Texas (20 page)

‘There you are.'

Susannah turned around. Laura appeared in front of the bougainvillea having come from the direction of the laundry.

‘I've been looking for you.' Laura was smiling.

‘You really should carry your torch at night. In case of snakes.'

‘I can see from the light of the laundry,' said Laura.

Susannah followed the children. ‘Do you want a cup of tea?' she asked over her shoulder.

She reached the kitchen door.

‘I was thinking of something a bit stronger.'

‘Oh . . . there's the men's beer,' said Susannah, facing her.

She walked back and unlocked the cool room and handed Laura a can of beer. Perhaps Laura would like to have a drink with her, while she fed the children.

‘Can I have another one for Texas?'

Susannah paused.

‘I'm not going to drink them both,' Laura added with a grin.

She had changed. Her arms and her face were tanned by the sun and her skin was youthful enough for it to look natural and healthy. She seemed assured, more self-possessed. She looked as though she belonged.

‘The drinks come out of your wages,' said Susannah, turning her back on her.

Susannah was cross with herself for being disappointed.

The woman was sleeping with an Aboriginal for christsake. The thought escaped before she could help it and it made her feel even guiltier, but the fact was she couldn't imagine what Laura might see in him. She turned on the tap at the sink and looked through the louvres into the darkness. She didn't want to think like that, she wanted to think differently, to be less shut off from other ideas and experiences.

Texas John returned when his meal had spoilt in the oven. He'd been with Gerry. She could smell the alcohol on his breath and it wasn't the first time he'd chosen overproof rum over the food she'd cooked. He was standing under the light in the kitchen without a hat and his shirt tails were hanging over his jeans. She wondered what they'd been talking about. She caught his sodden, uncertain look. She could tell him what he wanted to hear, that he was everything he imagined himself to be, but she decided she wasn't that generous any more.

The next day she went to find Laura. On her way to put the children down for their nap she'd seen her hanging out washing on the line. Laura was obviously getting ready to leave in the cook's vehicle that afternoon. Susannah passed John at the table in the sleep-out, writing cheques. It reminded her she'd be alone with him soon and she needed to find something to do. At the end of the yard was a corrugated-iron tank on a stand and a creeper was tangled around its legs. Beside it was a track leading to the creek that ran behind the homestead. She stepped across the timber plank to the other side. The bank rose gradually and further up, where the ground evened out, there was another tank made of concrete. She walked around the side of it, having been there once before when no one was about. A dirty blue tarpaulin shaded the kitchen and in places where leaves had collected, she had to lower her head. Laura was sitting beside one of the trestle tables on a faded orange plastic chair. She was reading. There were other chairs randomly arranged around her. Timber cabinets sat on top of tables, and behind her was a sink made out of half an oil drum mounted on a frame. The dirt was hard like concrete and Susannah wondered if it came from termite mounds, remembering that people used this for floors and even tennis courts a long time ago.

‘Hi.' Laura smiled warmly. ‘Didn't expect to see you here.

I've just made some tea, would you like some?'

‘No, don't worry,' said Susannah, standing, her hand resting on the back of a chair. ‘I just came to say goodbye.'

‘Oh,' Laura hesitated. ‘I'm staying. With Texas. I thought someone might have told you.'

Susannah held the back of the chair with both hands. She didn't like being surprised. ‘John might have . . . but I probably wasn't listening. I see. So what are you going to do? There'll be no one here to cook for you.'

‘Um, sorry, I hadn't really thought about that.'

‘Yes, well. John won't want you eating with us. You'll have to eat with Gerry on the veranda. And you'll have to work. We can't feed you for nothing.'

Returning to the homestead, Susannah sensed change; the heat was heavy with moisture and clouds threatened. She looked for her husband.

‘Why didn't you tell me she was staying?'

He looked up from the desk. She was standing over him.

‘I've asked Texas to stay on and do some work round the place.'

‘What about her?'

‘She's just his bloody woman. What can I do?'

Texas II

Each morning the sky was clear and she knew what had to be done and then clouds with dark underbellies thickened and covered the sun. It became harder to think, and her body felt like it needed to be wrung out. But it never rained. It was only the build-up. She couldn't shake the feeling that something might happen, something might happen to one of them. The country was so colourless, unless a shaft of light fell through a gap, and then the red, the green and the yellow became bold and intense and out in the paddock the silver skin of the boab seemed to simmer. She moved the sprinklers around the yard, glancing in at Laura's room when she passed, checking to see where they were; if they were down at the shed, finding a reason to be there and everywhere and beside the tree that screened their sleep-out, catching an image of a couple together. She was curious about their relationship and perhaps a little envious of their closeness, the way they touched each other. Then the weather lifted and the days returned to dry, hard heat and she forced herself to forget about them.

John was talking into the handset of the Flying Doctor radio. The boys were eating jam-covered crusts.

‘Roger, over.'

She looked up as he replaced the handset.

‘I've got to go to Perth.'

She took their plates over to the sink.

‘There's a plane going from the airstrip near town. It'll just be for a few days or maybe a week. There's a course they want me to do and then some planning meeting.'

He reached across for the bread, mug of tea in his other hand, and then, standing, leant against the bench as he ate and drank. Long legs crossed at the ankle.

‘Texas is going to do a bit of fencing. He'll have to camp out,' he said with his mouth full. ‘Laura can give you a hand with the kids.'

Laura was at the doorway as though summoned and Susannah wondered briefly what she was thinking.

‘Tell Texas I want to speak to him,' he told her.

Susannah glanced through the angled glass at the profile of the stockman as he faced the direction of the hills, his rollie stub between his lips, smoke whispering from his nose.

John called through the flywire. ‘I'll be with you in a minute.'

Texas acknowledged him with a slight turn of his head.

He pulled down the brim of his hat and she couldn't see him any more.

John followed her into the bedroom. She asked him to take their best suitcase down from the top of the cupboard. She opened it flat on the bed. It smelt of somewhere else. He stood on the other side of the bed.

‘You'll need a tie,' she said.

‘I'm not wearing a bloody tie.'

‘Aren't you doing a course?'

He looked towards the wardrobe and back. ‘Do you think I need a tie?'

Texas He suddenly looked like Ollie. She reached into the back of the drawer and pulled out his only tie, which was navy blue and striped thinly in red and white.

‘You'll be all right,' she said.

He watched her fold his clothes and place them neatly in the suitcase. When it was nearly full he left his side of the bed and came around behind her. His arms appeared across her chest and he sighed into her neck. She let her body relax into his and for a moment she watched the loose end of a spider's web dance as though it was a living thing against the wall. He released her and fastened the suitcase.

‘Thank you,' he said, before he left the room.

She stared across the bed to where his pillow rested beside hers, feeling strangely vulnerable without him. She breathed deeply the shaded air. A dove's wing pattered on the other side of the screen and it cooed doodle doo,
it'll do, it'll do
, through the flywire. Sounds were louder with the generator turned off. She heard a vehicle start down by the sheds and the little boys' chatter on the lawn. Then there was Laura's voice, her London accent familiar from all the British comedies on the ABC that Susannah had watched with her mother. Susannah moved into the laundry. Clothes were in piles on the floor: shirts and shorts, faded and soft, wrinkled and crumpled, baskets brimming. She was swimming in clothes, suffocated by everyone's clothes.

She pushed open the white gate into the yard, noticing her bare arm red from sunburn and the gate wet from the sprinkler. She stepped out of the shade and the sun pierced the back of her eyes. She had just returned from visiting Irish to tell him that John would be away for a few days. Irish reminded her of a man who used to help her father with the mulesing. They were both old men who kept away from the cities and their own pasts for reasons they never revealed.

The man who worked for her father came from Austria many years ago and used to own one of the virgin blocks that bordered the boundary of their farm. He lived alone in a caravan in the bush. Sometimes he came for dinner and he sat opposite her father; both of them cleaned of the lambs' blood which by the end of the day had hardened on their hands and faces. His land was taken away by the government because, unlike the other farmers in the area, he'd resisted clearing it all, warning there would be problems with the drainage of water if he did. It bothered her that she couldn't remember his name or if he still lived on the edge of their farm; if he was still alive to see the salt patches spreading in that part of the country.

Her head felt as though it was stuffed full of cloud. She thought it was probably the heat. It was becoming humid again.

She smoothed the seams of her T-shirt from her waist to her hips and it reassured herself of her own shape. Laura was squatting with her arm outstretched, her head level with the boys as the two of them peered into her cupped hand. Susannah couldn't see what she was holding. Ollie hopped about on one foot while Ned, his body stiff with intense excitement, continued to lean towards Laura. Then he shuffled backwards. He looked up across the lawn, noticing his mother.

Texas ‘Look, Mummy. It's a frog.'

‘A frog,' echoed Ollie, hopping in a circle around Laura.

‘A froggy frog, a froggy frog, a froggy frog.'

Ollie's dance widened to include Susannah. In Laura's hand was a small dark green frog. Laura smiled and straightened carefully, the frog pinned to her hand by her thumb.

‘
Litoria splendida
. The magnificent green tree frog,' she said, adding apologetically, ‘My dad was a biology teacher. Used to bore us to death with details from his latest herpetology newsletter.' Her face shone with warmth. ‘It's amazing. These frogs were only discovered recently. They're usually found in caves and places that are damp and dark.'

‘Really,' said Susannah, and to the boys, ‘Shush, you're making a lot of noise.'

‘Give me a look.'

‘I want to see the frog. I want to see the frog.'

‘You'd think they'd boil in this heat, wouldn't you?' said Laura to Susannah.

‘Can we kill it?' asked Ollie.

‘No,' said Laura, laughing. ‘We must look after him. People think they're very special. Native Americans put them at the bottom of their totem poles.' Laura knelt down between the boys. ‘What we'll do is we'll find a container and we'll keep him as a pet. What do you think?' She looked up at Susannah. ‘Is that okay?'

‘Sure.' Susannah shrugged and turned away.

A willy-willy gusted dustily at the edge of the lawn, disturbing the dry leaves and the little baked pieces of rock.

III

Susannah lay on the bed she shared with her husband. A breeze moved through the trees and the leaves clattered together. Her head was enveloped by the pillow for the foam had started to separate. Someone had turned the lighting plant on again. It must have been Irish, since Texas was still camped out on the boundary. She could hear the pulse of the engine quicken as it kicked into gear and the light flashed above her.

It was only supposed to be on during certain times of the day and night, to conserve fuel, but there was no schedule now that her husband was away. When it went off she let clothes soak in the tub. She could hear children's voices and then quick little feet becoming fainter as they travelled up the hallway. Susannah imagined what it might be like to be someone else. A rider swinging up into the saddle, leaning into the horse's warmth, gathering up the reins, squeezing with her knees and feeling the horse move beneath her, faster and faster. Her centre would become the centre of her horse, in rhythm, rocking, and crossing the country, long shadows slipping quickly past.

The frog sat in a clear Tupperware container on the bench beside the sink. They'd poked holes in the lid for it to breathe.

Amber eyes with a black elongated pupil. Its legs tucked into itself. The children called it Hoppy. Susannah wiped around the container.

‘It's beautiful, isn't it?' Laura peered in at the frog. ‘Look at

Texas the bright yellow outline of its legs. When it jumps away from predators it flashes yellow to startle them.'

Susannah stopped what she was doing and watched her. Laura looked up and flushed slightly.

‘Frogs are great, don't you think? We've killed almost all of ours off except for the grass frog.'

‘I hadn't really thought about them,' said Susannah. ‘We used to cut them up for biology.'

‘In the backyard of our house in London we had a pond where frogs would spawn. Every year I watched them hatch into tadpoles.'