by Alison Booth
Sarah stepped back half a dozen paces. Now Harriet saw that she was holding in her right hand something shiny, something that reflected the late afternoon sunlight. She raised her hand and directed it towards the line of blocks.
Bang-bang-bang. The blocks went down like skittles. Sarah picked up those that were still intact and restored them to the plank. Over and over again. Bang-bang-bang. The sound was driving Harriet loopy. She shut her book and went inside, closing the shutters in her room. This made little difference. Bang-bang-bang. It was as if Sarah and her dratted revolver were only a few yards away.
Harriet rummaged in the bottom drawer of the chest next to the bed. She pulled out a notebook and the tin containing sticks of charcoal. Sitting on the edge of the bed, she executed a sketch, quickly, unthinkingly. A man lying on the ground next to a horseman with a rifle. With her forefinger she smudged the charcoal over the prone figure. A black man lay in a pool of blood.
Though starting to feel queasy, she flicked over the page and embarked on another sketch. Autonomous drawing, she thought; I know not what I do. A few more quick lines and it was complete. A white man lying face down next to the blackfeller.
A white man with a spear in his back.
Bang-bang-bang from the stockyard still. Sarah was becoming as focused on shooting as she had once been on her music.
Harriet flung the book and charcoal stick on to the bed. After finding her hat and boots, she headed off towards the men’s quarters. Mick wasn’t there but she found him a few minutes later down by the horse paddock.
‘I’m sorry about this, Mick.’ Her words were, of course, inadequate but even so they were better than leaving unacknowledged what had happened. ‘It was a truly terrible thing that Carruthers did. He’s not like other men.’
‘But that’s the trouble, missus. Carruthers is like other men.’
She puzzled over this remark. ‘Do you mean like other white men?’ she said.
‘No. Like all men.’ The words were indistinct; he didn’t turn his head as he spoke.
‘That’s why we have laws. To stop men killing one another.’
‘Yes, missus.’
She felt this response was both mocking and final. He was giving her the last word because she was white and she felt hurt at his unwillingness to continue the discussion. The sound of the breeze rattling the eucalyptus leaves filled the silence. Mick didn’t move and she waited to see if he would say more.
‘You know the gorge I told you about?’ he said at last, his eyes on the horses in the paddock.
‘Yes.’
‘Would you and boss’ missus like to go there? In three, four days? Pick good weather day.’
‘They’re all good weather days at this time of the year,’ she said. ‘That’s what Henry says.’
‘Boss knows a thing or two.’ He smiled at the horses not at her.
‘Thank you, Mick. We’d love to go.’ Though she too directed her smile at the horses, she knew Mick had seen her pleasure at the invitation.
Chapter 30
Spears of Light
Harriet had slept for less than five hours but she was finding it impossible to go back to sleep. She lay in bed listening to the creaking of the walls and the chirping of geckos and the curlew that seemed so close it might almost have been in the room with her. Soon, bored with inaction, she got up and checked the satchel she’d packed the night before. Everything was in order: paints, mixing tray, rag, sketchbook and pencils, and a few sticks of charcoal at the bottom, wrapped in a cardboard tube for protection.
The sky was tinged with gold to the east when she knocked on Sarah’s door. She found her sister was already dressed, even down to the holster and revolver. She looked happier than she’d been for days, and unusually alert for an hour that was not yet six.
In the kitchen Ah Soy had a pot of fresh tea on the table and there were eggs sizzling in the frying pan.
‘We must pack a billycan and some mugs,’ Harriet said.
‘Mick already gottem,’ Ah Soy said.
‘And food?’
‘Yes. Him ready to go. See, down at the stockyard. Horses saddled and Bella there too.’
‘Mick’s thought of everything,’ Sarah said, around her last mouthful of toast. ‘Grab your hat, Hattie! We’re off.’
Mick didn’t meet Harriet’s eye: he appeared interested solely in establishing whether or not Harriet had brought her painting materials. Only after she showed him did he manage a smile, one that was directed at the stockyard rail rather than at her. She thought it unlikely the contents of her satchel would be used. All she had drawn since arriving at Dimbulah Downs was the pair of charcoal sketches of a few days ago, and she had destroyed those.
‘How do we get to the gorge?’ Sarah said. ‘Do we follow the river?’
‘No, we can’t get in that way, it’s too steep,’ Mick said. ‘It’s quickest to go over the top of the plateau and down into the next valley. Then we wind back to join the river at the bottom of the gorge.’
As Harriet and Mick rode side by side along the track, she said, ‘Any more news from Empty Creek Station?’
‘Carruthers is saying he’s taught the black feller a lesson and there’ll be no more troubles.’
‘No more murders?’
‘No more cattle spearing.’
‘And what do you think?’
Mick’s expression became like a mask. ‘I don’t think about it,’ he said.
Around them, the spidery orange flowers of grevillea glowed in the sunlight; she registered them but was today indifferent to their beauty. She wondered if Mick thought she sounded superior, as Sarah had claimed the day of the cricket match. Feeling a pang of self-doubt, she reminded herself that the trip to the gorge was a gift that Mick had offered her. She would do her best to make it a day that they would all remember.
By ten o’clock the morning was starting to feel hot. Harriet became anxious about Sarah, who was starting to sway a little on her horse. On the banks of the slow-flowing river, they halted in a small clearing surrounded by dense foliage: ti trees, corkscrew palms and stately fan palms, some of which must have been sixty feet tall.
Harriet spread out a rug on the sandy ground and Sarah lay down and fanned herself with the branch of a palm. Mick busied himself some yards distant, lighting a fire to boil the billycan for tea.
‘Are you all right, Sarah?’ Harriet asked. Her sister looked pale and there were dark circles under her eyes.
‘I’m fine,’ said Sarah. ‘Don’t fuss.’
Bella sat cross-legged next to Sarah. She gently relieved her of the palm branch and waved it so enthusiastically over Sarah that she started giggling and complaining of the cold.
‘Missus catchem newfellow piccaninny,’ Bella suggested.
‘Yes,’ Sarah said.
‘That’s wonderful news!’ Harriet, squatting on the ground next to Sarah, felt delighted though not very surprised at the news. ‘How pregnant, do you think?’
Sarah didn’t reply immediately. It occurred to Harriet that perhaps she didn’t know. At once she began thinking of the logistics of Sarah’s confinement; she couldn’t be more than three months pregnant or else it would be showing, but perhaps they should take her to Palmerston where there was a doctor.
Sarah said, ‘Probably four months.’
Harriet caught her breath. ‘That’s wonderful!’ It was almost as if Sarah had been in the bush for twenty years and had lost the art of communication! She couldn’t prevent herself from feeling irritated for an instant that she’d been excluded from this secret. ‘But you look so slim!’ she exclaimed. ‘And how secretive you’ve been!’
‘Don’t be acerbic, Hattie. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before. Anyway, I’ve got on a loose dress and I’ve started wearing stays again so I can fit in.’
‘I don’t think that’s a good idea. Have you got them on now?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, take them off. They’re too hot, even your fancy ventilated ones, and anyway, I don’t want my niece or nephew getting confined by your confinement.’
‘Me squashem newfellow piccaninny,’ Sarah said, laughing with Bella. ‘I’ll do it in a minute. Just let me rest for a bit.’
‘You shouldn’t have come.’ Harriet regretted these words as soon as they slipped out. It was as if she were punishing her sister for telling her the good news.
‘But I wanted to. And you couldn’t have come on your own.’
‘I don’t see why not. Who cares out here? But I didn’t mean that you shouldn’t have come today. It’s only that it’s all a bit of a surprise. A wonderful surprise.’ A niece or a nephew, how marvellous that would be. A niece first; she would like to have a niece. A girl who would grow up able to vote. A girl who would inherit her grandmother’s pearls, how odd that this thought should spring at once into Harriet’s head. ‘Does Henry know you’re expecting?’ She glanced across the clearing. Mick, apparently oblivious to their conversation, was crouching next to the fire and blowing so that the flames leapt up around the blackened billycan.
‘No. I’ll tell him when he gets back. I thought he’d make me go to Palmerston with him and I’d slow him down so much he’d miss the Java deadline.’
‘That’s probably true.’ Harriet wondered if Henry would appreciate the irony of the situation. They had worked hard to convince Sarah not to accompany the cattle drive yet she hadn’t wanted to join it in the first place. The trouble with empathy was that, while it had you projecting yourself into someone else’s position, you still carried with you your own perceptions. She tried imagining she was Henry: disappointed his wife hadn’t shared the news of the pregnancy with him; pleased he hadn’t had to take her with him to Port Darwin; delighted he was to be a father and not caring whether she was three or five months pregnant as long as she was well. Yes, empathy had her thinking of many possibilities. All of them – or none of them – could coexist in Henry’s mind.
She picked up the palm branch that Bella had placed on the ground and gently fanned her sister.
Sarah smiled though she kept her eyes shut. ‘That’s lovely, Hattie.’
‘Henry will be overjoyed when he hears that you’re pregnant,’ Harriet said, smiling.
‘Of course. Do keep fanning, won’t you. I so love being spoilt!’
Once tea was over, Harriet led Sarah behind some pandanus palms and helped her out of her corset. ‘You might be well-ventilated in this thing,’ she said, laughing. ‘But now you look like a piece of basket-weaving. Red marks where the bands have been digging in and white everywhere else. Are you sure you’re pregnant?’
‘Quite sure. All the expected signs.’
‘Are you feeling well enough to continue?’
‘Yes, I feel wonderful now. Nothing like a cup of tea to revive you.’
* * *
Harriet rode behind Mick, who had been quiet all morning. Occasionally he turned to check on the others’ progress. With the sun directly overhead, his large felt hat so shadowed his face that it was impossible to gauge the expression in his eyes. Harriet interpreted his silence not as a withdrawal but as a measure of the seriousness of this expedition. She might have asked him if he’d taken other white fellows along this route if she hadn’t felt this could be interpreted as intrusive.
For the last half-hour of the journey, as she rode behind him, she was infused with an increasing sense of anticipation, indeed almost of trepidation. Behind her rode Sarah and Bella, and she periodically turned to watch them. Sarah, looking refreshed after their break, was chatting to Bella, their voices interweaving like a pair of doves, or like two schoolgirls on holiday, forgetting life’s complications, laughing at everything as if being alive was an enormous joke.
She noticed that Mick was now sitting unnaturally upright. His posture seemed to express anxiety at what he might be setting in train, but it was possible that she was misrepresenting the significance of this trip to the gorge.
The valley began to narrow rapidly. Soon they were riding between perpendicular cliffs, in whose fissures trees had managed to find a toehold. A bird whistled in the dense undergrowth, a melodious call that started low and rose quickly on half a dozen distinct half-notes. The ground had become very rough, so that their progress was slowed as the horses stepped delicately around boulders. After a time, the sound of falling water could be heard. As they rounded a large rock that must have fallen from the cliff top, the gorge widened into a semicircle containing a pool of green water into which a white waterfall plunged from a hundred or so feet above.
The fall was beautiful but what startled Harriet was the light. The sun threw into the chasm luminous spears that struck bright sparks from the quartz in the rock face, so that the whole gorge was ablaze with a brilliant pink glow. It was the coruscation that would be the challenge, she thought. That and the sharpness of the spears hurled down by the sun. Perhaps she should simply try to draw the canyon; the shapes of the rocks would surely not elude her. She became aware that Mick was watching her. He had relaxed; he was smiling for the first time that day, his white teeth almost luminous. She smiled back, and he nodded before looking away.
‘It’s a very special place.’
‘Yes, missus.’ It seemed that Mick was making up for a morning of not smiling.
‘We’ll make a fire,’ said Sarah. ‘Bella, do come and help me. We’ll boil the billy and then maybe you can show me how to catch a fish without a line. This is such fun!’ She began to collect kindling assisted by an equally enthusiastic Bella.
Harriet and Mick remained side by side at the edge of the pool, contemplating the pink cliffs.
‘Paint now,’ Mick said. ‘This will only last an hour. Paint now and paint fast.’
He spoke like an artist and not a stockman, Harriet thought, glancing at him curiously. He had removed his hat, which he was holding close to his chest as if he were in a church. His wavy black hair partially obscured his profile.
She had a sudden flash of intuition: Mick wanted to paint too. ‘Would you like to use the paints?’ she said. She wondered if this was the reason for his preoccupation all morning.
He turned to look at her. ‘Yes, missus.’
‘Was that why you brought me here, so you could use my paints?’ She could bite off her tongue, for this had sounded almost like an accusation. She kicked viciously at a stone with the toe of her boot, as if she could kick away what she’d said.
He replied with dignity, ‘No, missus. I brought you here because I thought it might make you want to draw again.’ His face was inscrutable. He was perhaps used to such allegations, even from those who exposed their souls to him as she had the evening of Carruthers’ visit, when he’d offered to take her to the gorge.
‘Thank you,’ she said carefully. ‘And I do want to draw again.’ Even if she didn’t, she would have to try, after what had happened between them. ‘I’ll draw and you will paint. Now and fast.’
When Mick laughed, his face was transformed, the lines at either side of his mouth so deep they could be gorges themselves, and the skin around his eyes creased into myriad tiny gullies. From her satchel she pulled out the sketchbook and some pencils, tore off some sheets of paper, and handed Mick the sketchbook and the canvas bag of paints and brushes. ‘Have you painted before?’
‘At the mission. I had a tin box with little squares of colour.’
‘Try these paints.’ Harriet burrowed in her satchel that Mick was now holding and pulled out one of Ah Soy’s smaller cake tins, with its indentations for cupcakes. ‘You squeeze a little bit of paint from the tube into this recess. You mix it with water, just a little. Do you know how to mix colours to make other colours?’<
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‘Yes, missus.’
‘Blue and yellow make green. Blue and red make purple. And there are other colours here too, so you might not have to mix.’
‘Yes, missus.’
‘I’m going to sit on that boulder over there and I’ll leave you with the paints.’ She observed his hands, which were almost quivering in his eagerness to begin.
She took off her revolver and holster before climbing to the top of the rock. Deliberately positioning herself so that she couldn’t see him, she studied the fragmented nature of the cliff face, whose component rocks took up many geometric forms. After a time scrutinising the play of light on the cliff, she started to analyse its structure and, when she felt she had understood it, to sketch out the shapes that made up the gorge. And then she became so absorbed that she no longer thought of Mick, she was unaware of Sarah and Bella playing like children as they constructed their fire. She thought only of conveying the essence of what she was seeing, in a few pencil strokes on paper, on sheet after sheet of paper, and scribbling notes at the side of each sheet about colours.
Suddenly the pinkness vanished from the gorge as if an electric light had been switched off. The cliffs were now in full shadow and the shapes of the rocks were no longer revealed. She put down her sheets of paper and slipped the pencils into her trouser pocket, while a peace descended on her.
Eventually she turned and saw Mick at the edge of the pool, washing the paint brushes and cleaning the makeshift palette. She clambered down from the rock, curious to see how he’d interpreted what they’d witnessed.
‘Those are good paints,’ he said, laughing. He was holding her sketchbook in one hand but at an angle, so that its surface was concealed from her.
‘Will you show me the painting?’ said Harriet.
‘Shut your eyes, missus.’
She held out her hands and shut her eyes until she felt the weight of the sketchbook on her uplifted palms. Then she looked down. He had covered the page with blocks of colour representing different planes of rock – pinks and rose madder and the palest mauve; it was almost as if he were using oil paints. The transient moment had become a scene of solidity and, to Harriet’s critical eye, his interpretation seemed exactly right, exactly as the gorge had appeared in that short hour in which the light had streamed into it. She opened her mouth to speak but barely a croak came out. Mick was a born artist. For an instant she felt envy but she repressed this quickly. ‘Brilliant painting,’ she said at last. ‘You’re a natural artist.’