A Town Like Alice (22 page)

She found her way back to the main street and strolled up it looking at the shops. It was quite true; this town had everything a reasonable girl could want-a hairdressing saloon, a good dress shop or two, two picture houses… She turned into the milk bar at about nine o'clock and bought herself an ice-cream soda. If this was the outback, she thought, there were a great many worse places.

Next morning, after breakfast, she went and found the manageress, a Mrs Driver, in the hotel office. She said, "I want to try and get in touch with a second cousin of mine, who hasn't written home for ten years." She told her story about being on her way from London to Adelaide to stay with her sister. "I told my uncle that I'd come this way and stop in Alice Springs and try and find out something about Joe."

Mrs Driver was interested. "What's his name?"

"Joe Harman."

"Joe Harman! Worked out at Wollara?"

"That's right," Jean said. "Do you know if he's there still?"

The woman shook her head. "He used to come in here a lot just after the war, but he was only here about six months. I only came here in the war; I don't know about before that. He was a prisoner of the Japs, he was. They treated him terribly. Came back with scars on his hands where they'd put nails right through, crucified him, or something."

Jean expressed surprise and horror. "Do you know where he is now?"

"I don't know, I'm sure. Maybe one of the boys would know."

Old Art Foster, the general handyman who had lived in Alice Springs for thirty years said, "Joe Harman? He went back to Queensland where he come from. He was at Wollara for about six months after the war, and then he got a job as station manager at some place up in the Gulf country."

Jean asked, "You don't know his address?"

"I don't. Tommy Duveen would know it, out at Wollara."

"Does he come into town much?"

"Aye, he was in town on Friday. He comes about once every three or four weeks."

Jean asked innocently, "I suppose Joe Harman took his family with him when he went to Queensland. They aren't living here still, are they?"

The old man stared at her. "I never heard Joe Harman had a family. He wasn't married, not so far as I know."

She said defensively. "My uncle back in England thinks he's married."

"I never heard nothing of a wife," the old man said.

Jean thought about this for a minute, and then said to Mrs Driver, "Is there a telephone at Wollara? I mean, if Mr Duveen knows his address, I'd like to ring him up and get it."

"There isn't any telephone," she said. "They'll be speaking on the radio schedule morning and evening from Wollara, of course." There was an extensive radio network operated by the Flying Doctor service from the hospital; morning and evening an operator at the hospital sat down to call up forty or fifty stations on the radio telephone to transmit messages, pass news, and generally ascertain that all was well. The station housewife operated the other end. "Mrs Duveen is sure to be on the air tonight because her sister Amy is in hospital here for a baby and Edith'll want to know if it's come off yet. If you write out a telegram and take it down to Mr Taylor at the hospital, he'll pass it to them tonight."

Jean went back to her room and wrote out a suitable cable and took it down to the hospital to Mr Taylor, who agreed to pass it to Wollara, "Come back at about eight o'clock, and I may have the answer if they know the address right off; if they've got to look it up they'll probably transmit it on the schedule tomorrow morning." That freed her for the remainder of the day, and she went back to the milk bar for another ice-cream.

In the milk bar she made a friend, a girl called Rose Sawyer. Miss Sawyer was about eighteen and had an Aberdeen terrier on a lead; she worked in the dress shop in the afternoons. She was very interested to hear that Jean came from England, and they talked about England for a time. "How do you like Alice?" she asked presently, and there was a touch of conventional scorn in her tone.

"I like it," Jean said candidly. "I've seen many worse places. I should think you could have a pretty good time here."

The girl said, "Well, I like it all right. We were in Newcastle before, and then Daddy got the job of being bank manager here and we all thought it would be awful. All my friends said these outback places were just terrible. I thought I wouldn't be able to stick it, but I've been here fifteen months now and it's not so bad."

"Alice is better than most, isn't it?"

"That's what they say-I haven't been in any of the others. Of course, all this has come quite recently. There weren't any of these shops before the war, they say."

Jean learned a little of the history of the town and she was surprised at the rapidity of its growth. In 1928 it was about three houses and a pub; that was the year when the railway reached it from Oodnadatta. The Flying Doctor service started about 1930 and small hospitals were placed about in the surrounding districts. The sisters married furiously, and Jean learned that most of the older families were those of these sisters. By 1939 the population was about three hundred; when the war came the town became a military staging point. After the war the population had risen to about seven hundred and fifty in 1945, and when Jean was there it was about twelve hundred. "All these new houses and shops going up," Miss Sawyer said. "People seem to be coming in here all the time now."

She suggested that Jean should come swimming in the late afternoon. "Mrs Maclean's got a lovely swimming-pool, just out by the aerodrome," she said. "I'll ring her up and ask if I can bring you."

She called for Jean that afternoon at five o'clock and Jean joined the swimming party at the pool; sitting and basking in the evening sun and looking at the gaunt line of Mount Ertwa, she become absorbed into the social life of Alice Springs. Most of the girls and married women were under thirty; she found them kindly, hospitable people, well educated and avid for news of England. Some spoke quite naturally of England as 'home' though none of them had ever been there; each of them cherished the ambition that one day she would be able to go 'home' for a trip. By the end of the evening Jean was in a humble frame of mind; these pleasant people knew so much about her country, and she knew so very little about theirs.

She strolled down to the hospital in the cool night, after tea. Mrs Duveen had not been able to give Joe Harman's address offhand, but she confirmed that he was managing a station somewhere in the Gulf country. She would ask her husband and send a message on the morning schedule.

That night Jean thought a good deal about what she would do when she did get the address. It was clear now that her first apprehensions were unfounded; Joe Harman had made a good recovery from his injuries, and was able to carry on his work in the outback. She was amazed that this could be so, but the man was tough. Though there was no compelling need for her to find him now, she felt that it would be impossible to leave Australia without seeing him again; too much had passed between them. She did not fear embarrassment when she met him. She felt that she could tell him the truth frankly; that she had heard of his survival and had come to satisfy herself that he was quite all right. If anything should happen after that, well, that would be just one of those things.

She drifted into sleep, smiling a little.

She went down to the hospital in the morning after the radio schedule and learned that Joe Harman was the manager of Midhurst station, near Willstown. She had never heard of Willstown before; Mr Taylor obligingly got out a map of Australia designed to show the various radio facilities and frequencies of the outback stations, and showed her Willstown at the mouth of the Gilbert River on the Gulf of Carpentaria.

"What sort of a place is it?" she asked him. "Is it a place like this?"

He laughed. "It's a fair cow up there." He studied the map. "It's got an air-strip, anyway. I don't suppose it's got much else. I've never been there, and I've never heard of anyone who has."

"I'm going there," she said. "I've got to see Joe Harman, after coming all this way."

"It's likely to be rough living," he said. "Oh my word."

"Would there be a hotel?"

"Oh, there'll be a hotel. They've got to have their grog."

She left the hospital and went thoughtfully to the milk bar; as she ordered her ice-cream soda, it occurred to her that it might be a long time before she had another. When she had finished her soda she walked up the street a little way and turned into the magazine and book shop, and bought a map of Australia and a bus timetable and an airline timetable. Then she went back to the milk bar and had another ice-cream soda while she studied this literature.

Presently Rose Sawyer came into the milk bar with her dog. Jean said, "I've found out where Joe Harman lives. Now I've got to find out how to get there. There doesn't seem to be a bus going that way at all."

They studied the timetables together. "It's going to be much easiest to fly," said Rose. "That's how everybody goes, these days. It's more expensive, but it may not be in the long run because you've got so many meals and hotels if you try and go by land. I should take the Maclean service to Cloncurry, next Monday."

It meant staying a few days more in Alice Springs, but it seemed the best thing to do. "You could come and stay with us," said Rose. "Daddy and Mummy would love to have somebody from England. It's not very nice in the hotel, is it? I've never been in there, of course."

"It's a bit beery," said Jean. She was already aware of the strict Australian code, that makes it impossible for a woman to go into a bar. "I would like to do that, if you're sure it wouldn't be a lot of trouble."

"We'd love to have you. It's so seldom one can talk to anyone that comes from England." They walked round to the Sawyers' house; on the way they met Mrs Maclean, fair-haired and youthful, pushing her pram. They stopped, and Jean said, "I've got to go to Willstown in the Gulf country to see Joe Harman. Can I get a seat on your plane on Monday as far as Cloncurry?"

"I should think you could. I'm just going to the office; I'll tell them to put you down for Monday. Shall I ask them to arrange the passage for you from Cloncurry on to Willstown? I think you can get there direct from the Curry, but they'll find out that and make the booking if you want."

"That's awfully good of you," said Jean. "I would like them to do that."

"Okay. Coming down to the pool this evening?"

"Yes, please."

They went on to the Sawyer house, a pleasant bungalow with a rambler rose climbing over it, standing in a small garden full of English flowers, with a sprinkler playing on the lawn. Mrs Sawyer was grey-haired and practical; she made Jean welcome. "Much better for you to be here with us than in that nasty place," she said, with all of an Australian woman's aversion to hotels. "It'll be nice having you, Miss Paget. Rose was telling us about you yesterday. It's nice to meet somebody from home."

She went back to the hotel to pack her suitcase, and on the way she stopped at the Post Office. She spent a quarter of an hour sucking the end of a pencil, trying to word a telegram to Joe Harman to tell him that she was coming to see him. Finally she said,

Heard of your recovery from Kuantan atrocity quite recently perfectly delighted stop I am in Australia now and coming up to Willstown to see you next week.

jean paget

She took her suitcase round to the Sawyers' house in a taxi, and settled in with them. She stayed with these kind people for four days. On the third day she could not bear to go on lying to them; she told Rose and her mother what had happened in Malaya, and why she was looking for Joe Harman. She begged them not to spread the story; she was terribly afraid that it would get into the papers. They agreed to this, but asked her to tell her story again to Mr Sawyer when he came back from the office.

Mr Sawyer had a lot to say that interested her that evening. "Joe Harman may be on to a good thing up there," he said. "The Gulf country's not much just at present, but he's a young man, and things can happen very quickly in Australia. This town was nothing twenty years ago, and look at it now! The Gulf's got one thing in its favour, and that's rain. We get about six or seven inches a year up here-about a quarter of what London gets. Up where Joe Harman is they probably get thirty inches-more than England does. That's bound to tell in the long run, you know."

He sucked at his pipe. "Mind you," he said, "it's not much good to them, that rainfall, because it all comes in two months and runs off into the sea. It's not spread out all the year round, like yours is in England. But I met a chap from home last year, and he said most of your water would run off into the sea, in England, if you hadn't got a weir every three miles or so on every river. That's what Australia hasn't got around to yet- water conservation on the stations. They're doing a little at it, but not much."

In the days she spent with the Sawyers, Jean inevitably heard about Rose Sawyer's love life, which was not so far very serious. It chiefly centred round a Mr Billy Wakeling, who built roads when he could get a road to build. "He did awfully well in the war," she told Jean. "He was a captain when he was twenty-three. But he's nothing to compare with your Joe Harman. He hasn't been crucified for me yet…"

"I'm not in love with Joe Harman," Jean said with some dignity. "I just want to know that he's all right."