But Noël brought back the child in her too, for when he woke up from his nap she took him outside to test the swing and before long she was inside the tyre herself, with Noël on her lap, swinging to her heart’s content.
He got filthy outside that afternoon. He chased Jigger around the yard, he was on and off the swing a hundred and one times, climbed on some wooden boxes, jumped down into her waiting arms, and dug in some sand with a little spade. She had to strip him off and put him in the bath before supper, his little shorts, tee-shirt and socks so dirty she had to put them to soak before attempting to wash them. But fortunately Rudie had put a spare set of clothes in a bag, so she guessed he must go through this most days himself.
Bruce said he would take him home after supper, and even though Dulcie wanted to go herself, she said nothing. Ross had sat Noël up on a cushion on a chair beside him at the table and helped him feed himself, and as Ross seemed relaxed and happy, perhaps it was best not to push anything. She would see Rudie and Noël the following afternoon anyway – maybe by then Ross would be suggesting she brought them both back for supper.
When Rudie heard the knock at the door of his rented cottage, he expected it to be Dulcie. But he was a little surprised to see the man he’d seen only fleetingly at Kalgoorlie three years earlier, with Noël in his arms.
‘G’day, Rudie,’ Bruce said. ‘I offered to bring the little chap home so I could meet you, we can’t really count that day at Kalgoorlie since we never even spoke.’
Rudie’s face broke into a broad grin, and held out his arms for his son. ‘Good to see you, Bruce. Come on in. I can’t offer you much more than a cup of tea, I haven’t got around to getting any booze in.’
Bruce waved a bag as he stepped inside the house. ‘Good job I brought a few beers then! Noël’s been a great hit with everyone today, but I reckon he’s bushed now. Dulcie said to tell you he’s had a bath and a good supper.’
Rudie kissed his son’s cheek. Noël was already sleepily laying his head on his father’s shoulder. ‘You pour yourself a beer and I’ll just get him ready for bed. I hope he’s been good?’
‘A real charmer,’ Bruce said. ‘He’s been on a horse with me, on the tractor with Bob, and John and Ross made him a swing. Never seen Dulcie so happy.’
As Rudie stripped off Noël’s clothes and put on his pyjamas, he watched Bruce go out into the kitchen and return with two glasses of beer. Dulcie had spoken of this man so often, Rudie felt as if he already knew him, yet strangely, the picture he had in his mind of their first meeting, things May had said and the conversations with Bruce on the phone, had given him the idea he was a much younger man.
He was big, muscular and seemingly fit, a warm, vibrant personality with a smile that would light up a room, yet despite all that Rudie sensed this was a man who was now close to the end of his life. He wondered if Bruce knew this himself, for it could explain why he showed such fatherly concern for Dulcie.
‘Reckon he’s got the makings of a country boy,’ Bruce said jovially. ‘He really likes animals.’
‘I’ll have to make sure he gets more contact with them then when I get home,’ Rudie smiled. ‘Maybe I’ll get him a dog, and take him out horse-riding. I might be a city slicker myself now, but I was brought up in the country too.’ With Noël in his arms he nipped out into the kitchen to get his bottle of milk. ‘That’s one of the drawbacks with bringing a child up on your own,’ he said as he returned. ‘You haven’t got another person to suggest things you haven’t thought of.’
‘Maybe you should look around for a wife,’ Bruce said.
Rudie laughed, the way Bruce spoke he made it sound like you went to the market and just picked one out. ‘I’d be worried I might find the wicked stepmother,’ he said. ‘Maybe I’m a bit jaundiced but most of the women I meet are more interested in what I’ve got than the real me and Noël.’
Noël drank his bottle in double-quick time, then Rudie carried him up to bed.
‘I have to hand it to you,’ Bruce said as he came back down again, ‘you’ve done a fine job with that little lad. He’s a credit to you. And it was real good of you to bring him all this way so Dulcie could see him.’
‘It’s important Noël keeps in contact with her,’ Rudie said, picking up the drink Bruce had poured for him. ‘As he grows up I want the picture in his head of his mother to be a positive one. I know there’s a likelihood that someone, someday, will spill the beans about May, but if he’s got his aunt about, it won’t hurt him.’
Bruce nodded in agreement. ‘Dulcie needs him too. It choked me up seeing how happy she was with him today. She’s had such a bloody raw deal in life, and fond as I am of her, if she told me she wanted to take off to Sydney for good, I’d be happy for her. She deserves something better than she’s got now.’
Rudie hadn’t expected such a statement from a man who clearly saw Dulcie as an adopted daughter. ‘Are you saying she isn’t happy?’ he asked. ‘She gave me the impression everything was fine now.’
Bruce sighed. ‘She would. But then her idea of personal happiness is when everyone else around her is content and comfortable. My Betty was a bit like that too, but then we had the foundation of a strong, loving marriage, and we weathered the storms together. I don’t see Dulcie’s and Ross’s marriage in the same way, it’s all her giving, and him taking.’
Rudie realized then this was precisely why Bruce had called on him tonight, he was worried about Dulcie and he needed to share it with someone else.
They talked for a while about Ross’s breakdown, and it became clear to Rudie that Bruce was as much in the dark about what happened up at Bindoon as he was.
‘How is he now?’ Rudie asked.
Bruce shrugged. ‘His old self in most ways. Competent, hard-working, the perfect stockman, you could say. Bob and John, my two other stockmen, are good men too, but not in the same class as Ross because he can do almost anything, twice as quickly, more thoroughly. Yet I know John and Bob inside out. Not Ross though, he’s a dark horse, you can’t get close to him.’
‘Dulcie said something today about him going up to Kalgoorlie once a month. Do Bob and John do this too?’
‘Not Bob,’ Bruce grinned. ‘He’s a bit of a mother’s boy. He doesn’t go much on hard drinking and throwing his money away on sheilas. John used to when he was younger, he was a wild one then, but he’s calmed down, still likes a few beers and the sheilas, but he wouldn’t drive a hundred and fifty miles for it now.’
‘Is it beer or women Ross goes to Kalgoorlie for then?’ Rudie asked.
Bruce hesitated.
That hesitation said reams to Rudie. ‘You think it’s women, don’t you?’ he said.
Bruce suddenly looked anxious. ‘Look, mate. I don’t know anything for certain. But the bloke comes back from there looking like the cat that’s been in the cream. The two blokes he goes with are both womanizers. If it was just beer he wanted he could get that here.’
Rudie thought about it for a moment. He knew Kalgoorlie’s reputation, it was the one place in Australia where prostitution was, if not legal, accepted. The thought of Ross going with women like that and then coming home to Dulcie filled him with horror.
He might have only just met Bruce, but he knew the man was worldly, intuitive and fair. He wouldn’t have come here to speak about this unless he was completely certain in his own mind that was what Ross was up to.
Rudie thought it was time he laid his cards on the table. ‘Dulcie confided in me in Sydney that Ross had never consummated their marriage,’ he blurted out. ‘It was a shrink friend of mine who suggested to her this might be because of something which happened to Ross at Bindoon.’
‘I know all that,’ Bruce nodded. ‘Dulcie told me.’
Rudie looked relieved.
‘So did Ross get cured?’ Rudie asked him.
‘I don’t know.’ Bruce shook his head. ‘You can’t ask something like that. Dulcie never told me what happened at Bindoon, but it had to be pretty bloody b
ad or Ross wouldn’t have gone off his rocker, and she looked as if she’d been to hell and back too. She was so relieved when he got better that I couldn’t bring myself to ask anything that might embarrass her.’
‘Stephan would know,’ Rudie said thoughtfully. ‘But he wouldn’t tell me! The only thing he told me was that Dulcie finally got a bit snotty with him and she hadn’t rung him since. Oh shit, Bruce! We can’t interfere, can we?’
The two men sat drinking their beer for several minutes in silence. Rudie was thinking that whether or not Ross was making love to Dulcie now, the end-result either way was likely to end in more misery for her. He guessed Bruce’s thoughts were running along the same lines.
‘Maybe I should tackle Ross about it,’ Bruce said. ‘I mean, about what he does up in Kalgoorlie.’
‘He’s not going to admit to going with tarts, is he?’ Rudie said dejectedly.
‘What if we could get some proof?’ Bruce said thoughtfully. ‘Mind you, I can’t imagine how we’d get that.’
‘Those girls talk if you make it worth their while,’ Rudie said. ‘That’s how I found out where May was.’
‘Could you go up there and ask around?’ Bruce asked.
Rudie was horrified. ‘Oh, come on, mate!’ he exclaimed. ‘How would it look if I started trouble for Ross? People would think I was after his wife!’
‘But you do want her, don’t you?’ Bruce said in a low voice, his blue eyes looking straight into Rudie’s dark ones. ‘Let’s cut all the crap, Rudie, I’m getting old, I love Dulcie like she was my kid, I want happiness for her while I’m still around to see it. When she came back from Sydney I knew she wasn’t only grieving for Noël and her sister, but you too. I used to see a brightness in her face whenever you phoned, the way she spoke of you. And I’ve been around long enough to know a man doesn’t fly right across Australia purely because he wants his son to see his aunt.’
‘There’s been nothing between us but friendship,’ Rudie said hastily, but he felt himself blushing under the older man’s intense gaze.
Bruce nodded. ‘I know that too. Dulcie wouldn’t have come home if she’d been up to any hanky-panky.’ He sighed and ran his fingers through his hair. ‘I hold myself responsible for her marrying Ross. I care about him too, you see, and when Dulcie came along I guess I thought they had enough in common to find real happiness together. I should have looked closer like Betty did, but I got carried away with the idea they’d stay with us into our old age, maybe with a whole bunch of kids for us to enjoy like grandchildren. I planned to leave the farm to them too.’
‘You mustn’t feel responsible, they must have fallen in love with one another.’
‘How can two kids brought up in cruel institutions without anyone of the opposite sex know anything?’ Bruce said fiercely ‘They were thrown together, they sensed my approval. Ross was bowled over by her pretty face, kindness and cooking, and Dulcie, being the way she is, thought her pity for him was love. Betty and me knew there was no passion between them, they were like two kids at Sunday school. I know now that when Betty died I should have talked them out of it.’
‘But you were grieving,’ Rudie said.
‘I was, but that’s no excuse. It was self-interest, I wanted them to stay around for ever, Ross was too good a stockman to lose, Dulcie was too good a housekeeper.’
‘You also loved them both,’ Rudie said quietly, knowing this was true.
‘Yes, I do, Ross as much as Dulcie. But that’s the real bugger of it all, Rudie. If they stay together Dulcie is going to spend the rest of her life unhappy. If I encourage, or force her hand to leave Ross, then he will be unhappy. It’s like the bloody judgement of Solomon.’
A tear trickled down Bruce’s cheek, he wiped it away and stood up. ‘I’d best be going now. I’ve said more than enough.’
Rudie stood up too and impulsively embraced the older man. He understood now why Dulcie loved Bruce so much, and he was humbled by the man’s honesty and courage. ‘I’m glad you came tonight,’ he said, his voice cracking with emotion. ‘But Bruce, you’ve got nothing to reproach yourself for, you’ve been a real father to both Ross and Dulcie, you’ve redressed a great many of the wrongs done to them. Whatever happens, you’ve been the best and greatest influence in their lives.’
Bruce took a step back from him, looking shamefaced. ‘Strewth, Rudie,’ he said wiping his eyes. ‘I only came down here for a beer!’
The following afternoon Dulcie came to meet Rudie and Noël as promised and she was excited because Ross had asked Rudie back for supper. ‘It was him who suggested it, not Bruce,’ she insisted. ‘I suppose he’s realized he was being stupid.’
Rudie held his counsel. He didn’t think Ross was stupid, far from it. He guessed today’s unexpected invitation was because the man wanted to weigh up the enemy so he could plan a strategy to destroy him. Clearly Ross knew if he waited until Sunday to meet him, he might run out of time.
They took a walk along the esplanade, and let Noël run around on the beach and go on the swings. Then they left for the farm at four-thirty, Rudie following Dulcie in his car so he could drive himself back later.
Rudie had been to several sheep and cattle stations up in Queensland and in Victoria, he was familiar with vast acreage, the dust-dry soil and the tough, lean stockmen who made their living there. So he felt some surprise as he drove up the track at Frenches’, to see it was far more like an English farm. The grass was thick and lush, the cows in the paddock plump, even the trees clustered around the yard weren’t native Australian ones.
Noël had sat quite still on the back seat until he realized this was a place he’d been before. He stood up and waved his arms excitedly, saying ‘Doodo’, his word for dog.
Dulcie came running over as Rudie stopped, opened the door and let Noël out. He ran straight towards the dogs, giving Rudie a moment of panic.
‘They are okay with children,’ she reassured him. ‘I always feel safer near them, they sense snakes before we can, and bark.’
Rudie found himself nervous, glancing this way and that – Dulcie hadn’t ever mentioned snakes before. She laughed at him. ‘I used to do that all the time,’ she admitted. ‘But I learned where they’re likely to be and avoid those places. They never come into the yard.’
When a man came riding into the yard on a horse, Rudie knew immediately by his youth that he had to be Ross, even though he had no real recollection of him from the evening in Kalgoorlie. He suspected too that his arrival on a horse was staged, for it immediately put Rudie at a disadvantage.
‘G’day,’ Ross said, tipping back his hat and looking down at him with a hint of a sneer. ‘So you’re Rudolph! The bloke up at Kalgoorlie.’
Rudie had expected Ross to be hostile, but he hadn’t been prepared for such a good-looking man. The impression he had in his head from their brief meeting three years earlier was of a mere boy with a freckly face and short cropped hair.
Ross looked like a Hollywood-style cowboy with his checked shirt, jeans and leather hat, broad-shouldered and lean-hipped. Beneath the tipped back hat was a mop of dark auburn curly hair, his skin was lightly tanned and his eyes a curious amber colour. He did have a sprinkling of freckles, but they only served to enhance his neat, regular features.
Noël came running back to Rudie. ‘Gee gee,’ he said, holding his arms up to Ross.
‘Wanna come for a ride with me?’ Ross asked, and before Rudie could say anything, he reached down, grabbed Noël by his outstretched hands and pulled him up, settling him in the saddle in front of him.
Rudie watched, his heart in his mouth, as Ross cantered down the track, turned into the paddock and rode off across it. He would have trusted Bruce implicitly with a child, but he didn’t feel the same about this man.
Dulcie came up beside him. ‘Don’t look so scared,’ she said with a giggle. ‘Ross won’t let him come to any harm, though he is showing off a bit.’
In the next three hours Rudie saw a great deal more of Ro
ss showing off. Before supper the rope on the swing became twisted, and Ross shinned up the tree to sort it out, then climbed down the rope like a monkey. He took Rudie and Noël in to see the cows being milked, asked Rudie if he wanted to try it, then ridiculed him when he couldn’t produce even a drop of milk. He chased and caught a chicken for Noël to look at and touch.
It didn’t help at supper when Noël wanted to sit next to Ross, and instead of eating his own food kept pointing to Ross’s plate. Ross of course played up to it and fed him, giving Rudie sly glances.
John wanted to know a great deal more about Sydney, and Rudie said if he ever came he’d be welcome to stay at his place.
‘You won’t like it there, John,’ Ross guffawed. ‘It’s all nancy boys, blokes in suits and posh sheilas.’
Rudie looked at Dulcie and saw she was blushing.
‘Don’t be a drongo, mate,’ John said to Ross, perhaps sensing her embarrassment. ‘You’ve never been to Sydney.’
‘Don’t want to either,’ Ross retorted. ‘Bloody cities do nothing for me.’
So it went on, and however hard Bruce or John tried to speak directly to Rudie about his work, and Sydney, Ross kept butting in with sarcastic remarks or jokes which were always about Englishmen.
Rudie didn’t care that much, it was interesting to observe all the men Dulcie had spoken of with such warmth at close quarters. John was the one he remembered the best from Kalgoorlie, he had been nervous of him then because he thought he was May’s boyfriend and half expected him to get into a strop when he danced with her. He felt drawn to him now, he liked the man’s directness and good humour, and his lazy drawl was as attractive as his face.
Bob was so silent it was difficult to draw any conclusions about him. Rudie remembered Dulcie telling him he had been bullied by his blacksmith father, and guessed he was always shy with strangers. His sticking-out ears, thinning hair and brown buck teeth didn’t do him any favours either, and he thought Bob had drawn the short straw in life.