The Thorn Birds (41 page)

There were bicycles everywhere, hundreds of them; a few cars, no horses at all. Yes, very different from Gilly. And it was hot, hot, hot. They passed a thermometer which incredibly said a mere ninety degrees; in Gilly at 115 degrees it seemed cooler than this. Meggie felt as if she moved through solid air which her body had to cut like wet, steamy butter, as if when she breathed her lungs filled with water.

“Luke, I can’t bear it! Please, can we go back?” she gasped after less than a mile.

“If you want. You’re feeling the humidity. It rarely gets below ninety percent, winter or summer, and the temperature rarely gets below eighty-five or above ninety-five. There’s not much of a seasonal variation, but in summer the monsoons send the humidity up to a hundred percent all the flaming time.”

“Summer rain, not winter?”

“All year round. The monsoons always come, and when they’re not blowing, the southeast trades are. They carry a lot of rain, too. Dungloe has an annual rainfall of between one and three hundred inches.”

Three hundred inches of rain a year
! Poor Gilly ecstatic if it got a princely fifteen, while here as much as three hundred fell, two thousand miles from Gilly.

“Doesn’t it cool off at night?” Meggie asked as they reached the hotel; hot nights in Gilly were bearable compared to this steam bath.

“Not very much. You’ll get used to it.” He opened the door to their room and stood back for her to enter. “I’m going down to the bar for a beer, but I’ll be back in half an hour. That ought to give you enough time.”

Her eyes flew to his face, startled. “Yes, Luke.”

Dungloe was seventeen degrees south of the equator, so night fell like a thunderclap; one minute it seemed the sun was scarcely setting, and the next minute pitch-black darkness spread itself thick and warm like treacle. When Luke came back Meggie had switched off the light and was lying in the bed with the sheet pulled up to her chin. Laughing, he reached out and tugged it off her, threw it on the floor.

“It’s hot enough, love! We won’t need a sheet.”

She could hear him walking about, see his faint shadow shedding its clothes. “I put your pajamas on the dressing table,” she whispered.

“Pajamas? In weather like this? I know in Gilly they’d have a stroke at the thought of a man not wearing pajamas, but this is Dungloe! Are you really wearing a nightie?”

“Yes.”

“Then take it off. The bloody thing will only be a nuisance anyway.”

Fumbling, Meggie managed to wriggle out of the lawn nightgown Mrs. Smith had embroidered so lovingly for her wedding night, thankful that it was too dark for him to see her. He was right; it was much cooler lying bare and letting the breeze from the wideopen transoms play over her thinly. But the thought of another hot body in the bed with her was depressing.

The springs creaked; Meggie felt damp skin touch her arm and jumped. He turned on his side, pulled her into his arms and kissed her. At first she lay passively, trying not to think of that wide-open mouth and its probing, indecent tongue, but then she began to struggle to be free, not wanting to be close in the heat, not wanting to be kissed, not wanting Luke. It wasn’t a bit like that night in the Rolls coming back from Rudna Hunish. She couldn’t seem to feel anything in him which thought of her, and some part of him was pushing insistently at her thighs while one hand, its nails squarely sharp, dug into her buttocks. Her fear blossomed into terror, she was overwhelmed in more than a physical way by his strength and determination, his lack of awareness of her. Suddenly he let her go, sat up and seemed to fumble with himself, snapping and pulling at something.

“Better be safe,” he gasped. “Lie on your back, it’s time. No, not like that! Open your legs, for God’s sake! Don’t you know anything?”

No, no, Luke, I don’t! she wanted to cry. This is horrible, obscene; whatever it is you’re doing to me can’t possibly be permitted by the laws of Church or men! He actually lay down on top of her, lifted his hips and poked at her with one hand, the other so firmly in her hair she didn’t dare move. Twitching and jumping at the alien thing between her legs, she tried to do as he wanted, spread her legs wider, but he was much broader than she was, and her groin muscles went into crampy spasm from the weight of him and the unaccustomed posture. Even through the darkening mists of fright and exhaustion she could sense the gathering of some mighty power; as he entered her a long high scream left her lips.

“Shut
up
!” he groaned, took his hand out of her hair and clamped it defensively over her mouth. “What do you want to do, make everyone in this bloody pub think I’m murdering you? Lie still and it won’t hurt any more than it has to! Lie still,
lie still
!”

She fought like one possessed to be rid of that ghastly, painful thing, but his weight pinned her down and his hand deadened her cries, the agony went on and on. Utterly dry because he hadn’t roused her, the even drier condom scraped and rasped her tissues as he worked himself in and out, faster and faster, the breath beginning to hiss between his teeth; then some change stilled him, made him shudder, swallow hard. The pain dulled to raw soreness and he mercifully rolled off her to lie on his back, gasping.

“It’ll be better for you the next time,” he managed to say. “The first time always hurts the woman.”

Then why didn’t you have the decency to tell me that beforehand? she wanted to snarl, but she hadn’t the energy to utter the words, she was too busy wanting to die. Not only because of the pain, but also from the discovery that she had possessed no identity for him, only been an instrument.

The second time hurt just as much, and the third; exasperated, expecting her discomfort (for so he deemed it) to disappear magically after the first time and thus not understanding why she continued to fight and cry out, Luke grew angry, turned his back on her and went to sleep. The tears slipped sideways from Meggie’s eyes into her hair; she lay on her back wishing for death, or else for her old life on Drogheda.

Was that what Father Ralph had meant years ago, when he had told her of the hidden passageway to do with having children? A nice way to find out what he meant. No wonder he had preferred not to explain it more clearly himself. Yet Luke had liked the activity well enough to do it three times in quick succession. Obviously it didn’t hurt him. And for that she found herself hating him, hating it.

Exhausted, so sore moving was agony, Meggie inched herself over onto her side with her back to Luke, and wept into the pillow. Sleep eluded her, though Luke slept so soundly her small timid movements never caused so much as a change in the pattern of his breathing. He was an economical sleeper and a quiet one, he neither snored nor flopped about, and she thought while waiting for the late dawn that if it had just been a matter of lying down together, she might have found him nice to be with. And the dawn came as quickly and joylessly as darkness had; it seemed strange not to hear roosters crowing, the other sounds of a rousing Drogheda with its sheep and horses and pigs and dogs.

Luke woke, and rolled over, she felt him kiss her on the shoulder and was so tired, so homesick that she forgot modesty, didn’t care about covering herself.

“Come on, Meghann, let’s have a look at you,” he commanded, his hand on her hip. “Turn over, like a good little girl.”

Nothing mattered this morning; Meggie turned over, wincing, and lay looking up at him dully. “I don’t like Meghann,” she said, the only form of protest she could manage. “I do wish you’d call me Meggie.”

“I don’t like Meggie. But if you really dislike Meghann so much, I’ll call you Meg.” His gaze roved her body dreamily. “What a nice shape you’ve got.” He touched one breast, pink nipple flat and unaroused. “Especially these.” Bunching the pillows into a heap, he lay back on them and smiled “Come on, Meg, kiss me. It’s your turn to make love to me, and maybe you’ll like that better, eh?”

I never want to kiss you again as long as I live, she thought, looking at the long, heavily muscled body, the mat of dark hair on the chest diving down the belly in a thin line and then flaring into a bush, out of which grew the deceptively small and innocent shoot which could cause so much pain. How hairy his legs were! Meggie had grown up with men who never removed a layer of their clothes in the presence of women, but open-necked shirts showed hairy chests in hot weather. They were all fair men, and not offensive to her; this dark man was alien, repulsive. Ralph had a head of hair just as dark, but well she remembered that smooth, hairless brown chest.

“Do as you’re told, Meg! Kiss me.”

Leaning over, she kissed him; he cupped her breasts in his palms and made her go on kissing him, took one of her hands and pushed it down to his groin. Startled, she took her unwilling mouth away from his to look at what lay under her hand, changing and growing.

“Oh, please, Luke, not again!” she cried. “Please, not again! Please, please!”

The blue eyes scanned her speculatively. “Hurts that much? All right, we’ll do something different, but for God’s sake try to be enthusiastic!”

Pulling her on top of him, he pushed her legs, apart, lifted her shoulders and attached himself to her breast, as he had done in the car the night she committed herself to marrying him. There only in body, Meggie endured it; at least he didn’t put himself inside her, so it didn’t hurt any more than simply moving did. What strange creatures men were, to go at this as if it was the most pleasurable thing in the world. It was disgusting, a mockery of love. Had it not been for her hope that it would culminate in a baby, Meggie would have refused flatly to have anything more to do with it.

“I’ve got you a job,” Luke said over breakfast in the hotel dining room.

“What? Before I’ve had a chance to make our home nice, Luke? Before we’ve even
got
a home?”

“There’s no point in our renting a house, Meg. I’m going to cut cane; it’s all arranged. The best gang of cutters in Queensland is a gang of Swedes, Poles and Irish led by a bloke called Arne Swenson, and while you were sleeping off the journey I went to see him. He’s a man short and he’s willing to give me a trial. That means I’ll be living in barracks with them. We cut six days a week, sunrise to sunset. Not only that, but we move around up and down the coast, wherever the next job takes us. How much I earn depends on how much sugar I cut, and if I’m good enough to cut with Arne’s gang I’ll be pulling in more than twenty quid a week. Twenty quid a week! Can you imagine that?”

“Are you trying to tell me we won’t be living togther, Luke?”

“We can’t, Meg! The men won’t have a woman in the barracks, and what’s the use of your living alone in a house? You may as well work, too; it’s all money toward our station.”

“But where will I live? What sort of work can I do? There’s no stock to drove up here.”

“No, more’s the pity. That’s why I’ve got you a live-in job, Meg. You’ll get free board, I won’t have the expense of keeping you. You’re going to work as a housemaid on Himmelhoch, Ludwig Mueller’s place. He’s the biggest cane cocky in the district and his wife’s an invalid, can’t manage the house on her own. I’ll take you there tomorrow morning.”

“But when will I see you, Luke?”

“On Sundays. Luddie understands you’re married; he doesn’t mind if you disappear on Sundays.”

“Well! You’ve certainly arranged things to your satisfaction, haven’t you?”

“I reckon. Oh, Meg, we’re going to be rich! We’ll work hard and save every penny, and it won’t be long before we can buy ourselves the best station in Western Queensland. There’s the fourteen thousand I’ve got in the Gilly bank, the two thousand a year more coming in there, and the thirteen hundred or more a year we can earn between us. It won’t be long, love, I promise. Grin and bear it for me, eh? Why be content with a rented house when the harder we work now means the sooner you’ll be looking around your own kitchen?”

“If it’s what you want.” She looked down at her purse. “Luke, did you take my hundred pounds?”

“I put it in the bank. You can’t carry money like that around, Meg.”

“But you took every bit of it! I don’t have a penny! What about spending money?”

“Why on earth do you want spending money? You’ll be out at Himmelhoch in the morning, and you can’t spend anything there. I’ll take care of the hotel bill. It’s time you realized you’ve married a workingman, Meg, that you’re not the pampered squatter’s daughter with money to burn. Mueller will pay your wages straight into my bank account, where they’ll stay along with mine. I’m not spending the money on myself, Meg, you know that. Neither of us is going to touch it, because it’s for our future, our station.”

“Yes, I understand. You’re very sensible, Luke. But what if I should have a baby?”

For a moment he was tempted to tell her the truth, that there would be no baby until the station was a reality, but something in her face made him decide not to.

“Well, let’s cross that bridge when we come to it, eh? I’d rather we didn’t have one until we’ve got our station, so let’s just hope we don’t.”

No home, no money, no babies. No husband, for that matter. Meggie started to laugh. Luke joined her, his teacup lifted in a toast.

“Here’s to French letters,” he said.

In the morning they went out to Himmelhoch on the local bus, an old Ford with no glass in its windows and room for twelve people. Meggie was feeling better, for Luke had left her alone when she offered him a breast, and seemed to like it quite as well as that other awful thing. Much and all as she wanted babies, her courage had failed her. The first Sunday that she wasn’t sore at all, she told herself, she would be willing to try again. Perhaps there was a baby already on the way, and she needn’t bother with it ever again unless she wanted more. Eyes brighter, she looked around her with interest as the bus chugged out along the red dirt road.

It was breath-taking country, so different from Gilly; she had to admit there was a grandeur and beauty here Gilly quite lacked. Easy to see there was never a shortage of water. The soil was the color of freshly spilled blood, brilliant scarlet, and the cane in the fields not fallow was a perfect contrast to the soil: long bright-green blades waving fifteen or twenty feet above claret-colored stalks as thick as Luke’s arm. Nowhere in the world, raved Luke, did cane grow as tall or as rich in sugar; its yield was the highest known. That bright-red soil was over a hundred feet deep, and so stuffed with exactly the right nutrients the cane couldn’t help but be perfect, especially considering the rainfall. And nowhere else in the world was it cut by white men, at the white man’s driving, money-hungry pace.