Kate opened her eyes. For the moment she struggled to capture a dream that seemed tantalisingly close; but like quicksilver, it was soon gone. The orange light that filled the room confused her; at first she thought this was the dream and she was back in Broome. But as her senses cleared she knew that was not so; her bed did not face the orange light. It came through the balcony doors on her left.
Suddenly everything came back: the early morning flight, the tour of the cattle station and this magnificent house. She rolled out of bed, just remembering she had been twice as high as in the bed at home. She went over to the window. She hadn’t realised it before, but the house was facing west. On her right the terrain was open and flat, to her left in the distance there was a mountain range and just where it rose out of the flatland, there was the sunset.
She glanced at her watch in the bright light; it was ten past six and Marge would be calling her soon. Fortunately she had washed and changed before she’d lain down on the bed, so all she needed to do was straighten her clothes and comb her hair. Then she stopped for a moment as she became aware of something else; there was a strong smell of roasting meat. It was stronger over by the door, and when she opened it the delicious aroma greeted her.
She checked her reflection in the mirror; she would have to do.
At the bottom of the stairs Kate remembered the lounge was to her right. It was not difficult to miss the large antiquated room through the wide opening with a wooden arch of radiating spindles at each end. She walked through and down one step into the past – beyond the timeless oil lamps and antique furniture, the walls were galleried with oil paintings, watercolours and engravings, echoing the station’s ghosts.
The present, she noted, was allotted to all the surfaces of the furniture in an array of photographs from different periods that stood as a record of the new Palmer dynasty. Presumably starting with the old man standing beside the car, Jeff and Sean had told her about, continuing on to Jeff’s father and other people Kate guessed were Marge’s family, and finally the new Palmers. Kate took particular interest in these pictures, mostly taken on the station (except the ones of teenagers standing in front of a large modern building).
As she walked across the polished wooden floor-boards Kate just had to reach out and touch the nearest wall. It was covered with flock paper in a classic Greek design. She had heard about it, even had seen it in the Broome museum, but had been too far away to actually touch it. It felt like nothing she had experienced before; an upper-class Victorian home.
It was plain to see the old house had not changed in ages. It was the sort of house in which she expected to hear the sound of children running about, curious to see who the new female guest was. But the house was almost silent, except for the distant sound of a television. Kate guessed so, when she heard the familiar sound of a commercial. They always had a sound of their own, when everyone jumped up to visit the toilet or put the kettle on for tea.
The sound seemed to be coming from another room on the other side of the lounge, through another decorative arch. It was half the size, split in two by a large dining table set out as if Marge was about to have a banquet.
The other half looked unusually modern. With an open fireplace on one wall, an old-fashioned cabinet-style television on the other and the space between taken over with an assortment of plush easy chairs that was obviously a new addition.
Kate could hear Marge talking to Jeff somewhere close by in another space and decided to look for them, when she was stopped in her tracks by the sight of an old man in one of the easy chairs watching the television. He looked familiar in some way, but unfamiliar in another. His grey hair was combed back across his head and parted in the middle. It looked shiny, as if it had been plastered back in place with hair-cream. He looked flushed, uncomfortable in fact, in a green-striped shirt, buttoned up to his neck, grey tweed jacket and dark-blue jeans.
He was suddenly aware of her presence and turned his head in her direction.
“I was wondering where you were until Marge told me you were having a lie-down. Do you feel better for that?”
Kate stared at the impudent old man until something in his voice clicked. “Sean…is that you, Sean?”
“Of course it is…who else would it be?”
Kate couldn’t believe her eyes. “You look so different,” she said, almost on the verge of laughing. “You look so clean. Oh, I’m sorry; I didn’t mean it to come out like that. You look smart…like a country gentleman.”
“I know, isn’t it terrible? This is Marge’s fault. She won’t let me in the house unless I’m looking all spick and span. I even had to shave, do you know? It took me weeks to get that stubble. That’s how long it’s been since I was last invited over.”
“Don’t believe a word the old bugger says,” Marge said as she came into the dining half of the room carrying a tray of steaming tureens.
“Can I help?” Kate asked, walking over.
“No, you don’t,” Marge ordered. “You sit down until the table’s ready.”
“I told you. She’s a hard woman,” Sean mumbled.
Marge walked over to him with a wooden spoon in her hand and he cowered in his chair. “You be good or I won’t let you sit at the table in your shirt sleeves or cut the outside of the meat for you.”
“Oh Marge, I was only having a little fun with the darling girl. Do you not want me to enjoy myself in me old age?”
She bent down wagging the wooden spoon at him. “And there’ll be less of the familiar talk. Kate might get the wrong idea.”
Marge walked back to the table looking back at Kate with a smirk on her face and a twinkle in her eye.
When she left the room and Kate sat down in an easy chair next to Sean, he turned to her. “I didn’t mean anything by it, Kate, it’s just my way. I’ve never known anything different since I left Dublin.”
“I bet you were a right lad with the colleens in Dublin,” Kate jested.
“That would have been a miracle, Kate,” he said, with a grin on his face.
“I can’t believe that.”
“Then would you believe I left Dublin orphanage when I was eleven and sailed off to Australia?”
Kate was shocked. She had heard about all the children from England and Ireland that were shipped over to Australia to a ‘better life’. That was true for some, but not for others.
“I’m sorry, Sean. I hope it was a move for the better.”
“Ah…it was and it wasn’t. I just left one Catholic orphanage for another.”
Kate’s insatiable curiosity got the better of her. “And where did you go?”
“We landed in Sydney. It was all right, at least the weather was better and on the voyage I hooked up with this lad from Rathmines. We got on well.”
“Did you go to the same orphanage?”
“Yep…even managed to sleep in the same dorm. He swapped with another boy and we spent the next few years sleeping next to each other.”
“Then what did you do?” she asked. By now she was so interested in his story, she was facing him with her elbow resting on the arm of the easy chair and her chin in her cupped hand.
“Ah you know, it was a typical tale in those days. The orphanage was getting worse and there was not much work about in Sydney, so Paddy and I – that was what I called him, he didn’t know his real name and the priests called him a biblical name he hated – bunked off. Took what little we had and left.”
“What did you do then?”
“It was strange. The old orphanage gardener used to fill our heads with all sorts of tales about how he roamed Australia with no more than a swag. When we were old enough to understand that song we thought he was dreaming, but out on the road for real, we got thinking. It didn’t seem a bad life, so that’s what we did.”
“You started travelling around Australia? What did you live on?”
“Believe it or not, we had a better life than we did in the orphanage. Before long we became part of a group of travelling men. Each new man we met told us about a different spot. It didn’t matter what it was, on the rail lines, building roads and even cattle stations, I’ve done it all.”
“And how did you come to stay here?”
“Paddy and I stopped on this station a few times; it was a circuit thing. By then we had mastered a few skills and Jeff’s father kept asking us to stay; he needed skilled men he could trust. But we still had itchy feet, so we kept moving on. That was until Paddy’s accident. It was a cattle muster. We were driving twenty-thousand head from Alice Springs up into the Kimberleys to get them fattened up for the market. We camped overnight and Paddy just had to play cards with a couple of newcomers. They were taking him for everything he had when the cattle stampeded. Silly thing it was. The cattle were spooked by a sudden thunderstorm. Paddy just didn’t get out of the way quickly enough.”
“I’m so sorry, Sean. I shouldn’t have asked.”
“It’s all right, darlin’…sorry, Kate. It’s been a while since I brought the tale out for an airing. If there was any consolation; the men who’d kept him occupied, died as well. Our priest would say they paid the price for their wickedness. Anyway, when I’d finished the drive I made my way back to the station, and I’ve been here ever since.”
It was the type of story that is always followed by a long silence. Kate and Sean turned back to the television. Neither knew what they were watching and turned their heads with eager anticipation when Jeff walked in bearing a huge beef joint. They could still hear it sizzling from across the room as he rested it gently on a large old salver Marge placed on the table. The silver tureens she already brought in were warming over each one’s individual candle. She followed with two more; one full of roast potatoes, the other gravy juice from the roasted meat.
“Come on you two, don’t let it get cold,” Marge said, as Jeff started carving.
“That’s enormous, Marge,” Kate said. “What are you going to do with it?”
As they all sat down and Marge started filling the plates, making sure Sean got his outside cuts, she said, “Yes, Sean you can take your jacket off at the table,” and then she turned back to Kate. “After we cut a few slices off for our dinner and some for tomorrow, I shall pass the rest over to the cook when I take you down to the plane in the morning, so that he can warm it up for the school children’s dinner, along with lunches for the hospital and anyone else until it’s finished. We never waste anything here on the station. Even the scraps go to feed the pigs.”
Kate looked bemused as she started on the roast potatoes.
Recalling the photographs Kate had seen earlier in the lounge, she broke the silence with a question. “I gather from the pictures in the lounge you have children?”
Glancing in Jeff’s direction, Marge let out a chuckle. “I’d hardly call them children. Steve, our eldest is twenty-nine. He’s out on the range checking on the new calves. That usually takes a couple of weeks. And as for our other two, Billy and Sarah, they’re both away at High School in Port Hedland.”
“How does Steve live out there?” Kate asked.
Jeff looked up from his plate and answered her, that side of the station being his business. “They go out in a team of four in a campervan and with two motorcycles. The cattle are collective animals; they wander in groups, so when Steve comes across a group, which I might add could stretch for a kilometre or more, he stops the van and takes off on the bikes. Two of the team are stockmen, the third is a general handyman, capable of repairing any damage to the bikes and the fourth is the cook.”
“Ah…what would we do without cooks?” Sean commented.
“Exactly,” Jeff continued. “He also sets up and dismantles all the home comforts they need out in the desert.”
Marge’s stern expression softened. “Most of the time we’re all alone in this monstrosity of a house. Steve seems to feel more at home out there amongst the spinifex and the occasional kangaroo. Except the daily invasion from the station to see Jeff here,” she said, glaring at Sean totally engrossed in his roast.
He looked up, as if he could sense her piercing stare. “What? Why am I always singled out as the villain?”
“Because you live here most of the time,” she said.
“All right, Marge, not in front of our guest,” Jeff reminded her.
Marge turned her attention to Kate. “Sorry, Kate. Don’t take what you hear literally; we argue like this all the time. It’s better than television.”
As Marge and Jeff cleared the table, telling Kate to go on through to the lounge, she noticed she was alone. Sean had disappeared, probably duty bound to help his benefactors with the dishes as payment for his meal.
She felt bloated after such a fine spread and contemplated whether this was how they ate out here in noman’s land. She dropped into the first comfortable-looking easy chair she came across and found herself facing a whole new tableau. She was facing back towards the open arch and her first view of the lounge had missed what was behind her as she entered the room.
She was looking at an enormous open fireplace, with giant brass andirons supporting two huge logs. Where the logs had come from she had no idea, and why such a large fireplace in the desert? It was built of stone with a slate mantle standing two-thirds up the wall. On top was another array of small silver and brass frames with older photographs of Victorian relatives. They had to be. The men looked stiff and grand with their walrus moustaches and the women, dressed in sombre finery, could have been clones of Victoria herself.
It was then that Kate’s attention was drawn to a large wooden scroll about half a metre higher on the wall. It had a rustic look that reminded her of a Swiss holiday she and the family had enjoyed before they left England. It was a final round trip of Europe before they went ‘down under’. They stopped at a small village at the base of the Alps with chalets that looked like the cuckoo clocks they were selling. They had scrolls or plaques as they called them, with names carved on each, hanging above the front door.
This one was the same. She had to half close her eyes from that distance to read the name and decided it said ‘Galene’. It was an odd name; something else she would have to ask Marge about.
She heard the others arriving, it sounded like another mild argument; something about the beef would have tasted better with a little mint. Of course Sean’s Gaelic voice was uppermost, until Marge settled the matter as they entered the lounge with the fact that mint only went with lamb.
“In Ireland we do things differently,” he said.
“Well, you’re not in Ireland now.”
Marge chose the chair next to Kate either because she wanted to talk or it was her favourite seat. Kate hoped it meant the latter.
“Did you enjoy the dinner?” Marge asked, giving the other two a stare that they obviously understood. They huddled for a moment then made their way out of the lounge, through the arch.
“I did,” Kate replied. “I think I’ve eaten too much.”
“Think of it as stocking up for tomorrow. Heaven knows when you’ll get a proper meal again. What with the plane flight and getting Martin settled in at the hospital. I could make up some beef sandwiches if you like.”
“No, thank you Marge…I think it’s going to take a good twenty-four hours to get over this lot. My figure might take ages to revive.”
“We don’t bother about figures out here. In fact, we don’t bother about much.”
“I’m sorry. I got the impression you were in an idyllic lifestyle.”
“Oh Kate. At the end of the day I wouldn’t really change my life for what you must endure in the city. Don’t misunderstand me; I’m not criticising your way of life. I suppose it’s what you’ve been brought up to.”
“I understand; sometimes the grass is always greener.”
“Exactly. It’s like this house; sometimes I could curse all this old-fashioned furniture when I watch television; then in the next instant, I wouldn’t part with it. I don’t think many people could say they were living with four generations of their family. Although these are Jeff’s ancestors, I look upon them as mine.”
“Don’t you have any ancestors here?”
She looked hesitantly towards the fireplace. “That’s all I have on the mantelpiece. Funnily enough I have no pictures of my mother and father, or cousins. I was an only child and at the time, my parents came out here when I was a baby, they left everything behind. These pictures were sent to me by an old aunt before she died; apparently there was no one left in England.”
“At least they weren’t thrown away,” Kate remarked to a distant Marge. “By the way…I was wondering what the scroll was up there?”
“Oh, that. It was one of Jeff’s great, great grandfather’s endeavours. I gather he fancied himself as a woodcarver, among other things.”
“What does it mean?”
“Galene…that’s the name of the station,” Marge said, standing up and gesturing for Kate to follow her over to the two oil paintings she’d noticed earlier. They were of a feisty old man and a beautiful woman several years younger. “This is Jeff’s great, great grandfather, Merrill Palmer, and his wife, Galene.”
“What a beautiful woman,” Kate commented.
“Yes, she was. He was so depressed with the land he bought for them to settle on, he said, ‘At least it should have a beautiful name,’ and he named it Galene, after his wife. She was the one who started the Palmer dynasty.”
“What a lovely story,” Kate said. “Does her name mean anything? They usually did in the Victorian times.”
Marge had to think for a moment. “Yes, it does. It means the Goddess of Calm Seas. Her father was a sea captain.”
“I can see by the picture that she was a refined woman. I wonder how she coped with this country back then, and, of course, the terrible sea voyage beforehand. I read about such times: a lot died on the journey and if that didn’t kill them, the wagon trip to their destination usually did.”
“Well, this woman was made of sterner stuff. She survived everything.”
“I bet it was hard for you, Marge, even with a fine house to come to.”
“This country is hard on all women. You’ve only been here one day and I can see already you find it difficult. The heat, the flies, the difficulty getting what city folk take for granted and above all, the isolation.”
Jeff and Sean returned, hesitating for a moment under the arch; then seeing the smile on Marge’s face, they entered.
“All right, you two, you can come in. Did you have a good game of snooker?”
“He beat the pants off me as usual,” Sean commented. “Not literally, of course, ladies, but near enough; I have to clean out the shed for a week.”
Marge glanced at the large mahogany clock on the sideboard. “It’s late enough for some drinks. So make yourself useful, Sean, and bring in the trolley.”
“Oh, those are the sweetest words I’ve heard tonight, dear lady,” Sean said, scampering off into the dining room.
“And you, dear husband, can come and sit down and continue with the family history for Kate before she leaves us tomorrow.”