Dorothy Eden (42 page)

“I’d have called her an introvert, rather than an extrovert,” Abby maintained.

“Deirdre an introvert! Oh, good Lord, no. Not with me as her mother.”

“What about her father?”

“I’d rather not talk about him, if you don’t mind, Abby. But if you’re looking for where Deirdre gets her gift for making up fantasies, that’s the direction you look.”

“When are you expecting him back in Australia?”

“In his own time. He follows his own sweet will. And if I’m waiting for him, he’ll be lucky.”

“Deirdre seems to think he’s here now.”

Lola made an impatient exclamation.

“There you are! Doesn’t that prove what I’ve just been telling you! You can’t believe a word she says. Can you, Luke? You know.”

“She’s quite a character,” said Luke non-committally. “Are we supposed to be tailing Mary and Milton? If so, we’d better get moving.”

It was late in the afternoon that Abby saw her first flock of galahs. They had been searching for food in a ploughed paddock, and as the car went by they swept into the air on rose-hued wings. The unexpectedness of their wings bursting into that lovely flame color was so dramatic and effective that it was breathtaking.

Abby exclaimed in admiration, and Luke said, “Galahs,” with the indifference of someone who had seen the sight many times.

But the strange flat empty landscape had been momentarily lit up and Abby stared after the birds until they were no more than black specks in the sky.

“That was a clever name to use for a lipstick,” she said. “If it could be used with that much dramatic effect I should think the makers would make a fortune.”

“They probably hope to,” said Lola.

“Then why don’t they advertise? Instead of being so extraordinarily elusive.”

Lola shrugged. “Perhaps they’re not ready yet. The ones I had were only samples, you know.”

Abby turned in astonishment.

“Then why didn’t you tell me, if you knew that? Here I’ve been making all sorts of enquiries.”

“I didn’t know myself. You got me interested, after all this flap about a cosmetic company you couldn’t find. I asked my boss.”

“Then didn’t he know where the lipstick was made?”

“No. It had just been sent to him. You know, a publicity stunt. He said he threw away the literature.”

“But they called it Galah, a name to be remembered,” Abby said softly. And then, because they were a long way from all the things that had bothered and haunted her, she said impulsively, “I’ve another angle to follow when we get back on Monday. It’s becoming a thing with me to work this out, like solving a detective story.”

“What angle?” said Luke.

“Oh, just a voice on the telephone, a very tired voice of an old woman with arthritis.”

“Good heavens, Abby! You’re getting as fanciful as Deirdre. Isn’t she, Luke?”

Luke looked sideways at Abby. “And much more devious,” he said. “When did you do this, darling, and why didn’t you tell me?”

“You wouldn’t have believed me. Would you?”

“And doesn’t now, I should think,” said Lola.

“But they’ll all tie up,” Abby said with certainty. “The man who threatened me and called me the little lady in red, the burglar who didn’t want my jewellery, that fat woman who sold me the toy swing, and now this, this old, tired voice. I’ll find them all when I find that old woman.”

“And all this because of a harmless lipstick called Galah. Really, Abby!”

“Oh, I expect the lipstick is just a cover-up for something else. It must be.”

Luke said with some ruefulness, “I think Abby must have been very bored, just with housekeeping and a husband? What do you think, Lola? If she sees all those sinister things in city life, what’s she going to see in this prehistoric landscape and her first kangaroo?”

“And an emu or two,” added Lola. “Really, Abby, you are a child. Wait till we tell Milton and Mary this.”

“I think not,” said Luke. His hand slid across and briefly, without Lola’s awareness, pressed Abby’s knee. It seemed to be a secret signal of love and protective-ness. He didn’t want his silly little wife laughed at. “We’re here to enjoy ourselves. We’ve had enough of the lipstick theme. As a subject, let’s make it taboo for this week-end.”

“Suits me,” said Lola. “Are we going to get there before dark?”

“I doubt it. We’ve still a hundred miles to go.”

“When are we going to see a kangaroo?” asked Abby.

“Any time now. You’ve got to watch. They look like tree stumps in the distance in this sort of country.”

It was true that the country was primeval. The sun was sinking, and as the light died the vast, flat plain, grassless and waterless, turned to a monotonous gray and silver. Dead trees like bones stuck up at crazy angles, stunted gums turned black in the fading light. There was no sound but the purr of the car on the dusty road, and the constant harsh squawk of crows, like petulant babies.

Mary and Milton were ahead, their car lost in a cloud of dust.

“They can’t have seen any roos or they’d have stopped,” Lola said. “How disappointing. There ought to be some about.”

But there was nothing except the swooping crows, a tawny shape in the distance that was a fox eating a dead sheep, and suddenly three emus, ghost gray, moving bunchily away on their long legs. Luke stopped the car to watch them. Lola got out, stretching.

Then she exclaimed, “Luke! Roos!”

And he was beside her, staring at the gray shapes, as still as the tree stumps, their heads turned to stare, their hands clasped loosely and meekly in front of them.

Luke got his gun and he and Lola began to move stealthily across the flat ground. A little later he fired, and the gray shapes leapt into the air and began to move away, with springy bounds. Luke and Lola followed until they were almost lost from sight, and Abby was alone in the car, alone in that great stillness. Even the crows had stopped squawking. There were no lights, no wind, nothing moving, just the growing dark, the great cloudless shining sky, and silence.

Suddenly she was overcome with the uncanniness. The landscape was too eerie, too indifferent to human life or life of any sort. Parched, colorless, unchanged for a million years. And she was here alone.

That was it. She had been alone ever since she had come to Australia. For Luke’s spasmodic displays of passion and strange remorse comforted her only temporarily. Now she was alone again, the odd one out, the stranger, the person who had uncomfortable fancies and premonitions, like Deirdre who thought she might be killed…

For even here, in this vast empty plain, she had the oddest sensation that she was being watched.

She scrambled out of the car, and stood shivering and calling, “Luke! Luke, come back!”

And all at once, out of the dusk, from behind a clump of prickly bushes, he and Lola appeared, walking unhurriedly and talking.

They couldn’t understand Abby’s upset.

“I was frightened,” she said defiantly. “I don’t care if you do think I’m a baby.”

“You’re a baby all right,” said Lola kindly. “Silly little thing.”

But Luke was more serious.

“Why are you crying? Did something happen to frighten you? You can’t cry just from sitting alone in the car!”

“I can,” said Abby. “It’s all so melancholy. Can’t you see?”

But they didn’t see anything except her foolish squeamishness. An English girl, not bred to the great spaces and an antiquity that wasn’t man-made. They despised her a little. They couldn’t possibly understand that this countryside was exactly the visual expression of all her strange fears and premonitions. It was a nightmare realized. But even Luke couldn’t see that. They were all going to be sorry they had brought her, and Milton most of all. She dreaded facing Milton.

“Let’s get on,” Luke said briefly. “Abby’s just overtired. I suppose this is a bit overwhelming, seeing it for the first time, and at dusk. It will be better tomorrow when the sun’s shining.”

(But sunlight would emphasize the stark bones of the dead trees and the prickly shrubs and the bare red earth…)

“Though I’m afraid the pub we’re going to isn’t going to cheer you up much. This is the outback. I warned you. You really shouldn’t have come.”

“All she needs is a sizeable neat brandy,” said Lola. “But if you’re going to be as scared as this, Abby, you’d better stay behind when we go shooting tomorrow.”

Mary and Milton were settled in when they arrived at the single-storey, wooden hotel in the little, one-street town. They were both at the bar, Milton in his chair, and seemed to be in conversation with several of the local inhabitants.

“There you are at last,” said Milton. He smiled at Abby, “You look pretty tired. Come and have a drink.”

“We stopped to have a shot at some roos,” explained Lola. “We all need a drink.”

The other men had turned to stare, in the uninhibited way of people who didn’t see many strangers. One in particular, a brawny looking person with a shock of dark hair, seemed anxious to be friendly.

“You folks haven’t had the journey I’ve had. Overland from Darwin. It’s some pull.”

“What are you doing up this way?” asked Luke.

“Just looking round. I might push on to Sydney, or I might make for the Barrier Reef. Name’s Mike Johnson. This your wife?”

He was looking at Lola. With her sun-burnt face and breezy air it was a forgiveable mistake. She looked like Luke’s partner. But Luke’s hand was round Abby’s, impatiently or possessively, she wasn’t sure which.

“No, this is my wife. And she needs a drink. We’ve had a long day.”

“Frankly, this country scares me stiff,” Abby said.

Everybody laughed. They recognised her English voice, and were tolerant. Even Milton said, “I agree with you, Abby. It is frightening. Those great spaces. Life and death mean nothing. Time means nothing.” He hitched himself in his chair. “Perhaps that’s why I like coming here. A perspective on life is a good thing.”

But did he understand her strange eerie fear? She didn’t think so.

“You don’t look tired at all,” she said.

“Oh, I can travel. That’s one thing I can do. But Mary’s had it. She’s had to do all the driving. You three girls had better all have an early night.”

Mary nodded. “I’m all for that. You, too, Abby? I warn you, the rooms aren’t the height of comfort. But I’m tired enough not to care.”

“Me, too,” said Abby cheerfully. “I’ll sleep like a log.”

She really thought that she would, too, when she was ready for bed. She had had a bath in the primitive bathroom where, though the water ran pale amber with rust, at least it was hot, and put on her warm dressing-gown. Luke had been right in warning her that the nights here were cold. The late spring frosts were sharp, and the walls and roof of this ramshackle hotel very thin.

Mary and Milton had the double room on one side of Abby’s and Luke’s, and Lola was on the other side. Across the linoleum-covered passage were three other rooms, one of them no doubt occupied by the black-haired man from Darwin. Abby hoped the latecomers to bed would not be too noisy. Every sound was audible, including the voices and laughter from the bar.

Dinner had been a rather poor meal, tough mutton washed down, on Milton’s insistence, with plenty of tart, red Australian burgundy, and then rice pudding. The service, performed by a middle-aged woman with crimped, blonde hair, was casual and friendly.

“I warned you the meat was tough,” she said. “You’d better have some more wine.”

“Bring another bottle,” said Milton. Milton either didn’t mind roughing it, or was mellowed by the change from what must be the deadly boredom of his life. He was affable and amusing, and succeeded even in rousing Mary to animation.

The wine was brought by another woman with a pale, cadaverous face, like a drawing by Charles Addams. After the drinks they had already had at the bar, it succeeded in making Abby pleasantly relaxed and sleepy. She and Mary were very willing to have an early night, but Lola showed no intention of leaving the men. She seemed to be finding the man from Darwin stimulating company, which was a welcome change from having her eyes constantly on Luke.

As Abby was fixing her face in front of the spotty mirror, Luke looked in.

“You all right?” he asked.

“Fine. Sleepy.”

“Then have a good rest. I won’t be late.”

“Are you going back drinking?”

“For a while. The boys expect it in a place like this.”

He came over to kiss her. But he wasn’t thinking of her. There was an odd brightness in his eyes, a suppressed excitement. He was obviously stimulated, not depressed, by the overwhelming landscape. He was an Australian. Perhaps that explained it. Or perhaps he had just had a little too much to drink.

“Hope the bed’s more comfortable than it looks,” he said.

“I don’t suppose it is. The blankets are threadbare.”

“Keep your dressing-gown on.” He was at the door, anxious to get back to the party. But he paused, “You’re not scared now, are you?”

“No. I’m sorry for that exhibition. But I really was scared.” The eeriness of the remembered scene came to her, and a faint shiver went over her.

“I must be crazy,” she said.

“Perhaps not as crazy as you think,” he said, and the door closed after him.

So perhaps he had caught a fragment of her feelings and understood. Abby accepted the slender comfort. Luke’s footsteps died away, merging into the general noise coming from the bar. A little later there were other footsteps along the passage, and soon afterwards someone was whistling softly a very familiar tune.
But I love only you-oo, I love only you…

Jock’s tune! Abby sat upright in bed. Surely Jock wasn’t here! She caught back her alarm and excitement, remembering that this was a hit tune, and that plenty of people liked it, even as obsessionally as Jock did. All the same, she got out of bed, and tiptoed to the door, to take a surreptitious look outside.

At that precise moment Mary’s door opened and she did the same thing. Abby began to giggle.

“Did you hear it, too?”

“Hear what?”

“That tune. The one Jock plays all day. Someone’s just been whistling it.”

“Oh,” said Mary. She wasn’t particularly interested. But she was fully dressed, Abby saw, and looked cold, her arms folded tightly across her chest. “I thought I heard Milton coming. Do you mean to say, Abby, you got up to see who was whistling that silly tune? You’re an awfully nervous person, aren’t you? I thought I was bad enough. Milton keeps me on edge, although he doesn’t mean to, poor darling. But you jump at your own shadow. Have you always been like that?”