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  ‘Are you cold?’ Charles said.

  ‘Cold? It’s not so bad. I’ve grown used to it.’

  He took my hand – ‘You’re near frozen’ – and rubbed it and took off his jacket and made me put it on, standing before me to do up the buttons. He was slow and his fingers were not as neat as I had seen them at other times. It smelled like him, of wood smoke and a little of sweat. It was warm. It was what I imagine being held by him might feel like. It was soft at the collar against my cheek, a worn velvet, rougher elsewhere, the colour of tobacco.

  He pulled the collar up at the back. ‘There.’ He put his hands to my arms and rubbed up and down. I couldn’t help liking the sensation.

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘I’ll need it when I go. I have no other.’

  ‘It’s as well I have one then.’ Charles stepped back. I spoke so hatefully sometimes that it startled me as it did him. But I knew where all my feelings could lead. I could not stop myself inclining towards Charles but I couldn’t help hating myself for it, and him for that too, and for having thought so much of him when he wasn’t there and for imagining – knowing – what it would be like after he left. I dreaded it. What was to become of me, what was to become of me, what was to become of me? This was the pulse of me. What did Charles’s pulse tell him? Draw, paint, travel? I didn’t know.

  Tull and Papa returned the next day. It was Fred who spent most time with Tull, and I thought missed him most when he was gone until I saw him greeted by Addie that afternoon.

  She flew at him. ‘You’re back. It’s been so dull without you.’

  Tull held up his hands to fend her off and stepped back, but he was grinning. ‘Addie,’ he said.

  She smacked his arm – lightly. That she touched him at all seemed strange, but there was the smile they held too and something about the space that smile created that was theirs alone. Fred frowned at the sight and went stamping out into the rain to help Papa. Charles looked from them to me.

  ‘Addie,’ I said. ‘Could you fetch another packet of tea from the storehouse?’

  ‘Why?’ she said.

  ‘Because I asked.’

  ‘Tull can help then.’

  So they went together when I had meant to separate them.

  It took some minutes for Addie to crash back through the door, in better spirits now. ‘That’s the last of it,’ she said. She tipped it into the canister.

  Papa came to the door, grim as he always was after he’d been at Tinlinyara. He scraped the mud from his boots and kicked them off and came inside and his clothes began to steam before the fire, sending out a strong smell of damp wool and mud.

  ‘Papa,’ I said.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Charles Bagshott is here – for a week or two.’

  ‘Charles Bagshott? Whatever for? Where is he then?’

  ‘Here, sir,’ Charles said, coming through the hall door with a bundle of papers. ‘My father thought you might like these. News. Some from England.’

  Papa took them. ‘I thank you for them.’

  ‘I hope I may stay. Hester said—’

  ‘Yes, yes, of course.’ But it was evident from the way he dropped the papers to the table that his mind was elsewhere.

  Fred chose that moment to come into the room, the baby kangaroo behind him.

  Papa frowned. ‘Where did you come by that?’

  ‘Skip killed its mother.’

  ‘You should have let her kill it too. It won’t end well.’ The kangaroo chose that moment to rub its nose with a paw – it was the sweetest thing – and Fred scooped it up. Papa couldn’t resist any more than we could. ‘Well, you have been busy taking in strays. I suppose you may try, if you have the time.’

  ‘Hear that?’ Fred said to the kangaroo. ‘It’s life for you,’ and sat it on his lap and began tipping sips of milk from a tea-spoon into its mouth.

  ‘Papa,’ I said, since he seemed to be taking things quite well. ‘Stores are running low. The tea’s nearly finished, and the sugar, and—’

  Papa shut his eyes and kept them shut. ‘Some more tea if you please, Hester.’

  I drained the teapot and began making a fresh pot.

  ‘But never mind. I’m sure we can do without for a while, until it’s convenient.’ I refilled his tea-cup. ‘Here, Papa, and some letters that came while you were gone.’

  He opened his eyes again and gathered himself, opening the letters: one he threw into the fire, another he put aside, a third he read, his eye slowing more than once and returning to read a particular section. ‘Well, I hope I know my duty,’ he said when he’d finished it.

  ‘What, Papa?’

  ‘Reverend Taplin asking something of me. I’ll need to go to Milang for stores in any case. Tull can come with me, I think.’

  ‘He’s just come home,’ Addie burst out. ‘Fred should go.’

  ‘I’m sure he won’t mind,’ Papa said. ‘A few days’ rest first. And now to wash, I think. I’m feeling rather—’ and he fluttered his hands at his side in some gesture of discomfort.

  Charles was taken aback that evening by the sight of Tull reading by the fire and Addie nearby playing a soft tune on the pianoforte and singing a song of her own invention. ‘He is quite at home then,’ he murmured to me.

  ‘He’s lived here for years. He was when you visited.’

  ‘I thought it was temporary.’

  ‘You know Papa. “All men are created equal”.’

  ‘He was quieter then I suppose. I didn’t notice him so much when there were so many of you.’

  ‘He’s almost family to us. We don’t think of it.’

  ‘If you saw the way they were treated elsewhere— What’s he reading?’

  ‘Darwin’s new book, I think.’

  ‘Good God. I’m glad Father’s not here to see it.’

  ‘Yes.’

  Addie’s manner and Charles’s words made me see Tull afresh. He was very tall now, and wider only at shoulder and deeper only through his chest. His trousers were held up with an old belt and they and his shirts, although clean, were patched – and when outside he carried over his shoulder a reed bag. Despite this, or perhaps because of it, the way his self stood in relief against his shabby clothing, I saw how he moved, every step like the beginning of a dance, slow but with contained power and above that, above all, with a grace that was particular to him. Now it seemed obvious and made me uncomfortable to think so. If I could see this in dispassion what might it be like for Addie? If she felt towards Tull as I tried not to towards Charles – and now this did not seem ridiculous, but inevitable and unstoppable – things could only go ill for her. Tull made me fearful on Addie’s account and I resolved to speak to her about keeping a proper distance.

  Papa and Tull were home for only three days and after they left we had the joy of Addie short-tempered once more. Charles wished to do some sketches of the peninsula and since it was a calm day, and with the lure of escaping Addie, we rowed across once more, pelicans bobbing away on either side. I tied the boat to a scrubby bush.

  ‘You must see this, Charles. You’ll be amazed and then if you still want to you can do your drawing I suppose.’

  I followed the path along the edge of the lagoon. We came to an opening between high sandy bluffs and I scrambled up, ahead of Charles, clutching snaking roots in one hand and my skirt in the other ‘Come on, town boy. Keep up. You are grown soft.’

  ‘And you are grown outspoken.’

  ‘Am I?’ I stopped and looked back at Charles who was still below me.

  ‘Not really. Or only a little more than you already were.’

  ‘Oh no. It’s what I say to Addie and now I have become it too. We won’t be fit for town.’

  ‘You’ll be fine. I like it. You are—’

  ‘Please, do not say unusual. There is nothing worse than to be unusual. Whatever would Grandmama say?’

  ‘She is not here, so what does it matter?’

  ‘But I plan to go back, to take Addie or sh
e’ll never be fit for town life. I should do it now, but I don’t know how.’ We had reached the top of the hill and the wind and the roar of the ocean were around us.

  ‘Does Mr Finch approve?’

  ‘He doesn’t know, and you mustn’t say it to him. You mustn’t.’

  ‘No. I won’t, if that’s what you want.’

  ‘There’s no money to get us there, but I will find a way.’

  ‘Don’t think of it now. There will come a time, I’m sure.’

  ‘That’s what Mrs Robinson, Mrs Martin now, from the Travellers Rest, said to me once. And Mama. People say these things but don’t tell me how.’

  The path sloped down and widened and the wind dropped and the sun fell on us. It was sheltered and warmer in here and white flowers were opening on the bushes around us as they did at the end of winter. Small bees dithered and the sound sent me after all this time to our garden in Adelaide, to its daisies and roses and the jacaranda that had been coming on so well when we left, that Papa had said would one day be a climbing tree, if not for his own children then for his grandchildren. People would look over the fence and gaze in for the pleasure of the colours and the scents. Once I saw someone with their face buried in the white lilac and when I commented on the sweetness of the scent the woman lifted her head and I saw that she had been weeping. ‘Sorry, Miss,’ she said. ‘It reminds me so much of home that I couldn’t help meself.’ Well, I knew what she meant now, except it was the sound of the bees for me, and the thought of all we had lost, Mama included, but I would not cry. I looked back. Charles was ambling along, looking about with curiosity, as if everything, all of life and not just this moment, was the most wonderful adventure and had been put in his way for his pleasure alone. How comfortable the world was for him; how well he fitted inside it.

  ‘Only a little further now,’ I said. ‘Here.’ I left the path and scrambled up a hill. The sand fell away from my feet. At the top it was as if a doorway had been scooped into a lip of sand. ‘There,’ I said, when Charles arrived at my side.

  Before us was an expanse like a shallow fluted bowl, but vast, more a valley, rimmed by more sand hills and covered at its base and curling up its sides with millions and billions of broken shards, a white desert, mysterious and glittering in the sunlight so that we were obliged to narrow our eyes against its brightness.

  ‘Ah,’ Charles sighed. ‘What is it? What’s it made of?’

  ‘It’s just cockles. That’s all. Shells. All broken and worn.’ I bent and scooped up a silky handful and tipped it from one palm to another. ‘See how smooth all their edges are? And listen.’

  Charles stroked his fingers across the shells in my hand – a tingling sensation – and I poured them out. He picked up a handful of his own and poured them from one hand to another and back again. ‘But where are they from? How did they get here?’

  I shrugged. ‘The blacks eating them here?’

  ‘Surely not so many. How long would that take?’

  ‘I think hundreds of years. Thousands. I don’t know. The blacks won’t last for much longer. Papa says they’re doomed, but they’re not ill here yet.’

  ‘It’s beautiful. Strange though.’ He dug his hand in and scooped up some more. ‘How deep do they go?’

  ‘Deep. I don’t know.’

  He squatted and swirled his hands about the surface of it. ‘Do you come often?’

  ‘Sometimes on a calm day. If I shut my eyes I imagine I am in our garden in Adelaide. A shock when I open my eyes.’

  ‘Do you have it still?’

  ‘Sold to cover the losses. Papa is quite entrepreneurial and I believe such people can be hard on their families. He is hoping now that Hugh and Stanton will make their fortune and restore what we have lost. He has spent most of his life hoping, I think.’ I began to swing my leg about, toe pointed to touch the shells and the other leg a pivot, as if I were a compass and could inscribe a perfect circle about me. I drew my skirts up a little to see better. ‘He is too much the gambler. He makes it, then loses it. It is like these shells. He picks up a handful and then they fall through his fingers and he is always surprised and then a little later he is hopeful again.’

  ‘Is it really so bad?’

  I stopped my turning and stood there in the middle of my circle with its border of gleaming shell. ‘It’s bad just now because of the sheep. Sometimes I feel like my life is galloping away, bolting, and because it’s fast and the direction straight, I can hold on despite my panic. But when it slows— then, I have the time to wonder whether if I ran in an untried direction, where I pleased, the way would be better even if it were hard at first. Only there are Addie and Fred.’

  ‘I had to fight my father to go to Melbourne.’

  ‘But you’re a man; it’s different. He can’t really compel you; you can travel alone.’

  ‘I suppose. I wish I could do something for you.’

  We walked on, our boots slipping on the shells.

  Charles said, ‘Does Mr Finch know this place?’

  ‘We had more sheep out here for a while so he had to visit, but it ruined their fleeces. And their feet were bad. Papa doesn’t care for it out here. He finds it desolate. He says it slithers beneath his feet and he cannot feel the ground. He says: “It is mine but I do not feel welcome here.” And he tells me not to be superstitious. He used to go all the way around instead of across the middle to get the sheep on the other side. It’s so slow. The sheep didn’t like it either. They stood there dumbfounded, like this’ – I gave Charles my sheep impression which made him laugh – ‘and then they went back. They didn’t believe it was real. Well, I don’t know what they believed, but they wouldn’t put one of their dainty rotting feet on it for anything.’

  ‘You don’t look like a sheep.’

  ‘Or like a corpse. Wonderful. I will begin to save your compliments. It is comfortable too – as comfortable as any bed I ever slept on.’

  ‘Show me.’

  ‘Why, you just lie down. It’s quite simple. Like this.’ I lay down and wriggled to shape it to me. It was warm beneath and it moved so that it seemed almost a living thing. Charles loomed against the blue of the sky and with the sun behind him I couldn’t see his face. I closed my eyes to better feel the warmth of the shells against me. I liked to look at the light through my eyelids – the red glow and the pulse of my blood. Mama explained it to us once. I played the shells through my fingers. Everything was silky. Then came the shushing sound of the shells moving and Charles’s voice close to my head – ‘Ah’ – which startled me and made me turn to see.

  He was lying with his hands folded across his stomach. His eyes were already closed and his face was quite smooth. ‘It is comfortable.’

  ‘I told you,’ I said.

  ‘You did. I’ll believe you next time.’

  ‘But you still need to do it. It’s not enough to believe me.’

  ‘I will do as you say, of course I will.’ His voice was just a murmur. ‘Hester.’

  There was the touch of his hand against mine. I thought it was a mistake and pulled away, but his hand followed mine and curled about it and held it. It was as warm, warmer than the shells. I don’t know why I didn’t move it. His thumb stroked up and down, idle almost, but it was all that I could feel. The sounds of seagulls and waves and the hum of distant wind fell away. And he lifted my hand to his mouth and held it there and put it to his cheek, which prickled after the softness of his mouth. ‘I missed you.’ He opened his eyes and turned to his side and gave one of his slow smiles. ‘I’ve been thinking of you.’

  ‘I didn’t know.’

  ‘Now you do.’

  ‘Yes.’

  Our faces drew closer by small movements of our bodies and we reached together – his face was large close to, his eyes very blue before they closed – and our mouths touched and pressed closer. Suddenly the world began to come clearer to me. Addie too. How would you resist this?

  CHAPTER 15

  The Coorong, October 186
0

  I THOUGHT I WOULD LAUGH WHEN I first saw Stanton. He swung the dining room door back and stood against the light. He was wearing a tartan suit and a silk waistcoat, which could not have appeared more ridiculous in those surrounds.

  Everything and everyone was unsettled then. Papa and Tull were still away at Point McLeay, and Charles had left for Melbourne. Hugh and Stanton were full of tales of high adventure and brawls and gold strikes and the size and entertainments of Melbourne. They had made a little money, but not their fortunes, and by the sound of it spent more than they saved. The house could barely contain them. They would try and order us around with Papa not there. They had prospects according to Hugh, and planned to leave again soon, but wished to ‘ruralise’ a little first. By their second day home they had already pronounced farm life dull.

  The baby kangaroo died two nights after they arrived, I don’t know why. Perhaps it was only that it was too young to be without its mother, or it was the noise and strangeness of new people.

  Stanton watched Fred at work one evening: ‘Still doing your scribbles, I see.’

  Fred didn’t answer, but after Stanton left the room, said, ‘I wish Charles hadn’t gone.’ They had often talked of art.

  All I could think about was Charles. It made me short-tempered and drear. I could not forget what I’d said to him. He would never forget it; I was sure of that. It did not really matter; I would never see him again.

  When Charles and I first kissed on the peninsula there was nothing in it but hesitant wonderment. It was a kind of perfection to lie on our bed of shells under cover of sun. How quickly it was not enough. We returned a second and then a third day, for Charles to draw again, we said, and so he could teach me how to use the musket. He did not like to think of us unprotected while Papa was away.

  We were bolder each time, as if chaste life – cooking and drawing and playing the piano and seeing to the cows and pretence – had fuelled its opposite. Without a word we hurried the paths and lay on the shells. It was cloudy on the last day, cooler, and Charles pulled the front of his coat across me and we lay in that dark cocoon. His shirt had pulled loose and my hand was on his back – soft, but also hard with muscle, unlike a baby’s or child’s – and his fingers rimmed my bodice and his fingertip edged beneath. We kissed deeper and lay closer. Then he rolled and was on me, his face above mine, his hands holding me still. He gave me such a look: not perfectly in control of himself, but intent. I had never seen such an expression before. It frightened me.