Trust Me (83 page)

Bruce took a step back from him, looking shamefaced. ‘Strewth, Rudie,’ he said wiping his eyes. ‘I only came down here for a beer!’

The following afternoon Dulcie came to meet Rudie and Noël as promised and she was excited because Ross had asked Rudie back for supper. ‘It was him who suggested it, not Bruce,’ she insisted. ‘I suppose he’s realized he was being stupid.’

Rudie held his counsel. He didn’t think Ross was stupid, far from it. He guessed today’s unexpected invitation was because the man wanted to weigh up the enemy so he could plan a strategy to destroy him. Clearly Ross knew if he waited until Sunday to meet him, he might run out of time.

They took a walk along the esplanade, and let Noël run around on the beach and go on the swings. Then they left for the farm at four-thirty, Rudie following Dulcie in his car so he could drive himself back later.

Rudie had been to several sheep and cattle stations up in Queensland and in Victoria, he was familiar with vast acreage, the dust-dry soil and the tough, lean stockmen who made their living there. So he felt some surprise as he drove up the track at Frenches’, to see it was far more like an English farm. The grass was thick and lush, the cows in the paddock plump, even the trees clustered around the yard weren’t native Australian ones.

Noël had sat quite still on the back seat until he realized this was a place he’d been before. He stood up and waved his arms excitedly, saying ‘Doodo’, his word for dog.

Dulcie came running over as Rudie stopped, opened the door and let Noël out. He ran straight towards the dogs, giving Rudie a moment of panic.

‘They are okay with children,’ she reassured him. ‘I always feel safer near them, they sense snakes before we can, and bark.’

Rudie found himself nervous, glancing this way and that – Dulcie hadn’t ever mentioned snakes before. She laughed at him. ‘I used to do that all the time,’ she admitted. ‘But I learned where they’re likely to be and avoid those places. They never come into the yard.’

When a man came riding into the yard on a horse, Rudie knew immediately by his youth that he had to be Ross, even though he had no real recollection of him from the evening in Kalgoorlie. He suspected too that his arrival on a horse was staged, for it immediately put Rudie at a disadvantage.

‘G’day,’ Ross said, tipping back his hat and looking down at him with a hint of a sneer. ‘So you’re Rudolph! The bloke up at Kalgoorlie.’

Rudie had expected Ross to be hostile, but he hadn’t been prepared for such a good-looking man. The impression he had in his head from their brief meeting three years earlier was of a mere boy with a freckly face and short cropped hair.

Ross looked like a Hollywood-style cowboy with his checked shirt, jeans and leather hat, broad-shouldered and lean-hipped. Beneath the tipped back hat was a mop of dark auburn curly hair, his skin was lightly tanned and his eyes a curious amber colour. He did have a sprinkling of freckles, but they only served to enhance his neat, regular features.

Noël came running back to Rudie. ‘Gee gee,’ he said, holding his arms up to Ross.

‘Wanna come for a ride with me?’ Ross asked, and before Rudie could say anything, he reached down, grabbed Noël by his outstretched hands and pulled him up, settling him in the saddle in front of him.

Rudie watched, his heart in his mouth, as Ross cantered down the track, turned into the paddock and rode off across it. He would have trusted Bruce implicitly with a child, but he didn’t feel the same about this man.

Dulcie came up beside him. ‘Don’t look so scared,’ she said with a giggle. ‘Ross won’t let him come to any harm, though he is showing off a bit.’

In the next three hours Rudie saw a great deal more of Ross showing off. Before supper the rope on the swing became twisted, and Ross shinned up the tree to sort it out, then climbed down the rope like a monkey. He took Rudie and Noël in to see the cows being milked, asked Rudie if he wanted to try it, then ridiculed him when he couldn’t produce even a drop of milk. He chased and caught a chicken for Noël to look at and touch.

It didn’t help at supper when Noël wanted to sit next to Ross, and instead of eating his own food kept pointing to Ross’s plate. Ross of course played up to it and fed him, giving Rudie sly glances.

John wanted to know a great deal more about Sydney, and Rudie said if he ever came he’d be welcome to stay at his place.

‘You won’t like it there, John,’ Ross guffawed. ‘It’s all nancy boys, blokes in suits and posh sheilas.’

Rudie looked at Dulcie and saw she was blushing.

‘Don’t be a drongo, mate,’ John said to Ross, perhaps sensing her embarrassment. ‘You’ve never been to Sydney.’

‘Don’t want to either,’ Ross retorted. ‘Bloody cities do nothing for me.’

So it went on, and however hard Bruce or John tried to speak directly to Rudie about his work, and Sydney, Ross kept butting in with sarcastic remarks or jokes which were always about Englishmen.

Rudie didn’t care that much, it was interesting to observe all the men Dulcie had spoken of with such warmth at close quarters. John was the one he remembered the best from Kalgoorlie, he had been nervous of him then because he thought he was May’s boyfriend and half expected him to get into a strop when he danced with her. He felt drawn to him now, he liked the man’s directness and good humour, and his lazy drawl was as attractive as his face.

Bob was so silent it was difficult to draw any conclusions about him. Rudie remembered Dulcie telling him he had been bullied by his blacksmith father, and guessed he was always shy with strangers. His sticking-out ears, thinning hair and brown buck teeth didn’t do him any favours either, and he thought Bob had drawn the short straw in life.

Bruce’s manner here at his own table was interesting too. He could easily have rebuked Ross, Rudie was sure under normal circumstances he did, but at times it was almost as if he was egging Ross on to be rude. Was his hope that Rudie wouldn’t feel sorry for Ross if he made himself unpleasant enough? Or did he want Dulcie to see her husband in his worst light?

But it was Dulcie Rudie’s eyes were drawn to most of all. Her face was very pink, a combination of being by the hot stove earlier, and embarrassment. She had her hair up in a pony-tail and was wearing a pink checked shirt and jeans. Each time she got up to fill the gravy boat or help someone to more vegetables, he noted her tiny waist and pert bottom and wished he could help the way he felt about her.

Yet for all Ross’s arrogance and loutish bad manners, Rudie could sense that under normal circumstances this was a harmonious group of people who cared deeply about one another. He noted how often John and Bob went to help Dulcie, the way all the younger members looked up to Bruce. He was touched too how every one of them, including Ross, was so warm towards Noël. They clearly liked having a child in their midst.

But above all the things he observed, the one thing which struck him was the lack of anything physical between Ross and Dulcie. Most men, he thought, if they felt they had a rival in their midst, would touch their wife. A familiar pat on the bottom as she poured him gravy, perhaps a tweak of her cheek when she gave him more potatoes. That was a standard way of saying,
This woman is mine.
Rudie had seen it played out in every kind of social circle. A woman too would put her hand on her husband’s shoulder, serve him first, get him to tell a story which showed him in a good light. There was none of that.

Rudie felt sure now that there was no intimacy between them whatsoever.

As Ross began to tell a story about a kangaroo hunt, which it appeared would also illustrate he was a crack shot, Rudie’s mind turned back to what Bruce had said about the women in Kalgoorlie, and he wondered if it was possible for a man to be impotent with his wife and yet function perfectly normally with a whore. Although it struck him as bizarre, he wished he was in a position to stay far longer in Esperance, to get to know this man better.

Yet however fascinating Ross would be to study, his constant jibes were wearing and it was something of a relief to see Noël’s eyes drooping after he’d eaten his pudding. ‘I hope you won’t think me rude if I take him home now,’ he said to Bruce.

Bruce’s eyes met his and a spark of understanding flitted between them. ‘No, of course not, but drive carefully and watch out for roos.’

Dulcie got up from the table, went to Noël, wiped his mouth and lifted him into her arms. His head went down on her shoulder almost immediately. ‘May I have him for the day tomorrow?’ she asked.

‘If you’d like to. I had a mind to go to Albany and look around,’ Rudie said.

‘Shall I keep him overnight, then you won’t have to rush back?’ she said eagerly.

‘Watch out, she’s trying to steal him from you,’ Ross crowed.

Rudie ignored him. ‘That’s a nice idea if you really don’t mind. I’ll bring all his stuff in the morning.’

Rudie took the child from Dulcie’s arms and laid him up over his shoulder. He thanked them for the supper, said goodbye and Bruce said he would walk out with him to the car.

‘Watch out for snakes,’ Ross yelled out as they got to the door.

‘Sorry about Ross,’ Bruce said as they walked across to the car. ‘He isn’t normally like that.’

‘It was understandable,’ Rudie said. ‘I’m English, from a city, I can’t ride a horse or shoot a gun.’

Bruce chuckled. ‘You’re a tolerant man, Rudie. I would have wanted to whack him.’

Rudie smiled. ‘I think I’d have come off worst!’

It was six o’clock the following evening when Rudie drove into Kalgoorlie and parked outside the Old Australia. He got out of the car and stood for a moment looking up at the veranda, remembering the night he first met May and danced with her up there.

She had looked so beautiful in that pink costume. He’d barely noticed the bride or the groom. What a shame he hadn’t got to know the rest of the group that night, he might have saved himself so much pain. And now he was back here again, this time looking for information which might hurt all of them.

Was it right to do that?

He sighed. He had to know, Bruce needed to know too.

He checked in, had a chat with Sadie the landlady who greeted him like a long-lost son, washed and put on a clean shirt. It was so hot compared with down at Esperance, the ceiling fan merely stirred the warm air around and the room looked even seedier than he remembered it.

Going out on to the veranda later, he looked down towards the room Dulcie and Ross had been in. He recalled now that at breakfast the morning after the wedding Sadie had been making jokes about the newlyweds. She had said the groom was up early, having a smoke outside. She wondered if he’d left the bride smoking from passion in bed.

He had laughed with everyone else that morning, but now he knew the truth it wasn’t funny any more. He wondered how Dulcie felt that morning, and on all the subsequent ones. He expected she thought she was to blame. He took out his wallet and removed the newspaper clipping inside it. It was of Dulcie and Ross, taken at their wedding. He’d gone into the newspaper office this morning to look at the old papers from that time, and when he found what he was looking for, he’d asked for a copy. He carefully tore off Dulcie’s face – he only needed a picture of Ross to prompt the girls’ memories.

Rudie waited until nine before going down to Hay Street. He’d had a few scotches to make him feel less conspicuous, but not enough to dull his mind. Yet he did still feel conspicuous as he turned into the street – the girls were all out in force as it was a warm night, and as it was a Thursday, there weren’t the crowds of men milling around as there would be at the weekend.

He picked on a young blonde girl first, thinking Ross was likely to make for someone similar to Dulcie.

‘Do you know this man?’ he asked, showing her the photograph.

‘Whatcha want to know that for, mate?’ she asked.

She looked tired and worn, even if she was only about seventeen. ‘He’s an old friend of mine and I’ve lost touch with him,’ Rudie said. ‘Someone told me they saw him up here one weekend. I hoped one of you girls might have met him.’

She looked at the picture again. ‘No, mate, I ain’t seen him. He’s young, ain’t he, they mostly go for the older girls.’

Rudie tried a blonde woman of about thirty-five next. She looked raddled, her hair like a bird’s nest, and makeup so thick it could have been put on with a trowel.

‘I might’ve seen him,’ she said, squinting up at Rudie speculatively. ‘But it’ll cost yer.’

Rudie pulled out a ten-shilling note. She looked at it, and back at him as if weighing up whether it was worth trying for more.

Rudie grinned at her, not letting go of the note. ‘I’ll be fair if you’ve got some real information,’ he said.

‘I’ve seen ‘im,’ she said. ‘But never done no business wif ‘im.’

‘You get this if you tell me who’s done business with him,’ he said.

‘I’ll need more than that to remember,’ she said, but the sly way she looked at him suggested she really knew nothing.

Rudie put the note away, wished her a good evening and moved on. He spoke to many other women, a few were like the first girl and said they didn’t know him, some were like the second one and tried to get the money for nothing. Many more of them tried to persuade him into trying their services.

He was beginning to feel dispirited, for he’d had this same problem with the girls around King’s Cross and Darlinghurst while he was looking for May. He knew those who really knew something often needed quite a bit of persuasion to talk, and it wasn’t always purely money which loosened their tongues.

By the time he’d got almost to the end of the street, over an hour later, he knew the girls would have whispered to one another what he was asking about. This was the point when someone might come forward of their own volition. By now they would have agreed he couldn’t be a cop, or a private detective. The fact he was looking for a man, not a girl, would help too.

A striking-looking redhead in a very short, low-cut dress broke away from talking to another girl and came up to him. ‘Let’s have a look at that picture,’ she said.