Eagle on the Hill

by JH Fletcher

  ‘Gunganja.’

  Baby?

  Alex smiled and touched the woman’s arm. ‘Your baby?’

  Perhaps some communication was possible, after all. The woman’s smile widened as she cradled the baby in her arms.

  ‘Gunganja nantiku.’

  Who knew what that meant?

  Alex pointed at the child, then at the woman. ‘Your child?’

  The woman nodded, smiling still more broadly.

  ‘Gunganja nantiku,’ she repeated.

  I am the mother of this child?

  Perhaps.

  ‘Very beautiful,’ Alex said.

  She had run out of words. They had said all there was to say. They stared at each other, willing to be friends despite the gulf, but the gulf remained to separate them, now and forever.

  Alex smiled, yet there was sadness in her heart as she placed her hand on the woman’s arm and went back the way she had come, through a day grown darker than it had been before.

  Bethany. Her lost friend.

  CHAPTER 88

  They arrived in Wentworth and Charlie had his meeting with Wilf and Davis.

  When it was over, Davis asked Charlie whether he would object if Davis invited Alex to go with him for a drink in the Ladies’ Lounge of the Wentworth Hotel.

  There had been a time when Charlie had made Sarah and Alex cross the road rather than walk past the entrance to a pub, but the world was changing and he was doing his best to keep up with it.

  ‘Ask her by all means.’

  Davis rushed off to speak to Alex before Charlie could change his mind.

  Charlie and Wilf steered clear of the pub themselves. Instead, they sat together in the back room of Wilf’s shop, surrounded by the smells of cheese and bacon and cloth, while Sarah and Mrs Laird went to the Lairds’ house next door for a cup of tea.

  Wilf Laird took a bottle of whisky and two glasses from a cupboard and poured a tot for Charlie and himself. Charlie took a second look; halfway up the glass, those tots were.

  ‘Jug of water on the table,’ Wilf Laird said. ‘If you want to spoil it.’

  ‘Reckon I will,’ Charlie said, and poured water to the rim.

  ‘Got somethin’ to celebrate,’ Wilf said. ‘The way things are goin’. Davis is a good boy.’

  ‘Very good,’ Charlie agreed, sipping his drink.

  ‘Looks like we might have somethin’ else to drink to one of these days.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Davis and Alex. Make a good pair, I reckon. What do you think?’

  ‘I haven’t thought about it.’

  Of course he’d thought about it. So had Sarah. They’d said little to each other but looked a lot, which was their way when they had something of special importance to communicate. After all the years they’d been together, those looks told more than words. And their thoughts were that they would welcome such an arrangement, if Alex willed it. But, without knowing what Alex thought, it was too soon to follow Wilf’s lead.

  ‘Reckon they’ll make up their own minds about that,’ Charlie said.

  ‘But you’d have no objection?’ Wilf said, a dog with a bone.

  ‘Of course not. So long as Alex’s happy.’

  There was no argument about that. It was what everybody wanted.

  Alex and Davis walked down the road to the hotel, went into the lounge and found Dadd Archer plastered to the eyes and in the mood for trouble.

  They sat down at an empty table. The hotel didn’t provide waiter service, so Davis went up to the bar to order.

  While he was waiting for his change, Dadd Archer made his move. Davis came back with the drinks and found Dadd sitting in his chair.

  ‘That’s my place!’ Davis said.

  Dadd grinned. ‘Not any more.’

  ‘Out,’ Davis said. He put the glasses on the table with a spare bottle of beer that he had brought along as well.

  ‘Piss off, sonny,’ Dadd replied. He grinned like a shark. ‘This lady and me’s just gittin’ acquainted.’

  Davis had learnt how to handle crew members who thought they could handle him. The trick was not to argue but act. He picked up the beer bottle and roundhoused Dadd Archer with it, the bottle smashing against the side of his head in a froth of foam and splintered glass. The chair turned over and Dadd, with blood everywhere, was out like a light before he hit the floor.

  The barman came running, screeching like a throttled chook. ‘What’s goin’ on?’

  ‘We had a disagreement,’ Davis said.

  ‘Then go and settle your arguments outside. Messin’ up the furniture —’

  ‘No argument,’ Davis said. ‘I was just explainin’ to him why he was wrong.’

  ‘Until you learn to behave you’d best do your explainin’ somewhere else.’

  ‘We’ll go,’ Davis said, ‘as soon as we finish our drinks.’ He smiled at Alex and toasted her and took a first decorous sip of beer.

  Alex looked back at him with open mouth. River life could be rough and she certainly didn’t faint, as some at Regency College would have done, but it was the first time she’d been close to any brawl, never mind one so ferocious and so swift, and she found herself looking at Davis in a different light. Skippers had to be able to handle themselves, everyone knew that. Even so …

  ‘Thirsty work.’ Half shocked, half impressed, wholly flabbergasted, she couldn’t think of anything else to say.

  ‘Darn right.’

  The kitchen staff dragged Dadd away, while the spectators at the bar, who had been staring goggle-eyed, went back to their drinks. Even the men with whom Dadd Archer had been drinking did nothing to avenge him; Dadd wasn’t the sort to make close friends and Davis Laird was evidently a bloke who could look after himself.

  So it was a relatively peaceful drink Davis and Alex had, after all that, yet such a rumpus was bound to leave an unpleasant atmosphere and Alex was glad when they finally left and walked back to the wharf.

  ‘Sorry about that,’ Davis said.

  ‘You didn’t start it.’

  ‘Finished it, though, didn’t I?’ He laughed, pleased as a schoolboy with himself.

  ‘Watch out for Dadd Archer,’ Alex warned him. ‘He had a run-in with my brother not long ago. He’s not the sort to forget what happened tonight.’

  ‘I’m not frightened of Dadd Archer.’ Davis was not boasting but stating a fact. He glanced sideways at her. ‘Your dad says you’re finishin’ school soon.’

  ‘End of this year.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘University, maybe. I haven’t decided.’

  ‘University …’ He said the word as he might have said ‘Mars’. ‘I thought you’d be comin’ back to the river.’

  ‘I might.’

  ‘Only if you did —’

  Alex felt herself hemmed in by questions, asked and unasked, to which she didn’t know the answers. Didn’t wish to know them either, or not yet.

  They reached the spot where Brenda lay alongside the wharf.

  ‘I must go in,’ Alex said before Davis had a chance to speak.

  ‘Right. But we’ll talk again soon.’ He gave her a straight look. Full-speed-ahead Laird.

  His words might have been a challenge.

  ‘We can always talk,’ Alex replied.

  CHAPTER 89

  Sarah had received a letter. From Mary Grenville, of all people.

  Charlie had picked it up at the Fitzroy post office. Now Brenda was five miles upriver and snuggled into the bank for the night, with the cold June darkness pressing against the saloon windows. Sarah and Charlie sat close to the potbelly stove while Sarah picked her way, slowly and carefully, through the letter. And then, frowning, read it again.

  She turned it over and over in her hands, troubled as much by the identity of the writer as by what the letter said.

  Back in January I went to Sydney to hear Martin play at the Concert Hall. The auditorium was full and afterwards everyone said what a wonderful future he has.

&n
bsp; I had a long talk with him. It’s been a long time, but I believe he still misses Alex very much and will not be happy until he sees her again. I’ve thought about their situation ever since. I know this will be very difficult for both of us, but I would like us to meet and talk things over if that is possible. I am sure neither of us wishes to interfere in our children’s lives but it is difficult to sit back and watch them suffering when they should be so joyful.

  I shall be happy to visit you aboard Brenda next time you’re in Niland, if that will not cause you any difficulties. If you are agreeable, please give me a date and a time that is convenient for you.

  Conscious of Charlie’s curious eye on her, she folded the letter in her fist, got up and walked to the window. Outside, the air was still, with a thin mist blurring the branches of the trees. Between the drifting patches of mist the river flowed peacefully; currents marking the surface like sinews.

  Behind her Charlie said: ‘Trouble?’

  She turned. Silently she held Mary’s letter out to him. He took it, opened it without taking his eyes from her face, and read it. When he had finished he looked up at her again.

  ‘I thought we’d heard the last of that nonsense.’

  ‘So did I.’ Her fingers were plucking at her skirt. ‘I got to answer her, Charlie. What should I say?’

  ‘Tell ’er to come, if she’s so keen on the idea.’

  ‘See ’er here?’

  ‘It’s our home, girl. And she’s suggested it.’

  ‘But what shall I say to ’er?’

  ‘Tell her Alex has got ’erself someone else.’

  ‘But has she?’

  ‘Wilf Laird’s in favour of it. So are we.’

  ‘And Alex?’

  ‘She let Davis take her for a drink when we were in Wentworth.’

  ‘We’re not talkin’ drinks, Charlie, but marriage.’

  ‘My bet is he’d marry her tomorrow, if she’d have him.’

  ‘And she’d be what? A riverboat woman?’

  ‘That’s what you are, my girl. You haven’t done so badly.’

  ‘But she’s educated. We was talkin’ university for her, Charlie. A chance of somethin’ better outta life than we’ve had.’

  ‘That way we lose her,’ Charlie said.

  ‘No. The way to lose her is to try and force her to do somethin’ she doesn’t want to do. It’s by letting her go that we’ll keep ’er.’

  ‘Maybe she’ll be happy to be married to Davis. At least she’ll know the life.’

  ‘Maybe we should let her make up her own mind.’

  ‘So let Mary Grenville come here and tell her so.’

  It was the last thing Sarah wanted. She had hoped that Charlie would forbid it and give her the excuse to say no. Now she took refuge in subservience.

  ‘If that’s what you think, of course I’ll see ’er. I’ll write to ’er straightaway.’

  Charlie said, ‘We gotta be at Edward’s Crossing next month, to pick Alex up from school for the winter break. We could stop off in Niland on the way. You can talk to her then, if it suits Her Majesty’s schedule.’ He grinned, teeth showing. Bloody Grenvilles …

  A hundred times Sarah regretted it. She had met Mary Grenville on her home ground and been pleasantly surprised by her. Mary had been friendly, not at all condescending, but she was still a Grenville, Rufus’s wife and George’s daughter-in-law. She would come down here from Eagle on the Hill, all frills and fancies. She would come on board, moving her skirts carefully to avoid a piece of rope, a patch of grease. She would stand in the saloon and look about her and think, Oh dear. No silver coffee pots here.

  Sarah stared critically at the saloon with its shabby furniture, its lack of class or style, and for the moment hated it. It was an old friend that had let her down.

  She will despise me for it. She will know what a mistake she’s made in coming here at all. This is our home and we’ve been happy here; it’s as much part of us as we are of it. And by coming here, Mary Grenville will take it away from me. I’ll see it through her eyes and it’ll never be the same again.

  She scrubbed and polished and tidied, to make the best of it she could. And dared Charlie to make some smart comment which, wisely, he did not.

  Up to the last Sarah hoped there’d be something to stop Mary from coming. She would change her mind. She would have an accident. Rufus would forbid it.

  But none of these things happened and she arrived on horseback at the time they’d agreed. When they met on the wharf Sarah was as stiff and grim as a guardsman on parade.

  ‘What a beautiful day!’ Mary Grenville tethered her horse, and smiled as though she meant it.

  ‘Be careful on the gangplank,’ Sarah warned. Look out for the bollard. Mind the capstan. Don’t trip on the step. She gestured to the open door of the saloon.

  ‘Let’s talk in there.’

  ‘By all means.’

  Mary went inside. Sarah followed and closed the door.

  ‘Sit where you like.’

  She heard the truculence in her voice but could do nothing about it. Just let her make fun of us, she thought. Just let her try.

  Mary did not. She sat and looked about her, smiling still. Sarah looked for condescension in that smile but found none.

  ‘Your flowers are lovely.’

  ‘Nuthun to ’em. I picked ’em along the riverbank.’

  ‘But they’re beautiful. I love flowers, but both my husband and father-in-law suffer from hay fever so we can’t have any at Eagle on the Hill. I miss them so.’

  ‘They do liven up a room,’ Sarah allowed cautiously.

  And waited. The two women looked at each other.

  ‘I wanted to thank you for everything Alex has done for my son,’ Mary said.

  ‘She’s done nuthun for him. The other way round, more like.’

  ‘Oh, but she has! Even in his music —’

  ‘She knows nuthun about music.’

  ‘She’s made a great difference, all the same. Martin told me so when I saw him in Sydney. He said she’d given his playing more depth, more spirit. I don’t think he’s done anything for her that compares with that. Except show her how the rich live, I suppose, but that’s a mixed blessing.’

  ‘Martin did a lot more than that. If it hadn’t been for them bein’ friends, I’d never ’ave thought of sending her to that Regency College. Now she’s got the chance to go on to university in Melbourne. They accept women there nowadays. It’s given her the chance of a whole new life. It wouldn’t ’ave happened, but for Martin.’

  ‘But for you, by the sound of it.’

  ‘Well …’ Sarah’s smile, until now as cheery as a dungeon gate, became a little lighter. ‘… Maybe I did help a bit.’

  ‘That was the problem, you see. The ones who have money and the ones who don’t … We — my husband and I — saw that side of her, that her background was — was different from ours —’

  ‘You don’ have to tell me that.’ Sarah’s hackles were sky-high at once. ‘I know that very well.’

  She was about to say more, words that would probably have damaged beyond repair any possibility of an understanding between them, but Mary cut her off. ‘Please … Please let me — let me finish.’

  Mary got to her feet, walked to the window, looked out, turned and came back again. But did not sit down.

  She said, ‘I knew Martin was a lonely boy. It worried me, but there was no-one —’

  ‘No-one suitable?’ Sarah’s lip curled.

  ‘No-one at all. When he became friends with Alex I thought she was a substitute for a real friend. Forgive me. But friendship between a boy and — and a girl is unusual, isn’t it? At that age. And I suppose I still thought the same, even — even after they grew older. I thought of them as just — friends. But I believe there is more to it than that, certainly on Martin’s side. He had — had to go to Sydney. It was his big chance. And next year he’ll be going to Europe. But I know he will be devastated if he loses her because o
f it.’

  Sarah stared up at her. She could smell the flowers that Mary Grenville had admired. She was about to speak but at the last moment changed her mind.

  ‘My husband is — is against the relationship. I was myself — you see how honest I’m being — until I spoke to Martin. But I came here today to see whether you and I — their mothers — can do anything to save them. If Alex feels the same. Because I am sure you know, as I do, how important it is to love, to be loved.’ Mary smiled painfully. ‘Not everyone has the good fortune to experience that, but I am sure those who do must know how — how precious it is. Nothing — career, money, nothing — can compensate for it, because when you have it the rest is unimportant, and without it — without it there is nothing.’

  Sarah was staring at her work-hardened hands. ‘I’m one of the lucky ones,’ she said.

  ‘I know,’ said Mary Grenville. ‘I sensed it as soon as I came aboard. This cabin — even the air — is full of love.’ She paused. ‘I was wondering whether there was anything — anything we could do to give your daughter and my son a chance to find their own fulfilment.’

  Sarah’s defensive walls had tumbled to the ground.

  ‘I reckon it may be too late,’ she said. ‘She’s seeing someone else now.’ Then, with a spark of anger: ‘If Martin feels so much for ’er, why didn’ he tell her all this himself? He hardly wrote, even. Did he think he could just leave her hangin’? That she’d wait for him forever?’

  ‘I don’t think he meant to. His ability to express himself goes into his music. All of it. For the rest … I fear he is not very articulate.’

  Sarah said, ‘Not many men are, I believe.’

  She went and rearranged the flowers in the jug. Without turning her head, she said, ‘If he goes to Europe without seein’ her it’ll be too late. You tell ’im, if he wants her as much as you say, he’d better get hold of ’er fast, and talk to ’er. It may be too late anyway. But that’s his only chance.’

  Of course Charlie wanted to know the outcome of her discussion with ‘the gentry’, as he put it, but she fobbed him off, and he was more than happy that she did. Women’s affairs were a morass for the unwary. No sensible man let himself become mired in them.