Watching the Climbers on the Mountain (12 page)

The air was thick with cigarette smoke and the strong smell of beer. Behind the bar a man and two girls were cheerfully serving the noisy customers. Someone called to Ward Rankin, and the three of them moved across and joined him. It was Reg Waterhouse, the organiser of the boxing tournament and the owner of a new caravan park and tourist centre on the edge of town. There was a group of men around him and they all looked at the stockman. Some of the younger ones nodded a greeting, while the others just stared, but each of them in his own way showed a special interest in Crofts. Waterhouse grabbed the arm of one of the men and then grabbed the stockman's arm. ‘Laurie Hill, Robert Crofts. Go on shake hands you two.' A few of the men laughed nervously and looked at each other and Crofts could sense that particular communication that takes place in a group of men like this.

Robert Crofts reached out and took Laurie Hill's hand. As their eyes met he saw the look of contempt the other man was giving him.

Waterhouse continued, ‘I'll be in here all day'—he was playing up the role of official-in-charge for all it was worth—‘and if I catch any of you boys drinking,' turning to include Gil in his warning, ‘I'll disqualify you. Is that clear?'

Ward Rankin muttered with disbelief, ‘Come off it, Reg, you haven't matched him with Laurie?'

At this everyone became quiet. One of the older men in the group leaned forward; he was standing next to the stockman's opponent and had his hand on Hill's shoulder. Ignoring Crofts and addressing the station owner, the man said, ‘Laurie'll go easy on him, Ward.'

Crofts saw that the man speaking was sick. His eyes were watery and yellowish and there was a suffocating thickness in his voice which forced him to gasp for breath mid-sentence.

When he had spoken, the sick man turned to the stockman, gazing silently at him for several seconds, searching for something in the young man his son was to fight—for it was plain from the likeness that he was Laurie Hill's father. Whatever he saw, or imagined he saw in Crofts, it seemed to satisfy him, and he turned back to the group.

The likeness between father and son was not in their build or their features. The son was tall, over six feet, and although probably no more than twenty-three, he was already verging on beefiness. The father was of less-than-average height, and fleshless—his yellow short-sleeved shirt and brown shorts hung on him so loosely that he looked more naked than clothed. The likeness between the two men was rather in their manner, which was implacable. Their every gesture and glance expressed an unemphatic insolence, directed, it seemed, towards everyone and everything. And at this moment their target was the station owner and his stockman.

Ray Hill was the Shire foreman and his son was stationed throughout the year in the south of the State at an RAAF base where, according to his father, he had distinguished himself in the boxing ring. Most of the other men in the group were Ray Hill's workmates—his subordinates—on the Shire council.

‘Now then, Ray, there's no need for any of this “go easy on you” stuff,' Waterhouse said, looking around and smiling at everyone, trying to make light of things. ‘She's just a bit of friendly competition to raise some cash for the Red Cross.'

He turned to Gil, as if the last word had now been said on this matter. ‘I can't introduce you to your bloke at this juncture, Gil, but I don't think he'll give you too much trouble from what I've seen of him.' He laughed and again looked around at the others, encouraging them. There was an amused shifting and murmuring among some of the younger ones and the word ‘coon' was mentioned, but the older men ignored Waterhouse and kept watching the foreman; it was clear they had an interest in the outcome of his son's fight.

‘Robert's had no experience, Reg,' Ward Rankin said mildly. He continued to protest more because he knew he was expected to defend the stockman's interests than from a wish to see the bout cancelled. He was finding it increasingly difficult to pay attention and only half-listened while Waterhouse repeated his reassurance that the bout would be a cheerful and friendly one—everyone present knew that nothing the Hills were involved in could be either of these things.

Secretly Ward Rankin was experiencing a growing feeling of excitement as he considered the prospect of Robert fighting this man. It was such a strong feeling that his breathing became faster and the faces of the men in the bar became remote.

On the way into town in the car this morning he had felt sure that something important would happen today; he had even forced himself to consider it a certainty, even though he knew it was only a wish. Now his wish had become real—Crofts' vulnerability was a startling fact for everyone to see.

The station owner's heart began to beat faster and he could no longer resist sneaking a glance at the stockman's beautiful worried profile. Robert Crofts' vulnerability excited him more than he could have imagined; and he smiled as he thought for some reason of his copy of
Gulliver's Travels
, which Alistair had reported was discarded on the floor of the stockman's quarters.

He heard the unpleasant sound of the Shire foreman's congested cough as if it were coming from another room; his voice was insistent: ‘Laurie won't hurt him.' The station owner put out his hand and touched Crofts' arm lightly. ‘It'll be all right, Robert,' he said, knowing that to the others he must seem to be the willing accomplice of the disgusting foreman. The extent of his hypocrisy struck him for a moment and he felt a sudden thickness at the back of his mouth that made him struggle to swallow. But immediately he assured himself that, at a higher level than all this, he could justify his behaviour. ‘Don't worry, Robert! Laurie has promised to take it easy.'

‘Ward's right,' the foreman said insistently. ‘You've got Laurie's word on it.' There was a suggestion of a smile on the man's lips, but the expression in his eyes remained cold and preoccupied. His workmates kept glancing at him, checking his reactions and adjusting their own accordingly. They murmured their agreement.

Sure of their attention—or perhaps indifferent to it—the foreman dragged air into his congested lungs. ‘You've got yourself a good looking boy there, Ward'—he paused very slightly, his gaze lingering suggestively on Crofts—‘this time.' The expressions on the other men's faces slowly took on the suggestion of the foreman's smile, and as understanding dawned on them their eyes passed from the station owner to the stockman and back again to the station owner, discovering something that greatly entertained them.

Gil Sturgiss appealed quietly to the station owner. ‘Fair go, Ward! Robert can't take him on.'

Waterhouse stepped in quickly. ‘No one ever gets hurt in these things, you ought to know that, Gil.'

Gil turned slowly and looked at the caravan park owner for a moment. ‘You fight him then.'

Ray Hill cackled and coughed and one of the men asked, ‘What about it, Reg?'

Someone else observed with mild delight, ‘Laurie'll go easy on you.'

The caravan park owner ignored their laughter. He could take it, and the insults of Gil Sturgiss. In his opinion tourism was the industry of the town's future and cattle were destined to become an historic sideshow. He saw himself in this development as a modern pioneer every bit as deserving of respect as the ancestors of the Sturgiss and the Rankin families who had driven their herds north into the bush more than a century ago.

Reg Waterhouse turned to the stockman, unsmiling now, no longer pretending to be everyone's friend. ‘You came in here to confirm your nomination, Robert.' He held out his hand. ‘It is officially confirmed.' He was a successful businessman. His success justified everything. He shook the stockman's hand briefly and turned his back on them all. ‘I'm going for a piss.'

They ignored him. They were watching Robert Crofts. His predicament fascinated them; in the reality of his fear they were each privately experiencing a fear of their own. They were tempted both to rescue the stockman from his plight—ultimately he was one of them—and at the same time to goad him to resolve it alone. That to a man they chose the latter option was not simply because of the money they had wagered on this fight; they chose it because this fight would be different. That much they sensed. Their foreman, the station owner and Reg Waterhouse disliked each other, yet were in agreement that the stockman and Laurie Hill should fight, and that no other match would do—
they
had something more interesting than money at stake.

•

Out in the street the light had hardened. The sky had changed from azure to white and bore down on the hills surrounding the town, seeming to force them into the distance until they had become whitish shadows on the horizon. In this stark light Springtown's wooden buildings and its short flat stretch of bitumen were more exposed, as if, in this adjustment of the landscape, they had been disowned. The cars angled to the kerb were unattended, their duco shimmering in the haze. The few people still on the streets crossed the open spaces quickly, seeking the shade of awnings and preoccupied with reaching the coolness of interiors—not one of them looked up beyond the abrupt edge of the town towards the encircling bush.

Gil and the stockman walked together in silence.

The town's existence seemed so precarious that Crofts was amazed that he should have arrived here at all and be walking on its streets. The bush was the only certainty. A few more steps, another hundred metres or so and he would be back in it. And if he went on and walked far into it and then looked back from a distant hill he knew he would see that this town and its people had never existed; and at a certain point, just beyond the end of this bitumen, Gil would stop and say nothing and watch him walk on and would not follow.

Robert Crofts raised his eyes towards the remote ranges and saw how inaccessible they had become. He longed to be alone; then the unprovoked viciousness of Laurie Hill and the foreman towards him—as if he had strayed here and were marked for it—would all have been an illusion. He would return to his careful work in the quiet coolness of the early mornings on the station; the pleasures and the peacefulness and the mild progression of days he had known there at first would resume their pattern. Cranky Ward Rankin would begin again to find fault with everything he did and the station on the edge of the ironbark forest would become his world once more. Relaxed and fresh from his bath he would sit by the creek in the evenings again, his muscles pleasantly aching from his day's work and he would gaze in wonder at the flaring sunsets over the wild peaks of Salvator Rosa.

But he knew he was kidding himself; it was a way of life that could only interest him now if his boss's wife were to join him in it. He couldn't turn the clock back, so perhaps, he thought to himself, he would leave the station and have done with the Rankins altogether . . .

Gil touched his arm. ‘Let's take a look inside?'

They stood in front of the entrance to the red and black tent. It was deserted. The rides were still. Everything was waiting for the evening; builders' scaffolding held vacant tiers of seats in a careful gridwork and a square ring had been erected. There was a chemical smell which Gil said was waterproofing compound on the canvas. They went out again.

The day dragged by, getting hotter all the time. They didn't say as much, but they were both reluctant to go too soon to Ida's cousin's house where everyone would be drinking and eating and they would have to just watch. So they explored the perimeter of the town. Waterhouse's caravan park was the only recent development—a patch of dizzy green in the silver dryness. A huge crossbar-gate, in imitation of a Hollywood cattle ranch, had been erected out the front by the road and inside there were rows of neatly spaced trees, one tree to each van site. Mesmerised, Gil and Crofts stood and watched the sprinklers. There was no one about.

Eventually, when there was nothing else to do, they went over to Ida's cousin's place. The large weatherboard house was old and well kept. It was surrounded by a cool garden and there were people everywhere. Gil introduced the stockman to his brothers and their families. Afterwards Crofts remembered none of their names; they melded for him into a smiling tribe whose cleanly scrubbed members shifted about, one replacing another without any noticeable change—even Ida was absorbed by this phenomenon of shared features.

From a seat on the wide verandah he looked in through a window and watched her talking to a group of people. She was wearing a floral dress—like the rest of the women—and her hair was pulled up and piled on top of her head in a style that was unfamiliar to him. She was like a stranger. He could not see her as the same woman who had offered to take him to Mt Mooloolong, and he could not bring the two images of her together in his mind. She moved away eventually, without noticing him, but he continued gazing vacantly in through the window. He felt as if he were in another dimension from the flurry of activity around him.

He sipped the orange juice that had grown warm in the glass and he stared and sweated and tried not to concentrate on the menacing image of Laurie Hill's unpleasant features. And he tried to ignore the queasy fear that was gathering in his stomach like a pool of cold bile. He had never felt more alone than now. In his anxiety, time slowed down and no more than minutes passed between checks.

He got up and walked around, exploring the garden and the rooms, but it did not help. Then someone stopped him and said the station owner was looking for him, and he saw Ward Rankin and Gil Sturgiss coming towards him. ‘We'd better go and take a look and see what's going on I suppose,' Rankin said. As they were going out to the car Alistair appeared and tagged along.

The dressing room was a canvas annexe with buckets and big canvas bags full of boxing gloves and boxing shoes tied in pairs with their laces. There was even a pile of shorts for anyone who had forgotten to bring their own. In one corner was a bed, a stretcher and a box of first-aid equipment. A pale boy in a St John's Ambulance uniform stood guard. Several young men were undressing in silence. They moved slowly, concentrating, taking their shirts off and rolling them up carefully with their jeans, making little bundles and placing them squarely on their boots. Waterhouse was going from one to the other with gloves and shoes. ‘What size? Try these.' Back and forth. And then he'd shout at the curious children to keep out.