Dulcie thought sleepy little Esperance was heaven on earth. She loved the pine trees, the clear blue sea, the fishing boats and the little wooden-fronted shops. It wasn’t as stiflingly hot in summer as Salmon Gums, there was no bother from flies, and the residents and holidaymakers seemed so jolly and friendly. When she sat on the beach with an ice-cream, looking at the sea, she didn’t feel she’d been cheated by Australia, for it was like the pictures she’d seen all those years ago at the Sacred Heart. She was determined that when she was eighteen she would find a job here, and one day explore all along the coastline which Jake said was very rugged and beautiful.
‘Pat!’ she called, well before she got to the barn. ‘Supper’s ready.’
There was no reply, only a scuffle to her right. Sly barked, and Dulcie lifted the lantern to see a kangaroo just a few feet away from her. ‘Shoo,’ she said. She loved to see kangaroos, but not up close in the dark. Prince barked then and the kangaroo hopped away. Dulcie went on behind the barn.
Pat wasn’t at the sty, and it didn’t look or smell as if she’d mucked the pigs out. Mystified, Dulcie took the longer way back to the house, calling out her name. Just recently Pat had taken to going for a walk in the afternoons, she said it relaxed her, but she was always back well before the men came home.
Dulcie went back into the house. The men were just finishing their meal and they all looked up as she came in.
‘She’s not there,’ Dulcie said, feeling a little worried now.
‘What time did she go out?’ Bill asked.
‘About threeish. She said she was going to muck out the pigs, and for me to get the supper ready.’
‘It doesn’t take three hours to muck out three bloody pigs,’ Bill said curtly. ‘Anyone come by today?’
‘No,’ Dulcie said. ‘Well, I didn’t hear a truck or anything.’
Bill turned away from her and looked at the men. Suddenly they all looked concerned, not irritated as she would have expected.
‘Shall I go out looking?’ Jake asked.
Bill nodded. ‘Take the truck, call in at the Petersons as you pass and see if she’s there. I’ll go over the back on the tractor.’
Ted got up. ‘Bert and me will look over towards our place. She could’ve walked that way.’
Now that Dulcie saw they were worried, she became frightened.
‘What shall I do?’ she asked.
‘Stay here,’ Bill said. ‘I’ll leave Prince with you and take Sly.’
Dulcie sat down to eat her supper, but she had only taken a couple of mouthfuls when a thought struck her. Could Pat have chosen today to leave?
It seemed an absurd thought, for since that night when they finished the harvest last year, she hadn’t said anything at all to indicate she ever thought of it. Yet she had been even more morose than usual in the past few weeks.
Dulcie put her supper back into the oven and went into Pat and Bill’s room. Pat’s hairbrush and comb still sat on the top of the chest of drawers. Her nightdress was folded under the pillow where Dulcie had put it that morning too. Feeling a sense of relief, Dulcie was just about to turn round and return to the kitchen and her supper, when she felt compelled to check the wardrobe too.
At first glance nothing was missing. Pat’s best blue coat was still hanging there, and the usual four or five dresses, her two pairs of shoes, one with high heels, the other flat ordinary ones sitting beneath them. But then she remembered the two-piece navy blue costume Pat had bought in Esperance the last time they went there, and the new shoes. They were gone.
Pat had asked her not to mention them to the men. Dulcie hadn’t thought that was odd at the time, in fact it had prompted her to tell Pat that her mother used to buy new clothes and never admitted it to her father.
Returning to the kitchen, Dulcie found she no longer had any appetite for her supper and gave it to Prince. As she cleared the table and washed up, all she could think of was Pat. She had been in one of her silent moods this morning, and Dulcie remembered that when she went out to feed the chooks and the pigs, Pat had been sitting at the table with a cup of tea. When Dulcie returned half an hour later, Pat was still sitting there, the tea cold in front of her. That was unusual – even in a sullen mood Pat never sat still for more than a few minutes. So she must’ve been brooding about something.
That navy costume and shoes were too smart to wear anywhere except in town – had she packed them in a small bag knowing that someone was coming by today who would give her a lift away from here?
The more Dulcie thought about it, the more certain she became that was what Pat had done. Without a suitcase and wearing her old work-clothes, a neighbour picking her up would think nothing of it if she said she needed something urgently from the shop, and that she’d wait there to get a lift back later.
The bus left at six for Kalgoorlie. Was she on it?
Part of her was glad for Pat, she even silently applauded her for finding the courage to go, yet she couldn’t help but be horrorstruck by what this would mean for her. Bill would be furious when he discovered the truth, he might even take it out on her. How could she possibly stay in this house alone at nights with him?
The more she dwelt on that, the more scared she became. Yet at the same time she knew she mustn’t tell Bill about the missing costume and shoes, or he might drive up to Kalgoorlie and catch Pat before she could get on the train to Adelaide.
As the evening progressed Dulcie became even more confused, for each time the men came back in they looked more and more worried, and their questions ever more frantic. For the first time in the year and a half she’d lived in this house she saw these men did actually care about Pat. Bill certainly deserved to lose her, yet Dulcie felt very sorry that it was only now when he believed she was hurt or in danger that he was able to show his feelings.
‘You should have gone out to look for her before it got dark,’ he said to Dulcie, running his hands through his hair. His dark eyes were deeply troubled, yet he didn’t sound as if he was blaming her, only himself for not coming home earlier. ‘She could’ve been bitten by a bloody snake. She’s so thin the poison would work twice as fast as it would in a man of my weight. But if she’s lying out around here somewhere I can’t understand why the dogs haven’t found her.’
He checked their room and found nothing missing. He questioned Dulcie about what Pat was wearing and if anyone had come to the house in the last week.
Bert was the only one who dared voice the possibility that Pat might have left him. ‘She could’ve, Bill! A snake bite don’t knock you out right away, she’d have shouted for help or got back here. You’ve been saying for weeks that she’s been acting weird. I reckon she’s got another bloke and she’s gone off with him.’
Bill took a threatening step towards him, but Ted intervened.
‘You stupid bastard,’ he said to his brother, making sure he was between the two men. ‘We ain’t exactly in the middle of Perth where blokes come and go without being noticed. I always said you think with yer dick not yer head.’
Jake cooled things down. ‘Pat ain’t the kind to go off with another bloke. We all know that, so shut yer gob, Bert. I reckon she just wandered off for a bit of a walk, went too far and got lost in the dark. Dulcie said she was wearing her old trousers, boots and that jacket with the rips in it. So she weren’t planning to go out dancing!’
He froze Bert with a say-anything-more-and-I’ll-break-your-neck look. ‘She won’t freeze in that lot, and we’ll soon find her in the morning. Best thing we can do is get our heads down for a bit and be out looking for her as soon as it’s light.’
It was after eleven when Ted and Bert left to go to their house. Jake went off on his motorbike, but Bill went out again with Sly. Dulcie stood out on the veranda for some time; she could hear Bill calling to Pat and saw the flash of his lantern through the bushes. She felt wicked allowing him to worry when by now Pat might be boarding the train to Adelaide.
It was after one when Bill finally came back in. Dulcie made him tea and put it in front of him.
‘Go to bed now, Bill,’ she said, touching his shoulder. ‘You can’t do anything more tonight.’
‘Did she say
anything
to you?’ he asked, looking beseechingly at her. ‘Women talk about stuff when they’re on their own, don’t they?’
Dulcie sensed he was beginning to think Pat might have actually walked out on him. Perhaps while he was searching outside he’d come to see how badly he had treated her. Yet the surprising part of it all was that he wasn’t angry, he just looked like a kid who’d been whipped.
‘She’s been very quiet for some weeks,’ Dulcie said truthfully. She didn’t understand why she felt sorry for him now, after all the times she’d heard him hitting Pat and calling her foul names. She looked down at his two big fists clenched on the table and could imagine clearly what damage they must have inflicted on his wife. ‘But she didn’t talk about personal things to me, Bill.’
‘I treated her so bad sometimes,’ he said, holding his head between his two hands. ‘I wish I hadn’t. When I get her back I’ll get this place fixed up better for her.’
As Dulcie got into her bed, leaving Bill slumped on the couch in the living-room, she felt a piece of paper between the two sheets. She pulled it out, quickly lit the candle again, and saw it was a brief note from Pat.
Dear Dulcie,
she read.
I’ve left. I couldn’t stand it any more. The only thing I feel bad about is leaving you there to face the music. I reckon you won’t find this until you go to bed, by then I’ll be well away, but don’t show it to Bill. I’ve left a note for him in our post-office box. Tomorrow you go down to the Petersons and ask them to ring Sergeant Collins, you can’t stay there without me and I know he’ll come and get you. You’re a good kid, and I hope you’ll get a better deal in your next job. Pat.
Dulcie tore the note into tiny pieces and burned them one by one with the candle until it was nothing more than a sprinkling of ash. She didn’t know how she felt: there was relief that Pat was safe, that she’d cared enough to worry about Dulcie’s safety, and even delight that now she could get away from here too. But she knew too that when Bill discovered that Pat had left him, all hell would break loose.
She must have slept eventually because she woke with a start to hear the truck starting up. She pulled back the curtain and saw the first weak rays of daylight in the sky.
The fire was lit and the kettle boiling when Jake came in. He looked rougher than usual, clearly he hadn’t slept much either. ‘Bill out looking already?’ he said.
Dulcie nodded. ‘He was out at first light. Are the others with you? Shall I make your breakfast now?’
‘They’ve gone off in their truck down towards Salmon Gums again. I’ll take my bike and help Bill look around here. Don’t start breakfast till they all get back.’
He was gone in a flash, and she heard the sound of his motorbike roar off around the back of the farm.
She busied herself getting the food ready for the chickens and pigs, trying to keep her mind blank. But she couldn’t. If Bert and Ted picked up the mail while they were in Salmon Gums, Pat’s letter with it, Bill would go mad with anger. Yet if they didn’t collect the mail, how long would Bill go on searching out in the bush before he gave up? If he called the police, how could she go on pretending she knew nothing? What if they got other farmers to join in the search?
When Jake came back and said he’d called the police from the Petersons’ farm, Dulcie felt sick with anxiety. She imagined them grilling her and eventually getting her to admit what she knew, then blaming her for wasting their time. What if Bill turned on her and hit her?
But then Bert and Ted arrived back, and by the angry expressions on their faces and the mail in Bert’s hands, she knew it was all going to come out. Bill turned up moments later, wild-eyed and distraught, snatched the letter from their hands and ripped it open.
‘The bitch,’ he roared out as he read the letter. ‘She’s bloody well left me!’
Dulcie did what she always did when a row was brewing in the house, and rushed outside to do the chores. For once she was glad to milk the cows and chop wood, anything was better than going back inside and being drawn into the furore.
But even outside she could hear Bill’s voice as he ranted and raved at his men and she wondered how long it would be before she was called in for more questioning and whether she dared make a break for it now and run down to the Petersons’ farm.
She thought when a police car arrived at ten o’clock that her troubles would be over, but the two policemen from Norseman were very different from Sergeant Collins, more like Bill and his cousins in character – brusque, dismissive and arrogant. They made it very easy for her to do nothing more than show them into the house and offer them a cup of tea, as it was clear they thought a sixteen-year-old brought up in an orphanage had to be dense and wouldn’t have been a confidante of a farmer’s wife.
They stayed around half an hour, during which time Bill’s voice roared out several times in anger and she heard glass breaking which suggested he was now drinking. Dulcie stayed outside, chopping wood for all she was worth, and it was only when the police came out, preparing to leave, that she plucked up her courage and asked them what she was supposed to do now.
‘Carry on with your work,’ the foxy-faced one said, as if he was surprised by the question.
‘But I can’t stay here alone with Bill,’ Dulcie said, her eyes filling with tears at his harsh tone.
She saw them exchange glances. ‘Why not?’ the younger, fresh-faced one asked.
‘It isn’t right,’ she retorted, wishing she dared ask if they would leave their daughter or young sister here with an angry man who was likely to go out and get rip-roaring drunk. ‘Could you telephone Sergeant Collins in Esperance and tell him what’s happened?’ she asked.
‘What’s he to you?’ the foxy-faced one asked.
‘He was kind to me in the past when I ran away. He often comes by to bring me books. Please ring him,’ she pleaded.