The Opal Desert (10 page)

‘Fiona, you're amazing! How can you cook such delicious food in one pot and on a barbecue grate?' asked Kerrie. ‘Why does something so simple taste so good?'

‘Flavoured with gum leaves and the smoke from old wood, lit by stars and firelight. Can't beat it,' said Murray. ‘I'm going to sleep like this log. Will you wake up when I start banging the billy around in the morning?'

‘I'm sure I will,' said Kerrie.

‘If you do that, I won't be able to sleep in and I'm making a late breakfast,' said Fiona.

It was the smell of the rekindled campfire more than Murray's soft whistling that woke Kerrie. She pulled on a light sweater, surprised by the morning's coolness, but she knew that it would get hot later in the day.

‘Sleep okay on that blow-up mattress?' asked Murray.

‘Fabulous. What smells so good?'

‘Tea in the billy, I'll pour you a mug. Grab a banana and we'll be off as soon as you're ready. Throw your gear in the truck. I'll make up a thermos and we've got bottled water. When we get back in a couple of hours, Fee will have fresh damper and eggs ready.'

Murray drove across the dark landscape with assurance, the headlights shining on rocks and logs as he steered the truck along a gully, peering ahead. ‘There's a beaut old tree not far from here . . . Got to watch for the wildlife. Shout if you see a roo. I've got a shoo roo on the front bumper but it doesn't always work.'

‘As in shooing away roos?'

‘Yep. It's a whistle, too high-pitched for our ears. There she is. We'll stop here.'

Beside the old tree in the early morning light, Murray stopped the truck, opened the rear and started pulling out their chairs, their art materials and an easel.

Kerrie took out a sketchbook, a board and some charcoal. ‘I feel nervous,' she admitted.

‘Got to start somewhere, sometime, Kerrie. Take this chair, get ready and just look around you.'

Murray sketched for a while and then took some photographs. He looked across at Kerrie, who had not yet made a mark on her sketchbook. ‘I'm going for a bit of a stroll. I want to get some sand and some bark, and whatever else takes my fancy. I won't be far away. If you need me, just shout.'

Kerrie nodded, grateful that he was leaving her to work unobserved. It was silly to feel self-conscious, she admonished herself. But the knowledge she hadn't made a sketch or thought about painting seriously since her honeymoon weighed on her mind. How had she allowed herself to neglect it?

Milton had never told her not to paint, but neither had he encouraged her. She realised now that his immense talent had swallowed her up and swept her along. Her work was, she knew, in comparison, utterly insignificant. He appreciated her when she pulled off a meeting, or a successful show, or set up a big interview, but their life together was always about him. Kerrie had never minded that and understood why that had been so, but she now saw that her artistic confidence had been completely undermined.

She sat with her sketchbook open and, as Murray had instructed, began to look around. The silence, the openness, the immensity of where she was began to fill her mind and heart. Now the land seemed to be taking its first breath as a breeze stirred, and against the waning stars she saw the silhouette of a dead tree spiked against the lightening sky. It seemed as though this composition had been arranged specifically for her. Kerrie lifted a stick of charcoal and suddenly her urgent scratching on the pad was the only sound she could hear. She worked quickly, before the stars completely faded. Then, as the pearl light began to run with the first streaks of pale pink, she found her watercolours and a new page.

She was so absorbed, trying to work quickly to capture the sliding kaleidoscope of sunrise colours, that she forgot where she was and was startled by a movement beside her. On a thorny bush a tiny brightly jewelled bird was watching her, head cocked, eyes following her every move. Suddenly it darted to another branch, its movements like quicksilver. Finally it opened its beak and gave a short sharp whistle.

‘Stay still, little bird,' she said softly as she tried to sketch its inquisitive expression. But then it was gone in a flash of red and black.

As the sun rose, the scene changed dramatically. She heard a crunch and saw Murray coming back carrying a branch and a bunch of grasses in his hand, his knapsack over his shoulder.

‘Good hunting?' she asked.

‘Yep. Not sure how I'm going to use all this.' He crouched down and began spreading seeds, grasses, bits of bark, twigs and small plastic bags of soil on the ground in front of him. He didn't look at Kerrie. Indeed, he didn't pay any attention to her as he sorted through his finds. Finally, he said, ‘How'd you go?'

When Kerrie didn't answer, he sat back on his heels, regarding the expression on her face. Her eyes were closed and she looked close to tears.

‘That good, eh?' said Murray.

Kerrie smiled, wiping her hand across her eyes. ‘Yes. That good. I'd forgotten. Thank you, Murray.'

He nodded and resumed his sorting.

After a pause Kerrie spoke. ‘I saw a bird. Sweet little thing. I tried to draw him but he was too quick.' She reached over and held out the sketch. ‘I got his head a little, I think.'

Murray stood and peered at the small pencil sketch. ‘Aw, it's a zebra finch. Funny little birds. They're very social. If they're on their own they'll call out, trying to find where their mates are.' He turned back to his collection, poured some deep red soil from one of the plastic bags into the palm of his hand, and went over to his canvas. ‘Right, here we go. Finger painting, just like kindergarten.'

Three hours seemed to pass in minutes and when they drove back to the camping spot the smell of breakfast was tantalising.

Fiona smiled to herself as Kerrie and Murray talked and talked about styles, subjects, different mediums and how they worked. It was as if a rusty tap had been turned on and Kerrie had come to life.

While Murray had a nap and Fiona sprawled reading a book, Kerrie continued to work on her sketches, but in the late afternoon they set out again, this time heading in a different direction.

Murray stopped the truck and jumped out, flinging his arms to indicate the surrounding countryside. ‘Pretty scratchy territory around here. Years back someone tried sheep, and there were a few mines, too. All gone now.' He kicked the dry surface. ‘Y'know, Australia had about nine inches of topsoil before the whitefellas came and brought in hard-hooved animals – cattle, horses, sheep, pigs. Broke up the ground and then the wind and rain washed the topsoil away. We're down to about two inches now. It's hard to make a living out of such poor land.'

‘You wouldn't even know that anyone had ever lived and worked here,' said Kerrie. ‘How sad.'

‘Might look like nothing was ever here, but if you walk around you see things. Little signs,' said Murray.

Driving on further, Murray pointed out a few buried bits of rotting wood that were once part of a fence line. ‘Out here, closer to townships, there were a lot of camps.'

‘Is that a car?' asked Fiona. ‘Or a mirage?' She pointed to a rusty red wreck in the distance.

‘That's an old Bedford truck. Don't make trucks like that anymore. Come on, let's take a walk.'

Past some spindly mulga trees, they came across the remains of a mine. A broken and rusting windlass lay on its side, and beside it was the skeleton of a bucket with no bottom, although a frayed rope was still attached. A sheet of old corrugated iron, pockmarked with rust, was covered with boulders. Rotting timbers that once might have held up a building lay in a tangle. Coils of old barbed wire spun uselessly from the shreds of a wooden post.

‘It looks like a mine was burrowed down there,' said Kerrie. ‘How deep would it have been, do you think?'

‘Don't know. Maybe fifty feet or so,' said Murray.

‘I love all this detritus. The wire, the windlass, they're testament to man's folly, or his optimism.'

‘It's like the land just swallows everything back up,' said Kerrie. ‘In years to come there won't be a sign that anyone was here.'

Murray leant down and pointed to the soft soil under the tin. ‘Look, lizard prints. There's a bearded dragon under there. I like those.'

Kerrie and Fiona looked closer and saw the foot marks in the sand.

‘Very geometric. I think I'll copy those and scratch them into the sand on the canvas,' said Murray. ‘This place always excites me.'

While Fiona and Murray carefully peered under the iron looking for the lizard, Kerrie meandered into a clump of box trees and she-oaks growing in a dry river bed. Around her it was cool and quiet. The soft sighing of the wind through the sandlewood trees was hypnotic. As she was thinking what a lovely place this would be to put down a swag or swing in a hammock, she was startled to find behind the largest tree the remains of an old tent. Rotted sections of it had torn away. Blackened stones marked a campfire and rusted tins and old bottles lay in the congealed dirt. The sagging frame of a camp bed, the remains of a table and a chair that had been made from branches were infinitely sad, thought Kerrie.

‘This was once someone's home, but how long ago? And where did they go?' she asked aloud. The swish of the leaves was her only answer. ‘Well, whoever you were, you picked a perfect spot,' she added, and sat on a convenient tree stump to quickly sketch the scene.

That night the three of them shared laughter and a ratatouille made in the camp oven as they talked of art and life and love and dreams.

‘This is such a magical, almost mysterious place,' said Kerrie.

‘Yes, some of the old fellows who lived alone out here have some strange stories,' said Fee. ‘Tell her about Earache.'

‘Earache?' asked Kerrie. ‘Why was he called that?'

‘Earache was a miner and a retired geologist who bent everyone's ears with his stories,' began Murray. ‘Also an amateur astronomer, interesting chap. He was getting on when he came into the gallery one day. He brought me a notebook of observations and some papers about an odd find he had. But he thought he'd had a bit of a heart turn and didn't want to cark it out in his camp and leave things there.'

‘What sort of things?'

‘Well, he asked me to look after them. They looked like rocks. But they were round, with a rough surface but perfectly circular ranging in size from a cricket ball to a bowling ball. Unbelievably heavy for their size. I know this is going to sound peculiar, but he told me they had unusual properties.'

‘Did they fly?' asked Kerrie with a smile.

‘Might have,' said Murray, seriously. ‘I stuck them in the studio and discovered at certain times they glowed. Brilliant light came from inside them and pulsed. I saw it once. Gave me such a scare I chucked them out the back door. I didn't want to know.'

‘Did you ever crack one open?' asked Kerrie.

‘It was impossible. Earache said he'd tried and never could. Then a few weeks after leaving them with me, he came back and said he was going to take one of them down to Sydney. So he left his old cattle dog with me while he was gone. Old thing slept outside near the rocks. One night I heard a terrible howl. I went out and called the dog but it had gone but I hoped it'd come back in the morning.'

‘And?'

‘Next morning the dog was still gone. So were those rocks. I was a bit rattled and worried what I'd tell Earache.'

‘What happened?' asked Kerrie, intrigued.

‘It was all a bit weird. The dog was found the next day miles away. In the back blocks of Queensland. He had a tag on his collar and someone had turned him in, said the dog was traumatised but okay. No one could have even driven that far in such a short time.' Murray looked at Kerrie's incredulous expression and shrugged. ‘I heard all kinds of stories from miners living out in the middle of nowhere in the desert who saw strange things. Low lights hovering and swooshing away faster than they could believe. Odd markings in the ground.

Kerrie stared at Murray, not sure whether this was a joke or some delusion. ‘What happened to the dog and Earache?'

‘Earache died while in Sydney and the woman who found the dog kept him after I told her what had happened to Earache. I never mentioned the dog had disappeared that night. Everyone assumed he'd been wandering for weeks or had been picked up and dumped.'

‘What a story!' said Kerrie laughing.

‘There are dozens of stories like that out here,' said Fee.

‘I feel like I've known you both all my life,' said Kerrie, shaking her head in amazement. ‘It's such a strange feeling. Wonderful. But different.'

‘Thank you for those kind words,' said Murray.

‘I just hope we keep in touch. I can't thank you both enough. You don't know what you've given me,' said Kerrie.

‘I think we do,' said Fiona, smiling. ‘People fall in love with the Ridge. We've seen it before. I reckon you'll be back.'

That night Kerrie decided to pull her bed out of her tent and sleep under the stars, confessing to the others that she'd never done it before.

She snuggled down, wishing she had done something like this with Milton. But as she drifted to a sweet sleep, Kerrie realised that Milton wouldn't have enjoyed this at all. He loved his five-star existence and she'd enjoyed their luxurious lifestyle too but, for the first time, Kerrie could see that new, and different, possibilities awaited her.

She slept soundly.

T
HE FIRST THING THAT
Kerrie noticed was the huge grey mound of soil next to the main mine, like a fortress between the town and the desert beyond. She drove into a petrol station, climbed out of her car, straightened her back and stretched her stiff legs. It had been a full day's drive between Lightning Ridge and Broken Hill and the car had covered nearly one thousand kilometres.

When she paid for her petrol she asked the woman serving her how Broken Hill got its name.

The woman slid Kerrie's credit card into the machine and answered, ‘According to some Aboriginal story the hills out there used to look like a broken line of bones along a serpent's back, but they were flattened by the mining years ago.'

‘I suppose the mines are everywhere,' said Kerrie.

‘It's what made the town. We're the Silver City. And we do very well, too. Between the mines, the unions, the tourists, we have a bloody good standard of living.'

Kerrie drove through the town and noticed that the streets were named after various minerals, such as Oxide, Mica and Cobalt. Broken Hill's large solid nineteenth-century buildings had ornate metal columns and iron roofs. The elaborate Trades Hall, modern malls, churches and the mosque reflected the colourful and varied heritage of the town.

Even though Broken Hill was surrounded by the flat red plains of the desert, homes with flourishing gardens and lawns were dotted everywhere. She even noticed a few boats parked in driveways and garages. ‘Water doesn't seem to be a problem,' she said to herself.

It also looked as if Broken Hill had an active social life. Aside from playing fields, the town pool, a cinema, game parlours and pubs, she saw that there were a lot of social clubs and sporting organisations. She wondered what the early miners who had come here to work in the lead, silver and zinc mines more than one hundred years ago would make of the place now.

She checked into the hotel she'd booked from Lightning Ridge and, over a cup of coffee, browsed through the brochures that sat on the table in her room. Tourism was obviously a big industry. There seemed to be a proliferation of art galleries and a great many town tours. There were also tours to the nearby tiny township of Silverton, famous as the location for many movies including the
Mad Max
series. Kerrie laughed when she saw an advertisement for a camel ride. ‘Not for me,' she told herself.

Following the directions on one of the maps, she wandered through some of the smaller art galleries and then onto Pro Hart's studio and gallery. Here she had to smile at the late artist's humorous and colourful take on his subjects, and his vividly decorated Rolls Royce parked out the front.

‘He was quite a character,' said the woman in the gallery. ‘Larger than life, opinionated and did things his way. We certainly miss him in the Hill. So many of the other old boys are disappearing, too.'

But Jack Absalom welcomed Kerrie to his gallery with hearty enthusiasm.

‘Come on in, come in. What're you interested in? Have a look around. Plenty to see, take your time. That's the wife, Mary, over there. She'll help you if you want something.'

He bustled away to greet a busload of visitors who had just arrived.

Kerrie strolled around the spacious main gallery looking at Jack's work depicting landscapes and characters in the life and history of outback Australia. She noticed several of the tour group buying signed prints of Jack's work as souvenirs of the places they'd visited on their outback trip. Others bought inexpensive opal jewellery and Jack quickly told them where each piece had come from. Then he showed them his prized collection of opal pieces he'd mined all over the country since he had first fallen in love with Australia's national gemstone.

‘No, that one's not for sale. Dug that up meself when I was about twelve in South Australia. Out at Andamooka. Nobody wanted the stuff from there then. They only knew, and liked, the white fire opal. Same thing happened with Boulder opal – couldn't give it away. I love it. Look at that matrix, the colours . . . Worth thousands now.'

As Mary wrapped up the tourists' purchases and made suggestions of other places they could visit in Broken Hill, Jack went over and joined Kerrie as she stood before a large painting of a strange flat moonscape that was dotted with white mounds covered with scarlet flowers. As she looked more closely at the painting, she saw indentations on a hill, a slab of metal, the outline of a vehicle and a glint of glass. The horizon stretched beyond the lonely location, yet somehow the place didn't look desolate.

‘Now that looks to be somewhere you can take a deep breath of fresh air,' commented Kerrie, more to herself than the old bush artist.

‘White Cliffs,' said Jack. ‘First place they commercially mined opal in Australia. Magic little spot. You should go there if you're into opals.'

‘I'm more into painting,' said Kerrie. ‘By the look of your paintings, you've certainly been around outback Australia.'

‘Born and bred. Just love the place. I've made countless TV shows about our country. From cooking to survival, to talking about the future of the planet,' said Jack cheerfully. ‘And if you want to paint, get out there, girl. Nothing like it anywhere else in the world.'

‘I'm beginning to see that. How far is White Cliffs from here? If I drove there, is there anywhere to stay?'

‘There's a motel and one of those B&B places. Both underground. It's not too far. You could take a day tour over there. You can see the whole place in a couple of hours. Not like here, you need a good week to do it properly!'

After she left Jack Absalom's gallery, Kerrie continued wandering around. She could see why tourists stayed a while in Broken Hill; there was a lot to see and do. But she was now less interested in restaurants, shops, galleries, mine tours and historical places. She longed to recapture the tranquillity and intense creative urge that she'd shared on her camping trip with Murray and Fiona in the isolation and strange beauty of the bush. It was unlike anything she'd experienced before.

She was on her way to the tourist information office to see about going to White Cliffs when a small tour bus parked outside the post office caught her eye. It was hard to miss. The minivan was covered with paintings of emus, gum trees, red rocks, strange carvings, mullock heaps and windmills. Across its side was painted ‘Davo's Best Tours' and a list of locations was displayed underneath
.
But what caught Kerrie's attention was that the rough pictures were similar to Jack Absalom's painting of White Cliffs.

She pulled out her mobile and rang the number painted on the bus.

‘Davo's Tours, Davo here.'

‘Hi, I'm in Broken Hill and I was hoping to go to White Cliffs. I've seen your bus. Where do your tours go?'

‘Depends. Do you want the whole box and dice camping under the stars, or just a day trip?'

‘I think I just want to go to White Cliffs for the day, to start with.'

‘Can do. I leave the Hill in the morning at eight, make a couple of stops, get to White Cliffs in time for lunch, spend an hour or so seeing the town, then back here around six. If there's enough interest I could run over to Opal Lake, but it makes for a long day. How many people do you want to book?'

‘Just myself. I have a car but I think it's easier to go on a day tour. I haven't heard of Opal Lake. Is it a real lake?'

‘Real enough, when it rains. But that's not often. Used to have water in it but it's dried up now. It's a couple of hours from White Cliffs.'

‘Where's your office? I'll come around and pay you,' said Kerrie.

‘The office is right behind you if you turn around.'

Kerrie turned around and saw a solidly built, tanned and bearded man wearing khaki shorts and a bush shirt, a battered bush hat and sturdy boots standing a hundred metres behind her. While he might have been trying to look like Crocodile Dundee, he reminded Kerrie more of an overweight football coach. He was holding a mobile phone to his ear and he grinned to acknowledge her, lifting his finger in a bit of a salute. She walked towards him. He held out his hand.

‘Dave Best. I run Best Tours. Call me Davo.'

‘I'm Kerrie. Kerrie Faranisi.'

‘Visiting the Hill, eh? Where're you from?'

‘Sydney, but I've just come from Lightning Ridge.'

‘On the opal trail. Been out to any of the other opal fields, like Yowah?'

‘No. I'm not an opal fossicker. I'm an artist looking for, well, inspiration, I suppose.' She smiled.

Davo took a small notebook and a stub of pencil out of his shirt pocket and flipped to a page. ‘Umm, got six booked and you make seven, that's enough to make the tour worthwhile. Room for more, if they turn up. So, Kerrie. You're in. Where're you staying?'

She told him and he nodded. ‘Right. See you at seven forty-five at the front door. You might have to organise an early breakfast. You paying cash?'

The next morning, Davo pulled up right on time at the hotel where Kerrie was staying. Kerrie was carrying her oversized hold-all and had packed her pencils and sketchbook. She thought it was unlikely she would have time to sketch, but put it in anyway, just in case. The other passengers were two widowed sisters, a retired couple and a Danish couple on their honeymoon.

As he drove along Davo infrequently pointed out things of interest, but mostly he chatted to the retired couple who were sitting closest to him. It took more than three hours to reach the small settlement of White Cliffs. When it came into view, someone commented, ‘Not much here. Looks like a ghost town.'

‘It's all underground,' said Davo. ‘The mines and the homes.'

Kerrie could see how the township got its name. The settlement atop the two main hills seemed to be propped up by white cliffs, which were, in fact, white soil tipped down the hillside from the diggings. Around the rise of the small hills spread a flat red plain smudged with the grey-green stubble of hardy desert plants.

The bus stopped outside the pub in the main street and everyone went inside for a cold drink. Kerrie walked around the bar, looking at the photos and memorabilia tacked to the walls. When they'd finished their drinks, they wandered back outside.

‘Anything else to see?' one of the sisters asked Kerrie as they looked at the opal shop, the general store and a camping and hardware supplier.

‘I think there are more buildings up there on the small rises,' she replied.

‘Too hot to walk.'

‘That's an interesting-looking house,' said Kerrie, noticing a round building with large glass windows.

‘I wish we could go into one of the underground places Davo told us about. I'll go and ask him.'

She found Davo sitting at a table outside the pub talking to a man who had a selection of rocks spread out and a glass jar of coloured stones beside him.

As Kerrie approached, Davo lifted up the jar and spoke to her. ‘Want to buy a jar of rough for a hundred bucks? Could get ten times that for them when they're cut and polished.'

‘Thanks, but no. Actually some of us would like to go up the hill, or the one further over there. Is that where everyone lives? Do they mine for opals there, too?'

‘Some do. There're a couple of underground motels, a decent B&B and a coffee shop over there. And some people have a bit of a shop or gallery attached to their places.'

‘So they live and mine in the same place?'

‘Some do, but most of the hills are dug out now, so serious miners are digging further away. I've got a camp meself, well out of Opal Lake.' He waved his hand expansively towards the red plains. ‘But been some mighty opal come out of this little place. It's called gem crystal opal. Light with bright fire flashes. Brilliant stuff. The opal from here really put Australia on the map. You should go and look at the cemetery. Not far to walk. And the first experimental solar station is further along. It's closed now, but proved a point. Then you can go past the Blocks and Sullivans Hill to the fossicking field and, well, that's it, you've done White Cliffs.'

‘I see. Well, after you've taken us to these places I'd like to see Opal Lake, too,' said Kerrie.

Davo lifted his shoulders. ‘Dunno that anyone else wants to trek all the way out there. More of the same, 'cept smaller. Scenery much of a muchness, if you're looking for that.'

Kerrie could tell that he didn't want to go any further than White Cliffs and suddenly his attitude made her determined to go to Opal Lake.

‘Look, Davo, you said that a visit to Opal Lake was an option. Well, I want to take that option.'

‘Okay. I'll talk to the others. But they're not going to want to hang around out there, I reckon. It'll be just in and out.'

‘Well, that might not be long enough for me. Is there somewhere to stay? If there is, you could just leave me there and pick me up next time you're on tour.'