by Tony Parsons
Chapter Thirteen
There was never any shortage of things to do at Mattai. The period between shearing and the Sydney wool sales was taken up with dipping, drenching, mulesing, lamb marking and many other activities around the property. Old sheep were drafted for sale because there was always a fair demand for small drafts of ewes for other studs. There were, however, breeders who were so protective of their bloodlines that they wouldn’t allow other breeders access to them; they trucked their ewes direct to the abattoirs. Dan wasn’t so worried about competition, already being in an enviable position himself, and he didn’t object to selling small numbers of his oldest ewes, although he wouldn’t sell large numbers to one buyer.
About this time, the show and sale rams were classed up into their various categories, depending on their potential value. Some clients came to Mattai to inspect rams before they went off to the sales. Beth liked the sale work. That and taking sheep to shows never failed to interest her. She loved the buzz of activity that accompanied all of the negotiations.
Dan and Jim were equally keen, yet it was doubtful whether anything Dan did with his sheep surpassed the experience of seeing his wool sold. This was when he really came into his own. There was the thrill of seeing his clip on the show floor, sometimes almost side by side with a clip from the same area. He would stand and watch the buyers as they delved into the bales and tried to put an accurate valuation on the various lines. He knew that these buyers represented some of the most famous woollen mills and fashion houses in the world. The top lines of a noted clip always attracted tremendous interest. Any faults or carelessness in the wool’s preparation were mercilessly exposed in the clear light made possible by the specially constructed glass windows in the roofs of all the big wool stores. The wool manager of the pastoral house would give him his valuation of the various lines of the Mattai clip so he would have a good idea of the price his wool was likely to fetch before it was auctioned. Then it was off to lunch at the company’s expense before attending the actual sale at the Wool Exchange, where one line of wool could be sold in the blink of an eye and hundreds of lots in a couple of hours. This was the culmination of all his efforts throughout the year at Mattai.
‘Your wool looks really good this year, Dan,’ Colin Holmes remarked as he met the Staffords on the show floor. The company’s wool manager, Holmes was a man in his early fifties, grey-haired, blue-eyed, soft in voice and vastly experienced in the business of selling wool. ‘It’s the best wool we’ve had here this season, but whether it will beat the Goulburn price is up in the air. It just depends on how many want it. The five-bale line is a beauty, but the two-baler is absolute perfection. We couldn’t find a staple out of place.’ Holmes was clearly impressed.
‘If you’d seen the effort Rod Cameron put into it, you’d understand why,’ said a magnanimous Dan. ‘He was sorting it for days after shearing. Is Rod here? He told me he’d try to be.’
‘If Rod told you he’d be here, he’ll be here,’ Holmes said. ‘How are you, Dorothy? Beth? Jim?’ Holmes looked admiringly at the two women. He had known Dorothy from the time she married Dan and he had reckoned then that Dan was one lucky fellow. She was still a fine-looking woman, but Beth was an absolute knockout, the most gorgeous young woman he had ever escorted through his wool store.
Beth was the first to spot Rod. It wasn’t difficult, as he was a head taller than most of the crowd. He was talking with people who were involved with a clip from Yass. He looked across the rows of wool bales, saw the Staffords and waved before threading his way across the show floor towards them, pausing every now and then to examine a brand and make a cursory inspection of its wool.
‘Rod is a real pro,’ Holmes said as Rod drew closer. ‘Everyone in the business acknowledges that he’s a great fellow with fine wool. And he just loves wool – I’ve never known anyone to love it more.’
Beth kept her eyes on Rod’s tall figure as he wove his way between bales and buyers and sidestepped the disgorged wool in the aisles. He certainly had style, she thought, admiring from afar his brown leather jacket and well-cut jeans. Finally reaching them, he shook hands with everyone and nodded to Beth. She had been hoping he would kiss her but supposed that was too much to expect in front of her father. However, he did manage to manoeuvre himself behind her so he could touch her hand briefly. Even this light contact caused her heart to beat faster and her spirits to rise.
‘So, what do the experts reckon, Dan?’ Rod asked.
‘They reckon it’s pretty damned good, but they’re not sure how it will stack up against the Goulburn price,’ Dan replied cautiously.
Rod nodded. ‘How do you like the two-bale line, Col?’
‘It’s perfection, Rod. Quite superb,’ Holmes said.
‘I thought it was pretty good. It appeared to be a shade finer than the wool in the five-bale lot, which, by the way, I think is a pretty damn good lot of wool.’
‘It certainly is,’ Holmes agreed. ‘It’s just that this present slump in prices makes it hard for us to estimate what any wool will bring. But wool of this quality and evenness ought to sell well because there’s so little of it around.’
‘What have you been doing since we last saw you, Rod?’ Dorothy asked when there was a brief pause in the conversation.
‘Oh, this and that. I spent some time with my mother and got in a bit of swimming and fishing. I like to spend as much time as I can with Mum because she’s on her own. Then I went down to Yass to stay with my sister and brother-in-law before I came up here,’ Rod said. He avoided eye contact with Beth, though he could feel her penetrating gaze upon him.
Excusing himself, Rod went to talk to a Yass woolgrower who also had a clip on the show floor. Colin Holmes watched as he walked away. ‘A bit of a mystery man, that one,’ he remarked in his quiet way. ‘There are all kinds of stories I’ve heard about him. The job is to separate fact from fiction.’
‘What do you mean?’ Dan asked. ‘Rod seems a pretty straightforward chap to us. Never put a foot wrong. Jim here got him to go to one of his cricket sessions and he was a hit there. In more ways than one, eh, Jim?’ He laughed. ‘And Beth thinks he’s pretty special, don’t you?’
‘Da-ad,’ Beth said, frowning, not wanting her feelings broadcast around the wool store. She was also surprised her father was even aware of her fondness for Rod.
‘I don’t go about with my eyes closed, Beth,’ Dan said.
‘I’m not inferring that there’s anything bad about Cameron,’ Holmes continued. ‘Far from it. It’s just that he seems to generate interest wherever he goes. He always did. He gave up big-time football when it seemed he had the world at his feet. No one could believe it. No, it’s just that there are so many rumours circulating–’ Whatever else Holmes had to say was interrupted by a colleague who came looking for his chief.
The Staffords had to put their curiosity on hold while they were taken to lunch. They were careful not to be overly optimistic about their clip’s prospects because, as they’d heard time and again, wool was in a slump. Dan especially never counted his chickens before they hatched.
Later, they sat in anxious anticipation at the Wool Exchange. Here, over the course of a couple of hours, wool worth millions of dollars would change hands before their eyes. The sale of a wool clip represented not only twelve months’ growth of wool and the efforts needed to produce it but years of dedication to extreme quality. In the case of Mudgee wool, this involved a span of well over one hundred years. And although the Staffords sold stud sheep, the sale of these was largely dictated by the price they received for their wool.
When the sale began it was clear that the market was well down for most topmaking wools and even for some of the plainer spinners’ wool, but it kicked a little when the first Yass clip came up for sale. A Mudgee clip sold for a higher price than it had made the previous year and then it was Mattai’s turn. Their hearts were in their throats, and Beth glanced across at Rod, who, despite his usual self-assurance, also seemed sligh
tly nervous. There was an immediate frenzy of bidding for the five-bale lot of Extra Super AAAAE. Up and up the price rose, soaring as two buyers bid for the lot until finally just one bidder remained. The Staffords realised, with great jubilation, that they had topped the Goulburn price and set a seasonal record. Dan’s face was creased in a broad smile. But it was the news from the star lot section that put the icing on the cake. The two bales of Extra Superfine E branded DS/MATTAI/MUDGEE had topped the five-bale price by more than 500 cents a kilogram.
Dan, after hugging Dorothy, reached across and warmly shook Rod’s hand. Jim excitedly followed suit. Beth, shielded for a moment by her mother from her father and brother, gave Rod a quick kiss.
‘If nothing better comes up, we’ll have the seasonal record price. That’s a fantastic start to the new ram-selling season,’ Dan said, the satisfaction shining in his eyes. These wool prices put him in the very top bracket of fine-wool growers. ‘What are you doing this evening, Rod?’ Dan asked.
‘Nothing in particular. Why?’
‘Dinner is on me. Got to be, after those prices. You’ll come, won’t you?’
‘I’d be pleased to,’ Rod said.
‘What about coming back to the hotel with us for a drink to celebrate? Dorothy and Beth want to go shopping for a while. They reckon I can afford it now,’ Dan chuckled.
Rod nodded goodbye to Dorothy and Beth as they left for their shopping expedition. It was obviously a rare treat for them to be in Sydney. As for him, he hated the city and lived for the day when he could say goodbye to it. If it wasn’t for Sheilagh and the current uncertainty about the fate of Glengarry, he would have been long gone.
Dinner that night was at Doyle’s. Dorothy and Beth loved a decent seafood dinner at least once a year. Beth was stunning in a short-sleeved black silk dress with a single set of pearls. Dorothy’s dress was clover-green with three-quarter sleeves and she wore an antique gold necklace and bracelet.
Rod complimented them on how beautiful they looked and Dorothy teasingly asked him if he had been to many dinners with ladies dressed in after-five outfits.
‘Some,’ he answered noncommittally. ‘But never with two ladies who looked as lovely as you two.’
‘Flatterer,’ Dorothy said, laughing.
‘Not at all. I’m fair dinkum.’
‘It’s nice to dress up occasionally but I feel more at home in jeans,’ Beth said, glowing after Rod’s compliment.
‘Anyway, there’s been enough attention on the ladies now. I must say that you don’t look bad yourself, Rod,’ Dorothy said as she looked at him admiringly. He was wearing a char-coal suit with a dark-blue tie. Beth agreed wholeheartedly, and didn’t forget to comment on her father’s new tie, as it was a rare day when Dan bought himself a new article of clothing.
It was during their dinner of prawns, lobster and snapper that the Staffords were reminded of what Colin Holmes had said about Rod – that he was something of a mystery man. When Rod excused himself to visit the gents, Dan voiced the question that was on all their lips.
‘Do you have the feeling that people are looking at us?’ he whispered. ‘Every time I look around, I see people looking over at our table. Do we look like hicks from the sticks?’
‘No, dear,’ Dorothy said. ‘Beth, for one, is certainly worth looking at, though I do agree that we seem to be the object of uncommon interest tonight.’
They watched Rod stride back into the dining area and, as he passed one of the far tables, he was stopped by a young woman who held out a pen and a paper napkin. Rod bent over, wrote on the napkin and handed it back to her with a brief smile.
‘Look at that,’ Dan said. ‘She seems to have asked Rod for his autograph. Now, if that doesn’t beat the band!’
‘Or maybe she asked him for his phone number,’ Jim suggested mischievously, looking sideways at his sister. He reckoned that would get Beth going. And he wasn’t too far off the mark – Beth’s heart was thumping as she tried to quell a surge of unexpected jealousy.
‘You’ve got a fan,’ Dorothy suggested when Rod had resumed his seat.
‘Something like that,’ Rod said casually. It was obviously all he was prepared to say and it left them all even more curious. What had Rod done in the sporting field that war-ranted his autograph? Beth was reminded of the night she and Rod had gone to Gulgong when it seemed people had recognised him.
‘So what have you been up to, Jim?’ Rod asked. ‘A little bird told me that you’re a bit keen on a certain good-looking young sister at Mudgee Hospital.’
‘Now how on earth did you hear about that?’ Jim said with uncharacteristic bashfulness.
‘Why would Mudgee be different from any other bush town? You must know how people love to gossip. What’s she like?’ Rod asked with a teasing grin.
‘She’s…’ Jim paused in his attempt to describe the young woman in question.
‘Helen is very nice, Rod,’ Dorothy said. ‘Very nice and very sensible.’ She was pleased her son had finally met a girl he was serious about.
‘Hmm, and a nursing sister to boot. They don’t last long in the bush. You’d better get cracking, Jim.’ Cameron winked at him across the table.
‘You might get to meet her, Rod. I think you’re planning to take Helen to the Cudgee sheepdog trials, aren’t you, Jim?’ Beth asked as Jim nodded.
‘That’s another reason for me to be there,’ Rod said. ‘So, where did you meet her?’
‘At the Paul’s Creek dance,’ Beth answered for her brother. ‘It’s the dance of the district.’
‘Paul’s Creek. Where exactly is that?’
‘It’s the next valley across from ours,’ Dan answered.
‘I don’t know it. Do they grow fine wool there?’ Rod asked.
‘Some do and some don’t. It’s a bit iffy for super wool.’
Beth hoped they wouldn’t get on to the subject of wool again. The evening had been very pleasant and the food was exquisite, but being with her family wasn’t the same as being on her own with Rod. It was positively frustrating that she couldn’t talk openly with him at length.
Later that night Rod left the Staffords at their hotel and told Beth he would see her at the Cudgee oval the following Saturday. He would stay in Mudgee on the Friday night and drive out after breakfast. ‘Do I need to bring anything?’ he asked.
‘I’m sure some meat or sausages wouldn’t go astray,’ Dorothy suggested.
‘All right. Are you going, Dorothy?’ he asked.
‘I’m always there. I help with the catering,’ she said.
Beth had hoped Rod would work out a way they could steal an hour or so together before he left but he had remained tantalisingly detached. It was almost as if he didn’t care about her. Or perhaps he’d just decided to play a very cool hand in her father’s presence. All she could look forward to now was seeing him at the trials the following weekend, but that wouldn’t allow for any privacy either. Jim would be working dogs there too, and he wanted her to be chummy with Helen. This wouldn’t leave any time to have Rod to herself. Beth didn’t know how much more she could take.
Chapter Fourteen
Cudgee wasn’t a gorgeously beautiful oval. It wasn’t fringed by lovely old country trees, and the grass was dry and veered more towards brown than green. The ground was encircled by an irregular sprinkling of tall eucalypts of several varieties, and the only contrast was offered by two purple bougan-villeas – one against the back wall of the iron-roofed building that doubled as refreshment and committee room, and the other masking the entrance to the ladies toilet.
A working party, or perhaps several working parties, had constructed some rough bush tables beneath a dozen or so of the larger and shadier eucalypts, and people who came to the ground and knew it usually brought their own chairs. A small grandstand with a sloping roof stood next to a mesh gate that gave entry to the ground. It was here, on wooden seats, that the timekeeper and other officials sat for the duration of the trials.
There were
probably two dozen vehicles at the oval when Rod arrived on the Saturday morning. Just about everyone who owned a property in the district had an opinion on what constituted a good sheepdog so there was already quite a crowd of onlookers. There were some who had no time for trial dogs, or what they called fancy dogs, but they came anyway, the trials being a good place to have a yarn and catch up on local gossip while enjoying a feed and a drink or two or three.
The vehicles belonging to the onlookers were drawn up nose-in to the oval, but the dog people, most in utes, were parked back in the shade of the gums.
Dorothy was the first of the Staffords Rod saw when he entered the refreshment room. She was making sandwiches with three other women so he said a quick hello, then left.
‘Come back for a cuppa later,’ Dorothy called as he walked away.
‘I’ll do that,’ he said.
Jim was working his dog Meg out on the oval. Beth was sitting with Bella and a pretty blonde girl, who Rod assumed to be the nurse Jim was so enamoured with, on one of the bench seats near the grandstand. They were all watching Jim very intently and failed to notice Rod as he walked up behind them. Meg had just persuaded her three sheep to move off the bridge but she had used up her time and had been rung off before she could get to the third obstacle, which was the pen. Rod couldn’t see Wally Osborne so he fervently hoped that Bella had come without him.
‘G’day, girls,’ Rod said from behind them.
The three young women turned as one to greet him. Beth could immediately feel the colour rising in her cheeks.
‘Hello, stranger,’ Bella said with a dazzling smile.
‘Stranger yourself,’ Rod fired back. ‘I was with your family only last week.’
‘And how! I heard about the great wool prices. You must be feeling very pleased with yourself,’ Bella said.