by Lucy Walker
She was too inexperienced to know what she was doing, he told himself. ‘That swine Smith! At his age ‒’
‘Thank you. You need not have experimented. It’s marked Drinking Water on the Survey map.’
Kim deflated. She hadn’t thought of the Survey map.
John took his towel and soap from the back of the jeep. Then, running his fingers through his hair, went to the water-hole. He didn’t look back.
Kim carried the billy to the smouldering fire and set it between two stones to boil.
‘Sad!’ she thought. ‘We are exactly as we were before we ever went to Bim’s Stopover. It’s just as if nothing had happened. There wasn’t any wedding. We’re part of an expedition. That’s all.
They had their breakfast, cleared up with haste, then packed themselves back into the jeep. The climate between them seemed set for fair weather only. They were back to starting day ‒ as from Base!
Kim commented with care and exactitude on the interesting types of fauna and flora, as they crossed the plain. John told her which to record and in what category. Now and again he glanced down at her bent head, as, the tip of her tongue in the corner of her mouth she controlled the workings of her sharp-pointed pencil in spite of bumps and swerves by the jeep in top gear.
He said nothing of his thoughts. Kim had put up the toughest of all defences ‒ her own professional role.
Towards noon, when they should have been nearing Skelton’s homestead John handed Kim the Survey map and told her to navigate him along the arc track that cut round the south of the mesa country, instead of from the west as before.
‘If we found duboisia unexpectedly in the homestead area we might as well check its limits,’ he said.
Kim took the map from him and studied it carefully. She intended to be the perfect navigator. She had her professional pride along with her too!
She marked the route they were to take. Presently she moved her pencil along the map, back to places where they had been since first leaving Base.
Then her thoughts did wander.
They had been together here, and here. And here! Her pencil touched each place, and rested there.
John looked down at her bent head. How her hair, under that ridiculous Kim-ish hat, shone in the hot light of noon! It infuriated him all over again to think of that lecherous Smith at the hotel making overtures to her. What the devil had been his real name? The master-mind for industrial spies, of course! That stuck out a mile. Those fellows seemed to smell when and where there was a likely ‘find’ by an expedition. A grape-vine leak had told its own tale. The botanists were looking for finds of chemical or pharmaceutical value.
Keeping the jeep at an even speed he watched Kim’s pencil making its cross-country journey on the map ‒ moving back over the way they had come.
The long leg to the first night’s camp! Then the longer leg to the old homestead! Next came the journey to the desert fringe. The dust storm! The pencil moving, staying, pressing on, told the whole story all over again.
It told of the walk through the sand dunes. Kim’s walk, alone, for four days!
She lifted her head and looked through the windscreen. He could see the lashes drop for one moment over her eyes. He saw the sad curve in the line of her mouth: the furrow on her brow.
The jeep came to a stop with a jerk.
She looked at John quickly.
‘Kim!’
‘Yes?’
He took his hands off the steering wheel and held one out to her.
‘Kim?’
She looked at his waiting hand. It was so full of promise: of security and peace. She blinked her eyes. She looked up again, straight into his eyes. Then she put her hand in his.
John drove on ‒ one hand only guiding the steering-wheel. They said nothing at all.
They drove on over the breakaway west of the mesa. They burned up the red ironstone outcrop, turning north-east now over blistered red land. They rounded the hillocks clothed in spinifex, then rattled down through unexpected gorges that split the country like canyons. Here John had to release Kim’s hand for he needed both hands on the wheel as they twisted in between tall shade-giving cadjebuts, and over mate of wild ferns, then up on to the plain again. The jeep swept on between vast blankets of mauve mulla mullas, flannel flowers, and cotton-tails. The ghost gums stood still in scattered loneliness. A blue-tongued lizard idled dangerously across their track.
As the sun began its westering they caught the rose glow of the rare miniata, and here and there splashes of sturt pea lying blood-red across the ground. Here was velutina, burgundy-coloured rufa and occasionally the flaming paradise flower.
They were again in the land where trees, bushes, and myriad wild-flowers grew abundantly.
It was Kim who first broke the silence.
‘I know why Peck and Bill never want to leave this land ‒’
John’s reaction was unexpected.
‘Leave Peck and Bill out of your kindly musings, Kim,’ he said. ‘That pair are better lost than found.’
Kim was startled. Wasn’t ‘the war’ over, after all?
‘I thought you liked them?’
‘I do. When they keep out of my hair ‒’
‘Why, what do you mean? Peck was very well-behaved at our wedding. Kathy was surprised. He has quite a reputation!’
John eased his manner.
‘Yes, they were quite presentable,’ he agreed. ‘Possibly Peck and Bill did us a good turn. I don’t suppose we’ll ever really know.’
‘Know what?’ Kim was really puzzled now.
‘The ways of people who inhabit this misbegotten stretch of no-man’s land ‒ They’re all mysteries. They’re in a world of their own.’
He swung the jeep up the last rise, round a vast hump of boulders to bring it out on the tableland. Away to the north and east was the haze of the desert fringe.
‘We could almost call this home-country,’ he said, changing the subject. ‘I think we’ll make the old ruin by sundown. Before that if our luck holds.’
Kim looked at the map, then at her watch. ‘We’re doing fine ‒’
He decided she would never know the antecedents of their wedding. Luck could help him with that subterfuge. It had to do just that!
‘At sundown,’ Kim was thinking, ‘like the flowers in the bushland I will fold up my own prickly petals for keeps. Maybe with luck, to-night ‒’
She dared not let her thoughts go farther than that.
They were both thinking of ‘luck’. Courting the lady in their hearts.
Soon they were running along an old sand track.
‘Something passed this way last night,’ John said. ‘A Land-Rover by the depth of those tyre marks.’
‘Going or coming?’ Kim asked. ‘I hope there’s no one camping at the homestead.’
‘Going. Watch and you’ll see where the rear wheels skid deep in the sand. It possibly by-passed the homestead on this track.’
Kim watched, and when John pointed out the tyre marks she recognised the smudged angled swerve tracks for what they were. She was relieved. Whoever had passed this way had gone west, away from the homestead. She and John would, please God, be all alone.
A little later Kim noticed a fine pencil of smoke rising way over to the north-east.
‘Look, John. Smoke! Could it be an aborigines’ camp?’
‘That, Kim,’ John said steadily ‒ he’d been looking at the smoke for some minutes ‒ ‘is from the homestead. It’s just over the rise. Someone has lit up the old stove.’
‘Oh no!’
It was wrung from her. Her heart dropped with a clang that could have been heard right across the outback.
‘I’m afraid so. We have company.’
Silence fell. Kim felt there was absolutely nothing to say. Perhaps John was conscious of this too. His own silence seemed full of loaded patience: yet unspoken barbed comments.
Please don’t let me get prickly again! Kim begged of her latest companion ‒ Lady L
uck.
They drove between leaning rotted fence posts, across what had once been the station’s gravel square; past the tottering timbers and rusted iron sheets of falling outhouses ‒ next the water trough that still functioned with its lead from the water-bore. Then round the corner of the crazy dilapidated old building to the ‘front’.
There, fifty yards from the homestead, was parked a utility ‒ and a small caravan hitched to the tow-bar behind it. This was one of their own Expedition’s outfits! It bore the identity-plates.
John slammed the jeep to a stop. He sat, his hands on the wheel, and stared at the vehicles.
Kim’s face froze. She said nothing. Neither did she move. The windscreen in front of her seemed fogged.
From inside the homestead there came the clatter of something falling. A cup? A billy can? Then a man’s voice was raised in excitement. He was speaking to some other person. Two, if not more, were camping in the homestead!
A minute later they came out of the gap that once had been a doorway.
Myree and Stephen Cole!
The air was moveless and the heat of the late afternoon enclosed the jeep and its occupants like a steam vapour. Yet Kim was stone cold. Every little part of her ached with that cold.
‘Oh no!’
The words were wrung from her again.
Not Myree! Beautiful, selfish, predatory, brain-box Myree! What had she, Kim, done in past years that she deserved this?
‘Yes, Myree!’ John spoke so quietly it almost frightened her.
Could there be relief in his voice? Or had she dreamed it?
Kim looked at him. If possible her heart dropped lower. He didn’t seem deadened by frost bite or withered by hell fires within. He was masked and walled-up ‒ all over again: except that he was getting ready to smile at Myree. Fighting to keep it professional? The leader catching up with his team?
John turned the door handle. Kim saw that he really was smiling at the other girl. Myree wreathed in poise and charm was coming across the gravel stretch to meet them. She carried herself with the manner of a born hostess greeting late arrivals ‒ except that she looked only at John. She smiled only at him. John returned the smile.
Chapter Sixteen
Kim unfroze slowly. She would have to play it the old way ‒ as when Celia and Diane set out to take all her about-to-be admirers from her. She’d smile it out. She would have to do that, or just lie down and die.
John was already out of the jeep and on the gravel. He was looking at Myree and ‒ yes ‒ continuing to smile!
Kim let herself out of the car. She felt dreadfully stiff but would rather have died than show it.
She straightened her back. Resolution, if not pride, suddenly possessed her.
Myree and Stephen were not going to have John. Not even over her dead body. She would think of something artful and awful to do to them. The kind of things Jeff’s ‘Bratto’ used to think up once upon a time. Then it came like a flash ‒ the Idea Brilliant ‒ for it was born out of an old forgotten piece of knowledge.
It was Stephen who gave it to her. He wore a sort of forced smile as he came forward to meet them, and he put his hand up to smooth his hair. It was a gesture ‒ the hand smoothing the red-brown hair ‒ that did it. She’d seen it before: the way he did it from the centre part, then down. Now she remembered where, and how she had known of him. A glass darkly was shattered.
She knew what she would do about it too!
She smiled at Stephen. Then, not even doubtfully, she smiled at Myree. This last was wasted because Myree was devoting all her attention to John.
‘I can’t believe it,’ Myree was saying, looking lovely in spite of the place, the hour, and the puzzled frown on her beautiful forehead. The heavenly peaked eyebrows were hovering just a little higher. Her smile was as brilliant as ever, if a little determined. ‘I really refuse to believe that you two are married! A mistake, of course! We heard about it at Base. We could make contact on our very simple transceiver with one of the stations north of us. The people there said they were going to a wedding. Yours! Well, I ask you? We did laugh!’
‘It’s quite true,’ John said, so mildly that Kim looked at him quickly.
‘We decided it was a mistake,’ Myree repeated determinedly. ‘A confusion of names about who was at Bim’s Stopover … about who was getting married. John, it’s not true! I simply don’t believe you!’ She laughed a little shakily.
Kim pressed her hands down over her overalls as if to smooth them. Then she pulled her battered hat forward over her brow. She was back to her old self, all right. She felt like it. She looked only at Stephen from under the brim, and dug her hands in her side pockets.
‘Hullo!’ she said brightly. She hoped she sounded baleful too.
Stephen sensed something was not quite usual about Kim. He stood quite still, watching her carefully. His uneasy smile flickered to rest. Then he decided some kind of quick natural exertion was necessary.
‘Petso!’ he said mocking her, yet still watching her like he’d watch a snake likely to rear and strike. ‘Petso darling, you’ve let me down. You’ve gone and married someone else. Or have you? Do I beg or steal a kiss. What John says can’t really be true, of course.’
Kim shook her head. Her eyes went on watching him, and her smile was just too consciously Mona Lisa-ish. She had put on her so-called ‘inimical’ look.
‘Sorry Stephen. I don’t have any kisses to spare on Wednesdays. It is Wednesday, isn’t it? Anyway, they’re expensive. Kisses, I mean. Very ‒’ She paused, looking at him sideways. Then finished ‒ ‘Or aren’t they expensive? Those ones back at the Base, for instance?’
Stephen looked away for a split second. Then he straightened his shoulders.
‘Kisses expensive?’ he asked, trying to sound incredulous. Could she possibly guess at that trading of information with the industrial chemist? How could she? He’d covered all his tracks. Did she mean ‘kisses’ as a code word, or a warning? What was she up to?
Stephen glanced obliquely at John Andrews, partly to escape the expression in Kim’s eyes, partly to play for time.
‘Funny,’ he said, back to joking. ‘I can’t imagine John in any kind of kissing situation ‒’
Kim refused to blush at that image. She had business to do with Stephen. A trade-in to effect. Two could play at that game. She went on looking at him in a knowing way on purpose. She meant to make him uneasy.
‘By the way, Kim,’ Stephen hurried on. ‘They’d all heard, back at Base, about that four day walk of yours. Everyone’s still goggling. Couldn’t quite believe it, you know ‒’
Myree, only a yard or two away, looked round quickly. She had heard this last remark of Stephen’s.
‘Why so, John?’ she asked turning back to her quarry. ‘Why did you stay out there alone? You, as leader, were the important one ‒’ She gave a little laugh. ‘It is rather convenient to be the girl in the party sometimes, isn’t it? I mean ‒ first preference to being saved, and all that.’
John pushed his hat on the back of his head.
‘It was not quite like that ‒’ he said mildly.
‘Oh, I know. Don’t tell me. Your precious plant finds, of course! You were quite right. It’s in the tradition of great scientists to make personal sacrifices. You will be quite a hero, John.’
Kim was thinking that John was regarding Myree with too much interest during this speech. His eyes were searching the other girl’s face. Myree noticed it too. And liked it. Kim tried not to let her heart drop any farther. It was probably rock-bottom already, anyway.
She had yet to fight the good fight.
‘You thought possible death by thirst or privation was worth special valuable plant finds?’ John was asking Myree quizzically.
‘Of course you would be like that, John! It’s in the tradition ‒ as I said. We were sure you found something special out there. That is why George Crossman let me come here. By your own book of rules I had to have a partner.’ She laughed again
. This time as if making a jolly joke of it all. ‘Hence Stephen. I had to find this place. Stephen had been here before ‒ except for George who couldn’t be spared.’
‘Of course,’ John pulled his hat to its right place over his brow. Then he took the thing off altogether, folded it, and pushed it in his belt.
‘Stephen knew the route.’ He nodded his head thoughtfully. ‘The obvious partner,’ he concluded.
Stephen squared his shoulders.
‘Let’s face it, Boss. Being an extra I was the only one not wanted urgently at Base. The poor girl had to have someone to change the wheel when she blew a puncture.’
‘Don’t make small of yourself, Stephen,’ Myree said with an overdose of kindness in her voice. ‘You were most useful.’ Stephen made a grimace at Kim. This last phrase was damning with faint praise.
‘You see?’ he said. ‘That’s all I am. Someone who is useful. Like the caretaker, or something.’
‘Well … it’s my turn to make use of you now,’ Kim said with a docility that did not deceive Stephen. ‘Way back we saw the smoke signals of the fire in the stove. Does the billy boil? We haven’t had any lunch. Nor afternoon break. Let’s make tea? You and I, Stephen ‒’
‘It’s on the boil, Petso,’ he was very eager to please. He was uncertain of Kim, and mistrusted her gentle docility. Also her willingness to leave Myree to John.
Trouble brewing ‒ was the message flashed to the back of his mind.
John, with one hand in his pocket, and the other wiping dust from his forehead, was already dug into an involved scientific discussion with Myree. Kim guessed it was about the wonder ‘find’, and the duplicate of records he had ordered specially for her.
Why can’t John see what she’s doing? Kim’s inside voice almost wailed as she asked herself the answerless question.
She walked with Stephen beside her towards the hole-in-the-wall that was the homestead’s front door.
‘Come on in, Kim-girl,’ Stephen invited, too casually.
She felt a flick of sadness for him. He scented danger. And how right he was!