Katherine returned to her dressing table, sat down and took up her brushes and continued powdering her eyelids and cheeks. Downstairs, a string quartet was playing; later, there would be a full band, led by someone called Frankie, goodness knows where Billy had found him. In fact she had no idea about any of this, all these people, this expense, and all on her behalf. Tomorrow she would turn forty, and for that Billy had decided a grand party must be thrown, not bothering to consult her, much as she doubted Evelyn Monteith had been consulted about that new motorcar. And yet here they were, the two of them, along with every other woman down there, caked in dust or disappointment or whatever other burden they bore, smiling prettily for their husbands, for appearances, for the bloody photographer Billy had hired. They were always expected to be somebody else’s something: wife, mother, sister, widow. They were never just allowed to be themselves.
Still, it would be nice to see people, she so rarely left the station these days. Where could she go? Another trip to Bewley,the same shops, the same faces, the same smiles when she was with them, the whispered gossip once she was gone? Last yearshe had traveled to Melbourne for her father’s funeral (only herself and the children, Billy had stayed behind), and thoughit had been a welcome adventure she’d felt utterly out of place. So many buildings and people, so little space. The manicuredparkland of the Domain Gardens had seemed laughable, fake, people strolling with their parasols like actors on a stage. Shebelonged here, she’d accepted finally. The station, the bush, the nothingness—this was truly now her home.
She finished with her makeup and considered her reflection, better than when she’d started though never quite good enough. Thin lines at her eyes and mouth, the obvious signs of tiredness, the pigmentation and other marks each pregnancy had left behind. She was still considered attractive, she knew; heads still turned when she walked into a room, though how much of that was down to her status, her fine clothing, she wasn’t sure. Maybe her limp drew their eyes also. Barely there anymore but she felt how it aged her, and the effort it took to keep it from her stride. Four years ago she’d been out riding and had fallen, lucky she never left the house without her shotgun or she might not have been found. The horse had spooked at something, she wasn’t sure what, and she’d landed on a rock, not even a very big one, it was the angle more than anything else. A bolt of searing pain tore through her; the hip was broken, she’d later learn. Lying on the ground in agony, watching the birds cross the sky, she’d wondered if this was really it for her, if her time had come. Such an ignominy, to die like this, alone. Thoughts of the children, of Suzanna especially, she was only three years old. Then she’d remembered the shotgun. The horse now standing calmly not fifteen yards away—screaming, foaming, she had dragged herself over that hardscrabble ground and hauled on the stirrup and managed to reach the saddle holster. She lay on her back, exhausted. Fired, reloaded, fired again, kept firing until she hadn’t the strength. Next thing she knew she was in bed, the doctor over her, dosed up on laudanum drops.
Billy had shot the horse right there where he found it. Took the saddle off, the bit and bridle, put a bullet straight throughits head.
She went to the wardrobe, reached for the bodice of her new ballgown, held it against herself in the long mirror over hercamisole. Billy had brought a dressmaker out from Brisbane for the occasion; then back again, the poor man, for a fittingonce the gown was made. And it was beautiful, she had to admit. White lace with blue ruffles, silk almost too fine to touch,goodness knows how much it had cost. Heads would turn tonight, she was sure of it, then later after a few drinks there’d behands touching her back or stroking the bare skin of her arm, the rush of their too-close breath. Repulsive, most of them,though there was a small secret part of her that enjoyed being desired. Of course, Billy still wanted her, pined for her,often painfully so, but things were more complicated there. They had reached an accommodation, was how she thought of it,a tolerance of each other, an acceptance of their shared but separate lives. She did give in to him sometimes (hence Suzanna);they were still a married couple after all. And he was trying, God love him. In his own clumsy way, and for a long time now,with both her and the children, Billy had tried his best.
Julie was waiting outside the bedroom. Katherine called her in, and together they began the rigmarole of getting her dressed. Corset, petticoat, bustle, skirt . . . on and on, pulling and tying and fastening at every stage. Her hair was pinned in a nest and finished with a thin golden tiara. She stood in the long mirror inspecting the outcome. “You look beautiful, Mrs. McBride,” Julie said. And even now, sixteen years later, the name still took her a little by surprise.
Out through the door and along the corridor, her short train whispering behind. Past Billy’s bedroom, then William’s and Isobel’s,both away at boarding school and hardly ever home. The noise from downstairs building the closer to the atrium she came: themusic and the talking, the clink of glasses, raucous laughter now and
