‘Yes, out here,’ she insisted, thinking she might as well test the water right now.
He put his arms around her and kissed her lightly on the lips.
‘No, a real one,’ she said, holding him tightly.
To her surprise he didn’t wriggle away, but gave her a lingering kiss which sent tremors down her spine. ‘That’s better,’ she said with a smile once he’d eventually let her go.
She had forgotten how dark the bush was at night, and how scary the rough road to Esperance was. Ross chattered like she’d never known him do before, telling her that the crops were nearly ready now for harvesting, how Bruce had bought a couple of baby pigs, and that lightning had caused a small bush fire. Dulcie listened, but she was on the edge of the seat watching out for kangaroos as Ross didn’t seem to be paying much attention to the road.
There were a great many kangaroos, but fortunately none chose to leap in the path of the car, and finally they came to the track that led up to the farm.
The familiar smell through the open window made her heart suddenly leap with joy. It took her back to when she first came here. On so many evenings she’d gone out on to the porch, and the warm breeze had brought the rich aromas of the animals, the hay and grass to her. She would listen to the sounds of the night, rustlings of small nocturnal animals, cicadas chirruping, the lowing of cows, and feel a peace and happiness she’d never known before.
Ahead she could see the shape of Bruce’s house and the tall pine trees close by, silhouetted against the night sky. It was in darkness now, but she would see him in the morning. She turned in her seat and smiled at Ross. ‘It’s good to be back,’ she sighed.
The dogs barked a welcome as Ross drove up to the barn. Dulcie jumped out of the car and they came running to her, whining with delight and wagging their tails. ‘Good boys,’ she whispered, fondling each of them. ‘Now be quiet or you’ll wake everyone.’
Ross took her case in one hand and holding her hand with the other, led her towards their house. At the door he ordered her to close her eyes, then picked her up in his arms and carried her in.
‘You can open them now,’ he said, and put her down.
He had left a table-lamp alight, and Dulcie gasped when she saw the room. Not the untidy mess she was expecting, but the floor mirror-bright with polish, a vase of marigolds on the table, and a desk against the wall where previously there had been nothing.
She moved over to it, laying her hands on the smooth golden jarrah wood, and gasped with wonder. ‘You made this?’ she asked.
‘Yeah.’ He shuffled his feet and looked boyishly uncertain. ‘I got the wood before you went away, and it took my mind off missing you while I was making it.’
‘I can’t believe it,’ she exclaimed, opening each of the four drawers on either side of the knee hole. ‘It’s a work of art!’
She wasn’t exaggerating, it really was. It felt as smooth as silk under her hands – the edges were rounded and the drawers glided in and out silently. The legs were turned and shaped in Queen Anne style, graceful and perfectly proportioned.
‘This is what you should be doing all the time, not farming,’ she said, going over to him and hugging him. ‘You are a craftsman, Ross, in Sydney people would pay a fortune for such a piece.’
‘I made it for you,’ he said, his eyes shining. ‘I liked to think of you sitting there writing letters while I was making it. I wouldn’t like making things for anyone else.’
‘Thank you, thank you, thank you,’ she said, covering his face with kisses, knowing this was no time to plan a new future for him. ‘It’s the most wonderful surprise, such a lovely welcome home.’
‘I did some other small things too,’ he said, taking her hand and leading her into the kitchen to show her a wooden rack he’d made for mugs to hang on, and a rail for tea-towels. ‘Tomorrow you’ll see I’ve dug over a bit of ground outside the French windows, so you can plant some flowers there.’
She knew this was his way of apologizing for his hard attitude about Noël. While she would have preferred sympathy and understanding about what she’d been through, and questions as to how Noël was, it was perhaps the best he could do for now.
‘You are wonderful,’ she said with a warm smile. ‘And you’ve kept everywhere so nice too.’
‘It wasn’t like this two days ago,’ he admitted, looking a little shamefaced. ‘I had to beaver around and make it look good again.’
‘Can we go to bed now?’ she said, suddenly feeling exhausted. ‘I couldn’t sleep on the train.’
There were flowers in the bedroom too, and the bed was made up with clean sheets. By the time Dulcie had washed and cleaned her teeth, Ross was in bed, his chest and arms deep brown against the linen.
He pulled her into his arms the moment she got in beside him, and kissed her with such tenderness it brought tears to her eyes. But that was all, a few minutes later he turned out the light, said goodnight, then turned over to go to sleep.
Dulcie lay there for some little time. She wasn’t upset, he could after all have harangued her all the way home with suspicious questions about Rudie, and until she got him right out of her mind she wasn’t sure she wanted more from Ross. The desk and the other things he’d made were evidence of his love for her, and anyway she hadn’t expected that her long absence would bring on a miracle.
Yet now she was back here, it didn’t look so easy to make him confront his past in the way Stephan had said she must. Suppose she did manage to get Ross back to Bindoon, but whatever happened there came out and pushed him over the edge? Right now he was able to function well in every aspect of his life, except in making love. He was an excellent stockman, he could repair vehicles, build things, knew all about crops, he worked well with other men. Did she have the right to threaten that?
The old habit of closing her eyes and praying took over. Silently she asked for God’s guidance in this matter and asked if He would give her a sign when the time was right to tackle it. Yet even as she drifted off towards sleep, she thought how often in the past she’d waited for help from above which never came.
Early the following morning, Bruce came bounding out of his bedroom as Dulcie opened his front door. He was still in his pyjamas, but he threw his arms wide in welcome and his smile lit up the still dark room. ‘Dulcie! Welcome home,’ he roared. ‘I didn’t hear the car last night, so I was afraid you’d missed the train.’
Dulcie ran into his warm hug with delight. ‘It’s so good to see you again, I missed you,’ she said.
‘You look different,’ he said, holding her shoulders and pushing her back so he could look at her. ‘Can’t put my finger on what it is, your hair’s the same, so are the clothes.’
‘Too many shocks in a short space of time, I expect,’ she laughed. Yet she knew what he meant, she’d seen it in her own face during the journey home. The girlishness had vanished, it was an adult face which looked back at her in the mirror.
‘I’m so very sorry about May,’ he said, his smile fading. ‘That wasn’t something any of us could have foreseen.’
‘I know,’ she agreed. ‘I still find it hard to believe. Even at the funeral I don’t think I really took it in completely. I spent an awful lot of the journey home crying.’
Bruce put his hand on her shoulder and squeezed it in understanding. ‘If you want to talk about it any time, you just say so.’
‘I expect I’ll tell you every last thing in the next few days,’ she said. ‘But right now I want to know how you are, and what’s been going on here.’
She thought he looked thinner, the baggy skin on his face was more noticeable. But unshaven, hair uncombed and wearing pyjamas, he wasn’t at his best.
Over a cup of tea he gave her a quick rundown on the same things Ross had told her about the previous night. ‘The bush fire could have ruined me, the crops were almost ready for harvesting, but Ross was a marvel, he contained it in a very small area,’ he said with a broad smile. ‘Your old man might be a bit of a drongo in some ways,
but my God he was like bloody superman that night. He drove the tractor with the scraper like a bat out of hell right up alongside the line of fire, so close I thought he’d burn to death. But he made the bloody fire break, and it held. Thanks to him we only lost around five acres of crops, it could have been the lot.’
‘When are you going to start the harvest?’ she asked. Although it was only daybreak, from the window in her house she’d seen the wheat waving in the breeze, thick and golden.
‘We’ll go out after breakfast to check it,’ Bruce said. ‘Reckon it might be tomorrow or the next day.’
‘I’d better get the breakfast started,’ Dulcie said, looking at the clock. ‘They’ll be finishing the milking soon.’
‘I’ll go and get myself dressed,’ Bruce said. ‘Don’t lay into me if you can’t find things in the kitchen. I tried to keep it right, and Doreen came in and gave everything a good clean yesterday, but it sure ain’t the way you used to keep it.’
Dulcie smiled. ‘That’s good, it will make me feel indispensable.’
‘You are,’ he said, his face suddenly serious. ‘Not just for your cooking either. We all missed you.’
Breakfast lingered on for over two hours, for everyone had so much they wanted to ask. John’s questions were mainly about Sydney, and the surf beaches he’d heard so much about, Ross was more interested in May’s death, even Bob who was usually so silent asked about Noël and Rudie.
Bruce seemed quite content just to sit and listen, but now and again Dulcie caught him looking at her with the oddest expression. She didn’t know why, she’d been very careful in what she said. Although she waxed lyrical about the sights of Sydney, she’d tried to be matter of fact about Rudie, his home and Noël so as not to antagonize Ross.
Eventually the men went out, they were going to drive round to check the crops. Bruce stayed behind and helped Dulcie clear the table. At first he talked about domestic things, like the freezer was nearly empty and the garden needed tidying up as Betty would be appalled at its neglect, but then he suddenly asked her point-blank about how she felt at leaving Noël behind.
‘Don’t try to kid me,’ he said, his big face very stern. ‘I know you better than you think I do, and I can bet you felt you’d had your heart torn out, especially it coming so quick after May’s funeral.’
Dulcie sighed. She had hoped he had been taken in by all her bright chatter over breakfast. ‘Okay, it was like that,’ she said, her eyes filling up. ‘I wanted that little boy more than anything else in the world.’
‘I didn’t think you’d come back,’ he admitted. ‘And much as I knew I’d miss you – for your sake I hoped you’d stay in Sydney.’
‘How could I do that?’ she asked. ‘I’m married to Ross.’
He just gave her a look which said reams. ‘It’s your life, sweetheart, but I know Betty would never have forgiven me if I’d refused to take in one of her sister’s children.’
‘I might have felt like that if Noël had to go to an orphanage, but he’s with his father, and Rudie can do far more for him than I could.’
‘Maybe that’s so, but I just hope you don’t find your life here is empty now,’ he said, reaching out and fondling her hair.
At his gentle, caring touches, Dulcie felt like bursting into tears, but she was determined not to. ‘How can it be empty when I’ve got you lot to look after? With all the washing and cleaning to catch up on, and the harvest about to start, it will be Christmas before I even have a chance to catch my breath.’
Bruce picked up his hat and walked towards the door, but as he reached it he turned and looked back. ‘Just for the record, John, Bob and me all wanted you to bring Noël back, and if Rudie wants to bring him here anytime, as far as we’re concerned he’s family and very welcome.’
He went out then, the screen door slamming behind him, and Dulcie burst into tears.
In the following weeks Dulcie found it was much as she said, there was so much work to do she had little time to dwell on Noël, May, Rudie or even Ross. From first light till late in the evening she kept busy, cooking, cleaning, helping with the harvest and other jobs around the farm. Rudie telephoned once a fortnight, only a brief call, but he kept her up to date with Noël’s development and reassured her he was managing.
From time to time Dulcie would find herself crying as she went about her chores. Sometimes it was for May, sometimes for Noël, and now and then for herself. Memories of the happy days with Rudie in his cottage taunted her, she would think about that kiss he’d given her and get a pain of longing inside her. It seemed grossly unfair that she’d been shown a whole new world on the other side of Australia, yet she had to return to the old one and try to forget what she’d seen.
For the first time ever she was resentful of the tedious work she had to do, bored with conversations about farming, fed up with being at everyone’s beck and call. After Ross’s initial pleasure at her return had worn off, Dulcie realized that he had learnt nothing while she’d been gone, in fact he was downright smug that he’d got his way in getting her back home without Noël. He didn’t want to hear anything about her experiences, he hadn’t asked her how she felt about May’s death, and about Noël, or even considered she might still be thinking sadly about them both. She wanted to be reassured by him that May’s death had been an accident, but the one and only time she tried to talk about it to him, all he did was shrug and say, Well, she wasn’t much of a swimmer, and she’d cocked her life up too. Didn’t he realize how much that hurt? It sounded as if he thought May’s death was almost a blessing.
Every Saturday night he would go down to the pub and return home blinding drunk. While she didn’t begrudge him going out once a week, she was quite happy to go into Bruce’s and watch TV, paint or sew, what did hurt was that he went out to avoid talking to her. On weekday evenings he worked outside until it was dark, often carrying on later working on farm equipment in the barn. When he eventually came in he used tiredness as an excuse and went straight to bed.
She was dog-tired mostly herself, but she ached for the kind of evenings she’d had with Rudie. Eating a meal together, listening to records or the radio, talking about anything and everything. Day by day she could feel her spirit slowly seeping away.
The day they finished the harvest, Dulcie had cooked a special Italian meal as a surprise for everyone. She made pasta with a rich mushroom, ham and cream sauce, salad, home-baked rolls with garlic butter, and she got some bottles of Chianti and laid the table with candles and flowers. Bruce, Bob and John entered into the spirit of it, speaking in ridiculous Italian accents, Bruce even put on some opera music on the radiogram, but Ross merely pushed the food about on his plate and said he didn’t like ‘foreign muck’. He disappeared out the door while the rest of them were eating ice-cream and strawberries from the garden, and seconds later they heard him roaring off into town on his motorbike.
It was on her twenty-third birthday in December that Dulcie found she’d had enough. She had said all week that she wanted to go to see The L-Shaped Room with Leslie Caron at the pictures. On Friday evening, her birthday, she got all dressed up, as did Ross, and he drove her into town in Bruce’s car. But when they got to the cinema Ross shoved a pound note in her hand, said he was going to the pub and he’d meet her later.
He ran off across the road to the pub before she could even say anything, leaving her speechless with rage. She couldn’t bear the thought of going into the cinema alone, and she didn’t feel able to follow him into the public bar and insist he took her either, for women just didn’t go in there. As he’d left the car keys with her, she got back into it and drove home.
The drive home did nothing to cool her anger, in fact when she got indoors she was so mad she was tempted to take an axe to the desk he’d made her. It was a sweltering hot night, not even the faintest breeze coming in through the fly-screens on the windows. She was too angry to read or paint, and the sound of moths and other insects battering themselves against the windows, attract
ed to the light, irritated her beyond reason.
Suddenly she felt as if she were in a prison. It might be a pretty, comfortable one, and the door was unlocked, but all the same that was how it felt. All she did was work, she had no real friends, and even her husband thought so little of her that he’d rather spend her birthday night in the pub with his mates.
She could imagine Rudie’s little house so clearly. If she’d been there now he would have invited a few friends round, maybe they’d have had a barbecue in the garden. He’d have his rock and roll records on, and later everyone would dance. He would have brought her a present too, and probably one from Noël. Ross hadn’t even given her a card, let alone a present. He was going to come home later drunk as a lord, flop into bed and spend the night snoring. Why on earth was she staying with him? What did she get out of it?
This house was the only tangible thing she could think of, and he never stopped boasting about it either. The truth was she’d rather be in her old bedroom in Bruce’s house than living with a man who was like a brick wall.
She suddenly recalled that was May’s description of him to Rudie, and she’d actually denied it. Yet that was exactly what he was like! She was sure if she managed to climb to the top of it she’d find nothing on the other side either.
It was after one in the morning when Ross finally came in. She had gone to bed, but she was too angry to sleep and so she was sitting up in bed looking at a magazine.
‘What the bloody hell did you take the car for?’ he said, staggering into the bedroom.
‘To get home of course,’ she snapped.
‘I had to bludge a lift,’ he said. ‘I looked a bloody drongo ‘cos I’d already told the blokes you were at the pictures.’
‘Did you tell them it was my birthday and that you couldn’t even bear to spend one evening with me?’ she said, her anger rising even more. ‘No, I don’t suppose you did, you’d be too busy bragging about how big the harvest was here, and how you look after all the machinery and stopped the bush fire. Do they all look up to you in there? I wonder what they’d think if they knew you couldn’t even fuck your wife.’