Salt Creek Read online

  ‘We don’t believe in curses.’

  ‘But in the bible there are curses. The locusts, the floods.’

  ‘They are stories,’ Fred said. ‘They’re not real.’

  ‘You don’t think you are cursed? Your mother and sister are dead, your brothers have gone, your sheep are sick. A story does not have to be real to be true.’

  ‘Why would we be cursed? We are a good family. We treat you well. No one is killing you here,’ Fred said.

  ‘But in other places?’ Tull asked.

  ‘Who knows if those stories are true?’

  ‘They are true,’ Tull said quietly. ‘My mother has seen it. She speaks English. She learned from the men on Karta. When she escaped she was married to someone from this lakalinyeri. But she is not from here. She spoke English to me. She said I should speak it so I could talk to the white men when they came. The tendi agreed.’

  ‘That’s why you came to talk to us?’

  He nodded.

  ‘Do you tell them about us?’ Fred said.

  Tull hesitated then. ‘I try to. They don’t understand you.’

  ‘And you?’

  He shook his head. ‘They share water and food. You take until there is nothing. They would like some land.’

  ‘But you may live on our land. Papa told you that. He fenced off the sucks.’

  ‘It’s spoiled here. The water, the grass. The kangaroos are gone. We can’t burn the grass and the bush. The land is going bad. It’s not good for us here. They want land where white men don’t come, to keep their women safe.’

  ‘Safe from whom?’

  ‘White men, of course.’

  ‘Which white men? From the island? Those days are done. Or do you mean from travellers? Do you want land away from the stock route? Don’t you need the sea?’

  ‘From all white men.’ He busied himself with his carving then, pulling back from the conversation in the delicate way he had when he didn’t wish to offend.

  Fred looked at Tull, rather stricken at first, and then angry. ‘My brothers?’ Fred flung himself at Tull and tried to land a blow, and grappled him, but Tull writhed away quick as an eel, not trying to defend himself, merely moving out of reach.

  Addie and I shrieked.

  Fred did not do anything more, just stood, panting. His anger burned out as fast as dry grass. Tull was quiet. He had only said what was true. He was not a liar, as Fred knew.

  I stood at a little distance, waiting for the knowledge to sink into and become part of me.

  ‘So much for Papa’s dreams of enlightenment and reason,’ Fred said.

  ‘Do you want this – to live away from us?’ I asked.

  He would not say yes or no, but busied himself finishing his spear.

  In the morning I opened the damper and the flue on the stove and fetched some kindling and some bigger bits of wood. The coals were glowing orange by then and soft ash flitted from them and I placed the kindling carefully and, when it caught, bigger pieces of wood and shut the door to the fire and put the kettle on. It was early in August, cold, and I wrapped a shawl around my shoulders and put Papa’s old town coat on top and stepped up the path to the rise. My breath came out in clouds and as far as I could see the light and the grasses were as waterish as the sea, and the succulents in the cold still water might have been a Turkey carpet, and the sea and the grasses and the sky and the air, even my breath, were like nothing I could find words for. I was as dumb as a beast of the field taking what pleasure I could in the touch of sun.

  It had rained so much of late, the water flowing down the track and gouging down slopes – worst of all in the yards where the grass had been eaten low and trampled; rivulets of soil bled into the lagoon. Its current was swift now. Birds alight on its surface sailed past at a clip, turning their heads at their disappearing audience as if caught between glee and surprise.

  Papa and Tull departed to Tinlinyara after breakfast. Papa could not wait any longer for the water to subside; the sheep might need moving to higher ground. The days stretched out. Everything, the house and our point, seemed empty. Addie moved from window to window and to the front door which she wrenched open, sending a flood of wind through the house to slam the hall door, and back to the veranda where she stared the length of the lagoon. The rain began again, lighter now. It was too wet to work outside. Fred sat at the table, contented with his paints and book, making a humming droning sound in the back of his throat, stopping sometimes to put wood on the fire. I played the pianoforte, one of the Goldberg variations (trying to make the notes sound the way they felt to me) until Addie burst through the door. ‘For pity’s sake, Hester, play something different or I shall begin to scream.’

  I broke off.

  ‘Do you suppose Tull is all right?’ she said. ‘It’s two weeks they’ve been gone.’

  ‘How would I know?’

  ‘But do you think he is?’

  ‘Of course. He always is. What would happen to him? It’s Papa you should be worried for.’

  ‘Do you think he’s lonely?’

  ‘Tull? Why would he be? He’s not alone.’

  ‘I don’t know. He just might— No one but Papa to talk to. Imagine.’ She left the room.

  The house couldn’t contain her restlessness and in the afternoon when the rain had stopped again I made her come for a walk in the blustery weather. We wrapped ourselves up and tramped above the lagoon path’s edge, tussocky grass being preferable to mud. Despite our best efforts to hold our dresses high they were muddy at the bottom and spattered up the skirts and the next morning, when the sun by some miracle had appeared again, I began a washing, even though it was a Thursday and Grandmama’s sampler said that Monday was washday. But it might be raining again by then.

  Late in the morning Fred came around to the line where I was wrestling a sheet, the wind heaving its clammy folds against me, slapping my clothes and clinging to my face.

  ‘You’ll never guess who’s here. Charles.’

  I pulled free of the sheet. ‘Charles? Whatever do you mean?’

  ‘Charles. On his own.’ He was panting from running. ‘I saw him at the point and ran to tell you.’

  ‘Damn.’

  ‘I thought you’d be pleased.’

  ‘Where is he?’

  ‘Coming down the track. I ran, cut the corner – faster than him. His horse doesn’t like the water.’

  ‘The mud will be sliding under his hooves on the slope. They don’t like it. Oh.’ The wind had whipped up so my hair was flying and I fumbled about my head for it, Medusa-like by the feel, and twisted the snakes together and tucked them back and under the tethered parts – and smoothed down my mist-coloured skirts to no effect at all other than to fill me with dismay. There was no time to make myself nice, and no purpose in doing so. My dress was an old one of Mama’s with a flounce added to the bottom and taken in wherever it could be. I straightened my sleeves, unrolling them and then pushing them up again when I saw how creased they were, and removed my apron. There was nothing to be done but to go and let Charles see how things were with us these days.

  I walked towards the house. Charles was further across the boggy slope, coming down the main path. His hand was loose on his thigh, giving to his lanky chestnut’s long easy stride; his face was concealed in the shadow of his hat brim. Fred opened the top gate to let him through and dragged it closed after him, and Charles continued on the narrow foot-path, his horse’s ears twitching and its nostrils fluttering. They stopped at my side and I put my hand to the horse’s neck and stroked down its length beneath its mane, glad of it to hide the trembling of my hand. Charles dismounted and took off his hat and stood before me, travel worn and mud-caked about his boots.

  ‘Charles.’ I held out my hand to him – to shake his hand as if I were a boy, and drew back into a bob and stopped that too. I had never before curtseyed to him, not even on the day we met three years before.

  ‘Hester.’ He reached out and took my hand. I clasped his in return.
It seemed to be all I could do: to gaze at his hand surrounding mine and to feel its warmth and size and when I loosed my grip he continued to hold it until it became awkward for him too. I had forgotten the strangeness of another’s flesh, its unpredictability.

  ‘You are here,’ Charles said. ‘I thought you might be gone.’

  ‘I would have mentioned it in a letter. Where would I go? I am— we are unchanged, as you can see.’

  ‘You are not. And Fred must be six inches taller.’

  Fred grinned. Charles’s horse fell to cropping the scant grass, tugging Charles along. He heaved it back and stroked its shoulder and chest and the horse swung its head and bumped him.

  ‘Loose him, if you like,’ I said. ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘I’m on my way to Melbourne. I finally persuaded Papa of the merits of the art school there.’

  ‘Will you stay tonight or do you go on to the Travellers Rest?’

  ‘I’ll stay, if I may, if Mr Finch agrees. I wondered if I might stay longer – a week or two. I have the time.’

  ‘He’s away just now, but it won’t be any trouble.’

  I directed him to the stable and watched from the kitchen as he removed the saddle and wiped the horse down with a handful of hay and loosed him in the yard. I set myself to familiar tasks: stoking the fire and putting the kettle on to boil and making tea. When Charles was finished he came towards the house straightening his clothes, buttoning his collar, tucking his hair back – that old familiar gesture.

  ‘Where is everyone?’ he said at the door.

  ‘Papa and Tull are at the new run – Papa’s worried about floods. Stanton and Hugh are on the goldfields and Albert is working at the lakes.’

  ‘Then there is no man here?’

  ‘Not here.’

  ‘Thank you very much,’ Fred said coming past with an armload of wood.

  ‘Except for Fred, but you knew that. We can look after ourselves quite well. It’s only for a few days. Addie’s gone for a walk to avoid the washing.’

  Charles laughed. ‘That sounds like Addie.’

  ‘She’s better than she was.’

  He took off his hat and once inside the dining room looked around it as if he were reminding himself. ‘You’ve made it so pleasant. Flowers. Where are they from?’

  ‘Mama had them from Grandmama. They do well here.’

  He gave a quick smile. He was a man now, his boyishness gone. The bones of his face were more visible and his shoulders broad, as if the light here had learned how to reveal him. His eyebrows were thicker. There was a scar at the end of one eyebrow that had not been there before. What do you say about someone you cannot help liking? I liked the way he moved and the way his hair fell and his smile and the graveness of him when he was not smiling. I liked him.

  He looked around. ‘It’s so quiet these days.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I was sorry to hear of your mother and sister.’

  Suddenly, I could not speak. I held myself still and tense and contained the sob in my throat until I felt faint.

  ‘Hester.’ Charles put a hand on my arm, near the shoulder.

  I could not help swaying towards him – just a reflex – but stopped myself. What was the point in weakening? It was not worth the moment of relief, especially when the comfort would be gone so soon. I shrugged from his grasp and his hand fell and returned to his hat, pinching at its rim. I drew in a shallow breath. ‘It was hard, but we are coming about, all of us quite well,’ I said.

  He said, ‘My father was sad to hear about your mother. He admired her. He thought her brave to live here.’

  ‘I think she was in the end. Her spirits were better before— But she didn’t like it. She never did. Papa was wrong to bring her to Salt Creek. I shouldn’t say that. It would have been better to leave us all with Grandmama and Grandpapa in Adelaide. They came to Australia to be close to us.’

  ‘But I would not have met you.’

  ‘I’m sure you wouldn’t mind that. You wouldn’t know.’

  ‘I would mind.’

  ‘Thank you again for the book,’ I said.

  ‘I hope your father wasn’t annoyed.’

  ‘I didn’t tell him.’

  He had brought a sketch book for Fred and a note book for me, and was planning to do some drawings along the way.

  ‘Why not go by the inland route?’ I asked.

  ‘To see what has changed, to see you all.’ He took off his coat.

  ‘Here.’ I took it and his hat and hung them on the door and he sat and began to be more at home, telling me of his plans for the next year.

  ‘Melbourne,’ I said. ‘A long way.’

  ‘I suppose. This place, I’ve been thinking of it ever since I left.’

  ‘Whatever could you care for here?’

  He looked at me and then out of the window. ‘The light,’ he said eventually.

  ‘The light?’

  ‘Don’t you see it?’

  What would I say? That sometimes it seemed that every grass head, every insect claw, every tree root, every fleck of slobber about the bullocks’ mouths had been carved by miraculous chisel. Or that sometimes the sea was a gaseous haze, or that a sea mist held its own glow and could be cut right through with an out-swept arm. ‘Of course I see it,’ I said. It was seeing him that was the problem. The conversations I had imagined between us were not like this conversation.

  ‘I can breathe here. Don’t you feel it?’

  To distract myself I fetched the biscuit jar.

  ‘Hester?’ he said again.

  ‘I feel as if I will choke,’ I said. ‘But then I cannot choose when I come and go.’

  The tips of his fingers moved on the table as if they were seeking purchase. ‘You have changed.’

  ‘Yes. I told you. All of us. How could we not? As have you. This is what happens. You could at least stay until Papa returns and see what he says. He might need some help. But as to money to pay for it?’ I shrugged. He stilled his face at that, and no wonder. I could not stop myself.

  ‘No need for money,’ he said, very quiet. ‘Just offering as an old friend.’

  ‘How nice for you.’

  ‘You don’t want me here.’ He stood. ‘I’ll thank you for the tea and go.’

  ‘No.’ I shut my eyes and covered them with my hands, pressing them. ‘Only give me a few minutes. I didn’t know you were coming.’ I opened my eyes. He was sitting again, waiting. ‘You knew you might see me, all of us.’

  ‘And you didn’t.’

  ‘No.’

  Fred came in then, oblivious, and struck up conversation, bringing out his books, and Addie returned and began to flirt, but in the way of habit rather than conviction. Soon she had us all laughing.

  Fred proposed a walk in the afternoon, to show Charles the things that had changed. Skipper brought down a kangaroo while we stood watching. A small mob was passing through (they’d become a rarity and we’d stopped to wonder at the sight) and when Skipper struck one lagging behind they became a ball of rolling fur. A second later she was panting and grinning over the kangaroo. She was useless as a working dog – only put her near a flock of sheep and she scattered them for miles – but a wonderful hunter. Try as we might to keep her and the natives’ dogs apart, we could not. They would find each other. Papa had taken more than one of her puppies – tall, fast, variegated hounds – to the natives by way of making connections, and they prized them for their speed and strength.

  One thing that was sad: it was a female kangaroo and in its pouch we found a baby still living. It was a sweet thing, its head part deer, part puppy, and with the longest back feet: a ridiculous creature. I found a soft old cloth – one of the baby blankets – and made it a nest by the stove where it sat trembling while on the other side of the oven door its mother roasted. Fred carried it about after that, tucked in his shirt, feeding it cow’s milk mixed with warm water, and the next day it began lolloping behind him like a dog. Skipper stalked it with
her eyes and whined until Fred shouted at her, which hurt her feelings and made her sulk. The creature became the sun to us; we orbited around the strangeness of it and in this way she drew us together.

  In the week that followed Charles busied himself: chopping wood and attending to the house cows and riding out with Fred to feed the sheep or move them. He sometimes found time to work on his drawings in the kitchen while I was cooking. I stopped to make us both a cup of tea and while we were together I had a strange sensation inside watching his brown hands and arms and face and neck where the collar buttons were left undone and wondered how different his skin might be where it had been hidden from light, as mine was. Sometimes we talked and sometimes we didn’t and it was fine either way.

  We rowed to the peninsula one day, not talking of anything profound while crossing, just of the things of town life that I remembered and missed: school and company and dancing and nice clothes, books, and buildings made of stone, my grandparents, a place and a time where nature did not seem constantly to be conspiring against us. It was as if I were pretending to be someone else, the words I was saying and the things they represented no part of my life and not likely to be. Perhaps this was how Addie felt: a great separation between words and actions and thoughts and feelings. Charles was quiet for the most part, just letting me pretend. We arrived on the opposite shore. I rowed hard at it and leapt onto the sand before the boat could slide back and held it steady until Charles was clear too.

  The weather changed while we were on the sea beach. The wind blew from the south and the waves thrashed the shore and I thought of Papa’s dead sheep in the deep, draggled and grey, plunging in the water and taken down by the weight of their wool or eaten by sharks. But I suppose the ship was their coffin. The air was sickly yellow, as if the clouds overhead were the water’s surface seen from below. I was beneath water once and opened my eyes and looked towards the skin that separated water from air and it had appeared so. I couldn’t help shivering.