by Lucy Walker
Then she gave up.
Flan’s shoulder was too low because he was too small. It had to be Nick’s shoulder. Her head drooped towards it, then touched it: then lay on it.
Cindie was asleep.
Nick put his arm round her to save her from jolting when they struck potholes, or here and there a dried-out creek-bed.
Only once did Flan take his eyes from the road and glance their way.
Wonder what Miss Erica would think of that? he muttered, with some caustic amusement, to himself. His humour was not quite so dry this time. And the overseer from Baanya, too!
It was late night, not so long before the dingoes howled their first midnight warnings across the empty land, when they neared journey’s end. They had entered the circle of low mountains, now black on the skyline, that scattered around Mulga Gorges.
Cindie had woken earlier when Flan had stopped the car for Nick to take over the driving again. She had seen a flock of emus racing the car. Several times the lights picked up a kangaroo loping along beside the track, perilously near committing suicide by turning in towards them. She had heard the cries and seen the clouds of hundreds of white cockatoos homing in one great concourse to their roosting place.
‘I’m glad I didn’t miss all that,’ she said, a little apologetically for her long afternoon doze. ‘Everything is so wonderful: yet so weird ‒’
‘You haven’t seen anything yet ‒ so to speak,’ Flan remarked. ‘You have to go out to the gorges before we go back. Then you will rub your eyes. I guess someone’ll take you.’
‘That someone might be you, Flan,’ Nick said, as he turned in from the ironstone country, running eastwards now so that the Southern Cross spangled in the sky to their right. They rounded a corner into a wide, wide street. They were in Mulga Gorges.
The pub, the only two-storey building in a town of one store, one post office, stood in a grave silhouette against the night sky. Absolute silence reigned. Nothing moved. Not even a breath of air.
Nick had deadened the engine. He swung open the driver door and came round to help Cindie slip out while Flan rooted in the back for the hand luggage. Cindie was so stiff she could hardly stand up. She was thankful for Nick’s steadying hand.
‘Ouch! Thank you!’
‘You’ve had fifteen hours on the road, Cindie,’ he said almost gently. ‘Tough going, even for veterans. Can you climb that fire-escape staircase at the back?’
‘Oh, yes! Easily. I’m not a bit fragile by nature. It’s just my legs.’ She was so tired she could hardly hold herself up. She had yet to discover that physical exhaustion was to be part of her way of life before she went home.
‘Then up you go. It’s the back way in, I’m afraid. The door on the top landing is always open for late-comers.’
Cindie thought she was tired, but she didn’t realise how much till she tried climbing that nearly-perpendicular stairway. She could hardly lift one foot above the other. Dust was in her eyes, her nose and even in her mouth. In fact she was layered in a fine red dry powder from head to foot. Her back ached, her legs ached, and her head was wuzzy.
She had to admit it ‒ she was not a veteran at crossing hundreds of miles of outback country in open span. Nick and Flan seemed still to have life in them.
Nick opened the door leading from the landing into a long corridor. He switched on a light, then walked a few yards down the passage and turned on another in the cross passage leading to the bathroom.
Cindie leaned against the wall and waited. All those closed doors! How were they to know where they were to sleep?
Nick was now walking down the passage quietly opening one door after another, and just as quietly closing them. At the fourth, after one quick glance, he threw open the door and switched on the light.
‘Yours, Cindie,’ he said with a grin. ‘The first unoccupied! Quite a nice one, too.’
Flan was proceeding down the passage, quietly opening doors and closing them again, as Nick had done. Cindie supposed, with some faith in hotel management, that somewhere he would come upon vacant rooms for himself and Nick. She must remember not to be alarmed if her bedroom door was opened in the night, and an inquiring head appeared round its edge.
Her rest against the wall had done her more harm than good. She stooped to pick up her bag and almost pitched forward. Nick caught her by the shoulders just in time.
‘You need a great deal of experience of this country, and for these long trips, Cindie,’ he said gravely. She thought ‒ but then her hearing was blurry too ‒ that there was something ‒ a grave pity ‒ in his voice: born of kindness.
‘Too, too tired!’ she admitted. The unexpected gentleness in Nick’s voice had gone straight to her heart like a winged message.
She didn’t have to behave like a tried veteran in this outback, after all.
Her eyes stared blearily at Nick. There were times when one needed someone.
‘Then sleep well,’ he was saying, still holding her steady.
‘There’s tea in the corridor at six in the morning. Can you make it? Breakfast is at seven-fifteen.’
She nodded.
Nick picked up her bag and led her into her room. She sat with relief on the edge of her bed, staring at him, mesmerised by uncertainty, and fixed by her own exhaustion.
The light isn’t much of a light. Her thoughts were wayward; not to be disciplined. One could never read a book by it. But Nick’s face? That was different!
‘I’ve left the light on in the bathroom corridor, Cindie. You’ll find the shower room’s good. There’s hot and cold water.’
She nodded.
He seemed to stand looking down at her an age. A long, long time ‒
‘Then good night!’ he said once again. Cindie went on staring up at him, her eyes caught and held in some dream-thought that belonged to this strange silent waiting place ‒ in the middle of nowhere. No other town for three hundred and fifty miles west! Nothing, but nothing, and they were alone in it. She had the illusion that in one split second he would bend down to her, and over her. And ‒
He turned and went out, quietly shutting the door behind him.
Cindie lay back on her bed, her arms spread wide.
She was Cindie-dust-all-over as Jim would have said, but something else had happened to her. Something indefinable. Something like a wallop from an atom bomb.
She had wanted him to bend down.
Oh, Cindie! Cindie! she told herself, speaking to the small wilful child that was in her. She put her hands over her face because she was shocked at herself.
She had wanted him to bend down.
She dragged herself off the bed, hunted for her sponge bag and toothbrush in her carry-all, then lifted the towel from the rack by the wall. She crept down the corridor to the bathroom. When she had showered and was clean-all-over again, she tiptoed back to her room. She pinned up her hair, threw off the top bedclothes ‒ all but the sheet ‒ and crawled into bed. She turned her face into her pillow and thought about crying.
Instead, she went to sleep: at once.
Sheer physical tiredness ruled her night, as it had ruled her on the long run between mid-afternoon and near sundown. It blanked out the things she had meant to think about, even such things as a willi-willi that reached to heaven, and brolgas in their stately love-dance by the swamps in the north ‒ for these were the things her weary heart had, for one silly moment, joined.
The next morning, Cindie was wakened by the clatter of cups and saucers somewhere along the corridor.
She knew what that patter of feet outside meant. It was the pyjama parade. This was going on right this minute in every country and outback hotel all over the million square miles of State.
She scrambled out of bed. Ouch! Her back muscles told her she had sat a long, long time in a confined space yesterday.
She slipped on her short cotton gown, splashed water over her face and hands, then undid the pins from her hair and gave it a few swift sweeps with the brush.
&nbs
p; Right! She was ready for the pyjama parade, and that cup of tea, however good, bad or indifferent it might be!
She opened her door and slipped out to follow a long-legged pyjama-clad figure in, of all things in this heat, a woollen gown: and two figures in shortie nightwear with no gown at all. All men, and bare-footed, too. No slippers in their luggage.
At the far end of the corridor stood a bunch of other pyjama’d people: men and women, girls and boys. There were tousled heads, and combed heads; shaven faces and unshaven ones. Amongst these last was Flan.
‘Morning, Cindie!’ he said, smothering a yawn. ‘Sleep well?’
‘Yes, thank you. Is it your turn for the teapot, Flan?’
‘I’ll sneak one for you ahead of the queue,’ he muttered, still not wholly awake. ‘Stand back by the wall now so I don’t spill it on someone. Generally speaking, in this pub the tea’s hot.’
Juggling miraculously over heads and between shoulders, Flan brought Cindie her cup of tea.
‘Wait till the crowd thins out,’ he advised. ‘You can get yourself a second lot then.’
‘Thank you, Flan. Isn’t this wonderful! Everyone everywhere drinking tea at six in the morning, and not caring a fig what they look like?’
From the far end of the passage, around the turn from the bathrooms, Nick came. He too was in pyjamas, and swinging his towel. His hair was wet and he looked so shaven and showered he could have been an advertisement for soap.
‘Never catch Nick on the wrong foot,’ Flan whispered in a husky voice. ‘How come you look so fresh and daisy-like, Cindie? You get up at dawn too?’
‘I’ve only washed my face and hands so far. But I did brush my hair. Me for the shower when, as you say, the crowd thins out.’
Cindie was trying very hard not to notice Nick too much. No one was ever self-conscious about the pyjama parade ‒ she knew that. Yet she was being just that, in a foolish way. This was because of last night ‒
‘Good morning, Cindie. Did you sleep well?’ Nick asked.
‘She did,’ Flan answered for her. ‘Cindie, you be a good girl and go fetch the boss a cup of tea. Being mere man he can’t push in amongst those ladies. And being a man he doesn’t like waiting his turn either.’
‘Of course.’ Cindie was delighted to do something. She liked doing something anyway, specially as this morning she seemed short of words where Nick was concerned
‘I’ll hold your cup,’ Nick said. ‘You might like a second one later.’
Cindie edged sideways to the table. A stout middle-aged woman was wielding the teapot. She spoke with an English accent: someone from the Midlands.
‘You want a cuppa, luv?’ she asked. ‘I’ll pour it while I’m here.’
‘It’s for my boss,’ Cindie whispered. ‘I’ve already had one for myself. Am I being fair?’
‘Well, you do have to keep your job, luv! I don’t know a better way than by giving the man his cuppa early and hot. A good way of getting a raise too, take it from me.’
‘Oh, thank you,’ Cindie said gratefully as the woman passed the filled cup on its saucer towards her.
‘No trouble. You’d do the same for me.’
‘I hope I can to-morrow. I’ll try and be early.’
Cindie carried the tea back to Nick.
‘I’m sorry it’s a bit full,’ she apologised. ‘A nice person poured it for me in a hurry. You know ‒ out of turn ‒’
‘Thank you, Cindie,’ Nick said with a smile. ‘You look rested. I expected all your bones to rattle after that drive yesterday.’
‘I’ve forgotten them. I’m so thrilled about being here.’
‘You certainly did sleep well in that case.’ He looked at Cindie over the brim of his cup. His eyes were inquiring, looking for something in her face.
‘Didn’t you do the same?’ Cindie asked anxiously.
‘No,’ he replied as if this was not important. ‘I had things on my mind.’
‘Nothing unusual for Nick,’ Flan mumbled. ‘Never knew him sleep when he had things on his mind.’
‘Is this conference at Mulga Gorges a problem?’ Cindie asked, sipping her tea.
‘That, and other things,’ Nick replied. ‘I don’t worry about lack of sleep. One can always take a cat-nap in the mid-afternoon in this climate.’ His smile was only half-concealed.
His eyes met hers across the cups of tea, and asked ‒ ‘Guilty?’
Her own eyes replied ‒ ‘Yes, I’m afraid so!’ ‒ because she could not govern their reflexes at this early hour. He was actually teasing her about that long sleep on his shoulder. One never knew about Nick! What he had said improbably seemed full of subtle depths.
Later, when Cindie entered the dining-room, the waitress led her to a place reserved for her at a special table where three other businesslike girls were sitting. All three looked up at the newcomer with appraising glances.
Cindie, as she sat down, hoped her dress measured up, and that her hair and make-up would pass scrutiny. She felt nervous because she had not been a secretary before: only one more typist in a big concern.
The other three girls introduced themselves. They too had come with their chiefs to the conference that had brought Nick to Mulga Gorges. Two of the girls had come with the party of men from a big mineral and mining company with international ramifications. The third was on the staff of a Government engineer from the Main Roads Board.
The group of men, including Nick, were sitting at a table in one corner a little apart from everyone else in the dining-room. The three girls pointed out their own employers to Cindie.
‘I am secretary to the one with his back to the palms,’ Cindie told them. ‘He is Mr. Brent ‒ road construction engineer ‒’
His name and description sounded strange coming from her lips that way, as if Nick too, in his new role, had changed his personality.
He was better-looking and more impressive than the other men, she thought. He did not seem now to hold himself apart, as was his usual way. And yet, there was something wary and intriguing about the way he bent his head and listened to the man next to him.
‘We’re thrilled to be up in this place,’ one girl was saying. ‘I travel around a fair bit with my chief, but I’ve never been north of Twenty-Six before.’
The other two agreed that they too were strangers in this area.
‘It’s like coming into a different world,’ the girl with the dark silky hair and a rather reserved manner said.
All three opened their eyes wide with interest when Cindie told them she was working on the actual road-site ‒ the thousand-miler being built by Brent & Co. ‘Out there!’
‘In the Never country?’
‘How do you live? In tents?’
They were quite incredulous.
‘No, in a town,’ Cindie laughed. ‘It’s called a camp, officially ‒ because it’s transportable. The houses are big caravans ‒ the last word in domestic comfort. There are also several special houses for the boss, the care-all and important visitors. They’re collapsible, and mobile too. The town gets moved on as the road extends ‒’
‘How did you get a job out there?’
Cindie, unwilling to sail under false colours, told them the real facts.
‘I was rescued from the river when the rains on the upper tableland cut me off from retreat ‒’
‘Well, lucky you!’ exclaimed one. ‘Of course, the boss needed a secretary: he snapped his fingers, and hey presto there was one waiting for him in the middle of a creek ‒’
They all laughed.
How true it was, Cindie thought. Her spirits were high because these girls had so readily taken her into their charmed circle. Already she felt she belonged. She was the Personal Secretary to an Important Person, as they too were.
Nibbling toast and marmalade, she forgot that Nick had only brought her for prestige reasons. If these girls had serious work to do, then she, Cindie, would find some equally serious work too. If Nick didn’t give it to her, she would make it
for herself.
Out of the corner of her eye Cindie saw one of the men at the table glance in their direction, then lift his little finger. The girl who was at that moment speaking broke off in the middle of a sentence.
‘Excuse me,’ she said primly, very much the professional secretary now. ‘I have work to do.’
As all the men were now rising from the table, the other girls did so too, including Cindie. As they moved to the door, only Nick remained, pausing by his chair, casually lighting a cigarette.
‘How are you getting on, Cindie?’ he asked, as she hesitated, awaiting orders.
‘Marvellously,’ she said eagerly. ‘Nick, you must find me important work to do. I have to live up to those other girls. They’re so competent and experienced. I don’t want to feel like a hanger-on ‒’
He was quite indignant.
‘Like what?’ he demanded.
She hesitated, then looked straight into his eyes.
‘Well, like the shadow behind a prestige person,’ she explained. ‘I want to be like them ‒ and put something more than one dash between two letters on my typewriter. I’d like to put several yards of earth on that road.’
He suddenly smiled. ‘I thought you’d feel like that,’ he said with an almost impish grin.
‘Then you have real work for me to do?’
‘Plenty. Do what the other girls do, and take down every word said by everyone, including me, in the days’ meetings. I’ll go over it all afterwards ‒ when we get home.’
When we get home! She liked the ‘we’ in that statement. It really made her belong.
Cindie said the words over again as she went in search of the small office the hotel management had set aside for Nick.
‘We kept this one for Mr. Brent,’ the manager, Mr. Mollison, said with an undisguised wink. ‘He’s a nor’-wester like the rest of us. So he gets the best.’
‘But ‒’
Cindie began thinking of the billionaire company those international mining men represented.