Heart of the Outback (3 page)

On Saturday night the din from the cream-tiled bar with its beer-stained counter reached monumental proportions by seven o’clock. Two men, egged on by a cluster of miners, were arm wrestling at one end of the bar. A darts competition was in full swing towards the side entrance door and a pall of cigarette smoke floated about fifteen centimetres above everyone’s head. In the far corner a group of six men, glasses in hand, were vigorously debating some political matter, and another group were arguing about the estimated value of the iron ore deposits found in the Pilbarra. Several were talking about pulling up stakes and moving to Western Australia.

Mickey and CJ stood in the open doorway to the bar. Mickey recognised a bloke from down south and stopped to talk to him so CJ entered the fray alone. Almost immediately his eyes began to water from the cigarette smoke and the smell of stale beer. He elbowed his way through the throng to the front of the bar … and then he saw her.

Her cheeks were flushed with exertion, her lightweight summer frock clung to her like a second skin, and a fine sheen of perspiration covered her neck and arms. Jet black hair curled and bobbed attractively around a face he could only describe in his head as angelic. She was attractive but not beautiful, not in the accepted sense. Her mouth was a
little too wide and too full and her eyes were too large in a slightly narrow face that had a pointed chin. Who on earth would send such an innocent to work in this rough place? he wondered. Looking at her was like discovering an oasis in a desert, or the joy he felt at seeing a shooting star on a moonless night. Unexpected, wonderful. Absolutely splendid.

For once CJ didn’t mind waiting to be served because he could watch as she moved along the bar filling orders. He was quick to note the admiring gaze of several of the men and something alien tightened inside his chest. He tried to think logically. She was young, pretty,
new.
Out of the corner of his eye he spied the licensee giving him a once-over. There was a very definite meaning in the older man’s eyes. Okay, he could live with that.

“Yes?”

He blinked as she stopped in front of him. “Hello, you’re new here?”

“Yes. What can I get you, sir?” Mary asked in a harried tone. She had long ago lost count of the times she’d been asked such a question. The back of her legs ached like the devil because she still wasn’t used to standing for ten hours straight. Even after two weeks of it her body hadn’t adjusted.

“I’ll have a schooner of old, miss?” He should get something for Mickey, he realised. “Make that two, please, miss.”

“The name’s Mary,” she said with a shy smile. Something in his eyes made her look at him again. They were so blue. She could hardly break her gaze away from him. He had a nice sounding voice too, not rough and loud like some of the other men.

CJ put his money on the bar, picked up the glasses and elbowed his way back to a position from which he could enjoy his beer and still observe Mary as she worked. She was diligent, he observed, the ever-watchful licensee couldn’t fault her in that.

It was only after the second schooner that Mickey noticed the cause of his partner’s distraction.

“Yeah, she’s a bit of all right, mate.” He nudged CJ in the ribs. “But you could have competition. I see at least four other blokes drooling over her too.”

CJ winked. “Only four! Hardly any competition at all.”

Curious, Mickey asked, “So what are you going to do?”

“Absolutely nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“Well, not right now. Mary’s the kind of girl you don’t rush. She’d run a million miles if I came on strong to her. No, the way to Mary’s heart is,” he grinned at his shorter mate, “I think, the slow, safe route. Get to know her first.”

“What if one of the others beats you to her?”

“They won’t,” CJ said confidently. Thank God he hadn’t told Mickey about Brenda. For some inexplicable reason he had held back disclosing his engagement to the Townsville widow. Just as well. Mickey was a bit straitlaced for all his rough living ways and his colourful past. Brenda. A pang of guilt flooded through CJ. There she was, waiting patiently with her young daughter, Natalie, and here he was with the hots for a dark-skinned, naive youngster. He should know better. He did, but something about Mary drew a response he couldn’t deny. She was quite irresistible.

The following week CJ worked the mine like a man possessed, putting in twelve to sixteen hour days without complaint. He had this great surge of energy and he knew its origins. Thoughts of Mary sexually and physically stimulated him and he couldn’t wait to see her again. Neither could he get her out of his mind. Awake he thought constantly about her and when he fell asleep, exhausted, in his narrow bunk, he dreamt of her.

On Friday afternoon he found the best indication yet that they were on the right track. He had chased a promising level of potch. Mickey set and exploded several sticks of gelignite along the drive and after disposing of the mullock, down a disused drive, both men had seen the first real sign of precious opal. The level ran horizontally along the mine wall, maybe ten metres below the surface.

CJ’s work-roughened fingers followed the milky white trace and he began to chip delicately at the colour. This was when it got nerve-racking. Too hard a blow could shatter the opal, wasting hours of effort. But not this time. An hour’s gentle tapping revealed a good-sized milk opal. He licked it and then held it up to the light on his miner’s hat. Colours sparkled and danced. Beautiful. By the end of the day he’d liberated four fair-sized stones. A good day’s work in any opal miner’s language.

Mickey wanted to keep on working the level but CJ insisted they celebrate. He wanted to see Mary again even though he could only watch her from a distance. She was too busy to indulge in a mild flirtation with him, even if she knew what a mild flirtation consisted of.

More by luck than design CJ saw Mary walking home from St Peter and St Paul’s Catholic underground church in Hutchison Street on Sunday morning. Dressed in a light-blue cotton dress with short sleeves and a mid-calf skirt, white sandals and white netting gloves and a straw hat with a daisy chain around the brim, she looked delightful.

Considering the straight-out approach best, CJ walked up to her and began keeping step with her strides until she turned her head sideways to look at him.

“Hello. We haven’t been properly introduced. My name’s CJ Ambrose.”

“Oh.” She remembered him. The man with the wonderful blue eyes. She remembered how he watched her all the time too. But so did several other men and she had become very good at ignoring their pointed stares.

“My name’s Mary Williams,” she said politely. To do otherwise, to ignore him would have been rude. “Did you say, CJ? Just CJ?”

He smiled at her, aware that when he did so it showed his even white teeth and the slight dimple in his cheek. “That’s right. Everyone calls me CJ.” He held out his hand. “Pleased to meet you, Mary Williams.”

Something made her respond and she gripped his hand in return. It was firm, and warm and she could feel rough calluses on the inside of his fingers through her gloves.

“I’ll walk you home.”

His offer made her brown eyes sparkle. “Home is just down the street, at the back of the hotel.” It was only about thirty-five metres away from where they
were standing but somehow, though she knew it wasn’t necessary, his attempt at gallantry pleased her. CJ looked like the kind of man, with his self-confidence and rugged good looks, who could have anyone. So, why did he want to be bothered with her?

“Thank you, I’d like that,” she replied finally.

“Do you have today off?”

“I’m expected to help with lunch for the guests staying at the hotel, then I have the rest of the afternoon off.”

“Perhaps you’d like a spot of afternoon tea at the cafe down the street?” CJ knew it was the only place in town, other than the hotel, which served food. Mary’s indecision was palpable. CJ could almost hear the nuns’ words of warning running through her head. Slowly, old man, don’t rush it. “Another time then,” he said, letting her off the hook. “Perhaps next Sunday would be more suitable.”

Should she? Mother Magdalena had told her to be very careful of men. Not to trust them. That they only had one thing on their mind when it came to young women. He
was
nice though, she decided. Not like some other men who’d been after her, who’d pawed and whispered suggestively in her ear when Gus wasn’t watching, which he couldn’t be all the time. “Yes. Next Sunday would be fine,” Mary said with a smile.

That was how Mary and CJ’s relationship began. CJ courted her with old worldly charm, taking her wildflowers he picked himself when the desert bloomed after a spot of rain and boxes of chocolates which he said she had to eat straightaway, before
they melted. And, when he learnt that she liked to read, he plied her with books; some new, some bought second-hand, to read at night while she listened to the radio.

Six and a half days a week he laboured in the depths of the opal mine with Mickey, and they made some good finds. Not enough to make their fortune though, but each gem they discovered led them to hope that somewhere in the claystone and dirt that was forever in their clothes, in their eyes, even in their mouths, there’d be a big strike. They both believed wholeheartedly that one day it would happen to them too.

Mickey, something of a daredevil in the way he casually handled the gelignite and fuses, nevertheless possessed the patience to go on. And CJ had the drive — the relentlessness to work long hours at a stretch, digging, hauling the claystone out, sifting through it and then discarding the useless earth in a heap near the mine. Often he worked long into the night, indeed the difference between day and night counted for little down the mine. His dream pushed him on and the most profitable cattle run in far north Queensland was his first goal. He’d have the best homestead, the best mix of cattle and then he’d diversify into other businesses, property, sugar cane and overseas investments.

That’s where his grandfather had gone wrong. Old Percy had put all the profits back into the land and when the hard times came — one of the longest droughts on record — there’d been no reserve and eventually the banks had reclaimed Amba Downs. Damn those fastidious number crunchers, they had
presided over many a family’s downfall. Well, they wouldn’t preside over his. With his bare hands and his brains and the energy he possessed he would carve an empire such as had never been known in Queensland.

“If Gus finds you here, I don’t know who he’ll skin first, you or me,” Mary giggled as CJ took her in his arms.

They had never gone to her room before because she was afraid Gus or someone else might see CJ coming or going, but he’d entreated and cajoled her until she had agreed. How could she resist? CJ was marvellous. Warm, caring and considerate, she couldn’t deny him anything.

His blue-eyed gaze darted around the plain room. The floor was of worn linoleum, the walls were unpainted galvanised iron and from the ceiling a bare globe hung without a shade. An old wardrobe with a mirror stood near the window and beside the single bed was a small bedside table with a reading lamp. Next to the door stood a second-hand bookshelf in which Mary kept her growing library of books.

“I made sure Gus had quite a few tonight and doesn’t he sleep on the other side of the hotel?” CJ asked. He watched her nod her head affirmatively. “Then we’ve nothing to worry about, unless old Gus’s snores blow the roof off.”

Mary disengaged herself from him to go and pull down the shade and draw the curtains, though it made the room suffocatingly hot. She then turned on the oscillating fan she had bought last week, it would at least move the warm air around the room.

“I’ve something to show you,” CJ said as he sat on the bed, which squeaked under his weight. “Look!” He took a piece of cloth out of his back trouser pocket and laid it on the cotton bedspread. Slowly he undid the soft cloth to reveal several stones. He turned the stones over so that Mary could see the opals and the shimmering colours trapped within.

“They’re beautiful.”

“Aren’t they. They’re the biggest and best we’ve found.” He turned the reading lamp on, picked up the largest stone and held it to the light, turning it in different directions. “See the colours. Magnificent. Mickey reckons it’s worth a thousand dollars by itself.”

“A thousand!” Mary had never seen anything worth that much money in one piece. “The colours, they’re like a rainbow. CJ, tell me about opals. How are they made?”

CJ thought for a moment, trying to think of a simple, uncomplicated explanation for the gems. “According to what I’ve read and heard from the other miners and Mickey, precious opal occurs in rocks affected by weathering. Sun, wind and rain, can start the process which may have begun up to seventy million years ago.”

“Gosh, I had no idea they were that old.”

“Well, the stone’s aren’t — it’s the process that’s old. Weathering makes the country rock produce something called kaolin and soluble silica — the main ingredients in claystone and other rocks. As the weathering continues, cavities are created in the rock by dissolving minerals and fossil shells. These cavities provide pathways for underground water containing the soluble silica.”

A puzzled frown feathered across her young forehead. “But how does this create the opal?”

“Experts reckon that as the water table rises and falls, probably because of changes in the weather, the silica-rich solutions are carried downwards, depositing opal containing stone in the cavities.” He grinned at her. “And now they’re down there just waiting to be dug up.”

“I think I understand. It’s a bit like the way silver and gold are formed, but how do the stones get their spectacular colours?”

“From the silica and water, which over millions of years, goes rock hard. Generally, precious opal contains six to ten per cent water. It’s that plus the silica squares arranged in a regular pattern that make the colours. The colour you see in them, the reds, blues, yellows and greens is caused by the regular array of silica spheres diffracting white light.” He paused for a breath. “If you didn’t shine light on them, or see them in the sunlight, you’d have no idea of the brilliant colours contained in the stone. Colour also depends on the angle of light. Rotating a stone can make the colours change and even disappear.”