Siddon Rock (2 page)

As Macha marched into town with the rifle held stiffly in front of her he saw angles: broad shoulders that tapered to the waist, and straight long lines of her legs; small triangles of breasts barely changed the sweep of chest, and sharp elbows rested at her waist. Pale patches of freckles emphasised the planes of her cheekbones and made them look high and dangerous. In the half-light of dusk Macha's
nakedness glowed like white camellias, but her still features were hidden by the slouch hat.

Alistair looked along the street to see who else was watching. He went into the shop and locked the door behind him. He walked past the orderly rows of sewing goods and skeins of wool that hung on long hooks on the wall, past the store dummies displaying cotton frocks, and into a curtained alcove.

In the fitting room Alistair stood looking at the poster of a woman draped elegantly against a railing. Behind her the Eiffel Tower appeared to lean towards her, in wonder at her beauty. But it was the image of the dress that Alistair caressed, running his hand down the flowing skirt. No ordinary dress this one, it fell in long folds from a tightly belted bodice into a skirt that swirled around slender legs encased in fine nylons.
Grey
, Alistair thought,
definitely silver-grey silk faille
.
And that little white Peter Pan collar. The hat, black with a black net veil. Just perfect.
Alistair put his hand over the one word on the poster – Dior – pressing the palm down firmly as if to draw an essence from the curving letters. To Alistair's admiring eye the model's delicate features looked amazingly like those of Macha Connor.

Alistair turned from the French perfection and looked into the mirror. His plump softness overflowed the glass and made him sigh. From the region of his heart came a green glow that made him look taller, straighter and more angular, and his reddish complexion faded to white petals touched with brown freckles of frost. Alistair put on a
broad-brimmed hat, pulling it down so that his light brown eyes became deep and mysterious. With one hand he pulled his full-cut white shirt firmly so that his breasts flattened into tipped diamonds which he brushed lightly with the back of his other hand. Alistair held the pose until the green glow faded. He placed the hat back on the shelf, left the shop by the door that opened into the back lane and walked through the dust and dry grass to his house.

That night, when Alistair completed his ledger entries for the day, he wrote neatly at the bottom of the credit column:
Macha Connor came home.
And at the corresponding debit column:
This is unbalanced.

Sybil Barber was an observer, aware of the nuances of human foibles. She watched the daily interactions of the town through screens of fine mesh netting that kept flies from trays of soft dark kidneys and livers and the hanging strips of pale, rough-sided tripe in the display window.

In the waning light Sybil watched Macha, and watched Alistair watching Macha. Further down the street a shaft of light spilled out as Kelpie Crush held open the door of the bar for Gawain Evans. Sybil saw Kelpie pick up beer glasses left on the window-ledges of the pub and stack them in a precarious pile up his arm. He paused as Macha marched past.

Of the many things that Sybil Barber knew about the town of Siddon Rock, one was that Kelpie Crush would not eat the plain, robust meals prepared by Marge Redall at the
Railway and Traveller's Hotel where he was the barman. He, Kelpie, was a tender and gentle cook who subscribed to a French trade magazine for chefs, and he preferred the delicate flesh of veal and lamb – when it was available – to the stronger meat of beef or mutton.
There's something about the meat here that's different
, he said to Sybil when he first arrived in town.
A sort of underlying tang that's not there in city meat. And it's a bit tougher.

It's the feed
, Sybil said,
the saltbush
.
And everything here grows tougher than in the city. It has to, to survive.

Each week Sybil chose her beasts from the local herds and flocks, feeling along rib-cages for firmness without too much fat. Not that this country encouraged fat. The beasts produced here by the dry forage of stubble and saltbush were solid and sturdy animals, and Sybil knew well the shape of flesh and muscle concealed by a fine layer of tissue that tied skin to carcass.
No-one in the town
, she thought,
no-one except myself knows what to expect when that smooth cover is broken.
She was deft and quick in separating the skin from the carcass and quite liked the silky smoothness of the meat as she jointed and boned the various cuts. It was, she thought, similar to the feel of the thighs of her men as they lay along her, although not as warm.

Sybil watched Gawain Evans pause and glance towards her shop, then turn and walk towards his home. She knew, though, that when he strolled up the street each day from the Council Offices where he worked, his real, hidden desire was not the currant bun he asked her for. She had experienced the surprising strength of this mild-looking
man with the dark, slicked-down hair, and was happy to take him into her bed occasionally, but not into her life.

As she watched Alistair Meakins watching Macha, Sybil knew that for his meal tonight he would have two lamb cutlets, mashed potato and tinned peas. She wondered, not for the first time, why he had not visited her at night. She had suggested it once, but he had doffed his hat to her and said formally,
My dear, thank you for the offer. You can be sure that, if I ever feel the urge for female companionship, it will be yourself I will seek.

At the time Sybil had wondered why someone as obviously sophisticated as Alistair would come to a place like Siddon Rock, but pushed the thought aside.

As for Macha Connor, Sybil Barber considered that she didn't carry enough flesh to feed a crow, let alone a hungry man.

Sybil set the starter for the next morning's bread batch – ten wholemeal, fifteen white and five jubilee twist covered the regulars and a few spare – checked that the floors and pine chopping block were spotless, and then let herself out into the chill, still evening.

Kelpie Crush stood with glasses stacked up his arm, propping open the swinging door to the street with a polished boot. He saw Alistair standing in the shadows of the entrance to Meakins' Haberdashery and Ladies & Men's Apparel. He saw the lights go off in Barber's Butchery & Bakery and knew that Sybil Barber would be watching Macha.

The patrons of the pub saw Kelpie Crush as a quiet, efficient barman who knew everyone's drink and when they were ready for another. He slowed the rate of drinks to some as the evening went on, but did this so that it was not noticed. He heard stories and whispers across the dark wood of the public bar with its brass foot-rail on which farmers, townsmen and the occasional travelling salesman rested their dusty boots or glossy shoes. No-one knew he heard them and no-one heard them from him. The few women who sometimes sat in the Ladies' Lounge found him courteous, but there was no flirtatious tension which was so often found in the slight risqué-ness of the place. It could be said that Kelpie Crush was the perfect barman.

Because of his expertise at the pub some people found it curious when Kelpie pinned a notice on the town noticeboard at the Council Offices, asking if anyone was interested in forming the Siddon Rock Cub Scouts Pack.
What's a barman doing with kids?
they said. Someone, possibly Doctor Allen, spoke with the headmaster, Harry Best, who then had a quiet word with Kelpie one afternoon over a beer.

Harry reported back that he was pleased to say that Kelpie Crush appeared to have excellent credentials, having run such a pack in the city. He was, Harry said, a quiet man who some time before had a nervous breakdown from a high-pressure position in the capital. He had moved to Siddon Rock to avoid the stresses of city living and to indulge himself in his hobby of collecting moths and bush insects. He took the bar job because it was available when he arrived in town. As
everyone knew that paying work was difficult to come by for someone not able to cope with the rigours of farm labouring, the discussion of suitability was dropped.

When Kelpie's passion for moths and insects became known, a town project was gradually formed as people brought any unusual-looking bugs to the hotel. But there were no invitations to view the collection, although Kelpie had been heard to say that he would, one day when it was complete, show the work in the foyer of the Council Offices.

Now, as Macha marched down the street, Kelpie watched through the partly closed door. He admired Macha's thin, boyish shape for a moment and then turned back to the unusually large crowd of drinkers at the bar.

To reach her home from the town Nell followed a path that started at the tall, round wheat silo built into the base of the rock at the edge of the town. This path wound to the top of the rock, negotiating small canyons and gullies. It wandered past an occasional quandong tree or small patch of sandy soil where, in spring, pink and white everlasting flowers grew fragilely against the dark walls of the rock.

The wheat silo dominated the town. No low metal and timber container this, it was built soon after the first wheat crop was harvested in the district. Modelled on the French lighthouses of the Atlantic Ocean, it stood tall and proud against the sea of bushland that surrounded the settlement. A veritable light in the wilderness, the early farmers and settlers
declared. A silo to be proud of, to fill with golden grain for the European markets. The architect and builder – whose name had long since been erased from the dedication plaque by the sand-blast of summer dust storms – found the perfect site on the base of the rock. A good level area for the road and railway and plenty of loose stone for the walls of the silo was what he had looked for, and found. He drilled foundations into the rock itself and bound the building to it. He graded and smoothed a circular road for easy access. He designed and patented an unloading system that carried the grain to the top of the building from the carts and trucks that waited in line, and then poured it through a hatch into the vast belly of the silo.
This will be here a thousand years from now
, he said, and so still say the people of Siddon Rock, to this day.

On the day Macha Connor returned from war, Nell was on her way home from the hospital when she heard the rifle crack. Impelled by an inherited memory of death by gunfire, she dropped to the ground, falling just as the bullet from Macha's rifle hit the silo tower where she usually leaned to take off her shoes. The abrasion it left in the stonework shone like fool's gold as the bullet ricocheted towards the town clock. There it bounced off the central clock face and dropped to the top of three wide steps that led to the lists of names engraved on the obelisk.

Nell climbed higher up the path and turned to look down the main street. There she saw Macha marching towards her home at the Two Mile. Back along the railway line, in the setting sun she saw the dead fruit bats crisping in the coming frost and, much further back, dingoes shying
away from the discarded uniform jacket hanging ghostlike in a tree. She looked at the pale figure in the street and understood that most of Macha had come home.