It was four weeks before Meggie saw Luke. Each Sunday she powdered her sticky nose, put on a prettysilk dress-though she gave up the purgatory of slips and stockings-and waited for her husband, who never came. Anne and Luddie Mueller said nothing, just watched her animation fade as each Sunday darkened dramatically, like a curtain falling on a brilliantly lit, empty stage. It wasn't that she wanted him, precisely; it was just that he was hers, or she was his, or however best it might be described. To imagine that he didn't even think of her while she passed her days and weeks waiting with him in her thoughts all the time, to imagine that was to be filled with rage, frustration, bitterness, humiliation, sorrow. Much as she had loathed those two nights at the Dunny pub, at least then she had come first with him; now she found herself actually wishing she had bitten off her tongue sooner than cried out in pain. That was it, of course. Her suffering had made him tire of her, ruined his own pleasure. From anger at him, at his indifference to her pain, she passed to remorse, and ended in blaming it all on herself. The fourth Sunday she didn't bother dressing up, just padded around the kitchen bare-footed in shorts and vest, getting a hot breakfast for Luddie and Anne, who enjoyed this incongruity once a week. At the sound of footsteps on the back stairs she turned from bacon sizzling in the pan; for a moment she simply stared at the big, hairy fellow in the doorway. Luke? Was this Luke? He seemed made of rock, inhuman. But the effigy crossed the kitchen, gave her a smacking kiss and sat down at the table. She broke eggs into the pan and put on more bacon.
Anne Mueller came in, smiled civilly and inwardly fumed at him. Wretched man, what was he about, to leave his new wife neglected for so long? "I'm glad to see you've remembered you have a wife," she said. "Come out onto the veranda, sit with Luddie and me and we'll all have breakfast. Luke, help Meggie carry the bacon and eggs. I can manage the toast rack in my teeth."
Ludwig Mueller was Australian-born, but his German heritage was clearly on him: the beefy red complexion not able to cope with beer and sun combined, the square grey head, the pale-blue Baltic eyes. He and his wife liked Meggie very much, and counted themselves fortunate to have acquired her services. Especially was Luddie grateful, seeing how much happier Anne was since that goldy head had been glowing around the house.
"How's the cutting, Luke?" he asked, shoveling eggs and bacon onto his plate.
"If I said I liked it, would you believe me?" Luke laughed, heaping his own plate.
Luddie's shrewd eyes rested on the handsome face, and he nodded. "Oh, yes. You've got the right sort of temperament and the right sort of body, I think. It makes you feel better than other men, superior to them." Caught in his heritage of cane fields, far from academia and with no chance of exchanging one for the other, Luddie was an ardent student of human nature; he read great fat tomes bound in Morocco leather with names on their spines like Freud and Jung, Huxley and Russell.
"I was beginning to think you were never going to come and see Meggie," Anne said, spreading ghee on her toast with a brush; it was the only way they could have butter up here, but it was better than none. "Well, Arne and I decided to work on Sundays for a while. Tomorrow we're off to Ingham."
"Which means poor Meggie won't see you too often."
"Meg understands. It won't be for more than a couple of years, and we do have the summer layoff. Arne says he can get me work at the CSR in Sydney then, and I might take Meg with me."
"Why do you have to work so hard, Luke?" asked Anne. "Got to get the money together for my property out west, around Kynuna. Didn't Meg mention it?"
"I'm afraid our Meggie's not much good at personal talk. You tell us, Luke."
The three listeners sat watching the play of expression on the tanned, strong face, the glitter of those very blue eyes; since he had come before breakfast Meggie hadn't uttered a word to anyone. On and on he talked about the marvelous country Back of Beyond; the grass, the big grey brolga birds mincing delicately in the dust of Kynuna's only road, the thousands upon thousands of flying kangaroos, the hot dry sun. "And one day soon a big chunk of all that is going to be mine. Meg's put a bit of money toward it, and at the pace we're working it won't take more than four or five years. Sooner, if I was content to have a poorer place, but knowing what I can earn cutting sugar, I'm tempted to cut a bit longer and get a really decent bit of land." He leaned forward, big scarred hands around his teacup. "Do you know I nearly passed Ame's tally the other day? Eleven tons I cut in one day!"
Luddie's whistle was genuinely admiring, and they embarked upon a discussion of tallies. Meggie sipped her strong dark milkless tea. Oh, Luke! First it had been a couple of years, now it was four or five, and who knew how long it would be the next time he mentioned a period of years? Luke loved it, no one could mistake that. So would he give it up when the time came? Would he? For that matter, did she want to wait around to find out? The Muellers were very kind and she was far from overworked, but if she had to live without a husband, Drogheda was the best place. In the month of her stay at Himmelhoch she hadn't felt really well for one single day; she didn't want to eat, she suffered bouts of painful diarrhea, she seemed dogged by lethargy and couldn't shake it off. Not used to feeling anything but tiptop well, the vague malaise frightened her.
After breakfast Luke helped her wash the dishes, then took her for a walk down to the nearest cane field, talking all the time about the sugar and what it was like to cut it, what a beaut life it was out in the open air, what a beaut lot of blokes they were in Ame's gang, how different it was from shearing, and how much better.
