Araluen

by Judy Nunn

  Penelope washed her hair and towelled it vigorously. There certainly wasn't time now for such contemplation.

  Three-quarters of an hour later, impeccably groomed, she left The Colony House in the company of her publicist for her interview with the feature writer of the Sydney Morning Herald.

  For the following week, Franklin and Penelope abstained from sex. ‘It's “that time”, my darling,’ she said as she kissed him deeply. ‘Only a few days, be patient.’

  Franklin had to accept it. He would certainly never make overtures to her during ‘her time’ and it didn't occur to him for one moment that she might be lying. She had abandoned herself and he had felt her pleasure - why would she deny herself the repetition of such an experience?

  A week later, when she could evade the issue no longer, Penelope steeled herself. She would allow him her body but she would not allow him control over her. She would not give in to her own pleasure.

  It was possibly the greatest test of her life. She responded warmly to his kiss and returned his embrace with equal affection, but when he started to lift her nightgown ...

  ‘Would you turn the light off, Franklin. Please.’

  He looked at her. The steel-blue eyes seemed to bore into her skull. For a moment Penelope was unnerved. Did he know she was planning to cheat? Of course not, how could he? He was puzzled by her modesty, that was all.

  ‘Please, my darling. Please, I'd prefer it.’

  And Franklin could do nothing else but oblige. Penelope was right – he was puzzled. But he wasn't going to challenge her. They never discussed sex, which was only correct. It was not, after all, a subject one should discuss - and certainly not with women. But he hoped the return of her modesty didn't mean the return of her sexual inhibition.

  In the dark, she allowed him to fully undress her and, as she undressed him back, Franklin started to relax. It didn't matter that she was too shy to let him watch her. It didn't matter that it had been the alcohol which had liberated her that night. Nothing mattered. She wanted him.

  He felt her hand glide tentatively across his stomach, tracing the muscles of his belly, then, as if by accident, brushing against his erect penis. Yes, she wanted him.

  Penelope was aware of the thin line she was treading. The touch of his penis, the silky skin with the rock hardness beneath, shocked and thrilled her but her mind was made up. The more she excited him and the more she feigned her own excitement, the less time he would take exploring her. But she mustn't be too adventurous, or behave too out of character.

  When he entered her, Penelope steeled herself against the first ripplings of her own excitement. But she moaned and thrust her body back at him as she had that night. She timed her moans and her thrusts perfectly, recognising where the stages would be if she wished to abandon herself to them.

  Her moans became louder as Franklin's passion grew stronger. Now the waves would be engulfing her. She cried out and arched her back as he drove himself into her in a frenzy of fulfilment. Then, as his strangled cry rang out, she clung to him fiercely. ‘My darling,’ she panted, ‘my darling, my darling.’

  It was the best performance Penelope had ever given. The first of many such performances.

  Penelope's performance in A Woman of Today was not so well received. Neither was the film itself.

  ‘Edited by one hour A Woman of Today would qualify as an impressive travelogue,’ one major critic commented. He went on to say that ‘Penelope Greenway may have the beauty and style of Katharine Hepburn but Miss Hepburn does it better.’

  There were cutting comments from other reviewers: ‘A one-dimensional performance lacking warmth’ ... ‘A hackneyed story which has already been done to death by Hollywood’... ‘Pretentious direction’.

  The heavy criticism was aimed at all levels of the film but Penelope took it as a personal attack and was deeply hurt. Franklin did all he could to raise her spirits. He even offered to take her away on a holiday although he could ill afford the time.

  Then came the thrilling news which propelled the film into total insignificance. Penelope was pregnant.

  ‘You see, my darling? Nothing else matters.’ Franklin was delighted.

  Penelope was aghast. How had it happened? That night, of course. It had been that night.

  There was very little Penelope could do but accept her lot. For Franklin's sake, and for the sake of peace and quiet as much as anything, she feigned joy at the prospect and, during her confinement, took all the correct precautions in preparing herself for motherhood.

  Shortly before the baby was due, Franklin's father died. Despite entreaties from his brother Kenneth and his Aunt Mary, however, Franklin declined to go to South Australia for the funeral. His place was at his wife's side, he said. And that was that.

  In December 1938, Penelope Ross gave birth to a son. Terence George Franklin.

  Franklin was overjoyed. For the first time in his life he was unable to control his emotions and there was a definite glisten in his eyes as he embraced Solly.

  ‘A son, my dear friend!’ he said. ‘A son!’

  Solly, as the elected godfather, was also pacing the floors of the waiting room of the Royal Hospital for Women when the doctor came out to announce the news.

  Now a married man, Solly had openly wept a month earlier when Zofia had announced that she was with child. To Solly, Franklin's display of emotion was quite understated. Nevertheless he recognised it as uncharacteristic and was moved. He fervently returned the embrace.

  ‘Cognac and cigars, Boss. That's what we need. Cognac and cigars.’ And they went home to The Colony House, where they sat up till all hours drinking cognac, which Solly disliked, and smoking cigars, which Franklin loathed, and discussing the magic of birth and the future of the Ross empire.

  Penelope had detested being pregnant. She'd loathed her swollen belly and thickened ankles and the pain in her lower back. As soon as she was able, she exercised rigorously to regain her former shape.

  There had been one compensation during her pregnancy, however. Franklin had made no demands upon her sexually and she was thankful for that. She had denied herself pleasure with such regularity that the faking of her enjoyment was no longer a test of strength and character, it was a chore.

  Although she resigned herself to being a mother, and determined to be a good one, Penelope had not yet relinquished her career plans. Certainly she realised they would have to be deferred for several years, but she had a long-term strategy that was a satisfactory alternative. Indeed, given the disaster of A Woman of Today, it might be to her advantage to keep a low profile for a while.

  Penelope convinced herself that she would, after all, be in her prime around the age of thirty and that the roles would be far better then - she'd never been a lightweight juvenile actress, anyway. Undaunted, she once again determined to make the best of the situation.

  Her plans did not altogether exclude Franklin. She didn't relish the prospect of another pregnancy but she recognised the fact that she must give him another son. She'd take a year's break, she decided, then plan a second conception. And she prayed fervently that it would be a boy. She didn't dare contemplate what she'd do if it was a girl -the thought of a third pregnancy was more than she could bear. Besides which, her career had to be back on course within three years. That was her plan.

  Franklin was puzzled by Penelope's reluctance to have sex. For the first several months after the birth of Terence it was to be expected, of course, but when she finally did allow him to make love to her, and then only rarely, she didn't seem to display the same enjoyment she had in the past.

  With some regret, Franklin supposed it was only natural. Women changed when they became mothers, he decided - it was to be expected. So he poured his energies into his work. As the year rolled by, he demanded less of Penelope sexually, while he delighted in her as a mother to his son. And Penelope made sure she played the role to perfection.

  ‘Fellow Australians, it is my melancholy duty to inform you offic
ially that, in consequence of the persistence of Germany in her invasion of Poland, Great Britain has declared war upon her, and that as a result, Australia is also at war ... ’

  Franklin, Penelope and the guests and staff of The Colony House were gathered around the lounge-room wireless, like so many others across the nation, listening to the live broadcast by the Prime Minister, Robert Menzies.

  ‘May God in His mercy and compassion grant that the world will soon be free from this agony.’

  There was silence after the announcement and then people broke away into families and groups and talked quietly in various corners of the lounge.

  That night Franklin and Penelope made love. It seemed right, somehow. She knew it was her fertile time but she didn't care. She wanted to be loved and to feel his closeness. For Penelope, like many, many others, it was a vulnerable time.

  She didn't conceive, as it turned out. In fact, she didn't fall pregnant for nearly a year. Franklin was often away at Mandinulla and, when he was in town, he worked sixteen hours a day at their offices. He'd acquired an entire inner-city office block from which to administer his burgeoning businesses. Ross Industries had become a massive concern.

  Things didn't change much in the spring of 1940 when Penelope discovered she was pregnant. If she'd expected Franklin to drop everything and tend to her confinement, she was sadly mistaken. Thrilled as he was by the news of her pregnancy, the need to expand his factories to meet the army requisitions for beef and boots and leathergoods demanded his full attention.

  He hired a live-in nanny for Terence and instructed Penelope to rely upon Zofia for companionship.

  ‘Solly is working as hard as I am,’ he said. ‘Zofia is also in need of company.’

  It was an idea which didn't altogether thrill Penelope. Baby Terence was nearly two years old and, despite the capable care of the nanny, he was a demanding infant. Penelope found him exhausting. Zofia had her own eighteen-month-old son, Karol, constantly by her side and her six-week-old baby daughter constantly at her breast and yet she never seemed to tire. She was a born mother and, as such, a constant source of irritation to Penelope. Furthermore, the woman seemed to delight in pregnancy and the prospect of childbirth. Penelope felt fat and bloated and unattractive - the glorification of motherhood was the last thing she wanted. If Franklin couldn't be with her to spoil her and pamper her, then she wanted to be left alone.

  Franklin had planned to be with Penelope when her time came, but things went wrong. She was rushed to hospital with a fever four weeks before the baby was due. They wired Franklin, who did all he could to get there but, by the time he arrived, it was too late. A week after her hospitalisation, on April 4, 1941, Penelope gave birth to a stillborn child, a daughter.

  The months which followed were terrible. Penelope sank into a deep depression and Franklin was unable to get through to her. She would sit staring into space, refusing all food except for the chicken broth constantly and painstakingly supplied by Zofia. Strangely enough, Zofia was the only person with whom Penelope allowed herself any contact, occasionally even smiling a ‘thank you’ as she accepted the broth. When Franklin approached her she became sullen, refusing to speak or even to look at him.

  The one and only time he managed to communicate with her, she hurled recriminations at him. He was totally taken aback. He'd done his best to convey his sorrow at the loss of their baby and he'd tried to convince her that she would get over it in time and that they would have another child.

  ‘For God's sake, don't be such a hypocrite, Franklin.’ The eyes that had been staring dully at the wall suddenly turned on him and he could see the flash of hatred in their depths. ‘You don't care a damn about the baby,’ she spat. Franklin was dumb with amazement.

  ‘You don't care a damn about the baby and you don't care a damn about me,’ she continued. ‘All you care about is sons. So spare me your sympathy. Please. It's sickening.’ Her anger vanished as quickly as it had erupted and Penelope turned and stared at the wall, retreating again into her torpor.

  Franklin didn't dare make another approach for fear of upsetting her but he discussed her condition in depth with her doctor.

  ‘Such irrational behaviour is perfectly normal,’ the doctor assured him. ‘Many women suffer deeply traumatic reactions to the birth of a stillborn. You must be patient.’

  The doctor advised him to take her away somewhere and, although Penelope didn't seem particularly enamoured of the idea, he eventually persuaded her to go with him to Mandinulla. Six months after the stillbirth they set off, together with baby Terence and Marie the nanny.

  Mandinulla was 30,000 square miles of arid scrubland in central Queensland. It was a large property, certainly, but there were larger throughout the huge northern and western sections of Australia. They needed to be vast. Size was necessary for their sheer survival. The head of cattle allotted to each square mile of territory was kept to a minimum to ensure the grazing lands remained adequate for their existence. The other necessity for their survival was the ability of the overseers and the stockmen to police such a vast territory. And Mandinulla had the best.

  Kevin Never-Never Everard was an expert. And so was Jacky, the half-caste Aborigine who led the team of stockmen. Never-Never lived in his quarters at the homestead and Jacky lived with the rest of the stockmen, all of whom were full or part Aboriginal, at the stockmen's quarters half a mile away, but the two men were firm friends. When Sam Crockett bought the property and discovered that Never-Never regularly entertained Jacky in his quarters and regularly dined with Jacky and his family in theirs, he tried to forbid it.

  ‘Good God, man, they're niggers,’ he said. ‘You have a position to maintain here.’

  Never-Never didn't deny that segregation was certainly the accepted policy on cattle stations throughout the country, but if he chose to do things differently, that was his business and his alone. He and Jacky had been running the property way before Sam Crockett had come on the scene, and Never-Never resented the American's intrusion.

  ‘If that's the way you want to run things, Mr Crockett, fine,’ he said. ‘But I'll take off, if you don't mind.’

  Sam had done his homework and knew the value of the man. Reluctantly, he gave in, making it apparent that he deeply disapproved of the situation, which didn't bother Never-Never one bit.

  When Franklin took over the reins he didn't rock the boat. It wasn't that he particularly approved of Everard's methods, but if a thing was working well, why change it?

  Penelope's first impression of Mandinulla was not favourable. She liked the homestead itself with its wide verandahs, large airy rooms and high ceilings designed to take advantage of the slightest breeze to help alleviate the oppressive heat. But the countryside itself horrified her. There was nothing but scrub. Dry, arid scrub as far as the eye could see. Why on earth had she allowed Franklin to bring her to this wasteland?

  And then she talked to Never-Never. It was several days after they'd arrived and Franklin had invited the overseer to dine with them. Penelope picked at her food while Franklin and Never-Never talked business. She still hadn't regained her appetite. Her face was gaunt and her body too thin and there were dark circles under her eyes.

  Never-Never felt sorry for her. She was obviously unhappy and Franklin was making no effort to include her in the conversation. Rarely one to observe niceties, Never-Never surprised himself as well as Franklin and Penelope.

  ‘How do you like Mandinulla, Mrs Ross?’

  Penelope looked up from her plate, slightly taken back. She realised that the enquiry was uncharacteristic of him and wondered whether or not she should reply with honesty. What the hell, she thought, why try to be nice? She couldn't be bothered.

  ‘I hate it,’ she said.

  Never-Never appreciated her honesty. ‘Why?’ he asked.

  She shrugged. ‘The homestead's pretty. I don't mind the homestead. But the country ... ’ She started toying with her food again. ‘The country's vile. It's ugly and it's dead.�
��

  There was a moment's pause. ‘No, it isn't. It's magnificent and it's very much alive.’

  She looked up and met his eyes. They were strange eyes in a strange face. Years of harsh Queensland sun had weathered his skin and reduced his eyes to slits. Never-Never could have been any age, but he was somewhere in his forties – he wasn't exactly sure where himself. He was lean and wiry and looked like the scrubland itself, she thought, sparse and brown and dry.

  Her initial interest at his reaction died away and she gave another indifferent shrug. ‘Maybe I haven't been looking in the right places.’

  ‘Maybe,’ he said. ‘And maybe you haven't been looking in the right way.’ Something in Never-Never was demanding that he get the woman's attention. He didn't for the life of him know why. But a face as beautiful as hers had no right to be devoid of animation. He wanted to kindle some interest in her, wanted to see a light in her eyes.

  If you look at this land in the right way you'll see colours you've never seen before. You'll see orange earth and silver trees ... ’

  Franklin hadn't been paying much attention to the exchange. He appreciated Never-Never's attempts to engage Penelope in conversation but he didn't expect it to achieve much. He'd given up trying to get through to her himself. Then he heard ‘orange earth’ and 'silver trees', and the image of Catherine flashed through his mind. Catherine and the wheat fields. He heard her voice. Something about learning to use his peripheral vision: ‘ ... and you'll find ... that the earth is red and the mountains purple, and ... ’

  ‘And when you look at them through a heat haze,’ Never-Never was continuing, 'they shimmer like magic. And then, beyond the shimmer, you can see mirages. Sometimes a whole lake.’

  It was surprising to see Never-Never so animated, thought Franklin, and he turned to watch Penelope. Was the man having any effect?

  ‘And the wildlife,’ Never-Never continued. ‘You've never seen anything like the wildlife out here.’ Aware that he'd gained a flicker of interest, Never-Never pressed on yet further and he was surprised to hear himself say, ‘I could show you, if you like.’