1915

by Roger McDonald

  He left his horse at the stockyards, and with Yabbie at his heels walked the rest of the way into town. He carried a change of clothes and a razor rolled in a swag. Ambling along he broke a switch from a peppercorn tree and flicked it from side to side. “Nineteen’s enough,” he had said on his birthday a few days before. “It’ll do me.” He walked on, whistling, with Yabbie dashing left and right.

  When he saw the Albion he paused to admire its size — three stories of brick and iron veranda, with blunt but royal-looking flagpoles surmounting a row of towers. He noticed a girl standing on the upper veranda. She was dressed for hotel work but not so plainly as to be mistaken for a maid, for she wore red beads and a short-sleeved blouse with a lace collar. Her face was hidden, turned half-in to the building. Black hair dropped in a long pigtail.

  The day ended as Billy entered the hotel, a brown and shining darkness swallowing everything. Yabbie slithered on the polished linoleum of the hall while Billy scrutinized a row of hunting prints, disbelieving the horses’ long necks. Out the back a yardman showed him a corner for Yabbie. Near the back door he found a lavatory, and there he sat with the door of his booth wide open, thinking of the girl, wondering what her face was like, imagining himself reaching from behind and making her squeal with surprise.

  “Here long?” A man joined Billy at the handbasin. He spoke indistinctly, as if talking to himself. “Henry Kroner,” he said, extending a hand. His eyes were the milky red of diced carrots in rabbit poison.

  “You must have a drink, no?” Now he stood blocking the way.

  “I s’pose so. When I’ve seen about my room.”

  “At the bar,” said the old foreigner, “you can do it there.”

  The private bar was empty except for the barman and two stock agents from Weaver & Co who sat at a table at the far end. One raised a finger to his red nose in recognition of Billy.

  “The young gentleman wants a room, Mr Reilly. And I want another beer.”

  Reilly extended a hairy hand: “Heinrich will tell you I can throw an eighteen gallon keg farther than you can spit.”

  Billy said: “I’m not troublesome.”

  The hotelkeeper reached behind the bar and rang a small handbell which dribbled its sound away into the depths of the building. “You’ll have your room in a flash. What’s your poison?”

  “Beer.”

  Reilly hesitated for a second before reaching for a pint mug. “It’s on the house.”

  Billy drank it down in half a dozen thumping gulps.

  “You’re a big drinker.”

  “Thirsty.”

  “You’re not from round here, are you?”

  Reilly stood with folded arms, his black hair dusted with silver. Dark circles under his eyes gave him a wise look.

  “My dad is Hugh Mackenzie.”

  The hotelkeeper lifted the empty mug and slapped a piece of damp towelling along the bar. “The Hugh Mackenzie I know isn’t a drinking man.”

  “No,” said Billy. “Dad ain’t.” And they both laughed.

  Henry Kroner had shifted to the near corner of the bar where he sat half-smiling with two fingers just touching the base of his glass.

  “Why do you call him Hen-rick,” whispered Billy.

  “Heinrich,” said Reilly. “That’s his proper name. He likes to be called Henry so I take the mickey out of him.”

  “A Dutchman?”

  “One of the Kaiser’s crowd.”

  “Ah,” said Billy. Then: “Who’s the Kaiser?”

  “He’s the boss cocky of Germany.”

  The girl from the veranda poked her head through the servery.

  “Is Dad there?”

  “Dad?” Her dark eyes startled him.

  “You’re the one for the room. Come on!”

  “My daughter,” explained Reilly, pointing to the door. “She won’t wait around.”

  The girl was standing in the foyer with her arms embracing his swag. His hat dangled from a free finger.

  “My name’s Frances. What’s yours?”

  Billy was reminded of a face that peered invitingly from the family’s Arabian Nights. Even the shawl fitted.

  “William,” he said clumsily, “Billy. Billy Mackenzie.”

  “Billy big-ears,” said the girl, and giggled.

  On the first landing she stopped and chatted about the “turmoil” of life in Forbes and how this was an oddly quiet night. “We get everyone here, all the best quality.” Billy kept close behind as she climbed the remaining stairs, noting how fully-shaped she was, sweeping her bottom from side to side like a woman. She was fifteen, probably sixteen, with smooth white skin against the lace of her collar and the smell of scented soap drifting around.

  An elderly couple passed them, the woman steadying one heavy-booted foot in the air before planting it with a crash on the stair. Her white haired husband guided her. “Good evening your honour, and Mrs Ward,” said Frances, arching over the bannister to let them pass. But as soon as their backs were turned she poked out her tongue.

  The upstairs corridor was gloomy and deserted. Frances led the way to the end door and fumbled with the key. The chance of putting his arms right round her presented itself now, but instead Billy found himself merely running the palm of his hand under her shawl and up her bare arm.

  Nothing happened.

  She stood there, not looking at him, her fingers on the iron key and the swag still clutched tightly. So he closed his fingers around the lace on her upper arm because there was nowhere else to go, sensing the chill of her response but needing all of a sudden to resolve something that stretched a long way past the rush of his desire.

  “You must never mistake good will for anything else,” she muttered, and with that the door swung open and she almost fell inside — throwing the swag on the bed and turning up the lamp, unclipping the outside double doors.

  “That’s it. Dinner’s on till seven-thirty.”

  Billy moved to the centre of the room while Frances, smiling, backed onto the veranda.

  “You get a splendid view of the town from up here.” Just enough light remained to pick out phantom shapes. A corrugated iron stable peered from the lane, its rickety yards formed by uneven logs. The post office opposite was a substantial white-painted stone building.

  Yabbie howled from the yard and Frances shivered: “It’s getting cold.”

  Then a shape stirred in the post office’s recessed doorway. A woman. She seemed to be keeping watch on the front door of the hotel, and as she shifted position Billy saw that she wore a yellow dress and held something dark over one arm, a coat or a blanket. A dark woman, an Aborigine.

  “Who’s that down there?”

  “Where?”

  Before he could point her out Frances darted away through his room and down the corridor.

  For a while, before he washed and changed for dinner, the odour of Frances’s scented soap lingered in the room. Before going downstairs he kicked the wall angrily and then sat on the bed for a minute and laughed. Thinking about things might have helped someone else, but not Billy. If he acted, and the result went against him, he could only act again.

  “You’re good at this waitering caper,” said Billy at dinner.

  “Waitressing,” Frances corrected, and primly set his things down. “It’s just for the holidays. Next week I’ll be back at St. Catherine’s.”

  “I didn’t know you were Catholics,” said Billy with relief. He felt less stupid. Small wonder she had confused him. He could never fathom a Catholic.

  “I’m not.” Without explaining she went on: “There’s a choice of vegetable soup or liver and bacon to start, but you can have both if you want to.”

  “Both.”

  A male voice at his shoulder made him jump: “How do you like the food?” The silverware tinkled as Mr Reilly bumped the table with his stomach. “Nothing for me, dear,” he called to Frances. “And how do you like our Franny?” he asked. “A happy girl.”

  Billy smelt whisky. />
  “Her mother insists on the city.” He leaned forward, revealing tufts of unshaven beard in the dents of his face. “The bush doesn’t agree with her — too hot in summer, too cold in winter.” Mr Reilly lifted a piece of meat from Billy’s plate and dropped it whole into his mouth. “Franny’s going to have looks. I’ll need to be on my guard against fellows like you,” and he reached across to rap a finger on Billy’s chest. “You’re not a Catholic, are you?”

  Billy made a noise with his mouth full.

  “That’s a good thing, a Catholic Mackenzie.”

  “I never said I was.”

  But Reilly was on his feet, swaying.

  “I may not see you in the morning.” They shook hands. “Tell your father you ate with Pat Reilly, eh?” He straightened chairs across the room as he left, shouldering aside the glass doors with a thump.

  Frances was at his elbow tidying up. “You mustn’t mind Dad.”

  “He reckons I’m a danger,” he grinned.

  “What to?”

  “Ar,” he looked up from a preoccupation with the sugar bowl, “to you.”

  “Dad’s awfully good at running this hotel though you’d never think so sometimes. But he doesn’t know the first thing about what a girl thinks, or why she thinks what she thinks. Do you?”

  Billy played with the sugar bowl until she lifted it out of his hands.

  “No-one’s a danger to me,” she concluded with kindness. “Do you understand?”

  Then she spoke to him in a dream. The situation was exactly the same — dining room, Frances’s black hair spilling down towards the waist of her starched pinny — and the words were the same too, except that Arnie Scott’s widow was sitting at the table as well. When Frances asked, “Do you understand?” Mrs Scott said, “Of course he understands, my dear. I’ve been wife and mother to Arnie Scott and he knows it. Now don’t you think you’ve been silly enough?” With that Billy felt intensely relieved. In the shifting planes of his dream he found himself tilted out of the dining room and poised on the crest of a wave, he was the wave, swaying backwards and forwards, ready to swoop down and run foaming along a human beach which suddenly was the naked body of Frances.

  But why was Yabbie howling endlessly at the far reach of everything?

  Damn!

  He rolled out of bed and stood naked in the cold room, wide awake, his erection standing out like a stick. The municipal gaslamps threw planks of artificial moonlight on the wall. Yabbie now yap-yapped, holding at bay whatever she’d howled at earlier. As he dressed he heard the rattle of a distant window and a male voice cutting through the angry bark.

  In the corridor the polished boards shone like water below the night lamps at either end. Someone coughed in the bowels of the hotel — the old German. And light flickered from under the door of the bar, though it must have been two in the morning. At the foot of the stairs Billy paused and heard a muffled conversation. “A thousand pounds,” it was Reilly’s voice; and another laughed: “That’s between the four of us.” Then Billy went outside to find Yabbie circling excitedly at the end of her chain.

  “What is it, girl?”

  The woman in the yellow dress was crouched against the wall of the stable.

  “That’s a mean dog, she wouldn’t let me past.”

  “What are you doing here anyway?”

  “Waitin’.”

  Billy knelt and stroked Yabbie’s muzzle until she quietened, then walked across to where the woman squatted. She was barefooted and slightly built, just a girl. He could see she was terrified.

  “Who’re you waitin’ for?” he softly asked.

  “A friend.”

  “Any friend, eh?”

  “You’ve got me wrong.” She was close enough for Billy to see her eyes defiantly holding his in the cold starlight. “Peter Crane’s in there doing business with Mr Reilly.”

  “Peter Crane?” said Billy in a bullying tone. “There ain’t no such person.” But he knew him by sight — a middle aged dairy farmer who lived alone on the flats near the river. The girl was very young, perhaps only fourteen, and pretty enough too. Billy tried to touch her but she drew back.

  “Come in the grass with me.”

  “You don’t understand. I’m just waitin’.”

  “Then wait along with me,” Billy fiercely told her. He reached out and touched her breast, which was like re-entering the dream of minutes before. Everything that had then seemed possible now came to life.

  “Don’t do it, boss.” Though she threatened to call out he twisted her arm and forced her down a grassy corridor between two outbuildings. The grass was long, thickly matted as a nest. When they reached a deep pool of shadow against the fence Billy put his arm around her neck, pushed himself hard against her, and forced her down into the icy grass. She gave a breathless whimper as she fell, landing on all fours. Billy dropped with her.

  Now there was her blanket caught up in things, sometimes shifting under an elbow and sometimes not there at all, and a strangely wordless struggle which at first was with the yellow dress, then with bones and hard lumps of earth that gradually acquired flesh, and finally, rising above the cold smell of ashes from a nearby rubbish pile, a soft darkness that seemed to spread across the entire landscape, muffling the frost, the town, the entire continent underneath him as Billy pushed and the girl hissed with hatred through clenched teeth.

  Then it was very cold.

  Billy stood and pulled up his trousers at the same time. He found a half-crown piece folded in his ten shilling note. He wanted to obliterate her.

  “Thanks, mister.” She tossed the coin back.

  Billy looked away and spat. The girl followed him into the open. A window rattled shut, a tin roof thumped in the cold, and far away a catfight erupted and as suddenly ceased.

  “You go home.” But the girl started to move in the direction of the hotel. “Not that way.” He pushed her towards the back lane, but she objected.

  “My place is through there.”

  “Not tonight it ain’t.” Again he pushed her and again she stepped sullenly forward.

  So he punched her on the mouth.

  “Do what I say.”

  A smudge of blood widened on her lower lip. She sat down in a heap and lowered her head to the ground. Yabbie, who all this time had been quiet, jangled her chain and Billy walked over to pat her. When he looked up, the girl was trotting down the drive and out the back gate.

  Billy climbed the stairs carrying his boots. When he reached the first landing the door of the bar opened and he saw Reilly stare up at him through the gloom.

  3

  The Girl on the Night Mail

  “A man can’t help feeling attached to a place,” Mr Gilchrist began, and spoke to the rhythm of the sulky’s lurching, “with all the work I’ve put into it, and grandpa too. Y’see that old box tree? There was a swarm of bees there last spring.” Walter saw six trees at once, but Douggie piped a muffled “I can” from his pile of blankets. “Wally, when Pa started it was just for the stock. Then me. I was part of the place. We knew the blacks here for a bit. They camped on this corner. Now how come you feel like you do, and want to get off what we’ve made? The bank owns a lot of the places around here. But not us. They’d need a hundred bullocks to root me out.”

  Walter grasped at the similarity: “It’s the same for me.”

  “Then what’s all the carry on?”

  “Dad,” and he risked the truth, silly as it sounded: “The difference is I could go away, and still be like you.”

  “I can’t spot that. No sir.” His father turned to him in the dark, bitter tobacco and the warm stink of spittle forcing Walter to gulp a quiet breath and hold it. “The point is you’ve got to go on a bit. How old are you now? Ideas are all right, but work,” he concluded, “it brands something in that wasn’t there. Or brands it deeper if it was. You have to find out for sure. What do you say? Your mother says yes to the university, y’know. But not yet. We want to give Douggie a couple mo
re years away at school. Two or three, then if you’re still in the same frame of mind you can go off. That’s fair.”

  At the station Douggie called: “Hey! There’s Billy.”

  Under the station lamps Walter felt exposed: he had none of the grit of his old man.

  “I won’t wait. I know you’ll do well. Behave yourself on the train, boy.”

  Well, that’s ended, Walter thought. He thudded the cases to the ground, the sulky grated off into darkness, and Billy whistled him over.

  “Back to school with the kid, I see.”

  “He’s on his own from now on,” said Walter, thrusting his brother’s case into his hand and giving him a push past Ozzie Deep at the ticket barrier.

  Billy’s riding boots were polished like apples. He wore a dark jacket and freshly-laundered moleskins.

  “I thought you were fetching sheep?”

  “Got ’em. I’ve only just cleaned up.” Billy extended white scrubbed hands, which were trembling.

  Ozzie Deep the porter punched Walter’s ticket with scrupulous slowness, saying “Oi” and sparring with his ticket punch at the ready when Walter tipped his cap over his eyes — an exchange carried through ritually at the end of every holiday. Away from Ozzie, Billy suddenly became agitated, guiding Walter past the crowd and nudging him into a cul-de-sac of wicker baskets.

  “Wally,” he looked around for eavesdroppers, “there’s a Mick girl on the train going back to school. Will you do something for me? Willya? When the bloody train gets in I’ll introduce you.” He cleared his throat. “This is the drill: when you get on the train ask her if she likes me.”

  “Who says she’ll even talk to me?”

  Suddenly the train hissed and clanked along the platform. Billy shouted: “When you get to Sydney write me a bloody letter. If she don’t shape up, I won’t care!”

  The fireman on the footplate stared at him. A carpet of steam rose from the platform, warming them, clinging like cotton to their clothes, leaving them damp and chilled.

  Walter saw her first, from behind. How did he know for sure? He knew.