Late Thursday 12 January 1939, Mackenzie Crossing
Neville had spent the day doing just what Georgie had told him to do—photographing the Crossing and its surroundings. Documenting a town that might soon be gone in a puff of smoke seemed to him an honourable undertaking, despite her scathing comment. He was aware of a burning desire to show the rest of the world these people as they were right now, because everything was changing so quickly. Even somewhere as remote as Mackenzie Crossing would soon be overtaken by the juggernaut of progress. People like this—and Georgie—would be only a faded memory.
One day this place, and others like it, might be on display in his exhibition. He found himself, rather childishly, imagining Georgie being impressed by that.
The exhibition had become a means of keeping his memories at bay during the dark hours. Visualising his photographs hanging on the walls of the State Library of Victoria, or in some swanky private gallery, and trying to decide which ones deserved to be placed more prominently. Although he always came back to his favourites, he knew he still hadn’t captured that perfect image.
Hector and Marie hadn’t been averse to being immortalised, and posed on their verandah, with their goat tied up to its usual post. Peggy was flattered to be asked, and hurried to change into her best frock, a cream concoction with orange flowers, and flounces around her ample hips and bosom. Her son, the amiable Arnold, held his two mongrel dogs and grinned so hard his cheeks looked fit to burst. Arnold was a grown man and not a lad, at least not physically, but according to Tiddler he had never spoken a word.
Tiddler himself would have joined them but, as he informed Neville in a despondent voice, he wasn’t allowed to take time off his lessons.
‘Lessons are important,’ Neville assured him. ‘When you grow up you’ll need a job. Do you know what you want to be?’
The boy looked thoughtful. ‘Maybe fly an airplane like Kingsford Smith, or play cricket like Don Bradman.’
Neville didn’t let himself smile. That was one of the joys of children, he’d found, their utter confidence in how they would shape their future. Memories of Gertie brought an ache to his heart, and he wished he could see her again, even just for a moment. She’d forget him in time, he knew it, and in a way that was a blessing. Inexorably they were moving away from each other, the gap widening, and soon it would be too wide ever to breach.
He was tempted to climb up the surrounding hills and find the cemetery where Georgie had told him Big Jim was buried. It seemed important to document all the folk of the Crossing, alive and dead. However, the heat was too intense and the considerable effort involved decided him against it. Instead, he walked down to Silverfish Creek with one of Arnold’s dogs, and waded in the thin trickle of water that remained, photographing the tall trees against the sullen sky.
When evening came, Hector invited him over for a bite to eat, and later they sat smoking when Marie went to bed and tried to sleep. Neville could taste ash on his tongue, and the Crossing was so still, not a sound to be heard, as if it was holding its breath. The air was stiflingly hot, and the smoke coming from the fires was much thicker, with no wind to blow it away.
It was eerie, and by the time he found his bed, very late.
He hadn’t seen Georgie for hours, except from a distance, and he half expected her to come and set him to work at the mine again. Was she still angry with him? When she didn’t seek him out, he lay awake and pondered the enigma that was Georgina Mackenzie. There were questions to be asked and he wished he was the sort of man who could simply knock on her door and demand entry. He wasn’t a coward, he knew that, not physically anyway, but he understood his limitations. He’d looked for happiness once and failed, and he wasn’t at all sure he was capable of doing so again.
Neville must have slept, because when he opened his eyes a few hours later she was there, lying beside him on his blanket. He sat up, aware of an overwhelming sense of relief.
‘I hope you don’t mind. It’s too hot to sleep.’ She spoke rather hesitantly, turning to meet his eyes.
‘Georgie …’
‘You never finished telling me about your nightmares,’ she went on quickly, before he could remind her of all the reasons she shouldn’t be here.
His nightmares were the last thing he wanted to talk about. Well, no, that wasn’t quite true. The last thing he wanted to talk about was the photograph he had taken from Miller Brown, and which was still burning a hole in his pocket. The smiling woman who had captivated him from the first and who he believed was Georgie Mackenzie during her years as a teacher at Miss Agostino’s School.
‘You don’t have to tell me,’ she said, and only then did he realise how long the silence must have stretched out. ‘I understand, Neville, truly I do. The war left scars on you.’
He lay back down and folded his arms under his head. The words came before he had a chance to stop them, and in fact he didn’t want to stop them. Georgie made him feel safe, as if he could say anything to her, and that was surely a dangerous state of affairs. Although right now it felt very liberating.
‘Sometimes I wonder how different my life might have been without the war. Would I have done the things that were expected of me? Would I have been happy because I was genuinely happy, or because I didn’t know any different?’
‘So you don’t think things happen for a reason?’ she murmured, and again he could feel her gaze on his face.
‘What reason could there have been for the destruction of a generation of men? I think we do the best we can in the circumstances. We make our choices and then we have to abide by them. There’s no going back.’
‘No, there’s no going back.’
‘Georgie …’
‘I didn’t plan to come here tonight,’ she said quickly, her husky voice breathless. ‘I just … couldn’t stay away. Do you want me to go?’
Neville turned his head and saw that she was very close. ‘I don’t want you to go,’ he admitted. ‘Of course I don’t. I think you are the most wonderful girl I’ve ever met, Georgina.’
She laughed quietly. ‘But?’ she finished for him.
‘I have a wife and child in Adelaide,’ he explained a little stiffly. ‘I left because I wasn’t what she, what Mary, wanted. I tried, but I knew I could never be that man. I disappointed her. I’m better off on my own—I understand that now. It’s not that I don’t want you … admire you …’
‘So you’re telling me that you’re rejecting me for my own good?’ Georgie asked with a touch of humour, which in the circumstances made him admire her even more. ‘I don’t know whether to be flattered or insulted.’ She sat up and he noticed then that her hair was loose about her shoulders. ‘Tell me you didn’t leave Mary penniless and friendless.’
‘No, of course not,’ he said, his voice louder than he’d meant it to be. ‘She has the house and the business, and her family and many friends.’
‘I’m glad to hear it. I knew you wouldn’t do that, Neville. You’re not the sort. I’ve seen a lot of men come through the Crossing and so many of them are poor specimens. I know a few have wives they’ve left somewhere else, but I’m quite sure that their reasons aren’t as noble as yours.’
‘Noble?’ he repeated, sitting up, too, so that they were face to face. He didn’t know whether to laugh at her or shake her. ‘I assure you there’s nothing noble about me.’
She kissed him, a soft pressure of her lips to his. ‘Prove it, then,’ she whispered. ‘Take advantage of me. Please.’
Neville hovered on the brink. Her kisses were like butterfly wings across his cheek and his jawline, and then back to his mouth. He heard himself groan, drowning in the sweet taste of her. Her hair made a cave when she pushed him back onto the blanket and then leaned over him, and he found himself reaching up to hold her, to pull her closer.
He knew now he was very far from noble, because he couldn’t stop. He didn’t want to. And if he’d ever thought to turn Georgie into some sort of wronged Madonna, then her earthy laugh and murmurs of unreserved pleasure put paid to that. She was a flesh-and-blood woman, and for this one night she was his.