My first sight of the mountains was something of a disappointment. The modest ridge that rose up ahead of us as we crossed the plain bore no relation to the towering crags and pinnacles created by my imagination on the basis of an earlier conversation with Vane, and I couldn’t help remarking on the fact.
Bullen turned from the window with a thin smile. ‘Just wait,’ he said. ‘I’ve no doubt we shall be able to impress you soon enough.’
He was right, of course. As the train climbed steadily higher, the grandeur of our surroundings became apparent. Where the land fell away from the track I was able to look out across the treetops and see how the forest stretched to the horizon under a soft bluish haze, while sporadic outcrops of grey and ochre sandstone hinted at sterner beauties to come. The occasional farmsteads and trackside settlements served only to emphasise the scale of the surrounding wilderness: watching a flock of cockatoos lift and wheel against that astonishing backdrop, I remembered Vane’s assertion that the country’s vastness made it almost impervious to human activity, and I wondered fleetingly whether I might have been too quick to dismiss the idea.
On alighting at the station we arranged temporary storage of our luggage before setting off on foot. Bullen had been given to understand that Billy Preece lived in a hut just beyond the edge of town, but we had been walking for upward of half an hour, and had left most signs of civilisation some distance behind us, by the time we reached our destination. We heard the cluck and cackle of barnyard fowl and then, rounding a bend in the track, found what we were looking for.
Built almost entirely of overlapping boards, roughsawn and untrimmed, the hut was of a design too primitive to be entirely prepossessing, but I could see at once that it had been soundly constructed and well maintained. The threshold was a good two feet above ground level, and the low doorway was served by a little run of three wooden steps. To left and right of the building, an untidy fence of stakes, branches and brushwood marked what I took to be the front boundary of the property.
‘Holloa!’ shouted Bullen. ‘Is anyone at home?’ The sound of slow, uneven footsteps across bare boards, and then the door swung open.
The man was not above middling height and his body, as he stood there in the doorway, was twisted noticeably out of true, but something in his demeanour suggested power and presence. His hair and beard were grey, but vigorous in their growth, his face thin but strong-featured. He seemed in no hurry to come forward, addressing us from the threshold with an easy familiarity. ‘You’ll be the gentlemen from Sydney.’
Bullen advanced towards him. ‘Billy Preece?’
‘I’m Owen Preece. My son’s round the back.’ He stepped down and approached us with a stiff, lopsided gait, his right hand extended. ‘I’m pleased to meet you, gentlemen.’ His handshake was firm and his gaze, as he looked into my eyes, was clear and direct. He indicated a gateway in the fence and bowed us through with an odd, old-fashioned courtesy. ‘This,’ he said, touching the barrier as he followed us in, ‘is meant to keep out the wallabies. I can’t claim that it’s entirely successful, but at least’ – he turned to me, his tanned face creasing into a smile – ‘it makes them stop and think.’
‘There’s only one way to stop a wallaby,’ said Bullen. He slapped his ammunition-belt twice with the flat of his hand. ‘Ask any grazier.’
There was a moment of strained silence before Preece brought us to a halt. We were looking down a long, gently sloping strip of land, so completely unlike the surrounding bush that we might have stepped into a different country. Close at hand, vines ran riot over a rough trellis, their arching stems festooned with clusters of small purplish grapes, while further down I could see staked rows of beans, the brighter greens of assorted leaf-crops and the gleam of melons and pumpkins lying in the shadow of their own broad leaves. Half-way down, a boy, barefoot and stripped to the waist, his brown skin glistening, was bending over a patch of freshly dug earth.
It was an extraordinary sight, that rectangle of lush colour laid down among the subtler shades of the bush. I brushed my hand across the vine-leaves, as though I might apprehend their soft lustre through the skin of my palm. Preece glanced sideways at us, waiting, I thought, for our response.
‘It’s a veritable paradise,’ I said. ‘I can’t imagine how you maintain such a fertile garden out here.’
‘Oh, it’s simple enough, but not easy. Half a dozen cartloads of dung each winter and bucket after bucket of water raised from the gully throughout the summer. In this weather you might be at it from dawn till dusk. I’d be down there now, only my leg’s been giving me trouble all day.’
‘At least you have assistance,’ I said, glancing down the slope just as the boy turned to look at us.
‘Yes, in that respect I count myself fortunate. I’ve only been blessed with one son, but I couldn’t wish for a better helpmate than he’s turned out to be.’ He threw back his head and called out, ‘Billy! Come up and meet the gentlemen.’
I had assumed, seeing the half-naked brown body stooping above the turned soil, that the boy was a hired hand, one of the aboriginals of the neighbourhood, and I was glad to have recognised my error without having revealed it. Billy straightened up and wiped his palms on the seat of his ragged breeches before starting up the slope towards us.
He moved lightly and with a dancer’s grace, his slender arms held out a little from his body, his feet sure and nimble. As he drew level with us, he swept the tangle of black curls back from his forehead and flashed me a smile of such unguarded warmth that my own more formal greeting died on my lips. Bullen gave the boy a curt nod and turned aside.
‘You’re Mr Redbourne, aren’t you?’ said Billy, looking into my face with undisguised curiosity. ‘Da says you’ve come from England.’ His voice was deeper than his childlike manner and physical slightness had led me to expect, and I saw, examining his features more closely, that his cheeks and chin were lightly downed with dark hair.
‘Yes,’ I said, ‘that’s where I live. Very far away, Billy, on the other side of the world.’
Even before he replied, I could see from the change in his expression that I had struck the wrong note. ‘I know where England is,’ he said stiffly. ‘I’ve not had much schooling but I’m no dunce, and we’re not short of books and maps. You’ll see when you step inside.’
‘If you gentlemen are agreeable,’ said Preece, cutting in quickly, ‘we’ll have a bite to eat now. Billy will take the ponies down to the station and collect your luggage.’
Bullen gave a grunt, which I took to signify assent. Preece indicated a low bench in the shade of the vines. ‘If you’d like to sit there for a moment,’ he said, ‘I’ll call you in when it’s ready.’ And then, turning to Billy, who was showing signs of wanting to resume his discussion with me: ‘Go on now – the sooner you’re off, the sooner you’ll be back.’ The boy flitted away towards the gate with Preece following on at his own slow pace.
I sank gratefully on to the bench. Bullen made no move to join me there but stood looking down the garden, tugging irritably at his beard.
‘What is it?’ I asked. ‘Is anything wrong?’
He swung round savagely. ‘For God’s sake, Redbourne, you can see what’s wrong. We’ve been palmed off with shoddy goods. As scrawny a runt as I’ve ever clapped eyes on, and a bloody half-and-half into the bargain. If I’d known—’
‘Quietly, Bullen. Preece will hear you. And in any case, I don’t see any great difficulty. Assuming Billy’s up to the job—’
‘How could he be up to the job? I’m prepared to believe that he knows the territory – these people always do – but how’s he going to cope with his share of the baggage? We need a man with the strength of a mule, and we’re lumbered with a skinny boy.’
‘Appearances can be deceptive. And no one in his senses would set himself up with a job he knew to be beyond his capabilities.’
‘These are poor people, Redbourne, scratching a living from the dirt. You can see how it is. I send word that we’re willing to pay good money for certain services, and of course they’ll come forward claiming to be able to provide those services. Whether they can be relied upon to do so is another matter.’
What little I had seen of our hosts inclined me to give them the benefit of the doubt, but all my attempts to reason Bullen into a more charitable frame of mind proved futile. I was relieved when Preece appeared at the window and called us in to eat.
It took me some moments to adjust to the gloom of the interior but there wasn’t, in truth, a great deal to see. Bare walls and floor, the sleeping area curtained off from the living room with a length of plain burlap; four shelves supported on iron brackets, three lined with books and one piled untidily with cooking utensils; a small blackleaded stove, a sturdy pine table set for our meal and four wicker-seated chairs that had evidently seen better days. There was only one item of any distinction: against the side wall stood a dresser of dark oak, beautifully crafted and speaking with mute eloquence of another time and place.
‘It’s not what you’re used to, perhaps,’ said Preece, catching my glance, ‘but you’ll get used to worse once you’re out in the bush. And I’ll guarantee,’ he added, motioning us to our seats, ‘you’ll not taste food as good as this again before your return.’ He leaned over the stove and began to ladle thick orange-brown stew into an earthenware bowl.
At certain junctures in my privileged but not entirely happy life, I had found solace in contemplating the pleasures of a simpler existence. Imaginary pleasures, I would tell myself, returning obediently on each occasion to the cares and duties I was born to; but sitting at my meal with Preece that afternoon, listening as he discoursed with quiet passion on his own experience of simple living, I was seized again by the old longings, and forcefully struck by the notion that a man might take more pleasure in a single well-managed acre than in a neglected estate.
Bullen was clearly less favourably impressed than I was. I could see him out of the corner of my eye, shifting and fidgeting as Preece veered from agricultural matters to philosophical speculation, and at last he set down his spoon, scraped back his chair and rose to his feet. ‘I’m going for a stroll,’ he said. ‘Do you want to join me, Redbourne?’
‘No,’ I answered, irritated by the interruption and scarcely troubling to glance up. ‘I’ll stay here.’
‘As you please.’ Bullen picked up his rifle and strode to the door. ‘Call me when the boy arrives with the luggage.’ I heard the rap of his boot heels on the steps, and then he was gone.