Women and War

by Janet Tanner

  A cluster of buildings materialized on the horizon – the first signs of a small town. However few houses, there would be a garage on the roadside, a garage reminiscent of Jeff Holder’s place where Race used to take her. A nerve tightened in her stomach. Oh God, it could still hurt, even after so long …

  ‘Do you want to stop off here and get someone to go back for your car?’ she asked, reducing speed as the white blur of the buildings took shape and separated.

  ‘Yes. And if they can hire me one while mine is being repaired, that’s what I’ll do.’

  ‘It’s no trouble for me to take you into Melbourne.’

  ‘I know, but I still have to get back.’

  She pulled into the side of the road. An old man in a pair of trousers that had once been part of a suit was sitting just inside the garage resting upon the back legs of his chair. His shirt was collarless, rucked up by the uneven pull of his braces, a greasy looking hat was jammed onto his head. He appeared in no hurry to attend to his customers.

  ‘Perhaps you had better check up that they can do what you want before I drive off and leave you,’ Alys said.

  ‘Perhaps I had.’ He got out and went over to talk to the man. Again Alys was struck by the fluid ease with which he moved, the breadth of his shoulders, the narrowness of his hips. He was as old as her own father, perhaps older, but he looked twice as fit. Daniel was beginning to show the effects of days spent sitting behind a desk – and too many business lunches, Alys thought.

  A few moments later he was back. ‘It’s all right, they have a ute they can loan me.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ she was oddly disappointed; she had enjoyed his company.

  ‘Quite. Thanks for your help. I’m sorry, I don’t know your name.’

  ‘Alys. Alys Peterson.’

  ‘Well thanks, Alys.’ He fumbled in his pocket, pulled out a small embossed card and handed it to her. ‘Don’t forget, the offer is still open for you to drive the Buick. This is where you can find me.’

  She glanced at the card. John Hicks. Buchlyvie.

  ‘I’ll be pleased to see you any time,’ he said.

  She nodded. ‘ I’ll probably take you up on that.’

  ‘I hope you do. And remember, don’t go picking up any more strange men. Right?’

  ‘Right,’ she said, laughing.

  She glanced in her rear view mirror as she drove away and was surprised to notice that he stood there watching until she was out of sight.

  ‘Alys – I have to tell you that you were seen in town the other day with a man driving a Buick.’ Beverley Reilly’s eyes were small and sharp, concentrating suspiciously on her sister’s face.

  ‘That is probably because I was with a man driving a Buick.’ Alys smiled and the smile seemed to infuriate Beverley all the more.

  ‘Who is he?’ she demanded.

  Alys’ smile died. ‘Just a friend,’ she said cagily.

  ‘But who do you know with a Buick? We don’t know anyone with a Buick! And that is not all.’ Beverley paused for a moment. ‘It seems he was quite an old man.’

  Alys felt her irritation rise another notch.

  ‘John is not old,’ she said coolly.

  ‘That’s not what I heard.’ Beverley leaned across to rearrange the wafer-thin bread and butter Alys had set out on a plate for Frances’ afternoon tea. ‘Old enough to be your father was what I heard. You want to be careful, Alys.’

  Alys snatched up the bread and butter plate. ‘I’m quite capable of taking care of myself, thank you, Bev.’

  ‘But are you?’ Beverley persisted. ‘I’m not so sure that you are. You’ve never been a very wise chooser when it came to men.’

  ‘I’ve never had much opportunity to be a wise chooser or a foolish one.’ Alys said, deadly calm. ‘Excuse me, please, Beverley. Mummy is waiting for her tea.’

  ‘But who is he, Alys?’ Beverley followed her to the doorway but Alys moved on, steadfastly ignoring her. The small smile was back on her lips. Let Beverley stew. She was getting to be just as bad as Frances had been, trying to run other people’s lives for them.

  She could see, of course, how it would look to someone who did not know the truth about her friendship – it was perfectly true that John was old enough to be her father. But what business was that of Beverley’s or anyone else’s, if it came to that? Except, of course, John’s wife, Anne. And she was in a hospital as sick in her own way as Frances – worse actually. She was mentally ill and had been since the birth of her son – and John’s – twenty-three years ago.

  Perhaps it was that which had drawn them together, the fact that each of them was tied in their own way to a sick relative. Yet even as she thought about it she knew it was more than that. She and John had simply hit if off. If they had not she would never have taken him up on his invitation to go out and drive the Buick, however fascinated she was by the big American car.

  Carrying Frances’ tea tray to the drawing room, she remembered the first time she had driven out to Buchlyvie, and smiled. She had had no idea, honestly no idea, of the size of the place, no idea that John Hicks was one of the squattocracy, with a property covering, as she put in disbelief, half of Victoria, and a fortune that was double and treble her father’s not inconsiderable wealth.

  It had been a week after her first meeting with him and whilst she had been keen to take up his offer she had also been a little hesitant. Perhaps he had not meant it – perhaps he had just said it for something to say. Yet oddly, she was quite sure he had meant it.

  The scorching weather seemed to have settled in over Melbourne and that afternoon the house seemed more oppressive than ever. Alys took Frances iced coffee and fingers of fudge cake, but her mind was busy with her plans. No use to go out to Buchlyvie too early – if John had practically to run the farm on his own the chances were he would be still at work – but leave it too late and she might interrupt the family’s evening meal. And if not his evening meal, then Frances’. Her mother insisted on gathering the family together each evening for dinner just as she always had done, except that Daniel seemed to be working late more and more often and Alys, in addition to being present like the dutiful and loving daughter Frances demanded, also had to feed her.

  Alys glanced at her watch, working out the timing of the exercise.

  ‘Mummy, I thought I’d go out for a few hours. Is that all right?’ she asked, holding the glass to Frances’ lips.

  Frances’ head came up sharply so that coffee ran in a small dribbling stream down her chin, and questioned Alys with her eyes.

  ‘Just for a drive,’ Alys said.

  Frances raised her good hand, pressing it to her chest. ‘ I … would … like …’

  ‘No, it’s too hot for you this afternoon,’ Alys said hastily. She broke off a piece of fudge cake and offered it to Frances. ‘Norma will sit with you for a while. And I shall be back for dinner.’

  She offered the cake again and Frances snatched it from her in a gesture of impotent fury. If you can’t be bothered to take me with you don’t bother feeding me either, that gesture seemed to say. She put the fudge cake to her own mouth, biting into it, and as her lip failed to control it properly crumbs tumbled down onto her caftan.

  Controlling her impatience with difficulty, Alys wiped Frances’s mouth with a napkin, brushed away the crumbs and straightened up.

  ‘I have to go out sometimes, Mummy.’

  Frances’ eyes followed her. ‘You … want to go … all the time …’

  I shan’t answer that, Alys thought. If I do I might just end up telling her a few home truths and then I shall hate myself for it.

  She was still simmering as she drove the Alfa Romeo along the fast straight road which she imagined must lead to John’s farm, Buchlyvie, and not even the freedom of the open air could quite dispel her feeling of oppression. Because she was a little uncertain that she should be doing this, she supposed.

  Each time she saw the mail drum that marked a driveway looming up she slowed, re
ading the name painted on it, but none of these early farms was Buchlyvie. The private roads grew farther and farther apart, the land opened out to the vaster pastures and still she had not come to it. Then, just when she thought she must have missed it she saw another track, overhung with wilga gums and marked not by the customary oil-drum mail box but a grand white-painted structure built in the shape of a house and below it the legend ‘Buchlyvie’.

  She screeched to a stop, reversed and turned in between the gums. The track seemed to go on forever, beyond the fences the pasture land spread as far as the eye could see. No one had escaped the drought but it looked as though Buchlyvie was weathering it as well as anyone. The cattle she saw looked sleek and fat and in the white picket-fenced paddocks close to the house half-a-dozen thoroughbred horses flicked their tails against the flies.

  The house itself was vast – white-painted with a roof of cool green corrugated and the walls covered with deep red climbing roses and brilliantly blue morning glories. The place appeared deserted but when Alys got out of the car to look around an old woman, part-aborigine, came out of the house wiping her hands on her apron.

  ‘I’m looking for John Hicks,’ Alys said, slightly self-conscious.

  ‘Boss man out mending fences. You want him?’

  ‘Yes.’ Alys scoured the horizon. ‘Is it too far for me to walk?’

  ‘Could be.’

  ‘Oh,’ Alys experienced the falling away of disappointment. On a property as big as this one appeared to be there would be no way of reaching the boundaries except on horseback. It looked as though she was going to have to give up and go home without driving the Buick – and without seeing John. She turned back to the aborigine woman.

  ‘Will you tell him Alys Peterson was here,’ she began.

  ‘You wait! You lucky!’ The woman pointed.

  Far out, too far yet to be distinguishable, a man was riding in. Alys waited. At last he was close enough for her to be able to recognize him – and see his surprised expression.

  He cantered into the yard and reined in the horse. ‘Well, hullo!’

  ‘Hullo.’ She was looking at him and thinking that, although tiredness seemed to have etched the lines on his leathery face deeper, at the same time he somehow looked years younger sitting astride that horse, hat pulled down to cover his iron grey hair, tight-fitting shirt and breeches showing that his body was still hard and trim. ‘I took you at your word and came out to have another look at your car.’

  ‘I’m afraid you’re out of luck. I haven’t got it back yet. I thought while it was in the garage I might as well get them to give it the works.’ He hitched up the reins and dismounted.

  ‘Oh well, never mind – it was a nice drive out anyway.’ Alys half turned and he stopped her.

  ‘Don’t rush off – it’s good to see you. I’m just going to have a cold beer. Why not join me?’

  ‘That sounds like a nice idea,’ Alys said gratefully. ‘If you’re sure I’m not keeping you from what you should be doing, that is.’

  ‘No worries. I was due for a break. Come on, we’ll go on the veranda.’

  It was cool on the veranda. John fetched the beer, bitingly cold from the ice box, and they sat in cane chairs to drink it.

  ‘You’ve got a large place here,’ Alys said.

  He tipped back his chair, stretching long muscled legs. ‘A lot of hard work. I’ve lost half-a-dozen hands to the AIF. Not to mention my son. If the war goes on much longer I’m not sure I can keep going. I’ve put my word in and the government have promised me some land girls. Land girls! I ask you, what bloody use will they be?’

  ‘Hey, steady on, I shall take exception to that remark on behalf of my sex,’ Alys said.

  He looked at her, amused. ‘You think you could be a stockman then?’

  Alys took a sip of her beer. ‘I’d have a darned good shot at it.’

  He laughed. The crinkles bit deeper into the skin around his eyes. ‘I bet you could at that. And if you learned as much about it as you have about cars you’d be bloody good, I reckon.’

  Pleased, she laughed with him. ‘So tell me about the Buick. It was a hose that had gone, was it?’

  ‘Just as you said.’ He looked at her over his beer, his eyes flinty sharp. ‘Where did you learn so much about mechanics? Be fair now, most girls haven’t a clue what goes on under any bonnet but their own.’

  ‘I had a boyfriend once who was a racing driver.’ Her voice was determinedly light.

  Those sharp eyes narrowed a fraction. ‘Anyone I would have heard of?’

  ‘No, he was killed.’ Her tone still gave nothing away, though if she had been looking she might have noticed his gleam of understanding. ‘You know, I thought I’d missed this place,’ she went on, changing the subject. ‘I had very nearly given up looking when I saw the drive. And the mailbox. Very impressive, that mailbox.’

  ‘Do you think so?’ he asked dryly.

  ‘I do indeed.’ She glanced at him quizzically. ‘It doesn’t sound as if you like it much.’

  ‘I don’t. A fancy thing like that isn’t to my taste at all. Give me an oil drum, honest to goodness weatherproof, like everybody else.’

  ‘So why have you got a mailbox?’

  A small shadow darkened his eyes. Momentarily, the lines around them bit deeper.

  ‘Anne always wanted one. My wife. I had it made for her.’

  ‘Oh yes, your wife.’ Alys glanced around embarrassed suddenly. Stupid of her, she hadn’t thought of John’s wife. Suppose she took exception to the sudden appearance of a young lady met at the roadside?

  ‘She’s not here,’ John said and Alys recognized the same tone she had used a few minutes ago to refer to Race – deliberately matter-of-fact.

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry, you mean she’s …?’

  ‘Anne is sick,’ he said. ‘She’s in hospital.’

  ‘What’s wrong with her?’ Alys asked sympathetically, saw the tiny muscle tighten in John’s cheek, and wished she had not.

  ‘She never recovered from Stuart’s birth,’ he said in the same matter-of-fact tone. ‘She had a hard time – it unhinged her. It happens to some women I’m told. I must confess I never knew another it happened to, but then I don’t suppose I’ve known many women. First there was the Great War running off with my youth and then the farm … Anyway, giving birth to Stuart did something to Anne’s mind, God knows what, but it did. I tried every damned whitsway I could to avoid having her put away, but the time came when I couldn’t put if off any longer.’ His voice tailed away as if he was remembering some incident too private and distressing to mention. Then he took a long gulp of beer and wiped his mouth with the back of his lean sunburned hand. ‘I had to have a nurse raise Stuart. She became more of a mother to him than Anne ever was. When she died last winter it was the first time I’d ever seen him shed a tear. Even when he was a youngster he never cried – certainly not when his mother went away.’

  ‘And she has been in hospital all these years!’ Alys said, thinking, Dear God, more years than I have been alive, probably.

  ‘Oh, we’ve had her home at times over the years, trying to get her back to normal. Sometimes, she’d be quite good for weeks at a stretch but it always caught up with her again.’ His eyes narrowed reflectively. ‘It was when she was home once that I had the mailbox made for her. She fancied it. God knows why. But she’d got this idea in her head that she wanted a mailbox different from any others hereabouts.’

  ‘Did it please her?’ Alys asked.

  ‘I suppose so, for a bit. Yeah, I can remember her running down the road like a kid to look at it, see if there was anything in it. But you could never please Anne for long. No, whatever makes a woman happy and content, well it had just got shut down in her somehow. She’d start criticizing everything, every damn little thing, and then down she’d go into this black depression.’ He looked at Alys. ‘Ever seen a horse caught in a bog? Not a pretty sight. But that’s what it was like watching Anne. She’d flounder and we�
�d try to help, but she’d still go in deeper and deeper until she ended up a danger to herself and everyone else …’

  Alys was silent.

  John drained his beer. ‘ Well, I don’t suppose you came all the way out here to listen to my troubles,’ he said, the corners of his mouth creasing into a smile.

  ‘I’m really sorry,’ Alys said.

  ‘Don’t be. I’m used to it. If you feel sorry for anyone, feel sorry for Anne. She’s missed so bloody much.’ He stood up. ‘Hey, I’m going to get another beer. D’you want one?’

  ‘No, it’s all right. I’ve got enough. But don’t let me stop you.’

  He went back into the house and Alys sat, staring down the track and thinking of the woman who had run like a child to see her mailbox.

  When he came back the mood had changed. They sat drinking their beer and chatting but the conversation was at a superficial level now. The time for confidences had passed. At last Alys rose.

  ‘I think I had better be getting back. But thanks for the beer and your company. I’ve enjoyed it.’

  He stood up, too, and she thought that for all his troubles there was no stoop to his shoulders. He looked tall and straight and strong.

  ‘My pleasure. I hope you’ll come again. With any luck the Buick will be back. If not we can still crack a beer, can’t we?’

  She laughed. ‘We certainly can. Yes, I’ll be back, John.’

  She had gone back. Again, there had been the easy communication, the pleasure in each other’s company. This time he had drawn her out and she had found herself telling him about Frances in much the same way that he had told her about his wife, frankly, without embarrassment, but leaving out the details that were too private to mention to someone she had met only three times – even if she did feel she had known him for years.

  He listened sympathetically. ‘You must be champing at the bit.’

  ‘I’ve resigned myself to staying as long as I’m needed. Ninety per cent of the time I feel I could be making myself much more useful working for the war effort and releasing another man to go overseas, but the doctor told me straight out that if I did anything to upset Mummy it could bring on another stroke. I couldn’t have that on my conscience.’