The Golden Soak Read online

  ‘Jan tells me you’re a mining expert. Tin, I think she said.’ He drained his cup. ‘Well, there’s no tin here, young man. Up north of Nullagine, yes. But not here. The Hamersleys, right on down to the Ophthalmia, it’s all iron country.’

  ‘I appreciate that.’

  ‘There’s some copper, but none of it workable. Our mine down by Coondewanna is the only worthwhile discovery ever made in this area, apart from the iron.’ His voice sounded tired. ‘Times have changed. All anybody wants now, it seems, is iron ore for Japan. They’re no longer interested in gold.’ He put his cup down, staring at me. His blue eyes had an extraordinarily penetrating quality. ‘What brought you here?’

  ‘Your daughter invited me.’

  ‘I know that.’

  He seemed to be waiting for some more definite statement and I said, ‘I think she hoped I’d be able to find some way of re-opening the mine.’

  ‘The mine’s finished.’ He said it abruptly and with unusual emphasis. ‘It was abandoned years ago. Didn’t she tell you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So why did you come?’

  I didn’t know how to answer that, the directness of the question disconcerting.

  ‘You’re a married man, I believe.’ The blue eyes under the bushy brows were watchful. ‘Where’s your wife?’

  ‘In England.’

  ‘England’s a long way away.’

  I was conscious of hostility in his voice. ‘We’ve separated,’ I murmured.

  ‘I see.’

  He didn’t like it and I realized then how dependent he must be on his daughter’s company, the threat of loneliness tangible in every visiting male. I wondered what had happened to his wife as I sat there at a loss for words, the silence growing. Finally I sought refuge in the book I had been looking at. ‘Your father must have had this with him when he settled here.’

  He nodded. ‘I should have had it re-bound.’ He said it without conviction. ‘That book’s had a hard life – all across the north of Australia and on down here. He had it in his swag.’ He leaned forward, peering at the inscription. ‘Emerald Downs. That was my grandfather’s place in Queensland.’

  ‘An unusual book to give a youngster starting out on a long trek.’

  ‘No, not really. The old boy had been a Shakespearean actor, y’see.’ His eyes were friendlier now, the ice breaking a little as he explained why his grandfather had come to Australia. ‘In those days it wasn’t considered quite the thing to be an actor. Not in his family. They were Army people. I don’t think he was a very good actor – though he claimed to have played in the same company as Irving. Then he got mixed up with an actress. There was a court case and the family got shot of him – shipped him out as a remittance man and he settled in Queensland.’ He was smiling now, a dreamy look and his eyes no longer staring at me, but far away. ‘We’ve all inherited that odd acting streak. I used to know those plays pretty well off by heart. Henry was the same. He could spout whole speeches.’ And he added, still smiling quietly to himself, ‘We read a lot. The same old books, but it helps to keep us sane: Isolated as we are, out here on the edge of nowhere.’

  A door banged and Janet came in, bringing a welcome freshness into the room. She had changed into sandals and a gay tent frock and she had some make-up on. ‘Oh, good you two have met.’ She tossed a bundle of newspapers on to the table and turned to her father. ‘They forgot to include any rice, so no curries this month. They always seem to forget something.’

  He was looking up at her, smiling fondly. But the smile faded as he took in the make-up and the dress. ‘You look as though you’re headed for some motel swimming pool.’ There was an undercurrent of censure in his voice.

  ‘I wish I were.’ And then she pirouetted gaily, the tent skirt swirling. ‘Anyway, I’m on holiday today.’ Her eyes were dancing and she looked very young.

  ‘Have you had tea?’ he asked her.

  ‘Yes, I had some while I was checking the invoice.’ She was looking at him, and beneath the make-up and the gaiety, I saw her tiredness, the skin white below the eyes. ‘Anything in the box for us?’

  ‘Just the usual.’ He produced a few letters from his hip pocket. ‘And one for you,’ he added, handing it to me. The address was typewritten, the postmark Kalgoorlie.

  She had taken the envelopes from him, and after glancing at them cursorily, she placed them with a pile of others under a piece of polished stone on top of the bookcase.

  ‘We’ll have to do something about them soon,’ he said awkwardly.

  ‘I told you, today I’m on holiday. I’m not even going to think about them today.’ She laughed, a flash of even white teeth. But I could see it was an effort. ‘And we have a guest. We haven’t had a guest here for – oh, ages.’ She smiled at me. But then she was looking at her father again and the smile vanished. ‘Anything else?’

  I could see him avoiding her eyes.

  ‘It’s Andie, I suppose.’

  He didn’t say anything and she turned to me. ‘We’re broke. Gloriously and absolutely broke.’ She was trying very hard to make a joke of it ‘You may as well know the sort of company you’re keeping.’

  ‘Don’t be silly, Jan. It’s just a cash problem.’

  ‘Then why don’t you go and see Joe Davis? That’s what banks are for, isn’t it?’

  ‘I’ve never run an overdraft or a mortgage in my life, not since I paid off all the debts here.’

  Her eyes went to the pile of envelopes. ‘Andie’s got drought problems same as we have.’ But then she saw the shut, obstinate look on his face. ‘Well,’ she said resignedly, ‘the pump’s full and we’ve got stores for a month anyway.’

  ‘You must excuse us,’ he said to me. ‘We only have one bank, and that’s our cattle. When we get some rain …’

  ‘When!’ she cried. ‘When, when, when.… One of the boys just came in, told Tom they’d found a dozen head up in Red Rock Gorge. He’ll take the ute down this evening with water and try to shift them through the Gap.’ She was gripping the table, her knuckles suddenly white, her face turned to the glare from the patio. ‘A Cock-eyed Boz, a cyclone, anything, I don’t care – But God give us some rain.’ It came from the heart, a cry of despair almost.

  Her father leaned forward and put his hand over hers. His hand was long and thin with bony fingers, the skin marked with the brown blotches of sun cancer; hers was small, short-fingered, the palm, as she turned it up to answer his touch, hard and calloused.

  ‘It’ll rain,’ he said.

  ‘But when?’

  ‘In God’s good time.’

  ‘Damn God! I want it now.’

  I could see him framing the words to reprimand her. But instead he said quietly, ‘It always has, y’know – sooner or later.’

  ‘But it’s never been as bad as this.’ She saw he was about to contradict her and added, ‘Well, not in my lifetime anyway.’ She turned her freckled face to me, her eyes a little wild. ‘The trouble is, when it does come, it’s so violent.’ And she added wistfully, ‘I remember that night at Drym, the softness of the rain. It’s never like that here.’

  ‘Perhaps not.’ He leaned back, frowning at the tin roof. ‘Rumble thy bellyful … how does it go? Lear, y’know.’ He closed his eyes. ‘Spit, fire! Spout, rain! Nor rain, wind, thunder, fire are my daughters. I tax not you, you elements, with unkindness.’

  ‘But I do,’ she Cried. ‘Our elements are unkind.’

  ‘It’s a hard country,’ he admitted.

  Then why not sell the mine?’ She turned to me. ‘Golden Soak must be worth something surely? It’s got mine buildings, machinery, gold – it wasn’t worked out, you know. And this mineral boom –’

  ‘It’s nickel they’re after,’ he said gently.

  ‘I know it’s nickel.’ Her voice sounded edgy. ‘I read the papers, same as you do. I know about Poseidon and Western Mining. But with all these companies being floated, they’re after anything they can get, and if we could sell Golden Soak –�
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  ‘No.’ He said it flatly. ‘We’ve been over all this before, Jan.’

  ‘Well, it’s time we went over it again,’ she said tartly. ‘Alec hasn’t come all this way for nothing. At least he can tell us whether it’s worth anything at all.’

  ‘I think I am the best judge of what it is worth,’ he said stonily.

  ‘This letter may be of some help,’ I told him. ‘It’s from a company promoter who specializes in West Australian shares. I asked him to make some enquiries about your mine.’ And I slit the envelope.

  ‘You’d no right to do that.’

  I looked up, the letter open in my hand. He was leaning forward, staring at me, the long leathery face hard and a muscle twitching, anger blazing in those big eyes – anger, and something else, something I couldn’t place.

  ‘The mine’s closed,’ he said, speaking very slowly, very emphatically. ‘If it’s ever opened again, it will be opened by me. Is that understood?’

  ‘But he’s only trying to help,’ Janet cried. ‘And if it’s worth anything at all …’

  ‘Daughter, please.’ The sharpness of his voice, the edge in it – it was as though he’d slapped her in the face.

  ‘Oh well, to hell with it then,’ she said brightly, and began to talk of other things while her father sat there brooding in silence and I read Kadek’s letter, my hopes dashed in the first paragraph. No offer of a job, only the vague outline of a proposition that left me with a feeling of helplessness. And then I was reading the last paragraph, scanning it quickly, absorbing the information with a sudden sense of excitement, wondering what it meant. I read it through again, slowly this time, and as I read I heard Ed Garetty’s voice saying, ‘Only this morning there was a Toyota through Lynn Peak with two men in it asking about Golden Soak.’ And he added, ‘It’s bad enough having a mine that’s marked on every map, but if we put it up for sale we’d have half the prospectors in the State tramping over the property, driving their trucks through our fences.’ And Janet saying, ‘Well, it wouldn’t make much difference – our fences are in pretty bad shape anyway.’

  There was a sudden silence and I looked up to find her staring at me. ‘Well, what does your friend say?’ she asked with frank curiosity.

  ‘He’s not interested in Golden Soak.’

  I saw the light fade from her eyes and I turned to her father. ‘Do you know where Lake Disappointment is?’

  He didn’t say anything for a moment, a stillness settling on the room, his eyes watching me. ‘Go on,’ he said. ‘What else does he want to know?’ The bleakness of his voice was chilling.

  I hesitated. But his reaction, my own curiosity – I felt impelled to ask him. ‘Does McIlroy’s Monster mean anything to you?’

  The silence deepened, his face frozen. It was as though I’d dropped a bomb in the room.

  ‘McIlroy was your father’s partner, wasn’t he? Does his Monster exist, or is this talk of copper just a prospector’s dream?’

  He shook his head, frowning, a puzzled look in his eyes. ‘I don’t know,’ he said slowly.

  ‘Is it true he was searching for it when he disappeared?’

  The stillness was absolute then, a silence so complete that I could hear the sibilant sound of the Alsatian breathing in her sleep as she lay sprawled by the entrance.

  ‘But that’s ages ago,’ Janet said.

  ‘Before the war – in 1939.’ His voice was controlled now, very quiet. ‘McIlroy was lost on an expedition into the interior.’ He leaned a little forward. ‘What’s the name of your correspondent?’

  ‘Kadek.’

  ‘Why does he want to know about McIlroy?’

  ‘It’s just bar talk,’ I said. ‘A rumour he’s picked up.’ I folded the letter and put it away in my pocket. ‘I imagine Kalgoorlie is full of rumours right now.’

  He nodded slowly. ‘It was all in the papers at the time. A lot of speculation – most of it nonsense.’ And he added, ‘All our troubles here stem from that man McIlroy. His expedition was a desperate, hairbrained attempt to make good all the money he’d lost.’

  ‘Gambling?’ I asked.

  ‘He was playing the stock market – our money, and a lot of other people’s, too.’ And he added, coldly and with an intensity that was almost violent, ‘Pat McIlroy was a crook. He destroyed this station and he destroyed my father.’

  ‘You never told me that,’ Janet said.

  He shrugged and got to his feet. ‘No point. As you say, it all happened a long time ago now.’ He looked down at me, still frowning, his eyes bleak – ‘Lake Disappointment is just below the Canning Stock Route, between the Great Sandy and the Gibson. They found his truck abandoned there, and east of Disappointment there’s nothing, only desert.’

  He went out then, leaving me with questions still unanswered and the feeling that there was more to it than that. Janet also disappeared, and shortly afterwards we had lunch. It was a cold lunch – cold beef, salad and cheese. The bread was home-made. ‘Lucky your visit coincided with the monthly supply,’ Janet said. ‘We try to be as self-sufficient as we can, but things like cheese and flour, salad dressing – oh, lots of things …’

  ‘And beer.’ Her father paused in his carving. ‘Jan drinks a lot of beer, and we don’t brew that.’

  ‘I don’t drink much.’ She was opening a can, and she passed it to me with a glass. ‘Help yourself. Anyway,’ she added, reaching behind her for another beer, ‘I need it to keep my strength up.’

  He smiled at her. ‘You realize it’s making you fat?’

  ‘How could it, riding that camel day after day? Just because you don’t …’ She stopped there. ‘Besides, it’s good for me. Gives me a fine healthy sweat.’

  It was a quick meal, none of us talking very much, and afterwards she took me over the house. Her father had gone off in the Land-Rover to have a look for cattle, over by Deadman Hill he said.

  The rooms were larger than I had expected and there was actually a drawing room, not pretentious, but nevertheless a surprisingly stately room with two portraits in oils over the open fireplace and a cut glass chandelier hanging from the centre of the ceiling. The portraits were of a man and a woman. The man was bearded, a heavy, formidable face, the blue eyes large and compelling. The woman wore a high-necked dress, her hair long and piled on her small neat head. But it was the snub nose and the freckles that caught my eye and I turned to Janet. ‘Your grandmother?’

  She nodded, smiling. ‘We still have some of her dresses, including that one. I tried it on once.’ She giggled. ‘We’re as like as two peas.’

  The furniture, shrouded in dust sheets, appeared to be of good solid mahogany and the walls were panelled from floor to ceiling with that same patterned zinc. It was painted a pale shade of green and the flower pattern was so delicate that it looked like wallpaper.

  The bedrooms all led off that same dark passage and had french windows opening on to the verandah. ‘We often sleep out here,’ she said. ‘It’s wonderful when it’s cooler. Daddy won’t have a dogger on the place, so we’ve plenty of dingoes. Sometimes, out here, I’ll lie awake listening to their calls. I’ve counted as many as a dozen calling at one time, all round the house and quite close.’

  ‘Doesn’t your Alsatian see them off?’

  ‘Yla? No, of course not – she likes them around. But we have to lock her up when she’s on heat. She got away once and you can see the result, that dingo cross, Butch. We don’t worry much about him. He spends most of his time roaming the Windbreaks, and when he does come back he’s worn out, just skin and bone, and serve him right. He’s a womanizer.’ She laughed, glancing up at me as we moved back into the dimness of the passage, where she opened the door opposite and took me into a room facing north, which was part study, part office. ‘My father’s den,’ she called it. Bookcases crammed with books and magazines, a rack of guns, and everywhere rock samples, most of them tabbed with a map reference to indicate where they had been picked up. There was a big mahogany desk, bare wood
showing through the worn leather top, and a black upholstered swivel chair with the stuffing visible in patches. The desk was littered with papers held down with pieces of rock and on the floor beside it was a large steel canister, dome-topped and painted cream. It caught my eye because I hadn’t expected to find such a modern instrument in a house that didn’t seem to have changed in fifty years.

  ‘That’s Daddy’s microscope.’ She took the dome cover off so that I could see. ‘It’s Swiss.’

  I nodded. ‘A Wild Heerbrugg.’ I was puzzled because it was stereoscopic, the sort geologists use for examining core samples. ‘Does he know much about mineralogy?’

  ‘Only what he’s read.’ And she added, ‘D’you know how much it cost? – over eight hundred dollars. Enough to keep this place going for a couple of months the way we’re living at the moment. And it was only a passing craze,’ she added, the heat giving an edge to her voice. ‘He was down at the mine every day for almost a month, collecting samples, examining them; and then suddenly he abandoned the whole thing.’ She replaced the dome.

  ‘When was this?’

  ‘Oh, about a year ago. It was just after the iron ore company took over the Watersnake lease. They had to pay compensation, of course, and he saw an advertisement for this microscope in a copy of the Sydney Morning. Herald somebody’d left at Andie’s place.’ She got out her handkerchief and touched her brow, mopping at the beads of perspiration. ‘He had this wild idea that if he spent some of the Watersnake money prospecting around Golden Soak he’d make our fortune. For a time he was like a child with a new toy, full of excitement, staying up till all hours poring over the results. He went down into the mine, too, which scared me stiff – the entrance has been boarded up for years. He was quite convinced the Watersnake people would bring him luck.’ She looked at me, smiling a little sadly. ‘It’s sacred land, y’see – sacred to the Pukara, the Watersnake people. Grandfather was initiated into the tribe. There’s a lot about them in his Journal – their rites, their way of life, how they survived in near-desert country.’ She nodded to some paddles of dark brown wood hung on the wall above an old R/T set. ‘Those are from the Watersnake. They’re message sticks given him by the Pukara.’ There were more in a pile on one of the bookcases, all intricately patterned. She said they had been found in a cave in a little rock gorge below The Governor. Then she took me over to a large scale map stuck flat on the wall opposite the window, an aeronautical chart that covered most of the Pilbara. The boundaries of Jarra Jarra were inked in red. ‘Like a billy goat, isn’t it?’ She laughed and I saw that she was right. Jarra Jarra formed the body, stretching away to the east, and the head was represented by the Watersnake, the two leases connected by the narrow neck of the Robinson Gap. The goat image was completed by a beard, a vee of land extending in a south-easterly direction and embracing the peaks of Padtherung and Coondewanna. Near the tip of it was a small hieroglyphic of crossed pick and hammer and the name Golden Soak Mine printed against it.