Reaching for the Stars Read online

  ‘It all sounds enthralling. Is all the wool in, now that the sales are on?’

  ‘Not by a long chalk. It keeps coming in from now till Christmas. The outback roads are literally rivers of wool. You’ve come here in the best season for that. If Lang doesn’t take you out to see it, I jolly well will.’

  Ann thought they had safely evaded the subject of Lang and his capacity for making use of people. He hadn’t made use of her today. She had wanted to come; but she didn’t want to explain it all to Ross.

  ‘Please tell me something,’ she said. ‘Is there truly a shortage of girls here? I mean, girls who can type or do clerical work?’

  ‘For certain sure. There are more men than women in the country, anyway, and the girls are very highly trained here with the result that those who don’t want to marry without seeing the world first, tootle off to see the world and come back and marry afterwards. It leaves everyone in the seasonal wool game scrambling for staff.’

  ‘So if I wanted a job I could get it?’

  ‘You would be snapped up. Dear Ann, if you want to earn some shekels this next three months while I’m around I’ll take you on as my typist. I’m usually in all hell of a mess for clerical assistance during the wool season. Are you in the pool? If so, I’m your highest bidder.’

  Ann laughed. ‘I feel like a girl on a stand in a slave market.’

  ‘Don’t you believe it. No slave ever earned what you’ll earn, sweet maid. I can’t even bargain you down, either. There’s a Clerical Assistants’ Award, and I haven’t met anyone yet who’s on the bottom rung of it.’ He smiled down at her. ‘I might add that rung would keep you in mink for a year or two, anyway,’ he finished.

  They had been running round the ocean front while they talked and Ross now swung the car alongside the kerb to where a restaurant stood surrounded by green lawns which themselves were slashed by the brilliantly coloured beds of canna flowers.

  ‘Aren’t they gorgeous!’ exclaimed Ann.

  ‘Yes. Now turn round and look past the flower beds at the Indian Ocean. There you have it. All the colours in the world in one view. Quite a place. What do you think of it, Ann?’

  Ann was beyond saying, specially as at that moment a wool train thundered along a side road, turning with slow and ponderous effort to enter the street that would lead to the wool-stores. It was driven by a huge diesel truck-head and coupled behind it was trailer after trailer after trailer of huge brown hessian-covered bales of wool.

  ‘On Sunday?’ she said.

  ‘On Sunday, and night after night for weeks. There’s no stopping that flow now.’

  Ann was quite awed by the mental picture Ross evoked.

  ‘The paradox of it is that now we go inside and eat seafood or steak cooked and served by a European in a restaurant called the Athens!’

  They laughed together, and in a sudden gesture of comradeship Ross took her hand and they almost ran into the shade of the Athens veranda.

  Chapter Six

  The lunch party turned out to be great fun after all. It was not long before Lang arrived with Luie and they all sat down together.

  Lang was a delightful host. All edgy feeling between himself and Ross had disappeared in favour of a joint effort at helping both the girls to enjoy themselves.

  Luie was hatless, her hair still in the pony-tail, only this time it was a very wet one from swimming. She wore a cotton blouse and trews, with leather thongs on her bare feet. She looked very pretty, young and holidayish. Once again Ann was struck by the sensitive mobility of her face.

  ‘Hallo, Ann,’ she had said when she came in with Lang. ‘I was found floating about in the Indian Ocean. I was busy wondering if I might try taking a swim to Africa only Lang came along and stopped me. I hear you’ve been working. I bet you look nicer in that blue hat than sitting at a typewriter.’

  Ann pulled off her hat with a laugh. ‘I’d forgotten I had it on. It’s a silly one for a day like this.’

  ‘All the same ‒ blue!’ said Luie thoughtfully. ‘Lang, would you like me better if I wore a blue hat?’

  ‘No. I like you the way you are.’

  That was blunt enough, Ann thought.

  ‘Ann is Ann and Luie is Luie,’ hummed Ross. ‘One for me and one for you.’

  It was all said and done in fun and somehow made the meal go happily.

  Ann knew she was getting to like Luie more and more. She felt oddly protective towards her, which she thought was silly. It was Luie who was at home in her own country; established in its ways of thinking, talking and doing things. Much more important ‒ Lang cared for her more than she realised. Ann could tell that by the quiet kindly glint he had in his eyes now and again as he answered some naïve question Luie asked; or saw that she had all she needed at the table. It was Luie who was established and secure, surely: not Ann.

  Lang had minded that Ross inveigled Luie into driving him back to the coast this morning. He had minded that she was alone swimming or sun-baking on the beach with no one to keep her company.

  In fact he had minded about her quite a lot.

  Lunch over, the four of them drove back to the wool-store; Luie in Lang’s car and Ann with Ross.

  If Ann was awed before by thought of the rivers-of-wool, there was no word for what she felt when she saw inside the wool-store. Quite literally, as far as her eyes could see, down the length of it, there were piled bales upon bales of wool. Thousands and thousands of them. There were truck bays carved in amongst them, here and there, where the wool was unloaded. On the west side of the building a spur line from the railway had its own platform right in amongst the bales for further unloading. There were bale-size lifts and winches to move the loads.

  ‘It’s so vast!’ she said. ‘The store, I mean.’

  ‘Not as large as the big firm on the waterfront,’ Lang said. ‘It takes you half an hour to walk from one end to the other in that one. Now for the show-floor.’

  This was like a baronial hall with the bales of wool nicely trepanned to show the top end of the wool.

  On the sides were stamped the magic symbols with which Ann was already familiar.

  ‘Look!’ she cried, delighted. ‘Numarra aaa m. I know what that means now. Triple a merino ‒ the best quality. Am I right, Lang?’

  ‘Yes, but that’s not the lot you catalogued. This is from their big clip. The catalogue you did is for Numarra’s stragglers’ clip, and won’t come up till next week.’

  Ross was fingering the wool thoughtfully.

  ‘In the field for buying?’ Lang asked with a smile. ‘I think you’ll pay high, Ross.’

  ‘We’ll see what the auctioneer starts with. No chance at a look-see at their stragglers’ clip? How many bales of Triple A? What about the crossbreeds?’

  They fell into a technical discussion and Luie and Ann moved away down the show-floor to the tables set up at the far end. They were cover-topped, and nearly hidden by hundreds of glasses and plates waiting for snacks to be set on them. There were small round trays carrying bottle-openers too, and ashtrays by the score.

  ‘This is the goodwill end of the show-floor,’ Luie explained. ‘Food and something to drink is turned on free for the buyers when they come in to inspect. They come from every country in the world. You ought to have seen the floor all last week! What a mess! It’s been cleaned up ready to begin business again tomorrow.’

  Ann laughed. ‘I suppose it was more important to clean and tidy up this part of the business than the office. That looks as if a tornado has been through it. Everyone must have worked through the night.’

  ‘I know,’ said Luie. ‘All the same they like the rush. It’s heady. They think they’re running empires and putting shoulder-stones under the United Nations when they’re running a wool-sale.’

  ‘It’s very important for the whole country, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes. It’s the country’s livelihood. I’m glad Dad runs an orchard and not a sheep station, all the same.’

  ‘Lang runs an
orchard too!’

  ‘Yes, and a sheep station. He also runs Mrs. Franklin, and me ‒ also you, if you let him, Ann. I can see him starting in already. If you can type, or even clean stores and scour wool ‒ and Lang gets his hands on you ‒ you’ll become a Franklin slave. Once on the chain gang, Lang will never let you go. Look at Miss Devine!’ Luie’s tone was a mixture of sadness and resignation.

  ‘I haven’t seen Miss Devine.’

  ‘Spent all her life being a right hand to the Franklins. Lang’s father and uncle before him; and now Lang.’

  ‘Perhaps it is her way of being happy.’

  ‘Oh, she’s happy all right. When she hasn’t got Lang in the hollow of her hand, he’s got her in his. He’s like that with everyone. I sometimes wish he’d go and buy a sheep station on the other side of Australia. That would be at least two thousand miles away.’

  ‘You don’t dislike him as much as all that, Luie,’ Ann said chidingly. ‘In fact … I think …’

  ‘Don’t think anything, Ann. You’ll guess wrong. Everyone always does. And be a sweetie, will you? Don’t think about anything ‒ where Lang and I are concerned. I don’t mean that nastily. It’s just important.’ Luie’s eyes were large, damp and rebellious. She was very sweet and just a little pathetic. Ann’s heart was sore for her.

  ‘I’ll tell you something,’ Luie said, cheering up. ‘Let’s raid the boxes behind the tables! They’ve got the nicest and most fattening things there. You know, the things you’re frightened to eat in the restaurant for fear of putting on weight, and then let your head go, in between meals.’

  Luie forgot her sorrows about Lang and was almost a child in her delight at raiding the snack-boxes stacked under and behind the tables waiting for the buyers’ goodwill spree in the morning.

  The first box Luie pulled out contained devilled almonds. She tore off the lid and scooped out a handful.

  ‘Come on, Ann,’ she said. ‘You don’t have to bother about your figure. It’s so slim you nearly haven’t one at all.’

  ‘Are you sure …’

  Luie laughed, her eyes sparkling with merriment.

  ‘Darling! They spend thousands of pounds feeding up the buyers; and for free too. They wouldn’t possibly begrudge two harmless girls a nibble.’ She raised her voice and called down the length of the show-floor to the two men, now walking from bale to bale and discussing the wool. ‘Look what we’re doing, Lang!’ she called. ‘Ann’s frightened we might run the buffet short tomorrow.’

  Lang turned round and smiled at the impish figure Luie cut from behind the table. She held an open box in one hand and a handful of almonds in the other.

  ‘Go to it, girls!’ he said. ‘Leave something for the industry. It does keep us in bread, butter and woollen suits.’

  Half an hour later Lang decided everybody had had enough of wool-stores.

  ‘I think it’s home now,’ he said. ‘I don’t know about you girls, but I had a long night of it last night. I’ve a big day tomorrow. Do you feel like making tracks?’

  They were outside the building now and standing beside the cars. Lang when he had brought Luie back from the beach had paid a garage mechanic to bring her car round to Franklin’s Stores.

  Luie’s hair was dry and she had undone the pony-tail to let her light fairy hair fly loose. It was almost shoulder length and suddenly she looked even more childish than ever.

  ‘I’ll race you home, Lang,’ she said gaily.

  ‘No, you won’t, Luie.’ Lang was suddenly terse. ‘I’ll keep on your tail to check your speed.’ He turned to Ann. ‘I think Luie would like a companion on that long drive up into the hills.’

  ‘That’s me,’ said Ross, putting his hand on the door handle of Luie’s car. ‘If no one can drive me down tonight I can always doss down on a veranda.’

  Ann suddenly knew that something was taut in Lang, and had steeled up. She felt it in the air, like thoughts on wings.

  ‘You’ve a long day tomorrow too, Ross,’ he said evenly. ‘There are three of us. Ann will go with Luie. That right, Ann?’

  His question was a command.

  ‘Of course,’ Ann said. ‘Luie and I haven’t said nearly enough to one another yet.’

  ‘I say, old man ‒’ Ross began, protesting.

  ‘You claimed Ann as your girl-friend earlier today,’ Lang said with a laugh. ‘Remember? I’m sure she would mind, a great deal, if you took off with Luie.’ He glanced at Ann, taking refuge in an expression of care for her which, though expressed in teasing, was really his will to have his own way.

  Ann wished she could drive a car. That would have resolved the whole issue without anybody’s feelings being hurt. She could have driven Lang’s car, and he could have gone with Luie.

  She wondered how many hundreds of times Luie must drive her own car about the countryside. Why Lang’s concern now? Was it her boast that she would race him home, and that might be dangerous? Or was it Lang’s determination that Ross should not go with Luie? A little of both, perhaps.

  Luie leaned back in the driving seat and played her fingers on the steering wheel as if the wheel was the keyboard of a piano.

  ‘Make up your minds, sweethearts all,’ she said. ‘What makes me so helpless all of a sudden that I can’t drive my own car home by myself? Lang dear, are you being chivalrous or plain bossy?’

  ‘Plain bossy. Ann, will you get in now? Luie can drop you off at the homestead. I’ll be right behind you.’

  ‘I am dismissed,’ said Ross ruefully.

  ‘Don’t worry, darling,’ Luie said. ‘I’ll ring you up tomorrow ‒ after the wool-sale.’ She glanced under her lashes at Lang and added: ‘You aren’t thinking of cutting the telephone line, now that you know my plans?’

  ‘I’ll see you safely home, Luie,’ Lang said gently. ‘After that you are your own problem.’

  Ann, getting into the other girl’s car, tried to analyse that gentle tone in his voice. What did it mean? He had a special feeling for Luie, that was clear. He was taking care of her. Why did she try to tantalise him? Why did he prevent Ross from going home with her? Ross was the nicest person, and absolutely trustworthy. Ann knew that from the experience of her friendship with him on the ship. Lang, who had known him longer, perhaps for years, must have known that too.

  The only answer could be that, in his own way, he did love Luie ‒ if not altogether, then in a certain way. Whatever love Lang had for anybody would have to be ‘from his work a thing apart’. Ann was sure of that.

  The last good-byes were exchanged, Ross, still pretending to be crestfallen, came up with a magnificent wink at Ann. Then he walked over to his own car. Luie started up, shot up a side track into the main way leading round the river. She drove at a fast bat over the Causeway and across the sandy plain towards the distant blue rim of the hills. The sky in the east was reflecting the brilliant sunset over the sea behind them. The colours were paler, more tender, but of infinite variety. It was very beautiful.

  Once off the main highway Luie did not drive unreasonably fast at all. She derived a lot of amusement looking in the rear-vision mirror to see Lang’s car coming up several hundred yards behind them.

  ‘That will teach him!’ she said. ‘He likes to drive fast himself. Now I’m keeping him down to thirty-five. Bang inside the law, so he can’t complain.’

  ‘Why do you try to irritate him, Luie?’ Ann asked idly. ‘I think he really cares that you are properly taken care of. He was quite concerned when he knew you were sunbathing on the beach alone. I think he is very fond of you.’

  ‘Pouf! What’s being fond? Who wants a fond man? I just try to break down that superior I’m untouchable air about him.’ She paused, pouted a little, then added, ‘I suppose I love him in a way, or else I wouldn’t care, would I? I mean, about his manner?’

  Ann thought Luie probably loved him very much, but she didn’t say so.

  ‘Perhaps if you were more … more …’

  ‘Superior, or dignified, or more untouc
hable myself? Is that what you mean? Dear Ann, I’m not any of those things ‒ which is why Mrs. Franklin can barely stand me. She would never let Lang think twice about me. She would rear up an iron barracks between the two orchards if she thought for a single moment Lang looked twice at me ‒ as if I were the village nuisance who had to be kept on watch-strings. Heather is more Mrs. Franklin’s feminine line but unfortunately Heather likes the arty-crafty stage crowd round the TV studios. So that wipes her out of Mrs. Franklin’s good books.’

  ‘Don’t you think Lang is sufficiently strong-minded that he’ll make up his own mind whom he likes and whom he dislikes?’

  ‘Oh, he will do that all right in time. He did once before. Mrs. Franklin has always been trying to repeat the experiment ‒’ Luie stopped, then broke into a chuckle and in so doing cut a corner too sharply. Ann held her breath for a minute. The car righted itself and they drove on, still at the thirty-five miles an hour to keep Lang in check behind them.

  ‘I shouldn’t laugh when I’m driving. I nearly tipped us over then,’ Luie said, as if it would have been a joke if she had done that. ‘I was thinking of you, and what we all expected of you, when you arrived. My, Ann, what a let-down you were!’

  Ann tried not to be taken aback. Through the day, since Luie had joined them at lunch-time, Ann had begun to perceive that the other girl was naive and frank to the point of being unwittingly hurtful. She was too irresponsible, really, and sensitive to her own hurt, to realise how near she came to the thin red line between her own laughter and another’s feelings.

  ‘A let-down?’ Ann queried lightly, then went on slowly, ‘I thought everyone, beginning with Lang, then Mrs. Franklin and finally you and Heather, were surprised when I arrived. Almost as if you all expected something ‒ someone different.’

  ‘We did too. Knowing Mrs. Franklin, that is. It’s nothing against you, Ann. You’re sweet and very pretty under that darling hat. I could go to London to get one just like it. It’s just that Mrs. Franklin always goes for the tall impressive girls. The kind that look as if they might adorn the Franklin empire ‒ if you know what I mean.’ She swung out to take a bend, then brought the car back to the middle of the road. ‘That is partly because she is the teeniest bit snobbish,’ she went on, ‘and partly because once Lang did fall in love with a girl, ages ago, and she was that type. Tall, fair and oh, so daffodilish! You know what I mean? The original golden girl! To make sure he doesn’t marry a TV artefact like Heather, or a nitwit like me, we all thought she was importing a new version of Vera Sunderland from England. In fact she really implied you were that sort of person. Made a terrific talking-point of it.’