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“Well?”

“Well what?”

“Aren't you going to give him a pat?”

The cat snaked between his legs, doubled back, arched greedily against his knee and purred in a long series of serrated burps.

“Walter, he loves you.”

He scooped the cat into a crook of his left arm while Frances reached across stroking the striped tail. Thus they spent the next twenty-five yards, a lifetime of near-embrace which ended abruptly when the cat clawed its way clear at sight of a bird. “Stupid cat!” said Frances with excessive vehemence, and released his arm.

“You hoo!” called a voice from an upper window.

“Hurry on down!” Frances yelled back. Did she need something or someone else, now that the cat had gone, to occupy the space between them?

A flushed, slightly overweight, intensely round-eyed girl appeared at the door to greet them.

“This is Walter Gilchrist at last. Meet my best friend Diana Benedetto. Please shake hands.”

They obeyed, Diana bursting out with: “Are you the only one so far?”

“Only one?”

Then they told him about the party. Someone called Harry Crowell was coming (unavoidably), and did he know Robert Gillen from away out the other side of
Condobolin? Also such a wonderfully good friend, an
actress
named Sharon Keeley. And surely he'd heard from Billy — because as well Billy Mackenzie was due any minute.

Glumly Walter said no. But in the dark hall he gripped Frances fiercely by the elbow (brazen it out!) and swung her to face him: “I was hoping to have you all to myself”, approximately the fourth sentence he had dared since the ferry.

“Oh, you shall,” she caught a breath, giving him a grateful look. “I promise.” And again she took his arm, this time with a fervour, he swore, equal to his own.

Billy loved his uniform, but in certain situations would dirty it without thinking. Thus before a full dress parade on the Wednesday after a stray dog had gone wild in the horse lines he chased the colonel's saddled but riderless hunter through saplings and brought the mare safely back to camp the long way round, down through the swirling creek and up. Scratched and grinning he breasted the mockery of the headquarters detachment (his mates) and threw a mud-splattered salute at the chief:

“She's calm as a baby … They shot the dog.”

Billy loved the light horse and its business with animals; the leather and brass, the confectionary odour of saddle soap, and the unfamiliar tasks of grooming — no longer after a hard ride was a horse given merely a quick wipe down and a feed of oats before being turned out into a paddock. But also he loved the strictly military side: the sweet Armourine oil which seemed pure enough to heal the sick, the glimmery but dull-drying Bisley Dead Black the crack shots used to blacken their rifle sights, and the ammunition in its heavy boxes, the cartridges themselves, the way each was identical with the next, and their seeming endlessness. He found himself whistling for hours on end as he groomed Novelty up to the shine of the equestrian painting that had been hastily hung in the
otherwise rough and open-sided mess hut. And although it was no part of the light horse's function (being mounted infantry) he and the riproaring Tip Markworthy had secretly practised firing from the saddle like Frontier tribesmen.

The army loved Billy in return. He was selected for a special demonstration in the Domain, where before embarkation they were to mount a tournament involving tent-pegging, tilting at the ring, lemon cutting — the display to be brought to an end with an exhibition of wrestling on horseback, a Balaclava
Melee
, and a massed charge towards the crowd.

He intended inviting the Reillys to come and see him. By God he did, right off.

But his uniform had been dirtied on the ferry. In getting it clean before showing himself he ended up lurking out of sight down near the water, fumbling about, furious, like a man with something to hide, or to discover — climbing back peeping through parted shrubs, peering over the crowns of bald rocks and now from the shaded side of a thick-boled gum: approaching clumsily from the rear of the house which he now realized was not the rear at all, but the proper front, showing a grand facade of triangled timber and pillowed stone to the bush-clad shore of Mosman Bay, an aspect which most arrivals never saw because it was the wrong way round from the ferry path.

To his amazement a cowboy emerged from the back door and with a wild cry leapt onto the grass. A stream of other figures followed, some of whom Billy recognized: Frances, her mother, then a plump giggling dark-haired girl pursued by a thin blonde one followed by Helen the maid wiping her eyes, and last an aloof character in a striped blazer — it was the Harry
someone Billy knew by sight.

He calculated the range: fifty yards, no allowance needed for wind — bag first “whomsoever occupies the centre of attention whatever his badges of rank or lack of them”. Pot the fair-headed cowboy! who in his South American costume now whistled, summoning a fox terrier that hurtled down the side path. In a flash three balls on a length of cord blurred through the air, and the little dog whined as it tumbled.

The onlookers clapped.

Harry Crow (Crowell!) alone took an interest in the outside world. For a second his gaze glided towards the point where Billy stood, then jerkily took up the flight of a seagull and flapped away. Billy supposed he had better make himself public, but still hestitated. The letter had said twelve, it was now one. He would not have been in this muddle except for a conversation with a deckhand on the ferry that had led to a dirty belowdecks meeting with the Scottish engineer. A trip through the engineroom was followed by steam-heated tea that burnt his lips, and an interminable shouted conversation about the size, weight, coaling capacity, number of rivets, name of captain (
och!
he'd missed his stop), age of youngest boy sailor, ports of call, ports not called — of a dreadnought,
H.M.S. Dreadnought
herself, in the bowels of which this Glaswegian had once served. Billy would have gladly put his feet up and talked horses and rifles for the two rounds of the harbour he spent out of sight before disembarking: but he had not been able to get a word in. The man carried a pellet of lint in his left nostril, lodged there from blowing his nose on a fistful of cotton waste. When he drew breath preparatory to laughing the fluffy pod disappeared, then peeped out again to signal more talk,
more tea, more wasted time that Billy out of perplexity and politeness could not bring to a stop. Perplexed because he had elected himself to the world's centre: polished leggings, supple straps, gleaming emu feathers in his hat — what was he doing tongue-tied in a thumping hell? When at last he climbed from the oily heat and leapt ashore the deckhand called after him that there had been another light horseman on deck the previous time round — he'd looked in to tell him, but (swift glance over his shoulder) Haggis Head did not appreciate interruptions.

So there was Walter standing off to one side of Frances making cow eyes, and it was clear the mother disapproved. Did he think no-one could see? Mrs Reilly steered her daughter closer to the figure in fancy-dress who now uncoiled a long leather whip — the lash broad as the tail of a banner — and sent the thing hovering kite-fashion over their heads. Walter jumped out of the way when Frances almost collided providentially into his arms. Like most overanxious men he needed a lesson in what a woman meant by the word “gallantry”. But did it matter? Although a hook was firmly in his mouth it was a million to one she would want to reel him in. How confoundedly ill-equipped he looked, having chosen himself a uniform (no-one else could have picked it) just a fraction too short in the legs, ditto at the sleeves, and tight across the shoulders. Or had he grown in the weeks since enlistment? It was not out of the question. His bray of laughter carried across the grass as awkwardly he leapt for the fluttering thong to bring it down, missed, and toppled over.

Billy had no such trouble with the world's diversions. These days he donned his rough grace as
easily as his uniform, knowing what he wanted from his fellow creatures by way of consolation and reward, how to reach for it, how to
take
. It was his polish that men envied and women admired: and under it his cheek. He was about to choose this moment to reveal himself, but the group went into a thong-fingering huddle, and he stepped back, an excluded soul in shadow.

Here lay a problem. While Billy's grace made Walter feel raw, there was another kind of grace that Billy felt had been withheld from him. Why had he been first to swing a leg over the already-sprinting Novelty and daringly, dangerously pelt after the colonel's maddened mare? It had nothing to do with winning the approval of the man. The truth was that Billy's entire person made a demand of something beyond the world, but the world (as this something's mouthpiece) sent back no answer. Was it God he still wanted to talk to? Although it looked otherwise, the world for Billy was a prison from within whose walls others could be seen enjoying free and unmerited favour from … somewhere. It wasn't worldly grace, so it must have been the other.

Bugger him — there was Walter, ungainly, unworldly, now trailing indoors with the rest, enjoying a last glance round at the green and sunlit world that for him was no prison at all — more like a chapel, where he blundered, knelt, and was given — given what?

 

The cowboy was Robert Gillen.
Gaucho
, more properly. The balls and twine were a toy version of the
Argentinian
bolas
collected on the trip with his father. They had been absent from Australia nearly all year inspecting properties held by the family. Though he and Billy had never met, the moment they were introduced they discovered a host of common acquaintances upstream from Condobolin. Minutes after showing himself and stepping inside the house Billy was calling him “Rob”, refilling his glass, quizzing him about distant places. Gillen showed Billy a postcard of a gaucho wayside shrine, a memorial to the heroic stand of one man against a recruiting sergeant. The gauchos fought in armies, he said, but on their own terms. Billy inspected the photograph in the brown light of the front parlour where Mrs Reilly had herded them for sherry.

“To them it's a sacred spot?”

“They're just station workers, but they've got their own way of looking at things. They're fiercely proud.”

“That's what I'd like to see here,” said Billy, tapping the picture. “Little flags on long poles where you could rein in and think about things. Don't you reckon?”

Gillen laughed, and after a second Billy laughed too.

From overhead came the knock of heels and once the pounding of stockinged feet as someone ran the full length of a corridor. (The women had excused themselves for a minute to clean up.) Harry said to Walter:

“You look unhappy. Doesn't army life suit?”

“Why don't you try it yourself?” He was about to smile at the man and make a joke of it, but Frances descended. Could she join them? Walter opened his mouth to say yes but she sidled between Gillen and Billy and contributed to a round of laughter. Then she turned to Billy and admired his uniform. A voice beside Walter hissed:

“Jealous?”

Walter flared: “No, you silly poof.”

It was the wrong word.

Harry's reaction was remarkable. Walter had used an expression of contemptuous though not hostile rejection: a “poof” at school was someone who dressed smartly, a thoroughgoing dandy.

The man's face coloured through the range of a ripe peach, sunset red rising through yellow, and then came a determined fit of coughing. Frances reached over and banged him heartily on the back.

“Get it up, Harry. What's wrong?”

“I just called him a —”

“Er,” said Harry.

“I threw away a match and it started a bushfire,” said Walter. “How was I to know?”

“
Look
,” warned the man. But he was powerless.

Frances had other fish to fry:

“I keep meaning to ask,” she switched to Walter's side, took his elbow. “Why didn't you ever reply to my letter?”

“Which one?” Stupid question. For months he had waited.

“January? February?” She turned to Harry. “I gave it to you to post. Remember?”

“I can't exactly say.”

“But Harry!”

“Of course I sent it. Just teasing.”

“It never arrived up home,” said Walter. “But Billy mentioned a letter when he told me he'd run into you. I blamed the local postmistress.”

“I
posted
it.”

“I wonder what really happened?” Her candour unmistakably blamed Harry. She held his eye.

“This is rich.”

But for the moment Harry was safe from further cross-examination. All were diverted by one of Billy's guffaws:
hoop, Hoop, HOOP!

“They're shaped like pumpkins,” Robert Gillen could be heard saying
sotto voce
, “and dance to the concertina. You'll find the odd beauty among them — the type the men kill each other for, with knives.”

“Then why marry one?” asked Billy.

“Oh, no.
She's
pure Spanish. Dark hair, flashing eyes. She went to school in England.”

“Go on, England.”

Frances whispered to Walter: “Billy turned mother's head. Did he tell you?”

Walter saw a skeleton's fading handprint when Harry removed his clammy palm from the cedar sideboard.

“When, just now?”

“No, silly, when he called that time.”

Something was building up,
had
built since that distant February — a cloud whose anvil head still towered high above them. What was Billy's game? What was hers?

After further polite chat concerning the future Mrs Gillen, Billy left the room saying, “Give me a minute”, and Robert stared out the window.

“Billy came
here?
” asked Walter.

“Where else — we haven't moved.”

“You're making fun of me.”

“No, honest … As usual he tried to kiss me.”

Harry sipped his sherry with a noise that could have meant anything.

“Do be quiet,” snapped Frances. Harry allowed himself to take this — he was almost family. But when Walter said: “Why don't you mind your own business?” he left the room.

“
Walter
!” But Frances stifled a giggle and added, “You're as bold as I am. Anyway, Harry deserves what he gets.”

In a rush Walter asked: “Frances, I want you to come for a walk with me later on. Just you and me. Will you?” Another record broken: he had never before spoken her name aloud.

Before she could answer Billy re-entered the room wearing the silver spurs and chaps of cowhide. He clasped the black gaucho hat across his heart and sang, “Be mine for everr, Ros-
marr
-eeta”. Gillen grabbed the hat and led him into a monotonous dance which he accompanied by buzzing through his teeth in imitation of a concertina. The others crowded the doorway — Sharon Keeley itching to be in the act, Mrs Reilly attacking the keys of the piano, randomly pounding as if she had never played the instrument in her life, and Diana red-faced taking the opportunity to stare at Walter and Frances. The dancers seemed prepared to circle the room endlessly — sleepwalkers with lolling tongues.

“Please, let's join in,” urged Frances. She tugged at Walter's sleeve, but he refused. Gillen swooped on Sharon and caused her to squeal co-operatively, and Billy — bloody Billy — took no time at all to note what was going on between Walter and Frances. He bowed low and was extending his hand when a bell rang, a loud hard clang in the hall followed by the maid's croaking, “Lunch is served”.