Hammond Innes - Golden Soak

I looked up, startled, to find Janet standing across the table from me and my coffee cup still full.

‘Sorry, I hadn’t noticed.’ I was still in the past thinking of his wound and how he’d died an alcoholic.

‘Shall I heat it for you?’

‘No, it’s all right.’

‘I had a little argument with a goanna — that’s why I’ve been so long. Didn’t you hear me shoot it?’

I shook my head. I couldn’t remember hearing a shot.

‘One of those big lizards — they’re always trying to get into the chicken run.’ She came round the table. ‘You’re back on the early part now.’

‘You didn’t tell me he’d been wounded.’

‘He only mentions it that once. He doesn’t refer to it again — not once in the whole Journal.’

‘And you say he went mad in the end. Was that the cause of it?’

‘Maybe. I don’t know. I never knew him, y’see. And Daddy’d never discuss it with me.’

‘Then how d’you know he went mad?’

‘It’s what I’ve heard, that’s all. The older people, those who knew him, they don’t talk about it in front of me, but I’ve heard it all the same.’ And she added, ‘He must have been a most extraordinary man. It wasn’t only that he was tough physically. It was his personality. D’you know, even those who lost their money because of him — they still speak of him with a sort of hero-worship as though he were a man quite beyond the usual run of men. Did you read that bit where he described what he’d done to the land to keep those blasted miners in booze and women?’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I read that.’

‘To think that he knew. … I was so appalled when I was typing it that I burst into tears. He knew what he’d done — the problems Daddy would have to face.’

I turned to the last page, to that abrupt ending with its reference to Munich. ‘It’s strange,’ I said, ‘that he kept this Journal all those years and then ended it here.’ I looked up at her. ‘Are you sure there isn’t some more of it?’

She shook her head. ‘I’ve searched the house — everywhere. The same thought occurred to me.’

‘Then why did he stop at this point? Was he afraid of another war — that your father would have to repeat his own experience?’

‘No, I don’t think it was that. Though it’s what happened, of course.’ She was silent a moment, her brows wrinkled, gazing into the candles. Then she said, ‘I think myself he came ashore from that pearling boat, went up to the bank and was suddenly faced with the news that the company was broke.and owed money all over the North West. It must have been a terrible shock. I think if I were keeping a Journal I’d stop there myself. All the rest was disaster — the sheep and the leases being sold off, the fishing boats, the bank building, and the mine a sort of golden elephant that nobody wanted. It was the end of an era, everything he’d worked for …’ Again she shook her head.

‘No, I don’t think I’d want to continue my Journal after that.’ It seemed reasonable enough. ‘Could I see the original?’ I was thinking that the handwriting might give some indication. ‘I’ll get it if you like. D’you want to see it now?’ ‘No, it doesn’t matter.’ I was running backwards through the pages, searching for some reference to his partner. But I couldn’t see anything about McIlroy or his Monster, and when I commented on this she said, ‘They were business partners, nothing else. And he was nearing sixty, his mind harking back to the old days.’ She had moved to the patio entrance. ‘All that last part of his Journal is about the social life here and the old-timers round about. I don’t know much about McIlroy — only that he was a much younger man and that he was brought in, from Kalgoorlie I think, to run the bank.’ Her hand was holding the bead curtain back and she half turned to me so that the shape of her body was clear against the patio light, her face with the upturned nose in silhouette. ‘I thought we might walk down as far as the paddock grid and meet Daddy coming back. The heat’s gone off now.’ She came back, smiling, and blew the candles out. ‘Come out. Do you good. It’s lovely at this time of the evening and I could do with some air.’

I got up and we went out into the starlight together, the air hot and dry, but the day’s heat done and a breeze stirring, the buildings a black complex of substance and shadow. She didn’t talk and there was nobody about as we started down the dusty track through the paddock. It was very quiet, the old moon riding low so that I could just see our shadows like twins stretched out ahead of us. She took my arm and at her touch a spark leapt between us.

I didn’t dare look at her — not then, not until I had myself firmly under control. And when I did it was to see her eyes gazing up at me, the whites bright in the tanned darkness of her face, and urgent excitement in the gleam of teeth between parted lips. The spark was stronger then, electric in the dryness of the atmosphere, and I looked away, quickly, to the black hump of the Windbreaks rising high to our right. ‘No dingoes tonight,’ I murmured, and I wondered whether she would detect the tremor in my voice.

She didn’t answer, only the pressure of her hand on my arm conveying the message of her need and my blood throbbing in response. It was the heat. Man and woman alone in the quiet cruel beauty of the land’s emptiness. Christ! I thought. Don’t be a bloody fool. She’s just a kid and I was remembering Rosalind, how urgent she had been, her long slender body soft beneath me. I bent down, pretending to take a stone out of my shoe, and after that we walked on, the contact between us broken.

‘D’you miss her?’ she asked, a tenseness in her voice.

‘No,’ I said. But I think she knew it was a lie.

‘I never told you why I came to England.’ And she went on to explain that she’d come over in the hope of raising a loan — the ‘wind’ she called it — from the Mann-Garrety branch of the family. ‘It was a waste of time and Daddy would be furious if he knew.’

‘You saw Rosalind’s father then?’

She nodded. ‘He didn’t want to know he had Australian cousins, with a cattle station in the outback. Rosalind was the same. I can remember that night you came back from the mine — you must have known something was wrong between us. We were like two cats with our fur up. And you were so nice to me. I could have hugged you.’

‘You didn’t ask me for a loan.’

‘No. I sensed you had troubles of your own.’ And she added, ‘I’m glad you’ve separated. There was something about Rosalind …’

‘You didn’t like her.’

‘No.’ And she added almost in a whisper, ‘She was a bitch. Oh, she was beautiful — all the things I’m not and would like to be — but underneath that lovely velvet exterior …’ She looked up at me. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I shouldn’t talk like that. But you’re too nice, too real a person.’

I didn’t say anything, knowing what I’d done, the lie I was living. The sooner I got away from here. … I was hoping to God she wouldn’t take my arm again — touch me here in the hot night with the track and our shadows running away into emptiness. She had been riding for a month, fit and full of energy and no men around other than her father and the blacks. I recognized her need and it matched my own. ‘You’re very different from Rosalind,’ I said, thinking again of the golden skin, the soft dark hair falling to the shoulder.

‘Yes, I realize that.’ There was a note of resignation in her voice, a touch of sadness.

It was a cruel thing to have said, but it had the desired effect. After that she talked of other things and in a little while we came to the cattle grid at the end of the paddock. We waited there for almost half an hour, watching the track, but no lights showed and she became increasingly restless. In the end she turned suddenly and started back. ‘I’m going to get the ute and drive down there.’