Skylarking (12 page)

TWENTY-FOUR

M
RS
W
ALKER HAD CONVINCED HER HUSBAND THAT IT
was necessary he make the two-day trek to Edenstown to pick up a tonic for her nerves, and that she couldn't wait until the supply boat next month. We all knew that the only tonic she needed was a letter from Harriet, and that Walker would also return with that. In fact Harriet had also included a letter for me, and I took it breathlessly from Mrs Walker when she arrived at the cottage door, showing no sign of her previous nervous condition at all.

I rushed to hide the letter beneath my pillow so that I might savour the anticipation of reading it. I was missing her desperately, especially when everything seemed so topsy-turvy in her absence.

It wasn't until after dinner that night – once the washing up, the wiping down, the setting out of the dough for the morning, the heating up of water for a bath, the corralling of the children, the prayers and the goodnights were done – that I could take out Harriet's letter.

‘What's that?' said Emmaline, her little eyes peering like marbles in the semi-dark from her side of the room.

‘Nothing.'

‘Yes, it is. It's a letter.'

‘If you knew already, then why did you ask?' I turned away from her so that she could not see.

‘You don't have to be so short with me,' she said in a manner designed to make me feel wretched.

‘It's only that it's a letter from Harriet and I haven't even had a moment to open it yet, and I'm desperate for news.'

‘I suppose you must be, for she is your best friend,' she said in that quiet, wounded voice again.

I slid my thumbnail along the top edge of the envelope.

‘I wish there was a girl my age on the cape,' Emmaline said sullenly.

‘Emmaline, I promise I will tell you all about it in the morning if you will only hush now and go to sleep so I might read it myself.'

There was a dramatic huffing and loud shuffling of covers and, when it ceased, I finally unfolded the letter and consumed it in one go.

Oh, to hear her voice, there in ink on the page! It was as though she were chattering in my ear. I brought the pages to my face to sniff out any trace of my friend but all I encountered was the acrid smell of the ink.

After I had read the letter three times, I folded it and slid it between the pages of the book on my nightstand. Turning the lantern down slowly until it spluttered out, I stared up at the dense darkness around me.

So Harriet had an admirer. It was to be expected, of course. Her mother had probably always anticipated that Harriet would come home with a proposal and that she herself would then accompany her daughter off the cape and make arrangements for an engagement, a wedding, a new future.

I was truly happy for my friend. I pulled my bedclothes up to my neck and closed my eyes, but I knew I would not sleep. I took my happiness for Harriet in regard to her admirer, this Patrick, and examined it as one would a jewel. I held it out from myself and looked for signs of cracks and fissures in the emotion, places where it was shadowed, but it seemed to be pure. Intact. I did wonder if some of the glitter of this feeling came from the fact that it was a
new
admirer who had caught Harriet's eye, and that it might mean she would not bother with the eyes that looked upon her when she was home at the station.

Because here on the cape, things were complicated enough. Albert and I were not speaking. His half-formed proposal sat like a big solid rock between us. At times, I was livid that he had spoken to me in such a way; and at others, I felt my chest expanding with pleasure: pleasure in his asking but the greatest pleasure in my refusal. I remembered the way it had felt when I saw how crushed he was by my response and how I had savoured the power in that. It made me grander and diminished me in equal parts, and I was having trouble working out what it meant.

I would not mention any of this to Harriet when I replied to her. I knew that she would shriek and clap her hands over her mouth at the thought of a proposal, any proposal, but it was her face, when she took in that it was Albert Jackson who had proposed, that I could not bear imagining. He was just a boy, in her mind. Not a dashing young heir from Melbourne. Not a brooding, salt-eyed fisherman. A boy from the lighthouse, more like a brother really.

In truth, it was not Albert himself who was the problem. What angered me was the thought that he had assumed to speak to his father of a possible marriage to me, as though I were an item that could be bargained over. Perhaps all marriage proposals were in some way business transactions – but this I could not abide. If this were the case then surely I would never marry. The thought of standing by Albert's side, while our parents celebrated and nodded their heads knowingly.
See
, they would say,
she was the marrying type after all.
Oh, it made my skin crawl to think of it.

But there was something Albert could offer. It flickered in me and flipped my heart about. He wanted me. If he had mulled over the idea of marriage, then surely he had imagined what it might entail. Had he lain in his narrow bed at night, looking up into the darkness and thinking about me? Had he imagined a different ending to his muttered proposal, one where I looked down, bit my lip, placed my hand on his arm? One where he stepped forwards, bold beyond his true self, and lifted my chin so I must meet his eyes. Where slowly, ever so slowly, while the twilight ceased to exist around us, he pulled me closer to him and leaned his face down towards mine. I shut my eyes. Then his lips were upon mine, dry and cool, and it was as though he were touching me everywhere and not just that one spot, as though his touch had broken open the sky. And then all of my body was against him, wanting his chest to open up so that I could climb inside, all of him meeting all of me. I moved my hands up to grasp his face and pull him in ever closer, but my hands encountered the thick scratchiness of a beard, and when I opened my eyes, in this dream, in Albert's dream, I was kissing McPhail and he was kissing me. And we did not stop.

In the bed next to mine Emmaline stirred, and I rolled over, away from her. Clenching my eyes tight, I tried to hold on to the picture, even as it broke up like high summer cloud and drifted away.

TWENTY-FIVE

I
ESCAPED THE NEXT AFTERNOON AND WANDERED
down to the point. It was not the same without Harriet. I could have asked Emmaline to come with me but, in truth, I was feeling flustered from my dreams and needed to be on my own.

I took a roundabout way and found I didn't have the energy to cross the gorge when I got to it, so instead I nestled into a ledge next to a large clear pool. I let my fingers trail across the surface of the water, swirling and twirling the reflection so it appeared that I was curdling the clouds above with the tips of my fingers.

Out to sea there was a shearwater, white and black and grey, moving in great slow circles above the waves. Around and around it went, drawing me into its eddy. Suddenly the bird folded in on itself, pointing its long neck towards the water to form an arrow. Down it plunged, a black streak across the sky, entering the water with a tiny flurry of white foam.

I scanned the surface of the water, but the bird did not reappear. And then, there it was, a glint of silver flapping in its beak. Slowly, wings beating furiously, it pulled itself away from the surface of the sea. Up and up and up it went, higher and higher until I could not make it out in the sky anymore.

‘Where are you going with that then?' I mused out loud.

‘With what?' There was a deep voice behind me, and I shot up as though I had been stung by a bull ant. I turned sharply and found myself looking at McPhail, his fishing rod held loosely in one hand and an amused expression on his face.

‘You scared me!' I cried, scowling at him. ‘What were you thinking, frightening me like that?'

‘I didn't see you there,' he said, and went to walk past me.

I was sure he could see the red creeping slowly up my neck. I could not look him in the eye for fear that he would read my mind and know that I had spent last night dreaming of kissing him.

‘Well, don't do it again.' And even as I said it I blushed further at how ridiculous I sounded.

‘Wouldn't dream of it,' he said over his shoulder as he walked out to where the waves were splashing up onto the rocks.

I chastised myself for my childish response. Damn McPhail. Damn my stupid dreams. Damn Harriet for not being here so we could laugh about it and I could throw his smugness right back at him.

I looked over to where he was crouched next to his satchel, rummaging about. That was just the thing, though, wasn't it? Harriet had always been there, making me braver and louder and tougher. Being the beautiful one, the kind one, the one who was altogether more genteel.

I picked my way over the rocks towards him, determined to prove that I wasn't a child.

‘What do you suppose you'll catch, then?' I called when I was quite close. If I startled him he didn't show it.

‘Mullet. Rockling perhaps.'

‘Not out in the boat today?'

‘Went early. Caught the tide.'

He was a man of few words.

But I wanted to keep talking to him. ‘I've not seen you fish here before.'

‘Thought I'd find a new hole.'

I moved to his side and sat down on a rock next to a small pool.

‘Didn't realise it was your spot,' he added.

I laughed, too primly, and swallowed it back. ‘Of course it's not my spot. I was just out walking, and found a place to rest.'

I bent over the pool and broke the surface of the water with my hand, stretching my fingers down so they appeared to wobble and wave like the strands of plump green pearls in the Neptune's necklace.

I tried to think of something to say. To show that while I might not be beautiful, I was clever and thoughtful and quick. I remembered the notes I'd seen on one of Father's maps, notes that made my eyes wide with curiosity when I read them.

‘They used to say there was an inland sea,' I began, ‘that stretched straight across the middle of this country.'

McPhail made a
humph
sound in the back of his throat – part amused, part dismissive. ‘There's no inland sea.' He cast the line so that the sinker splashed a good few yards out and disappeared into the waves.

‘How can you be so sure?' I questioned, turning towards him. ‘You haven't travelled across the country in its entirety, have you?'

McPhail didn't look at me, but he replied easily. ‘No. No, I haven't.'

‘Then how can you know?' I said, smiling but trying to sound cross. I was artless in the manner of conversing with men, I realise this now. There was none of Harriet's coy knowing in me; it was all childlike inquisitiveness or else a blushing awareness of how utterly lacking in guile I was.

He ran his forefinger down the length of line where his hand rested. It was an odd movement – gentle and restrained – for a man of his size. His eyes did not move from the ocean.

‘There's nothing in the centre,' he said. Softly, as though he were speaking of something he oughtn't. ‘Just sand and heat. Freezing cold nights and the calls of strange dogs and those wild blacks singing their songs. There's no sea in there.' He pulled the rod in against his chest, testing the tension.

I was not used to being told I was wrong with such authority. ‘It doesn't sound very nice at all.'

‘No,' he said in that same quiet voice. ‘No, nice isn't a word you could use.'

‘I suppose that's why you like the coast so much, then.'

‘Something like that.'

‘Well, there isn't much else here one can like, is there?'

I was trying to get his attention, make him realise that I was more than just a girl. I was very nearly a woman; I was just the same as Harriet. Why on earth did he not look at me the way he'd looked at her? How could he so calmly hold his line there and not even glance my way?

He reeled back suddenly, the rod bowing so that it arced and quivered, and he turned the line over and over in his hands. When I peered into the waves where his line threaded in, I could see a silvery flash. Then he was plucking it out, bending the rod and pulling the line so that the fish fairly popped out of the water. It landed on the edge of the rock. McPhail leaned down and pinned it with his hand.

I stepped forwards to get a closer look, and suddenly he thrust the rod at me. I took hold and he lifted up the fish with both hands. Slipping his forefinger and thumb in under the gills, he tugged sharply and a splash of blood spurted across his hand. McPhail turned to me, holding the fish by the throat and letting it hang so I could see its size and weight.

I could not have said that he was smiling, but there was a glint in his eye, and his face had a liveliness it had not had before.

‘Ah, but there's enough to like,' he said.

TWENTY-SIX

I
N THE DAYS THAT FOLLOWED IT WAS AS THOUGH
I
WERE
in a fever of sorts. And through it all I felt as though every person with whom I came in contact must know the contents of my thoughts and dreams. Surely my mother, as we kneaded the dough for our bread and placed it in tins, must realise that my thoughts were not on the spongy dough but on the silhouette of McPhail against the sea and sky, on those words that ricocheted around my mind:
there's enough to like.
What could he mean? Surely he was referring to Harriet. But could he mean me?

‘Careful, Kate,' warned my mother, as I lingered too long at the mouth of the oven with the loaf tin. ‘Where's your head today?'

Everywhere, Mother, and nowhere but with him.
That is what I wanted to say.

‘I miss Harriet,' is what I said instead. And I did. Of course.

Mother wiped her hands on her apron. ‘Won't be long now till she's home again. I dare say it's done you both some good to get out of each other's pockets for a few months.'

I brushed the flour from the benchtop into my cupped hand. ‘Yes, I suppose it has.'

Harriet would be home soon, a week at most before the supply boat was due to bring her. And wouldn't it be wonderful to have her back, to watch her eyes shine wide with the news she would tell me, to walk our favourite tracks again, to lie on our backs in the sun and be lazy with the warmth of each other.

And yet. There would be no more moments with McPhail. Harriet would pull him back into her orbit, and I would be invisible again. I picked dough from my fingers.

‘Do you need me this afternoon, Mother?'

‘No more than usual.'

‘It's just, I thought I might take one of the horses for a ride along the track. Get some air.' Such a small thought at first, half formed at most.

Mother took three onions from the barrel and set them on the board. ‘Take Sadie, then. You can meet the children as they come back from the schoolhouse,' she said.

That would not work for my plan at all. ‘I hadn't intended to go that way. Sadie doesn't like the loose rock on the path.'

‘Oh, she'll be alright. Just take her slow.'

Perhaps I could make it down to the hut and then cut back inland to get to the schoolhouse road in time. But not on Sadie. I'd have to take Shadow. It was a risk, I knew; he was sure to be frisky, but he would go fast. But what was I thinking? The hut would be empty. It was ridiculous.

I untied my apron. ‘I suppose I could meet the children.'

‘Careful that you take it slow,' Mother repeated.

I grabbed my hat as I went through the front door and forced myself to keep a steady gait until I got round to the side of the house. Then I ran.

Shadow was wary as I approached and quickly heaved the saddle onto him.

‘Shush, boy,' I said, down low in his ear at the same time as I dug my heels in to show him who was in charge.

He threw his head around and resisted my direction, but I held fast.

There was hardly time to reach the hut, let alone be back to meet the children on the track. And if I didn't get back, how would I explain where I had been? I kicked my heels again and spurred him on.

I was down there in about half an hour, as quick as I'd ever done it, and as I rode through the trees I saw McPhail. My chest clenched. He was working at the wood pile beside the hut. He lifted his head at the sound of the horse.

In my hurry to get there I hadn't given a thought to what I would say to the man.
Enough to like,
he'd said. He'd said it and Harriet wasn't here, hadn't been here for almost three months. All I had to do, surely, was to give him the opportunity to expand on his phrase.

I pulled Shadow up and jumped down. ‘Hello there!' I called.

‘Afternoon,' he called back. ‘What brings you down here?'

Think, Kate. Think.

‘I'm off to collect the children from school. Thought I'd come for a bit of a ride on my way.'

Oh, Kate, how stupid, how unconvincing.

‘Right,' he said, and went back to his pile of wood.

‘And how are you?' I said as I approached him.

‘No different from usual.'

‘Lovely that it's cooling down some, isn't it?'

‘'Tis.'

Each time he raised the axe, his lips parted at the effort of plunging the blade into the wood. He had left his usual waistcoat off for the work, and his shirtsleeves were rolled up so that I could see the muscles tensing in his forearms.

‘Albert's proposed to me,' I blurted out.

There was not even a pause before he replied, ‘You'd do well to accept him.'

‘I will not.'

‘No doubt he will be disappointed.'

I took a few steps closer to where he stood. I was conscious that some of my hair had come loose on the ride. I flicked it so that it lay behind one shoulder, so that my neck was bare.

‘Oh, I suppose he will. He'll get over it,' I said.

McPhail raised the axe and let it swing. It cut, deep and true, into the heart of the log.

I waited for him to say something more, to disagree, to flatter me. But he did not. Disappointment curdled my stomach, and something else: the fury that he would not notice me.
Look at me,
I wanted to shout.
Why will you not look at me and see me, too? Can I be that unattractive that I cannot ignite some desire in you?
I would be bold. An image of the black girl appeared in my mind.

‘You are strong to cut the wood so,' I said, and moved closer to McPhail. ‘Albert is still a boy.'

He stopped chopping, but only long enough to catch his breath and throw another log to the side. He made no comment and lifted the axe again.

I find it difficult to recall what I did next because of the terrible, hot shame of it.

I went closer, the thrill of the axe whistling through the air making the little hairs on the nape of my neck tingle and stand on end.

He stopped again but did not look at me.

‘Better stand back. The wood can splinter. Don't want you hurt.'

If only he hadn't said the last part; the way he said
you.
It made me bolder.

‘I don't want to stand back,' I said.

He looked at me finally and must have seen through me so completely, all of my desire and neediness on show. But he did nothing, so I moved towards him and reached out my hand to place it on his arm and, when I touched him, he flinched and arched back away from me and dropped the axe.

‘You'd best go home,' he almost shouted as he turned and strode inside his hut.

At first I froze, so humiliated that I thought I might vomit. Then I ran towards Shadow and fumbled and fumbled with his saddle before I was up and pulling tight on the reins. Shadow snorted with delight as I forced him to race back up the track we had so recently flown down with the same kind of fever.

I was like a storm when I got back to the house.

‘Where are the children?' Mother called, and to my horror I realised I had forgotten that I had been going to meet them.

‘I could not wait!' I yelled back as I ran to my room and slammed the door. I was appalled by what I had done. By how McPhail had rebuffed me. By what I had imagined might happen between us.

‘Oh!' I cried in fury and threw myself onto my bed as hot tears spilled down my cheeks.

My face was soon a mess of snot and tears. I sat up to get a handkerchief from the dresser beside my bed, pulling on the top drawer, but it was jammed. The harder I pulled the more stuck it became until I yelled in a rage, ‘Damn it! Damn it!'

I had never felt more at odds with myself, so incapable of stopping the way I was acting.

I must have appeared quite mad when Mother burst in with Emmaline, freshly back from school, and exclaimed, ‘Good grief, Kate! Whatever are you doing?'

I could not explain my rage or the upturned drawer or my sudden tears except to say that I was hot and not myself and missing Harriet dreadfully.