A Waltz for Matilda (38 page)

The shop was dark; the shed at the back too. City boy, sleeping in, she thought, looking at the grey line of almost dawn along the
horizon. Back home she’d be stoking up the fire now. Or soon, anyhow, at the first kookaburra call.

She walked around to his kitchen door and knocked, quietly at first, then more loudly.

No response. She went around to his bedroom window, and rapped it sharply. ‘Tommy! It’s me! Wake up!’

She listened. No sound within. Suddenly anxious, she ran down to the shed. His bicycle was gone. She ran back, tried to peer in the window, but it was too dark to see. She hurried around to the front, then saw the notice on the door.
Closed till further notice. Leave all messages at Mr Doo’s to be passed on.

She read it again, unbelieving. He couldn’t be gone. Not Tommy. Not without saying goodbye.

There’s nothing for me here,
he’d said. But he had his workshop, he had friends. He had …

A repair shop, she thought. That bloke in the city had a factory making Tommy’s float valves, but Tommy was still repairing ploughs.

Back in the city he could have a proper workshop, even electricity. He could meet with others like himself, and talk about inventions instead of sheep. Meet Hargreaves with his flying machine, all the others who were creating the wonders of today.

Tommy stayed here for me.

He had given up so much already to look after the girl who had rescued him at the factory. She couldn’t expect him to stay here now, and give up even more for her.

Was she going to have to choose? Choose between living in a city with Tommy, and living with James, out here? She gazed at the horizon again, the flush of red burning across the sky. No, she couldn’t live in the city now. Nor had Tommy even asked her to go with him.

And James …

Suddenly she heard Aunt Ann, as clear as if she was standing around the corner. She’d been talking to one of her friends, a few months before she died. ‘It’s a woman’s secret, isn’t it?’ Aunt Ann had said. ‘We can live quite comfortably without men. But no man can survive without a woman to wash his clothes.’

It wasn’t true. She knew men who lived without a wife, who never washed their clothes, for that matter. But the heart of it — yes, Aunt Ann was right.

So she had a third choice too. To live alone, to farm alone. No, not alone. But without a husband at her side. No children to show how termites flew before the rain, how grass orchids spray up after fire, where the daisy tubers slept below the ground, waiting for rain, or for hands to dig them and roast them and wonder at their nuttiness, a gift of food from a dry land.

She walked slowly back toward Mrs Lacey’s.

She was getting way ahead of herself, she knew. She’d only really talked to James three times, and who knew where Tommy had gone?

Perhaps he had just left for a few weeks, to talk to that patent lawyer about his inventions, to see if there were more he could sell.

He’ll come back, she thought. Tommy has to come back. There was certainly no need to make a decision now.

But it was good to understand that she had choices that few other women might have. She had the land. And just now she knew it was the most important thing that she had ever had.

Mrs Lacey handed the letter to her at breakfast — it was a scrap of brown paper, roughly folded like an envelope, and addressed
Give to Miss Mateelda Moura.
Strange to be served breakfast: lamb’s fry and fried tomatoes, and what Aunt Ann would have called a ‘knee-high stack of toast’.

‘One of the men gave it to me to give to you at the dance last night. He’s just got back from the Barcoo himself.’

So she’s read it, thought Matilda.

Mrs Lacey looked at her with sharp blue eyes. ‘You enjoyed yourself last night with Mr James?’

‘Yes. Very much. He’s picking me up in half an hour,’ she added, aware that this too would be added to the town gossip. ‘We’re going out to lunch at Drinkwater. It’s his father’s birthday.’

‘That will be nice,’ said Mrs Lacey, wielding the teapot in triumph. Matilda could almost hear her telling Mrs Harrison at the grocer’s: ‘Lunch with his father then. She’ll have a ring on her finger by Christmas, mark my words.’

No decisions, she thought. There is plenty of time to make decisions.

It was strangely familiar, sitting in a motorcar, smelling the hot fuel scent, the chugging of the engine. But now James sat beside her, not Tommy. This car had a wheel instead of a steering lever, and a silver vase set in the dashboard, filled with a posy of rosebuds, only slightly wilted overnight.

The land scurried past them; a mob of roos startled at the noise, and dusty sheep ran into yet more dust. Poor things, she thought. They have enough to cope with without us scaring them.

She had made a pen wiper for Mr Drinkwater’s birthday, in the shape of a sheep. She hoped he didn’t think it childish, understood the joke. She patted her hair, suddenly nervous — stupid, she had been to Drinkwater dozens of times now, had eaten meals there, formal meals when Mrs Ellsmore was visiting,
or casual lunches or morning tea with Mr Drinkwater and Mrs Murphy in the kitchen, when she’d happened to be there at mealtime.

Not like this. She plucked at her gloves, made sure she hadn’t smudged them.

James noticed. ‘You look beautiful. You know, when I saw you in the hotel dining room — you looked golden somehow. Not just the sunlight on your hair. You almost seemed to glow. Made every other woman fade away.’

A golden man.
She heard her mother’s words. Her mother had been seduced by a glimpse, a dream. But James knows who I am, she thought. She was beginning to think she knew him too.

That was the trouble.

Past the turn-off to Moura, the hills behind them now, down the slope then up the slight rise, and into the Drinkwater driveway. Distances are so small in a motorcar, she thought. Somehow the land seemed less real. All you smelled was leather and petrol. You couldn’t feel the air on your skin.

The air shimmered above the homestead. The house looked almost unreal too, in its island of green rhododendrons, the tall Norfolk pines standing firm in the dust. The oak tree was bare, but the roof had been freshly painted for James’s return, a deep strong red, and the verandah washed back to white. Even the driveway was smooth, the ruts filled in before they got too large.

James swung the car into the curve by the house, then turned off the engine. It muttered for a few seconds and died. She waited while he got out to open the door for her — she had to remind herself to wait, remembering Aunt Ann’s lessons all those years before, though those were for a lady getting out of a carriage, of course, not a car — then trod up the stairs in front of him.

She smiled at herself, her fingernails scrubbed till they were
clean, lace gloves, a new dress, made herself from the very latest pattern in the
Ladies’ Own
magazine, white organza flaring out in a single big ruffle below the knee.

It felt right to be coming here like this; she was not a grubby child, ordered to stand and wait these days, but a young lady, an honoured guest in a house she knew.

‘Scratch cocky! Scratch cocky!’ The bird flapped its wings inside its cage.

Matilda peered down at it. ‘Poor thing. It should be free.’

‘The other birds would peck it to death. It wouldn’t know how to be free now.’ James put his finger through the bars of the cage and scratched the bird’s head, then offered Matilda his arm. She took it, and the warmth of his body swept away her doubts. She only knew that she was here, with him.

What would it be like to kiss him?

They walked into the hall together. That felt right as well. He placed his hat on the stand as the smell of roast lamb floated down toward them. Potatoes, she thought, pumpkin … I hope Mrs Murphy has made her apple pie.

‘James?’ The drawing room door opened. Mr Drinkwater appeared, a pipe in his hand. He stared. ‘Matilda!’

Why did he look so puzzled? No, astonished. What was wrong? She turned to James. He was smiling. ‘A surprise for you, Father. Happy birthday!’

Mr Drinkwater lowered his pipe. ‘Yes. A surprise.’ He looked from Matilda to James. ‘What is this about?’

She felt as though she was three years old, and someone had burst her blue balloon. ‘I … I’ve come for lunch. I thought you expected me. Happy birthday,’ she added lamely.

‘Thank you. Of course, you are always welcome.’

Why is his voice so wary then? she thought.

He turned to James. ‘I thought you went to the dance in town.’

‘I did.’ James seemed puzzled too. ‘I took Miss O’Halloran there.’

The old man flushed with anger. ‘And how did Gibber’s Creek like that, eh?’

‘They were fascinated,’ said James evenly.

‘I imagine they gossip about everything a Drinkwater does — or Miss O’Halloran. Did anyone say anything?’

James frowned. ‘Not to our faces. Father, it’s only small-town gossip. You might as well ask the sun not to rise. What on earth is the matter?’

‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ The voice was clipped.

‘Because I am not a child, to tell my father everything I do. Because I assumed any guest of mine would be welcome in my home. Because I wanted to surprise you on your birthday.’

‘You’ve done that all right.’ His voice was grim now.

‘Father … I don’t understand. You are upsetting Miss O’Halloran.’

‘Miss O’Halloran has to realise that —’ He stopped, as though searching for the words. ‘Much as I value her as a neighbour, I will not have her attending dances with my son.’

‘What!’ James stared. ‘How dare you?’

‘This is my house! I will say what I like!’

Matilda looked from one to the other in distress, the faces so alike in their anger.

What was happening here?

‘I … I had better go. James, would you mind driving me home?’ She couldn’t walk to Moura in this dress. Well, she could, but it would take hours and ruin the dress. It was two days’ work, and more than she should have spent of her savings …

‘I will drive you back when we’ve had lunch.’

‘Really. There’s no need. Please. I’d prefer to go now.’

‘Not until we get this clear. Father, this is the girl I intend to marry. Is she welcome in my home or isn’t she?’

Matilda gazed at him, startled. ‘James.’

He put his arm around her waist, which was protective but embarrassing too.

‘James, I haven’t … we haven’t —’

Mr Drinkwater’s voice cut through hers. ‘You will marry no one without my permission.’

‘I will be damned! I will marry who I like —’

‘Please.’ Matilda moved away from James’s arm, toward the door. ‘James, I … I don’t want to hear this.’

‘You shouldn’t have to.’ He put his arm around her shoulders this time. ‘Come on, I’ll take you home.’ He looked back at his father. ‘And when I get back we will have this out.’

They were silent till they reached the end of the driveway. James’s face was white about the lips; his knuckles too were white on the wheel. He is furious, she thought, too furious even to speak.

She felt … she didn’t know what she felt. Humiliated. Betrayed. Disappointed — the lunch she had so looked forward to snatched from her. Angry too. James had no right to spring talk of marriage on her — and even less right to assume she would agree.

Or did he? He had been courting her, obviously and publicly. Why should he think that any girl would accept his attentions, then turn him down? He was rich and he was handsome. She had made it clear she felt a bond between them.