Heart of the Dreaming (29 page)

The glamour and the novelty of a film being made at Tingulla meant nothing to Queenie. But the figures did. She sat at her desk working out the cost factors of time, facilities, food, availability of men, horses and vehicles, and weighed it against the income offered by Mountain Pictures. Tingulla came out in front.

‘All right, Warwick, we'll do it. But I want you to keep tabs on the outgoing costs involved on a daily basis. I can just imagine they'll be changing their minds and asking for this or that which we hadn't allowed for, and if that's the case, it's to be charged to the film. This is a business exercise, not fun and games.'

Having agreed to
Red Jack
being filled at Tingulla, Queenie went about her business. Letters of agreement were sent to her from Mountain Pictures in Los Angeles which she read carefully, and passed on to her solicitors before signing. Roger Ambrose included a personal note saying how delighted he was and how he looked forward to ‘working with her'. He also explained it would be at least two months before they came out.

Queenie pushed the film to the back of her mind and settled to the task of looking at ways to keep Tingulla and Cricklewood afloat. With the drought dragging on, the sheep had to have feed supplied to Tingulla, but there was still enough grass about for the hardy Brahman cattle on Cricklewood. Some graziers were selling what they could before prices sank lower. Queenie decided to hold off until their sheep carried a full fleece in the hope rain would come in time to improve their condition.

‘It's a shame we can't buy stock while prices are this low,' said Warwick, as they discussed the problem in the study one evening before going to bed.

‘It wouldn't be worth it. We can't afford to feed them.'

‘What about cattle? I hear there are a lot being sold at the auctions. We are going to have to put those Brahmans over a heap of Herefords to start building up the numbers.'

‘I know. But if the drought goes on, we could lose more than we save in buying cattle while prices are down.'

‘We just have to hold on, huh, Queenie?' Warwick smiled at her, wishing he could smooth the worried expression from her face. He reached out and took her hand. ‘Why don't you and Saskia take a little holiday? Go to Neptune Island for a week.'

‘Oh, Warwick, you are so impractical. We can't afford it! But it was a nice idea. Thanks.' Queenie rose and kissed him lightly on the cheek; gently withdrawing her hand, she headed outside.

Colin opened his crocodile skin briefcase and drew out a folder of documents and put it on the table.

Dina placed a glass of Scotch and soda beside him. ‘Bringing work home from the office. My, my, I am impressed.'

‘My commission from this little exercise will be quite profitable, so don't sneer.'

‘Enough for your wife to go shopping at Mr Steiner's?'

‘Jesus, Dina, haven't you got enough jewellery?'

‘A woman never has enough jewellery. Besides it's an investment.'

‘Crap. You have no intention of selling it. If you want an investment, buy good stones, put them in the vault for ten years, then flog them. The stuff you wear morning, noon and night would have to be surgically removed from your body before you'd sell it.'

She nibbled Colin's ear. ‘You like making love to me when I wear nothing but my jewellery.'

‘I'm not averse to a bit of sexy underwear
or high heels either. Now go away and leave me be. I have to sort out these
Red Jack
contracts.'

‘You've persuaded people to invest in the film?'

‘Yep. Even Warwick. He figured he should put some money in it as Tingulla will feature heavily in the film.'

‘And what about you — are you putting money into
Red Jack
too?'

‘No way, sweetheart. Films are too risky for me. I prefer commodities. Beef, wheat, wool.'

‘That's your country background talking.' Dina curled her arms about his neck, running her fingers down his chest inside his shirt.

‘Nope. It's my new insider trading talk.' Colin drew her head around and kissed her, the papers falling to the floor, forgotten.

Queenie felt as if she was in a holding pattern waiting for some change to the blistering blue sameness of every day. The days merged — an endless routine of feeding, checking the condition of the stock and anxiously watching the level of the water in the dams sink lower and lower.

There was no wind to turn the fans of the windmill, and petrol-driven portable pumps were used to drag the sickly yellow sulphurous water from far beneath the ground. ‘There are minerals in this bore water that are making the sheep crook. We need a desalination plant,' said Warwick.

‘We can't afford it. We'll have to make do as things are for the moment,' sighed Queenie.

The weeks were stretching out and Queenie
was so absorbed in her day-to-day problems that it came as a shock when Mountain Pictures announced their advance group would be arriving within a week.

‘I don't know how we're going to manage with all these extra people about the place — what with the water situation being so desperate. And you know what city people are like — let alone Americans — they waste water without realising it.'

‘Queenie, if the worst comes to the worst we'll have to buy in water.'

‘That'll knock a big hole in our profits. God, Warwick, I should never have agreed to it.'

‘There's no going back now, Queenie. You'd better start doing your rain dance.'

Warwick was joking but Queenie was thoughtful. At sunset she strolled down to the stables and stood rubbing Nareedah's velvety nose, watching the burning rays of the setting sun spread hot fingers across the twilight sky.

Softly as a shadow, Snowy materialised beside her. They stood in companionable silence, the elderly Aborigine and the beautiful young woman he'd watched over since a child.

‘You got worries, eh, Queenie?'

‘It's this damn drought, Snowy. Tell me, when is the rain going to come? I feel like I'm drying up, too. Like all the juices have gone from my body and I'm just a hollow shell. If anpther problem drops on me I'll simply disintegrate in a pile of dust and drift away on the wind. Pouff … that's the end of Queenie.'

Snowy didn't smile at this rhetoric but
nodded understandingly. ‘Hold on, girl. Rain come in three, mebbe four days.'

Queenie studied his face, hope flickering in her heart. No teasing twinkle lurked in his black eyes, the expression on his deeply lined face was calm.

‘You've read the signs, Snowy?'

‘Some. Mebbe magic man been round. Mebbe time we helped the rain come.' His face was impassive and his eyes had a faraway look which didn't invite further questioning.

Queenie knew better than to probe further. There had been times in her life when events and incidents had happened because of Aboriginal intervention that simply could not he explained. She didn't try to understand but simply trusted and accepted.

In any other matter Queenie was forceful, the first to query, or demand an explanation. But when Aborigines were involved on a spiritual or mystical level, she became calmly fatalistic, flowing with events she could not control or fathom yet felt were preordained.

She drew a deep breath, feeling strength seep back into her bones, and touched Snowy gently on the arm. ‘G'night, Snowy.'

‘Sleep good. Watch for
mi-mi
spirits,' he grinned at her.

Queenie smiled as she turned away, flooded with memories. As a small girl, Snowy had told her the story of the strange spirits who appeared as dancing lights in the empty landscape, beckoning and leading those unwise enough to follow to their doom.

She wondered if Snowy had ever told Saskia
that myth. Snowy had replaced the grandfather figure in her daughter's life and the two spent a lot of time together. Between Millie and Snowy, Saskia was storing up vast and varied knowledge.

Thinking about her clever little girl, Queenie popped her head into the kitchen where she heard the hum of Millie's voice and Saskia laughing. Saskia was sitting cross-legged on the floor playing with the dingo pup, now a roly-poly bundle of mischief.

‘What's going on here? I thought Devil was supposed to be living outside. He's not an ordinary dog, Sas, you understand that, don't you?'

‘Oh, yes. Millie and Jim have told me. But I think he's special. And different. He talks to me, Mummy. I mean I understand what he's thinking.'

Queenie looked at Millie who shrugged. ‘They get on good. I've told her to watch those teeth of his, they're sharp now.' Softly Millie admonished Queenie. ‘She's never had a real pet of her own. The other dogs are working dogs and can't be petted. Remember the baby roo you raised for all those years.'

Queenie nodded. Her heart still lurched at the memory of that stormy night when she'd had to shoot her horse Pegasus and had brought home the infant kangaroo. ‘And the day I had to let it go in the wild, I thought my heart would break.'

‘Your mother wasn't sorry to see him go. He ate the garden, messed on the verandah and went silly looking for a mate. He was happier out in the bush.'

‘The trouble is, if they come to depend on people, they can't manage so well when they have to go back to the bush.'

‘I dunno, Queenie. Seems to me an animal's instinct comes back real fast.'

‘I hope so, Millie. I've always wondered how my pet roo survived. I sort of think of him in a different way to the kangaroos that overrun properties. Come on, Saskia, put Devil back in his box and let's get ready for dinner.'

Queenie woke at piccaninny light and slipped quietly from her bed so as not to disturb Warwick. She wrapped one of Rose's crochet quilts about her shoulders and stepped out onto the upper verandah. There was a different smell in the air, and the sky was tinged with a faint sepia glow. Wisps of shredded cloud sat low on the horizon as the line between sky and land became more clearly defined.

As she sat in a cane chair watching the sunrise, she knew that Snowy's prediction would come to pass.

Two days later the advance crew from Mountain Pictures drove their convoy of hired vans and loaded trucks into Tingulla. They were the last people to get through for the next six weeks.

The rains came and Tingulla was an island speck in an inland sea.

Jim picked his way through trucks, vans, caravans and canvas chairs, stepping over cables snaking across the ground and dodging past young men in shorts and coloured T-shirts with hair hanging to their shoulders. He sidestepped a hurrying girl who was wearing a psychedelic print caftan. She was carrying a clipboard covered in flapping papers and had a stopwatch around her neck. She appeared not to see him.

Reaching the kitchen screen door, he sighed with relief to find it deserted save for Millie and Stan making a batch of scones and pikelets ready for the film crew's morning smoko.

‘Looks like a flamin' blacks' camp out there. What do these people do? They all just seem to stand around.'

‘They talk and eat a lot,' offered Stan, now upgraded from shearers' cook to film crew caterer.

‘So where are these famous movie stars? When do they earn their dough?' asked Jim, dipping his finger in the pikelet batter.

‘They spend all their time in their dinky little caravans.
She
doesn't want to go out in the mud and
he's
getting stuck into the grog.'

‘Go on, Stan, is that right?'

Stan grinned. ‘Seems the Yankee TV bloke has discovered Aussie beer. I wonder if anyone's told him it's strong enough to blow the arse feathers off a bald turkey.'

‘He'll be blotto by midday. Thinks he's as flash as a buck rat with a gold tooth too. This film-making business is a load of old cobblers if you ask me.'

‘Nobody is asking you, Jim. Now buzz off — Stan and me are busy.'

Roger Ambrose sat close to Queenie as they discussed business in her study. ‘Because of the water and mud, shooting outside is impossible, so we'll do all the interiors first up. That will mean using certain rooms. We'd like to do scenes in the sitting room first off.'

Queenie waved a hand. ‘Whatever is necessary to get on with it.'

Roger touched her arm and gave her his best smile. ‘I know it seems chaotic, but things are actually all under control. Now, Queenie, about you doing some doubling work for us …'

The charm wasn't working, Queenie rose to her feet. ‘Roger, I have several hundred bogged sheep to move from creek flats. I'm sorry — I'm just too busy.'

‘I understand. But we won't be getting to
the horse-riding scenes until the conditions are better outside. Be two weeks at least, I should think. Would you please think about it, Queenie? We've located some guy who's an ace horseman to ride with you as Benton.'

‘Who is he?'

‘Can't remember his name. Casting dug him up in New South Wales. I'm told he's one of the best riders in the country.'

‘I'll be interested to meet him. Now, if you'll excuse me.'

Ambrose smiled to himself as he watched her leave. He was beginning to get the key to Queenie. She liked a challenge. When he mentioned this hotshot horseman she hadn't said she wouldn't ride with him. He figured she'd do the doubling scenes as Red Jack just to see if she could ride better than the other fellow.

The film people swarmed into the house, carrying lights, cameras, boxes of sound gear, and miles of cables. While one man began building what looked like a miniature train track down the hall into the living room, another started tacking coloured plastic film over the windows. Two girls moved in and started rearranging the furniture, removing all the family possessions and replacing them with period pieces. Footprints of red mud congealed on the polished wood floors and Persian rugs. Tea mugs were placed on top of mahogany side tables leaving wet white rings.

Millie blew her stack and strode from room to room shouting above the din of set-making and rehearsing. ‘All right, you blokes. No food
or drinks indoors. Tea is served on the verandah and the cups are to stay out there, thank you very much.'

The rugs were rolled up and newspapers spread over the floor. Millie had all the personal possessions stored in a spare bedroom and kept an eagle eye on sixteen people at once.

She tugged at a man bolting the train tracks together. ‘What's that for?'

‘It's a camera dolly, luv. So we can run the camera smoothly alongside the actors as they walk into the room.'

Millie shook her head. She hoped they were paying Queenie a lot of money for this. She leaned down to a kneeling man with a mouthful of nails.

‘If one nail goes into that floor I'll personally castrate you with a blunt knife.'

The storms stopped and the floodwaters began to recede. The truck carrying extra food supplies for Tingulla which had been bogged for the last week, could now get through. The driver had simply camped on higher ground near his truck and finished reading Henry Miller's
Tropic of Cancer
and started
Forty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea.

Roger Ambrose had arranged for a vital piece of film gear to be flown in along with fresh fruit and vegetables. The plane carried the first cans of film to the processing laboratory in Sydney and from there they would go by Qantas to Mountain Pictures in Hollywood.

Around Tingulla the sun baked the boggy ground into crazy ruts and patterns. Stan regaled the film crew at mealtimes with tales of sheep and cattle carcasses hanging from the tops of trees, and flash floods ripping through the desert in seconds to sweep away a mob of a hundred cattle and two trucks with no warning.

After ten days of filming inside the house Roger went to Queenie. She had virtually taken up residence in her study, having given her bedroom over to the female star who had constant complaints about filming conditions. Queenie had breakfast at sunrise in the kitchen with Millie and didn't return till after dark to bathe, take her dinner from the oven and eat it at her desk while catching up on paperwork before stretching out to sleep on the leather sofa.

Warwick had moved into a smaller back bedroom off the verandah and spent most of his time assisting Roger Ambrose, helping to organise whatever station facilities were needed. He and Queenie were passing like ships in the night, and while she found the whole process wearing, Warwick seemed to find it stimulating.

Roger tapped at the study door late one evening and looked at Queenie bent over the account books on her desk. ‘Can I interrupt? I bring refreshments.' He held aloft a bottle of Bollinger champagne and two glasses.

‘That looks very welcome. Where did Warwick unearth cold Bollinger?'

‘Courtesy of Mountain Pictures. The plane
came in today to collect this week's rushes and brought some goodies. Word is back from LA that what we've got in the can looks wonderful. They thought the flood scenes looked great. Seeing as it was all there we did some aerial shots of the water surrounding the homestead and the flooding all over the countryside. I think the executives think we arranged it all ourselves. Bigger than De Mille,' he laughed.

Queenie laughed politely and sipped her champagne. ‘I'm glad things are going well, though how you tell I can't imagine.'

‘You can never tell till it's up on the big screen. Queenie … we'd like to do the race sequences in a few days' time. The bloke doubling for Benton will be here on Friday. Warwick has the horses all set for us, and if you're willing, wardrobe and hairdressing would like to see you as soon as convenient.'

‘I knew there was a reason for this,' smiled Queenie, holding up her glass.

‘No ulterior motive, I swear. I thought you might enjoy a little pick-me-up and some company. You work long hours, too.'

Queenie pushed the books to one side as Roger topped up the crystal flute beside her. He was right, she did feel like some company. She began to ask him about his life in Los Angeles, trying to imagine the world he described, so vastly different from her own.

They finished the champagne and Roger bid her goodnight, kissing her lightly on the cheek. ‘A Hollywood habit,' he explained.

What was supposed to be a quick visit to the wardrobe and hairdressing girls turned into several hours as Queenie was fitted for her old-fashioned riding habit and her long bronzed hair was rinsed a deep russet red.

Saskia and Warwick loved her new look. ‘I want my hair coloured, too,' demanded Saskia, shaking her inky-dark curls.

‘Not on your nelly. Don't you ever touch your beautiful hair. You're a lucky girl that you inherited Daddy's lovely locks,' said Queenie firmly, glancing at Warwick and noticing for the first time several silver threads sprinkled at his temples.

‘That red hair makes your eyes look even greener, Queenie. You're much prettier than the star of this epic.'

‘Thank you darrrling,' replied Queenie, with an exaggerated American accent. Kissing the air near his cheek, she said, ‘a Hollywood habit, you know,' and swept out of the room in melodramatic style as Warwick applauded her exit.

Dressed in a looped skirt, an old-fashioned man's shirt and a hat with a fly veil, with her red hair crimped and in waves down her back, Queenie sat on a fold-up chair while the make. up girl patted orange powder over her face.

‘Is all this necessary? Surely no one's going to see my face?'

‘The skin tones have to match, even at a distance. The director likes every detail to be as consistent as possible.'

A further fifteen minutes were spent
discussing whether Red Jack would ride side-saddle or not. Queenie decided to weigh into the argument — no matter if she was right or wrong, some decision had to be reached or they'd obviously be there all morning.

‘Women in those days did ride side-saddle on formal or public occasions. But you can't tell me that a spirited young woman who was such a good horsewoman wouldn't ride like a man around her own place or alone in the bush.'

‘Queenie's right. That's just how Red Jack would think,' said Roger Ambrose. ‘Dump the side-saddle.'

Roger explained the scene to Queenie. ‘Now, what's happening here is the scene where Benton tells Red Jack that the fate of her father's property rests on the result of the horse race to be set up the next day. All we are seeing here in this scene are the two of them meeting on horseback, and riding together to fetch her father. The race sequences will be in a different setting and on another day in the story.'

‘I see … I think,' said Queenie somewhat dubiously. ‘Just tell me what you want me to do. Where is the fellow I'll be riding with?'

‘He's gone with the wrangler to bring up his horse. If you'd like to mount and get into position we'll check the lighting.'

Queenie didn't see the necessity for extra lights in broad daylight, but said nothing as she lifted the heavy skirt up to pull herself into Nareedah's saddle. She patted the big white horse who had been groomed and brushed and looked magnificent.

‘I see Nareedah gets a starring role, too!' The sky started to spin at the sound of that voice.

Queenie spun Nareedah around to see TR on a beautiful mount trotting towards her, a wide grin on his face. He too was in period dress, a scarf knotted at his throat, a straw cabbage tree hat shading his face which also had an artificial tan. His blue eyes and white teeth gleamed as he smiled at Queenie, and he looked incredibly handsome.

‘Well, I should have guessed it would be you, of course.'

Roger Ambrose looked from one to the other. ‘Do you two know each other?'

‘Kind of,' muttered TR, not taking his eyes off Queenie. ‘That's some get-up you've got on.'

Roger stared at the two on horseback, aware that there was some sort of chemistry between them. They made a far more charismatic pair than the actors they were standing in for.

Queenie hadn't seen TR since he had visited her in her hotel room after the races in Sydney. She knew Jim and Millie were in touch with him, and Warwick had mentioned running into him in Sydney once or twice. But Queenie never expressed any interest in news of TR, so no one ever discussed him in her presence. In her heart Queenie was interested, but she knew she couldn't begin to let anything chip away at the barrier she had cemented around her memories of him.