‘I’m afraid there’s nothing romantic about Jarra Jarra,’ Janet said in a small tight voice that sounded distinctly girlish. ‘And I have to be up early so I’m going to bed.’ She gave us candles and then she left us, a Cinderella-like exit — one minute she was there, the next she was gone.
‘What an extraordinary child,’ Rosa murmured, and I could have slapped her.
‘She just about runs the station,’ I said.
‘I’m sure she does.’ She smiled at me sweetly. ‘But not very well from what I’ve been told. Their cattle herded on to somebody else’s property and not enough fuel to run their lighting plant. And their future apparently in your hands.’
‘Who told you that?’
‘The boy who drove me here. The word seems to have got around that you’re a mining consultant. With your old firm, too.’ Her eyes reflected the guttering of the last candle so that I couldn’t see their expression. ‘It seems they’re very simple people out here.’
I got to my feet. ‘We’ll be starting early, too.’
She sighed and got out of her chair. ‘Do I go with you?’
‘You’d find it very hot and dusty.’
‘I see.’
‘You don’t see at all,’ I said angrily. ‘We have to clear a track up a gully on the slopes of Mount Coondewanna.’
She smiled, and it was still that cool smile of amusement. ‘I gather we’re in separate rooms, so goodnight then.’
But it wasn’t goodnight. Stripped to my pants, I was sitting on my bed, smoking a cigarette and wondering what to do about her, when a shadow moved against the stars and I heard her voice, a whisper in the night: ‘Alec. Are you there?’ Something leapt inside of me, my blood pounding as I got to my feet and went to the verandah where she stood, quite still, just a shadow in the moonlight.
‘What is it? What do you want?’ But I knew. It had been like that from the moment we had first met, at a country club near her home in Hampshire. The chemistry of our bodies was something we had never been able to control. She didn’t answer, simply stepped past me into the deeper darkness of the room and then stood waiting. I followed her, knowing what would happen, the ache overwhelming, the sense of incompleteness. ‘I couldn’t talk to you out there,’ she breathed.
‘Do we have to talk?’
She came closer, not touching me, but I could smell her scent and her hair loose over her face, the flimsy garment falling apart, the pale breasts exposed. ‘Not if you don’t want to, darling.’ The voice so soft, so inviting. Damn her! She was like a bitch on heat. She had always been like that when it came to the moment. And my need, all these weeks. … I reached for her, grabbed hold of her, the softness of her yielding, coming against me, her lips on mine and her hands straying. And then we were on that narrow bed and she had the lumps as I took her in a fury of urgency. It wasn’t love. But it was something we both needed.
Released at last, we lay close, the sweat on our bodies cooling. ‘I wonder what they’d say if they could see you now?’ The whisper of her words and her hands like silk. ‘So very much alive!’
‘Are you glad?’
‘Haven’t I shown it?’
If she had kept her mouth shut we could have lain close like that all night. But her words had reminded me of the insurance money and I reached for a cigarette. If she could guess the truth, then others might reach a similar conclusion. The flare of the match showed our naked bodies and the spartan simplicity of the room. Even if she didn’t talk, her mere presence threatened everything I had achieved, the desperate attempt to rebuild my life.
‘I could do with a cigarette, too.’
I gave her one, lighting it from my own, and the glow of it as she inhaled showed the relaxed beauty of her features. ‘What are you planning to do?’ I asked.
‘I’ll wait,’ she said.
‘What for?’
To see whether you make it. A new mine — by Easter.’ The tip of her cigarette glowed and I saw her eyes laughing up at me. ‘I was there, between two of those cowsheds, wool sheds, whatever they are.’ She raised herself on her elbow. ‘You think I’ll let a chit of a girl like that take over my husband when he’s struck it rich?’ She laughed. ‘I’ve got you, Alec, haven’t I? Still talking big and reaching for the sky. But here, in this mineral-crazy land, you might just prove as big as your words.’
So that was it. She was going to hold that over me, and if I succeeded, we’d be back where we were before I’d lit that bloody candle and burned Drym to the ground. She’d be round my neck for ever then. And if I didn’t succeed, then I could rot for all she cared. ‘You can’t wait here,’ I said, keeping a tight hold on myself.
‘Of course not. Too damned uncomfortable.’
‘Where then?’
‘Perth. Or there’s an island called Rottnest. I met somebody on the plane who invited me there.’
‘A man?’
She gave a soft laugh. ‘I’m a perfectly normal woman. You should know that by now.’
My hands clenched, a cold fury sweeping over me. I could have taken her by the throat then. But suddenly the anger was gone, leaving only a feeling of disgust that she could still do this to me. And after that I didn’t say anything, the two of us lying there in silence until finally she leaned over me and stubbed out her cigarette. ‘I’ll leave you now. I’m sleepy and this bed is too small.’ She climbed over me and put on her dressing gown. ‘Goodnight, Alec.’
I watched her shadow disappear into the night, and long after she had gone I could feel the touch of her body as she had leaned over me.
In the morning, when I woke, it all seemed like a dream. But I knew it wasn’t, and there to remind me was the stubbed-out butt of her cigarette, red with lipstick. I got up, dressing slowly, wondering how I was going to face Janet. But at least I was spared that. Kennie was waiting for me, a pot of tea on the table. ‘Janet went about an hour ago. She left this note.’ He handed it to me: Sorry, but you’ll have to fend for yourselves. Back this evening. He poured me a cup of tea. ‘She was riding that camel of hers and she had Tom and one of the boys with her.’ The tea was lukewarm and I drank it quickly. ‘Well, let’s go,’ I said. ‘We’ve work to do.’ A hell of a lot, in fact, if that rig was going to be able to reach the drill site. ‘We’ll breakfast up the top of the gully.’
He nodded and got to his feet. ‘What about your wife?’ But that was a problem I didn’t want to face at this hour of the morning and I was hoping to God she was still asleep as I went out into the arid, blinding sunlight. A moment later we were in the Land-Rover and heading down the track towards Golden Soak.
THREE
We began drilling at dawn on Wednesday, January 21, in the hollow on the north-eastward running spur of Mt Coondewanna. My choice of site had been limited by the terrain, the projected line of the reef cutting diagonally across the sloping shoulder of the mountain and the rig only able to operate on reasonably flat ground. Drilling on the back of the spur had one advantage. Here erosion had probably occurred in situ, so that there was every chance that the surface samples I had taken from the hollow were a true indication of the rock formation below. But it was all Archaean country of great antiquity and I had no means of knowing how Mt Coondewanna had been formed or what changes in its formation had occurred over the millennia. In the circumstances, the odds against a single drill hole proving successful were very long indeed.
I reckoned that if we did intersect the reef it would be at a depth of about 700 feet. Ed Garrety had found it at the Golden Soak third level, 300 feet below the surface, and where we were now was a good 400 feet above the mine entrance. When we started we were drilling into the weathered mantle, so that progress was rapid, a new 10-foot length of pipe being added almost every hour.
From that hollow we could just see the top of Coondewanna above an outcropping ridge of rock that gradually changed from the black of shadow to the red of full sunlight. It was hot, but there was a slight breeze and the flies were not too bad, particularly when Kennie got a fire going. By lunchtime we were already down over 60 feet and Duhumel and his second team runner, Josh Meyer, ate one at a time, the diesel thundering and the rods turning steadily as the drill ground its way down into the bowels of the earth.