Reaching for the Stars Read online

  Lang looked directly at his aunt. ‘Say nothing. You don’t have to explain yourself to anyone on earth. Or Ann. In business one learns to keep one’s own counsel and explain nothing ‒ when in a tight corner. I imagine the principle would apply in the ladies’ Kalamunda corner on Society too. Incidentally, I imagine some of them have a fair idea what duplicity is themselves.’

  ‘Lang, you are being difficult. You know that is unfair.’

  ‘I don’t know anything of the kind. You do not have to explain anything to anyone. That is the simple line you take.’

  ‘What shall we do about Ann? I had told Mrs. Boyd in my letters about you, Lang. Perhaps Ann thought …’ Lang drained his drink and put the glass back on the counter with a bang that startled the bartender.

  ‘Leave Ann where she is ‒ in Franklin’s office. She enjoys it, she gets on very well with the other girls and is an asset. She’s as good as my best at typing, and her checking at the sales is a hundred per cent accurate. That, for the moment, is the only consideration.’

  ‘Well, that’s a good thing.’ Mrs. Franklin was suddenly eager in her anxiety for Lang’s goodwill. ‘What do you think of Claire, Lang? She is beautiful, isn’t she?’

  ‘More than beautiful. She’s devastating. Does that please you?’

  Suddenly he relaxed. He took his aunt’s glass from her and gave it to a passing steward.

  ‘The airline officer seems to have finished his business with Mrs. Boyd. Shall we join them now? I’ll be the perfect host for you for the rest of the day. How’s that?’ He patted her shoulder gently. ‘Don’t worry, Aunt. It will all come out in the rain.’

  ‘As long as you don’t run out on Claire, or Mrs. Boyd.’

  ‘I won’t. I promise you.’

  ‘I believe you like her already.’

  ‘Who? Which one? Claire or Mrs. Boyd?’

  They had reached the glass door and Lang now held it open for his aunt. He studied her face, interested in what might be her answer.

  ‘You know very well who I mean. Claire,’ Mrs. Franklin said with a touch of coyness that hardly suited her general manner. ‘Mrs. Boyd is my vintage.’

  ‘I would have thought Mrs. Boyd was timeless,’ said Lang.

  He let the door swing to behind them, and taking his aunt’s arm crossed the floor to the table where Mrs. Boyd was struggling with the contents of her passport-folder again and Claire was sitting, cigarette in long holder, watching them approach with guileless smile prepared expressly for Lang.

  Chapter Ten

  Ann had selected a charming riverside hotel for Aunt Cassie. The view from the windows of the main reception rooms, the small drawing-rooms and Aunt Cassie’s bedroom, was across half a mile of shining blue river. Beyond the river, bush plain and far distant foothills of the Darling Ranges could be seen.

  ‘Beautiful, simply divine!’ Aunt Cassie ejaculated.

  She set about reducing the hotel staff to the position of devotees at her especial domestic shrine. Thereafter she returned to her room to rest.

  Aunt Cassie’s arrival had been like a minor earthquake ‒ one accompanied by mild shots of lightning, and red-lined clouds of volcanic dust. Clearly she would be an asset to the clientele.

  ‘It is something to have a somebody here,’ the manager remarked to the receptionist. ‘Give her everything she wants and see we get her into the dining-room and main reception rooms as much as possible. She’ll be talked about and bring the right people here. Quite a personality, I should say.’

  Mrs. Boyd’s string upon string of wonderful beads over a belaced bosom, the spectacular rose-hat and a charming heart-warming smile had won the receptionist too. There was no need for these directions from the management at all.

  Ann, back at the office in Franklin’s, gave Lang’s instructions to Miss Devine. At the same time she volunteered to type the new catalogues after-hours that night. There had been a near-promise to the girls that there would be no late working before this particular wool-sale. Some of the more junior buyers who were in a pre-sale void of inactivity had arranged a party. Everyone in the office was going. Ann had regretfully declined the invitation earlier because it was the day of Aunt Cassie’s arrival. She was not involved in the party.

  Miss Devine was thoughtful when Ann volunteered to do the extra work.

  ‘You have your heaviest day tomorrow,’ she said. ‘It is not usual for a checker to be asked to work back the night before a sale.’

  Ann explained about all the girls going to a party. ‘It would really suit me, Miss Devine,’ she said. ‘I wish it was pure unselfishness on my part; but it is not. My aunt arrived this morning, as you know, and I would be able to go to her hotel and have dinner with her. Also I think I might stay the night there, as this is her first day in Australia. That would save me returning to the hills late; and the long trip down in the morning before the sale.’

  Miss Devine said she would think about it. This kept Ann on tenterhooks until well after lunch. As Lang did not come in at all, Miss Devine had to make up her own mind. She finally sent a memo into the main room giving Ann the instructions to work back that night.

  Ann immediately rang the hotel to tell Aunt Cassie she would be there for dinner, as they had both hoped.

  ‘You must stay the night, dear child,’ Aunt Cassie said. ‘I haven’t had three words with you. Why on earth have you gone to work in that wretched wool-store, Ann? Never mind, tell me when you arrive here. I can’t understand a word on this telephone. Well, I never could understand anything on a telephone anyway. I haven’t seen Claire all day. That nice man ‒ Mrs. Franklin’s nephew ‒ took her off as soon as I said I had to rest. I do hope she is not lost. It’s such a huge country, isn’t it? What did you say? Oh, never mind, dear. Tell me when you come tonight.’

  Ann decided to ring Mrs. Franklin at The Orchard too. Between Aunt Cassie and the telephone, Lang might get the message wrong when he brought Claire back to the hotel that evening.

  Mrs. Franklin was surprised but pleased that Ann was working back. It gave her better scope to get to know Claire.

  ‘Not that there is anything wrong with dear Ann, of course. I’m sure she wouldn’t deliberately have come in place of Claire in the first instance. I wish I hadn’t thought of such a thing,’ she told herself. ‘She’s a very dear girl. Still, it is nice to have Claire here ‒ alone.’

  She asked Ann to hold the line for a few minutes while she consulted Claire about the new arrangements.

  It was Claire who came back with the brightest idea of all.

  ‘Darling Ann,’ Claire said, taking over the receiver. ‘Have my bed in that hotel tonight. After all, Aunt Cassie’s had me all the way across the world and you know what that could mean to the old dear. I nearly drove her mad. Vice versa too, while we’re on that theme,’ Claire’s tones on the telephone became more dulcet. ‘Supposing we change beds? I’m sure Mrs. Franklin won’t mind. In fact I have a feeling she would quite like it ‒ the change, I mean. You comprenez? Of course you do. What’s that? Darling, all I have to do is borrow your pyjamas, and maybe a change of clothes for tomorrow. You always wore your skirts too long. I’ll find something. Oh, by the way …’

  There was a moment’s silence while Claire consulted Mrs. Franklin. Then her voice came back on the line.

  ‘It’s just an ordinary night up here, Mrs. Franklin said. Lang, for once, is staying in for dinner and two girls from a neighbouring orchard are coming over. Named Heather and Luie. Do you know who I mean? Well, anyway it’s just an ordinary evening. So you won’t be missing much. Aunt Cassie will be thrilled to have you instead of me. Well, after all, she is used to you …’

  It was a good arrangement, and Ann knew it. She had not missed Mrs. Franklin’s delight in Claire, nor Lang’s willingness to attend to things like Customs, luggage, passports, and arrangements to drive Claire up to The Orchard with Mrs. Franklin after Aunt Cassie was installed in the hotel.

  Having dinner at the hotel, then returning
to it afterwards for the night, was a wonderful way of spending a happy period of time with Aunt Cassie. No arrangement could be better.

  Yet, as she put down the telephone receiver, Ann could not help wondering why her spirits had dropped.

  She told herself she was delighted that everything had fallen out so easily. Really delighted.

  Perhaps it was Luie she was worrying about in some deep unconscious way. Luie was openly making much of Ross Dawson’s company but Ann wasn’t sure this was anything more than a subterfuge ‒ a way of making Lang take more notice of her.

  Claire would definitely do disastrous things to Luie’s self-esteem ‒ if not Heather’s too.

  Oh well, thought Ann ruefully, I can’t live everybody’s life for them.

  That evening, alone in the office except for the intermittent visits of the caretaker who came now and again to make sure she was all right, Ann pounded away at the typewriter at top speed, doing the Munthalla catalogue. She had done Ross’s typing in the afternoon and had learned that he was going up to Condons’ that evening for dinner. That meant he would be going over to The Orchard afterwards for coffee with Luie and Heather too.

  In between sheets of that Munthalla catalogue she had momentary mental visions of them all sitting round in the big room at The Orchard. All of them ‒ Ross, Luie, Heather, Claire and Lang.

  She told herself she was glad it would be such a happy friendly bright first night for Claire.

  Each time she thought this the office seemed sadly uninhabited and the only bright thing about it was the powerful light over her table. She also felt her own gladness on behalf of the others was really rather a forced effort.

  Once, about ten o’clock, she heard a man’s voice speaking to the caretaker outside. For an instant she thought it was Lang’s voice but decided she had Lang on her mind and that was that.

  At ten-fifteen the caretaker came in and asked her how long she would be.

  ‘Another half-hour, I think. Is it worrying you? You are on duty all night, aren’t you?’

  ‘Not worrying me, miss. I was told to find out so as to make sure everything was locked up about those catalogues. First copy is to go in Mr. Lang’s room on his desk.’

  ‘Oh. Miss Devine’s orders?’

  ‘No, Mr. Lang’s orders. And I’m to lock up after you and see you get away all right. Franklin’s general-operations order, that.’

  Ann lifted her head and looked at the old caretaker. He was a bewrinkled and bowed man with a war-injured arm which hung uselessly by his side. He had a kindly face ‒ grooved with the beginning of age, and the pains of that old war-wound.

  So Lang knew who was working back!

  ‘Is there nothing goes on that Mr. Lang doesn’t hear about, Sam?’

  ‘What he doesn’t hear about, he sees for himself, Miss Boyd. A real one for knowing what’s going on in his own office. What with him, and Miss Devine, a mouse don’t dare to squeak without giving notice.’

  Ann laughed. ‘Better to be that way than not care about your employees,’ she said.

  ‘Well, you needn’t worry about Mr. Lang, I’ll tell you that for sure. He knows all about his employees, though the way he walks through the place, and round the store, and even down to the loading docks, you’d think he was so far away in his thoughts he noticed nothing. That’s his style, Miss Boyd. He notices everything. You take my word for it.’

  ‘I will, Sam. Now, please, I must get on or I’ll be all hours at this job.’

  She was grateful for the precautions about the welfare of typists working back. Sam had to see they were safely away. She wished she didn’t feel like a bale of wool herself: something trucked into the wool-firm, classed pure merino or crossbred or a b or c m and moved from platform to safe storage under the directions of a technical assistant.

  All my own doing, she reproached herself. I’ve asked for this extra work, and I’ve got it. What am I grouching about? Why don’t I feel a happy martyr?

  She decided she was neither a grouch nor a martyr so rattled the keys of the typewriter at top speed to prove to someone ‒ Sam, or was it only the night moths whirring about the bright electric globe overhead? ‒ that she was gay, happy, full of energy even though it was close on eleven o’clock at night, and up there at The Orchard, Lang, Ross, Heather, Luie and Claire would be taking their last cup of coffee before someone drove everyone home.

  What a way to look at things!

  Ann saw the light go on in Lang’s office and decided the caretaker had gone in through the outside door and was probably dusting up ready for the early-morning cleaners. This was one of his special jobs which he regarded as a trust. No one touched any papers on Mr. Lang’s desk, or Miss Devine’s ‒ if she ever left any out ‒ except Sam.

  Ann finished the catalogues, checked every item to make sure there were no mistakes, and then stapled them together in the appropriate folders, one white, one blue and one yellow, according to the sale-room for which the lots were destined.

  Suddenly, now that the job was finished, she felt dreadfully tired. She would leave looking for smudges from carbons on her face, or tucking stray strands of hair into place. No one would see her. She would go home to the hotel as she was. Dear, dear Aunt Cassie would be asleep anyway. Aunt Cassie always took one aspirin, one pink sleeping tablet and a rheumatism tablet every night whether she wanted them or not. The very act of taking her consortium of tablets reassured her and she slept both painlessly and justly. Even when she hadn’t taken them, but thought she had, they had the same effect on her.

  Ann, thinking of it, smiled to herself, collected her folders of catalogues and went towards Lang’s office door. The light there was on and either the caretaker was very silent about his tidying-up or he had forgotten and left the office without turning off the switch.

  Ann hardly gave it a thought. She was too tired. She turned the handle without knocking, and went in.

  For a dazed moment she stood in the doorway, not believing her eyes.

  It was not the overhead light that was on, but the desk lamp. Lang sat on the other side of his table. He had his coat off and his tie loosened. His hair was ruffled and he had a mountain of papers on the table in front of him.

  He lifted his head and looked at Ann.

  She felt a sudden pang of compunction. The desk lamp shone directly into his face, now that he had lifted his head. Elsewhere the room was in shadow. His face was the drawn and weary one of a very tired man. For a split second he looked five years older to Ann ‒ thirty-six or more, instead of thirty-two, as Nellie had told her.

  ‘I’m so sorry …’ she stammered. ‘I didn’t knock. I didn’t expect …’

  ‘You didn’t expect what? That the boss sometimes works back too?’

  He pushed back his chair and stood up. There was no light on his face now. The light was a white pool on the papers on his desk. His head and shoulders were somewhere up in the shadows and she could see only the gleam of reflected light in his eyes. His shadowy figure, and even more shadowy face, had an inexplicable effect of mystery over her.

  It was the late hour, and she was tired, of course.

  I’m mad, she said to herself, and pulled herself together.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ she repeated. Her thoughts had projected their own overtones to his words and she couldn’t remember what it was he had just said. ‘I had no idea.’

  ‘Come in, shut the door and sit down,’ he said from somewhere up in the shadows. The light was full on his hand where he put a pen down on the desk. Nothing else was lit at all. ‘Sit down there … in that chair opposite me,’ he said. ‘I want to talk to you.’

  Ann did as she was told, moving in a tired, rather frightened dream. It wasn’t only the immediate effect he had on her ‒ standing up there in higher realms of dark shadow. It was something to do with the way he spoke, the fact she had intruded into the holy of holies as far as Franklin’s was concerned without knocking at the door, and a knowledge, accepted but not consciously t
hought about, that there were bound to be carbon smudges on her face and more than one wisp of hair out of place. When she sat down, that white light of the desk lamp would be as revealing of her shortcomings as it had been of Lang’s tiredness.

  Way, way down inside her another tiny but important self said in an irritable whisper: What are you worrying about? You’ve decided long ago that what Lang thinks is Luie’s or Claire’s business. What’s it to Lang what you look like at eleven-thirty p.m. after a hard day’s work?

  She sat down, putting the catalogues on the table, at the side of Lang’s pile of papers.

  ‘You look like a ghost,’ he said unexpectedly.

  ‘Do I?’ Then she smiled, a little wanly because of her tiredness. ‘It’s the pool of light. It’s so bright; and all around is so dark.’

  ‘Maybe.’

  He sat down. He still looked tired now the light was on him too, but not quite so much as when she came in. Standing up had probably jolted his muscles into action.

  He put his hand up to the desk lamp and turned the head of it so the light shone blindingly into her face instead of on the table.

  She closed her eyes against its glare. Through her lids she knew when he turned the light back to its former position.

  ‘Why did you do that?’ she asked. ‘How much carbon have I on my face? There’s an awful lot on my hands …’

  ‘A smudge on your cheek and a small one on your brow. I wasn’t looking at them.’

  ‘What were you looking at?’ she asked him steadily across the table. Their faces weren’t five feet apart. Their eyes met and held. She was entitled to ask that question. She worked for him but it didn’t give him the right to put her under a microscope.

  Behind her flash of indignation yet another self ‒ not the one that occasionally said, ‘So what! He’s not your business, is he?’ ‒ seemed to want to study the light in his eyes, the brown on his taut weathered skin, the fine lines at the corners of his mouth which showed that smiling wasn’t so rare after all ‒ else why were those fine lines there at all?