The Tartan Touch (13 page)

I knew then that I was very much in love with Andrew Fraser. He had no need to whistle; he had only to lift his little finger—if it hadn’t been for Mary, I added sadly to myself. If it hadn’t been for Mary.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Andrew
w
as
very busy for the next few days. I hardly saw him at all, and I missed him. With the shearers gone, it seemed to me that I had hardly anything to do and, inevitably, Margaret wanted to have her daughter to herself most of the time and so I didn’t see very much of Mary either.

B
ut Andrew had not forgotten that he had promised to take me further up Mad Man’s Track, all the way to
Marble
Bar. He came in late to dinner one evening, looking pleased with himself.

“
C
an you be ready to go tomorrow, Kirsty
?
” he asked me
.

It took me a few seconds to think what he was talking about. Mary gave me a look down the table and winked at me.

“Why don’t we all go?” she pleaded with Andrew.

“Because I want my wife to myself,” he said flatly.

My hands trembled. If it were only true! But it wasn’t. It was just another lie to cover up the mess we were making between us. He didn’t want me, but he recognised the justice of giving Margaret some time alone with Mary.

“I’ll be ready in the morning,” I said quietly.

Andrew nodded, his grey eyes bleak. “Good,” he said.

“I suppose you’ll pay a visit to your own mines?” Margaret asked him, a bitter edge to her voice. “Are they making much money these days?”

“Enough to cover Mary’s expenses,” he told her shortly.

“
And some!” added Mary.

“But no actual figures?” Margaret sighed.
“I suppose
that’s a polite way of telling me that it is none of my business?”

“No, it isn’t,” Mary protested. “You know you’re welcome to anything I have, Mother!”

“But not anything that Donald had!” her mother remarked dryly.

Mary looked embarrassed. “He didn’t happen to leave it that way in his will,” she said apologetically. “It must have been because he knew
th
at I would look after you,”

“But not the other way round?” The pinched look that had almost disappeared recently returned to Margaret’s face,

“I don’t want
anything
!” Mary exclaimed. “I’d be much better off without it!”

"What makes you think that?” Andrew drawled.

Mary coloured fiercely. ‘"There wouldn’t be all this endless waiting if money wasn’t involved, would there?”

“Oh, Mary, not that again!” Margaret put in helplessly.

Her daughter glared at her. “I shan’t change my mind! I shan’t! I
shan’t
!”

“We’ll see,” said Andrew.

I thought he looked tired when I found enough courage to take a look at him, sitting opposite me, at the other end of the long table.

“What time do you want to start?” I asked him, hoping to change the subject to something less fraught for us all.

His eyes softened a little. “I’ll give you a call,” he promised.

Margaret looked at us both with interest
“
That reminds me,” she began, “I think I’ll stay over the races,
if nobody minds. Of course, if you’re expecting a lot of people—?”

“What about it?” Andrew asked testily. “There’s plenty of room!”

Margaret raised her eyebrows. “I suppose you two could share?” she said.

I knew that I was blushing, but Andrew was as cool as a cucumber. “Married couples frequently do!” he remarked dryly. “I imagine Kirsty will make whatever arrangements are necessary,” he added, “when she knows exactly who is coming. Is there any point in discussing it before that?”

I longed to tell him that snubbing Margaret wasn’t the way to deal with her. You had to be canny with someone with as much contempt in her as she had. Couldn’t he see how it was with her? She would strike out first because she had been hurt so often. They said in the glen that it had always been
the
same with all her folk, and I believed it.

“I’d be grateful if you’d help me,” I said to her now. “I’ve had no experience of such an influx
.
”

Andrew gave me an angry look, but I ignored him. This was something I had to do for myself, and I would much rather have Margaret as my ally than my foe.

“My dear girl,” Margaret exclaimed, “if they know I’m here, they probably won
’
t come anyway!”

“Nonsense!” I retorted. “You have many friends in Perth and you know how to entertain people. I don’t remember that we ever had anyone to stay at the manse.”

The pinched look left her face and she said with a rush of sympathy: “I suppose not! How I hated that house! With that closed-in, uncomfortable look and that awful feeling of guilt that covered everything! Of course I’ll help—”

“It was my home,” I reminded her with dignity.

Her eyes met mine. “I know. I keep forgetting. I’m sorry, Kirsty, but you must know by now that if I can put my foot in it, I will! But I promise I’ll be as nice as pie while the races are on. And I think you’ll make a lovely hostess, despite the manse, so there!”

After which remarkable speech she relapsed into total silence for the rest of the meal, busy with her own thoughts. I was glad when we had at last finished eating and rose to go into the other room, But one good thing came out of its Andrew went out of his way to be kind to her after that and, although she remained suspicious of his motives, I thought it was a mild victory for Mrs. Andrew Fraser. In fact I was beginning to think that I was rather good in the role. There was not much I could do for Andrew, but I thought I could be content if I could bring peace to his home and between the warring factions of his family. And if I was not content, it still remained my duty to play the role
the
best way that I could.

Andrew rapped on my door very early the next mo
rni
ng
.
“Are you awake, Kirsty? I’ll go and pack up the old ute.”

I leapt out of bed, shivering with excitement. I had saved my new clothes for the trip and I got them out of the chest of drawers and nervously considered the Fraser tartan of the shirts.

I had very nearly decided against wearing my own shirt at all, when Mary knocked at the door and came in, almost as excited as I about the trip up Mad Man’s Track. I pushed one of the shirts into her hands.

“Do you think I can wear this?” I asked her.

“Why not?” she answered coolly.

It occurred to me with a sense of shock that she hadn’t recognised the tartan as being her own at all. She was probably accustomed to seeing both men and girls in tartan shirts, worn regardless of belonging to any clan.

“You think it’s suitable?” I pressed her.

“Mm,” she said. “Very nice. It’ll be nice too to have my own shirts back! Though I expect you’ll be borrowing them again, for two shirts are hardly going to keep you going! Is that all you’ve got?”

“I’ll get some more when I next go to Cue,” I said.

“You might do better at Marble Bar,” Mary suggested. “Are you ready? Because Andrew is pacing up and down outside as though he can’t wait to be gone!”

I pulled on one of the Fraser shirts and the neat drill trousers, pushing the other shirt and some underwear into the small suitcase I had brought with me from the manse.

“Is that all you’re taking?” Mary demanded.

“I think so,” I said.

She smiled at me, her red hair flaming in the early dawn light. “I brought you a stick of insect-repellent! You’ll need that!”

I accepted it gratefully, stowing it away in my pocket. “My hat? Where’s my hat?” I demanded, beginning to panic at the thought of keeping Andrew waiting.

“Here,” she said. She plonked it on to my head and gave me a push out of the bedroom door, carrying my suitcase herself. “Have a lovely time
!
But then Andrew will see to that!”

How odd, I thought, that she should be so complacent about that! I tried to imagine it if it were the other way about. I should not, I knew, have been seeing her off. I rather think I should have been weeping. But then Mary Fraser was very sure of her own position. And why not? She had no reason to doubt Andrew’s love for her. And I
?
I was no competition at all, and I knew it
.

I felt like going back inside when I saw Andrew waiting, I was terribly conscious of the shirt I was wearing. He was sitting in the driving seat of the old ute, but he got out when he saw us coming and he made no sign that he had noticed I was wearing anything peculiar at all. He took my suitcase from Mary and threw it in the back of the ute, hugging her warmly.

“Be seeing you,” he said to her.

She nodded, her eyes filling with tears, "You won’t be away too long, will you?” she begged him.

He shook his head. “’Bye, mate,” he said.

“G’bye, Andy.” She gulped and, rather to my surprise, ran round the vehicle and kissed me warmly. “Everything will be
fine,
Kirsty! You’re not to worry about a thing!”

“I won’t,” I said blankly.

She kissed me again. “I’m so
glad
for you!” she said. And then she was gone, scuttling into the house with a wave of her hand.

“Goodness,” I said.

Andrew started up the old ute, waiting impatiently for me to get in, “You can twist us all around your little finger!” he teased me. “Even Mary! Even
Margaret
!”

“But not you,” I said seriously.

“Me most of all,” he joked. “How do you do it, Kirsty?”

I sat very still. “I wouldn’t try to make you do anything you didn’t want to,” I assured him earnestly. “It wouldn’t be proper
.
”

“Why not?” He sounded amused.

I sought for some way of telling him—and not telling him, for he didn’t want to know how I felt about him.

“Because you’re the Boss Cocky,” I said.

He was silent for a minute, then he said, “I think Margaret would find that a somewhat quaint idea.”

I dismissed Margaret with scarcely a thought. “She lacks confidence,” I said.

“Does she, though?” he said slowly. “And how about you?”

“Me?” I was astonished that he should inquire. “It doesn’t matter about me!”

“You’re the Boss Cock
’
s wife!”

“Maybe,” I agreed cautiously.

“Well then, Kirsty Fraser?”

“Kirsty MacTaggart,” I said with a sigh. “Sometimes I think I shall really be Kirsty MacTaggart until I die!”

Andrew gave me a quick look out of the
corner
of his eye. “I shouldn’t count on it!” he said.

“Maybe not,” I said easily, “I shan’t count on it either way.”

“That’s my girl!” Andrew congratulated me. “
Le
t’s wait and see what tomorrow brings.” His face creased, perhaps because he was driving straight into the rising sun. “I brought the wine and a barrel of apples,” he added smugly.

“I’m afraid you would sooner have beer,” I said sadly.

“That’s for my comfort! The wine and the apples are for yours!” he retorted.

Because I was sick of love?

There was a signpost along the northern highway telling us that a place called Ragged Hills was some five hundred miles north of Cue. How far we were going, I had no idea. Andrew pointed out the ‘flat tops’, the “pearling ground’ and the Racecourse. The two former were mining areas, or so I concluded; the latter was more interesting to me, for it was there that I was to ride Birrahlee, but just now there was very little to be seen.

Shortly after that, Andrew said we had met with Mad Man’s Track, and would go straight on to the tin mine that he owned and where we would spend the night, before we took the road again, always northwards, to Marble Bar. The mulga, the trees of the bush that I had thought so dull when we had first driven to Mirrabooka, came very close to the road. In time, I thought, I would lea
rn
to distinguish between one area of the country and another, but now I would have been lost a hundred yards away from the old ute and Andrew. I could discern the faint perfume of the bush, a smell of pine and eucalyptus and endless open space. It would be a long time before I would be a bushwhacker’s wife with a nose for survival in the Outback.

But just as I was thinking that
the
mulga would be with us a
ll
the way, it cleared abruptly, giving way to some iron-stoned gibber flats, where there was hardly any vegetation at a
ll.

“It isn’t far from here to
the
mine,” Andrew said suddenly, “Just the other side of Nannine.”

Nannine was only two hours away from Cue, but it was now another ghost town, full of empty houses and lost dreams. The hotel was still open, waiting for any casual visitor who cared to stop on his way through, but otherwise there was nobody to be seen, only dust and peeling paint.

A little further down the road, Andrew turned off the northern highway on to a side road. The dust rose in a scarlet plume behind us, announcing our progress fifty miles away.

“The mine is over there,” Andrew said eventually.

I looked where he was pointing, expecting to see the traditional mine-shaft similar to those that dotted the countryside. But this mine, Andrew
told me, was practically unique. There was only Moolyella, up by Marble
Bar, that was at all similar, even though it was a much more valuable
p
roperty, though even there it was no longer profitable for white people to mine there.

Nor, it seemed, was the Fraser mine. It lay in scenery so bleak that I wondered that anyone should stay there. It was a brown, dusty, and totally desolate place, where a few Aboriginal women laboured in the broiling heat.

“If we shut it down, there would be no work for them here at all,” Andrew remarked grimly, taking one look at my face.

“What do the men do?” I asked him.

“Some of them work as stockmen on the surrounding stations. Otherwise there’s nothing.”

“Couldn’t they work here?” I swallowed, trying to shift the dust out of my throat without much success
.