Unknown

INLAND PARADISE

Joyce Dingwell

Georgina wanted to work in the Australian outback rather than the city, but the only suitable job called for a man. So she called herself George Brown and got the job. Then she discovered the difficulties of trying to cope with the disturbing Larry Roper.

Except
for the carefully snipped-out advertisement, underlined in red ink and pinned securely to Joanne’s letter to Georgina so Georgina could not possibly miss it, nothing would have happened. Nothing, that is, except Georgina returning to Sydney as she had decided she would have to; finding a bed-sit, finding a job, living the life she didn’t want to live but reluctantly had accepted as inevitable now that her stepfather was dead.

But the advertisement changed everything, though no doubt Joanne hadn’t had that in mind when she got to work with scissors and red ink. More likely Joanne’s lip had been curling and she had wished the scissors she was plying could be put to more telling work, for example on Georgina. Yes, Georgina smiled ruefully, between the two of them things were like that.

Joanne and Georgina were stepsisters, and Georgina’s stepfather was—sorrowfully for Georgina it was ‘had been’ now—Joanne’s father. Lucky Joanne to have had a father like that!

The marriage between Georgina’s mother and Joanne’s father had been an ideal one, but their respective daughters never had ‘jelled’. The two girls had had different outlooks as children, avoided each other as teenagers, and as young women ... Well, as Georgina confided now to the snipped-out, underlined advertisement, the balloon had gone up.

Gone up, to be exact, last week, when Joanne had flown from Sydney to this obscure outpost at the back of Bourke to decide what to do with her father’s effects.

Joanne had sat in the cramped caravan on the edge of the outpost—the other edge touched the mulga—and said incredulously: ‘But Dad must have had more than this.’

‘He didn’t, Joanne. He was working for himself, remember. His findings weren’t commissioned or anything like that.’

‘What was he working on?’

‘Permian occurrences in rock, cosmic rays, attention to possible nickel “signs”, general geo stuff aimed for the next geophysical year,’ Georgina supplied.

‘Spare me the dreary rest!’ An estimating silence. ‘How far had he gone with the book? It was a book, I take it?’

‘Yes, a book.’

‘How far?’

‘Halfway.’

‘Can you finish it?’

‘Of course not. I was the bottle-washer here, not the collaborator,’ Georgina admitted frankly.

‘All the same, you must have picked up a lot of gen.’

‘I did. But I’m not a graduate. Why, I wasn’t even a scholar.’

‘Oh,’ Joanne had smiled thinly, ‘I remember that.’ Another contemplative pause. ‘So you don’t think you can take it to the end, find a publisher?’

‘And hand you the money, Joanne? No,’ Georgina had said tightly, for the idea of finishing Stepfather’s work had occurred, not with Joanne in mind, but as a tribute to the dear old man she had adored. In fact she had even

At once, in the shrewd way she always had been able to read Georgina’s mind, Joanne had read it now.

‘You
have
been thinking along those lines, you sly puss!’

‘No.’

‘Oh, come off it, Georgina, you’re as transparent as glass. You’re deceiving me—Dad’s work
is
valuable and you intend to grab it for yourself.’

‘It isn’t valuable in its present form and it would take a lot of money and a lot of brains to make it saleable.’

‘That would leave you out on both counts,’ Joanne had said acidly. ‘Then why did you want his notes?’

‘I didn’t say I did.’

‘No, but I can tell. Well, you can have them ... at a price. I can’t be bothered looking for a buyer. He would have to be some professor, anyway, and academics are always very dull and usually hard-up. You can pay me ’ She arrived at a sum.

‘Now,’ she had continued, ‘let’s get down to tangibles. The caravan, to begin with. How much will it bring?’

‘Not much out here, there’s nobody to buy it. We’re the west, admittedly, but New South Wales west, not the fabled “inside”. Not’ ... and Georgina’s thoughts drifted a moment ... ‘the Mirage Country.’ The Mirage Country, she thought wistfully, for Stepfather had often enchanted her with his descriptions of the centre. His mirage accounts had been both scientific and romantic, for that had been typical of Stepfather. ‘An appearance of scenes owing to the varying layers of hot or cold air,’ he had said in one breath, then: ‘Pictures plucked from one garden to blossom in another.’ Georgina had preferred the second account. To her mirages were the stuff of dreams.

‘What difference does location make?’ Joanne had demanded crossly.

‘The difference of big finds to little or even none at all,’ Georgina sighed, ‘that’s what I’m trying to point out to you, Joanne. The bulk of the prospectors, meaning possible caravan purchasers, are now out there, not here. There’s nothing doing here.’

‘But surely there must be someone passing through and wanting to try their hand before they move on? They’d have to stop somewhere, and though this is as poor as they could get, it’s still a shelter of sorts. And everyone knows’ ... before Georgina could repeat herself about there being nothing doing ... ‘that you have only to dig a hole and something pops up.’

‘Not in this part of the west any longer. None of the holes are popping,’ Georgina had said emphatically. ‘Even the one store is closing up, and the hotel’s swing doors have swung for the last time.'

Joanne had grimaced, remarked distastefully that she didn’t wonder about that, then advised Georgina to get what she could for the van.

‘Also cash in on all the equipment. Those instruments, books, microscopes ... oh, yes, and the typewriter.’

Georgina stiffened. ‘The typewriter is mine, Joanne.’

‘So you say.’

‘It is. I sent for and paid for it.’

‘Out of savings from free keep!'

‘Well, what else did you expect from me? I looked after your father while he worked. I went out with him after specimens, I wrote up his findings. I recorded his views. I loved doing it, and I’m not complaining, for the best year of my life was that year with Stepfather, but still I wasn’t paid.’

‘In which case you’re claiming the typewriter?’

... The bike and sidecar, too, Georgina could have added, for they had acquired a secondhand outfit, and Georgina had driven, and Stepfather had bounced in the sidecar, for biking now was the accepted method of getting over the desert, and prospectors as well as stockmen were mechanised nowadays.

‘The typewriter must be sold,’ Joanne had proclaimed, stonily dismissing Georgina’s claim, ‘and all the proceeds sent down.’ She had marked the details in a book.

Over tea—Georgina felt sorely tempted to charge Joanne for it—Joanne had said:

‘I wouldn’t be going on like this, of course, if Father had left me anything. But all he had went on your mother.'

That had been untrue as well as unkind. There
had
been money spent on her mother, Georgina remembered that sadly, but it had been Mother’s money originally, not Stepfather’s. Stepfather had been kind, lovable and loved ... but he had never been successful. Georgina had started to remind his daughter of this, then stopped. What did it matter now? she had thought.

Joanne had finished her notes in her little black book; she accepted a second cup of tea, then looked at her stepsister appraisingly.

‘And what are your plans now?’ she asked patronisingly.

‘No plans. What plans could I have?’

‘Quite true.’ There was a little lift to Joanne’s lip as she scrutinised Georgina. So brown. So open-faced. So—well, corn-fed. So—yes,
plain
. Also doing nothing about it, that is if anything could be done about it, which Joanne strongly doubted.

‘But what will you
do
?’ she had asked. ‘If this place is folding up, you can’t stay here.'

‘I couldn’t even if Windmill Junction was busy. Who would want me? Your father did, but he was different. I’ve not graduated, I have a good smattering of geology, but I still haven’t the necessary degrees.’

‘Then women do come west?’ Joanne had yawned; she wasn’t really interested.

‘For the bigger companies, yes, if they have brains, yet even then very seldom. Men are preferred out here.’

‘If something big started up, you could cook, perhaps.’ Joanne’s tone was still patronising.

‘I would rush at it,’ Georgina had admitted honestly, not minding the patronage. ‘I would do the humblest task, the most menial job to stay in the west. This is my life and this is my kind of country, and it’s going to shatter me leaving it.’ She had stopped abruptly, aware that she had done something she had never done with her stepsister: she had bared her soul. Perhaps, she had thought a little wistfully, it would break up something, bring them closer together ...

A little low amused laugh from Joanne had spiked that idea.

‘You have peculiar tastes, Georgina,’ she drawled. ‘To me these sorts of places are the utter ends of the earth. I simply can’t wait to get into my car and head south again. South to civilisation. Just look at that scene.’ She had indicated the terrain beyond the narrow window of the small caravan, and Georgina had looked with her.

‘Hell,’ Joanne had pronounced.

‘It’s the way you see it, Joanne.’

‘All that dry old mulga, brittle as bones and ready to snap off! Sticks and stones and horrible beasties like snakes and lizards and dragons and goannas. Everything tough, everything bare, everything bleached or washed out.’

‘Not when the sun hits the rocks; it’s Arabian Nights then,’ Georgina contradicted.

‘Sand everywhere. It’s even in this tea.’

‘Odd though it may seem to you I think it’s beautiful. I love it and I’ll be unhappy to go.’

‘Well, don’t let sentiment delay you. I need the money. I’ll leave now, Georgina, I want to get somewhere decent for the night—if there are any decent places out here. I’ll write from Sydney to see how you’ve done with the sale. And don’t go getting any ideas about cheating me, or taking out a commission, for I’ll be on the alert.’ Joanne rose. ‘Thanks for the tea.’

‘Sand and all?’

‘I suppose you don’t taste it. Your twelve months here • have made a positive barbarian of you, Georgina, a real primitive.’

‘Are females barbarians? Primitives?’

‘Presumably if the males are. Anyway, you’re
not,
are you?’ Joanne was almost talking to herself.

‘Not barbarian?’ echoed Georgina.

‘Not female. Look at your cropped hair and brown skin. No moisturiser, not even any lipstick. You’re—why, you’re a “feller”.’ Joanne gave her disagreeable laugh. ‘George, not Georgina, should be the name. And yet’ ... not giving Georgina a chance to defend herself ... ‘the poor “boy” has his feelings. He actually
likes
this godforsaken hole.’

‘No, Joanne, I love it.’

‘Then it was bad news for you, wasn’t it, when Father died?’ Her stepsister’s voice was light.

‘Very bad.’

‘For you have to leave,’ Joanne had continued, ‘as I m leaving now.’ This time she really did make a move, and within minutes her car had driven off.

The letter—with the advertisement—had arrived a week later. Georgina had picked it up in the town. She was surprised that Joanne had written so promptly, and then she saw the enclosure and knew why. Typically, Joanne hadn’t been able to resist another jab at her stepsister. ‘Dear G, This caught my attention, so I am sending it on to you. “If only”, I can hear you moan, “I was a man!” If I could help at all by issuing a reference that you are almost, I would do so willingly. Remember how I said you should be George instead? But alas, employers need more than stepsisterly advice. How is the sale proceeding? Don't hurry it if it means less money, but on the other hand don t spread it out. I can’t wait too long. Best of luck with this job application if you decide to try it; I’m sure, even though you’re, not a scholar, you could handle the post like a man. Goodbye now, George—Joanne.’

Georgina put the letter down. Pig, she had thought, as she had thought ever since she was twelve and had been told by her mother that she now had a sister the same age.

‘Joanne has golden curls and violet eyes and I’m sure you’ll love her,’ Mother had said uncertainly.

Georgina (straight khaki hair, khaki eyes) had liked the golden curls and the violet eyes—but disliked Joanne.

Well, that was all water under the bridge now, and the things that Joanne had done to her since, the mean little things, the sly, covetous incidents, had rippled away with the water. So whatever it was that Joanne had sent now could mean nothing worse.

Then Georgina read it, and knew at once that she couldn't possibly pass it over; not even dismiss it as Joanne had said, with a moan that she was not a male.