The River is Down: (An Australian Outback Romance) Read online

  He waved his hand at the children, from the doorway. They were eating their way through their cereal at a fast pace.

  ‘Morning, you two!’ he said. ‘You’ll get indigestion ‒ as your brand of luck ‒ if you don’t watch it.’

  Cindie, coming into the room, wondered at the early visit.

  ‘Top of the morning to you too, Cindie!’ Dicey’s grin was more wicked than ever. ‘Could it have been you who was keeping late hours last night? Seems like there were shadows flitting all over the campus round that moon-up.’

  He was teasing, of course, so Cindie forgave him. Besides, his early-morning face was always cheerful.

  ‘I did go for a walk ‒’

  ‘Uh, huh! Hope it was good hunting. Seems like Nick and Erica were out listening to a moonlight sonata likewise ‒ according to Hazel, Evie and Betty.’

  ‘News so early in the morning?’ Mary asked primly. ‘Do they get up to count the kangaroos going home after their gambol round the water-hole too? Or what?’

  ‘Or what,’ Dicey decided. ‘Who’s interested in kangaroos round here anyhow? They’re two-a-penny from sundown to sun-up. Well, I must be off, or I’ll have Nick hunting me. In a ruthless mood, is our boss this morning! The Spinifex Queen must have proffered the prickly cheek last night. Watch it, folks, in case the thunder strikes your way.’

  ‘Be it on your own head, Dicey,’ the care-all, full of cares of her own, said without sympathy.

  ‘We’ll have to put off any return tea-party for Hazel and Co. for a while,’ Mary reminded Cindie that night. ‘Dicey says all three are flat out, and the caravans are wonders to behold. The wives are shoulder-deep in several miles of paper. They’ve been cutting it into strips for streamers. It seems Betty is free with the paint-brush, too. She’s doing murals on brown paper. Busy bees, aren’t they? I wonder what Nick will think ‒’

  ‘There you go!’ Cindie laughed. ‘It’s your turn to wonder about Nick’s thinking. I’m the one who’s expected to know his moods intuitively, yet here are you doing the guessing.’

  ‘One thing I know about him right now,’ Mary interrupted, ‘is this. He’s so taken up with Q. of the S. there won’t be any house-inspection for quite a while. That doesn’t mean we don’t leave anything spick and tidy.’ She hung out the tea-towels in so taut a line there wasn’t a single wrinkle in them.

  ‘Q. of the S.? Oh, you mean Queen of the Spinifex? Erica! How dull can I be?’

  ‘A lot, and often,’ Mary remarked frankly. ‘You’d be surprised. There you are, in day hours, with your head down, at the canteen, working away like a whole hive of bees, yet you haven’t once wondered what I think of your work.’

  ‘Oh, yes, I have,’ Cindie put in quickly as she dusted down the table, chairs and wall shelves to make things easier in the morning. There was nothing like an early get-away, as Mary often said. ‘I didn’t like to ask, that’s all.’

  ‘Well, I’ll save you the trouble. I plain don’t know how I managed before you came. I’m flat out, even with your assistance. Seems there are more men than ever in strife with their wives, sweethearts, the employment bureau or the tax department! Not to mention that outbreak of flu.’

  She paused, satisfied with her towel hanging, and looked at Cindie, who was now industriously polishing the wall-mirror.

  ‘So ‒’ Mary went on, ‘if you want to know ‒ I told Nick about it this morning. He called me over to his office for a talk. I gave him a few facts to chew on. I said I wanted to keep you on permanently. So what do you say to that?’

  Cindie stopped sweeping her cloth round the mirror. She stared at Mary’s reflection in the polished glass.

  ‘What did Nick say?’ she asked slowly.

  ‘He said he’d work out some figures and he’d see. Of course, he has to figure everything out, Cindie. I’d never really told him how many problems crop up. He has to make a profit on this road ‒’

  ‘Oh, yes. Nick has to make his profit.’ Cindie began rubbing the mirror again; hard. ‘Profit means money to invest, doesn’t it? That means more profit. Then when that profit’s invested ‒ more still. Of course station property is always the best investment, isn’t it?’

  ‘What bush-bat’s got in your hair, Cindie?’ Mary asked irritably. ‘No profit, no road, and no road means no jobs. All works out, doesn’t it, if you ever did algebra? X always has to equal Y in any business.’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ Cindie said quietly. ‘I’m sorry. It was stupid of me to say that.’ She had done all she could to the mirror, and turning round, began to fold up her polishing-cloth.

  ‘It was. So back to the other question. If Nick figures out the right way, will you want to stay on permanently?’

  Cindie’s eyes met Mary’s. ‘Oh, yes,’ she said, torn between eagerness and some doubt. ‘I’d like to do that so very much. I love it out here in the Never. I love the life here in the camp. Also, I need a really good job. This one pays much more than any down in Perth.’

  ‘Then what’s the hesitation about? I sense it back of those hurried-up words.’

  ‘I would like to be taken on permanently, Mary, very much. There is just one little hitch. I might have to attend to some business of my own. A purely personal matter. Do you think I could accept tentatively only?’

  Waiting to see if Jim Vernon will pop the question? Mary wondered.

  She walked to the wall-mirror and looked at herself.

  ‘Too many wrinkles!’ she said regretfully. ‘That’s living in the sun. If you want to keep your face as fresh as it is now, Cindie, put your hat on when you walk over to the canteen each day.’ Cindie said nothing. She stared at the other curiously. What bush-bat buzzed now in Mary’s hair, she wondered. Mary said the strangest things: at the oddest times, too!

  It was as well they’d both attended to the household chores that night, for the next day or two saw them flat out at work. Cindie had had her walk and talk with Jim Vernon cut short the night before. There had been an imperative demand for Jim to appear at Nick’s house. Erica liked talking sheep after dinner, and Baanya’s overseer knew almost as much about sheep-rearing in this district as any Alexander did. An exchange of knowledge was always useful to Erica; and Nick himself liked Jim’s pleasant company.

  Oh, those evening walks! Cindie felt herself coming even closer to Jim; and happier still in his company. He gave her confidence in the future, as well as the warm-hearted affection she badly needed. The debacle of her love affair with David had left her in an emotional void. Jim filled that void, and just now was the only sun in her horizon. Mary Deacon was not alone on the site to notice that particular sun’s brightness reflecting itself in Cindie’s face.

  Days passed by, then came the Friday before the party.

  The three wives had no idea of going about their decorating business quietly. They laughed and chattered, occasionally poking surreptitious fun at the two workers, Mary and Cindie, on the other side of the hall. The children had had to remove themselves, and their radio, to a small room behind Mike’s office at the back of the canteen.

  By mid-morning the queue waiting for attention from Mary or Cindie began markedly to dwindle. The men had forgotten their troubles by the time Hazel, Evie and Betty had been half an hour juggling with decorations in the canteen. Suddenly the men were up on ladders, pinning waterfalls of streamers for one: hammering tacks in some impressionist mural for another. Branches from the gum trees by Mary’s house were being dragged in and set up in the corners, to add freshness to the decor.

  Only the chef was safe from the clamour and chatter. He had taken cover behind his rolling-pin and a locked door. He was accessible to no one. There was pandemonium about this amongst the women. What was the chef doing about supper, anyway?

  ‘You can’t have a party without supper!’ Evie declared, aggrieved.

  Cindie kept her head bent over some typing for fear she too might at any moment be dragged into the discussion about how to penetrate Mike’s fastnesses, or prise the chef f
rom behind his barricades.

  ‘They’re having an awful lot of fun really,’ she whispered, while she and Mary were having their morning tea. ‘Do you think anticipation is the best part of a party?’

  ‘Might be for them, anyway,’ Mary replied sagely. ‘When the party does start their husbands will keep them on a leash for fear of two hundred or so other pairs of eyes on the rove.’

  Dicey George came in the mid-afternoon, and was greeted with cries for advice and help.

  ‘Hold this, Dicey, Please. I just want to put a nail here!’ called Betty.

  ‘Oh, there you are, Don Juan,’ said Hazel. ‘Please make Mike and the chef come out of their holes ‒’

  Dicey pretended helplessness. ‘Look, my dearest aunts, I’ve come to step out the distance from that rickety stage you’ve set up, to where I want to plant my projector. No projector in the right place, no film. Comprenez?’

  ‘I didn’t learn French at school,’ Hazel said loftily. ‘I don’t know what you mean. Besides, we’re not old enough to be your aunts anyway. So don’t insult us.’

  ‘All we want to know is something about food.’

  ‘Then you take my advice and leave it to Mike and the chef. You’ll be surprised at what they can produce. They’re the experts. There’ll be a barbecue outside for to-morrow night’s dinner anyway. I can promise you that much in advance.’

  He walked over to Mary and Cindie where they sat side by side at the tables, now moved out of the way to a position along the side wall.

  ‘Pushed over from your regular place, are you Cindie?’ he asked with a grin. ‘Ah, well, not to worry. Not to work either, if I were you. Too much darn noise!’

  ‘We’re just about to give up,’ Mary said despairingly. ‘Dicey, why can’t we have a hall, as well as a canteen, on a site as big as this one? There’s no peace here, ever.’

  ‘Ask Nick. He knows all the answers.’

  He bent over Cindie and put his hand under her chin, tilting it. ‘Why so serious, love? Don’t you like parties?’

  There was a sudden silence in the hall. Over his shoulder Cindie could see two figures come into the doorway.

  ‘Dicey dear, I quite like you staring into my eyes that way,’ Cindie whispered, ‘but would you postpone the operation? Nick has arrived with Erica.’

  Dicey straightened up and turned round, then glanced back at Cindie.

  ‘The devil himself,’ he said with a grin. ‘That’s what they call the fellow with horns and a tail, isn’t it? Nick! And accompanied! Was I found flirting, darling girl?’

  ‘Dicey. Behave yourself,’ Mary said peremptorily. ‘You’re grown up. Remember?’

  ‘What did I tell you, Nick?’ Erica’s voice came cool and clear, as if she wanted to be heard by all. She turned away, changing her mind about coming in. The apparent shambles in the canteen was something that did not amuse her. ‘They’re making more of play than of organised work in getting this party ready. Mary Deacon should have been in charge ‒’ She paused. ‘As for Dicey George and that girl ‒’ she went on. ‘Really, Nick, you should use your authority. That sort of thing is dangerous in a camp with so many men.’

  She did not wait to hear Nick’s reply, but went down the steps and away across the gravel towards her own quarters. Her back view, from the wide-open doorway, was one of sweet disdain.

  ‘An inviting picture, all the same!’ Dicey said with mock admiration.

  Nick, a slight frown between his eyes, as if he regretted Erica’s hasty decision, watched her go. Then he turned back to the canteen and the people in it.

  He stood still a moment, noticing Dicey move across the room towards Hazel and Betty. His eyes went back to Mary. He did not miss the fact that Cindie had bent her head over her typewriter again.

  He walked casually down the long floor.

  Nearly everyone in the room watched him. Cindie, not looking up, did not see him coming, but she heard.

  Funny, she thought again. The man at the top of the peak is solitary. Why do footsteps sound lonely? Why do I feel sad for him ‒ when really I’m mad at him?

  ‘Mary,’ Nick said putting both hands on her table and bending a little as Dicey had done earlier when he had been teasing Cindie. ‘Could I have a word with you, in private, later on? About half past five over at my office? Purely business!’

  ‘Yes, of course. Before you go, Nick,’ Mary added in an undertone. ‘You might do a little gazing at the decorations. Perhaps a dollop of admiration might do some good.’

  Cindie looked up to see this new version of Mary in the role of peace-maker.

  Nick caught Cindie’s eyes. He half-smiled, then stopped. For one astonishing moment he actually looked shy. Sorry Dicey had been caught flirting with her? Oh, no! That would have been so completely out of character! Then what?

  When he had walked across to look at some of Betty’s murals, Mary enlightened her. It had nothing to do with Dicey or herself.

  ‘Nick so rarely has any contact with women ‒ other than with me and Erica Alexander ‒ that he actually feels embarrassed about praising Hazel and Co. With men it’s different. For them it’s just a grin and two words. They get the message, and he knows it.’

  Mary came in for dinner a little late. Cindie had carried on with the business of boiling potatoes, defrosting vegetables, and stirring the curry.

  ‘I have a message for you, Cindie,’ she said, pulling off her sun-hat as she came in. Cindie had noticed in a puzzled way that Mary herself had taken to wearing an ancient straw hat when out of doors.

  ‘From Jim?’ Cindie asked eagerly. She hadn’t seen Jim all day, and had missed him. She wouldn’t like to add up the number of times she looked to the other end of the canteen, hoping to see his long shadow cast across its entrance.

  ‘Not Jim,’ Mary said with her usual bluntness. ‘I guess he’ll be keeping his rendezvous on the canteen steps to-night as usual. I know all about it, same as everyone else does on the site. Even the snakes know everything that happens in this place.’

  Cindie blushed. ‘Well, please don’t put a wrong construction ‒’ she began.

  ‘I wouldn’t for the world. That’s your affair. The message is from the boss.’

  ‘Oh, Nick?’

  Mary turned round. She had been puffing up the wings of her hair in front of the mirror.

  ‘So? It’s only “Oh, Nick”, is it? He happens to want to see you, and being the boss, that’s the same thing as an order. So powder your nose and go over to the office.’

  ‘What is it about, Mary? What have I done? Or not done?’

  ‘As far as I’m concerned, the only mistake you’ve made is being too good at your work. My loss, of course. He wants to borrow you. I agreed, naturally ‒ it being Nick who was doing the asking.’

  ‘Borrow me?’ Cindie asked incredulously.

  ‘You heard me. Go and see him for yourself while I round up those children of mine. Just where are they, anyway?’

  ‘Out in the cubby house. I sent them out to spare my nervous system while I made the dinner ready. They’re mad with excitement because of the party to-morrow night.’

  Mary sighed.

  ‘Ah, well, it doesn’t come their way often. For that one thing I do thank Hazel and Co. They’re giving my kids a treat.’

  Mary went through the back door in search of her children, and Cindie slipped through to the bathroom. She did indeed need some water and soap. A shower, in fact. Also a fresh make-up, and a few good hard brushes to her hair. It wasn’t diplomatic to appear before one’s boss unkempt.

  She slipped on a short linen dress that she had worn once or twice before, then on her way through the kitchen, stopped to turn the curry and vegetables into serving dishes and place them in the oven. Mary had looked so tired, and just a little despondent; that little service might help her flagging energies.

  On the way over to Nick’s office Cindie saw Jim Vernon in the distance, and her spirits rose with a bound. He was walking towards his house
from Flan’s Land-Rover. So he had been out sight-seeing. Quite a sound reason for not having been about all day. She waved happily to him. Jim in his turn removed his hat and held it high in the air.

  The message, unspoken but heard, said ‒ ‘I’ll see you to-night.’

  Cindie’s step was lighter as she approached Nick’s office ‒ another caravan on wheels ‒ and tapped at the screen door. She could see through the wire mesh that Nick was sitting on a high stool behind a huge drawing-board. He was ruling with a pencil and T-square.

  ‘Come in, Cindie,’ Nick said looking up. He put down his drawing tools and moved to the side of the stand. As Cindie came in, letting the wire door close gently behind her, he brushed one hand through his hair.

  ‘Would you sit down, please,’ he said. ‘I’m afraid this is rather a bad hour to call you in, but Mary suggested it.’ A wry smile broke the still lines of his face.

  Cindie, surprised at herself, had the jittery feeling of any typist to any boss, when called into the Presence. All thought of Bindaroo, and her real mission to the north-west, fled from her mind. Something to do with his smile, too. It was unnerving.

  A faint puzzled gleam touched Nick’s eyes, as if he saw Cindie’s uneasiness and was perplexed by it.

  ‘This chair here, I think,’ he said motioning her to one near a large square table on which stood neat stacks of paperwork.

  As she sat down she noticed that the whole room was spare and neat. Everything was in order; and order was everywhere.

  Nick sat by the side of the table. Cindie appreciated that. Being interviewed from behind a table always put one at a disadvantage.

  He lit a cigarette slowly; not quite with her physical presence in his thoughts.

  Cindie breathed deeply. The exercise, along with the pause, dispelled her unexpected nervousness.

  ‘Mary said you would like to see me now. It must be nearing your dinner-time, too.’ She lifted her eyes and looked directly at him. Rule Number Five in ‘How to be a Good Typist’ ‒ she remembered.

  Then he did indeed surprise her. The word ‘typist’ was not used. He raised her status with a bang, and her hopes with it!