by JH Fletcher
A river gum would shed its leaves to hear such a voice, as plaintive and high as an injured child, with sobs to bring tears to the eyes, but with a hint of seduction in it too, an invitation to share her disbelief that the world could be so cruel to a helpless woman, blackcurrant eyes and all.
You are not brutes, the eyes said. I know you will have pity, for I am helpless and in pain.
‘To hell with this,’ Charlie said, moved. ‘Let’s be done with it.’
And Wilf agreed.
After that it was easy.
‘How much did you agree to pay?’ Sarah said, aghast, when Charlie told her. ‘What were you two men thinking of?’
‘Mrs Perce is sick,’ Charlie explained. ‘But brave, too. You gotta admire her for it.’
‘Sick?’ said Sarah, who knew a trick or two herself. ‘That old boiler? Sick as a mallee bull, she is.’
Charlie and Wilf looked at each other.
‘She said she was sick,’ said Charlie softly.
‘Said that was why they’re sellin’ up,’ said Wilf, even more softly.
‘Her party piece,’ Sarah said. ‘I heard in town that they’re taking over her brother’s shop in Evans. That’s why they’re sellin’. I’m surprised you didn’ know, Wilf, you bein’ a local man. Next thing you’ll see her dancin’ a polka on the wharf.’
Too late now.
What fools. All they had to do now was agree who was to captain her. And there was unlikely to be much of an argument about that.
CHAPTER 84
With Alex doing so well at college, there was talk of university. She had the brains but her will was less sure.
‘I didn’ know a girl could do that,’ said Charlie.
‘Ever since some woman called Bella something managed it at Melbourne University in the eighties,’ Sarah told him.
Charlie couldn’t see why Alex should want to bother, but to Sarah it would be a dream come true.
As the months had passed, Alex had seemed to grow easier in her mind about Martin Grenville. Sarah wrote to her every Sunday and twice had made the long journey to Adelaide to see her. She had begun to hope that Alex was getting over him at last. The end of the term would be the most dangerous time; if Alex and Martin got together during the holidays it might reawaken all her old longings. Sarah was determined that would not happen. She did not share Charlie’s objections to the Grenvilles as a clan but could not see how pursuing what was surely a doomed love affair could bring Alex anything but grief.
Fortunately there were other, more suitable men and Sarah intended to make sure Alex met them.
One man in particular.
Davis Laird, Wilf’s son, had once delivered a note to Sarah under the eyes of the police to tell her that Jig Jenkins had been found. Now he had grown into a strong young man. He had worked on riverboats since he was fourteen and was full of laughter and practical jokes, treating life like an adventure that he spiced with vast quantities of food and beer.
His exuberance spilt over in other directions, too. Many times Sarah had seen his eyes lingering on Alex when he thought she wasn’t looking and, familiar with the ways of young men, suspected he was undressing her daughter in his mind. She thought Alex probably knew it too.
A more protective mother might have been concerned, but Davis’s name had been linked with no other women and Sarah found his obvious affection for her daughter touching. As for Alex’s feelings … She had naturally said nothing to her mother, but Sarah suspected she had no strong objections to Davis’s attentions; it was pleasant to be wanted, as a woman, by a man.
A second man, and one so much more suitable than the first. She believed Alex was sensible as well as bright, and Martin was clearly a lost cause. To be desired was in itself desirable, and she hoped that Alex would be drawn to Davis because of it.
Sarah certainly intended to do what she could to bring them together. She had never believed that absence made the heart grow fonder, so it helped that Charlie and Wilf Laird had agreed that Davis should be appointed skipper of Margaret — although it was a decision that had brought heartache of its own.
Luke had been so sure he would be made master of the Proud Agnes after Jock’s death. He was familiar with the boat, the crew and the river. He had seemed the obvious choice, yet Alex’s fears proved justified. Jock’s heirs, with an eye to keeping in with the best families along the river, gave the job to Dadd Archer. Dadd was a six-foot bastard with a lighted fuse in each fist who thought he was God’s gift to every sheila who walked. But he was also a distant cousin of the Grenvilles and that was good enough.
Within hours of coming aboard, Dadd had a barney with Luke and Luke walked off. He tracked Charlie down at Wentworth, where he and Wilf were refitting Margaret, and came on board Brenda to ask for the skipper’s job.
The sun was reflected in spears of golden light from the surface of the river. Through the open door of the saloon came the sound of hammering from Margaret, moored next door, and the clean smell of sawn timber.
Charlie listened to Luke’s request and felt as comfortable as a hair shirt. ‘If only you’d let me know …’
‘I didn’ know meself,’ Luke said. ‘First thing I heard about it was that bastard comin’ aboard and pickin’ a fight.’
‘What about?’
‘Said the engine was dirty, which it wasn’t. I told him any more of his crap an’ I’d clean it with his tongue. He swung one at me and I slugged him back. Didn’ seem much point hangin’ around after that.’
Luke Armstrong: his father’s son.
‘The thing is …’ Charlie said awkwardly.
‘Let me guess. You’ve given the job to someone else.’
‘I didn’ know, see?’
‘Who?’
‘Davis Laird.’
‘But he’s only a kid!’
‘He’s the same age as you. Got his ticket, too. And his old man owns the other half of the boat.’
‘But Davis is wild!’ Luke protested. ‘Everybody knows him. You let him take Margaret, next thing he’ll be rippin’ her bottom out on Christmas Rocks or somethin’.’
‘You’re too late, Lukey. I’m sorry. I give him my word.’
‘You can always change your mind! I got more experience than him. A thousand times more! I’ll talk to him meself …’
He saw Charlie’s expression, regretful but unyielding, and sighed. His words petered out. ‘Proud Agnes and now this. Story of my life,’ he said bitterly. ‘There’s a job goin’ with the port captain at Niland. Never thought I’d see the day when I went for a land job, but maybe I’d better grab it while I got the chance. Let’s hope that’s not gone as well.’ He paused, looking at his father.
Charlie would not be blackmailed. ‘Maybe you had.’
It was sad, but there was nothing to be done, because Charlie had given his word. Luke shrugged and gave up the struggle.
There was a time when Sarah would have dumped Davis Laird without a second thought to have her son back in the team, but not now. Inside herself she might wonder whether the headstrong Davis was really the right choice, she might suspect that Charlie also had his doubts, but now there were Alex’s interests to consider too. She said nothing.
Things worked out fine, however. Surprising all of them, Davis Laird proved an able captain. Yes, he was young. Yes, he lacked experience, as the young always do. Yes, he was given to going straight ahead and to hell with the risks. But he ran a good ship, kept his crew in line and stuck to his schedule, as far as anyone could in the rises and falls of the Darling, and those who had said he was so wet you could shoot ducks off him were proved wrong.
Sarah thought it was all working out very satisfactorily. Luke had got the Niland job. Davis was doing a good job on Margaret. All that remained was to get Alex and Davis together. Then, she told herself, she’d be happy.
1899
CHAPTER 85
A little over twelve months later, in January 1899, on an evening dull with humidity and with the roa
r of thunder in the distance, Martin Grenville, darling of the Sydney Music Academy, made his first solo appearance at the Sydney Concert Hall.
Standing backstage, concealed by drapes from the audience, whose voice growled softly in the gloom, Martin looked out at the auditorium. White shirtfronts glimmered; black satin dresses reflected the sober light. His mother was out there, he knew. His father, caught up in meetings with Sir Thomas Sutton, had sent his apologies. The piano stood alone on the stage, surrounded by emptiness and silence.
Martin’s palms were moist; his heart thumped in his chest. This was the night of opportunity and terror. Everything in his future life hung on the next half hour.
His tutor touched his elbow encouragingly. It was time. Martin took a deep breath. He stepped onto the stage. There was a splattering of polite applause. He walked to the piano and sat down.
He was alone. He looked at the keys, gleaming softly in the light, waiting for him. His attention was focused on those keys and on what lay behind them, on the spirits of the music that took form, insubstantial as shadows, in the waiting air. The music grew, became alive. It flowed, filling Martin’s head. It spread warmly through heart and belly and arms. It brought the heat to his fingers. It took him and brought him, in all humility — he the servant, he the messenger — to the gates of glory. No fears now; no doubts. He rested his fingertips on the keys.
The moment came. He began to play.
Afterwards …
He could not remember the afterwards. Only the return from the real world of music to the unreal world of applause and cheers, while he was still dazzled by all that had passed, kitten-weak through the outpouring of emotion, and the exuberance of the audience rose like a sea to overwhelm him. His tutor and his mother were hugging him. They were laughing and crying, congratulating him over and over again. And it was done.
Yet not quite done, it seemed. Three days after Martin’s performance, Ernesto Walsh, an internationally renowned pianist now in the twilight of his career but still one of the most influential musical figures of his generation, began his farewell Australian tour with a concert in Sydney. The following day he held a master class at the Academy. What he heard caused him to summon Martin Grenville and Martin’s tutor, Dominic Bruce, into his presence.
‘This boy,’ Walsh told Bruce, ‘is a genius.’
It was not something he would have said even twelve months before, but with his own keyboard career coming to an end, he was fashioning for himself a new role: the discoverer and promoter of other performers whose success would enable him, at least for a little longer, to maintain his own place in the limelight.
He switched his attention to Martin. ‘How old are you, boy?’
‘Eighteen.’
‘The right age. Perfect!’ Old enough to perform, young enough to be influenced. Ernesto Walsh, no shrinking violet, was delighted with his discovery and more than willing to say so. ‘I knew I would meet someone! Hidden talent … I have a knack for finding it. I can feel its arms reaching out. It calls to me, like gold buried in the earth. It hides, always it hides, but here I have discovered it. I have dug it out. With my personal backing, Martin Grenville, you will become one of the greatest of performers. I guarantee it! One more year’s training, that’s all you need.’
He turned to Dominic Bruce, the tutor. ‘I shall listen to him again in two months’ time, when I am back in Sydney. Two months, you hear me? Then, if I am satisfied that he continues to make progress, I shall require him to come to Europe after one more year. With Ernesto Walsh’s backing, impressarios will come flocking, there will be concerts in every major centre …’
Paris, he said. London and Rome and Vienna and Berlin and …
After they had left the maestro, Martin’s head was spinning faster than the wheels on one of those newfangled motor cars. He turned to Dominic. ‘Is that man for real?’
The tutor was almost as excited as Ernesto Walsh. ‘He’s real, all right! He’s huge! If he says he’ll make you a great performer, he means it. He fancies himself too much to let you down. Now, to work!’
‘I was planning to go home for a break.’
‘There’s no time for that! Walsh wants to hear you in two months’ time. You must impress him, that’s essential! Everything depends on that. Two months are nothing for all the things you still have to learn. When he summons you, you must be ready!’
‘Will he pay my fare to Europe?’
‘Naturally not.’ Dominic Bruce offered a hair-thin smile. ‘But fortunately, being a member of the Grenville family, you have no need to worry about such things.’
‘But I still want to go home. I’m expected.’
‘Then you must explain what has happened. Your parents will understand, I’m sure. They’ll be as excited as you are.’
‘I wasn’t thinking of my parents,’ Martin said.
‘Not a girl?’ By his expression Dominic might have discovered slime beneath a stone. ‘You stand on the threshold of the greatest adventure of your life, with the world at your feet, and you want to risk it all for a girl? You mustn’t even think of it!’
He was right, of course he was. ‘Then I’ll have to write and tell her,’ Martin replied.
‘Write, by all means! But let’s not waste time. All your future depends on the next two months!’
And Dominic Bruce departed, his raised hands imploring the Heavens. Girls, indeed!
For Martin the next two months dissolved into a frenzy of scores and study and practice, practice, practice, while the keys of the piano gnashed their teeth even in his dreams.
Somehow he found time to send Alex a brief note. To justify. Or to explain. Or at least to inform. Then he headed once again to the keyboard.
CHAPTER 86
Alex’s world was ashes, yet the time came when it was impossible to care any more. She ached, how she ached, but told herself she had to make up her mind to survive. Better: she would live, despite heartache and loss.
Martin’s letter had made it brutally plain. He had had great success at his first recital. Now some famous man had invited him to Europe and he would be going — not for another year, but in the meantime he was working, always working. In the meantime Alex had no place.
He had not said it, but she knew it was true. How could she believe anything else, when he had made it so clear? She did not even blame him. Music was Martin’s life. How had she ever imagined she might compete against it? Compete against Beethoven? Against Brahms?
What a fool she had been. She wished him joy and success in his career, in his life. As for herself …
For her, too, a new life beckoned. She was in her final year at Regency College. After that it would be university or whatever else life had in store for her. She had to close her eyes to the past, to all the might-have-beens.
It was the only way.
CHAPTER 87
At the end of the summer term, Alex joined her parents on board Brenda. They made their way upriver to Wentworth to rendezvous with Margaret so that Charlie, Wilf and Davis could discuss how the Darling venture was going.
On the way they stopped in Niland, where Alex kept a rendezvous she’d been promising herself for years.
She had been still a child when she had told herself she would return to see her Aboriginal friend Bethany. She had promised. The words had not existed for her to say so aloud, but in her heart she had meant it. She was convinced, still, that Bethany had understood.
She had never gone back. Now her omission weighed upon her, although she sensed it might already be too late. The children of the past were no longer children, and the instinctive communication that existed between children might no longer be there.
The path beside the river was muddy from recent floods and the air was singing with insects. Sunshine formed golden puddles on the black earth, the emerald shoots of ferns spiked the undergrowth, and overhead, between the close-knit branches of the trees, the sky was a blaze of azure light.
A few more strides and
the forest grew dark. The tendrils of the undergrowth grew very close here. Alex wondered if she had come to the right place or whether, after all these years, her memory had deceived her. Or perhaps the clan had gone walkabout, as it had in the past. Then she thrust her way through a screen of leaves and came out into sunlight.
There were the wooden huts, just as she remembered. There was a naked woman standing close by with her back turned, her dark skin a shimmer of light as she used the point of a digging stick to lever a tuber out of the ground.
A twig snapped beneath Alex’s feet and the woman turned. They stared at each other across the clearing, across the years. Because this, grown barely recognisable, with developed breasts and the incisions of ritual scars across the taut smoothness of her flesh, was Bethany.
‘Bethany?’
The woman smiled but did not speak.
Alex held her friend’s hands, hoping despite her earlier doubts that they could share the renewal of the past, but there was a barrier that stopped them. The absence of words mattered where once it had not. Their eyes sought each other but wavered and were helpless. Their worlds had grown apart. The gulf was too great to bridge.
Alex knew it was so, but was determined to say something to acknowledge what had been between them once.
‘Do you remember swimming together? Bukartilla? You remember Bukartilla?’
Bethany frowned as though the memory were gone. Perhaps Alex had got the word wrong. Or perhaps — perish the thought — this was not Bethany after all.
‘Swim?’ Alex said hopefully. ‘You and me?’
Nothing.
Bethany — if it was Bethany — went into the nearest hut and came out holding a baby, whom she showed off proudly to her visitor.