Return to Tamarlin

By K. M. Steele

Two sisters, one stranger... a lifetime of questions

When Tamara Slender disappears from an isolated property in Western NSW in 1975, gossip runs wild with rumours she has run off with a local man, Roger Bryte. 

Months later, Tamara’s teenage daughters, Nancy and Mary, realise they encountered Bryte in cav

• Language: English
• Publisher: Campbell St. Press
• Release date: Sep 27, 2017
• ISBN: 9780648121411

K. M. Steele

K. M. Steele is a dedicated word wrangler with a PhD in English Literature from Macquarie University. Her debut novel, Return to Tamarlin, was published in 2017, and she has articles, reviews, essays, poetry and short stories published in various journals, including Australian Book Review, Australian ejournal of Theology, Colloquy, Transnational Literature and Antipodes. Hawkeye Publishing signed her for her second novel, Hunt for the Virgin Rainbow.

Book preview

December, 1975

THE NOISE OF THE approaching truck startled the mob of kangaroos. They threw up their heads and stared. A vehicle appeared out of the trees and rattled along the dusty track beside the wheat paddock, and the roos took off in all directions.

Lionel looked out the window at the animals bouncing through the crop and cursed. ‘Bloody bastards. I don’t know why I bother.’

Tamara frowned. ‘Do we have to have this conversation every time? It’s not as if the roos are something new, is it?’

Lionel grunted.

The two girls sitting between the adults exchanged glances in the overheated silence.

As they approached the gate Lionel slowed the truck, cursing again as the gears crunched and the vehicle coughed and stopped.

‘I’ll get the gate,’ said Tamara.

Lionel didn’t answer. He leaned his head on the steering wheel for a moment before jumping out of the truck and lifting the bonnet.

‘We’re gonna miss the movie,’ Mary whispered.

‘Shh.’ Nancy watched her mother heave open the sagging gate.

‘Nancy!’

She jumped at the sound of her father’s voice. ‘Yeah?’

‘Slide over and turn the key. And don’t flood the motor.’

She slipped into the driver’s seat and put the truck in gear. She’d done this so many times before she didn’t even have to think about it. The engine shuddered for a second and then roared into life.

Lionel slammed the bonnet and grinnned at her through the windscreen. ‘Good girl. Be careful and you can drive till we get to the road.’

Nancy drove through the gate and waited for her parents to climb into the truck. When they reached the highway twenty minutes later, she was wet with sweat and happy to hand the wheel back to her father. She slid over beside her sister and felt Mary’s head drop onto her shoulder. She may as well sleep. It would be another hour before they reached town.

Mary woke after they pulled into the driveway of the rural store, and watched her family in the rear view mirrors. Her mother was already swearing as she hauled stock feed and rolls of wire onto the back of the truck. Her father’s shirt stuck to his back as he worked, and Nancy stood to one side, her nose in the air while their parents argued about the best way to tie down the load. Her parents always argued about how to tie down the load when they went to town. But that wasn’t the end of the boredom. Then they would spend hours discussing the rising cost of stock feed and the likelihood of an ongoing drought with the stock agent. It was the same thing every month.

Mary jumped out of the truck and went around the back, digging her toes into the dust and watching it powder her skin until she caught her mother’s eye. ‘Please mum, can we go to the movies.’

Tamara nodded. ‘Go straight there. We’ll pick you up after we visit Nana Slender.’ She pressed a note into Nancy’s hand. ‘Now go quickly. Before your father asks questions.’

Tamara and Lionel were talking to the storeman about the weather when the girls sidled away from the truck and broke into a run at the corner. There wasn’t much to run to in Coonabarabran, but anything was preferable to staying with their parents. They followed the main street to the cinema and stopped to admire the glossy posters outside. The image of beautiful girls in old-fashioned frocks lounging in the kind of bush they almost recognised captured them.

Mary read the title aloud. ‘Picnic at Hanging Rock. What do you reckon that’s about, Nance?’

Her sister shrugged. ‘Dunno. It’s on now, so it’ll have to do.’

Mary leant closer to Nancy so no one would overhear. ‘We’re not old enough to get in.’ ‘So?’ Nancy grinned and nodded toward the laneway at the side of building.

They sneaked around the back of the cinema, jiggling each window until they found one that opened. Nancy dropped quietly inside and told Mary to follow, but she was too short to jump through. As she struggled over the ledge, a splinter on the old frame wedged in the naked arch of her foot. She limped behind her sister, her eyes stinging from the pain, but when the notes of the pan pipes floated through the darkness, she forgot about her foot.

By the time she left the cinema, she could think of nothing but Irma, the dark-haired girl from the film. Before they returned to their parents, she convinced Nancy to swear a pact. They would go to the Limeholes for their own picnic and recapture the mystery of the journey to the rock.

Picnic at the Limeholes

THE SISTERS WALKED UNDER the gums, their heads bowed against the midday heat. They made a strange sight in the bush. Nancy wore an old-fashioned wedding dress with a gossamer train that collected twigs, ants and dried gumnuts as it dragged through the dust. Mary wore a summer shift of yellowing Broderie-Anglaise, cinched at the waist with a broad band of pink ribbon. On their heads pale, wide-brimmed hats were covered in faded ribbons and flowers, which they adjusted every so often with lace-gloved hands. As they walked, Nancy swung a wicker basket and Mary hummed the distinctive notes of the music from Picnic at Hanging Rock. Her voice wavered as she tried to emulate the haunting tones of the pan pipe. She stopped in the middle of the path and stared at her feet while she concentrated on recreating the sounds. She wriggled her toes and wished she had boots like the ones the girls in the movie had worn; old-fashioned black boots with buttons and hooks, the ones that stopped just below the calf. The whole experience would be more authentic with boots like that. She curled her toes back under the hem of her dress, and tried to re-create the image of the doomed girls floating like land-bound swans toward the summit of the Hanging Rock.

She started walking again, humming until she hit a high note and her voice cracked.

Nancy turned and grinned at her. ‘You’re a goose, Mary. I don’t know why I let you talk me into this. If Mum catches us in these clothes you know I’m dead.’ She remembered her mother’s face at the breakfast table that morning, every line pinched into dry intolerance, and experienced a spurt of anxiety.

Mary called out, ‘I’m not Mary. I’m Irma remember.’ She started to hum again before calling out, ‘Oh look, Miranda, it’s the Rock!’

Nancy didn’t answer, glancing instead at the train dragging in the dust behind her. It had seemed like such a romantic idea at home, dressing up like Miranda and Irma, but her mother would find out for sure that they had taken the clothes. She held her breath and counted to five. It wouldn’t be as bad as all that. They just had to get home before their parents.

The girls rounded a corner on the track, directly below the Limeholes. Mary stopped and closed her eyes, preparing herself to read sublime mystery into the stunted outcrop of limestone caves on the ridge. It was hard work. The Limeholes was the place where they had their favourite cubby: it was too familiar to be mysterious and seemed nowhere near as impressive as the Hanging Rock but it would have to do.

A dirt track, wide enough for one vehicle, curved around the base of the outcrop before snaking into the bush toward the Newell Highway. Nancy walked along a rut in the road and wondered, as she always did when she came here, why the road was there. It came to an abrupt end on the far side of the Lime-holes. She knew her parents hadn’t used it for years, yet it remained clear.

She scanned the narrow path that led to the slope and peered suspiciously at the darkened mouths of the caves on the ridge, but there was no movement. Their parents were at a neighbouring property helping with the shearing. If anything went wrong, nobody would look for them until late afternoon. She looked up at the caves again and hesitated, but Mary was already climbing the slope.

She turned and waved. ‘Oh Miranda, do please hurry. It will be such fun!’

Nancy started up the hill, her heart no longer in the game. Mary always threw herself into the moment, always acted as though she were performing for an audience. It had been cute when she was younger, but Nancy thought it was inappropriate behaviour for a fourteen-year-old. Mary didn’t seem to get it. She thought she could act however she wanted and still get whatever she set her mind on. Whenever their father tried to explain the importance of taking life more seriously, she laughed and called him an old stick in the mud. He grumbled about people who didn’t know their place in the world, but their mother always backed Mary up. ‘Stop wasting your breath’, she’d say. ‘Anyone with half a brain who gets stuck out here needs to pretend they’re someone or somewhere else.’

Nancy stopped in the shade and waited for her breathing to steady. She tried to push all thoughts of her mother away. She knew what would happen if they were caught wearing the dresses. Oh sure, Mary could pretend to be someone else, but her mother wouldn’t let her off the hook so easily. Yesterday she’d found her reading a magazine on the daybed instead of weeding the vegetable garden like she’d been told. Her mother tore the magazine out of her hands and stared at the bachelor of the year grinning with easy familiarity from the page.

She threw the magazine on the floor, glared for a moment at Nancy’s skirt and then took to her bare thighs with the wooden spoon, yelling, ‘Cover your legs. You’re only sixteen for God’s sake. Go and do the garden instead of mooning over men that are too old for you.’

Nancy shivered. She was almost at the caves, but Mary was nowhere to be seen. She felt a sudden foreboding. It seemed to her that Mary had disappeared before her eyes, just like the girls in the movie.

She started again, calling out, ‘Mary! Mary!’ as she struggled over the incline and onto the flat ledge in front of the caves.

Her sister jumped out from behind a rock. ‘Got ya! Now stop calling me Mary or I’ll disappear for good.’

‘Don’t be silly!’ Nancy eyed the caves. ‘Do you think we should go in with these dresses on?’

‘Shit yeah!’

‘Ooh, I don’t think Irma would say that.’

‘Up yours, Miranda.’ Mary thought Nancy looked sixteen going on sixty when she got that disapproving look on her face. She flipped her middle finger at her before stepping into the twilight of the cave. Nancy stepped forward, trying to catch her sister’s hand, but Mary had already disappeared into the shadows. The shifting scent of sand and old bones wafted on the dry breeze near the mouth of the cave. Nancy hung back until Mary called to her. She could see her sister’s outline as she crouched beneath the lowered ceiling near the crawlspace that led to their favourite cave.

Nancy stopped. ‘What if something goes wrong?’

Mary laughed. ‘We’ve been here a million times! What’s gonna go wrong?’ She widened her eyes. ‘What are you worried about? Bunyips? Yowies?’ She took off her hat, tucked her dress into her knickers, dropped onto her hands and knees and started to crawl through the narrow passage.

Nancy mumbled, ‘Bloody smartass,’ and followed suit.

When there was enough room, Mary stood up and looked around. Weak light filtered through a crack in the roof of the small, circular cave. As her eyes adjusted to the gloom, she noticed that the packing case they used for a table was not where they left it. She peered into the shadows and saw a man sitting on the case at the back of the cave. She started to step backwards and stumbled over Nancy’s feet.

The man stood slowly and stared at them. ‘Christ, you two are a sight – like bloody brides of the bush.’

He moved toward them, his height and bulk imposing in the confined space of the cave. When he came closer to Mary, he stopped for a moment and a flash of recognition crossed his face. The girls took each other’s hands and shrank together.

He smiled, his gapped teeth startlingly white against his skin. ‘Now don’t be afraid, girls.’ He looked from one to the other. ‘Either one of you want to give me a name?’

The girls stood mute and he shuffled closer. ‘Well, I guess introductions don’t matter so much at a moment like this.’ He reached toward them and they pressed back against the wall.

He pointed to the basket. ‘Come on now. I just want to see what you’ve got in there.’

Nancy handed the basket to him and squeezed Mary’s hand, her eyes signalling toward the crawlspace below. Mary read their fate in her sister’s eyes and felt tears pushing at the back of her own. She started to slide slowly down the wall toward the crawl-space.

The man slipped his free arm between the girls. ‘Not so fast young lady!’ He watched Mary stand up and motioned toward the back of the cave.

When she walked through a shaft of light he said, ‘You know, you look like someone who’s very special to me – it’s bloody uncanny.’ He waved his hand as though driving away an annoyance and said, ‘Come on now. A man doesn’t like to eat alone. It’s hardly polite.’

The girls squatted against the back wall of the cave while he rummaged in the basket, gulping chunks of bread and cheese and slurping on the thermos of tea. He dug to the bottom of the basket and lifted a package of roasted chicken reverently to his nose, breathing deeply as he peeled away layers of foil. He ate slowly, sucking on the bones until they gleamed. When he finished, he sat back with a satisfied groan and licked his fingers one by one.

He looked at the girls then, as if he had only just remembered their existence. ‘Ahh, that feels so good. You two are like Angels of Deliverance. I could kiss you I’m so happy.’

‘We have to go now. Our parents will be wondering where we are.’ Nancy’s voice seemed far away to Mary, as if she were speaking from the other side of a wall. She glanced at her older sister and saw a nerve jumping near the corner of her eye.

The man considered the girls and shimmied sideways, sweeping a large hand toward the crawlspace, like a king bestowing a gift. ‘Be my guest.’

The girls shuffled toward the front of the cave and started to crawl over his legs. Mary tried to move as fast as she could without lifting her dress, but her knees kept catching on the skirt and slowing her down. She ducked her head into the tunnel and felt the toe of the man’s boot drag along her stomach and push between her legs. Felt it snag for a heart-stopping moment on her hem, finally releasing when she reached the open cave on the other side.

When the girls stepped into the outside world they abandoned all pretence, scrambling and stumbling down the rocky outcrop toward the track. Nancy pushed Mary along in front of her, whispering, ‘Hurry, hurry.’

Once on the track, they started to run, but Nancy could hear other, heavier, feet pursuing them. She pushed harder on her sister’s back. ‘Run Mary, run into the bush!’

Mary veered off the path and disappeared into the wattles and bottlebrushes under the gums. She kept pace in the bush beside Nancy, before diving and flattening herself against a fallen tree, barely breathing as she held herself still. Black ants swarmed over a branch and ran across her arm but she remained motionless, every fibre of her being focused on her sister.

Nancy kept running, faster than she ever had before, but she could still hear him, close now, gaining on her. A hand fell on her shoulder and she turned on the man, blindly punching and kicking.

He grabbed her by the shoulders and held her away easily, laughing, ‘Steady now! I’m just returning your basket.’

Nancy saw the overturned basket lying on the path behind him and yelled, ‘Keep it. I don’t care.’

He rubbed rough thumbs up and down the soft inner skin of her elbows, as if to placate her. ‘You are a pretty doll of a thing. Truly, like a bride on her wedding day.’

Nancy fell still under the pressure of his gaze. He let go of one of her arms and reached toward her hair which, no longer constrained under her hat, floated like a golden halo around her head. He clasped the back of her head and drew her toward him. She screamed and tore at his face with her free hand. He bellowed and slammed a fist into the side of her head. A cloud of black cockatoos exploded from the gums above and Mary burst from the undergrowth, running toward her sister on swift, silent feet.

The two girls ran across the paddock with skirts billowing and legs pumping. They reached the bank of the creek near the house and stopped beneath a stand of gums.

Mary leant against a tree and inspected her foot. ‘It’s bleeding again.’

‘Well, why don’t you try wearing shoes for a change?’ Nancy reached out and grabbed the bottom of Mary’s skirt. ‘Look at the state of you!’

‘I can’t believe you’re worrying about a stupid dress!’

Nancy rubbed at the front of her own dress. ‘She’s going to ask questions.’

‘Good. We have to tell her about that creepy bloke. Tell her what he did.’

Nancy thought about her mother’s reaction when she discovered her reading about the bachelor of the year. Her cheeks flushed and she shook her head. ‘No! Don’t say a word.’

‘But why? He’s the one who did something wrong, not us.’

‘Just don’t okay.’

Mary studied her for a moment. ‘Well then, I’ll tell dad.’

‘Look, just shut up about it. You’re too young to understand. You’ll only cause more trouble for me.’

Mary stood up and pulled her dress over her head. She stared at the garment bunched in her hands, dropped it on the ground and stepped out of her knickers.

Nancy jumped up, her anxiety making her shrill. ‘What’re you doing now?’

Mary waded into the creek, dove under the muddy water and bobbed up onto her back. She saw Nancy run toward the nearest point on the bank and kicked away toward the centre of the waterhole, closing her eyes on the insistent shriek of her sister’s voice. She thought instead about the man’s boot, the way it had dragged between her legs, and the way he spoke to her in the cave as if he almost knew her. The deep throb in the pit of her stomach and muted ping of adrenalin intensified. She understood what the man wanted, and she knew what he had done to Nancy before they stopped him was wrong. Her stomach convulsed at the thought. She opened her eyes and saw her sister fretting on the creek bank. She sighed and rolled onto her front, swimming lazily toward her. She was sick of being treated like a child. She climbed onto the bank and let water drip and puddle around her feet before squatting in front of her sister.

Nancy stared at her. ‘Put some clothes on for God’s sake.’

Mary grinned. ‘According to the Bible, God made me this way. He don’t care if I’m naked.’ She stood up and danced through the stringy gums along the creek bank. ‘I think I’ll stay like this.’ She laughed, ‘But this isn’t exactly paradise on earth is it?’

‘Don’t be stupid.’ Her sister glared at her before looking across the creek toward the house. ‘For Christ’s sake Mary. I think I heard mum’s voice.’

Mary grabbed the abandoned dress and quickly slipped it over her head.

The sound of raised voices reached them as they crossed the paddock nearest the house. They stopped behind the tractor and peeked around the wheels at the blank windows facing them.

A breeze lifted Mary’s damp hair off her neck. She heard the branches of half-dead shrubs scraping back and forth against the walls of the house and pulled a face. ‘Jeez, I hate this dump. I dunno why we can’t go back to the old house near the creek.’

Mary stared toward the creek as she spoke. She loved the old homestead. It seemed romantic to her, even though the roof had fallen in and there were holes in most of the walls.

Nancy frowned. ‘Don’t be stupid. The old place is full of termites. Besides there’s