by Amanda Doyle
He had a pleasant way with him, an easy pace, that old station horse, but today Rennie hardly noticed. She dug her heels in, spurred him to a gallop, as if she and he could simply gallop away into the distance, far from all her problems, leaving them all behind.
The distance became the present, the first horizons were behind her, as new vistas stretched in front. Together they thudded over the plain, in and out of the stands of mulga, over the winding channels of greener vegetation flanked by the sturdy boles of the ghost-gums which told one that these were the water-ways when the rains came. It didn’t look like rain just now, though, if you discounted those few rather leaden-looking clouds that had gathered away to the left. Rennie hadn’t seen a cloud for days, but the few that did appear always floated away again into the west, to become a part of those rosy, woolly sunsets which, out here, were always so breathtakingly lovely.
Since the last dry channel had been crossed, the country had changed. It was wilder, rougher, sand-ridged, gibber-strewn. Clumps of spinifex clung to the barren earth, and steely balls of roly-poly went scattering over the sand as a sudden breeze lifted them before it. The sight of them rolling crazily along in front of her horse brought Rennie’s mind back to her present whereabouts. She had come far enough. Too far, probably. Her horse was heaving, foam-flecked. She must have been mad not to have noticed how tired he was!
She dismounted at a stand of timber, tied the reins to a mulga branch where the animal could rest in the shade, and found herself a seat on a fallen log. About her there was utter stillness, save for the quiet champing of the horse and the twittering exchanges of a pair of honey-eaters that darted about in the sparse blossoms above her head.
Alone with her thoughts, Rennie forced herself to turn things over in her mind. She must come to grips with herself, because after all, one had to go on living, didn’t one, even if the implications were unpleasantly plain? Her future stretched far before her, barren, empty, because it couldn’t possibly include the one person who could alleviate that barrenness, that emptiness. Chad. For Chad belonged to Leith Mindon. And Leith belonged to Chad.
And even Magda belonged to Chad, now, too. And Rennie didn’t belong to anybody. Not to anybody.
Rennie minus Magda didn’t equal Keith, at all. Something had gone wrong with that comforting equation. It just didn’t add up any more. Rennie could never go to Keith now, even without Magda, knowing that she was in love—irreparably, irrevocably in love!—with another man.
No, Rennie minus Magda didn’t equal Keith. It simply equalled loneliness and heartache and the years stretching away, away, away, having to be got through somehow, all by oneself, without Keith whom she didn’t love, without Chad whom she did.
What a bleak, bleak prospect!
A shadow came over the sun just as she reached that inevitable, inescapable conclusion, a shadow of gloom that darkened the sky and deepened the shade in amongst the thin, gaunt trees about her. The air was heavy, hot, dust-laden, oddly oppressive. The stillness was complete. There was no sound anywhere, not even the quiet chink of the horse’s bit or the soft twittering of the honey-eaters.
And then the sky got darker, and looking up, Rennie noticed for the first time its leaden grey appearance, the sullen clouds that hung low over the mulga. And at the same moment there came a long, slow grumbling from up there in the sulky grey clouds, followed almost instantly by a shattering explosion of sound. As a blinding bolt of lightning followed the unexpected thunderclap, and then another reverberating bang, she heard a shrill neigh of terror, saw the old bay gelding rear wildly away from the tree where he had been tied and gallop off, trailing his broken rein after him into the scrub.
Oh, no! Now what was she to do?
Rennie watched helplessly as he disappeared from view. She scrambled to her feet, followed the direction he had taken, calling quietly. Stupidly, she realized that she did not even know the horse’s name.
‘Here, boy! Here, boy!’
It was useless. The hoof-beats had died away. There was nothing for it but to start walking home.
With the disappearance of the sun, it was hard to tell the time, but Rennie judged that it could only be about mid-afternoon. She would easily make the homestead before dark, even if it started to rain, which it looked as though it might easily do! She could see that already one of those rainclouds was shedding its burden away in the far-off distance, by the way it lost its roundness and became a streaked grey shape connecting vertically with the horizon itself. Shafts of sunlight filtered weakly through its sodden, lessening barrage, and within an hour the sun had spread again to the place where Rennie was, beating down relentlessly upon her as she trudged. Almost she wished that the rain had happened here, for, walking like this, the heat was well-nigh unbearable, and a cloud of tiny flies tormented her persistently as she dragged her dusty feet along through patches of sand and dry grass, over gibber, amongst prickly spinifex.
Some time later, making wearily for a stand of timber and some welcome shade, Rennie felt the first faint twinge of panic, the first tenuous flutter of alarm. It was the same mulga wood that she had set out from, all those miles ago! There was the very log upon which she had sat, there was the broken branch of the very tree to which she had tied up the horse!
Rennie sat down on the log again, bewildered. How could she possibly have arrived back here, when she had been walking away all the time?
Her forehead was wet with perspiration, and her shirt clung to her back in sticky patches, and the flies clung to the shirt. The soles of her feet were burning, and her throat was dry, parched with dust, tight with the first tenseness of real fear.
She forced herself to be calm. What she should have done in the first place was to leave little landmarks as she went, so that she couldn’t possibly double up on her tracks. And if she kept the sun in the same position in relation to herself all the time, allowing for a little variation because of the hours passing, she was bound to be all right. It was understandable, the way she must have got confused, for all these mulga stands looked much alike, and there was a drab sameness about the vast country that stretched interminably about her.
After that, Rennie walked carefully. Every now and then she checked her position, and as she went she broke little twigs, placed stones, heaped tussocks of grass, to show herself that she was breaking fresh ground all the time.
It was as dusk was falling and she was literally staggering with weariness and thirst and hunger, that she came upon one of her own little signs. Rennie stared disbelievingly at the pale, sappy place where she had ripped and-broken the tiny twig, and sank down weakly at the root of that twisted tree.
She was lost.
Darkness fell in a swift, blanketing cloak, the way it did out here. Huddled under the shelter of that gnarled trunk, Rennie slept only fitfully, shivering as the air cooled to a degree she could scarcely have believed possible. She could hardly wait for daylight, and as soon as she could see she began to walk again. She walked and walked, staggering along under the blazing sun. The hunger pangs which had tormented her last night were there no longer. All she felt was a gnawing, hollow pain in her stomach, but she was consumed by a raging thirst that grew now with every yard she trudged. It was a slow, ever-present torture, that thirst. By noon she began to imagine the cool trickle of water running down her parched throat. She kept seeing little lakes of the stuff, pools that shimmered and beckoned. When she reached them there was nothing there, just sand that stung her eyes, and stones that bruised her knees, and spiny spinifex that tore at her clothes and scratched at her hands as she crawled away from where the pools had been, and got slowly to her feet again. Her vision blurred as she swayed where she stood for a moment, and then forced herself on.
Moving had become a real effort now. She had no reserves of strength left. Even breathing was difficult, for her throat was rasping, her lips cracked and swollen, her tongue stiff and numb.
Ahead of her there was a line of trees, or had she imagined that, t
oo?
No, she hadn’t—surely? They were there in front of her very eyes, a threading row of white-butted gums that flanked a winding route of darker, greener vegetation. It was the dried-up creek-bed over which Rennie had galloped on her way from the homestead. Or, if it wasn’t the same one, it was very like it. It didn’t matter, anyway. There would be water there. A soak. Murtie had told her that if you dug down you would find it. That was all that mattered just now. Water.
She began to run, with a sudden energy born of sheer desperation, and then she tripped headlong over a stone, went down heavily, wrenching her foot as she did so. The pain in her ankle made her want to cry out. She would have cried out if she could, but only a little croaking sound came, torn from her as she fell forward.
Before Rennie opened her eyes the next time, she could feel the sun searing her eyelids. Her hat was lying a little way away. Painfully she eased herself the few feet necessary to retrieve it, lay back thankfully, and put it over her nose. She had seen the line of trees again, but she couldn’t be bothered to even think about them. They were too far away, and Rennie knew it. She didn’t much care what happened now, because she had no fight, no spunk, left in her.
This was the way Chad had put his hat over his face and lain back, that day on the river-bank, just the way she had hers now. Only his hat was wider, of course, and made of felt. It wasn’t a rather silly, pretty little beach-hat, with a floppy, stitched brim and daisies around the crown. She half giggled at the thought of Chad in a hat like that! She could see his face quite clearly, tanned and weathered, with those steady, clear green eyes and that level mouth and squared-off jawline and the fine, seamed scar that ran right down from his ear to his shirt collar. She could remember the way his mouth had looked, that day, with the hat covering the rest of his face, too, could remember the way it had lifted at the corners from under the hat, as he had lazily finished off that quotation for her, the one Murtie had begun.
‘Let me slumber in the hollow where the wattle blossoms wave,
With never stone or rail to fence my bed.’
Well, there were certainly no rails here, and no fences either. And no wattle-trees, come to that, not so far as she could recall. She was quite sure, if she could be bothered to lift her head, that the only trees out here were those ones along the creek-bed, and they were not even in blossom.
No rails, no fences, no wattle-blossom.
Just sun and dust and stones.
Nothing else, unless you included those crows up there, circling around, cawing so eerily. Go away! Rennie removed the hat from her face, waved it weakly at them, and then, when they took no notice, replaced it philosophically upon her nose again. Although she knew that no one could make her look at them, not if she didn’t want to!
She was wondering dreamily to herself what Chad would have done about those crows when she thought she heard voices, and there were the crows, rising up higher into the air and flying away, so they must have thought they heard them, too. Silly birds! You’d think they’d have realized there couldn’t be voices away out here! Only her voice, that is. She opened her mouth and tried to use it, but this time she couldn’t even croak.
After that, Rennie closed her eyes and gave up thinking, simply because it was too much trouble.
CHAPTER NINE
‘Might be her finish, Boss.’
‘You bring water, quickfella, Harry.’
‘T’inkit youngfella missus bin walkabout too-much longtime, not catchem tucker, not catchem water. Might be her finish. Deadfella.’
‘That prop’ly rubbish, Harry! You get water, plurry quick.’
‘You-ai, Chad.’
Rennie opened her eyes.
If that really was Chad, and he got all angry and narky like he had when she fell off the black horse, Rennie would never forgive him! And if he started asking stupid questions, or reading lectures, or saying things—things like ‘I told you so’—she wouldn’t forgive him for that, either! She would just close her eyes again and die right here, deadfella, where she was lying, and that would teach him a lesson!
When she looked at the head looming above hers, shutting out the sun, she saw that it was indeed Chad’s. But he didn’t say ‘I told you so’. And he didn’t seem angry, either. His face was pale, sallow under its heavy tan, but although it was grim and set, it was patient rather than angry.
He was bathing her mouth and lips and tongue with water out of his hat. It seemed a funny place to have water, but that’s where it was, and he was dipping a white linen handkerchief into the hat and then squeezing it gently over her mouth, so that it ran down the side of her chin and on to her neck.
Rennie didn’t mind, because it was a cool, pleasant feeling. She wished that she could swallow some of the water, but she felt too weak to worry. Maybe, in fact, the water wasn’t even there. Maybe Chad wasn’t, either. Maybe they were just illusions, mirages, like those shimmering lakes and pools that had sent her staggering on over the plain to scrabble fruitlessly in the sand.
She closed her eyes again wearily. If they were illusions, the sooner she forgot about them the better.
‘Killem dat leg, too, Boss.’
‘A sprain, Harry, that’s all. Not badfella, that-one. More better we get her drinking first. You lift her head up now, eh?’
Rennie’s mind was confused, but she swallowed instinctively, just in case it really was water that was trickling slowly into her mouth. She went on drinking it until someone said she’s had enough, and then she felt herself lifted up, too tired even to see whose were the arms that carried her, Harry's or Chad’s. They were strong arms, firm as a rock, but the movement itself made her more light-headed than ever.
A rushing, bubbling sound made her look down fleetingly in panic. They seemed to be wading now, she and her rescuer, through knee-deep, swirling brown water. The same trees were there in their sentinel lines, the trees that had flanked the dry water-course, only now it wasn’t dry at all. It was covered up, all the dark green vegetation, by a shallow, rushing, wide brown stream, and only the trunks of the trees were showing. Their bases were hidden under a bubbling froth.
How could it possibly be full of water, that creek-bed, when she knew perfectly well that it was dry? She closed her eyes against the sight of the giddying current. She must be dreaming it, the rushing noise, the arms that were holding her safely above it. She must be dreaming about water again! Lots of water!
‘Keep still, Rennie. Lie still, darling.’
The arms tightened around her, and lips brushed her forehead, coaxing her into quietness.
So it wasn’t Chad who was there after all. Not Chad. Not Harry. But Keith.
It must be Keith, because he was the only person who ever called her ‘Rennie’ and ‘darling’. With Chad it was always ‘Renata’, and never that other word. Never ‘darling’. It was Keith who was holding her, after all, and she didn’t want it to be Keith. She didn’t love Keith. She never could, not now, so she mustn’t let him go on holding her so closely. She mustn’t let him go on thinking—thinking—
‘Keith,’ she murmured, and pushed at the broad chest—and he must have heard her, for after that there was only the sound of the water, no more voices at all.
Rennie had but the vaguest memories of that journey back to Barrindilloo homestead in the Blitz. Chad was there again, and he gave her another drink from the metal water-can he kept in the back. When they reached the house, he carried her inside to her room, and called Elspeth to help her to undress and lie between the sheets. She wanted to laugh, because his arms had been so taken up with carrying her that he hadn’t been able to remove his hat. Chad always took his hat off whenever he stepped in through the gauze door on to the veranda, but today it was still right down over his eyes as he laid her on the coverlet. Rennie smiled because it was funny. She thought Chad might have seen the joke too, but he didn’t give her an answering smile at all, not even a tiny one. Instead, he looked soberly at her, put his fingers on her wrist and wai
ted there a moment, and then he went away. When he came back, he had removed the hat, and he had brought two different lots of tablets and some more water. He helped Rennie to a sitting position and made her start swallowing all over again, after which he attended to her bruised ankle.
‘Now, Renata, Elspeth will bring you a cup of tea, and then you’ll be able to sleep. Does that feel more comfortable?’
‘Yes, thank you.’
She smiled again, and this time there was the tiniest, answering smile from Chad. He looked around for his hat, remembered it wasn’t there, shrugged at his own forgetfulness with another faint smile, and left the room.
Rennie had to admit that, after that, they were all of them kindness itself.
After Elspeth’s tea, she gave way to the pleasant sense of drowsiness and well-being that had stolen over her, and slept.
She slept for a long time, and then just off and on. Sometimes it was dark, and sometimes it was light.
When she woke up properly, Magda was sitting at the table beside her bed with a jigsaw puzzle spread out in front of her. She had completed the border of the picture, and now she was working towards the middle, her tongue protruding as she concentrated laboriously over her task.
‘The blue bit there belongs to the woman’s dress, don’t you think?’ prompted Rennie helpfully, leaning first upon one elbow, and then bringing herself upright and swinging her legs over the edge of the bed.
‘Oh, hullo, Rennie. You’re awake again!’ The child scraped her chair back eagerly. ‘Ash said I was to tell him when you woke up.’
‘No need, poppet. I’ll get dressed and go along to see him myself. I’m feeling fine now, I really am. As good as I ever was!’