Water, in Australia, had ever been an obsession; and among the tribes of the inland many mysterious ceremonies were still celebrated in order to attract rain. Strange to tell, it had happened many times that the heavens had complied with the incantations of the wise men daubed with red ochre and emu grease.
Old Ben Iredale had spent his life drilling these bores, digging out these dams and building weirs across the creeks; by dint of money, hard work and patience, he had managed to endow Tilfara with what nature had withheld: enough water to satisfy the thirst of the bleating multitudes.
John never ceased to admire the achievement of the conqueror his father had been: this man had cut down whole forests to provide enough posts to carry the wire for some 500 miles of fencing. The isolation, the enormous distances which practically doubled the price of every commodity, the struggle against droughts, against rabbits, against the very wind which could bury the fences under sand, would have discouraged even the most valiant.
For all that, Ben Iredale had not neglected the comfort of the home he had built for his wife. The house, constructed in 1868 on the bank of the river, had the faults of its generation: the doors were too low and too narrow for the athletic build of the pioneers, and the bedrooms were too small, as if these men could not forget the tent under which they had lived for so long. But the broad veranda which surrounded the house maintained a precious coolness even at the height of summer.
Ben and his wife had planted a garden, a thick grove of orange trees, clumps of rose bushes and long trails of bougainvillea. Water pumped from the river had turned this patch taken from the blinding plain into a leafy oasis, an orgy of greenery and flowers which the birds of the bush came to visit without any fear.
II
Out on the veranda of the Tarindi Post Office, the thermometer has just reached 102 degrees Fahrenheit. The policeman is waiting for the coach to arrive: he mops his head with his handkerchief, and the light thrown back from the sun reflects onto his face the crude green of his helmet’s lining. Beside him, young Dan, his bare, tanned legs emerging from shoes laced up with string, mechanically flicks away the flies with a spray of gum leaves as he keeps watch over his team of four goats tied up in the shade of a pepper tree.
Further away, smoking his pipe, a swaggie is also waiting for the mail-coach, not because he is expecting a letter — he has never received one in his life — but merely to enjoy the diversion. And then, who knows?, one of the travellers might shout him a glass of beer: in this heat, what a pleasant thought!
Nobody speaks: the policeman is too hot, the youth has too many flies around him, and the swaggie has his pipe.
A cloud of red dust appears, rolling heavy as the smoke from a cannon shot: from it emerge four horses which, at this morning’s departure, were white, but which are now as pink as under-fired bricks. The coach appears in its turn, a berline suspended on thick leather straps, and when it stops in front of the post office, it finds itself surrounded by every living soul in Tarindi, for they are all eager for the spoils of the heavy canvas bag containing letters and newspapers.
In the shade of the hats, the faces are smiling however, and the coachman gets a welcome from each one; this old-fashioned coach is the only connecting link between the outside world and Tarindi, a small settlement lost in the plains, wondering sometimes what it is doing on earth, what are its role and its reason for existence.
From inside the red coach bearing the arms of the Queen of England alight a commercial traveller, who greets the local storekeeper familiarly, and a woman who shakes off the dust from her dress. Everybody heads for the only hotel, where they will lunch on corned beef and black tea.
At the bar, they all have a drink: they need it. The coachman gives out the latest news and informs the Royal’s owner that he is carrying the new housekeeper for Tilfara. “Those old boys know how to choose,” he adds with a sly look: “a nice bit of skirt!”
The publican, who also thinks he knows a thing or two, goes and takes a look in the parlour, where the lady traveller and his wife are seated in front of a bottle of ginger beer.
The housekeeper already has some information about Tilfara; this is confirmed for her: a good situation; Iredale is a clean-living man, loved by all in the district, handsome, 28 years old; he has a big property and almost 70,000 sheep.
“And he’s not married!” adds the Royal’s mistress, as if she saw in this voluntary bachelorhood an injustice, or even an insult, towards her sex.
Shortly afterwards, the lady traveller is shown to the dining room, where the flies, too, seem to be enjoying the cool, restful semi-darkness. The breadboard and the cake-stand are covered with squares of netting, spoons are brandished above the cups of tea so as to prevent the little creatures from committing suicide. But the commercial traveller is telling how he has seen much worse around the opal mines at Walgett. Water there is as scarce as champagne, the corned beef crunches between your teeth, it is so covered in sand, and the thirst that you get there is a suffering that you wouldn’t sell for anything in the world once you find yourself in a bar where the beer is sold for one-and-sixpence a glass.
The coachman chews slowly and drinks a lot of very sweet, strong tea; then he says to his neighbour: “Another thirty miles to go, Miss, and you’ll be at Tilfara: you’ll see, you’ll be sorry to leave me.”
All these people, often silent, love to joke when they speak. Nobody grumbles, despite the hardships, the heat and everything. They all possess a grown-up child’s outlook, a mentality built of patience which allows them to accept what comes and to expect what won’t happen.
Half an hour later, the red cloud rolls off once more over the plain scattered with trees like an immense orchard planted at random.
The coachman, his hands full with the long reins, speaks to the lady traveller: from time to time he points out with the whip a family of kangaroos leaping off 200 yards away, with the young joey prudently bringing up the rear. Further away, there’s a flock of emus running along, necks outstretched, in a series of grotesque strides that nothing seems to have provoked. In the pale blue sky hawks glide and crows fly past, their plumage shining in the sun.
The horses, zig-zagging on a track which winds round a dead tree, avoid a bush or a rabbit-warren; they hardly seem to advance at all, so slowly does the interminable plain unroll before them.
Miss Susie Brady, the housekeeper chosen for Tilfara, arrived at the station worn-out and covered with dust. A half day in the train, and two days in the coach, might easily have spoiled her good humour; however, she alighted from the old rattletrap calm and composed and returned a smile to the storeman and book-keeper.
For some days now, Sam had busied himself setting up a room for the newcomer; he had gotten used to the idea of her coming, reckoning that it was the best thing to do, since it was inevitable.
A small room at the end of the veranda had been carefully cleaned out, and all had been prepared as well as three bachelors could have done.
Sam had made up his mind to pay only a minimum of attention to the housekeeper; but he couldn’t help noticing that she was young and “not too bad”. This “not too bad” expresses, in the language of an Australian, an appreciation often bordering on the superlative, and this same Australian, on the point of dying, will tell you that he feels “not too good”. Is this the miner’s, or the gambler’s, superstition in him?
Susie Brady was, in fact, pretty good. When John saw her for the first time, he even thought she was too good and also too young for a household of bachelors.
The three men were strangely surprised to be seated at a table in the middle of which was set a bunch of roses. The table-cloth seemed whiter, the cutlery more shiny; even the salt-cellars no longer looked like a rabbit-hole dug