A Murder Unmentioned (32 page)

“Betrothed beings nowadays,” he said, “court by telephone and ‘marriage settlement’ each other by letter.” He gave an example of a super up-to-date marriage contract which read:

“Dear Old Fruit,—Suppose we park ourselves at the altar together; you shall have the run of my rabbit warren and all its gadgets. You know that my jolly old life has had something done to it; I mean to say that when old daddy time throws a monkey wrench into my works some giddy insurance company will hand you a cool thousand and you can have my bank overdraft and everything what’s over.

All the best.”

The Advertiser, 1928

“O
h for the love of God!” Wilfred muttered.

“What’s wrong?” Rowland asked, wondering what Edna Walling had done now. He had accompanied his brother out into the dam paddock to inspect her progress. The works were significant: an arboretum was being planted on the open ground which sloped gently towards what would be a grand cobble-edged pond. The
dam, which had been drained a few weeks before, had been partially refilled with soil. A massive mound of clay, which had once lined the dam, was awaiting use in sealing the new pond. A dozen men toiled with wheelbarrows and shovels and the garden designer directed proceedings from the midst of it all. It was none of this, however, that had prompted Wilfred’s outburst.

Instead, it was the fact that Edna Higgins was on her knees beside the mound, sculpting figures with the clay lining of
his
pond. Her arms were caked with clay to the elbow, as were her feet and shins. Her shoes had been discarded on the grass a short distance away.

Rowland stopped, entranced. Edna seemed, to him, to be drawing shapes out from the earth, conjuring form from the dirt. There was a glorious immersion about her focus that enchanted him. Like a child absorbed, she took complete, abandoned joy in what she was doing, forgetting any regard for clothes or propriety. To Rowland this was when she was at her most beautiful—the uninhibited, uncontainable sprite who’d enslaved him from the first.

He reached inside his jacket for his notebook, determined to capture the moment, to record what he’d need to paint the sculptress like this. He found a tree stump just a few yards away, against which he settled. Accustomed to being Rowland’s model, Edna ignored him entirely, when she noticed him at all.

Wilfred stared incredulously as his brother began to draw the woman playing with mud in his paddock. He threw his arms in the air and walked away.

For a time nobody bothered either artist or sculptress, as work on the paddock continued.

It was Jack Templeton who first wheeled his barrow up to Edna.

“Miss Higgins,” he said, tipping his broad-brimmed hat.

“Hello, Mr. Templeton,” Edna replied, brushing the hair from her face and smearing it with red clay in the process.

“Can I ask what you’re doing there, Miss Higgins?”

She smiled. Templeton stepped closer, drawn by her.

“I saw people in the clay,” she said, running her hand over one of the smooth bodies now sculpted into the mound; rounded fluid figures that spoke of the earth in form and substance.

“But Miss Walling said we have to use this clay to line the pond.” Templeton stared in awe at what Edna had created.

“I know.”

“But, this—it’ll all be destroyed.”

“No, they’ll always be there in the clay. I’ve set them free now.”

Templeton’s brow rose. “You’d be pulling my leg, Miss Higgins.”

Edna laughed. “No, I’m not. Well, maybe a little. I only wanted to see what they looked like. They can go into the pond now.”

“But they’ll be wrecked. No one will ever see them.” Templeton sounded genuinely distressed.

“I’ve seen them,” Edna replied. “You’ve seen them, and I think Rowly may even have drawn them…”

Rowland stood. “I don’t know Ed. I wasn’t really trying to capture your mud people.” He looked critically through his sketches. “I may have caught them in the background.”

Templeton was clearly startled by the presence of Rowland who he’d apparently not noticed till then. One didn’t expect graziers to be lying about in paddocks. “Mr. Sinclair, sir, I didn’t see you there…”

“Hello, Templeton. Did you enjoy a good Christmas?” Rowland closed his notebook, stepping over to inspect more closely what Edna had carved into the walls of the mound.

“I did. I haven’t spent Christmas in Yass for some time.”

“You’re from around here?” Rowland asked.

“Born and bred, sir. I lived here as a boy. The place hasn’t changed all that much.”

Rowland laughed. “Don’t let Wil hear you say that. He’s convinced that Yass is a shining example of progress and development. In fact, I’m sure he believes this is the real national capital.”

Templeton grinned. “There are a few more people in town, I suppose, but the Sinclairs are still in charge.” He looked back at Edna’s sculptures. “I don’t feel right just shovelling this into the pond. It’s smashing.”

Edna rescued her shoes from the grass. That smile again and both men caught their breath. “Why, thank you, Mr. Templeton. But it’s not going to last anyway. There are too many impurities in the clay to fire it, even if we could build a big enough pit. Don’t feel bad.”

Templeton removed his hat and wiped his forehead, bewildered. “But then why did you—?”

“I saw them there when I looked at the clay and I just couldn’t help myself—I had to dig them out,” Edna explained confusing Templeton further.

Rowland understood. Edna often saw shapes that others could not—hints of form imprisoned within a medium. It was in her nature to liberate them.

Templeton picked up his shovel. Then, placed it back in the wheelbarrow, shaking his head vehemently. “I can’t do it,” he said. “I’ll have to talk to Miss Walling.”

“Oh dear,” Edna said as they watched him go. “I didn’t mean to make things difficult.”

A laugh. Loud, deep and familiar. Harry Simpson strode across the paddock towards them. He stopped with his arms folded across his broad chest, gazing at the rotund figures protruding from the mound of clay, and chuckled. “Wil said Miss Higgins was playing in the mud. I had to come have a look.”

“I’m so glad you did, Mr. Simpson,” Edna retorted brightly. “You can help Rowly and me shovel them into the pond.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Mr. Templeton feels bad breaking them up, and he shouldn’t. The pond needs to be lined and this was just an experiment.” She picked up a handful of the clay soil and showed the stockman its consistency. Harry Simpson nodded sagely as if he knew what she was talking about. “I really was just messing around. They won’t last,” she said earnestly.

Simpson looked at Rowland, who was removing his jacket, resigned to the task ahead. “She does this kind of thing all the time, Harry. I don’t think there’s a cake of soap at
Woodlands
that Ed hasn’t whittled into some creature or other. Sculptors, you know.” He rolled up his sleeves. “We’d best get on with it before Arthur discovers there are naked mud people in the paddock!”

It was late afternoon by the time they finished breaking up the sculpted mound and wheelbarrowing it into the pond. Indeed, the enterprise might have taken a good deal longer if Clyde and Milton had not come out to help.

Alarmed both by the destruction of the sculptures and the fact that Rowland was shovelling dirt in a three-piece suit, Templeton returned with Victor Bates, who seemed as aghast as his workmate.

Touched by their concern, Edna showed the gardeners Rowland’s sketchbook, in an attempt to explain that what she’d been doing was equivalent to an artist’s sketch—a whim or a notion rather than a fully conceived work.

The burly workmen took in the contents of the notebook. Bates’ mouth fell open and Templeton turned a quite interesting shade of pink. Rowland smiled, very much doubting that his sketches were actually making the point Edna intended.

Once the clay had been moved, they left the garden designer and her men to put it to the use for which it had been collected, and called by Simpson’s cottage to clean up a fraction before returning to the main house. The men were still in a reasonable state, but Edna looked rather like she should have been part of her own sculpture.

Harry Simpson handed the muddy sculptress a towel and a cake of Sunlight soap. “Now that’s to wash with,
not
to carve,” he warned, breaking into a grin.

“I see Rowly’s been telling tales,” Edna replied, enjoying the sound of Simpson’s giggle. It was ridiculous on a man so large and strong and otherwise rugged. Uninhibited and contagious. She could not hear it without smiling.

While Edna was inside the cottage trying to make herself presentable, the men waited on the verandah.

Simpson settled himself in the old squatter’s chair and regarded Rowland sternly. “Why don’t you hurry up and marry that girl?” he asked.

Both Clyde and Milton pulled up, startled. It was not that they were unaware of Rowland’s enduring torch for the sculptress, but that they had decided long ago it was a matter best left alone.

Rowland looked at Simpson and responded plainly, if a little reluctantly. “I’m afraid she wouldn’t have me, Harry.”

“Afraid? Have I taught you nothing Gagamin?”

“Nothing at all.”

“Don’t be smart, Rowly!” The stockman would not have it. “You’re not a bad catch. Aside from your current legal difficulties. You should ask her. Take flowers—no, chocolates. Take chocolates! And get down on one knee. I’m pretty sure that’s what Wil did.”

Rowland laughed.

“I’m serious, Rowly,” Simpson persisted. “What are you waiting for?”

“Ed’s not…” Rowland struggled to explain.

Clyde maintained a sympathetic silence, but Milton decided to help. “Ed’s a complicated girl, Harry,” he said. “She’s not the marrying kind.”

“But if Rowly told her—”

“It wouldn’t end well, believe you me! I’ve known her since we were knee-high.” Milton sighed, beckoning Simpson to lean closer, as he lowered his voice. “Ed’s mother was a Dickensian kind of mad. Raised Ed to never belong to a man.”

“But surely she can see…”

Milton shrugged. “Perhaps we’re all products of our parents regrets. Ed won’t settle down, Harry. Over the years, all the blokes daft enough to propose simply disappeared.”

“What happened to them?” Simpson asked sceptically.

“Don’t know. Some of them were barely more than boys—poor souls. Just know we never saw them again.”

Rowland smiled. “I’m sure she didn’t devour them, Harry.”

“I wouldn’t count on that,” Milton muttered.

In an attempt to deflect the discussion, Rowland told Simpson about his and Milton’s stint at Long Bay, and his rather elucidating conversation with Wilfred.

Simpson cursed, standing up. “You didn’t shoot him? It wasn’t you?” he said, incredulous. “Bloody oath!”

“You thought it was me, too?” Rowland groaned.

“Why do you reckon I threw the gun into the dam?”

Milton glanced at Clyde.

“I didn’t know that you had, Harry. What were you doing at the house?”

“Wil sent one of the Kendall boys to fetch me—I got there just as Wil’s mate left.”

“What mate?”

“Some chap he was meeting with.”

“Menzies—he was at the house?”

“Don’t know his name, Rowly. Wil didn’t exactly introduce me.” Simpson rubbed the stubble on his jaw. “Wil told me what had happened, well, what he thought had happened. He gave me the gun, a silver candlestick and some other odds and ends to make it look like a robbery, and told me to get rid of the lot.”

“And you threw it into the dam?” Milton asked.

“Yes. That dam’s never run dry so I thought it would be safe at the bottom of it.” Simpson leaned on the verandah rail, his shoulder up against Rowland’s. “I’m sorry, Gagamin. We should have known you’d never…”

“Don’t be too sorry, Harry,” Rowland said. “I thought about it, I just didn’t get the chance.”

Simpson sighed. “You might need a better defence than that, mate.”

“When Rowly was arrested,” Milton asked carefully. “You said you were sorry. Why?”

Simpson glanced at Rowland. “That wasn’t anything to do with the arrest,” he said. “I was sorry I’d upset Mrs. Sinclair, is all. I know she isn’t well anymore.”

Rowland stared out towards the homestead. “She’s forgotten me completely, but you, she remembers, even after all these years.”

“As I said, Rowly,” Simpson replied quietly. “I’m sorry.”