Hills End (2 page)

Author's Note

When we came to live in this corner of the hills, years ago, everything was so beautifully quiet. It has livened up a little since then. Whether we should thank the children, or blame them, I'm not prepared to say. We brought Drew with us, of course, and soon Robbie arrived and, more recently, Elizabeth and Melissa. Other families have grown up round us, too.

Norma and Margaret's father is a farmer. Sandra and Phillip also live on the land. Gary and Rhonda send their hardy dad off to the city every day where he makes aeroplanes. Gail, Barbara, and Barry live a mile down the road near the Bald Hills, and their father works at the timber mill—when he's not beating me at chess.

There are other children, naturally, but if I mentioned them all I'd fill the page. They're all part of this big family we have here, tucked away from the city's clamour, and for every one of them I have written this book. I believe I have been promising to do it for years. Just one thing, don't go imagining that it's written
about
you—well, not all of it—perhaps a little here and a little there, but only the good parts, of course.

There was no indication that Saturday morning that the little town of Hills End was doomed. The day even began beneath a hot and cloudless sky to the delight of Miss Elaine Godwin, the schoolmistress. Miss Godwin loved these mountains so much that she had scorned all promotion and all thought of transfer to a less remote community. She had remained at Hills End year after year with never more than three dozen pupils to teach.

She had set her alarm for half past six, that being early enough for her purpose, but she was out of bed before it rang. The morning heat and the excitement of the day ahead made it impossible for her to rest any longer. A few minutes before six she was kindling her kitchen stove, tidying away the books she had browsed through the night before, sweeping out the daily accumulation of dust, and then walking briskly down to the box nailed to the tree beside the track.

As usual, her morning milk was waiting for her—one generous pint—in the same enamelled billy-can that she had placed there almost every evening for nine years.

Below her, along the hillside and down to the fringe of the river flats, smoke was beginning to rise vertically from one chimney after another. How calm this morning was, and how beautiful. And how strangely moving, because this for Hills End was the most exciting day of the year.

 

Little Harvey Collins—he had always been known as little Harvey (with a small ‘l')—had been awake since half past four.

That was Harvey all over. Everything had to be done to the extreme. When he was naughty no one could be naughtier. When he fought no one could fight harder. And when he was good he was so, so good that everyone started getting nervous. His mother would lock up the china and his father would break into a sweat.

At half past four Harvey had roved through the house, stumbling into doors, tripping over rugs, and disturbing everyone and being roundly abused for his trouble.

‘Harvey! For mercy's sake switch off that light and go back to bed.'

‘Harvey! Is that the cupboard door? Close it at once. If you eat the lunches now they won't be cut again.'

‘Harvey! If you dare touch that pie in the refrigerator I'll scalp you. It's for tomorrow's dinner. Go back to bed!'

He had gone back to bed, grumbling and mumbling and nibbling at miserable old biscuits and a big apple and as wide awake as he could have been.

The sun had come up and he had dressed and had crept out to the back step and had sat there with his arm round Buzz, his dog, waiting impatiently for that houseful of lazy people to get out of bed.

Next door, beyond the stout electric fence, he could see Rickard's cows wandering down to the milking shed, and still lower, along the track towards the distant house, Mr Rickard plodded home with his horse and cart after the milk round. Swinging from the axle, back and forth, was the hurricane lamp, still alight, and trotting behind as always was the old red collie dog.

Harvey sighed a deep, deep sigh of frustration and shifted himself to his swing and rocked backwards and forwards and saw that even the McLeods were up. Their house was down on the flats and Harvey could see the smoke from the chimney standing up like a pillar through the trees.

 

The McLeod children filled the house with chatter and laughter and excited squeals, and it was the responsibility of Frances, the eldest, to escort the younger ones to the bathroom to make sure they brushed their teeth and washed their faces and took the soap out of the water. To make sure that all the towels were hung back neatly on the rail, and that the taps were not dripping and that soap puddles were not everywhere over the floor. And then back to the bedrooms to ensure that they were all correctly dressed, with their underwear on and not left in the drawer, with all buttons done up, socks right side out, shoes on the proper feet and laced and polished, and hair brushed until it shone.

Frances handled them all more efficiently than her mother could have done. Her mother tired easily and lost her temper readily, but Frances was as patient as the day was long, always kindly, always firm, never seemed to be tired and very rarely lost her temper. Her mother couldn't imagine what she would do without her. She was so proud of Frances that there wasn't a soul in Hills End who didn't know about it. It was a miracle that any of the grown-ups liked Frances at all, because so often they had to listen to her mother's praises of her. It was Frances this, and Frances that. It was a wonder the girl didn't wear a halo.

Of course, Frances was excited, too. For all her adult way she was still a schoolgirl. She was as impatient as the rest of them, as eager as the rest of them and as bright-eyed as the rest of them. She dressed in her prettiest frock and smiled at her reflection in the mirror.

‘Frances,' she said to herself, ‘what a wonderful, wonderful day! Perhaps if I'm clever enough I might even be lucky enough to sit next to Paul Mace before he can move away.'

 

‘Paul!'

‘Yes, dad.'

‘Will you please find your sister and bring her to the breakfast table. If she wants to get out she's got to hurry herself.'

‘Yes, dad.'

‘Your mother is getting impatient and once she gets impatient everything goes to pieces. If your mother starts it'll ruin the day for us. I'll never forget last year as long as I live. If that happens again, I'll—I'll—'

‘Yes, dad.'

Paul tramped into the wild garden because he knew that Gussie would be there somewhere, digging for crickets, or turning over leaves in search of caterpillars, or climbing tall trees to pet the baby birds.

‘Guss-seeee!'

An untidy and pretty little head bobbed up from the grass. ‘Do you want me?'

‘Of course, I don't want you,' snorted Paul. ‘What would I want you for? But dad wants you and mum's getting impatient. Breakfast's on the table.'

‘
Really
on the table?'

‘Yes.'

Gussie sighed. ‘Parents! Every time we go anywhere it's always the same. Hurry, hurry, hurry. Bustle, bustle, bustle. Everyone gets nasty and short-tempered. I've been ready for hours. Hours and hours. Mum sent me outside because I was getting in the way.'

‘Come on, come on!'

Gussie came, brushing the grass from her dress and the dust from her hands. ‘Bah,' she said, ‘parents chewing on the wood today of all days!'

 

* * *

 

Big timber was the life in the veins of Hills End. It was a robust little place full of strong men and brave women, and there were more trees in the mountains than they could ever use and the forest seemed to grow again almost as quickly as they cut it down. Ben Fiddler, the timber-mill boss, valued his axe-men, his mill-hands, and his drivers, and treated them well. He knew how hard it was to bring new men in and to hold them. Hills End was a long, long way from the nearest town, and if the timber had not been of such rare quality and so highly valued on the markets of the world he never would have established his industry in the first place.

Eighty-five miles it was, across the mountains, from Hills End to the town of Stanley, over a dangerous road, never properly formed, yet used for nine months of the year by the heavy jinkers that carried the dressed logs to the mills and the wharves of the big city another two hundred miles farther on. The drivers knew the road and were ever careful, but even they would not venture over it once the rains began. Sometimes for two months, sometimes for three months of every year, Hills End was cut off from the world, except for the occasional hardy or eccentric bushwalker, and the mailman, arriving once a week in his jeep, nerve-racked and mud-splashed, always vowing that he would never make the trip again.

Added to the hazard of the road was the bridge at Fiddler's Crossing, fifteen miles to the south of the hamlet. It spanned a frightening gorge cut to an immense depth by a thundering mountain torrent, the River Magnus. But for the bridge the gorge would be impassable. The mailman was always terrified that he would return to the bridge and find it down, and the mere thought of spending the rest of the wet in Hills End was, he said, ‘enough to send any sane man screaming up the wall'.

Hills End might have been cut off in the wet season, but it wasn't idle. The axe-men continued to fell the trees when the weather was fine enough; some logs dragged out by the bulldozers even reached the hamlet in the valley and were milled for the next carting season; other machinery was rested and overhauled; and many of the townspeople, knowing almost to the day when the wet would begin, moved out ahead of it to visit families and distant friends or take a holiday at the seaside.

Life might have been hard in some ways at Hills End, but the people were not poor, or unhappy, or without the better things of life. Their homes were comfortable, and their community shop was well stocked. They attended a social get-together on Friday nights, a film show on Saturday nights, and chapel on Sunday mornings (all in the one building) when Ben Fiddler took the pulpit and usually preached on the sins of city life.

Over the period of ten years which marked its whole history, Hills End had settled into a comfortable little rut. The people were content, there never had been a theft or a crime of violence, never a really serious accident, and nothing remotely resembling a disaster.

 

At seven o'clock on that fateful Saturday, Miss Elaine Godwin, the schoolmistress, put out a saucer of milk for her cat in the shade of her hydrangeas, shut her cottage door—but didn't lock it because no one turned a key in Hills End—slung her haversack, took up her long and knotted walking stick, and turned down the track to the schoolhouse.

The hamlet lay beneath her, not far away, and smoke from the morning fires now drifted across the flats until it vanished in the vapour haze over the great River Magnus. The Magnus poured from the mountains, fed by a thousand springs and streams, rushed onwards over the rocks to the north, through the gullies and the gorges, on towards the distant plains.

When the mill was silent, except for the slow beat of the big diesel engine that generated light and power for Hills End, a keen ear could hear the river talking to itself, sometimes sighing, sometimes chuckling, sometimes growling, and occasionally crying out in warning. It was a peculiar thing about the Magnus—before rain it always began to rise. Those hundreds of little springs throughout the mountains began to run faster and the river opened its throat and stretched itself.

No one in Hills End, that morning, seemed to have noticed that the Magnus was restless and strangely swollen. It wasn't the wet season. This was the dry and dusty season, anyway, it was Picnic Day, and Hills End was too full of the voices of children and their parents.

Before she had reached the bottom of her track, Miss Godwin could see the cars and the trucks lined up outside the hall. She could distinguish the McLeod children and the Buchanans, and even Ben Fiddler and his foreman, Frank Tobias, full of good humour, lifting the children onto the backs of the trucks and helping the womenfolk into the cabins. Almost the entire population of Hills End was already bustling round the hall or standing in family groups waiting for their particular call to board the car or the truck allotted to them. In another fifteen minutes the township would be empty and the long and exciting drive to the annual picnic races at Stanley would have begun. But it wouldn't have begun for Miss Godwin. She was not going.

She paused at the foot of her track and leant on her tall walking stick and smiled over this little township of hers. She loved it and its people so much. She loved its simple houses, its smells, its sounds, and its untidiness. Its straggly growth had offended some people, but Miss Godwin was not the type of person or the type of teacher who expected everyone, always, to be spick and span and on their best behaviour. She knew it was hard for boys to wash behind the ears and for growing girls to be gentle and ladylike. She knew it was difficult for men to control their gardens when there were no fences, and that it was almost impossible for women to keep their houses clean when all the roads and tracks were cut up by bulldozers and tractors and timber jinkers, and when every passing vehicle raised a cloud of dust. She liked people to be natural. She'd rather have them happy and carefree than frightened of a little healthy untidiness.