Ahmed proved more of a difficulty; already the outside of the ring was canvas city.

  Jane looked around in fascination. Little Down had had its village fetes, but never had she seen anything like this. There were trucks, jeeps, caravans, tents all huddled together, and beside them merry-go-rounds, hooplas and Aunt Sallys already snaring trade. There were balloon men. Pie pedlars. Hamburger Harrys. As a matter of fact there were five Hamburger Harrys, each Harry looking resentfully at the other.

  `Tomorrow,' said William, 'you'll see signs Original Hamburger Harry.'

  `On all of them?'

  `Very probably. Here's Ahmed now.'