Unknown (9 page)

‘In case the walk there and back knocked you out?’ he nodded feelingly. ‘It’s a fair step, and I can see now that you do have a chill; why, you’re all wet again, Brown. Yes, a double rum tonight for you.’

‘I wouldn’t be able to ride after that!’ Georgina tried to protest friskily, or however men sounded when they protested something they did not mean.

‘Well, we’ll put a toddy in a flask for you and give it to you to take back. We’ll have to beat that cold. Come on in, son.’ Roper led the way into the house.

They sat in the front room and Larry Roper poured two whiskies as Mrs Willmott, delighted to see George, fussed with the dinner. The room was just as Georgina had heard north-west lounges, or sitting rooms, were; it was large, airy, and had polished green cement slabs for coolness underfoot, and mostly bamboo furnishings.

‘Too strong?’ asked Roper of Georgina’s Scotch.

‘Oh, no, sir,’ Georgina assured him hurriedly. If she had told the truth she would have said that it was too everything. She hated whisky, and she was acutely aware that she had to keep a cool head and weigh every word before it was spoken, and spirits weren’t exactly conducive to that.

‘I’m very pleased to have you here, Brown,’ Larry Roper began genially. ‘I’ve always had jackeroos—there’ve been a few in your hut before you—but this is the first time I’ve had a geologist. I told you before that my real interest is the earth itself and what’s in it, not what’s on it, like crops or stock. But I have to keep faith with my forefathers, I wouldn’t be deserving of Roper’s if I didn’t. Anyway, I have no real dislike of the pastoralist’s life, indeed, I have a mild love for it. But the possibility of the other is my dream. I look out and try to think of it all in ten years’ time when the drillers and what-have-yous have taken over the place, when the technocrats come in with their delicate instruments, when the first percussion points reach the core.’

‘It won’t be so—pleasant.’ Georgina had started to say ‘beautiful’, but changed it to pleasant as somehow more masculine.

‘It depends on how you see it,’ Roper shrugged. ‘Some might see gargantuan monsters in wires and cranes and derricks, but I see a kind of romance.’

He looked at her keenly. ‘But don’t think if it all comes off that it means an end to what I inherited. Oh, no, young Brown, the pastoral side only makes my success in what’s under the earth a bigger challenge. I’m going to prove that the two extremes, the mining man and the pastoralist—in other words the downstairs and the upstairs man—can live together. There’s always been friction between them, you know. Holes left in the ground by the geos to break a beast’s leg are a basis for complaint on the pastoral side, endless adverse reports from the farmer concerning the geo and his work which he feels he doesn’t deserve. Well, I aim to stop all that. Drink up, Brown.’ He himself drank, then crossed to the bar to refill his glass. Georgina, looking around for a flowerpot, that oldest escape of all, found none, so crossed to the window ostensibly to observe the night. While she was there she hurriedly emptied her glass.

‘Not a bad drop, is it?’ Roper was standing beside her . already. ‘Best imported Hieland dew. Lucky to get it.’ Was it Georgina’s imagination, or was he looking fixedly through the darkness at a damp patch that he couldn’t possibly see?

‘It’s a lovely night,’ Georgina diverted him hurriedly. ‘You have a good view here.’

‘Of darkness,’ he agreed, ‘the same as you.’ He still seemed to be looking at something.

‘Dinner! ’ It was Mrs Willmott, and Georgina could have kissed her.

They went into a big raftered dining room.

‘One night you’ll have to eat with the boys,’ Larry Roper said. ‘I do it quite often myself. There are none of the fancy candles that Willy here loves to bring out but they do have a good cook. They play snooker or poker afterwards, or, if you prefer, a yam.’ He studied her for a moment.

‘Anyway,’ Roper resumed, ‘although you’re here as a geo, I’d like you to see the cattle side of the story, and hear what the men have to say. I don’t want you to be narrowminded, Brown.’

‘No, sir.’

Mrs Willmott was watching Georgina s plate keenly. At any minute, Georgina thought, she would remark. You have the appetite of a girl.’

Georgina began shovelling the food into her, until, glancing up suddenly, she found Roper looking at her.

‘Tuck in, son,’ he said, and he smiled paternally on Georgina—but there was something malicious as well as paternal there. Something Georgina could not put a finger on.

After two helpings of pudding, Georgina felt she could have lain down and slept. However, Mrs Willmott was well pleased, and when Roper went out, saying he would be back soon, the housekeeper became very expansive.

She told Georgina she had been with Mr Larry for years. A wonderful man. Look how he had gone out just now— he saw each of his men every night. She had no doubt he would do the same with George.

Georgina flinched.

Her glance fell on the large sideboard and on three photos of three different girls. Mrs Willmott followed her gaze.

‘No wonder,’ she said acidly, ‘he turned out as antagonistic to women as he did.’

‘But three of them!’ Georgina exclaimed involuntarily.

‘Four, actually, but
she
isn’t displayed—oh, no. Now I’ll see to the dishes, George.'

‘Can I help you?’

‘Help me?’ Mrs Willmott looked shocked.

‘Men do,’ defended Georgina.

‘Not here. You just sit down and rest.’

Resting was the last thing Georgina wanted to do; she wanted to walk a mile after that meal. Instead she crossed to the sideboard and looked again at the photos.

‘It must seem like a harem to you.’ Larry Roper had come back to the room again and crossed to stand beside her. '‘Gina, Libby, Melinda.’ He introduced them in turn. ‘May they never darken my door again! ’

‘You sound serious,’ she said.

‘I’ve never been more serious in my life.'

‘Are they the reason that you hate women?’ Georgina said spontaneously.

‘Who said I hate women?’ he demanded.

‘Your telegram to me.’ Georgina nearly said: ‘Also you let it be known across the telephone in no uncertain words.

‘If I recall,’ he came in, ‘all I wrote in that wire was “No women here”.’

‘You said definitely none,’ Georgina corrected. She would have liked to add: ‘And you said over the phone "A what?" when Bill said I was what I was.’ ‘Which one,’ she asked instead, ‘was the last straw?’

He shrugged at that. ‘They all were, but the real culmination isn’t there. Unfortunately I’m obliged to have the others.’

Obliged? Curiouser and curiouser, thought Georgina, feeling as puzzled as Alice in Wonderland.

‘You’re an inquisitive boy, Brown.' Roper was regarding Georgina narrowly now.

Something took hold of her. ‘Because I ask you about three pretty girls? Why can’t I admire them?’ She knew she was speaking incautiously, but somehow she couldn’t help herself. ‘After all, Mr Roper, I’m not so old myself.'

It was a stupid remark, a remark that opened up something, and she regretted it instantly. Larry Roper drawled at once: ‘I can see we must have some parties and find you some nice company, George. As you point out, why not? Yes, I’ll get on to that.’

Now Georgina did not answer.

Mrs Willmott took coffee into the lounge and Roper and Georgina followed. Talk was general for a while, with Georgina watching herself closely and going very carefully with the brandy that was served with the coffee. It would be fatal to answer Mrs Willmott or Mr Roper in her own language and not the language of men. Then Mrs Willmott excused herself, and the real talk of the evening began, talk that Georgina had dreaded but soon enjoyed, just as she had enjoyed it in Windmill Junction. Yet Windmill had only been elementary compared to what Roper talked about now.

He told her of his mining beginnings, of the rocks that used to be thrown contemptuously away as rubbish when he was a boy, and the significant metals they had changed to today.

He talked graphically, and took Georgina with him every stony inch of the way. No longer was she a man, nor was she for that matter a woman, she was instead a child, wide-eyed, enthralled; she was a student sitting enchanted at his feet.

‘You’re a good audience, Brown,’ he said once. ‘Heaven knows I’ve wanted to talk like this. I needed it. I like my men, but I wanted someone who speaks my own language, shares my love.

‘My father,’ he went on, ‘was tolerant of my enthusiasm for minerals but not enthusiastic. Cattle were in his blood. He never stopped me in my ambitions, but he let me know that I was on my own in this and that he wouldn’t join me— financially was what he really meant. I studied till my eyes couldn’t follow another line, and I worked like a dog. Then I snared a job with a big company with wealthy equipment, top men with know-how, and I don’t mind telling you I picked their brains.’ He grinned at Georgina. ‘I breathed maps, lived charts and saved for every three hundred dollars it takes to peg a claim and for every seven dollars a foot it takes to drill it. It had to be my own money, my father had said that.’

‘And now you have it all wrapped up as near as your own front door,’ Georgina came in, and he nodded.

‘I believe so. I’ve always believed so, but first I had to be sure. I was broke by the time my father died and I duly inherited Roper’s ... broke in cash but not in know-how. Now’—he turned fully and smiled at her—‘it’s all waiting for the picking, I believe, and I thank you, Brown, believe that with me.’

‘Yes,’ Georgina said.

‘That dustbowl outside—not dust now but it will be again—is waiting for the big squeeze, the squeeze that will bring out what I know it’s concealing. Then it will all start, Brown. You’ll be mapping, structure interpreting, pit sampling. I’ll be bringing up diggers from the city, or buying them from other projects, and forming the gangs. We’ll be drilling.’ His blue eyes were shining, and Georgina thought with surprise:

‘Why, he’s young!’

‘But in all that time,’ he continued steadily, ‘the station has to go on. The men, my dad’s men, a few of the old-timers who were here even when my grandfather was boss, have to be allowed their side. Tomorrow, Brown, you’ll see that side. Do you ride?'

‘Yes, sir, but ’ She broke off as he smiled.

‘But not so well? Not to worry about that. It wasn’t one of my stipulations. I’ll see you get a reasonable mount.’

‘Thank you, sir,’ she said gratefully.

‘And now I’ll drive you back to the hut. It’s late enough if we’re to do what I plan for tomorrow.’ He rose.

‘Oh, no,’ protested Georgina, ‘I have the bike here.’

‘I’m aware of that, but I’m aware, too, of how hazardous it is to ride down that track at night with only two wheels. Actually I don’t know how you got up here Without a fall.’ Georgina could have told him that she had pushed the bike, but of course she didn’t.

She said: ‘I was all right before, I’ll be all right now.’

‘In the car you will,’ he said tersely. ‘You can collect the bike tomorrow.’

Yes, with a large haversack strapped on to it, a conspicuous and significant haversack, Georgina thought. That meant that she would have to get up very early in the morning and remove the bike before he saw.

She went out and thanked Mrs Willmott, then came back to where Roper waited in the hall.

‘You’re quite a nice-mannered boy, Brown,’ he commented. ‘Willy will appreciate that, she’ll want you back next week.’

Heaven forbid, prayed Georgina.

‘It all rather surprises me,’ Roper went on as they went out. ‘Kids who are home-educated generally turn out spoiled and lacking in social graces. Boarding school licks one into shape, even though the licking often dries very quickly afterwards. You did say you were taught at home?’

‘Well, I didn’t go to any boys’ school,’ Georgina said truthfully.

‘And I hardly think you went to a girls’,’ he laughed. Was it her imagination, Georgina wondered, or was it a laugh with another side to it? But she must have been edgy, for he led the way out, talking casually again. She got into the car beside him and he drove down to the hut. Thank heaven, Georgina sighed, that this nightmare was nearly over.

But it was not to be over yet.

Roper got out of the car when Georgina did instead of driving straight off.
Why
was he getting out of the car? Georgina panicked.

He even went as far as the hut with her. ‘Did you bring a torch?’ he asked. ‘You always want to bring a flash. Try to remember there are no mod cons down here, like being able to switch on a light. Why, you could even have a snake coiled on the floor. And what in tarnation is wrong with the door? It seems to be jammed. No, there’s something against it.’

She took a deep breath. ‘I was cleaning up and I put my things at one end ... that end. Then—then I decided I didn’t feel like cleaning, so I took you up on that invitation instead.’

‘And I’m pleased you did, Brown—you were welcome. I’ll see you tomorrow then, and I’ll show you how the other side ticks. Sleep tight.’

‘Yes, Mr Roper. Goodnight.’ Georgina stood at the door until he left.

Sleep tight? she said incredulously to herself, sleep tight with the knowledge that she had to be up at the homestead to collect the bike before cockcrow, or whatever it was that woke people up out here?

Not bothering to light the lamp and soak up any shadows, for no lamp could have soaked up her shadows just now, Georgina undressed quickly and jumped into bed.

Anxiety not to sleep too far into the next day resulted in her not sleeping at all. She was hollow-eyed as she pulled on her jeans and loose shirt, then began the trek to the homestead. She watched the house for some time, but when no sign of life showed, and when piccaninny daylight showed dangerous signs of fading even further, she moved forward.

Everything went well. She was able to move die bike—haversack still intact—away from where she had propped it last night and take it back to the hut again.

She was exhausted when she got there, and a quick glance in the speckled mirror showed a pale, shadowy-eyed boy She shuddered to think what kind of show she would make on horseback today. But perhaps with an hours sleep…