The Dyehouse

by Mena Calthorpe

  Far below, the little neck of water lapped onto the sandy beach. Across the gully the lights were showing through the darkness. They were beacons, isolated on the steep sides of the hills. She flicked on the light and glanced briefly at the envelopes. Account for papers. Invitation to attend a meeting at the local school hall. A letter from Aunt Ethel.

  Outside, the air was still. The leaves hung motionless from the trees.

  Then suddenly the wind came with a mighty roar. It swept in from the sea. It lifted up the waves and tipped them with white. The clouds darkened and spread. The rain fell onto the sandy beach and lashed at the houses clinging to the craggy hillsides.

  Miss Merton stood for a moment listening to the fury. The long bough of the gum-tree was almost hitting the roof. The branches swished and slapped at the tiles.

  I’ll have to get someone soon, she thought. I should have that bough lopped.

  She went to the bedroom and took off her hat. Then she switched on the jug to make a quick cup of tea.

  She turned over the letter from Aunt Ethel. For a brief moment she pictured the cottage. The sloping roof. The circle of pines. The long row of hoary pears. The wistaria on the front verandah. And beyond, the whitewashed stable, the isolated japonica in full scarlet bloom, the cherry trees, the cultivation paddock and the rolling hills.

  She put tea into a pot and poured boiling water over it. Then she ripped the envelope and settled down.

  It was a gossipy letter, full of dear, familiar chatter.

  Alice Weatherby was having a baby. Jan Easton was going to be married. They’d missed out on the best of the fat-lamb market. Ena Henderson was planning a trip to the continent. There was a lot of gossip about Mark Wilson marrying Hilda James. People were wondering if it could be a shotgun affair. Mark was eighteen and Hilda old enough to be his mother. But everyone was hoping it would turn out for the best.

  ‘I wonder if you would remember that strange Stephen Forrester?’

  Miss Merton held the letter, suddenly still.

  ‘He used to wash for Gold on the banks of the River at the old House. He turned up here about a Month ago. Your Uncle put him on to helping in the Sheds. He doesn’t seem to have changed much over the Years—he still talks Politics as much as he used to. A bit greyer in the hair, like most of us, though. He is a good Worker, and I think your Uncle would like to have kept him on. But he packed up yesterday and drew his Money. He’s still on the Track. I think he’s drifting up North to the City. I must say we found him very agreeable Company, and your Uncle seemed rather put out when he left us.’

  Miss Merton scanned the letter. There was no more mention of Stephen.

  He had turned up a month ago, and now he was gone.

  She placed the letter carefully on the table and sat thinking. In her mind’s eye she traced the track from the cottage twisting down through the orchard, across the paddock to the white gate. And then the highway. The wide country road. The rising hill. The man breasting the rise. The long track from the cottage.

  Outside the storm increased in fury.

  Miss Merton walked to the window. The rain fell in sheets. The lights across the gully swung and flickered. She went abruptly to the bathroom and turned on the water. She stripped off her frock and brushed her hair. She glanced fleetingly into the mirror. The woman looked back at her, strange yet familiar. She looked at the ageing face inquiringly. The hair was neat, and in the light strongly marked with silver. The eyes were good, but the lines were etched at the corners. It was a middle-aged face. More. It was the face of a woman getting well on in years. She wondered briefly what had become of the girl who had run so lightly down the track towards Stephen’s hut. The years had dealt with her. Slowly but surely they had dealt with her.

  But after her bath and her quickly prepared meal she felt no more relaxed. She had a sense of waiting. It must be the storm.

  She picked up the letter and began to read it again.

  ‘He packed up yesterday and drew his Money.’

  It was intolerable in the living-room. Miss Merton went slowly into the bedroom. She undid her hair and sat brushing it down before the mirror. She was listening to the storm. The thunder rolled along the hills. The house shuddered. The trees bent almost double.

  And suddenly she had a vision of Stephen.

  He drew his money yesterday. That would be Tuesday. If he walked at a good swinging pace he would be over the mountain. But if he stopped to pick up stones, to look at them, to loiter in the cool shallows above the spot where the platypus nested, he would still be on the Monaro. She pictured the wind-lashed road and the figure reeling through the dark. Perhaps he would be lucky and reach the bridge. High on the rocks above the bridge there was a cave. A dry, warm cave. One summer’s day they had walked to it and sat watching the sun on the distant hills.

  There was no rest for her tonight. The wind clamoured. The leaves beat and beat upon the roof. All living things would be seeking shelter tonight. But the road ran bare, with sparsely timbered paddocks fringing it. There was no dense scrub. None till the road climbed the stony rise above the river. Here the scrub was thick and matted. Here a fox might creep for hiding and shelter. Here a man might crawl on hands and knees to seek shelter from the elements.

  She picked up a book and began to read. The sentences were unintelligible. She began reading them aloud in an effort to concentrate. She read the page once and then again. Finally she closed the book, put a marker carefully between the pages and placed it on the table. She began reviewing the next day’s work. Thinking about Renshaw. Of his surprising gesture over Barney, of Cuthbert’s phone call, of her conversation with Patty Nicholls about—Stephen.

  She put his name out of her mind. Tomorrow she had a new set of figures to produce. If she got a good start, with a little luck she might have them out by midday.

  After she had gone over and over it, planning the methods she would use, calculating the probable times, mentally checking folders for relevant material, she was back again with the night and the thought of Stephen.

  It was no use trying to rest. She picked a soft green cotton dressing gown from the wardrobe. She pulled it over her nightgown. She smoothed it around her slender figure and tied the girdle in a heavy knot.

  It would be better in the living-room after all.

  She switched on the lights. The flowers caught her attention. She picked out two withered leaves. Then she lifted them all from the bowl. She wrapped a handkerchief around the stems to prevent the water from dripping. She carried them through to the kitchen. Here, she cut the stems back an inch and rearranged them all in the bowl. Tomorrow she would buy more flowers. The heat really had played havoc with them. She carried the bowl back to the living-room and placed it on the table.

  She drew the curtain back and looked out into the night. The trees were a dark, seething mass, dense shapes in the darkness. The rain came, driven by the wind, and hit the shuddering roof in great sheets. Across the gully the lights were grotesque. The lightning split the sky. For a second she saw the road far below her, the alien pine-tree, the gabled roof of the darkened house.

  It would pass. It must soon reach the peak of its fury.

  She let the curtain fall. The soft folds slid into position.

  The storm must surely pass. She covered her face with her hands.

  God grant him shelter, she said. A bridge, a cave, a friendly door. God grant him shelter tonight.

  CHAPTER FORTY

  The stock sheets had come over from Head Office.

  The sight of them stacked on the floor gave Renshaw a sudden sick feeling at the pit of his stomach. There would be no let-up now. From this minute until the last of the auditors were out of the door, the tempo would quicken. They would expect him to organize the stock, keep the production rolling along and find sufficient men and women to arrange the physical stocktaking. He had protested to Cuthbert about it.

  ‘You’re doing all right. Production figures going along. You’ve got all
the stock organized on the ground floor. Nothing to worry about.’

  ‘I need four pairs to get this stock recorded before the auditors come in. I need every man I’ve got on production. You know we haven’t been replacing the ones who pulled out. There isn’t a man I could take off even for an hour.’

  ‘Better put on some overtime,’ Cuthbert said. ‘I don’t feel like putting on more staff at this time. You’ve always handled it. I can’t see why you won’t this year. Do you think four pairs could handle it, working two nights a week? And keep them notified. We don’t want any trouble over tea money.’

  ‘Sure.’ Renshaw was annoyed. Last stocktaking there had been trouble over Goodwin’s tea money. He had kicked up a fuss about it. Cuthbert had OK’d the pay out, finally. Goodwin had taken the matter to the Union. Cuthbert had blamed Renshaw. It was in the award. And it was Renshaw’s job to see that they were advised twenty-four hours in advance.

  ‘Two nights a week?’ Renshaw said. ‘I might. Try it for a couple of weeks and see how I go. If I have to, I’ll work three nights during the last few weeks. Don’t see how I can handle it during regular hours.’

  ‘Anyway, you take it up with Larcombe. I’m prepared to OK the overtime.’

  Renshaw put the phone down. Take it up with Larcombe. Well, that was a bloody farce if ever there was one. But he’d have to put it to Larcombe. Wait while he considered it from this angle and that angle. And finally he’d have to put the words into Larcombe’s mouth.

  On the fourth floor the stock was being organized. The ground floor was stacked and ready. Rolls were being picked out every day for the vats on the fourth. And all the time the stock was being written in, the production would go on. He’d need to isolate a fair stack of cloth in the greige. It was not good planning to write in the stock and then begin pulling it out.

  He had been down to the lab and the chemical stockroom. A new method would have to be evolved here. Somehow the usage would have to be split up over the twelve months. It looked as though the December write-off would be heavy.

  With the production falling, the work in the office would begin to taper off. He could pull Patty Nicholls out of the recording. Old Merton could hold the fort till the last week, then he’d push Patty back into the office for the last bout with the paper work. The work would flow along now without his constant supervision. With the exception of Collins he had a fair team. He could get Sims to double check all the instructions with Collins. That would give him a break from the lab. With Patty writing in the stock and him calling, they could cover a lot of ground in a day.

  ‘Do what you like,’ Larcombe said. The mundane details of the work irked him. He didn’t really care how Renshaw arranged the stock. As long as it was all ready without too much fuss when the auditors came in, he didn’t want to be bothered with the details.

  ‘Cuthbert thinks we ought to work two nights a week.’

  Larcombe considered. He wasn’t really thinking about it at all. He raised his eyebrows in a pretence of thinking the matter over.

  ‘Well, what do you think about it? You’re the bloke that’s going to organize the work.’

  ‘Well I’m not going to handle it with the present staff. The other alternative is to put more men on.’

  That was it. The same old pretence. Larcombe bit on a pencil.

  ‘You’d better start them on overtime. It’s against policy to put on more staff just now. I wouldn’t make the overtime general. See how many pairs you need, and bring them in.’

  ‘Yes,’ Renshaw said. ‘I think it’s a good idea.’

  Larcombe smiled. He had tied the matter up in a few moments. He wondered why there was always this fuss every stocktaking.

  Renshaw decided to begin work on the ground floor. He had a twofold purpose in choosing the back stockroom as a starting point. To begin with, the room was not overlarge. He and Patty would handle this part of the stock recording alone, working at a rate of three hours a day. This would give Patty time to help Miss Merton out if the work showed signs of piling up in the office. And besides, it would give him the chance of talking to Patty in private. On the fourth floor people were always coming through to pick out cloth for the vats.

  He had not had a conversation with Patty since the day he had talked to her in his office. He had judged it best to let matters drift along for a while. With the women in general he had adopted a friendly, but not over-familiar attitude.

  ‘Something’s going to bust,’ Goodwin said. ‘Against all the laws of nature. A bloke like Renshaw can’t change all that quickly. I’ve seen him this way before. When it suits him he could almost fool a parson. But when you know him, you know just where to look for the wolf coming through. For me, well I hope it lasts till Christmas. But I seen it before today. It builds up to a point, then God help the poor coot that’s working with him when he blows his top.’

  Collins was leaning on the bench in the lab. He had the beakers scrubbed up. The pipettes gleamed in their stand. In the storeroom the tins had been wiped over and the old labels replaced. He had tried to work out a weight for the contents of each tin, but it wasn’t very accurate. It was hard to judge the weight of containers. He had done the best he could. If it wasn’t right, then Renshaw could do better.

  ‘He can get rooted, for all I care,’ Collins said bitterly. ‘I wonder that someone hasn’t pushed his face in before now.’

  ‘He’s a pretty fair-sized bloke,’ Goodwin said. ‘And he’s handy with his fists. Only bloke I ever saw take him on other than Hughie was the mad fireman. That was before your time, when we burned coal. Pretty dangerous sort of bloke, at that. Used to turn the steam off just when he felt like it. Wouldn’t have any truck with Renshaw at all. Chased him out of the boiler-room more than once. I remember him chasing Renshaw with a shovel. Followed him around the presses. He was screaming and threatening all the time. He didn’t last long,’ Goodwin said thoughtfully. ‘But it was fun while it lasted. Some blokes reckon it was a pity he didn’t catch up with him. But I suppose one bloke’s not much different from another. But I could think of lots of blokes I’d rather spend an idle hour with.’

  Oliver walked in. He was on his way to the chemical store for sulphuric acid.

  The year was running out. Close to December now, and he was still at the Dyehouse, drifting with the tide. He had talked over the possibility of a stand-down with the shop steward, and they had laid down a plan of action in case of a sudden move in that direction. There was little else that he could do. In principle he was against overtime when other men were out of jobs, but reasonable overtime was stipulated in the award.

  If he stayed until Christmas he would probably work the year round.

  ‘What do you think about this sudden change in Renshaw?’ Goodwin asked.

  ‘I got a lot more important things on my mind right now,’ Oliver said, ‘but my guess is that any change in him is for the better.’

  He was not anxious to involve himself in a discussion on Renshaw. Particularly on Renshaw’s attitude to women. He walked through to the chemical store.

  In the back stockroom Renshaw and Patty were working on the stock. Renshaw had selected roll No. 1 in each fixture for the location of the auditors’ copy of the stock sheet. Patty sat on a tall stool recording, while Renshaw called.

  She headed the stock sheet and waited for Renshaw to begin.

  Renshaw began to call. Fixture A. Fixture B. Fixture C.

  They worked steadily for an hour.

  They’d covered a fair amount of ground. There was time for a breather. Renshaw bent over and offered Patty a cigarette. He leant close to her as he lit it. The flame spluttered. He looked suddenly into Patty’s eyes. It might be the moment, he thought. Now.

  ‘We had some good times together, Patty,’ he said.

  She looked at him. They had been good times. They had seemed good then.

  ‘They were good times.’

  ‘The last days of the summer,’ he said slowly. ‘There’ll neve
r be days like the last days of last summer.’

  ‘Things are never the same,’ Patty said.

  Already the lazy days of last summer had receded from her mind. It was not only the summer, the long golden days. It was the people too. The summer would never be the same. Nor the people. People changed. Already the precious memory of the days with Renshaw was blurred in her mind. Things had changed. Renshaw had changed. She drew a long breath. And along with it all, she too had changed. She thought differently about Renshaw now.

  She thought suddenly of the afternoon that she had walked out along the tram tracks. If he had spoken to her then…If he had approached her that day…

  ‘It’s true,’ Renshaw said slowly. ‘But sometimes changes are for the better. Some blokes reckon that all changes are for the better.’

  ‘I don’t believe that. Sounds like someone trying to be clever. Terrible things happen to people.’

  ‘I wasn’t really arguing in favour of it, Patty. But sometimes it can be for the best. I’d give a lot to be able to undo what I did to you. Over Gwennie. I don’t know now why I acted the way I did. I really don’t.’

  He believes it, Patty thought. He really believes it. He’s played the act so long that he’s come to believe in it himself. And people have fallen for it for a long time.

  ‘It doesn’t really matter. We’re still friends. We get along well. It can be fun working together. And I wasn’t blaming you, now that it’s over. It was my fault too. I’ve got around to seeing it that way lately.’

  ‘What do you mean,’ Renshaw said. ‘“Now that it’s over”?’

  He put out his hand and grabbed her by the arm. The smile had left his face. There was a slight, spasmodic twitching of the muscle under his eye.

  ‘Did you understand what I was saying?’

  ‘I understand.’

  Patty peered intently at him. There was no faltering of her gaze. Her heart was still. Yes, it was over. She looked at him. There was no quickening of her pulses, no rising flood of colour, no wondering. No sense of anticipation. It was over. The summer of last year was gone. She drew a sharp, clean breath of air.