by Lucy Walker
‘The best is that he could say “yes” and dig deep in his coffers? I wasn’t thinking of the nature of his answer at all. It was something you said‒’
His eyes slid round and looked at her, one eyebrow flicked up. Then he went back to driving the car as if the conversation was now over.
Kim furrowed her brows. What had she said?
She went over the words in her mind ‒ ‘We might ask Stephen Cole to put in a good word for us.’
He guessed what was puzzling her.
‘It was the “we” and the “us”,’ he suggested helpfully.
Kim flushed, then sat bolt upright assembling as much dignity as she could.
‘We might ask Stephen Cole to put in a good word for Us.’ She had identified herself with him, and with his beastly Botanical Garden adjacent to the Mount! Well, it wasn’t really beastly. It was just that he’d been ‒
He caught her eyes as he glanced at her again.
War over?’ he asked.
The stiff little braces that maintained her pride seemed unexpectedly to turn to foam rubber.
‘War’s over!’ she agreed. With reservations. The peace treaty hasn’t actually been signed by pen on paper.
His foot pressed firmly on the accelerator and the jeep swept on over a smoother piece of track.
‘It was quite lively while it lasted wasn’t it?’ he asked easily, the smile still hovering somewhere in the near-distance of his face. ‘The war, I mean. It’s gone on quite a time ‒’
‘Well ‒ don’t ever call me a school girl again,’ Kim advised. ‘You did that day at the Mount, you know.’
‘I won’t.’ His face was dead serious now. ‘You can climb king karris, do superb plant drawings. And right this moment are navigator for a hazardous trip. Do you realise ‒ in your important role of reading that map ‒ you could lose us in a waterless desert? Or turn us over on crumbling breakaway country? Worse, have me drive outland instead of inland? What would become of our Botanical Garden in such a case?’
‘It would go down the side of the Mount and into the river,’ Kim said with equal gravity.
‘So please keep your mind on the map, and I’ll keep my mind on following your directions. We leave the track in a few minutes. After that, both our lives are in your hands.’ He paused quite a long time, then glanced at her once again. His smile was really kind this time. ‘Would I put that responsibility in the hands of a school girl?’
Kim shook her head.
‘You’ve too many brains by far to do anything so foolish,’ she said ruefully. ‘And talking about “brains” why didn’t you bring Myree ‒ just to make sure you’d be safe? She can draw, you know ‒ She’s so particular ‒’
There was quite a silence.
‘I thought of it,’ he said at length. ‘But then I owed it to Professor Watts to see she had her thesis project under way. Alas, I bowed to duty!’
So that was it! Kim was disappointed in spite of their armistice. Funny how there was always a let-down round the corner!
He would like to have Myree with him but he gave Myree up selflessly so she could get on with bringing her past work up to date!
Oh well! Such is life as it was and always had been!
Still ‒ come to think of it ‒ second best was better than no best at all! At least she was here, and an armistice was on!
They drove all that day. They went an incredible distance because of John’s fast pace. It was all of three hundred miles.
Kim navigated accurately for they arrived safely at the sundown camp for which John was heading. It was the old abandoned station homestead.
‘Doesn’t it look dreadful?’ Kim said sadly. The sorrow for things fallen, lost and gone was in her voice. John had stopped the jeep and they sat for several minutes looking at the shambles of an old house, the heaps of ant-eaten timber slats; the rusted galvanised iron sheets that had once been the out-houses. ‘To think that perhaps once it was someone’s home,’ she said. ‘Someone lived here ‒’
‘So very empty!’ John Andrews reflected. Kim’s acute ear caught a note of regret in his voice too.
‘I wonder why they went away? Why didn’t they sell it?’
‘Not enough water-holes in the area to sustain it in time of drought,’ he said. ‘This is drought area you know. Bang on the desert fringe. And the salt has come through. It’s barely subsistence land. Let’s say they tried ‒ and it didn’t come off.’
‘I guess that must be the reason.’ Kim thought about all the endeavour wasted. The appalling hardships. The loss.
‘Well ‒’ John gathered his thoughts back to the present, and started to unfold himself to get out of the car. ‘They left one bounty behind,’ he added. ‘A camp-out for wanderers and prospectors. Also a drinking well of bore water, as I discovered last trip. Once we’re inside that old homestead you’ll see evidences of passers-by who are grateful for shelter and water supplies.’
Kim pulled the handle of the door and dropped to the ground.
She pushed her dusty hat to the back of her head and dug her hands in her pockets while she gazed at the shambles around. Falling fence posts, rusted wire, bush undergrowth taking over again!
She turned back to the homestead to see two of the quaintest men she had ever imagined emerge from the open doorway of the ruin. There was no real door, nor anything but bags and old timber slats to cover the windows.
These two wiry figures were wizened and weathered by the shrivelling heat, and the alternate harsh cold, of a life on the track in the outback. They wore the shabbiest, most ancient, felt hats Kim had ever seen. She had a feeling these head-covers never left their heads, even when their owners slept. Their brown clothes were shabby and patched, but clean. The men were shaven too.
‘What did I tell you?’ John said as he began to unpack some of the gear for immediate use from the back of the jeep. ‘We have company. A couple of old prospectors taking a civilised holiday in between long treks after the proverbial pot of gold.’
The two men ambled cheerfully towards them.
‘What you reckon? We got company!’ one said. ‘You have any tinned stuff, mate? Any smokes? We can pay.’
They ignored Kim, she being small and young. They dealt only with bosses.
‘I have both, and in reasonable plenty,’ John said.
‘You expect to meet us kind of blokes, eh?’ the same one asked.
‘Well I’ve managed to have that pleasant experience before,’ John remarked easily, lifting the two sleeping bags to the ground, then disappearing into the jeep’s back while he dragged at a heavy carton. He did not explain that these were the people he actually kept a look-out for. Prospectors who lived all their lives in the remotest outback! They were mines of valuable information. They knew the country and often knew more of the fauna and flora than anyone else. Habitual wanderers over the face of the land were his best sources of knowledge.
‘I’ll give you a hand at that, mate,’ the first man offered. ‘Seems like this carton is the goods, eh? Crikey Bill, tin uv plum pudding! Who but a real gent would’a thought of that, this time uv the year?’
‘As you said,’ John replied. ‘This is the goods! Tinned plum pudding and all!’
The carton contained an assortment of tinned fruits, puddings, biscuits, nuts, and boxes of tobacco and cigarette papers. Kim’s eyes widened as she watched the lid torn aside.
‘Come on, Bill!’ the one who had been the talker said to his mate. ‘Let’s get these blokes in an’ make ’em good an’ comfy. Good job we did a clean-up uv the old joint. Made a fine wallop uv that kangaroo-tail stew too.’
Blokes! thought Kim. Is that what I am? A bloke?
Then she realised she had stuffed her hair up in the crown of her hat for coolness’ sake. And, of course, she was wearing her working shorts. They saw her as a slim stripling of a boy.
She looked at John.
Who did the explaining?
John, busy with the carton and its contents, said
nothing. Time enough later for explanations she supposed. And ‒ well ‒ it was a bit awkward. The two men were now using a vocabulary that was generally operative only between males of the species.
‘We’ve made a decent kind uv a fire in the ol’ stove,’ the talking member of the pair went on. ‘Kind uv need it. Temp drops thirty to forty degrees about three in t’ morning.’ He shouldered the precious carton, while Kim and John followed him into the old ruin. The veranda with its absent boards needed careful negotiation. Some fallen pieces of rusted iron sheeting were the only reminder of its roof. Kim stood inside the door and stared.
An odd floor board or two was missing from the far side. If there had been any paint it had disappeared long since. One wall was papered with old jute bags.
‘My name’s Peck,’ the carton carrier explained. ‘That’s Bill out there. He don’t talk unless he has to. That is, practically never. I do the talkin’. Them bags on the wall is to keep out the dust. The rest of it’s fine an’ dandy, eh?’
Kim blinked.
‘Me an’ Bill cleaned it up good and proper,’ Peck went on. ‘One thing we can’t stand is a holiday in a dirty place.’ He nodded his head round the room. ‘She’s not too bad, is she? Other rooms aren’t no good. Too many holes in the walls. ’Cept maybe the ol’ pantry. The east wind gets in. Dust a foot high. Say ‒’ He looked Kim up and down. ‘You an’ your mate can have the bit uv floor on the side uv the fire. Me an’ Bill will make do with this side for the duration. How long you be likely stayin’?’
Kim looked round for John. He was inside the doorway holding the sleeping bags, and had heard. He grinned in a way Kim had never dreamed him capable.
‘Go on, Kim,’ he said blandly. ‘You tell them ‒’
He knew her voice would give her away. She could have hit him.
‘I don’t know ‒’ she began haughtily.
‘Cripes!’ roared Peck. ‘You hear that, Bill? We got a chick with us. It’s a she! Screamin’ galahs ‒!’
He pushed his hat on the back of his head and scratched his sparse thatch of hair.
‘She your daughter, or something?’ he asked John.
John failed to conceal the grin on his face as he glanced sideways at Kim ‒ waiting for the explosion.
Kim had her own way of parrying that amusement.
‘He looks quite old enough to be my father, of course,’ she said, extra casually. ‘I dare say you’ll find some grey hairs when he removes his hat. If you look hard enough. As it happens ‒ he is not!’
‘Then what be you exactly?’ Peck asked, gravely suspicious now. ‘I don’t hold with mixed parties unless ‒ well ‒ Me an’ Bill don’t get mixed up with ‒ Well, we’re kind-uv old-fashioned out here in the outback. We don’t like no cause for that kinda trouble ‒’
Bill spoke for the first time. Light dawned with him very slowly.
They’re married maybe,’ he suggested hopefully. ‘Anyways it’s up to us to look on it thetaways. No business of ours ‒’
‘In that case,’ Peck pronounced firmly. ‘We’ll accept you two’s married an’ no questions asked. So you two gets the bridal suite. It’s the ol’ pantry out back of what used to be the kitchen. There’s room for two and two only, side to side, an’ so long as neither of you kicks in yer sleep.’
‘Oh, and why the pantry?’ John asked, too cheerfully for Kim’s peace of mind.
‘’S the only place that’s got no holes in the roof,’ said Peck succinctly.
Alarm began uneasily to dawn for Kim.
‘What will I really do, John ‒?’ she began.
‘Well, you would come on the Expedition,’ he said blandly. ‘Now you know why a certain botanist you met on the Mount was anti young women in any expedition.’
Oh yes! she thought. But he’d been happy to have Myree!
Chapter Seven
For Kim ‒ that was the night that was!
Lying in her sleeping bag, watching the last of the fire glowing in the old stove, she did a run down of the men she had met in her short adult life. To begin with ‒ before she arrived at names and addresses ‒ she had to think about this very situation. Were the knights of old quite as chivalrous as the itinerant wanderers of Australia’s bushland? Likewise a certain botanist ‒ though she was almost reluctant to admit this.
Peck and Bill had de-camped from the fire to the pantry themselves, when they discovered Kim was against the proposition of sleeping with John. The pantry didn’t turn out to be quite so small as they had hinted earlier in the evening.
John had said he would sleep in one of the broken-down holes-in-the-wall rooms. This idea Peck and Bill debunked with vitriolic disdain.
‘Those rooms has goannas and more’n one snake making their beds thereabouts,’ Peck declared. ‘You go an’ take one look at ’em.’ John had done precisely this. When he returned from his tour of inspection he had decided the back of the jeep was preferable.
At this stage in the evening’s period of decision-making a bush rat had leapt, a small shadowy figure of a wallaby-type, through the open doorway. Kim had squealed.
‘I only had a fright!’ she declared in self defence when the men laughed at her. ‘I’m not afraid of them ‒ really ‒’
‘Not much miss!’ Peck remarked. ‘One of them on your face in the middle of the night and you’ll screech for your boy friend’s hand.’
The two old prospectors had not understood the scientific relationship between John and Kim. It was double aboriginese to them. John, knowing in advance this would be the case, had not laboured the point.
Kim, afraid of the worn cliche about protesting too much, had fallen silent.
‘From here youse two is goin’ right back of outback? So you sez, anyway?’ Peck pondered. ‘Seems we can’t fix morals fer other people here or there. Out there in the wild country no bush rats’ll jump across you as you’ll be side on to the camp-fire. Can’t see why not here ‒ All the same, Bill, s’pose we betta give the chick an’ her mate the best room an’ the old stove.’
It was clear that since Peck and Bill were in the old abandoned homestead first it was their domain, and their principles concerning hospitality were at stake. The pick of the palace was on offer to the newcomers, and they now considered their gesture should be appreciated.
‘Quite right, Peck,’ John said, making the ultimate decision. ‘Kim, you sleep that side of the stove, and I’ll sleep this side. Invitation accepted, Peck. Our grateful thanks.’
‘Well, why not?’ thought Kim. ‘That’s what we’ll be doing for the next week ‒ as Peck says. We won’t have a roof over our heads ‒ that’s the only difference.’
Decisions made, they ate kangaroo-tail stew, one tin of pineapple mixed with plum jam ‒ this being the bushmen’s idea of wild luxury ‒ drank a lot of hot tea, swapped yarns of the outback, then parted company. Peck and Bill went to the pantry ‒ after ablutions in the old trough in the back yard. Kim and John ‒ after performing the same rites separately in the back yard ‒ took to their sleeping bags, one on either side of the stove.
‘Good night, Kim,’ John said in a final sort of a way. She thought his voice indicated that he did not want to be called if a bush rat came scurrying or jumping through the doorless doorway.
‘Good night, John,’ Kim replied in what she called her ‘civil’ tone. She meant this to imply that, now knowing about bush rats, she was not likely to take fright. In any case she would prefer to call Peck or Bill first.
Under her breath she had added ‒ God bless! Yet didn’t know why she had done so.
She heard John turn over in his sleeping bag. Then silence. This was one real piece of knowledge she was learning about him ‒ he slept well. When he turned out the kerosene lamp, he turned himself out too.
Breakfast next morning consisted of the rest of the kangaroo stew, and the last of the pineapple, and plum jam. It was soon over. Kim thought the most delectable part of the dawn meal was the damper Peck made in the coals of the brush
root in the stove, and the hot black tea. She did not mention her predilection for the tea and damper, as she didn’t care to reject the enthusiasm of the two prospectors for pineapple mixed to a squashy dough with plum jam.
John, in his early morning silent mood, repacked the stores in the jeep. First he removed yet another small carton containing cigarettes for Peck and Bill ‒ as a mark of appreciation for their willingness to sleep in the pantry. Meantime, Kim played the housewife inside. She insisted, against the wishes of Peck and Bill, on sweeping and tidying the main room. They were of the opinion they could do better themselves but told John in private they ‘didn’t care to hurt the little lady’s feelings’.
Kim, sensing this attitude of superiority about sweeping a derelict room in a ruined old house, made a magnificent job of her efforts. If there’d been anything other than a broom made of a sapling gum with its leafery still intact, she would have done better. And, of course, there wasn’t any furniture to bother about: only cigarette butts on the floor and dead coals round the stove.
As a last farewell mark of pride, and a return to impishness, she picked up a piece of red ochre from the ground and wrote ‒ very large ‒ on the outside wall ‒
Kim Wentworth Was Here!
When John had gathered himself and his long legs into the jeep: apparently out of sight, she began to write again. Her head was just that much on the side, and the tip of her very pink tongue peeped from the corner of her mouth as she wrote ‒
So Was John.
The two prospectors waved their terrible hats, shouted more advice about the route, and bade them a whooping goodbye. At least Peck did the shouting and Bill did the waving.
‘See you in Church!’ was the last thing Peck was heard to say as distance divided them. ‘Proper thing to do, y’know!’
Kim took this as the joke she was sure Peck meant it to be. Unexpectedly John’s face had a distant frozen expression. He was not amused any more. Moreover, in spite of the mounting heat and the drying quality of the east wind, his narrowed eyes sparked icicles all over again. What had Peck been saying to him in private?