‘I’m surprised she hadn’t already thought of it, if May took all her clothes with her,’ Dulcie said.
Ross smiled. ‘May’s quite an actress. You can bet your boots she thought up some good reason to take them all. Don’t be mad with her, Dulc, she might have been miserable there, you don’t know.’
‘If she was, she would’ve told me,’ Dulcie said dourly. ‘She isn’t a martyr like me. But what am I going to say to Mrs Wilberforce when I phone her?’
‘Nothing,’ Ross said with a shrug. ‘Just make out you are as mystified as she is.’
Dulcie had a difficult conversation with Mrs Wilberforce. The woman was upset and disappointed that May thought so little of her that she could just take off without a word. Out of loyalty to her sister Dulcie didn’t say she knew May had gone to Sydney, and tried to soothe Mrs Wilberforce by saying she appreciated all she’d done for May, and she thought it was a spur of the moment decision on May’s part, because she was burning to get an office job in a big city.
But once Dulcie had put the phone down she burst into tears. Bruce came into the room and took her in his arms to comfort her.
‘There, there,’ he murmured, holding her tightly ‘I know you are upset that May behaved so recklessly, but maybe she had good reason. I for one am glad that at least she’s well away from that bloody Reverend Mother.’
Dulcie looked up at him in surprise. ‘What’s she got to do with it? May didn’t suffer at her hands the way I did.’
‘I’m not so sure about that, Dulcie,’ he said gently. ‘Maybe she wasn’t beaten as you were, but I think she was and still is afraid of that woman. She mentioned her the day before you and Ross came home.’
‘What did she say?’
‘That the woman had kept on telephoning, and she felt she would try to manipulate her into another job of her choosing. I reckon that’s why May chose to run away now. She probably thought if she left it until she was eighteen that might be too late.’
‘She never said anything like that to me,’ Dulcie said, a little hurt.
‘Sometimes it’s easier to tell an outsider. Perhaps, too, she told me so I would pass it on to you now.’
Dulcie thought about that for a moment. ‘What can I do now, Bruce? I feel so scared for her.’
‘You can’t do anything but wait until she contacts you. But try to look at all May has got going for her. She’s got secretarial qualifications, a good personality. She’s very pretty and she’s clued up about people. She’s used to city life too, remember. If anyone can make it in Sydney, it’s her.’
Dulcie realized she must go back to Ross in the caravan. It was after eleven now and she’d said she wouldn’t be long making the phone call.
‘You are quite right,’ she said with a deep sigh. ‘And I’d better go.’
‘I’ll have a talk with Ross about building the house tomorrow,’ Bruce said, patting her shoulder. ‘It’s you and him you have to concern yourself with, Dulcie, your sister can make her own life.’
Ross was in bed when Dulcie got back to the caravan, listening to her radio. It was so hot and airless in there that her spirits fell even lower. She glanced about her, feeling irritated by how cramped it was, yet when Bruce and Ross towed it here she’d been thrilled and couldn’t wait to make it into a real home.
They never bothered to put the bed away during the day, there was no point as they didn’t use the caravan during that time. As the bed took up the whole living space, all that was left was the little kitchen area by the door. Ross had repainted the caravan all white inside, and the kitchen cupboards pale blue. She’d made blue and white gingham curtains, and a deep blue fitted bedcover, so even with the bed down it looked neat. But the reality was that the bed dominated everything, it was the only place to sit, they even had to crawl across it to get to the cupboards where their clothes were on the other side.
She sat on the end of it now, to tell Ross what had happened.
‘She’ll be right,’ he said, lying back on the pillows, his arms behind his head. He was wearing only his pyjama bottoms and his chest was tanned and deep golden-brown. ‘She’s bound to write to you soon too. Maybe one day we can go there for a holiday. They say Sydney’s beaut.’
Dulcie pulled her nightdress from under the pillow and took it into the kitchen area to change. The door of the cupboard opened back to shut off the other room for privacy, and she needed it, his rejection of her in a physical way had made her begin to believe her body was repulsive.
As she took off her clothes she told Ross about Bruce suggesting he built a house. ‘He said he’ll talk to you about it tomorrow,’ she finished up as she came back into the bedroom part to get into bed.
His face was a picture, eyes shining with excitement and delight. He hadn’t looked like that since the wedding breakfast, but instead of pleasing her it made her feel even sadder. What good was a fine house if the two people who had to live in it were only like brother and sister?
He turned off the light and the radio, and put his arm around her. ‘Just think, Dulc, a real house of our own!’ His voice was almost squeaking with glee. ‘I’ll make it so pretty, everything just where you want it. We could have a big window right down to the floor so we can sit there in the evening and watch the kangaroos and the birds from our easy-chairs,’
She wished she could join in his excitement, she had so many ideas in her head for her dream house, collected together over the last three years. But she thought she’d rather live in an old shack, cooking over an open fire, and have passion, than spend the rest of her life in luxury and feeling rejected.
‘Goodnight,’ she whispered, turning to kiss him, and to her surprise he kissed her back the way he had when she came back from Perth. It was lovely, sweet and lingering, and she got that churned-up feeling of longing inside her again.
‘I love you so much,’ he whispered in the darkness and he unbuttoned her nightdress and reached for her breast.
Dulcie hardly dared breathe, she was so afraid he would stop suddenly, but he didn’t, he stroked her breast and kissed her again and again, his lips moving down her neck and throat until he reached her breast and sucked on her nipple.
It was like fireworks exploding inside her. She stroked his hair, his neck and shoulders, smoothing him, loving him, yet silently begging him not to disappoint her. His hand moved down her body, found the bottom of her nightdress and slowly moved up her leg and thigh.
Her heart was racing, her mouth dry, but she could hear him moaning softly and his breath becoming louder. Tentatively his fingers stroked at her pubic hair, she could almost feel his fright at having come so far, but he didn’t pull away. She moaned involuntarily as at last his finger slipped inside her, and she gave herself up to the blissful sensation, her fear vanishing.
She had never felt anything like it before, each delicate probe sent spasms throughout her entire body. If he never went beyond doing just that she could be happy for the rest of her life. But she wanted to please him too, and she lifted his face from her breast to kiss him, at the same time arching her back so he could go further inside her. He wasn’t just kissing her now, but devouring her, and it was wonderful. She ran her fingernails down his spine, and her pleasure was heightened still more by his shudder of delight.
He was half over her, his mouth so eager, moving between her lips and breasts. Dulcie slid her hands down his sides to push down his pyjamas. She could feel his penis hard against her thigh, near the source of her pleasure, she slid her hand towards it, and tentatively cupped her hand around it.
All at once it went limp and as it did he drew away from her like a startled cat. His reaction was so sudden, just like a light being switched off, and for Dulcie, a sick feeling of dread replaced the bliss there had been just moments before.
‘It’s all right,’ she murmured instinctively, as she would to a frightened child. ‘I love you, everything’s all right.’
But it wasn’t all right. He turned his face into the pillow and she knew he was crying. Bewildered as Dulcie was, she sensed that trying to question him would only make the situation worse. She curved herself along his side, put her arm around his back and just held him.
As she lay there in the darkness, holding him, she wished that she knew more about the mechanics of love-making in humans. She knew exactly how it worked for animals, living on a farm she’d seen it all dozens of times. Clearly it worked much the same way for humans, but perhaps there was a further dimension she didn’t know about. She had thought that touching his penis would give him pleasure, but clearly it had repelled him. It was her fault.
The feeling that it was all her fault grew as the months passed. Ross could not be induced to talk about what had happened that night, and he didn’t touch her again. She had received only a postcard from May with a picture of Sydney Harbour Bridge. No address to write back to, just a couple of lines saying she was safe and well. If her own sister thought so little of her that she couldn’t write a proper letter, it stood to reason she was lacking in something.
She missed Betty so much too. No more cosy woman-to-woman chats during the day, discussion about recipes or a new design for a quilt. Dulcie felt she could have confided her worries about Ross to her, and she would have known what to do.
The summer ended with violent storms, bringing heavy rain that turned the paddocks into lakes. Ross had dug the foundations for their house during the hot weather and he was furious that the work he had done was now wasted, the holes filled again with mud. Dulcie could keep the mud out of Bruce’s house, but it was impossible to keep it out of the caravan, just a walk over to the lavatory in the bunkhouse brought it in. Sometimes at night when she was tired, she’d sit on the end of the bed and weep with frustration to see the tiny floor in the kitchen area which she’d only cleaned that morning filthy again. However careful they were to remove their shoes the minute they got inside, the mud still seemed to get on their bare feet and ended up on the sheets.
Before the rain came she’d decided she should make the evening meals for herself and Ross in the caravan. She felt that if they pretended to be a happily married couple, perhaps they’d eventually become one. It was enough hard work putting the bed away so they had a table and benches to sit on, but the little stove was temperamental, flaring up suddenly for no reason, and the meat was often raw in the middle and burnt on the outside. She could hardly blame Ross for going off to the pub later, she was so tetchy after cooking a meal and serving it in the house, then rushing over here to do it all again. On top of that the caravan was often full of smoke.
She tried cooking their meal in Bruce’s house while she made the men’s, and bringing it over, but that was just as much of a palaver, running backwards and forwards for something she’d forgotten. Ross still went off to the pub, and so when the rain came she gave it up and they went back to the house for meals as before. But she felt such a failure.
Once it began to get cold, the caravan was like an icebox and so was the shower in the bunkhouse. Soon she was darting over to the house in the mornings in her dressing-gown, having a shower there and dressing. That made her feel guilty too for it was like rejecting the home Ross had worked so hard on. She would linger in the house with Bruce after supper, staying longer and longer with him. She told herself she was just keeping him company and what was the harm in that?
Yet she knew there was harm, for she and Ross were locked into a circle of destructive behaviour. She knew if she was to beg him to stop going to the pub, he would, but that would mean she’d have to stay with him in the caravan. While he was drinking he wasn’t going to make any attempt to sort out their marital problems; if he kept away from her, she could pretend they didn’t exist.
Sometimes Bruce would make a concerned remark about the way things were, but Dulcie didn’t think he had any real idea of the gravity of the situation, for Ross going off to the pub wasn’t unusual behaviour. Few Australian men were homebodies, drinking with their mates after work was considered quite normal.
Bruce had always liked a drink himself, but lack of money to spend on it for most of his marriage had meant that by the time he did have the money, he had lost the urge. He was glad of Dulcie’s company too, sometimes they watched television, sometimes she helped him with the accounts, or they just talked. He still missed Betty so much, and as time passed, Dulcie was becoming more and more the daughter he’d never had, and she looked upon him as a father.
Towards the end of the winter, Ross began working on their house in earnest. He would get up an hour earlier to lay a row of bricks before starting the milking, any spare time during the day and he was back to it. He lost interest in going to the pub, after supper he would take a couple of kerosene lamps out there with him to continue, his bedtime reading was books on building.
These were times of happiness between Dulcie and him. By day she would help him when she could, passing bricks, mixing concrete, and the shared project pushed their problems aside. Ross was never more content than when he had hard work to do – he flourished on it, smiling and whistling all day. He was more demonstrative with his affection for her, he talked and laughed readily. Dulcie could pretend then that everything was fine, she didn’t attempt to try to coerce him into love-making any longer, and quite often days would pass without her even thinking about it.
Yet it was around early October that she began to see he was driven in a way other men weren’t. She studied John, Bob, Bruce and other men who called at the farm, and noted that although their work was very important to them, it wasn’t their whole life the way it was with Ross. They looked forward to the fortnightly Friday night dances, the annual ball at the Bijou theatre was eagerly anticipated, as were picnics at the beach, parties and barbecues. In winter football was the sole topic of conversation, for every small town had its team and every single man went to see the Saturday matches even if it meant driving 100 miles or more. But Ross showed little or no interest in any of these things. His love was work, and the harder he drove himself the happier he was.