A Waltz for Matilda (33 page)

The motorcar was green, a glorious grass green in this town of dust and corrugated iron. It was smaller than any motorcar she had seen in Tommy’s magazines: no longer than a horse, as wide as a kitchen table, and so close to the ground that it was like lowering yourself onto a milking stool. The seats were green leather.

It had no doors. Matilda sat gingerly, hoping that the perspiration wouldn’t soak through her pantaloons, petticoat and dress and mark the leather. The wind tasted of heat and distant animals, buffeting the straw of her hat so she had to keep pushing the brim up to see.

Tommy wedged himself down beside her. He wore a grey dust-coat, its long sleeves covering both arms, and driving gloves hiding his hands. A wide-brimmed hat was pulled well down over his face.

There will be photographers out there, thought Matilda — she had seen at least one tripod on the footpath. Tommy would be happy for his car to star on the front pages of newspapers tomorrow, but not his scars.

‘Ready?’ she asked.

He nodded, his face pale under the hat. ‘All that crowd outside. Wouldn’t it rot your socks? Wish I could have tried her without all this fuss.’

‘Of course there’s fuss. People are proud of you,’ she said gently.

‘It’s Billy’s fault. He’s never learned that a shut mouth catches no flies.’ Tommy glanced over at his assistant, standing proudly with his parents by the front of the car. ‘I could have taken her out at two in the morning if it hadn’t been for him.’

Billy bent to the crank. ‘Ready to let her go?’

Tommy nodded. Billy turned the handle: once, twice, a third
time. On the fourth the engine began to splutter, like a cat trying to cough up a fur-ball, thought Matilda. She put her hands to her ears. ‘Are motorcars always this loud?’

‘You get used to it!’ Tommy pushed at the levers in front of them.

And suddenly they were moving, forward at first, then just as Matilda was sure they were going to crash into the shed wall Tommy pulled another lever to the right. The car swung to the left, and out past the shop onto the road.

The crowd made way for them: women with their shopping baskets and bonnets, children with bare dusty feet or buttoned boots, men in the grey faded dress of shearers or stockmen, a few shopkeepers in bowler hats and suits with white shirts tight at the collar. All watching the motorcar. All watching them …

For a second she was glad she had put her hair up, glad she had bought a new bonnet. Then everything vanished except joy for Tommy. At last, something of his own, something that was so … so essentially
Tommy,
this shiny motorcar with its funny rubber wheels and many levers.

It would need a Tommy to even work the thing, she thought, then looked at the fascinated faces of the men as they passed by. Dozens of potential Tommys, longing to pull the levers and speed into the distance too.

Tommy swung the lever again. They started to chug down the road. A horse whinnied from over at the hotel; another kicked up its heels. ‘They’ll get used to it,’ yelled Tommy, echoing his earlier words.

Matilda wondered if they would. How could anyone, horse or human, get used to all this noise? The petrol smell too, with its choking smoke, so unlike the sweet grass scent of a horse.

There was no need to move the steering lever much now — the crowd along the road stayed well back, and even riders in front of them were edging well away. Tommy reached for a knob and slowly pulled it out. The motor began to move faster, and faster still. Matilda pushed her hair out of her eyes again.

‘Way to go, lass!’ Mr Gotobed waved his hat from over at the hotel, his mates beside him. On the other side of the road Mr Drinkwater lifted his hat too. They were flying along now, as fast as a horse could canter, but smoothly, like a train without the rails. The motor seemed quieter now at speed or maybe she
was
getting used to it.

Tommy’s tight face began to relax. He pulled the knob out even further. The motorcar leaped like a sheep when the gate had been opened, its wheels bumping slightly over the ruts in the road, but it was still a smoother ride than the buggy.

The crowd was behind them now that the houses were giving way to paddocks. Matilda peered back. A mob of small boys still chased them, but from further and further behind.

‘Flaming hell!’

Matilda stared as Tommy pulled one of the levers violently toward him. ‘What is it?’

The motorcar swerved, almost hitting a tree, then stopped abruptly.

‘Get out!’

‘But —’

‘Run … just
run
!’

She slid out and picked up her skirts. She had taken a few steps when a shock wave knocked her to the ground. It was only then she heard the noise. She rolled over, dust and leaves staining her dress.

‘Tommy!’ Flames licked the air above the motorcar and a belch of black smoke hovered.

‘I’m all right.’ His voice came from the other side of the motorcar.

She reached up and pulled a branch from a young wattle. ‘We have to put the fire out.’

‘No! Don’t touch it!’

‘But it’ll all burn! All your work …’ Billy’s work too, she thought, and the saddlers who had made the seats.

The engine gave another burst of fire and noise. Steam hissed from somewhere, then slowly the flames began to ease.

At least it hadn’t exploded, thought Matilda happily.

Tommy walked around the smouldering motorcar toward her. ‘You all right?’

‘Yes. You?’

‘Got out in time.’ He gazed at the motor. The back half seemed untouched. The front was black and bubbling paint. Smoke still whispered from the engine.

‘What … what happened?’

‘Don’t know. Yet. Have to get her back to the workshop, hope there’s enough left of her to find out what went wrong. Otherwise …’ He shrugged. ‘Have to start again.’

‘Tommy … do you have enough money?’

‘Not yet.’

The small boys were nearly on them, yelling with excitement as though this had been part of the show. She said urgently, ‘I’ve money in the bank —’

‘And it’ll stay there.’

‘Why can’t I help you? You do so much for me.’

‘Because it doesn’t work that way,’ he said shortly.

‘Why not?’

‘Matilda, not now …’

The boys were pointing, laughing. Matilda realised how they must look — her stained dress, his singed coat.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said quietly. She took his hand in its leather glove. He squeezed it, then let it go, and walked toward the boys. ‘Threepence to the first boy who can get someone to tow this back.’

She sat on a sack on an oil-stained stool, watching him work. His face was tight and white and blank, as though he refused to let emotion show.

She’d gone down to the baker’s and brought back rock cakes, a billy of milk and a meat pie — he seemed to have no food in the house, except a block of stale cheese in the meat safe and a packet of tea.

She’d made the tea, and sliced a hunk of pie and put it on a plate with a rock cake. He’d taken bites absentmindedly, in between dismantling his motor. She suspected that if she hadn’t been there he wouldn’t have eaten at all.

He’ll only let me do girl things for him, she thought. Bring him food, mend his collars. He always has to be the one who looks after me, not the other way around. That money is just sitting in the bank.

She looked out at the sun. It was dancing just above the rooftops now. Another two hours and it would be dark. She’d have to borrow Tommy’s bicycle to get home, which meant she should leave soon or risk being trapped in the dark.

Tommy hunted through the pile of rags for a clean one, and wiped his hands. He held up a partially melted bit of metal.

‘What’s that?’

‘The problem,’ he said shortly. ‘It’s the clamp that holds the fuel line. When I opened her up this must have given way with the extra pressure. A spurt of petrol on the hot engine …’ He shrugged. ‘Could have been worse.’

‘How?’

‘Could have blown us up with it.’ He glanced at her. ‘I should never have asked you to come on the test run.’

She stood up to go to him. ‘But you weren’t to know!’

‘That’s just it! I didn’t know.’ His voice was tight with anger, but at himself, she thought, not her. ‘Don’t you realise? I could have killed you! From now on the only person I risk is myself.’

The door to the shed darkened. ‘I’m glad to hear it.’ It was Mr Drinkwater.

Matilda looked around. ‘Oh, I’m sorry. I forgot to meet you.’

‘Understandable. So have you found your problem, young man?’

‘Yes.’

‘I suspected you would. And you can fix it?’

‘Yes.’

‘Good,’ said Mr Drinkwater calmly. ‘Then you can make me one of these motorcars. Bigger. I need room for four passengers, and suitcases in the back, and a good wide step so I can haul in a sick sheep if I need to. And a roof. I have no wish to have to hold my hat onto my head.’

Tommy stared, wiping his hands again. ‘But sir … I haven’t made a working model yet.’

‘I am well aware of that,’ said Mr Drinkwater dryly. ‘But as you said — you’ll test it yourself, and when you are sure that it is safe, you will deliver it to me. Meanwhile you can charge what you need at my accounts in town.’

‘Sir.’ Tommy shook his head. ‘I don’t know how to thank you.’

‘By making me a motorcar that doesn’t blow up. I’m getting too old to climb onto a horse. A motorcar should be easier to manage. Assuming it doesn’t explode.’ He held his arm out to Matilda. ‘Are you ready to go home yet?’

‘Yes, of course.’ She looked from one to the other, then touched Tommy’s shoulder gently. ‘The next one will work,’ she said.

He nodded, his face a mix of emotions, from hope to the lingering horror of the day. She wished she could stay, keep him company. But Mr Drinkwater was waiting.

The shadows gathered under the trees as the horses trotted out of town. They were well muscled and glossy, so different from the drought-struck animals back in town, showing their ribs under dusty hides. These horses had been fed oats and hay, not just the poor pick in the paddocks.

‘One day there’ll be motorcars all along this road,’ said Mr Drinkwater suddenly.

She shook her head. ‘Motorcars cost too much for anyone but rich people to buy them. You can breed a horse for nothing, but motorcars don’t have babies. Or eat grass. They’re too hard to steer, anyhow.’

‘You think?’ He let the reins go slack. The horse knew its way now. ‘One thing you learn as you get older, child. The world changes.’ He waved his hand at the cleared grassland. ‘This was all trees when I first came here. No town. No train. No sheep, except the ones I’d brought. Just roos and natives and bears in the trees.’

‘Were there lots of natives?’

‘Yes,’ he said shortly.

‘What happened to them?’

She waited for him to say that he had shot them, him and his men. But instead he shrugged. ‘Most died two, three years after I got here. Influenza, I think it was. Then the measles. Wiped out whole families. Back in the eighties we moved most of the rest to the reservation. Better for them than roaming here.’

She looked at him. Was it true? She remembered what he had said about her father, that he had told her the truth but not the whole truth. Was this just part of the truth too?

‘Did you shoot any?’ she asked flatly.

He looked at the road ahead for a while. ‘Why don’t you ask if they tried to kill me?’ he said at last.

She stared. ‘Did they?’

‘Yes. I’ve had a scar on my left shoulder these past fifty years. Aches when it rains. Two of my men were speared the second year I was here.’

She sucked in her breath. ‘Did they die?’

‘They had whacking great holes in their chests. Of course they died.’

‘So you shot back.’

He didn’t answer.

‘Didn’t you? And sometimes first.’

He raised his eyebrows at her. ‘What would you do if a bunch of natives helped themselves to your sheep? Say, “How do you do, please take some more”?’

‘You took their land.’

‘No. I fought for it. I won.’

‘Guns against spears?’

He looked at her under his eyebrows. ‘Don’t underestimate them. Or me.’

He waved a hand at the sheep by the road, sitting in the shade in the late-afternoon heat. ‘There are 20,000 sheep here today,
instead of a few mobs of roos. Do you know how many jobs that makes? There’d be no town of Gibber’s Creek without Drinkwater and the other stations around here. I’m proud of what I’ve done, girl. And I don’t see you doing any different. Your father too — why do you think he bought Moura? To grow gum trees?’

She was silent. He still hadn’t answered her real question. She wondered if he ever would. She glanced at him; he was staring angrily ahead, a red flush on his cheeks. She didn’t want to quarrel with him — not today.

She changed the subject. ‘Were there really koala bears? I’ve never seen any around here.’

‘Used to be so many you could hardly sleep sometimes for their snarling. Shot and trapped, mostly, back when the drought started and the banks failed. You could get ten shillings for a koala skin — good as mink or ermine, if the furrier knows what he’s doing. I sold a good few skins in those first years when I was broke too.’