Eucalyptus by Murray Bail Read Free Book Online Page B

pattern of bark, and there was the weird-looking homestead as well, impressive in its dark imbalance, and glimpsed at a window or in a cotton dress at the middle distance, with an elbow welded to a tree, his daughter.
    Holland had toyed with the idea of fitting labels to the trees.
    Eventually he had them made up by the same firm that supplied the Royal Botanic Gardens in Sydney, the common and specific names neatly engraved on rectangles of weatherproof aluminium, about hand-size. A bright young chap had delivered them personally—a partner in the firm. Together they checked them over on the verandah, while talking about this and that. It took them hours. When Ellen came out with tea on a tray they were so engrossed all she could see was the stranger’s neck, and Holland didn’t introduce her. Later Holland would leave the names piled in the corner of his office which doubled as his bedroom. After all, by then he could identify each and every eucalypt, almost without looking.

    A few notes, nothing definite, on feminine beauty . Briefly, and in a timid, earnest voice. Of course; why not? The idea of Ellen’s beauty had travelled long distances (was said to have crossed two oceans) and in the process inscribed a small legend.
    Here it’s worth noting that beauty composed of porcelain niceness produces a weaker response in men than a ‘beauty’ that appears more aware of itself. Smoothness, niceness—they’re the kiss of death. In the male they activate obscure notions of the Mother! And—sexually speaking—who wants that? Whereas if the main component in beauty is a certain dissatisfaction or bad temper, it banishes in men all associations with the mother and so allows an immediate, unencumbered attraction across a broad front.
    All this was multiplied in Ellen by another factor.
    In the brief time when women wore little hats with veils screening their faces, like delicately crumpled graph paper, the little squares filled in here and there gave the face a random distribution of oriental birthmarks and moles. And Ellen’s speckled beauty resembled this veiled effect—protected, veiled, even in close-up; a kind of provocative, insincere modesty.
    In order to survive she grew aloof, avoiding the eyes of men in town.
    The first man who saw Ellen naked was the only son of a local tractor dealer, Molloy. He was popular, a strong footballer. His father had recently given him a motorbike with an iridescent petrol tank.
    There was that dirt road alongside Holland’s property: it had no other function but to go on towards town, while its twin, the similar-coloured river, took a sluggish lunge away from the road, establishing on the distant curve a density of River Red Gums which never failed to attract the eye of sportsmen, even if to reach it meant crawling on all fours through the undergrowth. There was a sandy pool on the curve, concealed by overhanging branches which mottled and browned the water to tortoiseshell.
    On a very hot day Ellen splashed in…came up with both hands sweeping hair back from her eyes. For a while she lay on her back, eyes closed; and in the pale combination of flesh and water, which can both be taken to the lips or penetrated by a hand, three dark areas beckoned.
    When she stood in the shallows her breasts swung a little.
    On both sides the fat gums appeared as an entourage of sturdy older women, raising their skirts above their knees, about to wade into the water.
    Squatting, Ellen began pissing.
    Young Molloy was behind a tree. To see better he took the squatting position too. A fly began crawling towards his nose. Eventually he lowered his eyes—to contemplate the future?
    Accelerating away with legs splayed around the engine, increasingly slit-eyed, watery, he began yelling out at what had been granted to him. Without much warning he felt it all slip on the dirt from under him, the engine spun, and he yawned as he was met in the face by the