But to Miss Phipps, who had ever taken a silent delight in such things, there came only the smell of boiling cauliflower and dirty dishes, of mountains of food for ever vanishing and renewing, and the steam of dish-water all around her in a hot, grey mist. Miss Phipps’s special delight was always birds. She had in her girlhood wanted to be an ornithologist. She had spent hours watching birds, reading books about birds. But instead she had been sent out to domestic service and had grown crankier and more selfish and poisonous every year. She liked to be alone in fields with birds and other small creatures, and she could tame them when she had the chance. Her laziness, her sitting still, had helped.
She sniffed with her little snub nose at the smell of the heady privet in the back-yard. It would be pleasant to have a lot of money and drive out in a big car with a pair of binoculars through which one could really see, and lie for long hours in a sun-warmed place, making notes on birds and their ways, photographing them with an expensive little camera, finding nests. If she had money, she would not waste it throwing champagne glasses into the fireplace in a stuffy hotel lounge. When she had the rulership of the World Feminised State, she would take away all the money from these wasteful fools of men, and distribute it to people like herself who wanted to lie out in the open and watch birds or do other useful things.
That night Miss Phipps was left alone as usual after her work was finished. She sat up late, with the window of the little attic where she slept wide open, for the room was hot and stuffy. Cissie had gone off to a dance, and so was not present to object to the inrush of fresh air. Miss Phipps leaned out and inhaled the fragrance of a million flowers. She thought how soon Snow and the Stray and all those other dreadful travellers would be going fruit-picking. Fruit-picking! Think of being in the open all day picking great red cherries, eating as many as you wanted, in the leafy shade of the trees. This poetic vision had in it nothing of dirt or heavy kerosene tins to be carried full of fruit, or flies, or heat, or aching arms and shoulders. Miss Phipps had even spread a green carpet of buffalo grass beneath the cherry trees for the benefit of those pickers who felt more like lying in the shade. There is no doubt she would have been among their number.
Just as she had arrived at the vision of herself picking cherries into a dainty little china bowl, with a cool house in the distance and cream on the ice as a fitting accompaniment for the cherries, someone switched on a light in the room directly beneath hers and a woman’s voice said: ‘I bet you I’d get it, didn’t I?’
‘If you want fifty pounds, why didn’t you try Tolly?’
Miss Phipps recognised the second voice as belonging to one of the Cliprell sisters, and deduced that the first speaker must be the other sister. She drew back cautiously on the window-sill, but not too far to hear.
‘Tolly be damned! You can never get anything out of him except, ‘Let’s have another drink.’ No, I knew at once that old Joey was my man — these stout red-faced old guys always think that every woman falls for them.’
‘When did you word him?’
‘This afternoon I put on that new blue rig-out and I got him alone in here, and I cried like the devil. I told him I had to have fifty pounds, and that my husband was coming up from Sydney. I’d lost fifty pounds on the races, and the bookmaker was dunning me. Always tell a man you’ve lost money on a horse, Ann. It’s something he can understand. If you said you’d spent it some other way, he’d just think you were wasting it.’
‘You’re a gem, Mary.’
‘He parted up like a lamb. I got out without a ladder in my stocking.’ The voice suddenly broke into laughter. ‘I told him I had to pay the bookmaker right away, and dashed out before he’d time to more than make a date for tonight. That’s why I want you to hang around. If I can stave him off tomorrow, we’ll be gone Thursday. Good God! Look at that shoe-buckle. I’ll have to stitch it. Damn all! The only pair of evening shoes I brought.’
‘Did you see Sheila’s gold cigarette-case? Jimmy Holstead gave it to her. She says it was easy as falling off a log. You can get anything out of him when he’s drunk.’
The other voice sounded bored. ‘All very primitive this, Ann, don’t you think? After all, I’ll be glad to get back to the city, away from these louts behaving like a lot of kids. Going swimming in the river at this hour of the night! Give me a man who can hold his liquor. They think they’re a wild crowd. Leaving young Tolly to walk home without any clothes!’
‘That’s not so. Someone gave him a pair of pyjamas and bet him he couldn’t get back to the hotel without being spotted. If he’s fool enough to have it on …’
Miss Phipps did not want to hear any more, not because eavesdropping troubled her conscience, but because she was depressed by the knowledge that even if she had the money to move among the aristocracy, she would be just as much an alien in that state of society as in the one to which it had pleased God to call her. She felt a sudden impulse to go out for a walk. She would get away at least for a little while from the atmosphere of this hotel, with its reek of drink and moral dirt. Perhaps things would be better when the fast crowd who had come to the Stainford for the races departed, taking their loud jollity and their cards and drink and big cars with them.
As she waddled down the back stairs, she snorted in her old contemptuous manner. She would like to tell these wasters what she thought of them. It became clearer and clearer to her that by remaining at the Stainford she was condoning undesirable behaviour. A set of human leeches! That’s all they were. And she despised them. They might pass her without a glance, but they could never take away that feeling of superiority, that superhuman contempt of all humanity, that was her comfort, her motive power. As she reached the bottom of the steps, a voice breathed in her ear from the darkness, so that she started.
‘Hey, auntie,’ it said. ‘Give a fellow a hand, will you?’
Miss Phipps switched on the light. It was the drunken and abominable Tolly Sampson, the golden calf, his fair hair flopped over his flushed face, clad only in a suit of pyjamas. He sat with his head in his hands.
‘Turn the damn light out,’ he said thickly.
‘Don’t you use such language,’ Miss Phipps replied angrily. ‘You may to your friends, but I’m not one of them.’ However, she switched out the light.
‘Aw, don’t be a nark,’ the boy stammered. ‘Be a sport and help me upstairs. I’m all in. True as I stand here.’ He was actually sitting on the bottom step. ‘Anyone can tell you’re a real sport, auntie, a real true-blue sport.’
‘Don’t you call me auntie.’ Miss Phipps was secretly pleased to find someone elevating her to even temporary importance. She had been snubbed by everyone on the staff, and her vanity, always ready to burgeon like yeast, swelled at this slight tribute. She allowed Mr Sampson to drape his arm over her shoulder and assisted him panting up the stairs and along the passage to his room, first scouting ahead, as he instructed, to see that no one was about. He reeked with whisky, and his proximity filled her with distaste.
‘Thanks,’ he said thickly. ‘Knew you were a sport.’ They had reached the door of his room.
‘I won’t come any farther,’ Miss Phipps declared stiffly. She would not trust herself with such a libertine. The rooms of this hotel had a bad reputation.
‘Wait a minute,’ the golden calf said slowly, and staggered inside. Miss Phipps waited. He came swaying back. ‘Here,’ he said, ‘ ’s for you. Good old auntie. Gotta get a little sleep.’
The door shut. Into Miss Phipps’s hand he had thrust several crumpled notes. She stood there a minute bewildered and rather indignant. Giving her money as though she was a servant, giving it to her in the casual manner that wiped her from all consideration as a human being who had helped him because he needed help. She, a Chester-Phipps, the heiress of millions, to be so treated by a mere stripling whose father had made his money rearing sheep. She, a member of the aristocracy, to be tipped by a swell-headed, jumped-up farm-hand. All desire to go forth and savour the beauties of the nig
ht had left her.
As fast as she could, she waddled back to her attic and, seated on the narrow bed, she smoothed out the notes with a trembling hand. She never had a penny left from her wages by the time she had bought herself some face-cream and cigarettes and stockings. All the things she could buy with three pounds! She was prepared to overlook the insult of his giving her the money when she thought of what it would buy. She fingered the notes, getting a little thrill from the unexpected windfall. Then something strange about the look of them drew her attention. She brought them up in front of her short-sighted eyes and peered at them. They were — her breath caught in her throat and she felt as though she was choking — it couldn’t be possible that they were fifty-pound notes. Three notes of fifty pounds each — surely it wasn’t possible! But these big gamblers did carry notes in large currency sometimes. The hands that held the notes shook. She laid them on the glaring white quilt as though they might sting her if she was not careful. It could not possibly be true. Yes, it was; she had a hundred and fifty pounds in three fifty-pound notes.
A vivid exultation that was half fear seized her. She rushed across the room and locked the door. She could not sit still but trotted to and fro, making little distracted movements. She must hide the money. She must go away quickly before the man found out his loss. Why, he’d never even remember her. It had been dark — but he must have known she was one of the staff coming down the back stairs. He must have recognised her as someone vaguely familiar to call her ‘auntie.’ He’d think he had lost the money. He was drunk. Go away, go away quickly, one part of her brain advised.
She felt hot and feverish. Leaning far out of the window inhaling great gulps of air as though every breath was precious, she could still hear the chatter of those two creatures in the room below. She did not care to hear their talk, probably about some man who was fool enough to associate with them. A scrap of the conversation she had heard drifted through her mind: ‘Easy as falling off a log. You can get anything out of him when he is drunk!’ Charming words from young ladies who moved in the best social circles!
Miss Phipps had just sniffed contemptuously, when a horrible thought struck her. Suppose she were on the level of such women, she, the queen, the super-woman? Suppose — She put the thought from her firmly. The Ruler of the World Feminised State had a right to confiscate wealth that was being put to undesirable ends. She was confiscating that hundred and fifty pounds. No, he had given it to her; a free gift. She would not give it back, she had a right to it, she needed it.
Even while Miss Phipps was repeating over and over that the money was hers, she had folded it in her hand and gone downstairs, sadly but firmly. Sid was so surprised when she asked which was old Mr Sampson’s room that he told her. She knocked on the old man’s door with the stern determination of a gaoler. The father of Tolly Sampson had gone to bed hours ago. A big, silent, grey-bearded man, he still retained the habits he had learned when to be up at daybreak was a necessity rather than a curious and unusual whim. He thrust out his head and growled sleepily: ‘What d’you want?’
‘Mr Sampson?’ Miss Phipps had drawn herself very erect. She was savouring a triumph. Almost her grandeur rustled behind her like a taffeta train. ‘I would like to speak to you for a moment. I am sorry for the lateness of the hour.’
The old man shot a shrewd glance at her under his shaggy brows. He did not know her, that was certain. What, he wondered, was her game? ‘Go ahead,’ he grunted.
Miss Phipps, her snub nose very much tilted, explained that she had been forced into the position of assisting his son upstairs. ‘I thought it would be better to return these to you,’ she said, suddenly dropping her drawling, elaborate sentences, and while the old man was still wondering what she was talking about, she opened her hand and held out the fifty-pound notes.
It was curious to see the old man’s face change. ‘You say he gave them to you?’ he asked.
‘He confused me with one of the staff,’ Miss Phipps replied haughtily. She was speaking to this rich man as a superior; she had the right to talk down to him, and it pleased her to do it.
‘Might I say that it is not in his best interests to encourage him in this wild way of living?’
‘Come in,’ the old man said suddenly. He flung open the door, and Miss Phipps, to her surprise, found herself obeying him. ‘Sid-down.’ He stood looking at the notes in his hand almost absently, as though they were some bitter message of death. ‘I’m much obliged to ye,’ he repeated, as though to himself. He sat down opposite her, an old man clad in a dressing-gown and slippers. ‘I’m much obliged,’ he said again.
‘I am only pleased that I had the opportunity of assisting your son,’ Miss Phipps responded graciously. She sat there in her old black dress, with the air of a duchess. ‘It is a shame to see a young man go to pieces.’
‘You’re right,’ the boy’s father said abruptly. ‘You’re right.’ He held out his enormous horny hand in front of Miss Phipps’s eyes. ‘See that hand? Ye do? Well, with it I’ve grafted for over fifty years one way or another so that boy should have everything. Jim, I says, to meself, he’ll never have to starve and fight and sweat as you’ve done. He’ll never know what it is to have men down him and kick him when he’s down. I’ve got the name of a hard man, and I’ve made money, and it’s for him. And he throws it away with a set of fools as big as himself … and scoundrels. Bloodsucking …’
‘Leeches,’ Miss Phipps finished for him. They nodded in complete agreement.
‘And there’s nothing I can do,’ the big man went on. ‘There’s not a soul in the world cares a damn. I beg your pardon, madam.’
‘Granted,’ Miss Phipps said sweetly.
‘There’s nobody cares but me. And I can’t do anything.’ He seemed suddenly to realise that this interview was unusual and peculiar. He moved uneasily. ‘I can only say I’m much obliged.’ His keen eyes swept over her. She looked like a working woman, her hands were rough and red, though her speech was educated. She could probably do with a few quid. Sampson had been a working man himself, and some fine instinct in him warned him that there was no opportunity of offering money.
Miss Phipps rose in a gracious and stately manner and bade him good-night. They parted with further thanks and apologies on his side and a very grand and condescending little movement of protest on hers.
‘If I can ever do anything,’ he said earnestly, ‘to show I appreciate the interest you took in Tolly …’
‘Not at all. I was only too pleased. Good-night.’
‘G’night.’
Miss Phipps walked away as though the whole hotel belonged to her. She looked with disdain at the door-handles she had polished only that morning. She thought with contempt of the getting of breakfast, of dish-washing. She had been afraid, but she was afraid no longer. The giving back of that money had freed her from the haunting dread of loneliness and insecurity. She was once again Ruler of the World Feminised State. She decided suddenly she would leave this despicable hotel. It was springtime and she was free, white and well over twenty-one. She would go cherry-picking. She was not afraid of the road. She was not afraid of anything.
From her window she could still hear the murmur of voices of those two women below her. Disgraceful creatures! She leant forward to hear what they were saying.
‘And there was Joan standing with the clothes half ripped off her. ‘Mr Morrison wants his hat,’ she said …’
Miss Phipps took a shoe belonging to Cissie, leant far out of the window, and flung it with an aim developed by her earlier practice as a window-smasher.
‘Stop that disgusting conversation,’ she said in a loud, clear voice. Miss Phipps was herself again.
15
I
All Snow’s illness was a haunted struggle to escape from nightmares that had to do with barbed wire tangled round him, gashing his face, rending his flesh. He was wrapped in it, helpless. In his dream he would try to step across a fence, and the wires would trip him and wind round
him. Or he would be driving along a road, and the fences would close in ahead of him, which ever way he went.
He spent uncounted years, it seemed to him, looking for an open space to camp, for an open road to travel, and as soon as he found one, the wire would come up round it.
He saw the wire cobwebbing the country, holding it down in plotted squares of wheat or pasture or fallow; and the railway lines shrieking their way across the humbled hills, climbing and boring through high places like grey snakes, panting over the level, binding the land in a tether. Even the telegraph wires hummed to themselves: ‘Mine, mine!’
He was a fly, crawling on a sticky plate without an edge, an unending plain without water or tree, wandering in a gaol that had for walls a thousand miles of flat surface; and however far he crawled, he would never come to the limit.
On and on he laboured over an ash-heap of a country, glaring and glaring like a dead, fly-blown carcass, with maggots harvesting its ribs. He was parched so that he could not cry out. There was no escape, but to die, and he could not die. There was only the road; the red, narrow prison with walls laid flat a thousand miles each way and bound with barbed wire; the walls of other men’s land, going on and on to the world’s end. He was in gaol, and he must escape, and he could not escape.
Then he had come to the weir over the Lachlan beyond Condobolin. The river dripped across it, jade and milk-white. A yellow-and-green willow hung over the upper reach, and white cockatoos with yellow crests were crying in the gum trees. He could bathe his face, he could lie in the cool water and let it pour over him. But as he went towards it the fences sprang up, higher and higher in front of him, barring the way.
He was down by the Murrumbidgee — that grey, greasy river, hot, flickering, with silver lights across its rapid flow. A thousand birds sang in the shadows of the leaves high above him, but the fences still warded him off. He was walking over the green, gentle grass, smooth as a lawn, towards the water-tower at Deniliquin. Surely there he could camp! The boys played football on those green spaces on a Sunday; the golf links stretched smooth and shaven near by. The Edward River wound its shining curves round Deniliquin, so that the town lay twisted like a snake with its back broken. In all those curves of the river there must be some place for a man to camp. But everywhere was the wire.
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