Home at Sundown: An Australian Outback Romance Read online

  ‘She’s only a child anyway,’ Celia had declared. ‘She doesn’t know one plant from another, and never will. She’s for ever drawing them. That doesn’t rear plants, or test soils ‒’

  ‘Maybe we could have her taught Commercial Art,’ Jeff had suggested, sorry a little that his infant sister was the only member of the family not to have a higher qualification.

  ‘Draw toothpaste ads and do sign-writing! Ought to be money in that,’ Diane, the cool one, had agreed. Diane, like Celia, was obsessed by the shortage of money with which to buy fine clothes and a motor car ‒ though she didn’t care to show it. Everyone in the family lived beyond his or her means. It was their way of life.

  Kim had overheard this family conversation but did not feel her destiny lay in toothpaste ads. She became a typist instead. Foresters and Botanists needed typists at headquarters, and so did the University at Crawley. Maybe ‒ if she couldn’t become a trained expert ‒ she could do the next best thing. Work alongside such people who were botanists.

  Two years ago, when Kim was seventeen, her godmother had died and left her four hundred dollars. The family had whooped with joy. Now they could have a car. Four hundred dollars was a nice deposit on a good used car. Only Jeff showed some conscience about taking the young sister’s money this way.

  ‘You can’t do that,’ he pointed out. ‘The money stays in trust till she’s twenty-one.’

  ‘We can borrow it,’ Celia said airily.

  ‘Everyone can put in something from now till she’s twenty-one,’ Diane added. ‘Then she can have her wretched four hundred dollars back.’ Their bird-brained mother was the Trustee for the money, and there’d be no trouble in twisting mother’s arm!

  Everyone in the family looked at the seventeen-year-old girl with a degree of antagonism. Why should she be the capitalist of the family? What had she ever done to earn four hundred dollars? Besides she’d get the benefit of car rides, wouldn’t she? Who cared about a stupid thing like a Trustee’s Act, anyway?

  ‘You could use it to send her to the Institute to get a qualification,’ Jeff suggested half-heartedly.

  ‘Four hundred dollars? Poof!’ Celia said flatly. ‘It wouldn’t get her through First Year.’

  ‘What we need is a few comforts,’ Diane pointed out coldly. ‘Everyone else has a car ‒’

  Jeff had shifted ground but stuck a little to his principles.

  ‘Then buy a van with windows and bed benches. I can rig a work table in it; put in a small fridge and a butane gas stove. That way we can all ‒ including Kim ‒ use it for outings. We can take week-end runs down to the karri forest ‒’ He had grinned at his silent youngest sister who had much more spirit in her than anyone in the family realised.

  ‘I’d like a van,’ Kim said at last ‒ after long thought. She had done some elementary calculations while this conversation had gone on over her head.

  In one year I’ll be eighteen ‒ she had thought. I’ll get a driver’s licence bang on that birthday. When I get that licence I’ll show them who owns that van!

  That was two years two months ago. The van was far from new, but still going well ‒ due mainly to Kim’s own care of it: and a friendly mechanic down the street.

  Meantime she had become a typist, managed to get a typist’s job at the University ‒ where mostly she did Ralph Sinclair’s pen drawings for him ‒ and saved all her money. At least all that was possible without looking too too shabby.

  ‘That child wears dresses years out of date,’ Celia complained to their mother. ‘For goodness’ sake keep her out of sight when my friends come around.’

  They all referred to Kim as that child, as if she’d never grown up. Kim had long ago decided her sisters were too old to be important. Twenty-six and twenty-seven respectively was the same thing as being middle-aged to Kim.

  Jeff ‒ the oldest of the family ‒ was different.

  ‘Bratto!’ he once said thoughtfully. ‘Come the day you really grow up, you get out on your own. What with that eternal drawing of yours, you’ve probably got as much in you as any of us. You were just born too late.’

  This day, two months after Kim’s nineteenth birthday, she opened the double door of the garage and climbed into her van. She began industriously checking over its contents. Fridge was okay, and working. Some butane gas was left for the little stove: but more was needed. Sleeping bags were tucked under the bench, and the bush rugs folded on top of them. The curtains over the window could do with a freshening wash but they’d have to wait now.

  She had put her pile of books and her dangle-bag on the back seat and she now fished in her money purse for the ring that carried the front door key, the office key and a car key. She looked at her brand new cheque book ‒ something she had never had before. For two years she had saved, and now had opened a current account. A cheque book was necessary if caught without cash in the outback.

  But she wouldn’t be caught that way! If Dr Andrews didn’t take her with him then she could work as a cook or a governess, or something ‒ on a station. She was going outback ‒ in or out of the Expedition team. She was going ‒ as Jeff had advised her long ago. Meantime she had her van. She had somewhere to live.

  Those who didn’t try didn’t get!

  Kim backed the van down the drive, swung out to the right and managed to avoid knocking down Celia who was coming in at that moment, and who stood protesting. This, Kim chose not to hear because she felt she didn’t have to explain to a protesting sister what she was doing with her own van.

  She parked outside the gates of the Botanical section at the Mount and walked first up the made road, then across the grass to the track leading to the potting sheds and the office.

  Lunch hour would be well over by now, so this would be a good time to attack!

  She swung open the main door and found herself staring straight into the navy blue eyes of that man ‒ the one from down in the special garden!

  Wouldn’t it!

  He had the expression of someone looking at a child worse than tiresome. This made Kim’s blood temperature rise five points.

  ‘I didn’t know they let the field workers come into the office,’ she said by way of reprisal for that look. His hands were earth-stained as he raised one to light a cigarette. His all-weather desert-boots were dusty as ever. Otherwise he was good to look at ‒ quite devastating, in fact ‒ but Kim didn’t allow herself to dwell on this. Her sisters’ boy friends were always good to look at. And they’d all been hateful. They treated her, Kim, as an amusing but contrary infant.

  Two young women in white coats turned round from peering into a seed tray, and stared at the intruder with incredulous expressions. So did a man sitting behind an office table at the far end of the long sunlit room.

  They all stared at her.

  For once Kim did not mind. At least she thought she did not mind. She’d think about it all later. Maybe when she was far outback: or maybe to-night when her head was on her pillow and she wanted to cry ‒ because everyone looked at her that way.

  But ‒ as a matter of principle ‒ she never did cry!

  She was being rude to that man, of course. She was sorry and wished she could take the words back, but it was too late. Besides it was the condescending expression on his face! It was a cold look meant to freeze.

  He let a faintly ironic glance waver round the long room from one worker’s face to another.

  ‘It’s not Thursday, Public Day, is it? Or is it?’ he asked.

  He turned back to Kim.

  ‘Schools’ visits are made in groups,’ he paused, then added clearly, ‘Mondays and Thursdays only.’

  ‘I’m not a school girl,’ Kim stood on her dignity. ‘I’m nineteen. I did mention that before. I’ve brought a message for Dr Andrews.’

  The two women at the seed trays, and the man at the desk, looked first at her in surprise, then at that man.

  There was something explosive in the air.

  ‘Would you please tell Dr Andrews
that he will receive an application from a very outstanding person for the Technical Assistantship advertised by C.O.C.R. last week-end. He will receive it to-morrow morning. The advertisement said the Expedition would be starting from Manutarra. That’s up north, isn’t it! The applicant will be there when Dr Andrews and his party arrive.’ She had to take in a new breath to finish. ‘The applicant will have a personal van and will be fully equipped for the Expedition.’ She thought she sounded rather like a catalogue: but that was how she meant to sound.

  The older man at the desk had the dead-pannest face Kim had ever seen.

  ‘What makes you think Dr Andrews will approve this applicant?’ he asked at length. ‘We haven’t received other applications yet.’ The two girls in white coats seemed suddenly to be sharing a silent joke.

  ‘You won’t receive any other worthwhile applications either.’ Kim was half sad for him, half patient sweetness.

  ‘You see,’ she continued with gentle reasonableness. ‘Only students take on the short-term field-work jobs. And it just happens that Final Examinations are looming for all except the Honours students. There are several of them ‒ the Honours students, I mean. But they need to get on with their own research topics at this time of the year. They haven’t time to go four hundred miles to Manutarra as a starting point.’

  In the silence that followed, Kim took time off to banish a slightly miserable thought of Myree Bolton, the golden-haired Honours student, doing Ralph Sinclair’s drawings for him. She’d have time to go anywhere at any price because she had money.

  The tall lean man in the dusty desert-boots said not one word. He smoked his cigarette and looked out through the glass doors as if Kim didn’t exist.

  ‘She’s right, you know,’ the desk man said, looking at the dusty-booted one. ‘The only type we, or C.O.C.R. is likely to get at this time of the year is an out-of-work drongo. I never heard of any of that sort being able to type, tag and keep intricate records, let alone be able to get to the jump-off point.’

  ‘Who is this outstanding person of whom you speak?’ the enemy asked sceptically, looking directly at Kim again.

  ‘That is Dr Andrews’ concern,’ she replied with careful dignity, head high. ‘I believe he will be in charge.’ The monkey in her was delighted at thus being able to punish him for wiping her off as an unimportant school girl. ‘Would you be so kind as to tell Dr Andrews ‒ when anyone does find him ‒ that a very good application ‒ in fact a brilliant one ‒ is on its way? I’m afraid I must go now. I have some shopping to do.’

  There was such a staggered silence in the room that Kim’s aplomb missed a beat for quite half a minute. The enemy was looking at her too steadily. It made Kim feel uncertain for the first time.

  ‘You seem to know a great deal about another person’s application,’ he said.

  ‘I do. I typed the reference. I’m a typist, you see. I did mention that before.’

  She collected her assurance about her like a cloak, nodded her head severally, one nod for each person in the room, then turned and pushed open the glass door.

  Such a pity! she thought, because he really is so good to look at. Celia would make a dash for him if she ever saw him! Still‒

  She let the door swing-to behind her.

  She heard a prolonged ‘Phew … ew!’ as she went out into the sunshine.

  Then she heard laughter.

  They were actually laughing at her.

  For one searing moment she was desperately hurt. She kicked the grass with her proud new shoes as she went towards the track. But she didn’t cry.

  They were laughing at her!

  She couldn’t quite see the shadows of the lemon-scented gums as they lay like delicate black lace across the road to the gate. She couldn’t see the diamonds dancing on the water where the peacock blue of the river lay in a dreaming afternoon silence at the foot of the Mount. It was the laughter that really hurt.

  Kim looked up and saw her van parked by the gate, and her spirits lifted. This was something of her very own.

  Outback she would wear working overalls: the ones with a wide pocket across the front of the bib like the men wore when they were on field-work. She was going right now to town to buy herself some like Jeff’s. If she didn’t get the job at Manutarra she would get one in Geraldton. That would be over three hundred miles from her family. Anyway she was going anywhere that was a long way away. From Ralph Sinclair too ‒ because he never looked at her in a ‘seeing way’ at all. Besides she had always wanted to go outback! Badly!

  She climbed into the drive seat of the van, started up the engine and swung the vehicle round. Then she sped down the hill towards the city.

  ‘Two long-legged pairs of working khakis; two short-legged pairs.’ She made her shopping list up as she drove. ‘Two cylinders of butane gas; a First Aid Kit; two cases of Universal Outback Provisions: oh, and send a telegram to the roadhouse at Manutarra, and don’t send one to Mr Ralph Sinclair to say good-bye.’

  And a hat!

  ‘Can’t go without a hat on my head. Not in the outback!’

  Kim lifted her chin bravely at this last decision. The thought of a hat was like hoisting an escape pennant into a new life. She’d wear it ‒ as from when she bought it. Cockily too! Over one eye ‒ just to show the family she really meant business.

  She had always wanted to go to the outback. It was some of the enchantment of this particular advertisement.

  So! With this nice punchable, idiotic hat she would look the part! If not this job ‒ then some other, as long as it was north of Twenty-six!

  Chapter Two

  Four days later Kim drove away in the soft splendour of early morning. She had set out from home at dawn.

  Marchagee would be a good place to stop for a snack, she decided. That would be a hundred and sixty miles on. How fast could she go, and stay out of the Traffic Court for speeding?

  Well, not so fast because she kept being beguiled by the wild-flowers all around; and the winding road up the Bindoon Hill.

  The colours of bush, flowers and trees, were glorious because it was spring. Green overshadowed the creeks. Gravel tracks wound under avenues of gum trees leading to the homesteads. A few miles on came acres of wild-flowers. Leschenaultia, flannel flower, pink myrtle, wax flowers, grass lilies, blue-lady orchids, and golden prickly wattle. A blaze of petal colours sang on every side. And sang in Kim’s heart too. She had run away at last!

  ‘Now, if I could stop and paint by one of those creeks ‒ maybe I could do some trees! White gum, wandoo, blackboy, jarrah, zamia palms!’

  Oh! The heavenliness of Escape!

  Kim had to banish thoughts of dallying. After all she had yet four hundred miles to go to Manutarra, the rendezvous for the members of the Expedition. She understood very well this jump-off place had been selected because some botanists would be coming from the north and some from the east. A place had to be picked that was central to them all.

  Moora, Nambon, Watheroo. She read the magic words on the sign posts as she and her van rattled past. Hours raced past too, because sometimes she stopped to make her own sketching records for the sheer love of putting on paper the things she saw.

  There was no time to stop at Marchagee, the halfway house. She’d leave eating till she came to Three Springs. She was slimming anyway.

  Mingenew! A turn-off here between sheep-white paddocks and glorious golden wattle groves. Mile upon mile of them. Clumps of mulga lined the tracks too.

  On, on all day Kim travelled, stopping for petrol refills at lonely wayside roadhouses: making snap drawings while her van was being checked. She bought a few sandwiches and two bottles of milk. They would have to suffice, for she’d many many more miles to go yet.

  She turned off the road to a gravel track, heading northeast, and left behind the hazy yellow seas of wattle. She had set sundown as the D-hour for arriving at the meeting point.

  The roadhouse at Manutarra, nearly four hundred miles north-east, was planted down on t
he fringe of the outback. It was a modern building set around a square courtyard in which two shade-giving gum trees grew. A hundred yards down the road was the only other sign of life in an empty grass-plain world ‒ the store which was also the Post Office and petrol station.

  The low scrub, minnie-richie mostly, did not move in the windless air. Neither did the leaves in the two gum trees; nor anyone in the store or the roadhouse. It could have been a world asleep ‒ except for the thrumming from the engine-house.

  Kim pushed open the glass door of the entrance, then let it swing-to behind her.

  A vase of everlastings stood on the reception counter. Nothing but the generator outside stirred or made a sound: and no one came even when she rat-tatted on the counter.

  Back at the store where she had filled her tank with petrol, the man had told her she would not find Stephens, the manager, at the roadhouse. He had just gone through with his wife on his way to the air-field to pick up the papers and stores.

  ‘If you’re booked-in, your key will be tied to a tag on the counter, Miss. That’s the way he works it. You’ll be okay.’

  ‘Will the roadhouse be okay?’ Kim asked uncertainly. ‘Suppose I accidentally set fire to it ‒ or something?’

  ‘You won’t. No one ever does.’ He was dustily philosophical. ‘Walk round behind the counter and take yourself a bottle of milk from the fridge. You can make tea in your room. The gadgetry’s all there. The staff never comes into the front part except at meal time. They don’t service the counter. Union rules, and all that ‒’

  Kim found things to be exactly as the man at the store had said. The establishment seemed empty of people. Only the faint odour of cooking told her that somewhere in the nether places there must be a cook ‒ and perhaps a waitress or two. Off duty, no doubt!

  There was a whole row of keys lying on the counter. Each bore a tag with a name on it. They were the keys for the people booked in who had not yet arrived. Her own name leapt out of the row as she looked at it. The tag read ‒ added to her name ‒ such instructions as Room 7. Take milk from the fridge. If anything else from store-shelf put chit in box on counter. Letter in your room.