John Gordon Davis

TALK TO ME TENDERLY,

TELL ME LIES

Copyright

HarperCollinsPublishers

1 London Bridge Street,

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 1992

Copyright © John Gordon Davis 1992

Cover photograph © Shutterstock.com

John Gordon Davis asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication.

Source ISBN: 9780007574384

Ebook Edition © OCTOBER 2014 ISBN: 9780008119317

Version: 2014-12-19

Dedication

To Harry and June Pearson

‘Talk to me tenderly, tell me lies.

I am a woman, and time flies.’

Vivian Yeiser Laramore

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Part One

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Part Two

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Part Three

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Part Four

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Part Five

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Part Six

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Keep Reading

About the Author

Also by the Author

About the Publisher

Part One

CHAPTER 1

In this land the distances are vast. If you stop your vehicle and listen there is only ringing silence. It is always hot in this part of Queensland, and the rainfall is very spare. Then, almost without warning, the rain can come crashing down for weeks, and the rivers that have been dry for years break their banks, causing devastating floods over hundreds of thousands of square kilometres, and whole villages and towns have to be evacuated. Because of the great distances there are few telephones, so people keep in touch by two-way radio. Outback children have to receive their education from broadcasts and medical attention can only be had through the Flying Doctor Service. The private aeroplane is not a luxury here but a working vehicle. The McKenzies had an aeroplane, but it had not flown for a year because, after several years of very poor rainfall, they could not afford the maintenance to keep it airworthy.

This Monday afternoon, close to sunset, Helen McKenzie was doing her laundry. Her washing-machine had broken down, so she had put a cauldron of water on to the wood-burning stove. She had taken off her jeans and shirt to wash them, and she scrubbed the kitchen floor in her underwear while she waited for the water to heat. She had dispatched Oscar, her dog, outside while she did the job, and had propped the back screen-door ajar with the mop because the damn latch was faulty and often jammed from the inside. The other door, leading into the rest of the house, Helen had bolted closed on the far side, because it too had a faulty latch which allowed Oscar to enter simply by pushing his paw against it.

She had almost finished scrubbing the floor when she heard furious barking outside. Then a big snake, nine feet long, came slithering flat-out into her kitchen, with Oscar in joyful pursuit. She screamed, the back door banged closed as Oscar bounded into the room, and with a terrifying writhing the snake flashed across the floor and disappeared into one of the kitchen cupboards. Helen screamed again as she dashed to the back door, but she slipped on the wet linoleum and sprawled. She scrambled up wild-eyed and flung herself at the door, but the catch was stuck. She shook it desperately; then, in the purest horror, she ran to the kitchen table and hurled herself up on to it.

The long cupboard into which the snake had fled lined the entire wall, from one door to the other. Helen McKenzie crouched in the middle of the table midst the cacophony of Oscar’s barking, her heart pounding, eyes wide, desperately searching for the terrible snake amongst the things at the bottom of the dim cupboards. Oscar was charging up and down after the snake as it writhed from one end to the other. Helen shrieked at him to come away but he would have none of that. She could not see the snake, but she knew it was a King Brown, one of the deadliest. Helen crouched on the table shouting at Oscar, her terrified mind fumbling; then she frantically crawled to the end and leapt off to try the back door once more, but Oscar came roaring along the cupboards, slammed into her legs and she sprawled again. She crashed headlong on the linoleum and all she knew was the panicked horror of Oscar furiously scrambling over her. She screamed ‘Come away!’ and scrambled up frantically and ran to the back door. She hurled herself against it, wrenching the handle, but still it refused to open. Helen turned and flung herself back up on to the table again, just in time to see Oscar jump out of the dark cupboard with a yelp, the terrible serpent’s fangs flashing at his muzzle – then the beast recoiled into the darkness and Oscar lurched backwards into the kitchen, shaking his head.

‘Oscar!’

He staggered backwards across the kitchen, yelping, brushing his snout with his paw, then twisting as if trying to find his tail. ‘Oscar!’ Helen screamed. The dog crashed over on to his side. ‘Oscar!’ Helen heard something fall in the cupboard, she jerked around and saw a long dark slither in the dimness. ‘Oscar!’ She scrambled on her hands and knees to the edge of the table, gasping, eyes wide, and down on the floor Oscar tried to clamber back to his feet. He got halfway, then collapsed on to his side. ‘Oscar!’ He rolled his eyes at her, and tried to get up, and he crashed again. He lay there, trembling, taking stentorian breaths. Then he spasmed once, his legs went out rigid, jerking, then he suddenly went limp, groaned, and was still.

Helen lay on the table, aghast: then her incredulous face began to crumple.

‘Oh Oscar, Oscar, Oscar …’

A slithering sound came from the cupboard and she jerked around and stared, heart pounding – but she could not see the dreadful snake. Then she dropped her face in her hands and sobbed.

That is how she was, lying weeping on the table in the dusk, when she heard the motor cycle. She raised her tear-stained face and listened incredulously. Then:

‘Help!’ she wailed.

CHAPTER 2

The motor cycle spluttered up the track from the distant farm-gate, its headlight on. It came to a halt opposite the steps leading up to the verandah of the big homestead. The rider climbed off the machine. He was dressed entirely in black leather motor-cyclist’s gear. He raised the visor of his black crash-helmet, and looked at the unlit house.

As the house was in darkness he would have gone away, but for the fact that the front door was open. He listened. Silence. Then, uncertainly, he mounted the steps and walked across the verandah to the front door, his steel-tipped boots sounding loud on the wood. He rapped on the frame of the outer screen-door and listened.

Nothing. He knocked again, louder. Still silence. He was about to turn away in discomfort at being on another person’s property in the gathering dark, when he heard what sounded like a woman’s cry. He listened intently, and the cry came again. He opened the screen-door, leaned into the dark doorway and called tentatively:

‘Hullo?’

He heard a muffled, anguished cry: ‘The kitchen door …’

The man frowned, then descended the verandah steps. He turned towards the back where he presumed the kitchen would be. ‘Hullo …?’ he called.

He heard another cry as he approached the kitchen door. ‘Hullo?’ Then he heard a woman’s voice:

‘Press the green button inside the door!’

The man walked up to the screen-door uncertainly. It opened satisfactorily. He peered into the darkness.

‘There’s a green switch just inside!’

He stepped into the dark kitchen and groped for the switch. The door clanged shut behind him as his hand found it. He pressed the switch and somewhere a diesel generator started up, and the kitchen lights came on. He stared.

He saw a dead dog on the floor and a wild woman crouched on the kitchen table in her underwear. She cried: ‘There’s a snake!’

The same instant he saw a long writhing streak across the floor. He whirled back to the door, but the handle was jammed. The snake seemed to bounce off the cupboard doors on the opposite wall, then it flashed around and streaked towards him. Helen screamed again and the man gargled in fright and scrambled across the kitchen out of its way. The huge snake hit the closed screen-door, then whirled around and disappeared back into the cupboard with a crashing of fruit jars. The man leapt up on to the table beside Helen.

Helen McKenzie stared at the stranger crouched beside her on the table. He still had on his black crash-helmet, the visor up. He wore gauntlets reaching to his elbows and high black leather boots. His studded leather lumber-jacket was zipped up to a thin, unshaven face, dominated by a beak nose and dark eyes under heavy black eyebrows.

‘Who’re you?’ Helen whispered.

The man saw a worn, frightened, pretty woman, her blonde hair awry, ringlets sticking to her sweaty neck.

‘Ben Sunninghill,’ he croaked.

Helen’s mind was fumbling. ‘How’re we going to get rid of this snake?’

Mr Sunninghill’s brown eyes were wide. He turned and looked fearfully at the dark cupboards, then shook his head. ‘I’m from New York,’ he said, as if that explained everything. He added: ‘I’ve just come to borrow a spanner.’

‘New York?’ Helen stared at him a long moment, then she dropped her head and sobbed. ‘Oh, thank God, anyway … Just thank God you’re here …’

They crouched in the centre of the big table. Helen was still weepy about Oscar, but Ben Sunninghill was more composed now. He said hoarsely: ‘Where is he now?’

Helen pointed at the open doors of the main cupboards.

‘Which end?’

She shook her head. ‘They’re all inter-connected at floor level. He could be in any of them.’

Ben pointed at the open cupboard on the opposite wall. ‘How do you know he’s not in there?’

‘I don’t. But when you came in I think I saw him go there.’ She pointed again.

Ben looked very worried. Then he said hopefully:

‘Snakes are as frightened of us as we are of them, aren’t they?’

‘Oh God … King Browns are very aggressive, particularly when they’re frightened.’ She looked down at Oscar and her chin began to twitch.

‘If we jump off the table together and run for that back door—’

‘The bloody catch sticks, there’s a real trick to opening it.’

Ben pointed at the other door. ‘That one?’

‘It’s bolted from the other side.’

Ben Sunninghill looked unhappily around the kitchen for weapons. There was a meat-cleaver next to the sink and a broom on the floor. He gingerly reached down, picked it up, and looked at it with misgiving.

‘Have you got a gun in the house?’

‘Yes, but it’s in my bedroom. And it’s not a shotgun, it’s only a .303. Not much good for a snake.’

Ben took a deep, unhappy breath. ‘I’ve got these boots and gauntlets, and the broom. If I make a dash for the back door and smash it open—’

It was then that he noticed the cauldron of water boiling on the stove. He looked at it, then turned to the cupboard. He considered, then gingerly leant out with the broom and opened it wider. He peered.

Nothing happened. He could see no snake in those shadows. He poked the broom into the clutter at the bottom. Instantly, there was a furious slithering noise and the terrible snake burst out midst a clatter of jars. Helen screeched as the creature flashed across the floor and disappeared into the smaller open cupboard opposite.

Ben stared into the beast’s new lair. ‘Can you see him?’

Helen peered. ‘Oh God, I think so …’

Ben took a deep breath.

‘Right – listen. What I’m going to do is jump across on to the sink, and get that pot of boiling water. I’ll bring it back here, and then I’ll throw it on to that snake.’

‘Oh God …’ Helen whispered.

Ben crouched carefully along the table, to the end. He gauged the distance to the sink. About five feet – easy enough, but could he make it back with a heavy cauldron of boiling water? He began to get to his feet. He straightened up shakily, his arms out to control his balance. Then he launched himself across the gap.

He landed with a crash in the sink. He crouched there for a moment, trembling. He looked back at Helen.

‘Before I come back, you must crawl to the far end of the table, to counter-balance me.’

Helen began to edge down the table. Ben looked at the heavy iron cauldron. It had a handle on each side, and it held about two and a half gallons. He got slowly to his feet. Crouching, he reached down to the handles. Even through his leather gauntlets, they were hot.

‘Use the oven-mitts!’ Helen gasped.

The oven-mitts hung on a peg beside the stove. Ben pulled them on over his gauntlets; then bent forward and began to lift the cauldron. It was astonishingly heavy – and frightening, the boiling water seething in his straining grip. He crouched on the edge of the sink, straining under the treacherous weight. He turned carefully towards the end of the table, looked at Helen and croaked: ‘Ready?’

She nodded desperately. Ben leant forward, stretched out a skinny leg, and he went for it, half jumping, half lunging across the gap. He landed on the end of the table, and he howled.

He howled because a pint of boiling water slopped out of the cauldron into his boots. He reeled with shock, Helen shrieked, and for a terrible moment he teetered on the edge of the table, about to crash off and scald himself with boiling water. Then he recovered his balance. He crouched, enduring the agony, eyes closed, still clutching his treacherous burden.

‘Are you all right?’ Helen gasped.

Ben opened his watering eyes and nodded. He took a deep breath.

‘You’ve got to keep clear of me. You’ve got to crawl down to this end as I come up to your end. Ready?’

‘Yes,’ Helen whispered desperately.

He began to make his way unsteadily down the table. They passed each other in the middle. Ben staggered to the end.

He peered into the dark cupboard. And, yes, he could just make out the dreadful beast coiled in there. For a teetering moment he crouched, trying to take aim with his thirty pounds of boiling water, his arm muscles trembling with strain; then he grunted and he hurled the water.

It cascaded into the cupboard with a steaming crash, and all hell broke loose. The snake came bursting out in a great writhing knot, coiling and contorting, a twisting killer three yards long convulsing around the kitchen floor, flashing jaws agape. Helen shrieked and snatched up the broom and swiped down at it with all her might. It skidded across the floor, and she shrieked again and swiped again, and then there was a metallic crash as Ben Sunninghill hurled the empty cauldron. It landed on the beast’s head and he leapt off the table, snatched up the meat-cleaver from the sink and ran at the writhing mass. With one furious swipe he chopped the snake in half. Now two sections of it were writhing bloodily all over the floor. Ben raised the cleaver again, aimed wildly for the head, and swiped. He chopped the head clean off, but still the sections writhed all over the floor. Ben Sunninghill frantically chopped and chopped, scuttling around scattering pieces of bloody snake everywhere.

Finally he stopped and stood up, chest heaving. Helen was leaning against the cupboard, her hair a mess, her breasts heaving. She looked at Ben, then she stared at Oscar lying dead. Then her bright eyes filled with tears, her lower lip curled, and she cried: ‘Oh Oscar …’

She stumbled across the kitchen and fell to her knees beside the dog, gathered him into her arms and hugged him and rocked him.

‘Oh Oscar, Oscar …’ she cried.

CHAPTER 3

They sat at the kitchen table, sipping brandy. The mess of snake had been cleared up, the floor mopped, and Helen had put on fresh jeans and shirt. Oscar lay on the verandah, covered in a blanket, awaiting burial in the morning. She was over the immediate grief of it now: the brandy was doing its work and she just felt numb.

‘Sorry, what’s your surname again?’ she said.

‘Sunninghill,’ Ben said. He had taken off his crash-helmet and gauntlets.

‘And how come …? I mean, what brought you here, like a guardian angel?’

Ben smiled. ‘I came to borrow a spanner,’ he said. ‘For my motorbike. I was having trouble and when I passed your gate, I thought maybe you had the spanner I needed. I did have one, but I lost it somewhere.’

‘Spanner,’ Helen said. ‘Yes, of course, all kinds of spanners in the barn.’

‘Thank you.’

‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘But can it wait till tomorrow? I mean, it’s dark now.’

‘Of course.’

‘I mean, I’ve got a bed for you. Plenty of beds here.’

‘Well, that’s very kind of you,’ Ben said uncertainly. ‘As long as it’s no trouble?’

‘No, no, plenty of beds …’ She rubbed her forehead, then went on: ‘“Sunninghill”? Never heard that name before.’

Ben smiled. He was a funny-looking fellow with a ferrety sort of face, but when he smiled his cheeks puckered and all his teeth showed in a way that was both mysterious and charming. Mischievous. He was small, only about five foot eight inches in his high-heeled bikers’ boots. ‘Actually,’ he said, ‘my real name is Sonnenberg, but my father changed it by deed-poll to Sunninghill. The English translation of Sonnenberg.’

‘Oh,’ Helen said.

‘He wanted to create the impression we weren’t Jewish.’

‘Oh.’

That smile. ‘Trouble is, he looks even more Jewish than I do.’

‘Oh.’ She was going to say ‘Really?’ but changed it in her mouth. She added hastily: ‘Sunninghill’s a nice name. A cheerful name. You look a cheerful type of person.’

‘Sure, I’m a laugh a minute. Remember, that was only my first snake, I’ll probably improve. Does this happen very often?’

She smiled wanly. ‘First time I’ve seen one in the house. Oscar chased it in.’ She dabbed the corner of her eye. ‘Seen enough in the bush, though, over the years.’

‘How many years have you lived here?’

‘Since I got married. Twenty years. Or nineteen.’

‘And where’s your husband now?’

She waved a hand to the south. ‘South Australia. Broken Hill, working on the mines.’

‘Oh.’ He was about to say ‘Why?’, then stopped himself. Helen volunteered the reason, as if reading his thoughts:

‘The kids’ boarding-school fees. With the drought we couldn’t make ends meet. So he had to go back to his old job.’

‘Oh. How long ago?’

‘Two years.’ She added: ‘He comes home at Christmas, when the kids get their summer holidays.’

‘I see. So you run the ranch all by yourself?’

For a moment she wondered what he saw. ‘No. We had to get rid of our foreman last year when we sold most of the cattle, but we’ve still got one Abbo stockman and his wife. They live about five miles away. So you really were a guardian angel, showing up like that, otherwise I’d have stayed on this table all night.’ She smiled wanly. ‘So, what brings you to Australia on a motorbike?’

‘Just seeing the world. I saw on your gate the farm’s called Whoop-Whoop. Does that mean anything special?’

‘The real name is Edenvale Station, because we’ve got a few wells that are usually quite good, but because it’s so remote we’ve nicknamed it Whoop-Whoop. That’s a mythical Australian place. It means to Hell and gone. In the middle of nowhere.’

‘Beyond the black stump?’

‘Right.’ She poured more brandy into his glass. She didn’t feel so shaky any more. Just grief for Oscar. Oh Oscar … ‘So, Mr Sunninghill, from New York. What do you do in New York?’

‘Used to do. Jeweller.’

‘Oh?’

‘Well, a gemologist. Buying and selling stones, setting them, creating jewellery pieces.’

‘“Used to”? Have you quit?’

‘Sure have.’

‘Why? Don’t you like it?’

He said: ‘I like jewels. They’re beautiful. And I like making pieces of jewellery, that’s artistic. But buying and selling? The hassle? The cut-throat competition? And spending the rest of my life in that little shop? In New York?’ He shook his head. ‘There’s more to life than that. There’s a whole beautiful world out there.’

She looked at him enviously. ‘So you’ve sold up entirely?’

‘Not mine to sell. Family business. But my father’s cut me out entirely for leaving him in the lurch.’ He smiled then clasped his breast: ‘How can you do this to your Papa, my boy, my life? And you a gemologist – three years your Mama and I starved to send you to Technical School and now all you want is a Harley-Davidson to kill yourself with already, this is gratitude?’ He smiled. ‘He forgets I’ve worked for him since I was sixteen.’

Helen held out her hand, to show him her engagement ring, then slipped it off her finger. The diamond in the centre was missing. ‘It fell out somewhere,’ she said. ‘How much would it cost to replace?’

Ben examined it. The bed for the gem was substantial.

‘About a thousand dollars,’ he said regretfully. ‘Counting cutting, and so forth.’

Helen sighed. ‘Forget it …’ She looked at the empty ring sadly, then put it back on her finger. She went on: ‘So – how long have you been in Australia, Ben?’

‘A couple of months. Landed in Perth. Covered the west coast, then crossed the Nullarbor Plain. Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney, et cetera. Then up here into Queensland.’

‘Landed in Perth? Where from?’

‘Africa. Came across on a freighter, with my bike.’

‘Africa?’ Helen sounded envious. ‘Where were you in Africa?’

‘I sailed from South Africa, but I was all over the place. Crossed from Gibraltar into Morocco, then made my way down along the western bulge to Nigeria, Ghana, et cetera. To the Congo. Got on a steamer up the Congo River into Zaire and crossed over to Uganda and Kenya. Then down through Tanzania and Zambia and Zimbabwe, et cetera, into South Africa.’

Helen smiled. ‘“Et cetera”, huh? And, before Africa?’

‘Well,’ Ben said, ‘I went round South America, then crossed to the Far East. Japan, Hong Kong, then got a freighter to Thailand. Did a side trip by air to the Philippines and Indonesia, then rode the bike over to India.’ He smiled. ‘Decided against trying to ride across the Middle East – not the healthiest place for a Jew. So from Bombay I got a freighter through Suez to Greece.’ He shrugged. ‘Went around Europe for a while, then crossed over into north Africa.’

Helen was fascinated. ‘Wow. How wonderful! And where’re you going from here?’

‘Brisbane. Then up through northern Queensland to Darwin, see that Northern Territory.’

‘And from there?’

‘Back down to Perth. And then back to South Africa. I want to make a base there, then go off and do my thing.’

Helen echoed: ‘South Africa again? Why there?’

‘Great country.’ Ben shrugged.

‘But what about the politics?’

Ben shrugged again. ‘Great things are happening.’

Helen snorted. ‘Is there going to be democracy?’

‘That’s what the negotiations are all about.’

‘What’s there to negotiate?’ Helen demanded. ‘Why not good old-fashioned democracy? Is there going to be One Man One Vote or not?’

‘I believe so, but they’ll work it out to suit the local conditions.’

‘You mean the white man’s conditions?’

Ben shook his head. But he didn’t want to argue about it – people who hadn’t been to Africa just didn’t understand. ‘However, the reason I’m going back there is not for the politics, interesting though that is, but because of the animals.’

Helen was disarmed. ‘The wildlife?’

Ben sat back. ‘Oh, the wildlife out there is wonderful. And it’s being butchered out of existence. Not in South Africa, but in the rest of the continent.’ He shook his head. ‘There’re only three black rhino left in the whole of Kenya, d’you know that? In ten years the only wild animals left north of the Zambesi will be in isolated pockets, unless a great deal more is done. And that’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to join the guys who’re trying to do something about it.’

‘Like who?’

Ben said: ‘I’m a life-member of Greenpeace and the World Wide Fund for Nature. But there’re various outfits you can join who believe in fighting fire with fire, and they’re the guys I want to team up with. As a foot-soldier.’

Helen frowned at him. ‘Foot-soldier? And what does a foot-soldier do? Shoot people?’

Ben smiled. ‘There’re more ways of killing a cat than stuffing its throat with butter. Like destroying their infrastructure. Destroying their camps, their weapons, their snares, their vehicles. Their routes. Their products. Raiding the warehouses of their middlemen down on the coast in Mombasa and Dar es Salaam and Zanzibar and Maputo – generally knocking the living shit out of them.’ (Helen blinked – she didn’t like that familiarity.) Ben shrugged. ‘But if it comes to shooting the poachers themselves, why not? Those bastards shoot game rangers all the time in Africa.’

Helen sat back. And folded her arms. She didn’t know what to make of Mr Ben Sunninghill, jeweller, from New York. On his motorbike. Foot-soldier? ‘Have you ever had any military training?’

‘Sure, I was in the National Guard. That’s the States’ militia. Volunteer basis.’

She thought, Volunteer, huh? ‘Did you enjoy that?’

‘Sure. Most of the time. And nice to get away from the shop.’

‘And they trained you in … weapons and all that?’

‘Yeah. I was in the infantry.’ He smiled. ‘Never killed anybody though. I was too young for Vietnam.’

She said. ‘What’re you – about thirty-five?’

He took her aback by saying: ‘Right, and you? Forty-ish?’

‘You might have been gallant and said thirty-nine-ish!’

Ben gave that smile. ‘But forty is a beautiful age for a woman.’

Helen managed to return his smile, though she somehow didn’t like the comment. ‘Well, I’m forty-two, actually. That is hardly a beautiful age for this woman.’

‘But you are beautiful.’

Helen certainly didn’t like that forwardness. Oh no, she thought – not one of those, and him a guest in my house for the night! She sat up and said brightly:

‘Well, we better have something to eat, it’s getting late.’

Ben said earnestly: ‘Don’t worry about me, I had supper just before finding your gate.’

That was fine with Helen. ‘Some coffee, then?’

‘No, it’ll keep me awake.’

Well, that gave her an opening. ‘Yes, you must be tired. I’ll show you to your room. I’ll put you in the foreman’s cottage, it’s empty. It’s just half a mile over there.’ She pointed.

Ben said: ‘I don’t mind sleeping outside in my sleeping-bag, in fact I like it. Pity to use your sheets.’

‘I wouldn’t dream of it. You deserve a nice soft bed after all the way you’ve come.’ She stood up.

Oh dear, Ben thought. He looked up at her. He said:

‘I hope I haven’t offended you – I mean by saying you’re beautiful. Please don’t think I’m … that I had an ulterior motive.’

Helen was further taken aback. ‘Of course not,’ she said self-consciously. ‘Well, I’ll go in the Land Rover, you follow on your bike.’

Ben stood up. ‘No need to show me the way, just point me in the direction and I’ll find it. There can’t be many cottages round here.’

‘Of course I will. I’ll just get some sheets.’

‘I’ll use the nice soft bed but I’ll sleep in my sleeping-bag. I insist on not using up your sheets – you said your washing-machine’s broken.’

Helen hesitated. ‘But … it seems so inhospitable.’ Then she added: ‘And please don’t think I’m inhospitable in putting you in the cottage. But it wouldn’t be … proper for you to sleep in the house with my husband away.’

‘I understand perfectly,’ Ben said earnestly. He added with a grin: ‘What would all the neighbours say?’

CHAPTER 4

It was a beautiful morning. The sky was magnificently blue, the early sun cast long shadows through the trees, and the world was old and young at the same time. And on this glorious morning Helen McKenzie had to bury Oscar.

At nine o’clock she drove to the cottage to fetch Ben Sunninghill for breakfast. She found him outside, wearing shorts and singlet, his motorbike engine in pieces. He stood up when he saw her vehicle approaching. His skinny chest was covered in curly black hair, and he was only about five foot five in his bare feet.

‘G’day. Breakfast time,’ Helen said through the window. ‘Then I’ll show you our collection of spanners.’

He smiled. ‘I’ve already found the spanners – went for an early walk and found the barn unlocked, hope that’s okay.’

Again she was a little surprised by his forwardness. ‘Sure.’ She nodded at his motor cycle. ‘How’re you doing?’

‘Fine. Say, that’s a nice little airplane you got in that barn.’

‘Would be, if it worked.’

‘What’s wrong with it?’

‘Starter set-up, Clyde says. Clyde’s my husband. We’ve got to get spare parts.’

‘Has the engine been stationary for very long?’

‘No, I turn it over once a fortnight to keep it loose.’

‘Ah. Can you fly?’

‘Sure, when I have to.’

‘I’ve got a licence.’ He said it proudly. ‘Went down to Florida one winter and took a crash course. Don’t you enjoy it?’

‘Don’t like heights, and all that radio stuff about winds and weather. But you really need a plane out here. Do you – like flying?’

‘After sex and sailing, it’s what I like best.’

She didn’t like that – ‘after sex’. Far too familiar. ‘So, you’re a sailor too?’

‘An intrepid one. Want me to look at the airplane’s starter motor?’

It sounded a pushy offer, as if he were looking for an excuse to stay longer. ‘Reckon you could fix it, huh? Like you intrepidly kill snakes?’

‘I’m scared of snakes. But I can fix most anything. Does that old VW van in the barn work?’

‘Doubt it, we haven’t started it in a year and it’s as old as the hills. My father gave it to me when the kids were little so they could sleep in it when we went on holidays. Why, want to buy it? Swap it for your bike, maybe?’

Ben smiled. ‘No thanks. But I’ll have a look at it for you, if you like.’

That disarming smile of his. No, she decided, he hadn’t meant to be pushy. ‘Thanks anyway, but better let sleeping dogs lie. What’s wrong with your bike?’

‘Just a split head-gasket. That’s the thing—’

‘Sure, I know what a head-gasket is, helped Clyde put in new ones often enough in twenty-some years. Cuss, cuss, cuss.’

‘Nineteen,’ he smiled. ‘See, I remembered.’

Again, somehow she didn’t like that. Almost suggestive. ‘Okay,’ she said: ‘I’ve put everything on the table, just help yourself. Bacon and steak’s in the fridge.’

He walked towards his shirt. He was even smaller than she’d thought. His legs were wiry and his back was hairy too. ‘Aren’t you having breakfast?’ he asked.

‘No, I had mine hours ago, I’ve got to go’n fetch Billy to dig Oscar’s grave. Billy’s our stockman. If he hasn’t gone walkabout.’

‘Walkabout, huh? Look, I’ll dig Oscar’s grave.’ He pulled on his shirt.

‘Thanks, but I want that grave good and deep so the dingoes don’t dig him up, and believe me that ground’s stony – Billy’s got nothing much to do anyway.’

‘Do you want me to come with you to fetch Billy?’

She sighed inwardly. ‘If you like.’

Her tone made him look at her more closely. Her face was strained, as if she had done some crying in the night. He knew she didn’t feel up to being sociable. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘I have my own breakfast right here; you go’n see to Billy.’

‘Come on,’ she said, ‘it’s all waiting.’

He fried some eggs and bacon in her kitchen. He wasn’t hungry, but he was sure she would worry about being inhospitable if she saw he hadn’t eaten anything when she came back. She was a sensitive one, all right. He washed his plates, then went out on to the verandah.

Oscar lay under the blanket, and on the blanket was a flower.

‘Oh, dear …’

He pulled the blanket back a little. There lay Oscar’s old-young Boxer head, his worried frown stiff, his tongue clenched between his sharp young teeth.

He returned to the kitchen. He went to the washing-machine, crouched and examined it; then he pulled it away from the wall.

Some time later he heard the Land Rover return; its door slammed and Helen strode into the kitchen. She found Ben sitting on the floor, the washing-machine’s innards surrounding him.

‘Hi,’ he said.

She was surprised. ‘What are you doing?’

‘Here’s part of your problem.’ He held up the filter. It was clogged with fluff and small gravel chips. ‘You also had a loose connection. And,’ he plucked up something from the floor and held it up to her, ‘your engagement ring’s diamond.’

Her face lit up. ‘Oh, my God! Thank you!’

‘Takes a jeweller to find a jewel. Obviously fell out of your ring when you were loading the machine. I’ll stick it back in for you properly.’

‘Oh, thank you! Wow, a thousand dollars saved!’

He nodded in the direction of the verandah. ‘Can I help? With Oscar?’

Her cheerfulness at making a thousand dollars faded. ‘No, thanks anyway.’

She took a determined breath, turned and left the kitchen. He thought, Poor lady …

He checked through the rest of the washing-machine’s parts. They looked okay, so he reassembled it. He hooked it up to the tap and filled it. He went to the wall and pressed the green button, and heard the distant doem, doem, doem as the generator started up. When he switched on the washing-machine, it burst into shuddering life. He turned it off and pressed the red button on the wall to stop the generator. The sound died away, and from outside he heard the distant clank of a pickaxe.

He went out the back door, into the sunshine. He walked towards the corner of the verandah. He stopped.

A hundred yards away, beyond the patchy lawn, her back towards him, Helen was swinging a pickaxe. She wrestled it out of the stony ground, then swung it up above her head, and swiped down again. Ben looked around for the Aborigine, but there was nobody else in sight. He hurried across the lawn. ‘Hey …’

She did not hear him coming. She swung the pick up again, and swiped it down with a grunt. Her face was flushed, hair had broken loose from its bun and tendrils stuck to her neck. She was wearing a hat with corks dangling from the brim to keep the flies off her face.

‘Hey – where’s this Billy?’ Ben said.

Helen swung the pick over her head furiously. ‘Drunk!’ She grimaced and swiped into the ground, with a spurt of sparks. Ben reached down and took hold of the shaft.

‘Drunk? Let me do this.’

‘Blind, rotten, stinking drunk! And his wife. No, this is not fair on you!’

‘Perfectly fair.’ He took the pick from her firmly. She stepped aside angrily, panting, and he lined himself up at the hole. ‘Does he do this often?’

‘Whenever they get the chance to go into Burraville and buy the stuff! Today it’s metho.’ She sat down in a furious heap.

Ben lifted the pick. ‘Metho?’

‘Methylated spirits, the stinking blue stuff you put in Primus stoves. Didn’t know he had any, the crafty bastard! I confiscated the bottle.’

Ben swung the pick down with a clanging crunch. God, it was hard ground. He wrenched it out and swung again. Three swings and he was panting.

‘Well, he’ll be sober tomorrow.’

‘If they don’t go walkabout.’

‘Do they do that often?’

She snorted. ‘Abbos? Don’t get me wrong, they’re sweet people and they’re good stockmen. But walkabout …?’ Ben began taking off his shirt. ‘The flies will make you put that on again. Come on, let me take over.’

‘No.’ He slung his shirt on the ground and hefted the pick again.

He was skinny, but his shoulders, arms and gut were muscular. He doesn’t weigh more than a hundred and thirty pounds, she thought, less than me. And half my size. He swiped the pick down again and grunted: ‘How long do these people disappear for?’

‘A month? Three? For ever? They come back and they can’t understand why they haven’t got a job.’

He wrestled the pick out of the ground, threw it down and snatched up his shirt again. ‘ Goddam flies. And how many times has Billy gone walkabout?’

‘Three or four – I’ve forgotten. The whole family just disappears. Last time they came back without the kids – they were almost grown up. Let me get you a cork hat.’

‘I’m okay.’ He waved flies off his face and lifted the pick again. ‘What do you do when they go walkabout?’

‘Do it myself,’ she said grimly, ‘unless another Abbo happens along. Fortunately there’s not much to do, with most of the stock sold.’ She heaved herself up. ‘I’m going to fetch you a hat. Then I’ll take over for a while …’

The grave was dug. Ben was exhausted, though Helen had dug the greater part of it. She was worn out too, flushed and sweating. ‘Like a pig. Bloody Abbos!’ She threw down the pick.

‘Shall I fetch Oscar?’ Ben asked.

‘No, I’ll do it.’ She turned abruptly and walked grimly back towards the house.

Ben followed her. He mounted the wooden steps to the verandah behind her. She walked up to Oscar, and stared down at the blanketed mound. Then she suddenly brought her hands to her face and burst into sobs.

Ben looked at her uncomfortably. Then he put his arm around her shoulders. She was half a head taller than him. She sobbed and sobbed into her hands. ‘Oh Oscar …’

Ben squeezed her once. Then he got down on to one knee to pick up the body.

‘No,’ she sniffed. ‘Thank you, but I want to do it.’ He stood up and she turned, eyes wet. ‘Please go inside and let me do this.’

‘He’ll be heavy.’

Helen closed her eyes in exasperation. ‘Please …’

Ben went into the house, walked down the passage and turned right into the living-room.

It had a miscellany of worn furniture, none of it matching. A carpet of rosebud persuasion, a lounge suite with zebra stripes, pale pink walls. Ceramic ducks, a gleaming artist’s impression of Jesus Christ, prints of Scottish lochs. Assorted ferns and bookshelves, an old record-player, a big television set. An array of family and school photographs in frames. An elaborate two-way radio.

He ran his eye over the photographs. He picked up one frame, then another, and studied them for a minute. Then he turned and looked out of the window.

Helen was staggering across the dried-up lawn towards the grave, Oscar in her arms. The blanket trailed over the ground on either side, threatening to tangle with her feet, and Oscar’s rigid legs poked up on both sides of her head. She struggled to the edge of the grave. Then she slumped down on to her knees, and carefully lowered Oscar to the ground.

Ben watched her from the back. First she appeared to pray, the corks dangling around her bowed head. For some minutes she held her face, and he saw her shoulders jerk a little. Then she got to her feet and began to inter Oscar.

She hefted him up and struggled forward, legs astride over the grave. She bent, and lowered him to the hole. But, evidently, she ran into difficulties; she crouched, her blue-jeaned buttocks up, head and Oscar down. The dog’s rigid legs made him too wide for the grave. It was impossible to bury him lying on his side.

Helen remained still, wrestling with this problem; then she edged backwards and laid Oscar down on the ground again. She got his fore and hind paws in each hand, heaved him up, staggered over the grave again, and lowered him on to his spine.

From the living-room, it appeared to Ben to be the only solution. He could see Oscar’s paws sticking up, but they were below ground level. But Helen did not seem satisfied. She stood there, looking down at Oscar’s undignified posture; then she put both knuckles to her eyes between her dangling corks for an exasperated moment. Then she grabbed the legs again and heaved him up out of the grave.

She struggled backwards, put him down, and he collapsed stiffly on to his side. She crouched and got her hands under his chest and heaved him up on to his feet. With a hand on each side of his ribcage, she manoeuvred him back over the grave. She lowered him.

Oscar stood in his grave, his head twelve inches below ground level. Helen cautiously let him go, and put both knuckles to her eyes again. For a minute she stood motionless, evidently praying again. Then she scrambled backwards hurriedly, snatched up the spade and began to shovel the stony earth over him.

Ben turned from the window and went down the passage to the kitchen. He felt as if he had been eavesdropping. He went into the pantry and found the brandy bottle and two glasses.

Five minutes later Helen came in, sweating, her hands earthy. Ben was sitting on the kitchen table. She looked at him, her eyes brimming, then she blurted:

‘I had to bury him standing up …’ Her lower lip trembled. ‘But I prefer it like that! He was such a stand-up dog!’

She burst into tears. Ben’s heart went out to her and he slid off the table. He put both arms around her. ‘There, there …’ She dropped her forehead on to his shoulder, and sobbed and sobbed.

Ben held her gently. ‘There, there …’ She leant against him, arms hanging, crying her grief out. ‘There, there …’ he murmured again: and, oh, the wonderful female feeling of her in his arms, her sweaty warmth, the earthy smell of her. And with all his compassionate heart he ached to clutch her tight against him. Her sobs stopped suddenly. With a tearful sigh she moved to turn out of his arms, but he held on to her.

For a moment neither of them breathed. They stood against each other, pressed close. And for a wild moment he thought she was going to put her arms around him. Then she turned firmly and he dropped his arms.

She walked towards the sink. She spun the tap, cupped her hands and splashed water up on to her face vigorously.

Ben stood there, wanting to apologize – but for what? He had done nothing that couldn’t have an innocent interpretation. And it almost was innocent. He said:

‘Can I pour you a drink?’

She reached for a kitchen towel and thrust it to her dripping face. ‘No, thanks,’ she said into the towel.

He wasn’t sure if she was annoyed. ‘You deserve it, you’ve had a harrowing time.’

‘Yes.’ She tossed the towel on to the sink; she stood looking at it. Then: ‘Yes, dammit – I will have a drink.’

He poured some brandy into a glass. He held it out to her. She accepted it without looking at him.

‘Thanks.’ She took a swallow, and shuddered at the burn. ‘Oh boy,’ she said, eyes closed.

He pulled out a kitchen chair. ‘Sit down.’

She turned and slumped down on to it. He sat down in the other chair, across the table from her. She stared across the room at nothing.

He said tentatively: ‘Well, I’ve fixed the washing-machine – it works fine.’

‘Oh. Oh, thanks very much, that’s wonderful.’ She gave him a bleak, mechanical smile.

‘You must remember to clean out the filter basket every now and again.’

She nodded. ‘Okay. I usually do. But thank you.’

CHAPTER 5

She offered to make him some lunch, but he would not hear of it.

‘You’ve had a rough day, and I’ve got plenty of food in my saddle-bags – can I make you something?’

She said: ‘No, I think I’ll have a little lie-down. I hardly slept last night.’

‘Sure, you do that. I’d take you to lunch in town, if there was a town. I’ll finish slapping my bike back together. Then this afternoon I’ll be on my way.’

‘Oh. Okay.’ Then she added: ‘How long will it take to fix your bike?’

‘A couple of hours. But I won’t leave until you’ve finished your rest. Give me a shout when you’re up.’

‘Okay.’

He walked back to the cottage, feeling he’d smoothed over that momentary lapse when she was in his arms. Her annoyance that he’d held on to her – if annoyance it was – seemed to have dissipated after the brandy.

He finished repairing his motor cycle, climbed astride it and kicked the starter. It roared sweetly to life.

He looked even smaller on the big, sleek black machine, barefoot and without his lumber-jacket and crash-helmet. He revved the engine up in neutral, feeling the pleasure of the power beneath him, its eagerness to surge forward and go go go, take him anywhere he wanted. Anywhere in the world. And he was glad all over again with what he was doing. How could you put a price on this feeling? Go anywhere in the world. Whenever you like. He closed the machine down affectionately.

He opened his saddle-bags, took out his camping stove, a packet of rice, a can of bully beef, a little pot, and carried them all into the cottage kitchen. He put water and rice in the pot, cranked up the stove, put the pot on top, and sat down to wait.

Man, he was tired from the digging; he’d thought his shoulders and arms were tough after holding down that motorbike for three years, but that pickaxe in Aussie terra very firma was something else.

God, he felt sorry for her about the dog … He closed his eyes. But instead of Oscar, he saw again those long, plump, bare legs beside him on the kitchen table, her dimpled bottom barely covered by her knickers.

He ate a bellyful of rice and bully beef, then collapsed on the bed.

He lay there, thinking of the way she had felt in his arms. Had she been annoyed? No, he was almost sure not. In fact he was almost sure that for an instant she had almost responded – then she had backed off, as if she’d been surprised at herself.

He stared at the ceiling, trying to remember and interpret every moment; then he smirked mirthlessly: it was just his wishful thinking, imagining she had wanted to respond. That was Ben Sunninghill hoping his luck had changed, stumbling across a lonely woman in the middle of the Australian Outback. No, she hadn’t wanted to respond, she was just taken by surprise …

He sighed, closed his eyes and resolved to put it out of his mind. Too bad. And he wasn’t going to have a chance to find out for sure, leaving this afternoon; he’d never get another natural opportunity of taking her in his arms.

Too, too bad …

Ben awoke an hour later feeling refreshed, though his shoulders were stiff. It was half past three. The ringing silence of the Outback. He creaked off the bed, went out on to the porch and listened.

Not a sound of life. Helen had been resting for almost three hours. He hoped she was sleeping, not lying there red-eyed.

He washed his dishes, packed his saddle-bags and straightened up the bedroom. He found a broom and gave the place a quick sweep, and scoured the sink and the bathroom. Then he put on his black leather breeches and boots.

It was after four o’clock when he was ready to leave. He took his box of jeweller’s tools from his saddle-bag and started walking to the main house to see if Helen was up: he didn’t take the motorbike in case she was still asleep.

The kitchen was empty. Silence. He went quietly to the inner door and carefully opened it.

Helen gasped and jumped backwards. She had been about to open the door from the other side. She was wearing only her panties, and Ben glimpsed two large breasts before her hands shot up to cover them. He slammed the door. ‘I’m terribly sorry,’ he called. ‘I was coming to find out if there was any sign of life.’

Helen was dashing back down the passage to her bedroom. ‘I was just coming to put the kettle on!’

‘Shall I do it?’ he called.

‘Yes.’

He went to the sink and filled the kettle. God, he hoped she hadn’t misinterpreted that incident, thinking he was tiptoeing through the house to get between the sheets with her! Your actual Ben Sunninghill may have been fool enough to think earlier that his luck might have changed, but he wouldn’t be so crass as to try that – God … He turned and walked out into the yard, as if to disassociate himself from her nakedness until the kettle boiled.

Five minutes later she came into the kitchen, dressed in jeans and a shirt. She had put on some lipstick and run a comb through her hair, but wisps hung untidily.

‘I’m very sorry,’ Ben said sincerely.

‘That’s okay,’ she said briskly. ‘Nothing you haven’t seen before.’ Her face was strained.

‘A handsome brute like me,’ he agreed, then regretted the words at once, and added hastily: ‘Did you get some sleep?’

‘No,’ she sighed tensely. ‘I couldn’t stop thinking about Oscar. But I’m all right. Tea or coffee?’

‘Coffee, please. Well,’ he went on brightly, to put her mind at rest, if that’s what it needed, ‘I’m all packed and ready to leave. Just give me your ring and I’ll put the diamond in.’

‘Oh … Thank you.’ She slid the ring off her finger and took the diamond from her pocket.

Ben sat down at the table, opened his toolbox, and selected a small pair of pliers. He picked up the diamond and carefully slotted it into its bed.

‘Or would you prefer a beer?’ Helen said.

‘Coffee’s fine.’

‘Well, dammit, I’m going to have a beer!’ She went to the pantry, opened the refrigerator and came back with two cans. ‘Four-X.’ She ripped open a can and passed it to him, then sat down.

‘Thanks.’ He lifted the beer and took four long swallows. As he began to clamp the diamond into its bed, he asked: ‘Can you get another dog easily? A puppy?’

‘Oh,’ she said, ‘I don’t want another one. Not yet. Jack Goodwin – he owns the hotel in Burraville – his Boxer bitch has a litter of puppies, but I couldn’t face taking one yet. It wouldn’t seem … right.’

‘Tempus luctus?’ he murmured as he worked. ‘Well, I think—’

She demanded: ‘How do you know Roman law?’

He was equally surprised. ‘How do you know tempus luctus is a Roman law maxim?’

‘I did two years of it at Uni. Tempus luctus was a period of mourning, during which a widow was not allowed to remarry.’

Ben grinned. ‘Yes, but I think it had something to do with paternity, didn’t it – being able to establish who was the father of any child born within a certain time of the first husband’s death?’ He smiled. ‘So it doesn’t apply to your case. I think you should get another puppy as soon as possible.’ He gave the ring a final tweak, and handed it to her. ‘Here, that won’t fall out again.’

‘Oh, thank you …’ She slipped it back on her finger. She admired it. ‘Great. You’re really being a great help around the McKenzie household.’ She admired the ring again. ‘So, how does a gemologist know so much Roman law?’

Ben took a swig of beer. ‘I don’t. I just bought a book on it once. Bedside reading.’

‘Good God – Justinian’s Twelve Tables for bedside reading?’

He smiled. ‘Did you get a degree in law?’

‘No.’ She sighed. ‘I didn’t get a damn degree in anything. Got married instead, in my third year.’

‘Pregnant?’

She gave him an amused look that was not a smile. ‘You’re rather blunt, aren’t you? No, I can’t blame my stupidity on the slings and arrows of outrageous Mother Nature. I was simply in love.’

‘Was?’ Immediately he wished he hadn’t said that.

Her reply was a touch pointed: ‘I still am.’

Ben took another swig of beer. ‘Then it wasn’t stupid.’

She looked at him, then sighed. ‘Oh, of course it was. I should have finished my degree first. I could have had that achievement to … to my name. To be proud of.’

Ben said: ‘Aren’t you proud now? You’ve raised a good family.’ He waved a hand. ‘You run this station.’ He added: ‘You’re a fine woman. A good woman.’

She shot him a look. ‘Thanks. Oh, of course I’m proud of my family. And of Clyde. I simply mean I could have had both. All that, and a degree, if I’d been patient. And maybe … travelled a bit.’

‘Enriched your life first?’

She lifted the can to her mouth and swallowed. Then sighed.

‘Exactly. I intended to see the world after I got my degree. Like you’re doing. I don’t mean on a Harley-Davidson, but what kids did in those days – hitch-hike around Europe, knock around on student railpasses. Maybe buy a camper. Work in London a few months.’ She sighed again. ‘It broke my parents’ hearts.’

‘That you didn’t travel?’

‘No, they’re old-fashioned about travel – Australia has everything, why waste money on travel? No, that I didn’t finish my degree. They thought I was going to be the one to break out of the farming mould and have a sophisticated life as a schoolteacher or doctor’s wife in Sydney or’ – she waved a hand – ‘even the glittering lights of Bundaburg itself.’ She snorted softly. ‘They’re sheep farmers near there. That’s how I met Clyde. Anyway, they had to save hard to put me through Uni, and I threw it all away.’ She added, in self-defence: ‘Though I did help by working at night as a waitress and so forth.’

‘Which university?’

‘Brisbane.’

‘Did you enjoy it?’ He upended the beer can and emptied it.

She sighed. ‘Beaut. Have another one?’ She got up before he answered and fetched two more cans. ‘Left over from Clyde’s last visit. Or would you prefer brandy?’

‘No, it’s good beer. Why do they call it Four-X?’

‘Because Queenslanders can’t spell beer.’

He threw back his head and laughed.

She smiled: ‘Old joke.’

‘Good joke.’ He took a grinning swallow. ‘So? Your parents didn’t approve of Clyde?’

She took a big sip and shook her head.

‘No, they thought Clyde was beaut. Even though he’s a Catholic. He was a sheep-shearer. You know, in this country sheep-shearers are highly skilled itinerant workers. And well paid. And he’s a very solid bloke, Clyde. Nice-looking, good manners, hard-working. He’d also worked on the mines and been a shift-boss at only twenty-six. That mightn’t sound like much, but believe me, underground is very responsible work. Anyway, he was buying this station on a mortgage, that’s the only reason he was sheep-shearing, to make extra seasonal money.’ She sat back. ‘No, my parents had nothing against Clyde – my mother even flirted with him! Not seriously, of course, she just thought what a nice man, and Dad thought he was a great guy. But in their view I was destined for greater things than the Outback. They begged me to at least finish my degree first.’ She sighed again. ‘But, we were madly in love. And he was about to disappear into the Outback again and he was afraid that in another year I’d meet somebody else. “All those smart guys at Uni,” he said. And I was scared he’d meet some other lusty wench. Et cetera, et cetera.’

Ben smiled. ‘How old is he?’

‘Seven years older than me. Forty-nine.’

‘So you got married and came straight to this station?’

‘Yes. Dad shouted us a week’s honeymoon on Lord Howe Island first as a wedding present. That’s beautiful. Wonderful reefs …’ She grinned mirthlessly: ‘The furthest overseas I’ve ever been.’

‘That was nice of him.’

‘Very. Oh, my parents are lovely people. Dear, dear people.’

‘Do you get to see them much?’

She twirled her beer can. ‘Only very occasionally. Two years ago was the last time. They’re over a thousand miles away, and you know what the roads are like out here.’ She got up. ‘I’m going to have a brandy. And you?’

He looked at his watch. ‘Not if I’m riding. I’ll have another beer in a minute, if you’ve got one.’

She hesitated a moment; then she said: ‘Must you leave today? It’ll be sunset soon.’

Ben was taken by surprise. He was delighted to stay another night. And, who knows …? But he put on a show of indecision.

‘No, I shouldn’t. I don’t want to impose—’

‘You’re not imposing. The cottage is empty. And I’m enjoying talking. It’s a nice change for me to have company.’

He smiled: ‘Instead of talking to …’ – he was about to say ‘Oscar’, then managed to change it – ‘the wall?’

She smiled bleakly. ‘Oscar, you mean. Oh …’ She slumped her shoulders. ‘Oh, I’d give my front teeth to have that doggie back. However …’ She forced a bright smile. ‘So you’ll stay another night?’ She added hastily: ‘In the cottage.’

‘Of course. I mean of course I’ll sleep in the cottage. If that’s okay, I’d love to – thank you.’

‘Thank you, for all your help. Good … So, you’ll have a brandy?’

‘Sure,’ he grinned. ‘What the hell!’

‘What the hell!’ she agreed. She disappeared back into the pantry and returned with the bottle and two glasses. ‘Water?’

‘Straight. What the hell.’

‘What the hell. Aussies make good brandy.’ She sat and sloshed the liquor into the glasses. He noticed she suddenly appeared a little tipsy, as if she had dropped her guard.

‘And good wine,’ he said.

‘And wine.’

‘I’ve got a couple of bottles of Shiraz in my saddle-bags I can fetch.’

‘Keep it for the road. Where’re you heading tomorrow?’

He took a sip. ‘East. Brisbane. Then Townsville, Cairns, then across to Darwin. I’ll have to look at the map.’

‘Oh, Brisbane …’ She sat back with a sad smile. ‘Those were happy days.’ She sighed nostalgically, and took a big sip of brandy.

He did the same. He was glad she was relaxing after the trauma of burying her dog – and optimistic about the evening ahead? ‘So,’ he said, ‘you regret …’ He changed it. ‘I mean, but surely you don’t regret getting married?’

She snorted softly. ‘No,’ she said, ‘how can you regret all that? Your husband? Your children?’ She waved a hand vaguely. ‘Even this lonely life. This is my home. It would be … unnatural to regret that. Like Lady Macbeth saying “Unsex me here”.’ She shook her head. ‘No, of course I don’t regret any of those actual things – I just wish I had got my degree, done my travelling … enriched my life first.’ She shrugged. ‘For just a couple of years, then done what I did. With Clyde.’

She looked at Ben, as if about to continue, but didn’t.

‘But?’ he said.

She hesitated. ‘But nothing.’

‘You were about to say “but”.’ He smiled that smile.

‘Was I?’ She smiled back at him, self-consciously. ‘Yes, I was.’ She breathed deeply. ‘What I mean is this: But the kids have all left the nest now. One by one they had to go off to boarding-school in Rockhampton, when the School of the Air wasn’t enough for them anymore.’

‘“School of the Year”?’

‘Air. The radio. The government broadcasts lessons for Outback kids. At regimented hours the kids sit at their desks and tune into the government’s education programmes, just as if they were at school. Very good it is, too. And my kids were very conscientious. I made them conscientious. And I helped them, and the older ones helped the younger ones, et cetera, and it’s all pretty effective. But,’ she shrugged, ‘you reach a point where that’s not enough. They need the society and competition of other kids – and sport, and the esprit de corps of normal schooling. So …’ She sighed. ‘One by one, off to boarding-school they had to go. Until even little Cathy went, year before last.’

‘How old is she?’

‘Eleven, now.’

‘And the eldest?’

‘Tim. Seventeen.’ She smiled wanly. ‘We kind of had them bang, bang, bang. Went to bed too early, I guess. There was no television out here in those days.’

He grinned. ‘And …?’

‘And what?’

‘You started off by admitting the “But”.’

She smiled. ‘Well, so, the kids are all doing fine at school. Good at games, good at their lessons. They come home once a year, Christmas holidays, for six weeks. The other holidays they go to my parents.’ She shook her head. ‘And when they come home, they’re full of what it’s like in Rockhampton, what fun it all is, and after a couple of weeks they can’t wait to get back there. Their mates and all. And Tim thinks he’s in love with the head girl – he’s head prefect this year – and Wendy’s got a crush on some young giant in the footie team, and there’s no social life for them here, and so on. And Jacqueline’s mad about tennis. Even Cathy complains that there’re no newspapers – she wants to be a fashion reporter, would you believe? Age eleven! And they all want to go and disport themselves on the beaches and ride on those surfboards.’ She raised her eyes in despair. ‘And the bosoms on my girls …? Even little Cathy is busy hatching two beauts.’

Ben smiled, and couldn’t help glancing at mother’s endowments. ‘And …?’

Helen took a sip of brandy. She gave an appreciative shudder.

‘And, well, now Clyde has had to go back to the mines to pay for this little lot. With the droughts, and all. And, in fact, he’s okay, too. He’s got a nice bachelor bungalow, good tucker, good pay – thank God. He’s very generous, sends me enough money and all that – he’s even got a laundry and a cleaning lady. And he deserves it. But the point is …’ She paused, then took a deep breath. ‘The point is, none of them need me anymore.’ She shook her head at him. ‘They’re all okay. Well provided-for. As I am. But the point is, what about me?’ She looked at him. ‘What is my purpose now?’

He ventured: ‘You’re here. They know you’re here to come home to. Mum.’ He smiled. ‘The rock in their lives. And, you’re looking after the station. The cattle.’

She snorted. ‘Oh, the station … Do you know how many cattle we’ve got out there now? Sixty-five only. And a hundred and fifty or so sheep, until the lambing begins. We sold off the rest last year when they still had some meat on them. And even they don’t need me – they’ve got Billy.’

‘When he isn’t drunk or on walkabout.’

‘But that’s one of the reasons he’s so hopeless – there’re so few animals. Nothing. We haven’t even got a drinking-water crisis because there’re three windmills still producing and fifteen acres of lucern under irrigation to feed the animals if the drought continues.’ She shook her head. ‘The station doesn’t need me. The home doesn’t need me. So …?’ She looked at him. ‘Everybody’s okay. But what have I got?’ He started to speak but she continued, in exasperation: ‘Oh, I don’t mean, what have I got. I’ve got a perfectly good home and a loyal husband and enough money to get by. We’re hard-up, but we’re not broke. What I mean is – what is my usefulness now? What am I doing with my precious one-and-only life? With my perfectly good head? With my hopes? With the … remnants of my youthfulness, my energy and … creativity? With my life?’

Ben looked at her sympathetically. It was getting dark. He got up, went to the back door and pressed the green button. There was a distant doem doem doem as the generator started up. The kitchen light loomed on.

‘Thanks,’ she said, without looking up.

He sat down again. ‘What do you want to do with it? Your life.’

She snorted softly, put both elbows on the table and rested her chin in her palms. ‘I don’t know.’

He said: ‘Leave? Go and do the things you wanted to do when you’d finished your degree?’

She pressed her fingertips to her eyelids. ‘Oh, how can I do that?’

‘Easy. Just pack a bag and do it. Even if it’s just for a year or two.’ He added: ‘You could crank up that VW van.’

She lowered her hands. ‘Just take off on a holiday? Clyde would have a fit! Him working so hard to provide for the family and me just taking off, spending the money?’

‘You need only spend the money he sends you anyway for your own maintenance. As you say, the ranch doesn’t need you – why should Clyde be a dog in the manger over your time? Your life? Have you any money saved? Of your own, I mean.’

She made a wry face. ‘A couple of thousand dollars, maybe, in the post office.’

‘You could get a job somewhere.’

‘Doing what? The only thing I’m trained for is damn housework. Though I did do a short course at Uni in shorthand and typing, but I’ve forgotten it all.’

‘You’d pick it up again quickly. You’d be able to get a job in an office somewhere, an intelligent woman like you.’

She looked at him, then sighed.

‘Oh, I’d love to do it. But Clyde would never allow it.’

Ben frowned. ‘You don’t need his permission. As you say, it’s your precious, one-and-only life, to do with what you want. If you want to keep Clyde happy, forget it. But if you want to have a couple of years enriching your life, do it, even without his permission if necessary. But then there would be a price.’

She rested her face in her hands again. ‘And that is?’

‘Depends. You may never be the same again – you mightn’t want to come back. Or Clyde might not want you back. In both cases the price would be called Sadness. Even Grief. And there’s another one, unless you’ve got enough money – it’s called Hardship. And another, called Loneliness. Enriching your life can be the loneliest business in the world.’

She looked at him through her parted fingers.

‘What are you saying to me, Ben?’

He smiled. ‘I’m just being realistic. You said you wanted to do more with the precious remnants of your life. You said you were helpless to do so. I’m just trying to show you that you’re not helpless, but there’s probably a cost. So, you must weigh the cost and decide what’s worth what, and try to be satisfied with your decision.’

She gave a big sigh.

‘Oh how I envy you.’ She sat there, her face in her hands. ‘Oh … I’m drunk.’ She sat up and lowered her hands. ‘Brandy and beer will do it to me every time. I had a couple of brandies before you came in, to try to sleep.’

He shrugged. ‘So, get drunk.’

‘I’m supposed to be the hostess.’

‘So, I’ll get drunk with you.’

She looked at him; her eyes were a little puffy. ‘Why?’

He smiled at her. Why had she said why, like that? Because she suspected he wanted to get her drunk so he could have another grab of her? Perish the thought! That sweet possibility hadn’t entirely escaped him, but even sex-starved Ben Sunninghill wasn’t a cad, was he? His reply was almost truthful:

‘Why not? We’re enjoying ourselves. They’re our lives, they’ll be our hangovers. You’re answerable only to yourself.’

‘What does that mean?’

Oh, dear. Tramsmash Sunninghill. So she really did think he might be after her drunken body. ‘Only what it says. You’ve had a tough day. You want to get drunk, do so. Nobody’s here to criticize you.’ (He wished he hadn’t said that, too.)

She snorted wearily, apparently satisfied.

‘No … I won’t get drunk. Or drunker. I’ll go’n sleep now, if you’ll excuse me.’

‘Of course.’ He was very disappointed that the party was over almost before it had begun. ‘But let me make you something to eat, you haven’t eaten all day.’

‘I’m not hungry. I had a big sandwich this afternoon, with the brandies. I should offer to make you something but I’m suddenly too drunk to try. I’m a piss-poor hostess, aren’t I?’

‘You’re a lovely hostess. And I’ve plenty to eat, in my saddle-bags.’

‘I’m sure you have, Mr Adventurous Sunninghill. You’re self-sufficient. Answerable only to yourself.’ She looked at him, then repeated wearily: ‘Oh, how I envy you.’

He smiled. What to say? She held up a finger. ‘There’s one thing I’d like you to do before you go to bed. Please wait right here until I’m in my bedroom. Then press the red button and shut the generator down.’

‘Sure.’

‘Otherwise,’ she said, ‘what always happens is I’ve got to press the red button myself, then dash through to my bedroom in the dark. Which gives me the willies.’

‘You could have a candle ready,’ he said. ‘Or a flashlight.’

‘Yes, but I never do have a candle ready, do I? And besides, candle-light is spooky when you’re walking alone through a big empty house, isn’t it? I kind of prefer to run, then lock myself in the bedroom.’

He frowned. ‘Do you really lock yourself in your bedroom every night?’ (Oh God, that sounded a terrible question.)

‘Absolutely.’

‘But why?’

She grinned. ‘To keep the spooks out.’

‘Really?’

‘No, not really. I know there’re no such things as spooks. I’ve told all my children that ad nauseam, so it must be true because mummies don’t tell fibs, do they? Mummies,’ she went on, ‘are absolutely pillars of truth and common sense, aren’t they? Mummies are rocks. Veritable lighthouses in stormy seas. Absolute bricks, aren’t they? And mummies know best. Know everything. Mummies aren’t scared of spooks, are they?’

‘Aren’t they?’ Ben grinned.

‘Absolutely not. Mummies are absolutely not scared of the dark. Even in big, empty houses slap-bang in the middle of the Outback. What spooks could there possibly be out here in Whoop-Whoop?’ She elaborated. ‘That means in the middle of nowhere. Whoop-Whoop is a remote, mythical Australian place—’

‘I know,’ he grinned. ‘You told me.’

‘Indeed,’ she said, warming to her theme, ‘what ghost would want to infest such an outlandish neck of the woods?’ She narrowed her eyes: ‘Only a real mean, nasty, sneaky son-of-a-bitch? A veritable pain-in-the-arse of a spook!’

‘Indeed.’ Ben’s grin widened.

‘Anyway, will you be so kind as to stand by that switch? And I’ll run. When I get to my bedroom, I’ll light my candle, then shout. Then you hit the red button. Okay?’

‘Okay.’

‘Right. Goodnight.’ She stood up, unsteadily. He stood up too. She grinned at him, then she kissed her fingertip and put it on his cheek.

That was his moment, to step towards her and take her in his arms unsuspectingly. They were less than two feet apart and it seemed he could almost feel the warmth of her body. But he hesitated, and the moment was past.

‘Night.’ She twiddled her fingers and turned to the passage door.

Part Two

CHAPTER 6

Helen was woken at sunrise, with a hangover, by the sound of his motor cycle. She frowned into her pillow. The noise increased, passing the side of the house. Then it began to diminish, heading towards the gate. She lay a moment, frowning; then got out of bed and shuffled to the window, holding her head.

Ben was riding down the track towards the gate, wearing crash-helmet, gauntlets, the works.

Helen stared. She was amazed. Without even saying goodbye? He hadn’t said goodbye last night, had he? Her memory was a bit blurred around the edges, but she was sure he hadn’t said goodbye! She stared at him angrily, her hung-over heart sinking.

‘Well, I’ll be damned …’

She glowered at the empty track, then tottered back to the bed and collapsed on to it. She pulled the covers up to her chin. She lay glaring at the ceiling.

‘Well, I’ll be damned …’

She was indignant. And her spirits were sinking. Oh God, the loneliness again. The emptiness of the Outback. It had been nice yesterday, knowing there was somebody around. Nice? Knowing she had to bury Oscar? Oh God, Oscar. She closed her eyes. I mean, it was good knowing there would be somebody to talk to afterwards. And she hadn’t made the most of it. She hadn’t talked enough – she had gone to bed like a delicate bloom when she could have stayed up and talked, talked out her grief for Oscar. He was such a sensible bloke, Ben Whateverhisnamewas. Sunninghill. A goddam hippy, but sensible and cheerful, and she had wasted the opportunity for a bit of human company!

The story of my life …

And she was hurt. Couldn’t he have hung about long enough this morning to say goodbye? Thank you, perhaps? Good luck? But no – the story of my life again. Just like the kids – he doesn’t need my help anymore. My usefulness is over – he’s got his spanner, fixed his bloody bike, had a couple of nights in a decent bed, a nice hot shower – which he doubtless needed – and now he’s on his bike again. Without so much as a cheerio …

Then she thought: Maybe he left a note on the kitchen table?

She began to scramble out of bed to check; then she restrained herself angrily.

A note – so what? Is a note good enough for a guest to leave his hostess? Is that how to treat people?

But maybe the note said he was just test-riding his bike after its repairs? ‘I’ll be back in an hour’?

Again she began to get out of bed, then she stopped herself once more.

What’s this? she demanded. Why this frantic curiosity to see if that little hippy left a bloody note? Frantic anxiety … This hope. You’re hoping that he hasn’t left. God, this is pathetic. You’re pathetic, Helen McKenzie! You’re turning into a dotty middle-aged woman desperate not to be slighted by a little New York hippy on a Harley-Davidson! This is what you’ve become!

She closed her eyes and lay there, her head hurting.

But isn’t it normal? Normal just to … hope for some enjoyable conversation? Shouldn’t everybody have the right to wake up expecting at least some human company?

She threw back the covers and swung out of bed. She unlocked the bedroom door, dashed on tiptoe down the passage to the kitchen door, slid back the bolt and hurried in.

There was no note on the table.

She stood there, naked, eyes darting over the surface as if she could will a note into existence.

Her shoulders slumped and she felt like bursting into tears. She put her hand to her throbbing brow.

Pathetic, McKenzie.

She took a deep breath. And, oh, her head …

Well, to hell with it, she was going to chase this hangover away with a beer! She’d never done this before, but what the hell! Clyde thought nothing of treating a hangover with a beer at sunrise, so why shouldn’t she? He was a responsible man and if it wasn’t degenerate when he did it, why should it be for her? Besides, she felt like being degenerate.

She fetched a can from the refrigerator. She poured it into a glass and took three big swallows. It went down into her system like a balm. She immediately began to feel better. With a grim sigh, she slumped down at the kitchen table.

Not only pathetic, but boring – that’s what she was! That’s why that little jerk had left without even a see-yer … Boring, and so insignificant that it didn’t matter if he was rude to her. A has-been Outback wife who’s so boring he’d wanted to leave yesterday afternoon – she had encouraged him to stay and then got so drunk that he thought it was best if he just folded his tent and pissed off in the dawn to avoid another encounter, another boring entreaty for him to stay yet one more boring day …

Boring boring boring and useless – that’s what she’d become! Because she hadn’t used her head for years. She wasn’t even physically attractive anymore!

What’s that got to do with it? she demanded. That’s how boring you’ve got, you mix things up, muddle arguments, bring in irrelevancies! What’s your fat body got to do with this? With that little hippy on his 1000cc Thunderbird or whatever it’s called? God knows – and this is the absolute honest-to-God dinkum truth – God knows she hadn’t the slightest physical interest in him. He was so … little. Besides, she’d never been unfaithful to Clyde in her life – and she’d had a few opportunities – possibly more than most wives out in the boondocks – and it honestly hadn’t crossed her mind to be so with little Ben Hippy Sunninghill. He had made a few remarks that could have been interpreted as a come-on, and there was that moment he tried to hold her – but she’d frozen him right out! And he’d backed right off, hadn’t he? So maybe they weren’t come-ons. So what’s your disgusting body got to do with this?

But, anyway, it’s true. Look at you!

She looked down at her naked legs.

Look at those cellulite-dimpled thighs, your tummy sticking out. Your stretch-marked tummy. Look at your floppy boobs …

Helen sat up straight, pulled her stomach in, crossed her legs and stuck her chest out a little. She looked down again.

Now that is how she used to look all the time. That’s how she should look, and could again if she wasn’t such a boring mindless slob!

She got up impatiently, fetched another can of beer, ripped off the top and took two big swallows.

Oh, she was impatient with herself … She strode from the kitchen into the hall, and glared at herself in the full-length mirror, her can of Four-X in her hand.

What a slob! She pulled her shoulders back, tummy in. Stick your tits out! There …

She looked at herself. Not bad – for forty-two. And four kids. Okay, she was about ten pounds overweight, but then she always was a big girl – ‘well-nourished’, as Clyde said (he’d got that out of some book and loved to raise a laugh with it). She would have preferred ‘Rubenesque’, or better still, ‘statuesque’. But dear old Mother Nature never meant her to be slim, and certainly not flat-chested – she was intended for breeding, that had been clear at Cathy’s age. (As it was clear about Cathy: but at least she wouldn’t be stuck in the Outback – she’d probably end up editing some glossy fashion magazine.) But, my word, she needed to lose those ten pounds …

‘Don’t I, Oscar?’

She froze, staring at herself. Oscar?

She closed her eyes. ‘Oh God, my Oscar …’ And she gave a deep sigh, and turned and walked slowly back to the kitchen. She sat down heavily at the table, leant on both elbows and dropped her head into her hands.

She sat there, nursing her light, unreal head, trying fiercely not to think about Oscar. Then she snapped herself up straight, stood up grimly, went to the sink and tipped away the rest of her beer.

‘Out, out, damned spot! Damned cellulite!’

She turned and strode back to her bedroom.

She had a shower, and washed her hair. She pulled on a fresh shirt and jeans, combed back her wet hair and tied it in a ponytail; she even put on some lipstick. Then she stomped through the house, out the back door, to the Land Rover. She started the engine, rammed the gear lever, and roared off up the track towards Billy’s hut.

To see if he had sobered up. To give him a few instructions. To bring some order to this neck of the woods!

CHAPTER 7

It was eleven o’clock when she came grinding back down the track towards the house. She slammed to a stop in the yard, scattering chickens and ducks. She scrambled out, slammed the door, and strode for the kitchen. She was going to radio Clyde right now – haul him up from underground if necessary – and tell him about Billy! She flung back the screen-door and burst into the kitchen, then came to a halt, staring.

Ben Sunninghill was sitting at the kitchen table, grinning that wide, impish grin, with a six-pack of beer beside him, one opened. A big coil of electric cable and two new door-locks lay beside the beer. And on his knees, with a ribbon round its neck, was a Boxer puppy.

Helen stared at them. At the puppy, at Ben, back at the puppy. Then her eyes began to moisten. ‘Oh Ben …’ she cried. She dashed to the table, dropped on to her haunches, grabbed the puppy.

She held it up to her grinning face, shining-eyed. The puppy blinked at her inquisitively, unalarmed. ‘Oh Ben! And a Boxer! Where did you get him?’ She pulled it to her neck joyfully.

Ben smiled. ‘Burraville Hotel. Jack Goodwin. You told me his bitch had a litter.’

‘Oh, he’s gorgeous!’ She clasped the little animal to her joyfully. ‘But I must pay for him! I bet that Jack Goodwin didn’t give him away!’

Ben smiled. ‘No, my shout. He didn’t cost much, not with your actual Ben Sunninghill of the New York diamond market doing the bargaining. He’s not pure-bred, his mother went to a picnic – even Jack Goodwin finally admitted that under my ruthless cross-examination. His father was a dingo.’

‘A dingo!’ Helen held up the grunting puppy and waggled it. ‘I don’t believe it!’

‘But that’s what I told Jack Goodwin. Nearly threw me out. Said at worst it was Mrs Johnson’s Labrador, Fred.’

‘Oh, Fred’s a beautiful dog!’

‘Don’t bank on Fred. I went over to the schoolhouse to check him out. Black as the ace of spades, Fred is, and this guy’ – he indicated the puppy – ‘is nearly all brown. I saw half a dozen likely candidates for fatherhood as I left town.’ He added: ‘He’s not a very likeable man, Jack, is he?’

‘Jack? No. Has he got a name, this little feller?’

‘Jack called him Biggles, because of that white mark round his neck, like a scarf. Think he was trying to impress me with how well-read he was.’

‘Biggles?’ She looked at the grunting face doubtfully.

‘I thought of Hogan. After Crocodile Dundee, because he came at me with those sharp little teeth—’

‘I know what we’ll call him – Dundee!’

‘Dundee? Yeah, that’s better.’

‘Dundee!’ She jumped up, held the unworried puppy aloft and waltzed around with him. ‘Oh, you’re much more beautiful than Paul Hogan, even when he’s scrubbed up!’ She turned to Ben, eyes shining. ‘Oh, thank you, Ben …’ She crossed the kitchen impetuously, flung an arm around his narrow shoulders and planted a kiss on his bristly cheeks. ‘Thank you.’ She stood back, beaming at him, her eyes moist.

Ben grinned up at her happily. ‘I’m glad. Enjoy.’ Then he glanced at his wrist-watch, banged his hands on his knees and stood up. ‘Well, I thought I’d fix those doorlocks and put an extension on to that generator switch for you, then I’d better be on my way.’

Helen stared at him, clutching the puppy. ‘Oh, you can’t leave today, Ben!’

Ben grinned at her. He could see she’d had a drink already and that was fine with him, he’d had a couple of beers himself in Burraville and felt in the mood for a few more. He didn’t want to leave today either. And who knew what might happen? ‘But I hate to impose,’ he said. ‘I really should leave—’

‘Oh, not today! And you’re not imposing! You can’t leave the day you thrust a new puppy into my arms! We’ve got to … celebrate! Welcome him!’ She shook her head: ‘Let’s have a nice lunch! I haven’t cooked you anything yet! You probably think all I do is drink!’

‘Isn’t it?’ he grinned.

‘No!’ she laughed. ‘You beast! No, no, no, I’ll have you know I’m a pillar of Australian society! I’m the lady they all talk about in reverent whispers in Burraville! I’m the After-lady in the Before and After advertisements! Have another beer?’ She sparkled at him, clutching her puppy: ‘I will if you will …’

Dundee was waddling around the kitchen, sniffing here, sniffing there, occasionally squatting. Helen pulled some paper off the kitchen roll and dropped it on a puddle.

‘I’ll start teaching him tomorrow,’ she said cheerfully.

‘But,’ Ben said, ‘I wouldn’t have left without saying goodbye and thank you. What kind of hippy do you take me for?’

‘I know that now. But I didn’t this morning with a king-size hangover and a terrible case of the blues. And you’re not a hippy.’

He gave that smile. ‘Aren’t I? What’s a hippy? Some guy who doesn’t give a shit about making money and just takes off?’

‘On a 1000cc Thunderbird!’

‘Harley-Davidson. Anyway, that makes me a hippy in the eyes of most Australians I’ve met. Or a wandering Jew, which is worse.’ He added: ‘Without the commercial instinct anymore.’

Helen had moved on to the wine which Ben had produced from his saddle-bags. She held up her glass: ‘Here’s to the wandering Jewish hippy on his 1000cc Harley-Thunderbird then!’ She took a big sip. ‘Did you ever have it? The commercial instinct, I mean.’

‘You can’t spend your life in the diamond trade and not have it, baby.’ (She wished he wouldn’t call her ‘baby’.) ‘You can’t spend your life amongst Jews – even if your name’s Sunninghill – and not have it. Cash-flow,’ he rubbed his fingers together, ‘that’s what business life’s about. But,’ he shrugged, ‘no more, for Mrs Sonnenberg’s little boy.’

She said enviously: ‘But you’ve got enough cash-flow to say to hell with it.’

‘Enough? Yes, if I take it easy on the fleshpots.’

‘And when it starts running low?’

‘I’ll work somewhere for a bit. I’ve got my jeweller’s tools with me; jewellers can always get a job. Anyway, what I’m going to do soon is buy a small yacht – you can always make a bit of money with a boat.’

‘A yacht?’ she echoed, almost indignantly. ‘I thought you were going back to Africa to do your foot-soldiering for the animals?’

‘I am. But when I get back to Africa I’ll need a home of some kind. So instead of paying rent I’ll buy a yacht and that’ll be my base – a mobile one. Between stints in the bush I’ll sail it here and there. In fact, when I get back to Perth I’ll buy a boat there, if I find one at the right price, stick my motorbike on the stern and sail back to Africa.’

Helen didn’t know how much of this to believe – it all sounded too romantically macho for a little New York jeweller. ‘Single-handed?’

Ben shrugged. ‘I’ll try to find somebody who wants to come along for the ride. But, if not – sure, single-handed.’

She looked at him, trying to imagine him doing it. The wind in his hair, his beak-nose to the flying spray. ‘So you really are an intrepid sailor?’

‘It’s not such a big deal, crossing oceans. There’re no rocks out there, are there? The danger for a boat is when you get near the real-estate. It’s like flying an airplane – the higher you are, the more air you have beneath you, the safer you are.’

Helen wasn’t so sure he had a licence to fly a plane either. But it was fun to talk. ‘What about the big waves?’

‘Well,’ Ben admitted, ‘I haven’t crossed an ocean on a small boat yet. But there’s probably more danger from big trucks when riding a motorbike. However, I’ve done a lot of sailing round New York. I know the winds – what to do with them, how to harness them.’ He smiled. ‘Maybe my Jewishness – getting something for nothing. The wind, the elements, they’re free – and non-polluting. It’s very satisfying working with the sea. So clean. So … harmonious with Nature.’ He shrugged. ‘Sure, I can cross an ocean.’

Helen sighed. She believed him. ‘And how much will such a boat cost?’

‘Maybe forty thousand bucks. Depending on where you buy it, its condition and so forth. But I can fix just about anything.’

She believed it. His self-confidence was infectious. ‘And you can always make money out of a boat, huh?’

‘Well, you don’t pay rent, for a start. And if I run low on money I’ll look for yachtsmen who want their boats fixed up. Ten bucks an hour.’ He shrugged. ‘Easy, I’ve tried it. Walk along any marina and holler “Who wants jobs done?” Plenty of work. Anyway, I don’t need much. A bag of rice goes a long way, and the seas are full of fish.’

Oh, she envied him his freedom from worries. That reminded her of Billy. ‘I must radio Clyde at lunchtime about Billy. The bastard’s still drunk. Drunker. His wife too and you know what they’ve done? Torn the bloody door off the hut and used it for firewood!’ She waved a hand. ‘Plenty of wood out there. But no – the door.’

‘Really?’ He added: ‘And what will Clyde do about it, two thousand miles away?’

She glanced at him and sighed.

‘Nothing, I guess. He’ll tell me to get on with it.’

‘And do what?’

She nodded wearily. ‘What indeed? Give him a bollocking when he sobers up. What else? I can’t fire him – I’d just have to look for another Abbo stockman. The devil I know is better than the one I don’t.’

‘So you’re radioing Clyde for his sympathy?’

Helen raised her eyebrows wanly. ‘Guess so.’

Ben sat back and shrugged. ‘Sure. Why not? That’s what marriage is all about. And you deserve sympathy.’

She glanced at him. Was that sincere? She decided it was.

‘No, you’re right – I won’t call him. I called him only last week, and it’s quite a performance to get hold of him. I’ve got to radio the mine captain’s office and get them to tell Clyde to stand by the radio at a certain hour, then call back.’

‘Does Clyde ever call you?’

‘Occasionally. But it’s a favour really, to use the mine captain’s office – he doesn’t like asking too often. And it’s not very satisfactory – you can’t get too personal on the air, can you? Anybody can listen in if they find your frequency. He won’t discuss money, for example – he doesn’t like the neighbours to know we’re hard-up. Though it’s obvious – why else is he on the mines? And,’ she smirked, ‘he can never bring himself to tell me he loves me.’

Ben raised his eyebrows.

‘Well, as long as he tells you in private …’ He paused, then: ‘Does he?’

For a moment she wondered about that question’s possible direction. ‘Of course he does.’

‘Enough?’

She was taken aback by his persistence. No matter how grateful she was for his help and company, she didn’t like that. She frowned. ‘Yes. Why?’

He disarmed her with his impish smile. ‘Because I’m told it’s very important. And I’ve heard that Aussie men are often a bit too macho to show much affection. I’ve heard that the definition of an Aussie male’s foreplay is’ – he put on a creditable Australian accent – ‘“You awake, luv?” Heard that in a New York bar, from an Aussie girl.’

She smiled. ‘Yes, that’s an old one. And I believe it’s mostly true, unfortunately.’

‘But not in Clyde’s case?’

She resented that. Too familiar. ‘No!’

Ben sat back. ‘Sorry.’ He smiled self-effacingly: ‘Too familiar.’

Again she was disarmed, and surprised at his perceptiveness. Word for word!

‘It’s all right.’ She took a sip of wine. ‘But what do you mean you’re “told” demonstration of affection is important? Don’t you know?’

Ben grinned honestly. (No harm in honesty when you’ve got little else to offer.) ‘Well, look at me, I’m not likely to have had much experience in that area, am I? Let alone success.’

Helen was disarmed further, because it seemed so plausible. ‘Oh Ben … But you’re a lovely bloke …’

He grinned. ‘That’s what I tell all the girls – all the time. But nobody seems to believe me.’ He added sadly: ‘Except my mother.’

‘I don’t believe it!’

‘See? It works.’

‘What?’

‘I’ve got your sympathy. Your disavowal of my physical limitations. But, unfortunately, that’s all I get.’ He took a sip of wine. ‘Oh, I’ve got lots of women friends. I get along famously with women as a gender. But unfortunately sympathy only works that far.’

Again she wondered whether he was trying to steer the conversation in a certain direction, despite his expression. ‘You’ve never been married?’

‘Married? I’ve never had a woman I didn’t pay for.’

That took her aback. That was astonishing self-effacement. ‘Whores, you mean?’

Ben sighed cheerfully. ‘But even that’s not on these days, with Aids.’ He grinned at her. ‘Don’t worry, I’ve been tested and I’m a Lloyds A1 insurance prospect.’

She blinked. Why should she worry? She began to change the subject, and Ben groaned: ‘Oh, my big mouth …’ He looked at her apologetically. ‘Sorry – again. Why should you worry? But that was just a figure of speech. Believe me …’ he put his hand on his breast solemnly and said, not entirely truthfully, ‘I have enough bitter experience of life not to be so presumptuous as to think I could talk you into the sack.’

Helen stared at him a moment. Then she dropped her head and giggled. ‘Oh, you’re funny.’

Ben nodded wearily. ‘Funny ha-ha or funny peculiar?’

‘Both!’

‘I knew it,’ Ben sighed, ‘I knew I couldn’t just be funny ha-ha.’

‘I mean unusual—’

‘Almost rare,’ Ben solemnly agreed. ‘My mother thinks I’m an endangered species. She thinks I’m beautiful.’

Helen threw back her head and laughed. It all seemed terribly funny. Little Ben Sunninghill … ‘But you are, Ben! I mean, you’ve got the loveliest smile. It makes you … shine. And it’s so … laughy.’

‘Got to have a sense of humour with a face like this,’ Ben agreed. ‘What about the nose? I could have it straightened, but not shortened, regrettably. Because, like most people, I do need the actual nostrils at the tip.’

Helen snorted into her wine glass. ‘And you’ve got the loveliest eyes, Ben! I mean, they’re so naughty. And kind.’ She smothered her mirth, her eyes moist, and waved at little Dundee. ‘Like getting me him.’

Ben smiled. ‘I’m glad.’

Helen wiped the corners of her eyes. ‘And,’ she said brightly, ‘you’ve got all your hair!’

‘All over,’ Ben agreed.

‘It shows virility!’

‘I tell the girls that, but I’m just told. I’m a fire-hazard.’

She laughed at him: ‘Oh, Ben …’

He smiled, then picked up the new doorlocks and the coil of electrical cable. ‘Well, I’ll fix the locks and extend that generator switch to your bedroom. To outwit the spooks.’

Helen brought her mind to this change of subject.

‘Oh, that’s very kind of you, but Clyde said it’s best where it is.’

Ben said: ‘You’re the one who lives here all alone each night with the spooks, not Clyde. It’s just a simple override switch, so you can shut down the generator from your bedroom when you go to bed. Clyde will still be able to start it and stop it from the kitchen.’

‘Really?’ she said. ‘Why didn’t he know that?’

‘Maybe Clyde’s not a smart-ass like me.’

Ben changed the locks while Helen got her laundry together. Then she fed Dundee while Ben started work on the switch. The puppy wolfed down his food. ‘Like he’s never had meat before!’ she called happily from the yard.

‘Probably hasn’t, living with Jack Goodwin.’

‘Oh, he’s gorgeous!’

‘Jack or Dundee?’

‘Dundee! Oh, Jack’s a real miser. And a terrible gossip. “Radio-Jack”, we call him – tell him anything and it’s all over the Outback by nightfall. Who’s a beautiful boy, then?’

‘Me. Ask my mother.’

‘Oh, you ass!’ She came back into the kitchen, holding a glass of wine. ‘Oh, dear … I’m having a lovely day. Now then – got any laundry you want done? Smart-ass.’ She burst into giggles.

Ben picked his wine glass up from the floor and took a sip. ‘No, thank you, only dirty people need machines to do their laundry. I did mine by hand this morning.’

‘Well, it can’t be very dry. Where is it? In a plastic bag in your saddle-bag?’

‘Right.’

‘Right, and where is it?’

‘Just behind the saddle.’

‘I mean the bike, you fool. Even I can figure out where the saddle-bag is once I find the bike. But I didn’t see it when I came back from Billy’s.’

‘Outside your front door. Black, you can’t miss it, the only black 1000cc Harley-Davidson there.’

‘Oh, you ass!’ She marched to the front of the house. She ferreted through his saddle-bag and found the wet clothes. She took them to the line in the yard, and hung them up. Socks, underpants, vests, shirts. Then she took one shirt down again and returned to the kitchen.

‘Well, this garment needs strong machinery.’ She stuffed it into the washing-machine with her own laundry.

‘Thank you. But you can’t start up the generator to do the washing while I’m working on these wires.’ He added: ‘You could, but you’d have to bury me soon afterwards.’

‘Standing up beside Oscar?’

‘So the grave would have to be a bit deeper, and that ground’s hard. Not that much deeper,’ he admitted reasonably.

She prepared lunch while he led the cable along the kitchen walls and down the passage, tacking it to the skirting board. He bored a small hole in the doorframe and fed the wire through into her bedroom.

It was not very feminine; it seemed a worn, hard-up sort of room. On the far bedside table was a framed photograph of a man, doubtless Clyde: Ben peered across at it, but couldn’t make out much. On the dressing-table near the door was a photograph; four children. Taken recently, Ben thought. The boy, Tim, looked about sixteen: he was a strapping, good-looking lad; short hair, a generous open face, white even teeth – he was going to be what Americans call a ‘hunk’. The three girls were all pretty, with neatly combed blonde shoulder-length hair and generous mouths like their mother; the little one, Cathy, was going to be a beauty. Ben glanced around the room. The double-bed was neatly made. The rugs on the floor were patchy. The wardrobe door was open, he could see dresses hanging, the shelves jumbled with underwear. Below lay a muddle of high-heeled shoes, several mauve pairs among them. So she likes mauve? It would suit her, too her blue jeans suited her, with her blue eyes and blonde hair. One pair looked very sexy, with thin leather straps that she would wind around and tie above her ankles. He felt a desire to tiptoe across and pick them up. He could imagine them on her. Her toenails painted red? Oh dear, dear … The dressing-table was old and chipped. The little jars and bottles of lotions and creams and perfume had a frugal, husbanded air. He felt sure most of them were almost empty, kept for the last smear or drop. Between the dressing-table and the wardrobe was the bathroom. He glanced towards the kitchen, hesitated, then went to the door and looked inside. Untiled walls, an old tub with claw-and-ball feet, the enamel worn away near the plug. An overhead shower with a dull plastic curtain. A toilet. A bidet, obviously recently installed because the cement around its base looked newish. Some towels, a big, damp bathmat, a broken laundry basket. And, on the floor beside the basket, a pair of panties. They lay there with an air of abandonment, as if she had just stepped out of them.

Ben Sunninghill looked at them. They were red, and lacy. And see-through, and brief. He had an almost irresistible desire to tiptoe inside and pick them up. To feel them between his fingers, to hold them to his face …

‘Gotcha!’

He jerked around. Helen was in the bedroom doorway, smiling, Dundee in her arms. ‘Lunch is ready when you are!’

Ben recovered himself, and said easily: ‘I was considering the best place for this override switch. Here by the bathroom door, which is easy for me, or by your bedside? That way is easy for you, but I’ve got to lead the cable right around the room.’

Helen considered the problem tipsily. ‘Bedside makes sense, provided you’ve got enough cable. Then I haven’t got to get out of bed in all my nakedness when I’ve finished reading, hit the switch, dash back, trip over the rug, bark my shins, cuss, scramble up in the dark, feel for the bed, et cetera.’

Ben grinned. ‘Right.’ He added: ‘You’re a funny lady.’

‘Funny ha-ha or funny peculiar?’

‘Both. But delightfully so.’

‘I knew it. Now I’m not only bushwhacked, I’m peculiar!’ She entered the room. ‘Trouble is, if it’s on my side of the bed, that means Clyde’s got to get up – when he’s at home – if he reads later than me, and switch the damn thing off. That’ll irritate him.’

‘Look, who’s this switch for? And how often is Clyde home?’

She pondered a moment. ‘True. To hell with Clyde?’

‘Absolutely.’

‘Okay, on my side of the bed, please.’ Then she happened to glance into the bathroom and see the panties. She went in, scooped them up and stuffed them into the laundry basket. On her way back she closed the wardrobe door. ‘Lunch is ready!’ she repeated. ‘Finish the switch afterwards.’

She had gone to some trouble over lunch. Ben fetched another bottle of wine from his saddle-bag. But he ate very little. ‘I had two meat pies in Burraville just before I left,’ he explained.

‘That’s not very good for you – have some more salad, grown with my own fair hands!’ She was thoroughly enjoying herself.

‘Yes, I saw your vegetable garden. Very impressive.’

‘We’re lucky to have enough water for it – it’s a good well. And we swim in the holding reservoir.’

Ben imagined her in a swimsuit. He suggested: ‘Shall we do that, after we’ve finished work?’

‘Why not?’

Great things can happen in a swimming pool after a long boozy lunch. Ben couldn’t wait. At the very least, the prospect of being semi-naked with her in the common caress of cool water was wildly erotic. He said, for something to say:

‘So Clyde’s a Catholic? And Catholics were bad news in Australia?’

‘Oh, in those days, yes. Australia was very provincial when I was a kid, stuck out on the end of the world, and the majority of us are Protestants. Catholics were regarded as blighted with misinformation. Wops were Catholics – Italian immigrants who ran milk bars. As a girl I felt sorry for Catholics. And marry one? Never! It’s different now, of course.’

‘And Jews? How were they regarded?’

Helen hesitated. ‘Well … Jews have always had a hard time, haven’t they? I guess Australia Fair was no exception.’

‘Go on,’ he smiled: ‘say it. Regarded as furtive. Devious. Clannish. Money-grubbing. And too successful.’ He added, regretfully: ‘Present company excepted.’

She felt uncomfortable with this subject. ‘Well, maybe when I was a girl, but it’s quite different now, of course.’

‘Is it? Jack Goodwin evidently doesn’t think so. And that was before I started bargaining.’

‘Forget Jack Goodwin.’ Then she decided to be bold on this touchy point. ‘But why is it that Jews are so successful?’

He grinned. ‘Because they’re superior.’

‘Seriously.’

‘Seriously. Because we believe we’re the Chosen Race. Says so in black and white in the Bible. We’re different from other people, we’re privileged. So, as the Chosen Race, we have to work hard to justify it, and help each other, to maintain our position. We’ve got an Us-against-Them clannishness. So, we’re rather disliked. And we’re generally physically conspicuous, identifiable as Jews; an obvious target for prejudice.’

‘Well, I’m not anti-Semitic.’

‘No … But do you want your daughter to marry one?’

She was taken aback by the bluntness of the question, even though feeling so jolly.

‘I couldn’t care less, provided he’s a good husband!’ But then she added: ‘Well, I suppose every mother hopes her daughter will marry into her own culture. Religion …’ She faltered, then went on a trifle hastily: ‘But do you believe yours is the Chosen Race?’

He sloshed more wine into their glasses. ‘Yep. Learned it at my mother’s knee. And I’ve only got to look around at all my successful Jewish brethren.’ He grinned. ‘Heard a joke in the Burraville pub this morning. I suspect it was told for my benefit. Anyway, what did the Australian Prime Minister say in his telegram to Golda Meir congratulating her on winning the Six Day War? “Now that you’ve got Sinai, can we please have Surfers’ Paradise back?”’

Helen laughed. She’d heard it, but it was funny again coming from a Jew.

‘No, it wasn’t said for your benefit!’ She took a sip of wine, then asked: ‘Did Jack Goodwin know you were buying the puppy for me?’

‘Yes. Why? He asked me what I wanted a puppy for, on a motorbike. I told him about Oscar.’

Helen puckered one corner of her mouth. ‘Hmm. Did the other blokes in the pub know Dundee was for me?’

Ben shrugged. ‘Sure. Why?’

Helen sighed, but said cheerfully: ‘No, it’s okay. But it’ll be all over the Outback on the bush telegraph.’ She shrugged. ‘So what, I’ll say you’re my cousin from New York!’

‘Your cousin? With this nose?’ Ben sat back. ‘I see. It’s a matter of “What’ll the neighbours think?”’

‘To hell with them!’

‘But would Clyde be annoyed?’

She frowned. ‘No, Clyde knows I would never be … silly.’

Silly? That was a dampener. He wished he hadn’t mentioned Clyde – Clyde wasn’t a subject to bring up when nursing ambitions about that swim with his wife. But all he could do was make light of it. ‘To have an affair with me would be silly?’ Then he added: ‘You’re right, of course. So – to hell with the neighbours; I’ll be gone tomorrow, anyway.’

‘Oh Ben, you shouldn’t talk yourself down so! You’re not so …’ She paused, wishing she hadn’t started the sentence that way.

Ben wished she hadn’t started it that way too. ‘… Totally unattractive?’ He smiled.

She tried to avoid grinning, and tried to speak earnestly: ‘You know what I mean … You’ve a very attractive personality, Ben …’ (Oh Gawd, why’d she put it like that?) She waved a hand and blundered on: ‘You’re charming. Amusing. Witty. And I’m delighted to have your company …’ She trailed off, then ended brightly: ‘And beauty is only skin-deep!’ Oh, God, why had she said that?

Ben smiled wanly. ‘But ugliness goes right to the bone?’ His optimism about that swim was going right out the window. He stood up, embarrassed. ‘Well, I’ll finish rigging that switch—’

‘Oh Ben,’ she cried, ‘you’re not ugly! Finish your wine! Let’s have another bottle …’

He grinned. ‘Sure, bring it to the bedroom and talk to me while I finish that switch.’

CHAPTER 8

She sat cross-legged on the bed with Dundee, sipping wine, aglow with wine, thoroughly enjoying herself. ‘I wasn’t sure whether I wanted to be a lawyer or a teacher. So I took a general arts degree – or started it – majoring in English Literature, but I squeezed in two years of Roman Law, to get credits in case I went on to do an LL.B.’

Ben was crouched at her bedside table, under Clyde’s photograph, rigging the cable along the skirting board. He indicated the picture. ‘Is that Clyde?’

‘Yes.’

‘May I?’ He picked it up. Clyde smiled self-consciously at him, a burly, nice-looking, no-nonsense balding man, uncomfortable in a suit and tie for the occasion. ‘Looks a nice guy.’

‘He is. Very.’

‘Wouldn’t want to get on the wrong side of him, though.’

‘No. But he’s a softie, really.’

Ben replaced the frame on the table and resumed work. ‘I took a degree in English Literature,’ he said.

She blinked. ‘I thought you did whatchacallit – gemology?’

‘I did. But a few years later I decided to do English Lit on the side. University of New York, night classes.’

Helen sighed. ‘Oh, wow. Good on yer. Wish I could do that. Did you think you wanted to teach English?’

Ben tapped a tack into position. ‘No, just for interest. Had a vague idea I’d try writing one day, or try to get into publishing. But, bought a motorbike instead.’

‘But a degree like that’s never wasted! Oh Ben, why do you say you’re not a success? I so envy you your life.’

Ben worked with the wires. ‘Yes, I suppose I’m a success in that I’m doing what most people fail to do, namely savour the world. Or I’m trying to. And I’m learning, the while.’

‘Becoming wise,’ she said with glowing solemnity. ‘That’s what I’d love to do – become wise. … And I’ve got all the time in the world to try to achieve it, by reading. And I do read. But there’s a hell of a lot more to wisdom than book-learning.’

‘Indeed.’

She waved an expansive hand. ‘It’s out there. Beyond the blue horizon. Where you’re going back to. Or forward to. Always forward, that’s the trick!’ She sighed, staring across the room. ‘That’s why I thought I might be a lawyer. The daily human drama of the courtroom, seeing human nature at work. Arguing a case.’ She frowned tipsily. ‘The beauty of words. Of persuasion. Of logic. By the time a lawyer’s my age he must have seen it all.’ She sighed again. ‘I used to spend hours in the gallery of the Brisbane courts.’

‘And why did you consider being a teacher?’

‘Again, the words. The beauty of the English language, and the satisfaction of using it to guide the young.’

He began work on the switch. He said: ‘Have you tried writing? With all this time on your hands?’

‘Have you ever tried?’

He said: ‘No, but I’ll write a book one day. Even if it’s never published, I’ll have done it.’ He smiled. ‘But I wrote a poem once.’ He sat back on his haunches, put one hand on his heart and pointed his screwdriver at the ceiling.

‘The moon shines up there like a cuspidor,

Doris, oh Doris, what are we waiting for …?’

There was a pause, then Helen threw back her head and burst into laughter. ‘That’s hilarious!’

Ben grinned, and resumed work. ‘That’s what Doris thought. She couldn’t get over the cuspidor, didn’t think it romantic at all. She was a dancer – the longest legs you ever saw, and I was bursting to get her into bed. That’s pretty optimistic when you’re five-foot-five. Still, I gave her a good laugh.’

Helen giggled. ‘If I’d been Doris I’d have fallen for that one!’

Ben felt a flicker of hope. ‘Better be careful, I might think my luck’s changed and re-write it.’

Helen tried to stop giggling. ‘But have you seriously tried to write, Ben?’

The flicker faltered. Nothing like a hasty change of a subject like this to falter flickers.

‘I’ve made lots of notes every day. One day I’ll get my arse to an anchor for a few months and start it.’

‘And what will it be about?’

He was screwing the override switch into the wall. ‘Hemingway said you should only write about what you know. So my book will be about this little New York Jewish jeweller, oversexed and underloved, who chucks it all up in disgust and goes off to savour life as best he can.’

She grinned. ‘Oh, Ben …’ She was about to query the underloved playfully, but thought better of it. ‘Will it include this visit to the Outback?’

‘Oh yes.’ He paused and took a sip of wine. ‘You’ll be in it.’

She fluttered her eyelids tizzily. ‘Really? Dull old me?’ Then she narrowed her eyes theatrically. ‘What will it say about me, Smart-ass?’

Ben twisted his screwdriver, considering.

‘I assure you, Helen, that you’re not dull. You’re a very interesting woman.’

‘“Interesting”? You make me sound like a “case”! What kind of case of most interesting woman am I? A case of rather interesting bushwhacked mindlessness?’

He grinned at the wall. ‘You’re highly intelligent, Helen. And … appealing.’ He was going to say desirable, but changed it in his mouth.

‘Intelligent? I ain’t said anything intelligent yet. But I’m a humdinger when I get going. Ask Oscar, bless his soul …’ She sighed, then added glumly: ‘I haven’t done anything intelligent for twenty years.’

He had wasted the opening. ‘You’ve raised a lovely family.’

‘Any dumb blonde can do that. I mean intelligent.’ She banged her brow. ‘Something that requires the ability to grasp new concepts and apply them. Develop them. Create with them …’

He tightened the last screw, and stood up.

‘There. We’ll test it later.’ He turned to her. And this was the moment to make his pass at her: they were in the bedroom, and about to leave it. He felt just bold enough, with all the booze inside him. He was about to sit down on the bed beside her – and he lost his nerve. He said instead:

‘You’re right, of course, we could all do so much more with our brains. Have you ever thought of writing?’

‘What’s there for me to write about?’

The moment was definitely past, and he felt a kind of relief that he hadn’t made a premature blunder.

‘Write about you. Like Hemingway said. You’re what you know best. Write about being a woman. Your kind of woman, in your situation. It’s something that most women will understand and empathize with.’

‘Empathize with? How many women live in the Outback?’

It would have been absolutely natural to sit down on the bed beside her. But again he lacked the nerve. He said:

‘The Outback is only an extreme example of the condition in which many women – if not most women – find themselves in suburbia. All over the western world.’ He waved a finger. ‘They start a career. Then they get married and raise a family and the career is sacrificed to the drudgery of housework. The struggle to make ends meet. Meanwhile, the husband’s career goes on. He has the stimulus, the companionship, the promotions, the job-satisfaction. Finally the kids grow up and leave home. What’s Mum got left? Even her housewife’s job is virtually taken away. What does she do?’

Helen was staring up at him. ‘Right!’ she said emphatically, and took an aggressive swig of wine.

Her emphasis surprised even the optimist in him. Surely this was the moment to sit down beside her? He did so, three feet away, and marshalled his thoughts rapidly.

‘But you must write it as a story, Helen. Not as a poor-me autobiography. You must create verbal pictures the reader can see and feel. With a plot which makes the reader want to know what happens next, how the heroine handles this problem. Then …’ He raised his thick eyebrows. ‘Then you’ve created a worthwhile work of art, baby.’

Helen was hanging on wisdom. That familiar baby didn’t offend her this time. ‘And?’ she demanded. ‘What does our heroine do?’

Oh, indeed, what does she do? He said, cautiously: ‘Depends on who she is. You know yourself properly – I don’t.’ He decided to say it: ‘Maybe she has an affair? Many women do.’

‘But,’ she protested, ‘I could never do that, that wouldn’t be me! I’m supposed to write about me …’

Ben Sunninghill gave an inward sigh. Had he blown it? Hope winced and subsided into its shell. He tried to make himself sound academic:

‘But maybe your heroine does. Half the ladies bored out of their minds in suburbia would, and the other half would understand, even applaud.’

‘But an affair doesn’t solve her basic problem!’

Oh well … ‘That’s your task, as the story-teller – to show us what it does or doesn’t solve.’ He sighed and abandoned the subject of adultery. ‘Or maybe she takes a job – any job, because she’s too old now to resume her career. Or’ – he shrugged – ‘maybe she leaves. To go off and do her own thing, whatever that is.’

She said emphatically: ‘But she loves her husband! And her family!’

Oh dear. Hope curled up in its shell. ‘Ah, that’s the tricky part. One of the most difficult parts. Remember what I said about the price? The heartache? The loneliness? The financial hardship?’ He shrugged. ‘It’s your job as story-teller to make all this real for the reader.’

Helen looked at him unsteadily. ‘But what makes her leave her family? Her loved ones?’

Ben said: ‘But they’ve already left her, haven’t they?’

‘Yes, but only … physically. Geographically. They’re still a family.’

Ben shook his head. ‘Yes and no. That’s the whole point. The family goes on, sure, but it ain’t what it used to be. The story is how the heroine who’s left behind handles that problem. Look at your friends and ask yourself what you think their problem is. The details of it. And look at yourself.’ (It was on the tip of her tongue to protest that she didn’t have a problem.) Ben pointed at the photograph of Clyde, and for the moment he was entirely altruistic: ‘Ask yourself how your life with Clyde has changed – for better or worse – and why. Is there the same excitement of facing the future together? Obviously not, now is the future. What’s the difference between that excitement of yesteryear, those hopes, and the reality of now? How much disappointment is there?’ He looked at her earnestly. ‘What do you talk about these days? The same things you talked about twenty years ago when you were fresh from university and he was a horny young sheep-shearer desperate to carry you off to his mortgaged station?’ He shook his head. ‘No, of course not you’ve said all that: but have you … supplemented your conversations – together – so that you’ve still got things to talk about, to interest each other in? If not, why not? For example, do you both read good books, or only one of you? Do you even share the same interests now – or is it really only the common interest of survival?’ Helen was hanging on his words. ‘Yes, you love him, but not in the way you did when you first married him, when you were so crazy about him that you quit university. What does he mean to you now, Helen, twenty years on? And why? And is it enough, in all the circumstances, that you – or your heroine – must pay for it with the precious remnants of her youthfulness?’ He looked at her, and his altruism faltered. ‘What’s her sex-life like? Ask yourself what yours is like.’ Helen blinked. ‘Is it what it used to be twenty years ago, when you couldn’t get enough of each other? Of course not, nobody can keep up that enthusiasm. No, it’s changed, but to what?’ Helen blinked again. ‘Once a week, when he’s home – once a fortnight? Once a month? Why so seldom? Is it because you’re ageing? No. Is it because he’s ageing? No, he’d do three times a night with a new chick. So?’ He tapped his head. ‘So it’s up here.’ He leant out and tapped her head. ‘But what’s up here? Or in your heroine’s head? And what does she want to do about it, and how? That’s what the story-teller’s got to fascinate the reader with.’

Helen was following this intently.

‘But what makes her leave?’ she demanded. ‘What’s the catalyst? The final thing?’

Ben ached to lean forward and tilt her mouth to his. Instead he took the bottle from her and poured more wine into their glasses. He said quietly:

‘That’s the question, isn’t it? That’s what the story’s about. What makes her, after all these years, finally find the courage to quit. To act, upon her convictions? That …’ he nodded at her, ‘is what women will sit on the edge of their chairs to find out. And if you succeed in making them understand that – empathize with that – you’ve been successful.’ He looked at her earnestly; and oh, he was within a whisker of leaning out to touch her; then his nerve failed him and he just gave his wide impish smile: ‘Make it this little New York Jewish jeweller who rocks up on his Harley-Davidson.’ He grinned, then stood up and jerked his head. ‘Come on – let’s crank up the generator to test this switch, then go’n have that swim.’

CHAPTER 9

The switch worked like a charm. Helen was delighted; now she could go to bed without running through the dark house pursued by spooks.

‘Now you can start the washing-machine,’ Ben said. She hit the button with a flourish. The machine burst into shuddering life. ‘Eureka!’ she cried. Dundee began to make another puddle. ‘You and I are going to have a little talk tomorrow, Dundee!’

Ben smiled. ‘Well, I’ll ride back to the cottage and put on my swimming trunks. Meet you at the reservoir?’

‘Haveanotherdrinkfirst! Did you get all that? I’m having a lovely day! First a washing-machine again, then Dundee, then a thousand bucks’ worth of diamond, now no more goddam spooks hard on my heels!’ She leant boozily towards him. ‘Do you think I’m childish, believing in spooks?’

It would have been so natural to lean forward too, and put his mouth on hers. ‘No.’ Ben grinned.

‘I don’t believe in spooks. I just suspect there are some!’

‘I believe in ghosts.’

‘Do you? A big brave man like you? Maybe I’m not such a bimbo!’

Ben smiled. ‘I also don’t like the dark in big empty houses. That’s natural. Man has been afraid of the dark ever since the cave. And if you believe in God, and a spiritual life after death, what’s so improbable about there being a few maladjusted spirits knocking around?’

‘Right!’ Helen cried. She stuck out her hand. ‘Shake on that! You’re not Christian if you don’t believe in spooks!’

It was another moment when he could have enfolded her. ‘Or Jewish.’

‘Or Jewish,’ she assented reasonably. ‘So are we two reasonable people going to have another drink?’

‘Sure – but up at the reservoir while we’re having our swim. To freshen up.’

‘Brilliant! To sober up! I’m almost as bad as Billy.’ She leaned breathily towards him again. ‘Ben, will you do one more small thing for me tomorrow?’

Oh, he would do all kinds of things for her tomorrow. Including crawl on his hands and knees over broken glass. ‘If I can.’

‘You can! Oh, you can. Because you’re a man.’ She held up a finger. ‘Tomorrow, when Billy’s sobered up – and me, hopefully – tomorrow will you accompany me to his hut to kick his Aboriginal arse? Figuratively, I mean. But help me to give him a bollocking. I mean, I’ll do the bollocking, but I’d appreciate your moral support. So he doesn’t think I’m a helpless female on my own with whom he can be cavalier over his putative duties.’

He grinned. ‘You’re not a helpless female.’

‘Oh, I know that! Boy, do I know that! Dumb, maybe, stultified maybe, believe in ghosts definitely, but helpless I am not!’ She looked at him cheerfully. ‘But will you come with me tomorrow to Billy’s?’

‘Certainly.’

‘Thank you. So let’s have a drink to that! To our united front against Billy the Blackamoor. He of the sooty breast. That’s Shakespeare.’

‘Othello.’ Ben grinned. ‘But let’s have that swim first.’ He could hardly wait. ‘Go’n put on a swimsuit, I’ll meet you at the reservoir in five minutes.’

‘You’re quite right! Sober up – that’s me every time!’ She frowned happily, then pronounced: ‘Ben, if I appear a bit pissed, it’s not an optical illusion, it’s just because I’m having such a good time! All that heady stuff you gave me about that crash-hot number-one sheer-genius bestseller I’m going to start writing tomorrow – it’s been very stimulating! Gone to my head like wine. Yes, I shall meet you at the reservoir! In my itsy-bitsy teeny-weeny yellow polka-dot bikini! Pronto!’

Ben rode back to the cottage, not knowing what to think. He had lived long enough to know that he certainly couldn’t be confident about his chances with the gorgeous Helen McKenzie, even though drunk and all by herself in the middle of the Outback, but he was tipsy enough and certainly horny enough to be optimistic as hell all over again. He unpacked, pulled on his swimming trunks, then got out another bottle of Shiraz, a corkscrew, two glasses from the kitchen, and set off jauntily, barefoot and tingling with anticipation.

He arrived at the big circular reservoir beside the windmill behind the eucalyptus grove. Helen was not there yet. He climbed the steps to the rim. The interior had been painted blue. There was hardly any sediment on the bottom. It was a perfectly good spot for seduction! He opened the wine and sat down on the concrete steps to wait for her, looking impatiently towards the house. It was just visible through the trees.

He wondered what she looked like in her itsy-bitsy bikini, and he wanted her so much he didn’t care what she looked like. She had lovely big tits, that much he had seen – a real Earthmother type. Her stomach was probably a bit fat, and doubtless stretch-marked, but so what? Her thighs? Oh, he longed to see her thighs again …

The flies spoilt his anticipation. He stood up, waving them aside, looked back towards the house, then turned and plunged into the pool, to get away from them.

The surface was lukewarm, but deeper the water was cool, a delightful, sensuous balm. He swam underwater to the opposite side, then back again. He did the diameter four times underwater, to contain his impatience, then burst the surface. He gripped the rim, tossed back his hair, and looked over the top.

Helen was still not in sight. He looked at his watch, sighed and subsided back into the water, wallowing impatiently.

It was over twenty minutes since he’d left her. He muttered aloud: ‘Remember the story of your life, Sunninghill, my boy, my life …’

He wallowed some more, trying not to feel unduly expectant. And he really did feel sorry for her, all alone in the Outback. It was a hell of a life for a woman …

It would do her the world of good to be laid …?

He snorted at himself: there you go again, Sunninghill! He submerged his head in an attempt to dampen his expectations.

But, by God, if ever you’ve had a chance it’s this one …

He plunged his head underwater again and swam hard to the steps. He reached for his wine glass and looked again towards the house. Not yet … He subsided back into the water, sipping.

After another five agonized minutes he just knew she wasn’t coming – she had thought better of it. So much for thinking your luck had changed, you fool. You asshole …

He banged his glass on the rim, heaved himself up. He descended the concrete steps, grabbed his towel, picked up the glasses, corkscrew and wine bottle, and set off down the path to the main house.

The kitchen was empty, and the whole place had an abandoned air.

‘Helen?’ he called.

No response was the stern reply. He put the wine on the table, walked to the open door and peered down the passage. He listened. Not a sound. Then Dundee came waddling through from her bedroom.

‘Helen? You all right?’

No reply. He hesitated, then walked down the passage and knocked on the half-open door. ‘Anybody home?’

Silence. He cautiously stuck his head inside.

Helen’s jeans and shirt were slung on the floor, and one shoe lay on the bed. An empty brandy glass stood on the dressing-table.

‘Helen?’

He took a step inside, then went towards the bathroom. He peered through the open door. He saw Helen’s bare foot.

‘You all right, Helen?’

Silence. He hesitated, then took another step and peeped inside.

She was sitting on the toilet. She was slumped sideways, against the wall, eyes closed, her legs stretched out. She was naked but for a bunch of swimsuit around her knees. She was fast, fast asleep.

Ben stared at her. In a confusion of surprise, lust and disappointment. Then, with difficulty, he pulled himself together, and he was about to leave hastily, as was the correct thing to do – then he stopped, heart knocking, and allowed himself another look.

Oh … Yes, there were stretchmarks on her tummy, and her posture did not show her breasts to best advantage – they lolled down her chest. And her thighs were flattened by the lavatory seat. But, oh, she was all woman … And, oh, he felt a yearning in his hands to touch her, to feel her womanness, to seize her, to devour her.

Ben Sunninghill tore his eyes off her, and turned back. He stood just outside the bathroom, a little shakily. He closed his eyes, trying to think.

Well, this was the end of this little party. And, he was bitterly disappointed. Bitterly – and he was annoyed with himself for getting his stupid hopes up. But at least she hadn’t decided against having a swim with him. She had only fallen by the wayside …

He took a deep breath, to smother the image of her defenceless nakedness, and tried to consider what to do.

Well, she should be woken up, surely, and either go to bed and sleep it off or rejoin the party – though there was little hope of that.

He sighed, then walked out into the passage. He filled his lungs and bellowed:

‘HELEN! WAKE UP!’

He listened, his heart thumping. His voice seemed to echo over the Outback. But there was no response.

‘HELEN! WAKE UP! FIRE! FLOOD! EARTHQUAKE!’

Nothing.

‘RAPE! PILLAGE! PESTILENCE!’

Nothing.

‘SNAKES!’

Still nothing.

‘SPOOKS!’ he bellowed.

He slumped his shoulders, and leant against the wall. Forget it. He grimly retraced his steps to the kitchen.

The hell of it was, it was all such an anticlimax, such a waste. Of a nice day, a promising day. An opportunity … And he really did enjoy talking to her – she was so appreciative. And so lonely …

Like me.

He stood in the empty kitchen, feeling sorry for himself. He sighed with frustration, poured a glass of wine and sat down at the table.

Dundee appeared, sniffing at his toes. ‘Hullo, Dundee, where’s Mommy?’ Well, he might as well go to bed himself – but perhaps he should leave a note for her to wake him if and when she roused herself.

Then a thought occurred to him: She might topple off the toilet, and bash her head …

He sat there, considering the possibility and what could be done about it.

Stop looking for excuses to handle her womanflesh, pal!

But it was true – she could fall off and injure herself. And that would be terrible.

Bullshit. She’d bounce.

Yeah, but if she doesn’t? It could be very serious. How do you call the Flying Doctor?

Well, all right, he said to himself reasonably, so you should put her to bed, shouldn’t you?

Ben Sunninghill sat, considering this, trying not to be excited at the prospect. Trying to feel chivalrous. And he was right, dammit – she could topple off that john and crack her head. So there was only one sensible thing to do …

He got up, and walked back to the bathroom. He stood looking at her.

No, she was not truly beautiful, but to Ben Sunninghill she was. Maybe it was because he had had a lot to drink – but no, he wasn’t that drunk. To Ben she seemed the loveliest woman in the world, and possibly the nicest. She was so sweet and defenceless sitting there.

He took a deep breath and tried to thrust carnal thoughts from his mind. He picked up her limp wrist and shook it.

‘Helen? Come on, pal. Bedtime.’

Helen gave a groan, then slowly toppled forward. Her head slid across the wall in an arc. Ben dropped to his haunches in front of her, his arms out. She slumped to a stop against his narrow shoulder.

He held her, his hands on her bare back. And, oh, the feel of her soft smooth flesh, her breasts brushing his bare chest. He closed his eyes, overcome by the soft female feel of her, the woman smell of her. Her hair against his cheek, her breathing against his neck. The defencelessness of her. And, for an instant, it almost felt like love.

He took a deep, shaky breath, opened his eyes, and considered the problem of moving her.

She was too heavy for him to pick up in a fireman’s lift. So? Drag her? He looked down at the bathmat. If he could get her on to that, he could drag her.

He reached out and pulled it nearer. Then he swivelled on his haunches and eased her weight forward, trying to turn her at the same time. She groaned, and slid slowly off the toilet, on to her knees. He knelt beside her, holding her tight, terrified of dropping her; then he shuffled backwards, grunting, and tried to control her dead-weight descent on to the mat.

She landed on her side with an alarming thump, but showed no sign of waking. Ben got to his feet, crouched and heaved her over on to her back.

She lay there, deep in drunken sleep, her legs half apart, her swimsuit stretched between her knees, her arms out as if in surrender.

He looked yearningly at her nakedness. Then he gently moved her arms to her sides. He put her legs together Oh, the lovely feel of them. He looked down at her again, at her pretty face in drunken repose, her full lips a little parted, her breasts lolling; then, trying to ignore her nakedness, he gripped the corners of the mat and began to drag her.

He manoeuvred backwards across the bathroom. Helen did not murmur. He had difficulty steering her through the doorway – her hip caught. He dragged her on down the side of the double-bed, shoving the other mats aside with his feet. He dragged her past the foot of the bed, up along the other side. He stopped and looked down at her. ‘Out to the wide, wide world …’ he whispered tenderly. He turned to the bed and pulled back the covers.

Then he hesitated – no way could he hoist her up there without giving himself a hernia. How? Legs first? Head first? All together and break his back? And he certainly didn’t want her to wake up and find herself naked in his arms en route to bed. In fact, having done his Good Samaritan number he should now make himself scarce; just put a pillow under her pretty head, throw a blanket over her and get out. He took one more look at her, and was reaching for a pillow when another thought occurred to him: he’d better get that swimsuit into a more decent position, because when she woke up and found herself neatly at her bedside she might think he’d pulled it down …

He got down on one knee, gripped the swimsuit in trembling fingers. He gently manoeuvred it up her soft thighs.

Then came the obstacle of her hips and buttocks – and there, there, was her pubic triangle.

Ben Sunninghill crouched over Helen McKenzie, his smouldering face eighteen inches above her, and with all his heart and loins he wanted to bend lower and lower, and then fiercely kiss her soft curly sweetness. For an agonized moment he hovered poised above her – then he screwed his hungry eyes closed, and hastily wrestled the swimsuit upwards. And Helen said:

‘… we’ll merry-merry be …’

Ben froze, his heart pounding. She was half-smiling; he crouched there, waiting to make sure she was asleep, then feverishly dragged the swimsuit up over her belly. Was that as far as he dared go? Yes. He got up, grabbed the sheet and blanket off the bed and hastily spread them over her. He grabbed a pillow, got a hand under her silky head, gently lifted it. He shoved the pillow underneath.

He crouched over her, his breath trembly, looking down at her.

Oh, it was such a woman’s face … it wasn’t beautiful in the classic sense, but beautiful it was, in the woman sense. And now that her nakedness was past, he felt only a throbbing tenderness. Of course he had lusted after that body under the blanket, but right now, looking down on that lovely, rather worn, half-smiling face, it was tenderness that he felt. And with all his heart he yearned to press his lips to hers.

But he did not. He forced himself to his feet. Make yourself scarce, Sunninghill … He looked down at her and whispered:

‘… we’ll merry-merry be, tomorrow we’ll be sober …’

He left, closing the bedroom door behind him.

CHAPTER 10

And, oh boy, tomorrow we were sober. ‘Are we not?’ she inquired huskily of her dressing-table mirror. ‘Is that really us, Helen? Or Granny come to give us a nasty surprise?’

She turned for the bathroom, holding her head. Then the fact registered that her swimsuit was hanging from her midriff.

She stared down at herself, trying to think, her heart sinking; then she closed her eyes. ‘Oh, God …’

She hurried to the bathroom, fumbled on the shower taps. She got under the hot water. Then she remembered Dundee.

‘Dundee!’ she shrieked. ‘Where are you? Oh God!’

She washed her hair frantically, trying to wash out her conscience. She burst out of the shower, slung a big towel around her chest and hurried through to the kitchen. ‘Dundee?’ she croaked. There was no Dundee. But on the table she saw a note. She snatched it up. It read: I’ve got Dundee.

She closed her eyes. ‘Thank God …’

She turned and slowly retraced her wet footprints to the bedroom, trying to remember what had happened. She brushed her teeth vigorously, her head hurting, and dressed, feeling terrible. She put on some make-up with exaggerated care. ‘Patch up the wounds …’ It seemed like the first time she’d worn cosmetics in a month. ‘It is a month …’ The last time she’d been to Burraville. Back in the kitchen she made a cup of strong black coffee, sat down and forced herself to eat a slice of bread and honey. It was hard work.

They’d been going to have a swim – she remembered that far. There had been a lot of heady crap about how she was going to write a book. Or was that the day before yesterday? She remembered deciding to have a brandy, taking it through to the bedroom to drink whilst she changed into her swimsuit. Then, kerpow – blank.

She gave a deep, hungover sigh. Then? Well, then, obviously, Ben had put her to bed on the floor. With only half her swimsuit on. How had that happened? Oh God – what else had he seen? What had he done? And what would Clyde say if he knew? Oh God again …

Helen took a grim, uptight breath. Well, well, lady, better pull yourself together! You don’t go getting pissed half naked with strange men, no matter how lonely you are! So, take hold. You’ve been pissed for two days! Thank God he’s leaving today …

And there’s no need to look to him for moral support when giving Billy a bollocking. Fight your own battles!

Helen tossed back her coffee resolutely, banged down the mug and strode out into the backyard. The sunlight hurt. She strode for the Land Rover, got in, slammed the door and started the vehicle. Get this Billy business over with, then retrieve Dundee from Ben and say goodbye. Goodbye, Ben Sunninghill, thanks for putting me to bed – and keep your mouth shut …

She roared out of the yard on to the rough track to Billy’s shack, bouncing and grinding, slamming the gears. She was glad to be doing something active whilst she nursed her guilty conscience and tried not to think. About her drunkenness, about what Ben Sunninghill had seen … Oh, dear God, had she been snoring? Was her mouth open? Oh dear. And, oh, Clyde McKenzie I love you …

Twenty minutes later she arrived at Billy’s hut. And as she pulled up in a cloud of dust she just knew that goddam Billy and his wife had gone walkabout! She skidded to a stop and flung open the door.

There wasn’t a sign of life, except the horse in the paddock near the windmill. The cooking fire was dead, the broken-up door was scattered about. Helen strode to the hut and peered inside angrily; their blankets were gone, and an empty bottle lay on the floor. ‘Billy!’ A hundred yards away was the shed for the lucern and the runabout utility truck. She strode over to it. She peered inside. ‘Billy?!’ No damn Billy asleep in the hay. Nor in the truck.

She rubbed her aching eyes. She walked back to the Land Rover and slumped against it.

God, God, God. Now this …

Then she heard Ben’s motor cycle. She looked up, her face grim, in no mood for Mr Sunninghill.

Ben came riding along the track, wearing only a shirt and shorts. He turned into the clearing round the hut and came rumbling up beside her. He cut the engine as he glanced around.

‘So, walkabout, is it?’

Helen glared as if it were all his fault. ‘Yes.’

He put his hands on his narrow hips. ‘So, what’s to be done?’

Helen closed her eyes in exasperation. ‘Where’s Dundee?’

‘In the empty chicken run. So what do we do about Billy?’

We? She sighed furiously. ‘How did you know I was here?’

‘Heard your Land Rover, realized what had happened. Followed your dust.’

‘Realized what had happened?’

Ben smiled. ‘That for some reason you’d decided to handle Billy by yourself. Yesterday you asked me to give you moral support. But I thought I’d better come, in case you needed me.’

‘And why do I want to handle Billy by myself?’ she demanded.

He smiled that smile. He knew what she was worried about but his conscience was clear. If only by a whisker. ‘Because you’re feeling fragile – and you’re worried about what may have happened last night. So you want to distance yourself from me.’ He raised a palm. ‘But please don’t worry, because nothing happened.’ He added: ‘And I have to leave today, anyway.’

She was glad to hear that. She said grimly: ‘What did happen last night, Ben?’

Ben said cheerfully: ‘When you didn’t show up at the reservoir I went to see if you were all right. I found you in the bathroom, passed out. Tried to wake you, failed, so I tried to put you to bed. Couldn’t, so made you comfortable on the floor.’

Helen looked at him narrowly. ‘Why didn’t you just leave me to sleep it off in the bathroom?’

‘Because you might have fallen and injured yourself. You were asleep on the john.’

Helen stared at him, then closed her eyes.

‘The toilet …’ she groaned. ‘Oh, how ladylike …’

‘Actually,’ he smiled, ‘you looked rather cute.’

‘Cute?’ She flashed him a look. ‘Oh, how undignified …’

‘I mean …’ he smiled, ‘defenceless.’

‘I’ll say I was defenceless. What was I wearing?’

‘Your swimsuit.’

‘All of it?’

Ben sighed. ‘No, well, it was around your thighs. But I pulled it up as far as I could.’

Helen winced. ‘Oh, Clyde would love this.’ She looked at him. ‘You didn’t …?’ She stopped in embarrassment.

Ben had had enough of being a misunderstood Good Samaritan. ‘No, Helen,’ he said, ‘I didn’t Your swimsuit was around your knees, and I pulled it up as far as I could.’ He gave her a glare. ‘What kind of a jerk do you take me for?’

She closed her eyes again. ‘Oh boy … Thanks,’ she said, less than graciously. Then she added grudgingly: ‘No, Ben, I didn’t think you’d done anything ungentlemanly.’

‘Then why did you say it?’

‘I didn’t say it.’ Then, more reasonably: ‘But I admit it crossed my mind. Unworthy thought.’ She sighed again, still angry with herself. ‘I was just imagining what Clyde would think if he knew.’

‘Well, he’s not going to know, is he?’

She snorted bleakly. ‘I may feel I have to confess it.’

Ben was astonished. ‘Confess it? Why?’ He waved a bemused hand. ‘Confess what? What did you do? Have you done him any harm? Have I?’ He sighed, then shook his head at her. ‘It’ll only provoke suspicion. And discord. “What the eye does not see the heart does not grieve for”. Look, Helen …’ He was almost at a loss where to begin with this delicate female conscience. ‘Look, you were having a fun day for a change, as you’re fully entitled to do. So, you got a bit drunk because you were letting your hair down for once. So what? You’re your own person. Enjoy what happened. Look back on it with pleasure – or at least amusement. You didn’t do anything wrong, Helen, even if you did fall asleep on the john with your swimsuit half on and had to be put to bed.’ He glared into her embarrassed, hungover eyes. Then he held a finger out at her nose and said: ‘And

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