Beautiful Lies (22 page)

“We're alike, you and me, aren't we? Trying to hold on to something when it would be easier by half just to grease our saddle straps and move on.”

He thought she was trying to hang on to her citizenship, even though Australia had instituted a whites-only policy just after her birth. But she wondered what he was trying to hold on to. Jimiramira? His pathetic little family?

“We'll take that walk tonight.” He rose. “It's a dead bird my dad won't like it, but no worries. I'll call for you when the moment's right.”

He started off in the direction of the billabong. Viola
stopped humming and began to speak, her voice low, as if she were sharing a secret. “Once I hid the pearl in Bryce's room, in a little tin cup with colored stones he'd taken from a trip to the river. We used to go down to the river, he and I, on horseback. When he was little. But not anymore.” She shook her head in emphasis. “Now there are people waiting along the bank to push me in, but that would be wrong, wouldn't it? I'm to burn until I am nothing but ashes and cinders.”

Mei shuddered. Such talk was bad luck, as if Viola were asking for her own death. “Did Bryce discover the pearl in the cup?”

“Oh, it wasn't there for long.” Viola began to hum again.

“Your husband found it?”

Viola stopped humming and faced Mei. “The pearl belongs to me.”

Mei nodded. She waited, not daring to breathe.

“And when I burn, it will burn with me.” Viola stared at Mei for a long time; then, as if finally satisfied, she turned away and began to hum once more.

 

After the evening meal, Mei discovered why Bryce had felt confident enough to invite her for a walk. The skies had cleared, but the earlier storm had left the air steaming and fuming with insects, which multiplied with every drop of rain. The atmosphere at the house, always tense, heated with the air, and even the sun's slow departure did little to help. Archer began to drink, sprawling on a lone horsehair chair in the parlor as he stared at the piano with its recently dusted row of photographs.

He caught sight of Mei and called her in to face him. “D'ya see that piano?”

“Yes, boss.”

“Dragged it all the way from Katherine in a cart.”

“Did you?”

“Not me, stupid girl. I have better things to do.”

She knew there was nothing she could say that would please him tonight. “Yes, boss.”

“I had it brought here to please Mrs. Llewellyn. Do you think she was pleased?”

“I do not know.”

“Well, have you seen her pleased about anything since you arrived?”

“It is not for me to say what pleases Mrs. Llewellyn.”

“Do you have any idea what it was like trying to drag that piano through the bush?”

“No, boss.”

He shook his head, as if, despite his disclaimer, he had inched the piano along what passed for a trail by himself. “All she could say was ‘I don't want it.' Can you fancy that?”

This time Mei said nothing.

Archer rhythmically swung a bottle of rum in one hand, like the pendulum on a clock. She suspected the bottle had come with the supplies Bluey had delivered. It was already half empty. She wondered if a man could die from drinking too much too quickly. The possibility gave her pleasure.

“Do you play the piano?” He stopped brandishing the bottle long enough to gulp down another swallow.

“No, boss.” She might have, of course, if he had not murdered her father. Certainly her life would have been very different.

“Do you sing?”

“No.”

“Dance?”

“No, boss. May I go now?”

His eyes narrowed further, as if he were considering what to do with her. She wasn't frightened. For a moment she almost hoped he would try to grab her. He was strong and much larger than she was, but he was also drunk. If they struggled, she might be able to break the bottle and wound him with it. The fantasy gave her such pleasure that she found herself gazing about the room for other weapons so she could imagine attacking him with those, as well.

“Go on and get out of here.” He leaned back in the chair and closed his eyes. “I wasn't the one who took a Chink to my bed. That was you, Tom. I told you not to, but you didn't listen, did you?”

Mei froze. She didn't even breathe.

“Why didn't you listen?” Archer's voice changed into something closer to a whine. “If you had listened…everything would have been different.”

She felt as if she had fallen down a secret passage into the past. Archer was speaking to her father as if he were standing right there in front of him. Her gaze darted around the room, fearing, yet hoping, that in this strange moment, she too would see Tom Robeson.

Her own lapse in sanity brought her back to reality, and fury filled her. Archer Llewellyn had known her father, had slept in the same room with him, shared meals and stories. But he had not valued any of it, while she would give everything for one hour at her father's knee.

The father she had never seen or known. The father this man had murdered.

She felt hands on her shoulders, and she whirled around, startled. Bryce stood just inches away, and when she acknowledged him, he nodded toward the door. She followed him. Archer took no notice of either of them.

“Are you all right?” Bryce asked, when they were in the hallway nearest her room.

She swallowed. “He's had too much to drink. He began asking questions…”

Bryce looked distressed. “Please, it's not your fault. I should have warned you. He does this every time we get fresh supplies. Thank God they never send much. He knows better than to ask for more. He suffers the torment of the damned when he's drinking.”

She wished she could lock Archer Llewellyn in a room with all the liquor in the Territory. She wished she could watch him suffer the torments of hell until the drink finally killed him and sent him there.

“He was speaking to someone named Tom.”

“May, he's no good to gundy when he's drinking. It's the devil's own job to make sense of anything he says.”

“He said everything would be different if Tom had just listened to him…”

Bryce plowed his fingers through his hair. “It's no one I know, but you're right, he talks to someone named Tom whenever he's in a bad way. They were friends, I think. Then Tom died. And Dad wishes he could have stopped it from happening.”

He could have, of course. But Mei couldn't tell Bryce that.

“It gets worse,” Bryce said, looking away. “Before long he'll start begging for forgiveness.”

She was torn with conflicting feelings. She was elated Archer was tortured by guilt, that in some small way he suffered for what he had done. But she had no such feelings about Bryce. Two selfish, worthless people were all Bryce had in the world, and she wondered how he had turned into the man he was. Reluctantly, she felt compassion for the loveless life he had led.

“Let's take that walk now.” Mei rested her hand on his arm. “Unless you think he will want you…?”

“No, he's fast reaching a place where he won't even know who I am.”

“Will your mother be safe alone with him?”

“She's sound asleep. I looked in on her a moment ago. She'll be all right for a little while.”

Mei led the way outside. She was certain they would be eaten by mosquitoes, but now that the darkness had deepened, the insects were not as fierce as she had expected. She was surprised to see that the moon was full, spreading light in silvery puddles on ground quickly growing lush in the Wet. Overhead, the Southern Cross was nearly lost in a sky filled with stars.

“We won't go far,” Bryce said. “But there's something I've been waiting to show you. I think it's light enough to find it.”

They left the cleared ground surrounding the house and started through the thicket of bush and trees that separated the house from the billabong. She knew they could not be going that far, since the denser the growth, the greater the possibility of snakes, which became more active at night.

“You'll have to trust me,” Bryce said. “I know where I'm going.”

They walked farther than she had expected. The trees grew sparser, then thicker once more. She stumbled over a fallen branch, and Bryce caught her arm. He tucked it under his. “You'll be safer this way.”

She laughed, a sound that surprised them both. But she knew that when a man took a woman's arm, he usually had more than protection on his mind. “Exactly where are we going?”

“Just a little farther, I promise.”

“Your father would not be pleased.”

“My father is a poor judge of what's right.”

She wished she could encourage him to elaborate on that.

Bryce tucked her hand into his. “He's not a happy man. He'll never be happy, I reckon.”

“And his son?”

“I have everything.” He glanced at her and grinned. “Except a woman to make my own family with. I could be a better father than mine, you know. I know something about what children need.”

She didn't know how to respond to that. She hadn't allowed herself to think about Bryce in that way, despite the feelings she experienced when he was near. But now she imagined being married to him and living as the mistress of this place.

What would it be like if Archer and Viola weren't here, and if Jimiramira belonged to her young, strong husband? Could she raise children with Llewellyn blood? Would that make her a traitor to her parents? Or would it be enough that at last the Pearl of Great Price belonged equally to the two families who claimed it?

The picture of a small boy came into her mind. Not Bryce, as he must have appeared as a child, but Thomas, the twin who had been torn from her childish arms and sent across the sea. Thomas, who must yearn for her as she yearned for him.

“All right. Stop now, and tell me what you see.”

She had been so deep in thought that she hadn't realized they were at the edge of another thicket. She peered into the darkness, trying to make sense of the shapes. Ahead of her were tormented trunks of ironbark and mulga, their branches pleading with the skies for water. She shuddered, beset by ghosts.

“May, is something wrong?”

She tried to shake off her fears. “What am I supposed to see?”

“Well, do you notice anything over there? We can get a bit closer.” He led her to the right about twenty yards, and they stopped again. “Now?”

She squinted, looking up and down. The only thing she saw was an odd structure at the base of two trees. It was several feet long and nearly as wide, constructed of odd bits of twig. She wondered if this was what the fuss was about. “What is it? The lair of an animal?”

“Not spot on. Do you know the bowerbird?”

She shook her head.

“You'll hear one singing around the homestead. A big spotted fellow with a bit of color at the back of his neck. He's a mimic, that one. He can low like the cattle, bark like a dog. I reckon I could teach him to talk if I wanted.”

“Is this his nest?”

“No, it's better. This is where he entertains his lady friends.”

She glanced at him to see if he was teasing.

“No, I swear. That's what he does. He builds this bower, then he decorates it with whatever he can find. I've seen bits of bone and snail shell, a length of ribbon. Once I found a button and even a piece of some poor bloke's comb. He'll use whatever he finds that might attract a mate.”

She was enchanted with the bird's creativity. “And this is all? He lures a female here and shows her what he's done?”

“Well, he's just a bird, for all that. He can't rightly pledge eternal love, can he? This is the best he can do. But it's quite a lot for a scrawny mob of feathers, don't you think?”

She giggled. “Do they live here, then? Raise baby birds together?”

“If you want the truth, I think she builds a nest in a tree and raises the family alone.”

“I suppose he is too busy flying off to look for pretty bits to add to his bower.”

“It's his lifework, after all.”

“This is the way of most families, isn't it?” She slipped her arm from his so she could face him. In the moonlight his expression was both watchful and somehow tender.

“What do you mean?”

“The man builds something to show a woman he has chosen. Then, when she marries him, he moves on with his life. She stays behind and raises the children alone.” She thought of the little bungalow that her father had rented and furnished for her mother. Like the female bowerbird, Willow had been left alone to care for their children.

“That's not the way of things here in the Territory,” Bryce said. “Here a woman and man can work together, if that's what they choose. They can build a life side by side. They have to, if anything is to come of it.”

“This is not what your parents do.”

“My father and mother haven't built a life, and they haven't made a home. The land is harsh. It destroyed Mum, and it's made my father bitter and old. But I know it would have been different if they had pulled together.”

He looked as if he wanted to say more. She waited, leaning toward him as if she could pull the rest from him.

“Something came between them, right at the beginning,” he said at last, as if the need to share his feelings was more important than caution. “I have a grandfather in Broome. He gave my mum a gift when she married my father, something valuable. My father wanted it. He planned to sell it, to make their life easier, to buy more cattle and hire more men. But my mother wouldn't allow it. She
wanted to keep it. At first it was her security, in case things didn't work out here. So she hid it. Later, I think she wouldn't part with it because it was all she had of a better life.”

“This was not something your father could take and sell without her permission?”

Bryce didn't object to the possibility his father would do such a thing. “No, it's something small, and that makes it easy to hide. She's always hidden it from him. I found it by mistake once, when I was a tiddler. She very nearly wrung my neck.”