Skylarking (10 page)

TWENTY

A
FTER
C
HRISTMAS A DENSE HEAT FELL UPON
us,
A HEAT
without breeze, without relief. Night after night, Mother threw open all the windows, waving her arms as though to beckon the cooler night air into our home but, even then, we sweltered and sweated. Harriet and I counted down the days until she was to leave, and the memory of the pudding disaster slowly faded.

In recognition of our forthcoming separation, Mother and Mrs Walker lightened our house duties and often brought lunch down to us where we swam with all the children in the rock pools at the base of the cliff. With no wind at all, the sea hardly rippled, and we could see clear to the bottom of pools that were usually fizzing and frothy with foam.

At the lowest tide, just before lunchtime, all of us swam in the big pool that formed, jumping off the rocks to see who could make the biggest splash, holding our breaths and opening our eyes under water to watch the coloured fish, the spotted sea stars.

One day, even Father and Walker joined us, leaving Jackson to duties on the light. I imagined the poor crayfish at the bottom of the pool, scuttling away from this sudden influx of pale longer legs.

Harriet and I lolled in the water and out of it. We warmed ourselves on the rocks for a few minutes and then plunged back into the pool. Albert and James tried to chase us, but we screamed and dove away.

We had been in so long our fingers had crinkled, and I ran these strange new fingertips down Harriet's back, pretending I was a monster of the deep. She laughed and swam away from me.

Mother called lunch, entreating us all to get out for long enough to fill our bellies with some sustenance. Even though she demanded this, there was a relaxed note in her voice, as though she knew we would take our own sweet time and she might sit there a little longer, her bare feet in the water, her skirt bunched up around her calves.

So content was I, floating on my back and diving under to follow Harriet, that I didn't notice the two men coming down over the rocks.

The first I knew was Father calling out ‘What's happened?' as he dried himself off on the edge of the rock. He put his shirt back on and strode off to meet the men: Jackson and McPhail.

Harriet and I stayed in the water and watched. We saw Walker hurry after Father, and Mother stood, covering her legs and raising a hand above her brow to block out the sun.

‘What is it, Mother? What's wrong?' I asked.

But she was focused on the approaching men. Father reached them, and they stood clustered together. Jackson was speaking in earnest to Father while McPhail stood back a little, his arms crossed.

Harriet and I swam to the edge, leaving the other children to continue their play, and clambered up and onto the rock. On tiptoes we rock-hopped around to where our picnic was spread out and the women were waiting to hear the news.

We heard Father call, ‘There's trouble down near Bennett's.'

‘The men?' Mother asked.

‘Blacks,' said Father. ‘We'll go and take a look.'

‘You make sure you send them on their way – they don't belong in these parts anymore,' said Mrs Walker.

Harriet and I had stepped in closer, and Mrs Walker moved aside, realising we were there.

Until that moment, I had not given a thought to the fact that we were in our bathing costumes. They were a thin blue cotton – Mrs Walker had made us both a new set as we had so rapidly and so obviously outgrown our last ones. We had drawers that finished right above our knees and gathered at our waists. Above that, the cotton bloused out to cover our chests, buttoning up but cut low into straps that went up and over our shoulders. They were modest, but we did not have to worry ourselves about too many admiring eyes out here on the cape – and Mrs Walker had saved on fabric where she could.

I glanced across at Harriet, her wet hair snaking over her shoulders and around her neck. In this high, noon sun, I could make out all the separate droplets that beaded her skin. When I looked towards McPhail, I noticed his jaw was clenched, his eyes snagged.

When Harriet realised, it seemed as if she straightened up slightly, stood taller. As if she were meeting his gaze with her body. McPhail turned away. But I continued to watch Harriet. I thought of a red-bellied black snake I had seen one afternoon lying in the sun. It appeared to be absorbing the sun and radiating it back, making it harder and brighter and deeper.

‘Girls!' said Mrs Walker, pushing two thin cotton towels at us. ‘Here.'

And whatever held us there in the light – in Harriet's light – disappeared, and we took the towels and covered ourselves while the men hurried off.

As we packed up our picnic, I heard Mrs Walker mutter to Mother, ‘The sooner she's in Melbourne, the better.'

‘More smoke than fire,' I heard Father say as he came into the cottage that evening just before dinner. ‘Some wild blacks passing through, half-a-dozen at most. Nothing to worry about, except that some of the men got their firearms out, and others told them to put them away or they'd have the Governor down here making arrests.'

‘It's been a while since there's been any trouble,' Mother said.

‘There's not many left. No doubt the last ones will come into the mission soon enough, hungry and sick. It's not their world anymore.'

I thought about the girl I'd seen in the vegetable patch. She did not look sick.

‘As long as they're not hanging around here, I don't mind what they do,' Mother said.

‘You've nothing to worry about. They're gone from here,' Father said, and the conversation moved on to talk of the dinner.

After the meal that night, Harriet and I sat on our verandah, looking out at the sky. We could see the glow from the light shining out with its beam. Blink, flash, blink.

‘Will you miss this, do you think?' I asked her.

‘How can I miss what is part of me? I will think of this, of all this, and of you, of course, every moment when I am there.'

‘No doubt you will have many things to take up your time,' I said and laughed, but the laughter tasted sharp. It was so unfair. I was the adventurer; it was me who imagined foreign places and great cities and the hustle and bustle of a different life, and yet it was Harriet who was heading off on her own.

Harriet turned to me. ‘This won't change anything,' she said, grabbing my hand. ‘You know that, don't you?'

‘Of course,' I said, placing my other hand on top of hers. ‘Except that you will return with new dresses and a thousand new memories and a dozen suitors who would steal you off this cape and marry you in an instant.'

But Harriet was not convinced by my bravado. ‘I will persuade Aunt Cecilia to invite you, too. Your mother will agree in the end – I know she will.'

‘Perhaps,' I said, moving my hands away from hers. ‘At any rate, I don't imagine I will be the only one who misses you.'

Harriet was quiet.

‘You've noticed how he looks at you. Surely, Harriet,' I said softly.

She was silent again for a while before saying, ‘I don't know what you mean.'

‘Yes, you do.' I could not understand why Harriet would still not confide in me.

She looked me square in the eye. ‘Truly, Kate, I don't. And I expect you don't know what you're saying either. I don't think we should speak of this again.' And she turned back to look at the darkening sky.

There it was again – the strange distance that came between us. Harriet's refusal to share her secret with me. I dreaded being left behind.

TWENTY-ONE

I
TOLD
H
ARRIET WE SHOULD SAY GOODBYE TO ALL HER
favourite places before she left. We were sitting side by side at the dining-room table growing despondent over the sewing Mother had set us to do, turning the hems of my brothers' pants.

Harriet peered out the small square window. ‘It seems a nice enough day to go for a trek. We could go down to the cove, if you'd like.'

‘Let's take the horses,' I said. ‘We'll have longer at the beach that way.'

And so, as soon as we were finished, off we went.

Blaze and Sadie were pleased to be out on the track, snorting and tossing their heads. A loaf of brown bread, warm from the oven and wrapped in its calico cloth, lay tucked in the saddle bag. It was mid-morning, and the sun was everywhere: in the trees and crisscrossing the path in stripes. It seemed to tangle in Harriet's hair and illuminate the long strings of spider web across the track that were ballooning out in the breeze. A few feet ahead of us we saw the brilliant flash of a blue wren. He darted his head from side to side, jumping up and down on his twig-thin legs.

We took the horses slowly and, by the time we reached the little track that led down to the cove, it was already past lunchtime and my stomach rumbled. Up ahead, I could make out the shape of McPhail's hut through the trees.

‘What about we rest at McPhail's before we go down to the beach?' I said. ‘We could sit and share our lunch if he is there?'

‘Oh, let's not,' she said hastily.

‘Come on, Harriet. It's hardly polite to be this close and not stop by to say hello, or goodbye, I suppose, in your case.'

I did not know what I expected of McPhail, or of Harriet. I think I desperately wanted to orchestrate a confrontation, to witness the unstoppable forces of great love, or passion, or agony, and see for myself if it was as they described in my books. Yet some part of me, the child, wanted to be reassured that I had imagined all this emotion in my mind, too filled with stories and intrigue and drama to see real life for its boring truth. Perhaps I was inventing sidelong glances, lingering hands, evidence of a lovelorn friend – to fuel the story in my head. And yet another, darker truth simmered beneath the surface; perhaps in this strange little play for three, I did not want my role but Harriet's instead.

Or perhaps I wanted to play McPhail.

Harriet looked strained, as if I had asked something terribly difficult of her. ‘Briefly then,' she said. ‘He won't be there anyway.'

I don't know why I expected McPhail to be home, ready to welcome us. Why would he be? He was a fisherman, and there were fish to be caught. He'd most likely been out since daybreak and would return only once he'd landed enough fish.

We reached the hut, and I tapped the door with my knuckles.

‘He's not there,' Harriet said, turning to leave.

‘I don't think he'd mind if we made a fire and boiled the billy.'

‘Oh, Kate, we couldn't.' Harriet let out a nervous laugh.

‘You don't have to come in, if you're too scared.'

‘I'm not scared. Merely polite. We can't let ourselves into his home.'

‘I'll call you when the tea's ready. We can have some of the bread with butter, too.'

I wiggled the handle, which turned easily in my hand, and went into the interior, dark in contrast to the brightness outside. Harriet stayed on the doorstep. The objects in the room became clearer as my eyes adjusted, and I remembered where the table sat, noted the picture on the shelf, the stove against the back wall.

I moved over to where the billy hung on its hook and tested the full weight of it. I took some kindling from the wood box and stacked it ready to take a match then ran my hand along the back of the stove to find one. My fingers picked up grease and dust until they stumbled over the square corners of the box.

I heard Harriet shuffle her feet behind me.

‘Kate, this isn't right. He wouldn't like it. I don't think we should.' She spoke to me but she seemed to be trying to convince herself.

‘Harriet, you worry too much. Just sit yourself down there on the step, if you can't bring yourself to come inside.'

But when I turned away from the fire, little flames now flickering bright and orange up the sticks, I saw she had entered and was standing in front of the long bench and the shelves, looking up at the picture in the frame.

I busied myself with lifting down the two tin mugs, the tin of tea, the bowl of sugar that I noticed was nearly empty, the white grains stuck hard in little clumps at the bottom.

‘Who do you think she is?' Harriet nodded in the direction of the little portrait, and I moved closer to see.

The woman in the picture appeared older than us, but younger than our mothers. She was pretty enough, in a plain sort of way. The artist had painted a tie of ribbon around her neck. Her hair was dark and piled high on her head.

‘I don't know,' I said, turning back to the stove. ‘His mother; perhaps a fiancée. Why, what do you think?'

‘I wonder what happened to her?'

‘We could make up any past for her at all. For her and him. We could make it as wonderful or terrible or fanciful as we please. The stories are always better than the truth though.'

‘Not always, surely,' said Harriet.

In my mind I watched the supply boat sail away towards Melbourne, Harriet waving. ‘No, not always.'

Harriet leaned against the doorjamb, her figure silhouetted. She faced away from me, out to where the sea glistened through the trees.

‘You won't be stuck here forever, Kate.'

The billy began to hiss, and I turned my attention to making the tea.

‘Shall we sit?' I said, and pulled up a chair to the table. I cupped both hands around the mug. ‘Maybe we could stay here on the cape together? We could build a hut just for us. Down on Murray's, maybe, tucked in under that old banksia?' I was grinning, and Harriet couldn't help but smile. She came over to sit with me. ‘We can paint it white, like the cottages, and bring down some seedlings from the vegetable garden.'

‘I could use some of Mother's old lace for curtains,' she said.

‘Perfect. We can move down there and cook and clean up, then swim and lie on the beach all day.'

I met Harriet's eyes, and she looked down into her tea. Inside I felt a shift, a fracture.

‘Of course, I know it's silly, Harriet,' I said, quieter now. ‘It would be marvellous though, wouldn't it?'

‘It would,' she said, and I had no way of knowing, as she turned to look out through the open door to the bush and then the beach beyond, if her gaze was filled with longing for the little daydream we had conjured, or for something else entirely.

‘Sometimes I feel so inside out,' she said. ‘As though what I'm supposed to do and what I want to do have got all mixed up and I can't even begin to untangle the two. I always thought I just wanted what I was supposed to want, but I sometimes wonder whether I might want something else.'

‘What do you think you want?' I asked.

Harriet's face flushed.

‘We'd better go,' she said suddenly. ‘He'll be back soon. He wouldn't like to find us here.' She stood, taking up her cup.

‘Maybe he would,' I said.

‘Would what?'

‘Would like to find us here.'

‘You don't know him.' Harriet's voice was forced now, and it seemed I had tapped at some deep well of emotion.

‘And you do?'

She turned on me now. ‘For heaven's sake, will you leave alone this silly notion you have in your head. There is nothing between McPhail and me!'

I suddenly regretted that I had forced it. We only had a few days left together. What was I doing?

‘I'm sorry, Harriet, truly,' I said, and went to her side and grabbed her hand. ‘Forgive me. Please, let's not argue. Let us go to the beach as we planned and forget we ever came here.'

‘Of course,' she said. ‘I'm sorry, too. Let's clean up quickly.'

She walked to the door and pitched the remains of the tea onto the ground, picking up the end of her skirt to wipe around the inside of the mug. She set it gently upside down on the shelf, shifting the handle so that it was flush against the bench. She smoothed her palms down the front of her skirt, and the gesture was so like her mother's that, for a moment, I was disoriented. Harriet would make a good mother. An excellent wife.

I hurried to clean my cup, then cut two pieces of bread for us to munch on as we headed to the sand. I wondered whether, despite our careful replacing of everything we'd touched, McPhail would sense us there. He might sniff the faintest hint of Harriet's rose soap, feel the leftover warmth of the stove or be taken aback by the position of his chair, sitting closer to the table than usual so that he stumbled a little as he went to sit.

There was so sign of McPhail as we checked on the horses before following the snaking track down to the beach.

It felt disloyal but, as we walked, I wondered about Harriet's quick anger, her reluctance to visit the hut, her questions about the woman in the picture, her certainty that he wouldn't be there. I pieced these things together, as one might lay down the squares for a patchwork quilt, and they began to make a picture. And in the picture I saw Harriet standing at the door of the hut, watched her hand go up to knock, then McPhail opening it, Harriet entering and the door closing behind her. I forced the picture from my mind.

The afternoon passed as all those afternoons had before it: we counted how many cartwheels we could make in a row before one of us fell; we collected shells; and we paddled in the shallows, splashing each other until our skirts were soaked. And we kept at it until dusk started nibbling at the corners of the sky, and we gave in to the end of the day, the last one we had at the beach before Harriet left.