Golden Hope (45 page)

I know this bush like the back of my hand – yet I've never felt more lost in my whole life.

That same night was a very different experience for the man trapped in the role of go-between.

There was no moon at all. No light to guide Finch. He charged through the dense darkness of the bush, driven by a restless urge to escape the miner's right cabin that had been a lovers' tryst for Clytie and Rom, mentally haunted by his imagined memories of their shared past.

The priest's house suddenly broke through the darkness. Finch told himself he had not consciously come this way. But was that the truth?

There was only a single light visible, the soft light of a kerosene lamp shining in what he knew was Clytie's bedroom. Finch felt his throat constrict with words that made no sense. He had a sudden sense of longing to knock on her door and tell her the truth. That he could no longer live the Big Lie as Rom's go-between. That he accepted that she loved Rom. But that the time had come for him to leave Hoffnung – leave them both to sort out their lives. He was torn between seeing Clytie's face or banishing himself to some remote place where he could never see her face again.

Feeling as furtive as a voyeur, he watched the light of her window as her shadow crossed the room. The silhouette of her hand touching her hair, the outline of her bosom caused his heartbeat to quicken.

Go home. You have no place here.

He had half turned in the direction of Rom's cabin when he heard a man's heavy footsteps crunching on the quartz road. Instinctively he drew back into the shadows of the bush. The man was Rom.

Finch berated himself for being trapped. Too late now to reveal his presence.

Trying to regulate his breathing, he watched as Rom halted in the exact spot where he himself had just stood. So close he could stretch out a hand and touch him. Rom was now also watching the shadow play on Clytie's window.

The lamplight went out. A smaller, flickering light of a candle moved across the room. Then all was darkness. Only then did Rom move towards the rear door of the house. In response to Shadow's throaty growl, Rom ordered him to be quiet.

Finch felt a wave of relief tainted by despondency, freed from the shadows but not from the images in his head. He stumbled down to the cabin by the creek.

Sleep was evasive. At last he succumbed to a troubled, surreal space. Conscious that he stood in the landscape of a dream . . . he stood frozen, an unwilling spectator, forced to watch the lovers' passionate coupling. Rom was mounting Clytie with lusty energy. She fully matched his passion and cried out in ecstasy, ‘Take me!'

On waking sharply, Finch was disconcerted to discover his body in an acute state of arousal, ready to take a woman. Not just any woman.
Clytie.

Ashamed of his unconscious mind's betrayal of Rom, he felt an unwanted surge of an emotion he suspected was foreign to him – a deep pang of jealousy.

He faced the bitter truth. The balance of power had shifted irrevocably between the three of them. He realised he could pin down the exact moment. That extraordinary encounter with Clytie in the cabin when he found himself staring down the barrel of the rifle she had trained on him. His heart pounding, he had called a double bluff – pulling aside the blanket to reveal his naked body, his erection triggered as much by fear as lust, taunting her to take his life if she did not trust him.

Finch knew he could no longer lie to himself.
I've hungered for Rom's woman from the first moment I set eyes on her. Last night Rom finally broke down the barrier between them. He lay with Clytie. My role is over. I'm obsolete. Time to leave them to live happily ever after.

He wrote a note to Rom and placed it under a stone inside the cabin. It read:

‘Good on you, mate. At last you found the courage to go to Clytie. Time for me to move on. Thanks for the hospitality. Finch.'

Not knowing when he would have the chance to bathe and change his clothes again once he hit the road, he washed hurriedly in the creek then shaved carefully with the cut-throat razor. In the broken
sliver of mirror the face of a stranger stared back at him with dead, expressionless eyes.

Finch stuffed his few belongings into his kit bag and dressed as best he could to avoid looking disreputable when thumbing down a lift. He fancied some driver asking where he was headed and imagined his answer: ‘Anywhere. It doesn't really matter.'

Finch was convinced his new life was over before it had had a real chance to begin.

To avoid Clytie's house he cut through the bush to Main Street, bought a loaf of cheap day-old bread from the Bakery, then stopped at the forge to ask the blacksmith to sharpen his Bowie knife. Black Jack obliged on the spot but waved aside Finch's offer of payment.

‘No need. Good luck finding work, mate.'

Some instinct drew Finch to the sign on a little shopfront that read, ‘Watchmaker and Jeweller. Prop. Sol. Levi.' Perhaps it was the glint of sunlight caching the immaculately clean window pane. A shaft of light fell across the face of a handsome old pendulum clock in the window. It reminded him that Clytie's clock had been irretrievably smashed. Although she tried to deny it, he knew she had thrown it across the room in her white heat rage over Rom's avoidance of her.

She finally ran out of time, patience. Who could blame her?

On impulse Finch entered the store where Solomon Levi was seated behind the counter, writing the price tag on an item of jewellery. He looked up over the top of his spectacles and half smiled. Finch saw that the old man's eyes held a depth of sadness that he would probably take to his grave.

‘How may I help you, young man? Mr Finch, is it not?'

‘That's what I'm called, Mr Levi. I just wanted to ask you a question. I couldn't help noticing that fine old clock in the window. It doesn't have a price attached. Is it for sale?'

‘It has been sitting there for many months. I repaired it for a Scottish miner. Poor Niven was one of the men lost in the Golden Hope mine disaster last year – before you came to Hoffnung.'

‘I wonder could I put a deposit on it? I'm leaving Hoffnung but you have my word I'll send you money each month until it is paid off.'

‘You haven't asked the price, Mr Finch. You must want it very much,' Mr Levi said gently.

‘You're right. I do. What is the price?'

‘It is not mine to sell. The clock rightfully belonged to the deceased estate of Donald Niven. But it seems he had no family to come forward and claim his belongings. So I gave his clock a new home.' He hesitated then asked curiously, ‘It is perhaps a gift you are wanting to give, yes?'

‘It is. For Miss Clytie Hart. I'm a friend of her fiancé, Rom Delaney. I would like to leave her something to thank her for her hospitality.'

‘I understand. A most fitting gesture.' Levi's head rocked gently from side to side while he considered the matter. ‘Let us make a small deal.'

‘Deal?'

‘I shall give you the clock on one condition. These are difficult times. I do not wish for people to think I am wealthy enough to give my stock away for free – the Hebrew race has long been labelled with a false reputation for being wealthy. I am not a poor man – but far from that desirable condition. So please, take the clock on condition you say nothing to anyone about how you came by it.'

‘I can't do that. At least let me pay you for your repair work. I'm a hard worker. I won't be strapped for cash for long.'

‘I feel sure you will not. But that is my condition – is it too difficult to accept from me? Let us say it is a little gesture of thanks to a fellow soldier in memory of a young Melbourne physician. Alexander was one of the first Australians to heed the Empire's call to join the Medical Corps.'

He gestured to the framed photograph on the wall which showed a dark-eyed young man wearing the uniform of an Australian officer with an expression of serious pride.

‘Your son?'

Levi nodded. ‘Yes, Alex was awarded a medal after the siege of Ladysmith but his life ended there. I am attempting to persuade Councillor Twyman to allow me to place a small Star of David beside his name on the planned war memorial.' He added with a shrug, ‘Councillor Twyman is not an easy man to convince. But we shall see what we shall see.'

Finch keenly felt the man's dignified sense of loss but he could find no adequate words to cover the moment.

‘Sir, I don't know how to . . .'

‘No matter, your eyes speak for you. I am sorry to upset you. You look pale. No doubt you have seen too much.'

He removed the clock from the window. ‘Do you wish me to have it delivered to Miss Hart? My grandson Harry delivers messages for me after school. Good training for a lad to earn his own pocket money.'

‘Indeed it is. I appreciate your kindness, Mr Levi. I know Miss Hart will greatly value the clock.'

Solomon Levi placed his finger across his lips. ‘Remember to keep shtum, yes?'

‘Your secret is safe with me, Sir.'

Levi's glance was guarded. ‘May her fiancé Mr Delaney return home safely and soon. A bit of a wild lad, that one, but I suspect Miss Hart is the very girl to make a good husband of him.'

Finch stammered his thanks and backed from the shop.

He wanted to escape Hoffnung immediately, but something niggled at the edge of his conscience.
Clytie doesn't deserve to have another man bolt from her.

As if to underline this thought, Shadow was barking as he ran towards Finch.

‘Hey, what is it, boy?' he asked.

The Kelpie swiftly changed direction and bounded up the track that led to the hill of churches. At the crest of the hill Finch saw a blur of bright pink flash between the screen of olive green eucalypts.
Clytie! Who am I to argue with a Kelpie?

Finch had an uneasy feeling as he passed through the lych gate to the cemetery. The sun was shining brightly yet something was not quite right. He gave an involuntary shiver. There was Clytie kneeling before little Robert Hart's grave, placing fresh flowers in the jam jar. She pulled out a stray weed that had obscured the words carved on his tombstone.

She looked up at him with barely concealed distrust. ‘If it isn't a rude question, where are you off to, Finch? If you come across my dodgy fiancé, tell him to have the guts to face me, right?'

Finch could do no more than stare at her.

Clytie frowned, suddenly concerned. ‘What's wrong, Finch. You're as white as a ghost. You should see Doc. You might be going down with a fever.'

‘It's nothing. I've got to be going.'

He stumbled blindly at a half run down the hill.

Where the hell can I go? Doc . . . Doc . . .

•  •  •

The last patient had left the surgery and Doc was packing up his medical bag when Finch knocked on the door. Doc took one look at him and drew him to a chair, divesting him of his swag.

He held a brandy to Finch's lips. ‘Get this into you, lad. I take it you've had a shock of some kind?'

Finch took his time to find the words he needed. ‘Do you reckon I'm crazy, Doc? I don't know if I'm sound enough of mind to tell the difference between being awake and being trapped in a nightmare.'

‘You're as sane as I am – if that counts as any recommendation,' Doc said, with a smile hovering at the edge of his mouth. ‘Why do you ask, lad?'

‘Something's not right about the way I see the world. Maybe I can see things other people can't. Maybe the war is to blame.'

‘We can blame war for many things, lad. Go on, I'm listening.'

‘I'm beginning to wonder if some of us get trapped at the moment of death – unable to move forward.'

‘What makes you say that?

Finch could not answer. Doc watched him in silence before asking, ‘Did this come to you in one of your nightmares?'

‘No. It's been at the back of my mind for some time.'

Fragments of memory rushed back in haphazard sequence . . . Rom waving at the bow of the hospital ship . . . in the bar of Young and Jackson's Hotel . . . being cut dead by the nursemaids in Bitternbird Park . . . the chatty farmer who gave him a lift yet ignored Rom.

‘I travelled with Rom for months, Doc. Got drunk with him once, argued with him – even fought him fist to fist. Yet I noticed how some people snubbed him. Rom used to laugh it off, saying “We're heroes one day, invisible the next.” I thought it must be the war playing tricks with my head until last night I saw him enter Clytie's house. Then, just now in the cemetery, I saw Clytie.'

Doc nodded and waited for him to continue.

‘She was kneeling beside her baby's grave. She said something like, “Tell my dodgy fiancé to have the guts to face me.”' Finch's mouth dried.
‘The point is, Doc, Rom was standing beside Clytie all the time –
and she couldn't see him!
'

Finch's whole body began to shake violently. He hugged himself in an attempt to control the embarrassing sign of weakness.

He forced out the words. ‘Am I crazy, Doc? I think the truth is Rom doesn't
know
– he never
really
came home . . .'

The silence lay between them.

‘If you're crazy, Finch, then you are in good company. Rom Delaney came to see me a few nights ago. He was deeply troubled about his son's death.'

Finch leaned forward, eager for reassurance. ‘You're a doctor – did he appear totally real to you? Alive? Solid?'

‘Normal, except for one thing that was rather out of character for Rom. As you know, I don't drink alcohol, but I poured him a brandy. He said he never knocked back a grog. Yet when he left some time later his glass was untouched.'

Finch nodded in relief. ‘So what do we do now? I can't bear to tell Clytie.'