by Lucy Walker
‘Right!’ Stephen sounded very responsible, almost as if the leader had just directed him to take a thirty-thousand ton passenger liner through the Suez Canal. John Andrews’ attention came back to Kim.
‘Are you any good at map-reading Kim?’
‘Quite as good as at plant reading,’ she said cheerfully. ‘I can trace the steroid nucleus ‒’
His eyebrows went up as she added. ‘Seventeen carbon atoms, and number eleven is in ring C. They have other atoms in side chains always attached to ‒’
‘‒ exposed points and between the rings ‒’ he finished for her. ‘Splendid. I see they taught you something while you were doing the drawing for Sinclair down at Crawley. In that case, after the morning tea break you can hand over the driving to Stephen. You do the navigating from there on. It’s rough country and will need both judgment and strong hands on the steering wheel.’
Stephen’s face broke into a grin.
‘Of course!’ he said. ‘I really should take over from now ‒’
‘It’s my van,’ Kim said flatly, firmly, and not to be budged.
So! Once again they were back to the Little Girl theme and someone else was to take over her van. She was no longer inclined to forgive John for having passed her twice this morning; and not noticed her.
‘Well, young lady.’ John Andrews’ manner was strictly non-committal. ‘As from the start of this Expedition all vehicles are my responsibility. Including yours.’ The eyes, dark blue with the early morning sun shining in them and making his pupils narrow to pin-points, were too mild not to be hiding something. Kim was not to be deceived.
One thing for sure. In this heat it won’t be ice particles! she decided.
‘When do we really make a start?’ Stephen asked. ‘Not to worry about Kim, John. We’ll get along fine. She’s really a nice willing chick when you get to know her as well as I do ‒ already.’ The meaning in his voice was unmistakeable.
‘I’m quite sure of that,’ John Andrews said dryly and turned to take the last map section, and the track-finding information, to the driver of the end vehicle in the line.
Kim eyed Stephen balefully.
‘Just how well do you know me?’ she demanded. ‘Half an hour in the moonlight and ‒’
‘I was merely patting down his feathers, sweetie. Yours too. Take Lesson Number One from one who knows. It never pays to rub fire sticks with the tribal head. He’ll inevitably make smoke first. There’s always other methods of getting one’s own way.’
‘For instance?’
‘The roundabout course.’ Stephen spoke as one who had long acquired wisdom. It sat ludicrously on his tufty red-headed self. ‘I know. Take it from me.’
‘I have a feeling you do know,’ Kim said thoughtfully.
‘From experience!’
The other transports in front were starting up their engines. Kim drowned any reply Stephen might have made by pulling the starter button and throttling up the engine. The roar could have been heard across the Gibson Desert.
Stephen threw back his head and laughed. When the noise subsided he patted Kim’s left hand where it gripped the steering wheel.
‘You’re quite a one, aren’t you?’ he said not for the first time since sun-up. He seemed to have made up his mind, for all time, that she was a pleasing joke.
Chapter Five
John Andrews had walked back along the line of caravans and Land-Rovers, opened the drive-door of his own jeep and hefted himself in. He started up, swung the vehicle around the U shape of the courtyard, lifted his hand as a sign to the rest of the cavalcade to follow, then drove out past the main entrance, on to the dusty bush-shaded road, and headed east into the sun. Beyond John’s very impressive profile Kim caught a glimpse of Myree’s face. She was talking, with much animation, to John. Stephen found this noteworthy too.
‘Like someone said last night,’ he remarked philosophically, ‘A rose is where you find it.’ He leaned out of the window to watch John’s jeep ‒ with Myree as a more than willing passenger ‒ disappear in a dust cloud.
‘Roses don’t grow in the bush,’ Kim said.
‘Meaning?’ Stephen demanded.
‘Whatever Myree is, she’s not a rose. A cornstalk maybe, when you consider the colour of her hair. A very pretty waving-in-the-wind cornstalk.’
The car in front had moved off so Kim followed suit.
‘You know something, Kim?’ Stephen asked. ‘I think I’m going to enjoy this trip. I might even let you drive a mile or two past the morning-tea break. John Andrews regardless.’
The way was long ‒ mile after mile after mile of it. It became hot and dusty, but the bush flowers were everywhere. They turned the vast stretch of empty forsaken land into a sweetly scented heaven. Kim wished she could get out and look at some of them! These were the last outposts of golden wattle and morning iris. Then came swathes of pink wax flower, and touches of flame grevilleas. The world was full of colours. A wild unguarded land of brush, tree and wild-flowers as far as the eye could see!
They drove slowly at first, as each car did, to let the one in front clear well away. This was to avoid the dust thrown up from the car wheels.
Myree has the best of it always, Kim thought without envy. Even last night. I let her have the bed near the window after all. I thought it would do my character good. I wonder what she and John talked about so late ‒ later than me by an hour! ‘I’m just plain weak,’ she said aloud. ‘No spine.’
‘Good,’ Stephen remarked with an air of anticipation. ‘Don’t blame me, only yourself, if in the next twelve weeks I wind you round and round my little finger.’
‘I won’t,’ promised Kim. ‘Furthermore, to prove it ‒ about my being weak, I mean ‒ you can take over the driving as from now. I know just how beastly you must feel letting a mere girl act as a chauffeur for you.’
She braked to a stop and climbed over Stephen as he slid under her across the seat, into her place.
Just too too easy! Stephen thought. This little jaunt would be a piece of apple cake. Kim the typist, recorder, tagger and artist was already in the hollow of his hand. In any case, and irrespective of the secret part of the mission there could be some fun on the side ‒
‘About Ralph Sinclair, and all those drawings you did for him, Kim ‒’ he said as he started up and edged the van back into the middle of the track.
‘Well, what about them?’
‘They were for his doctorate thesis, weren’t they?’
‘They were to help him with his doctorate,’ Kim said vaguely. Her thoughts were still with the sea of wild-flowers. She was sure the mauve patch way over to their right was the first stretch of the mulla mullas. If only she could get out to see. And red-centred hibiscus! Who’d have thought banksias would grow so far north as this? They had unusual brown and yellow in the flower ‒
‘Exactly,’ Stephen said after a long pause. The subtle tone of satisfaction in his voice brought Kim’s mind back from the wild-flowers to the man beside her.
‘What do you mean ‒ exactly?’ she enquired.
‘Darling child a doctorate is a high level piece of original research. Right? He ought to do his own drawings. Or oughtn’t he?’
‘I said my drawings were to help him. So does a piece of paper and a computer and a microscope help him. Tools only. You can’t even build a house without tools.’
Stephen glanced sideways at her. He met her startled questioning eyes. She didn’t see any wild-flowers now. Only Stephen’s glowing brown eyes. Her heart missed a beat because there was something unidentifiable in those eyes.
‘Tools, of course!’ Stephen agreed. ‘I’ll tell you something, Kim. Don’t tell any of the botanists in this party about your work for Ralph. I wouldn’t like to hear of him having his thesis set aside because someone helped him.’
‘What rot you do talk,’ Kim said scornfully. ‘Everyone gets helped. People get helped by going to lectures, or having a seminar with a senior tutor.’
�
�How right you are, my darling girl. But don’t say I didn’t warn you. Hold your hat on, Petso. I’m going to step up the speed or we’ll be giving our dust to the man behind.’
Kim’s heart, bound by loyalty if not by a certain kind of love to Ralph Sinclair, felt as if it had had a small hole punctured in it. A barb of worry.
Stephen had to be wrong, of course. In fact he was wrong. Staff members helped with the drawings in major publications. It was routine copying work and had nothing to do with creative or original research.
Stephen was a funny one even to think of it. It could almost be an accusation!
‘I’ll make a bargain with you,’ she said quietly. ‘I won’t talk about my last job, if you don’t go making jokes like that about who does what drawings and for whom.’
‘Done,’ said Stephen with a grin. ‘A bargain and a promise. You help me with my work here and I won’t spill the beans on Ralph.’
Spill the beans on Ralph? There could almost be foreboding in the thought. A sort of moral blackmail?
‘But I’m here to help everyone ‒ I mean, you and the others too.’
‘Of course you are, Petso. But you and I have a special bargain. Yes?’
Kim stared at his profile.
‘Yes ‒’ she said very carefully: thoughtfully. ‘You and I will have an extra special bargain.’
Stephen took his foot off the accelerator and the van slowed down, almost to a stop. He held the steering wheel with his right hand and let his left arm slip lightly round Kim. He leaned sideways and kissed her full on the lips. He glanced down the track; then for a fleeting moment back into Kim’s eyes.
‘We’re going to have fun, you and I, sweetheart,’ he said. ‘Lots and lots of it. That was a swifty of a kiss but a nice one, now wasn’t it?’
‘Yes, Stephen, but if you don’t put your foot hard on the pedal we’re going to blind those behind us with a dust cloud.’
‘So much wisdom in so small a head!’ He laughed, then straightened up, pushed his foot hard down on the accelerator and shot the van ahead at full speed.
He’d won! He’d proved what he had suspected ‒ Kim was love-addicted to Ralph. She would do as she was asked in order to save Ralph’s skin. Or was it a doctorate?
Sharp on ten o’clock they stopped for Thermos tea and a chance to stretch their legs in the scrub. The others in front were already on the move.
‘Fifteen minutes only,’ Stephen said.
‘I know. If I die of thirst in the desert, take out my heart and you’ll find “Dr Andrews’ Ten Rules’’ written on it.’
Stephen laughed. Kim saw him push his fingers through that wiry springy hair of his, then stroke the ridiculous wisp of shaggy hair on his chin ‒ allegedly a beard. She wished he didn’t have red-brown eyes, otherwise she might get to like him ‒ in spite of that pointless conversation about her work with Ralph Sinclair. Stephen had a certain smooth charm, but was really very considerate and attentive. All the same ‒ well ‒ she could but wait and see!
She wandered over the patches of red gravel between the stunted wattle and the here-and-there clumps of spindly bush. Lovely delicate pink and white everlastings grew in mats making a patchwork quilt of the land.
‘We’d better go, Kim,’ Stephen said as she came back to the van. ‘These fellows behind might start shooting.’
‘Um. But not too fast!’
She climbed into the passenger seat again so that Stephen could drive. ‘We don’t want the dust from the car in front either.’
‘Confound all the dust, ’fore and aft.’ Stephen remarked as he hoisted himself up behind the wheel.
Kim, in the passenger seat, decided it was nice just to sit and look and daydream.
How old, old, old was this land! What was it waiting for in its vast weird silence? It touched her heart in a sad yet proud sort of way.
Stephen drove and Kim daydreamed.
Shortly after one o’clock ‒ only four minutes late ‒ they arrived at the luncheon rendezvous.
The line of caravans and transports looked so strange sitting out there on the empty plain ‒ empty of all but the monumental ant hills and a long grove of paper-bark trees near the water-hole.
John Andrews came down the line to meet them as they braked to a stop.
‘All go well?’ he asked leaning one elbow on the window. ‘I see you’re the driver, Stephen!’
‘Everything absolutely to schedule: morning tea break and all,’ Stephen replied promptly. ‘The others are not far behind. I saw their dust cloud as we came up the incline about five miles back.’ He paused, smiled at the leader. ‘Of course I’m driving! Can’t have the child wearing out too soon, can we?’
This about the child, Kim thought, is an old, old tale: begun roughly one hour after I was born.
She remained silent while John made his enquiries, and Stephen gave the replies. Then she opened the van door.
‘Stiff?’ John asked thoughtfully, looking past Stephen to the girl.
‘I’m not ever stiff,’ Kim shook her head as she stepped down from the van. ‘You see ‒ I don’t think I told you before ‒ my father and my brother are foresters. I’m used to driving long distances with them. Hundreds of miles in fact. In this van too ‒ over the ranges, and through the forests ‒ down in the Warren area.’
‘Hundreds of miles?’ he asked, mocking her as if he thought this a childish exaggeration.
‘Spread over the years,’ she explained carefully. ‘Since I was about three.’
‘Have you ever climbed one of those tall karris?’ he asked curiously.
‘Yes.’ She lifted her chin decisively. ‘Two hundred and twenty feet of a king karri at Pemberton, amongst others.’
A shadow of thought seemed to weave its way behind his eyes.
Kim bet herself he’d never climbed a king karri! Not that he couldn’t, of course ‒
Now there’ll be no more nonsense about the helpless child! She hoped.
She summoned up a smile to put him at his ease. That would jolt him! She guessed nobody had ever found it necessary to put Dr Andrews at his ease before.
‘I’d better go and find the others ‒’ she began, then paused thoughtfully. ‘Do you give Stephen the instructions about filling the radiator? Or do I? The engine does get a bit hot. And, of course, the van’ll need a petrol refuel.’
‘Certainly, I give all instructions about all the transports,’ John Andrews said gravely. Kim bestowed another smile on him, then she pushed her brown ranger-hat back on her head at a casual but intriguing angle, and strolled off in the direction of the paper-barks, and the signs of temporary human habitation under their shade. Her back said she hadn’t a care in the world. Well, not a real one.
John Andrews put his hands in his pockets and watched her go. Then his eyes met Stephen Cole’s over the bonnet of the car.
‘Fill it up with water and petrol,’ he said abruptly. ‘Check the oil and the temperature gauge. Report to me when finished. You heard the girl?’
Stephen grinned.
‘Well she is rather child-like you know! Needs a man around ‒ and that sort of thing.’
That girl ‒ John Andrews found himself wondering. Then, catching himself at it, stopped. The cook had said there was a crack in the engine block of the kitchen caravan. He’d better get the mechanic on to that straight away.
That girl ‒ And the way she wore that hat!
He pulled his thoughts up short and thrust his own jungle hat to the back of his head as he came to a halt. He watched the last Rover rolling in in its own dust cloud. He stood with his feet slightly apart and his hands tucked in the belt of his shorts. Lunch would be on time, God be praised!
The jaunty way she had pushed that hat to that absurd angle, then sauntered off ‒
‘Confound the girl,’ he said aloud addressing a short-tailed goanna that waffled its way across the track at that moment.
His thoughts strayed to Myree Bolton. There was a girl with brains! She’d get
a First in her Honours. A very good conversationalist. Strange how blue-stockings had gone out with the suffragettes. And beautiful women had come in with the opening of college doors to them.
The Land-Rover was braking to a skidding halt in front of him.
‘You treat your tyres like that, my friend,’ he said bluntly to the driver, ‘and you’ll about-turn and go back whence you came.’
‘Oh-ho, what cooks?’ the driver asked out of the corner of his mouth to his partner. ‘Someone’s dropped the fat in John Andrews’ fire. He’s on the sizzle.’
The camp that first night was all-heaven to Kim.
A great shoulder of rock had in some age long past thrust itself up out of the red Australian heart. The underground water seeped through into a pool large enough for a swim, and beautiful enough for an artist to think about giving up the rest of his life to it.
Myree Bolton, knowing about these things beforehand, had brought a swim suit. It was the very latest: a bikini with gold and cream stripes: very body-revealing. Kim had to make do with a bra and shorts and a sleeveless cotton blouse over the bra.
‘I look like Orphan-Annie in comparison with you, Myree ‒’ she said ruefully.
‘My dear girl. You look exactly like yourself!’ Myree said without pity: very supercilious.
It consoled Kim to see that the men didn’t have swim togs either. They made do with the dusty shorts they’d worn during the day.
Once in the water Kim forgot to envy Myree. It was fun splashing and being splashed by the others ‒ all full of high spirits.