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- Колин Маккалоу
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- Стр. 98/535
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And
there
were
other
salesmen
,
less
regular
patrollers
of
the
backblocks
than
the
Watkins
man
but
equally
welcome
,
hawking
everything
from
tailor-made
cigarettes
and
fancy
pipes
to
whole
bolts
of
material
,
sometimes
even
luridly
seductive
underwear
and
lavishly
beribboned
stays
.
They
were
so
starved
,
these
women
of
the
Outback
,
limited
to
maybe
one
or
two
trips
a
year
into
the
nearest
town
,
far
from
the
brilliant
shops
of
Sydney
,
far
from
fashions
and
feminine
furbelows
.
Life
seemed
mostly
flies
and
dust
.
There
had
not
been
any
rain
in
a
long
time
,
even
a
sprinkle
to
settle
the
dust
and
drown
the
flies
;
for
the
less
rain
,
the
more
flies
,
the
more
dust
.
Every
ceiling
was
festooned
with
long
,
lazily
spinning
helixes
of
sticky
flypaper
,
black
with
bodies
within
a
day
of
being
tacked
up
.
Nothing
could
be
left
uncovered
for
a
moment
without
becoming
either
an
orgy
or
a
graveyard
for
the
flies
,
and
tiny
speckles
of
fly
dirt
dewed
the
furniture
,
the
walls
,
the
Gillanbone
General
Store
calendar
.
And
oh
,
the
dust
!
There
was
no
getting
away
from
it
,
that
fine-grained
brown
powder
which
seeped
into
even
tightly
lidded
containers
,
dulled
freshly
washed
hair
,
made
the
skin
gritty
,
lay
in
the
folds
of
clothes
and
curtains
,
smeared
a
film
across
polished
tables
which
resettled
the
moment
it
was
whisked
away
.
The
floors
were
thick
with
it
,
from
carelessly
wiped
boots
and
the
hot
dry
wind
drifting
it
through
the
open
doors
and
windows
;
Fee
was
forced
to
roll
up
her
Persian
carpets
in
the
parlor
and
have
Stuart
nail
down
linoleum
she
bought
sight
unseen
from
the
store
in
Gilly
.
The
kitchen
,
which
took
most
of
the
traffic
from
outside
,
was
floored
in
teak
planks
bleached
to
the
color
of
old
bones
by
endless
scrubbing
with
a
wire
brush
and
lye
soap
.
Fee
and
Meggie
would
strew
it
with
sawdust
Stuart
carefully
collected
from
the
woodheap
,
sprinkle
the
sawdust
with
precious
particles
of
water
and
sweep
the
damp
,
pungent-fragrant
mess
away
out
of
doors
,
down
off
the
veranda
onto
the
vegetable
garden
,
there
to
decompose
itself
to
humus
.
But
nothing
kept
the
dust
at
bay
for
long
,
and
after
a
while
the
creek
dried
up
to
a
string
of
waterholes
,
so
that
there
was
no
water
to
be
pumped
up
from
it
to
kitchen
or
bathroom
.
Stuart
took
the
tank
truck
out
to
the
borehead
and
brought
it
back
full
,
emptied
it
into
one
of
the
spare
rain
tanks
,
and
the
women
had
to
get
used
to
a
different
kind
of
horrible
water
on
dishes
and
clothes
and
bodies
,
worse
than
muddy
creek
water
.
The
rank
,
sulphur-smelling
minerally
stuff
had
to
be
wiped
off
dishes
scrupulously
,
and
made
the
hair
dull
and
coarse
,
like
straw
.
What
little
rain
water
they
had
was
used
strictly
for
drinking
and
cooking
.
*
*
*
Father
Ralph
watched
Meggie
tenderly
.
She
was
brushing
Patsy
's
curly
red
head
,
Jims
standing
obediently
but
a
little
rockily
waiting
for
his
turn
,
both
pairs
of
bright
blue
eyes
turned
up
to
her
adoringly
.
Just
like
a
tiny
mother
,
she
was
.
It
had
to
be
a
thing
born
in
them
,
he
mused
,
that
peculiar
obsession
women
had
for
infants
,
else
at
her
age
she
would
have
regarded
it
as
a
duty
rather
than
pure
pleasure
,
and
been
off
to
do
something
more
alluring
as
fast
as
she
could
.
Instead
she
was
deliberately
prolonging
the
process
,
crimping
Patsy
's
hair
between
her
fingers
to
shape
waves
out
of
its
unruliness
.
For
a
while
the
priest
was
charmed
with
her
activity
,
then
he
whacked
the
side
of
his
dusty
boot
with
his
crop
and
stared
moodily
off
the
veranda
toward
the
big
house
,
hidden
by
its
ghost
gums
and
vines
,
the
profusion
of
station
buildings
and
pepper
trees
which
lay
between
its
isolation
and
this
hub
of
station
life
,
the
head
stockman
's
residence
.
What
plot
was
she
weaving
,
that
old
spider
up
there
at
the
center
of
her
vast
web
?
