The Golden Soak (27 page)

So that was it. It wasn't the cattle, but Rosa's arrival that had upset her. ‘How did she get here?'

‘By plane. She came up from Perth yesterday and one of the Mount Newman men drove her over last night.'

The world seemed suddenly a much more complicated place. ‘Where is she now?'

‘Gone for a walk, I think.' And she added with a trace of bitterness, ‘While I cook some sort of a dinner.'

‘Does she know I'm here?'

‘No. How could she?'

‘In Australia, I mean.'

‘Of course.'

‘You told her?'

She stared at me, those prominent eyes of hers very wide. ‘I said you'd gone to Kalgoorlie. Why? What did you expect me to say when your wife turns up out of the blue asking for you?'

So Rosa had guessed it was phoney – that I hadn't died in that fire. But to come all this way … There didn't seem any point. Or couldn't she bear the thought of one man escaping her? ‘What's she want?' I demanded.

But Janet didn't answer. She just stared at me for a moment, her eyes brimming with tears, and then she turned abruptly and walked back into the house, leaving me standing there.

‘What's the trouble?' Kennie asked.

‘Nothing,' I muttered. ‘My wife's turned up, that's all.' I got my gear out of the Land-Rover and went to my room, feeling dazed and suddenly tired. What the hell did she want? I lit a cigarette and sat on the bed trying to work it out. Rosa! Here. My body was suddenly trembling. I felt hot, conscious of the stale smell of sweat and my shirt sticking to my back. To come all this way on the off-chance.… But why? I lay back on the bed and closed my eyes.

I was on my third cigarette and still unwashed when Kennie put his head round the door to tell me supper was ready. ‘You all right?'

‘Yes, of course I'm all right.' He looked so bloody clean, a fresh shirt and his hair slicked down with water. ‘Why?'

‘Well, I don't know.' He was staring at me uncertainly. ‘When a man's wife turns up …'

‘Where is she now?'

‘Waiting for you – in the cook house. Janet, too. I'll tell them you're coming, shall I?'

I nodded and swung my legs off the bed. ‘Yes.' It would be awkward in front of Janet, but the moment had to be faced. ‘I won't be a minute.' I had a quick wash and changed my shirt, and then I went down the passage into candlelight and an atmosphere of tension that reminded me of Drym. Rosalind was reclining in one of the cane chairs smoking a cigarette. She didn't move as I came in, only her eyes, those large dark luminous eyes. She looked cool in a neat, close-fitting linen frock, cut low to emphasize her breasts. Her breasts were just as I remembered them, small and firm, and the dark sheen of her hair falling about her face. The long slim legs were carefully arranged. By God, I thought, she did it well. And Janet, the silly little idiot, wearing a flouncy dress that was much too fussy instead of the practical simplicity of her hardworn jeans.

I stood there for a moment staring at my wife, our eyes locked and the other two waiting. What did they expect – a conventional greeting? ‘I thought you said you'd never go to Australia.'

‘I changed my mind.' She was smiling.

‘So I see. Who paid for the flight – not your father surely?'

‘No. The insurance.'

So she'd got the insurance, and now that she knew I was alive … ‘So you changed your mind. Why?'

The dark eyes gleamed. Was it amusement, or something else? What the hell did she want? ‘I was curious, that's all.' That husky, almost throaty voice, so suited to the dark glow of a cocktail bar. Here it seemed strangely out of place. And yet … My legs felt weak, an ache growing deep inside me. Damn her! Damn her to hell! She always knew when I wanted her. I pulled myself together and went over and kissed her on the cheek. The same perfume and her hand on mine, a touch that was a promise of more intimate caresses. ‘You haven't changed,' she said. ‘And you're still very much alive, aren't you?' The gleam in her eyes was sheer devilry. And then she looked across at Janet and in a cool voice said, ‘If we can't have a drink, shall we feed? Now that we're all here.'

The girl's cheeks flamed. ‘If you like.' She looked across at me, her eyes pleading. There's no beer, you see – they drank it all that night.'

‘I've a bottle of Scotch in the Land-Rover,' I said.

She looked relieved and without waiting to be asked Kennie went and got it. The Scotch helped, but it was an uncomfortable meal. I couldn't help thinking of the last dinner party we had held at Drym, the furniture all good pieces and gleaming in the candlelight, silver on the table and Château Beychevel '57 to go with the Diane. Right to the end we had done things in style, keeping up appearances. Here there was no style, everything run down and the old homestead haunted by memories and the reek of better days. Yet Drym was gone, Balavedra bankrupt, while here, in spite of everything, the house continued, a piece of Australian history that might yet come to life again if the Golden Soak reef continued.

I looked at Rosa, wondering what she was thinking as she sat there talking to Kennie and drinking Janet's instant coffee. She was so cool and composed, so very elegant – and that low-cut dress catching Kennie's wandering eye. Was she, too, comparing this with Drym? The candles, almost burned out now, were beginning to gutter. In the uneven light I caught her eyes and she smiled. But there was no warmth in it, just amusement. And I wondered again what the hell had brought her all this way.

Janet rose and snuffed out one of the candles. Moonlight filtered through the gaps in the hessian. ‘So romantic,' Rosa murmured in her huskiest voice. ‘If you had pot plants here we might be in a rather primitive conservatory.' Her words conjured visions of English country houses.

‘I'm afraid there's nothing romantic about Jarra Jarra,' Janet said in a small tight voice that sounded distinctly girlish. ‘And I have to be up early so I'm going to bed.' She gave us candles and then she left us, a Cinderella-like exit-one minute she was there, the next she was gone.

‘What an extraordinary child,' Rosa murmured, and I could have slapped her.

‘She just about runs the station,' I said.

‘I'm sure she does.' She smiled at me sweetly. ‘But not very well from what I've been told. Their cattle herded on to somebody else's property and not enough fuel to run their lighting plant. And their future apparently in your hands.'

‘Who told you that?'

‘The boy who drove me here. The word seems to have got around that you're a mining consultant. With your old firm, too.' Her eyes reflected the guttering of the last candle so that I couldn't see their expression. ‘It seems they're very simple people out here.'

I got to my feet. ‘We'll be starting early, too.'

She sighed and got out of her chair. ‘Do I go with you?'

‘You'd find it very hot and dusty.'

‘I see.'

‘You don't see at all,' I said angrily. ‘We have to clear a track up a gully on the slopes of Mount Coondewanna.'

She smiled, and it was still that cool smile of amusement. ‘I gather we're in separate rooms, so goodnight then.'

But it wasn't goodnight. Stripped to my pants, I was sitting on my bed, smoking a cigarette and wondering what to do about her, when a shadow moved against the stars and I heard her voice, a whisper in the night: ‘Alec. Are you there?' Something leapt inside of me, my blood pounding as I got to my feet and went to the verandah where she stood, quite still, just a shadow in the moonlight.

‘What is it? What do you want?' But I knew. It had been like that from the moment we had first met, at a country club near her home in Hampshire. The chemistry of our bodies was something we had never been able to control. She didn't answer, simply stepped past me into the deeper darkness of the room and then stood waiting. I followed her, knowing what would happen, the ache overwhelming, the sense of incompleteness. ‘I couldn't talk to you out there,' she breathed.

‘Do we have to talk?'

She came closer, not touching me, but I could smell her scent and her hair loose over her face, the flimsy garment falling apart, the pale breasts exposed. ‘Not if you don't want to, darling.' The voice so soft, so inviting. Damn her! She was like a bitch on heat. She had always been like that when it came to the moment. And my need, all these weeks.… I reached for her grabbed hold of her, the softness of her yielding, coming against me, her lips on mine and her hands straying. And then we were on that narrow bed and she had the lumps as I took her in a fury of urgency. It wasn't love. But it was something we both needed.

Released at last, we lay close, the sweat on our bodies cooling. ‘I wonder what they'd say if they could see you now?' The whisper of her words and her hands like silk. ‘So very much alive!'

‘Are you glad?'

‘Haven't I shown it?'

If she had kept her mouth shut we could have lain close like that all night. But her words had reminded me of the insurance money and I reached for a cigarette. If she could guess the truth, then others might reach a similar conclusion. The flare of the match showed our naked bodies and the spartan simplicity of the room. Even if she didn't talk, her mere presence threatened everything I had achieved, the desperate attempt to rebuild my life.

‘I could do with a cigarette, too.'

I gave her one, lighting it from my own, and the glow of it as she inhaled showed the relaxed beauty of her features. ‘What are you planning to do?' I asked.

‘I'll wait,' she said.

‘What for?'

‘To see whether you make it. A new mine – by Easter.' The tip of her cigarette glowed and I saw her eyes laughing up at me. ‘I was there, between two of those cowsheds, wool sheds, whatever they are.' She raised herself on her elbow. ‘You think I'll let a chit of a girl like that take over my husband when he's struck it rich?' She laughed. ‘I've got you, Alec, haven't I? Still talking big and reaching for the sky. But here, in this mineral-crazy land, you might just prove as big as your words.'

So that was it. She was going to hold that over me, and if I succeeded, we'd be back where we were before I'd lit that bloody candle and burned Drym to the ground. She'd be round my neck for ever then. And if I didn't succeed, then I could rot for all she cared. ‘You can't wait here,' I said, keeping a tight hold on myself.

‘Of course not. Too damned uncomfortable.'

‘Where then?'

‘Perth. Or there's an island called Rottnest. I met somebody on the plane who invited me there.'

‘A man?'

She gave a soft laugh. ‘I'm a perfectly normal woman. You should know that by now.'

My hands clenched, a cold fury sweeping over me. I could have taken her by the throat then. But suddenly the anger was gone, leaving only a feeling of disgust that she could still do this to me. And after that I didn't say anything, the two of us lying there in silence until finally she leaned over me and stubbed out her cigarette. ‘I'll leave you now. I'm sleepy and this bed is too small.' She climbed over me and put on her dressing gown. ‘Goodnight, Alec.'

I watched her shadow disappear into the night, and long after she had gone I could feel the touch of her body as she had leaned over me.

In the morning, when I woke, it all seemed like a dream. But I knew it wasn't, and there to remind me was the stubbed-out butt of her cigarette, red with lipstick. I got up, dressing slowly, wondering how I was going to face Janet. But at least I was spared that. Kennie was waiting for me, a pot of tea on the table. ‘Janet went about an hour ago. She left this note.' He handed it to me:
Sorry, but you'll have to fend for yourselves. Back this evening
. He poured me a cup of tea. ‘She was riding that camel of hers and she had Tom and one of the boys with her.'

The tea was lukewarm and I drank it quickly. ‘Well, let's go,' I said. ‘We've work to do.' A hell of a lot, in fact, if that rig was going to be able to reach the drill site. ‘We'll breakfast up the top of the gully.'

He nodded and got to his feet. ‘What about your wife?'

But that was a problem I didn't want to face at this hour of the morning and I was hoping to God she was still asleep as I went out into the arid, blinding sunlight. A moment later we were in the Land-Rover and heading down the track towards Golden Soak.

THREE

We began drilling at dawn on Wednesday, January 21, in the hollow on the north-eastward running spur of Mt Coondewanna. My choice of site had been limited by the terrain, the projected line of the reef cutting diagonally across the sloping shoulder of the mountain and the rig only able to operate on reasonably flat ground. Drilling on the back of the spur had one advantage. Here erosion had probably occurred
in situ
, so that there was every chance that the surface samples I had taken from the hollow were a true indication of the rock formation below. But it was all Archaean country of great antiquity and I had no means of knowing how Mt Coondewanna had been formed or what changes in its formation had occurred over the millennia. In the circumstances, the odds against a single drill hole proving successful were very long indeed.

I reckoned that if we did intersect the reef it would be at a depth of about 700 feet. Ed Garetty had found it at the Golden Soak third level, 300 feet below the surface, and where we were now was a good 400 feet above the mine entrance. When we started we were drilling into the weathered mantle, so that progress was rapid, a new 10-foot length of pipe being added almost every hour.

From that hollow we could just see the top of Coondewanna above an outcropping ridge of rock that gradually changed from the black of shadow to the red of full sunlight. It was hot, but there was a slight breeze and the flies were not too bad, particularly when Kennie got a fire going. By lunchtime we were already down over 60 feet and Duhamel and his second team runner, Josh Meyer, ate one at a time, the diesel thundering and the rods turning steadily as the drill ground its way down into the bowels of the earth.