The Golden Soak by Hammond; Innes Page A

‘All that last part of his Journal is about the social life here and the old-timers round about. I don’t know much about McIlroy – only that he was a much younger man and that he was brought in, from Kalgoorlie I think, to run the bank.’ Her hand was holding the bead curtain back and she half turned to me so that the shape of her body was clear against the patio light, her face with the upturned nose in silhouette. ‘I thought we might walk down as far as the paddock grid and meet Daddy coming back. The heat’s gone off now.’ She came back, smiling, and blew the candles out. ‘Come on. Do you good. It’s lovely at this time of the evening and I could do with some air.’
    I got up and we went out into the starlight together, the air hot and dry, but the day’s heat done and a breeze stirring, the buildings a black complex of substance and shadow. She didn’t talk and there was nobody about as we started down the dusty track through the paddock. It was very quiet, the old moon riding low so that I could just see our shadows like twins stretched out ahead of us. She took my arm and at her touch a spark leapt between us.
    I didn’t dare look at her – not then, not until I had myself firmly under control. And when I did it was to see her eyes gazing up at me, the whites bright in the tanned darkness of her face, an urgent excitement in the gleam of teeth between parted lips. The spark was stronger then, electric in the dryness of the atmosphere, and I looked away, quickly, to the black hump of the Windbreaks rising high to our right. ‘No dingoes tonight,’ I murmured, and I wondered whether she would detect the tremor in my voice.
    She didn’t answer, only the pressure of her hand on my arm conveying the message of her need and my blood throbbing in response. It was the heat. Man and woman alone in the quiet cruel beauty of the land’s emptiness. Christ! I thought. Don’t be a bloody fool. She’s just a kid and I was remembering Rosalind, how urgent she had been, her long slender body soft beneath me. I bent down, pretending to take a stone out of my shoe, and after that we walked on, the contact between us broken.
    â€˜D’you miss her?’ she asked, a tenseness in her voice.
    â€˜No,’ I said. But I think she knew it was a lie.
    â€˜I never told you why I came to England.’ And she went on to explain that she’d come over in the hope of raising a loan – the ‘wind’ she called it – from the Mann-Garrety branch of the family. ‘It was a waste of time and Daddy would be furious if he knew.’
    â€˜You saw Rosalind’s father then?’
    She nodded. ‘He didn’t want to know he had Australian cousins with a cattle station in the outback. Rosalind was the same. I can remember that night you came back from the mine – you must have known something was wrong between us. We were like two cats with our fur up. And you were so nice to me, I could have hugged you.’
    â€˜You didn’t ask me for a loan.’
    â€˜No. I sensed you had troubles of your own.’ And she added, ‘I’m glad you’ve separated. There was something about Rosalind …’
    â€˜You didn’t like her.’
    â€˜No.’ And she added almost in a whisper, ‘She was a bitch. Oh, she was beautiful – all the things I’m not and would like to be – but underneath that lovely velvet exterior …’ She looked up at me. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I shouldn’t talk like that. But you’re too nice, too real a person.’
    I didn’t say anything, knowing what I’d done, the lie I was living. The sooner I got away from here.… I was hoping to God she wouldn’t take my arm again – touch me here in the hot night with the track and our shadows running away into emptiness. She had been riding for a month, fit and full of