Back of Sunset

The woman’s voice came back: “Half-bottle Turps.” And Covici, without a smile, wrote the name down on one of the register cards before him. “He’s twenty or thirty, somewhere in between, Doctor. You never can tell with the blacks.”

“Righto, Mrs. King. Give him some of the tablets, Number Sixty-two in the medical chest. Three a day, four hours between doses. He should also take half a teaspoonful of Number Thirty-six powder in a glass of water, also three times a day. Tell him to lie up and rest the knee. Report in again in three days, unless it gets worse in the meantime. How are the kids – all okay? Cheerio, Mrs. King.”

The medical calls went on, while Grace Hudson pointed out the locations on the map and offered terse descriptions of the people calling in. “One thing about people out here, they are prepared to help themselves, which is more than I can say for a lot of city patients I’ve attended. You find a few fools who won’t keep their medical chests up to date, but most of them stock them up as regularly as they do their larders. The Service went to a lot of trouble to devise the chest – we reckon it has everything in it that should cover any emergency. Everything from scalpels to laxatives. Open them anywhere is our motto. You’ll be going out with the doctor on some of his flights, won’t you?”

“I’m looking forward to it,” said Stephen, and was surprised to find that he meant it.

Then the medical session was over and Covici heaved his bulk up from his chair. “I’m doing my rounds in the hospital now. You want to come, Steve?”

Stephen looked at Kate, her head bent slightly forward as she read the telegram of a death into the microphone: the voice was just a little tighter now, as if striving for impersonal-ness, trying not to be touched by the death of a stranger, by the grief of someone she knew. “I’ll stay here a while,” Stephen said. “There’s more I’d like to know about this setup.”

Covici went out the door, saying he would see Stephen across at his own cottage. Grace Hudson hesitated for a moment, went to say something, then followed Covici out of the room. She had looked at Kate, and Stephen had recognised the look on her face. He all at once felt sorry for Hudson, that by staying a few minutes here in this room he could cause her to envy Kate. He remembered his mother and how little there was in life for women here in this country. A stranger, some new face to look at, to talk to, broke the drought of loneliness.

Kate finished calling her telegrams, took down some for dispatch, and switched off. She sat back in her chair, pushing her hair back from her forehead. Her hair was thick and black and she wore it longer than was the fashion down south. Perhaps fashion was late reaching here, had been too effete to make the journey into the wilderness. Then he saw the recent copy of Vogue on the nearby chair, and he knew that fashion, or vanity or whatever you liked to call it, could make the journey to the moon.

“I like the way you wear your hair.”

She looked at him with surprise and some suspicion. “You’re not going to get anywhere with me, Dr. McCabe. I’m not man-hungry, like Grace Hudson and the others.”

He was exasperated, sorry that he had stayed. “Look, Mrs. Brannigan—”

“I’m not Mrs. Brannigan.” She turned the ring on her finger without looking at it, an automatic gesture. “My married name was Peterson. I use my maiden name again.” Then she turned away, with one of the quick abrupt movements she had, like an awkward child. “Hello, Billy. They were looking for you out at the airdrome.”

The young man who had come in the door bore a startling resemblance to her. He had the same high wide cheekbones, the same soft dark eyes, the mouth that was full-lipped and a little too big; he was almost too good-looking for a man. He was nearly as tall as Stephen, but broader in the shoulders; despite his prettiness he would be able to look after himself. He was dressed in khaki shirt and shorts, long socks and the same sort of fancy riding-boots as Charlie Pinjarra had worn: he had his looks and he did his best to carry them off: he was a dasher, a boy for the girls. Even down south the women, man-hungry or not, would flock round him like birds round a man with a bag of crumbs. Stephen wondered to which one of the girls here in Winnemincka he handed out crumbs.

“I’m Billy Brannigan,” he said, and put out a hand; the other held a mouth-organ. “I’m Doc Covici’s pilot. Makes it a family affair, sorta. Me piloting the plane and Kate on the radio.” He sat negligently on the edge of the table: he had enough confidence for both himself and his sister. “So you’re from Sydney, eh? I’m going down there soon, I hope. I’m up for a job as a trainee on the big aircraft, the overseas stuff. That’s what I’m after! Flying the big stuff from Sydney to London, having something to do, somewhere to go when you’re off duty.” He looked out at the country beyond the window, at the shadows dribbling like pitch from the deserted castles of the hills: the only enemy here was the country itself. “I’ve spent all afternoon playing ‘St. Louis Blues’ to two gins. They think I’m better than Larry Adler.” He held up the mouth-organ and blew a quick chord on it. “I’m the darling of the gins of Winnemincka.”

“And the half-castes,” said Kate.

“Yeah, and the half-castes,” said her brother, and grinned: he was even confident enough not to resent his sister’s sneers. He looked back at Stephen. “Now you’ve seen Winnemincka, I suppose you can’t wait to get back to Sydney?”

“I’ve been here before. As a kid.”

“You want your head read, coming back,” said Bran-nigan, grinning. “I remember now, your old man was the Flying Doc here, wasn’t he? He knew a thing or two, going back south. When I get to Sydney, the only time I’ll see the bush again is when I fly over it. The higher the better.”

“It’s just as well Dad can’t hear you,” Kate said. “He’d be turning over in his grave.”

“This country put him in his grave,” said Brannigan, no longer smiling. “And Mum, too. See you later, Doc. I’ll buy you a grog down at the Coach and Horses.”

He went out of the room, cocky as the king of a small domain: he blew his own fanfare on the mouth-organ: “I’m In Love With A Wonderful Guy.” There came a burst of laughter from some women in the garden: the gins hailing their darling, The King of Winnemincka,

“I don’t know whether I’ll be sorry or relieved to see him go south,” Kate said, as much to herself as to Stephen. “I’ve tried to look after him. And so has Jack Tristram—” She looked up at Stephen. “My mother died when Billy was born. There was no doctor here then, otherwise she might still be alive.”

“When was that?”

“In 1934. After your father went back, we had no doctor for eighteen months.”

So that was the reason for her hostility to him. “I don’t think you can blame my father for that. This country was killing my mother, too—”

“I’m not blaming your father!” She whirled away from him, her hands clenched. “Why do I always say the wrong thing? I’m for ever putting my foot in it – the things I’ve said to people over the air—” She gestured at the microphone. When she turned back Stephen saw that her eyes were darker still with tears. “I’m sorry, Dr. McCabe—”

“Stephen,” he said, then changed it, breaking a link in the chain of the immediate past: “Steve.”

“I get so angry with myself—” There was no hostility in her now; she looked suddenly young, looking for friendship. “My father used to tell me to count ten. I’ve even tried counting from ten backwards—” She smiled suddenly, altering the whole set of her face; all at once she was beautiful.

“When did your father die?”

“Eight years ago. He got lost while he was out cattle mustering with Jack and Charlie Pinjarra – he used to manage Brolga Downs. He’d lived here all his life, and yet he got lost. This country can do that to you. . It was a fortnight before they found him. The dingoes had eaten him,” she said, her voice calm and impersonal again: another death, another grief: she couldn’t control her tongue, but she had learned to control her emotions.

Stephen, Steve, was silent for a moment. Outside a crow cawed and a moment later landed with a scratch of claws on the water tank just outside the window. “Was Jack a friend of your father’s?”

She nodded. “Ever since, we’ve looked on Jack as our second father. Sometimes we haven’t seen him for months, then he comes back to Winnemincka and fusses over us more than Dad ever did. He doesn’t like to hear Billy talk like that – I mean about going south. But Billy isn’t the only one. It’s hard to get young people to stay up here. This is still pioneer country, and there aren’t any pioneers any more. All people think about to-day is security and easy money.”

That’s Jack talking, Steve thought. He looked down at the wedding ring on her finger. “Is your husband alive? Or was he another one killed by this country?”

“He was a city bloke.” The impersonalness went out of the voice; her lips twisted, almost as if she were tasting the bitterness in her mouth. “He never wanted any part of the Outback.”

“He’s down south?”

“He’s dead,” she said. “Down south, where he belonged. And where I didn’t.”

She spoke with venom of the south, as if it were another wilderness, a country that could kill even those who loved and trusted it.

III

Steve, Covici, Tristram and Charlie Pinjarra were at supper when the gin came to the door. “Miss Kate send me. She say trouble on wireless. Come quick, she say.”

Covici pushed back his chair. “Always in the middle of a meal. Emergencies never happen at any other time. No wonder I’ve got indigestion.” He belched loudly. “Go on with your supper. There’s papaw and ice-cream for dessert.”

“He moans all the time,” Tristram said as Covici followed the gin out of the cottage, “but he’d never leave here, know what I mean? Pass the spuds, Charlie. I called him Charlie, you know,” he said to Steve, “after Charlie Goodyear. He had some bloody awful abo name when I first knew him, didn’t you, Charlie? I wonder what Charlie Goodyear would think of you?” He dished out a large helping of mashed potato. “I wonder what you’d think of Charlie, would be more to the point.”

Charlie Pinjarra grinned at Steve. “He’s a bloody great talker. We spent a little while with my tribe one time. They was glad to see us go.”

“Ah, bull,” said Tristram. “They wanted me to join ‘em. Kept calling me a bloody New Australian. Said they were the only fair dinkum Old Australians.”

When Covici came back he said, “Tell ‘em to keep my papaw and ice-cream. I’ve got to go out to Emu Downs.”

“That’s Dave Keating,” Tristram said. “Something wrong with him?”

“It’s his off-sider, Wally Murphy. They were doing some late branding this afternoon. Murphy got himself gored.” He went into a bedroom and came back with a black gladstone bag; Steve hadn’t seen a doctor carrying a gladstone bag since his father had died. “From what Keating says, it looks as if I may have to operate when I get out there. Billy says he won’t be able to get the plane off the station strip to bring us back tonight.”

“I know that strip,” said Tristram. “A real bastard of a one. Billy doesn’t like it even in daylight. You have to come in round a hill and put her down right on the edge of the creek.” He looked up at Covici. “If you’re gunna have to operate, are you gunna take one of the girls with you?”

“I was going to take Pilcher,” Covici said, checking the contents of his bag. “I couldn’t depend on Dave Keating to help me. He could be half-drunk as usual.”

Tristram said, “Phil, you can risk your own and Billy’s neck, but I think you oughta draw the line—” He looked across at Steve. “Why don’t you go, son? You come up here to have a look at how a Flying Doc works. You won’t get a better chance than this.”

Steve was about to deny he had come to Winnemincka because of interest in the Flying Doctor Service. He had a letter to write tonight: he had written only a short note to Rona, just before he had left Sydney, telling her he was coming here to the Kimberleys: he had a lot more to say to her and it was going to take him most of the evening to compose the letter. They had not said good-bye; her last word to him that Sunday evening, so long ago, had been the peremptory calling of his name. She still called; she crooked her finger at him across the thousands of miles. I must have been lonelier than I realised, he thought; maybe I really did need her. Maybe we all need someone.