Apollo in January

By Kathryn Purnell

Imagine a little farmhouse on the wild high cliffs above Apollo Bay, suddenly brought to life by the arrival of a batch of city kids who never before had the chance of a permanent home. No way are they willing to lose this one, just so long as they don’t starve. In their first week, strange and mysterious

• Language: English
• Publisher: J R Garran
• Release date: Apr 25, 2020
• ISBN: 9780648247876

Kathryn Purnell

Kathryn Purnell was born in Vancouver, Canada in 1911. She travelled by sea to Australia with her family as a young woman. During the voyage she met and later married Australian scientist William (Bill) Purnell.Kathryn embodied the soul and spirit of a creative writer. She maintained an intense interest in everything around her, the natural and spiritual worlds, the everyday and the eternal, diverse countries and their cultures, as well as the human condition (of which she had an uncanny understanding). A gifted educator, she was an inspiration to many aspiring writers to whom she taught creative writing. She believed intensely in the need to encourage women writers, the constraints on whom she felt herself at a very personal level.Bill Purnell's work in the early years of UNESCO as head of its Science Cooperation Division took Kathryn to Paris to live in the immediate post war years, then to Cairo and later Jakarta. She travelled widely in Europe and later spent time in South Africa. Her husband's ill health compelled the family to return permanently to Australia in the late nineteen fifties. It was particularly in this period of her life, with the common pressures of maintaining a family, supporting a husband in his professional life and finding time to create, that she felt most strongly the constraints and limitations placed on the female creative spirit by the societal practices and beliefs of the time.But create she did, both poetry and prose work. She also spent much of her time teaching aspiring writers, mostly women. Active in the Society of Women Writers, in 1998 she won The Alice Award, a biennial award for long-term and distinguished contribution to literature by an Australian woman. Other awards included the State of Victoria Short Story Award and the Moomba Short Story Prize both in 1966/67 and The Society of Women Writers Poetry Prize in 1972. In addition to poetry, Kathryn left a fine legacy of prose writings, much of it unpublished. A current project seeks to redress this by publishing some of her novellas, short stories and her singular novel.

Book preview

Title: Apollo in January

Author: Kathryn Purnell (1911-2006)

First published in 2020

Copyright © J R Garran 2020

ISBN 978-0-6482478-7-6

A Catalogue Entry for this book is available from The National Library of Australia

www.trove.nla.gov.au

Imagine a little farmhouse on the wild high cliffs above Apollo Bay, suddenly brought to life by the arrival of a batch of city kids who never before had the chance of a permanent home. No way are they willing to lose this one, just so long as they don’t starve. In their first week, strange and mysterious forces line up against them, for the house has stood deserted for over a year waiting for Gemma to claim it. Maybe the house had also waited for the summer heat of January, which brought their interesting new friend the Guitar Poet to join the party.

Pauli and Pete and Ben and Cissy find other real friends in big Tony Busoni and the Blunt family from the dairy farm next door. All together, they solve the mystery of the packet that Ben saw fall from a helicopter near the plum tree lookout – the same place where Pete saw a sight nobody but Cissy believed possible…

CONTENTS

Chapter 1

The week after New Year, Gemma, with Geoff – the Guitar Poet, and therefore known as G.P. – and the four Landers, landed at Apollo Bay. The fisherman was anxious to return to Lorne, so he helped unload the gear. He also offered Gemma his hand to step out of the boat on to the pier because he could see she was much older than she was letting on. Rather like his own grandmother, he thought, although he didn’t say so. Gemma thanked him gravely for his kindness, and then he helped carry the gear to a place near the side of the Ocean Road. He gave Gemma a fish, cleaned and ready to cook, and his telephone number in case she might need his help. When he finally departed, Gemma waved him out of sight and said, ‘What a nice man. I would feel safe if he was going to be our neighbour.’

G.P. swung his pack up and Cissy fastened his guitar across the top. When he picked up a suitcase with each free hand, G.P. said, ‘Where are the flies? How can I make it up that hill without flies on my face?’

‘No way,’ Pauli said, and looked enviously at Pete tying bundles on the bike. She almost put out her foot to trip him up, but Cissy’s eyes bored into her back.

‘I’m big and I can walk,’ Ben said. So Gemma loaded the stroller with the biggest suitcase and two cardboard cartons.

‘As if I didn’t know that,’ Gemma told Ben. ‘I brought the stroller to help me, didn’t you know? You haven’t used it since you were a baby last year.’ She put Ben’s own little pack of treasures on his back and let him hold the map. G.P. grinned at Gemma and moved off. Cissy followed behind him feeling very strong under her own pack and blankets with a fat plastic bag of food in each hand. Cissy was a good walker.

The sea breeze was friendly across Pauli’s cheek, but she didn’t feel free. She was very hung about. ‘If you really want to take things and they won’t fit into your pack, hang them about yourself because it’s a long walk in,’ had been Gemma’s advice. Pauli had four bags and all her beads and two hats, as well as the one on her head, and three fur toys and her old Barbie doll as a keepsake. Her hands fluttered busily to keep her balance. She kept close to Gemma, who seemed only a little less hung about. Ben held the map proudly.

‘All we need to buy for today is the bread,’ Gemma said. ‘We must go straight up that steep hill, aren’t we lucky? Pauli will be able to carry the bread, she has tied everything on so cleverly she has an empty hand.’

The hill was the highest the children had ever faced on foot and the hardest the Guitar Poet and Gemma had ever had to climb. It went straight toward the blue sky, and when they reached the top the sea below was twice as blue as it seemed before the climb. They had four sit-downs on the way up, and on arrival the children fell flat on the grass. Cissy and G.P. were worried about Gemma and three quarters of the way up made her park the stroller, which she was pulling, at the roadside. At the top, G.P. flung off all his gear and went back for the stroller while Gemma and the others rested under a tree. Gemma handed each of them a fizzy lolly. The two loaves of bread were squashed into strange shapes. Pauli tossed them gently in her hands, trying to remodel them into their original squareness.

‘The way should be winding but flat from now on,’ Gemma remarked to G.P.’s brick-red and glistening face when he arrived back, his tired arms dragging the stroller. He was disdainful of Ben’s means of transportation. ‘Needs oil and squeaks,’ he said. ‘Good thing if we’re on the flat now. Any more hills and that contraption will fall apart.’

‘Like me,’ Pauli said.

G.P. laughed and patted Pauli’s fine, silky hair. ‘Sure, kitten,’ he told her. ‘You brought the stuff, you gotta wear it, I guess.’ He looked across her head at Cissy, who was flat on her tummy on the grass making patterns with her fingers.

‘You worn out Cissy?’ he asked.

‘Nope. No way,’ Cissy said, and looked up at him, her blue eyes deep and cool within the outline of curling black lashes.

‘Let’s see the map then,’ G.P. said to Gemma. He took it from her with his long thin fingers and held it delicately, which was his usual way of handling objects even as thin as paper. ‘Two kilometres altogether, and we turn in towards the sea again a bit over halfway down this road. Hope your memory is good.’

When she was standing again, Gemma stared hard into the clear grey eyes of G.P. and sighed one of her statement questions. ‘It’s nearly four o’clock and the house has been abandoned over a year now.’

‘Let’s go,’ Pete said rudely. ‘What are we hanging around here for?’ He wheeled his loaded bike onto the road and pushed off. Cissy heard G.P. say to Gemma, ‘Christmas is over and we’ve got daylight saving. Time enough.’

‘Uncle Baker had cows once,’ Gemma told him, ‘But he sold them.’

‘Not enough land for a dairy farm, would it be?’ G.P. asked.

‘He told me once that hills, chasms and caves are death traps for cows. I can see that now I’m standing here. He came to town every year for the honey producers’ convention. His bees paid well.’

‘Maybe there’s a hive or two left. I go for honey.’ G.P. grinned.

Cissy was close, with her load adjusted so that she could hear the conversation, and Ben was like her shadow. ‘So do I,’ she said.

‘Me too,’ said Ben.

They walked strung out like a flock of goats. Pauli jingled along last. They passed a respectable farm with a black gate and two white wagon wheels. It made them wonder about the place where they would sleep. They didn’t speak their thoughts out loud because each wished to find something unique that was better not mentioned in case it didn’t materialise. When the truck stopped, they were all startled, and Ben ran back from Cissy to Gemma.

The driver stuck his head out the window. ‘How far yah going?’

Gemma answered. ‘To the Baker property, off the Wild Horse Road.’

The man sniffed twice through a bulbous nose that spread half across his large-pored face. ‘Watcha’ comin’ this way for then, with them kids carryin’ all that stuff?’ He seemed surprised at his own words and closed his mouth into a tight line as if he was tired.

‘This is the way I came last time,’ Gemma said pleasantly. ‘It’s my uncle’s property.’

‘Oh,’ said the man with a kind of relief. ‘On holiday then, hop in. I’ll take yer as far as the turn-off.’

Gemma looked at Ben and then over Pauli’s head at G.P. G.P. leaned back so Cissy could lift his guitar off his pack. His shoulder-length blonde hair waved in the sunlight. He was easily the tallest of them all for all the lightness of his movements.

‘Cripes,’ the man said. ‘Thought you was a girl. My mistake.’

‘Yeah,’ G.P. said in his clear, louder voice. He swung his pack, and Cissy’s and then loaded the bike and stroller into the truck with easy movements before he helped the kids scramble in. He walked round and pushed into the cabin seat alongside Gemma with Ben on her knee, and finished the sentence, ‘Your mistake.’

The man sniggered through his nose, ‘No offence, mate,’ and started up the truck. They rattled around two curves before the man began sounding the truck horn. Beep-beepbeep-beep. Beep-beepbeep-beep. About six curves around he turned into a side road and, stopping the beeping, pulled up at a loosely hung, closed gate.

‘Thank you,’ Gemma said. ‘This is it.’

‘How long you stayin’, Missus?’ the man asked.

Gemma put on her far-away face, pretending she didn’t hear and asked the man her own question. ‘Is your farm close by?’

‘Geelong,’ the man said, taken by surprise. ‘That’s where I’m goin’ now. Back to Geelong.’

G.P. was out fast and getting the children and the stuff from the back and Gemma scrambled down after Ben. From the road she smiled her granny smile up at the driver. ‘Country people are especially helpful,’ she told the man. ‘And you all the way from Geelong and giving us a lift. We are obliged. Thanks from all of us. Goodbye.’

She stepped back from the truck and held Ben’s hand. She didn’t look at G.P., who had everything including the kids lined up beside the gate. Gemma stood still in that place while the truck reversed back on to the road again and drove away.

The farm gate was at an odd angle to the road and the name Baker on the open-ended kerosene tin on the post was hardly distinguishable, the paint was so old.

‘He knew where we were going as if he was expecting us,’ Gemma said.

Cissy wondered if old people were always so knowing. ‘He was horrible,’ she said. ‘If I’d been by myself I wouldn’t have got into that truck.’

‘I should hope not,’ said Gemma in her sharp voice.

Even Pete putting on his bravado bit about the girls being okay with the guys around wasn’t very convincing. All of them stood close around G.P., who was having trouble with the gate.

‘Stop crowding me,’ G.P. grumbled, straightening his shoulders from a stiffness of angle into the tenseness of frustration. The kids moved back a step. He continued grumbling to Gemma. ‘One thing, Sweetie, this gate hasn’t been opened since the great depart.’ He turned to beam his big white smile into Gemma’s face as she leaned over to look. ‘That make you feel any better?’

Gemma didn’t appear to feel better or have anything to say, and the kids hovered like a clutch of chicks. G.P. walked along the fence a few feet beyond the gate post. ‘Come on, you lot, you can get through here,’ he called. ‘I’ll hold the barbed wire.’ After Gemma got herself untangled, she put Ben through and then had to bend down to get to the other side herself. Cissy helped her get her balance.

Pete yelled, ‘Gee, you guys, I’m last. What I gotta be last for?’

‘Being bloody well first all the rest of the way, that’s why,’ G.P. said. ‘Come through, then, and don’t rush ahead with that bike. We’re all going together up the road to the house. Get it? If you rush ahead, Pete, I’ll slaughter you.’

From the rusted gate to the summit of the small hill was a gradual climb of about fifty metres. Underfoot, the defined road ran uneven with small stones and potholes full of leaves and dust. The house on the hill was marked by a struggling outcrop of eucalypt and wattle.

Gemma and Ben panted as they reached the top with G.P., who restrained his stride for togetherness. Because of his height, the Guitar Poet was the first to see over the hill. His whistle was as low and musical as a note of his guitar.

They stood in a group. Laughter gurgled from the children’s mouths. Gemma’s eyes filled with tears. The horizon was ocean; a seascape so deeply blue it paled the sky. Between this ocean and the hill on which they stood was a drop of rock cliffs toward the sea, and on top of these cliffs, on market flat paddocks, was the farm. A little to one side, against a backdrop of ancient pines, sheltered a house.

‘There’s the house. There’s the house,’ Pete yelled.

‘Chill out, man,’ G.P. said. ‘Alongside that view whatever else this place has, doesn’t matter.’

Fences that began on the inside of the hill enclosed the shaggy overgrowth of grass yellowing toward harvest. The road was barred by another rusted gate, and from this point barbed-wire fences lined the road.

Excitement swallowed the tiredness of their legs as they approached the farmhouse. It was a shabby house of peeling paint under a tin roof. The verandah was approached past a shed surrounded with an accumulation of farmyard debris through a narrow gate in an overgrown hedge. Inside this area, Gemma and G.P. tested the safety of the old verandah boards. Pete and Pauli could scarcely breathe so great was the effort to contain their desire to explore. Cissy’s heart thudded as she swung off her load. So much excitement made little Ben shiver.

Gemma’s key fitted quite easily in the lock, and the door swung open with a rasping creak. Gemma stepped into the house after G.P. The children strained their necks to peer in through the open door and surmised the first room was the kitchen. The footsteps of Gemma and G.P. echoed back into the soft sunshine of outdoors. Each door creaked loudly as it was opened. When Gemma and G.P. emerged out the back again they were covered with cobwebs. Just the same, Cissy felt the relief in them and laughed as she dusted them off.

‘We’re going to camp out here until we clean up the kitchen,’ Gemma said. Her eye roved around the yard. ‘There.’ She pointed. ‘Put everything under that tree. We’ll open up all the doors and windows we can in the house and G.P., Cissy and I will sweep out the cobwebs. You three can gather pine cones and small sticks so I can try the kitchen stove when I get the kitchen clean. G.P. will have to check the chimney and the water tanks.’

‘Pine cones,’ Pete yelled. ‘Who wants to pick up pine cones? Can’t I unload the bike or something? Anyway, I’m hungry.’

Pauli had almost succeeded in unloading herself, putting all her treasures into the blue plastic bag unfolded from one of her packs. She took off her best long skirt and stood in old jeans. Her gaze fell with feminine disdain on Pete’s exasperated face. ‘Meanie pig. I’ll collect pine cones,’ she told Gemma. She muttered, ‘You had the bike all the way.’

‘I’ll help Pauli,’ Ben said bravely.

‘Sit first,’ said Gemma. ‘I’m giving everybody two biscuits each and a jawbreaker to suck. That’s all until I can get a meal and a place to sleep ready before dark. I hope I can.’

‘I’ll be in on that,’ G.P. said. ‘Sit yourself down, Ma’am. Sit down.’

‘As for you…’ He turned to Pete. ‘There’s gonna be work to get this scene laid out for living and that, man, is how you’re gonna earn what you eat. Maybe I didn’t tell you before. Last summer I was in on a commune. It folded. Know why? All the bums came there, brought beer and stuff with their handout from the government, and lay about, see; less than half were willing to work. Gemma knows. I told her.’

Gemma was still standing and acted as if she didn’t hear him. Her face was lit up in the sunshine. ‘The house is just the same. Nothing has changed and it’s nearly two years. It gives you faith,’ she said.

‘What I don’t dig is why we didn’t come before,’ Pete pronounced with importance. ‘Right then, when Uncle Tom died and gave you the place, why didn’t we come?’

‘There was your father,’ Gemma said. ‘And the money. To eat you must have money in your hand wherever you are. Even now we’ve come on hope and Geoff’s dole.’ It was the first time since the journey started Gemma had called G.P. by his given name. Pete was so impressed his mouth fell open. Pauli felt