Out of Alice (11 page)

Once back at Redhill, the fact that their room was ready for them and the evening meal prepared seemed to soften Helen's attitude towards her daughter's employee. Or perhaps, Sara thought, she had misjudged her remarks and the woman was simply tired and worried. Both she and Frank must have spent wearying hours at their grandson's bedside and they'd had a long journey today as well. Not wishing to appear to be taking charge, Sara waited until their bags had been carried in then asked diffidently, ‘Would you like a cup of tea? I could put the kettle on.'

‘That's a grand idea,' Frank declared. Hands on hips, he stood on the verandah, looking about and sniffing the air. Jess had gone straight to him when they arrived. He brought his gaze back to Sara's face and grinned, stretching the thin, reddened skin of his cheeks. ‘Maybe a slice of that expensive cake of yours too, eh?'

‘Of course.' She found herself smiling back. ‘I'll see to it.'

‘Then will you come with me to get the goats, Pops?' Becky pressed.

‘'Course I will, kiddo.'

Helen joined Sara in the kitchen as she set sugar and milk on the table. ‘Very nice.' She ran an approving eye over the room. ‘You've obviously run a house before. Beth said you were very capable and I can see she was right.' She hoisted a carrier bag onto the bench. ‘I brought a couple of extra loaves out. Beth said you'd been learning to bake?'

‘A precaution – against Sam's treatment trips,' Sara agreed. ‘But I like it. How do you take your tea, Mrs Ketch?'

Helen pulled a chair out. ‘Just as it comes. And call me Helen, please.' She inspected the cake. ‘Frank will enjoy that. I'll cook while I'm here, but if you like I could show you a few other yeast recipes. You'll have time during the holidays?'

‘Oh, yes, I imagine so.' Sara added milk to her own tea, relieved that they would get on together. ‘I'll look forward to it.' A faint murmur in the distance had her cocking her head. ‘That could be Len coming home. I'll get down another cup.'

Over the next few days the five adults hung on the daily phone calls from the Alice, charting Sam's progress from his first full meal to his first shaky walk around his bed. Everything was finally going his way. His blood tests were improving, his strength slowly returning. The fact that he would be staying in town for a while meant that he could leave hospital sooner than if he had been returning immediately to the station. He was still ill, of course, but the immediate crisis was over. The concerned phone calls from far-flung neighbours dwindled and Len's lugubrious face seemed to relax a little as he came and went about the place. He was mostly in Frank's company. They had been to Wintergreen, where the drillers had pulled out of their first hole, and were now trying another site with Bungy in what Jack, who had also been over to the property, called baying attendance.

‘You could hear him clear across the station,' he said. ‘And not just when he realised it was a dud hole. Old Flo won't let him swear at home, so he makes up for it on the run.'

‘They didn't get water, then?' Sara was surprised by the depth of her disappointment.

‘Oh, yeah, but just a trace. Made it worse. Poor old Bungy thought he had it, but no sooner did they get it up than it stopped. It happens sometimes.'

‘Perhaps he'll have better luck with the next hole.' Sara put down the scissors she was using and knitted her brows. ‘Something I meant to ask you . . . What does poddying mean? Rinky mentioned it at the fundraiser.'

‘It just means she's raising orphan calves by hand. They've got quite a goat flock at Munaroo so there's milk to spare. Pregnancy weakens droughted cows. With a calf on 'em they soon die, so she's saving what she can on goat's milk.'

‘Oh, poor things, that's awful! What about the calves here? Don't you —'

‘Len shot 'em as they were born. Only way to save the cows.'

Shocked, Sara raised a hand to the base of her throat. ‘That's – that's dreadful!'

‘Yeah, well, it's drought. What are you doing?' Jack twisted his head to scan the scatter of papers spread across the trestle table on the verandah.

‘Oh, Becky's making something for Sam.' She blinked, trying to match his matter-of-fact tone. ‘A welcome-home gift for when he finally gets here,' she explained. ‘I'm just helping her along. It's a bit hard to find the sorts of pictures she needs. And it's a lot of effort for little reward. Not easy for a nine-year-old, so I'm doing the dull bits.'

‘I see. What's it going to be?'

‘A map of the station. I'm looking for pictures of windmills, cattle, houses –
small
pictures, and therein lies the difficulty. Your father's going to build a frame for it, and Len's given me a pastoral map so I can make sure she has all the spelling right. So it's going to be a collaborative effort. She really misses him, you know. It's lonely being the only kid.'

Jack moved across to hitch a hip onto the corner of the trestle. ‘Were you lonely growing up?'

‘Yes, I was. It was hard for me to make friends; Stella never let any child come over to play, you see, so of course they palled up more easily with other kids. When I was in third grade a girl I was friends with wanted to come over, but she never even made it through the gate. After that I was always too scared and ashamed to ask anyone. So I wasn't asked either. And the older you get, the harder it becomes. I envy you and Beth, what you had as children.'

‘She was your mother. Why would she be like that?'

‘When it comes to Stella, why anything? She happened to be out the front of our house when we turned up and she just yelled that one brat was bad enough, and for Peggy – that was her name, Peggy Mansfield – to get off home before she set the dog on her. We didn't have a dog.' Sara picked up the scissors and turned them in her hands. ‘She never talked to me again, Peggy. Nor any of the other girls in that class. They used to whisper about Stella being a witch.'

‘Sounds more like a bitch to me.'

‘Well, that was how she was.' Sara gave a rueful smile. ‘Kids are amazingly resilient, though. I had an imaginary friend all through primary school. The funny thing is I was never sure if it was a boy or a girl – I guess its gender depended on my need at that moment. I called it You. It was someone to play with and talk to, even if it was all in my head.' She hesitated, laid the scissors down again and looked at Jack. ‘These last few days I've been wondering . . . I suddenly remembered You, you see, for the first time in years, and I've been wondering if all the time it – he – was Ben? Do you think that's possible? That I had some sort of hidden, I don't know, memory or intuition that prompted the creation of him as an imaginary friend? It's quite common for children to have them.'

‘Is it? I didn't know, but it sounds feasible. Have you remembered anything more?'

‘It's hard to say. Nothing major anyway, but little things. Only I can't be sure they're really memories – lost ones, that is. What I mean is that last night when I was drying up I noticed the design on the handle of a fork and I remembered it – remembered rubbing it with a tea towel, the way kids do, and saying,
It's a rose!
' She shrugged. ‘But, well, I could've said it as a ten-year-old too.' She moved restlessly. ‘I'll never know unless I remember a whole lot more, or until I find my brother, and that seems unlikely.'

‘I wouldn't pin my hopes on it,' Jack agreed, adding gruffly, ‘but you're not alone now. You've got the Ketch family to root for you, and the Calshots too – that's something.'

‘I'll remember it,' Sara said, touched by his concern. Later in the day, coming in from moving hoses, she was mulling over the conversation and spoke to Helen.

‘How would you go about finding someone?' she asked. ‘Any ideas? There's someone – I knew him as a child and then we lost each other. Now I have nothing but his name.'

‘Hmm.' Helen pursed her lips. ‘You could advertise, put a message in the agony column of a city paper with a box office number? People sometimes respond.'

‘Yes, but which paper? It would depend which state he's in, and I don't know that.'

‘Well, you might contact the Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages where he was born. It would cost you but if his parents still lived there, you could get his address. It would probably be about thirty dollars for the certificate, but it mightn't help. How badly do you want to find him?' She emptied potatoes into the sink and picked up the peeler.

‘Oh, quite a lot, actually,' Sara said lightly. ‘We used to be great friends.'

‘Ah, well, perhaps you should check the marriage section of the register too.'

‘It's not like that,' Sara protested. ‘I just want to get in touch, that's all.'

Helen smiled, a twinkle in her eye. ‘My dear, in my experience, when it comes to men and women it's always like that. But have it your way.'

Sara forbore to argue; it hardly mattered and the registry was a good suggestion. Only, could you get somebody else's birth certificate? She doubted it, but she could at least get a copy of her own. Stella had one somewhere. She had produced it for Sara's wedding, but Sara had not seen it at the time. When she'd asked for it to keep with her marriage certificate, it had been misplaced. Stella was supposed to find it but that had never happened. No matter. She would send for a copy now and if Ben were older, he should surely be listed on it, if not named. If he was, then she could try to get hold of his. That way she would also learn where she had been born, and Stella's maiden name as well. Really, she might as well have been found under a cabbage leaf, for all the knowledge she had of her own beginnings.

Murmuring that she had ironing to do, Sara hurried off to her room. The ironing could wait but Harry was due tomorrow so she would write the letter now.

The evening phone call brought the news that Sam could leave hospital next week.

‘That's wonderful!' Helen's face was wreathed in smiles as if her daughter could see her. ‘I'm so glad. We all are. Wait on – yes, Len's just coming now. I heard the gate. I'll give you to Becky for a moment.' She handed the phone over and they listened to the child's disjointed gabble as she tried to report all her news at once – Sara, Pops and the goats receiving an equal mention. Len took the phone cautiously, his back to the room, listened for a little and visibly relaxed.

‘Great,' he said. ‘That's good, love. Yup, should do. Yeah, soon. I saw Bungy today – he got his hole. Yup, 'bout five thousand an hour, he reckons. Do ours next week. Yup, give the boy a kiss for me. Bye.'

He hung up, rolled his shoulders as though shedding a huge weight and turned to his mother-in-law. ‘I hope you saved me a bite of dinner, Helen?'

‘Of course I did. Isn't it wonderful news?' She beamed at him. ‘He may not be coming home but it's a great step all the same.'

‘Yup,' Len agreed placidly.

‘Is that all you can say?' Helen said, sounding exasperated.

‘Pretty well covers it,' Len said. ‘Jack back yet?'

‘He's in the kitchen,' Sara interposed. ‘What you said – does that mean the driller got water at Wintergreen?'

‘He did.' Jack had overheard. He stood in the doorway, tea mug in hand. ‘Old Bungy was on the radio bellowing the news to Jim Hazlitt. They talk most nights – gives him a break from Flo, I guess. Good flow, and good water too. If he had it to spare, I reckon now'd be the time to ask him for a loan.
Pleased
doesn't come near his state of mind.'

Sara felt a surge of uncomplicated joy at the news. It was odd it should matter to her – she had met the man only once and then very briefly on the day of the fundraiser – but the thought went through her mind that the fierce triumph she felt at hearing of his success wasn't so much for Bungy Morgan as for the entire district. Like celebrating a battle won in an ongoing war. And drought was that war. She recalled Jack's unemotional tone speaking of the Redhill calves,
Len shot 'em as they were born
. What did that do to a man who raised stock for a living? Such hardiness had to be something the land bred into them, for no weakling, she sensed, could survive out here, could make such decisions and live with them, battling on, day after day, in the grim determination that, some day, the drought had to end, and when it did they would still be around, ready to pick up the pieces and start over.

The following week saw more visitors turn up than at any other time since Sara's arrival. The fuel tanker came first, diesel engine roaring as it powered through the horse paddock, throwing a plume of dust that must almost have been visible from the roadhouse. The rising red column was just settling behind the huge truck when a willy-wind tore out of the scrub, crossed its path and shot straight towards the homestead. Sara, watching from the verandah, gave a squawk of dismay and fled indoors, hearing the harsh rattle of the wind battering through the garden as she did so. The open louvres and latticework of the schoolroom were no barrier to the mini cyclone of dust and dead leaves contained within it. Becky's precious collage went flying and papers fluttered like bats until the centre abruptly collapsed, raining dust over everything.

Becky, bright-eyed, followed Sara in to survey the damage. ‘It's a devil chasing you. That's what Uncle Jack says. An old blackfella told him that – willy-winds are devil men.'

‘And the moon's made of green cheese,' Sara said affably, but the child's words had produced an instant picture of her stalker and her nape prickled. ‘What a mess! Do you want to get the broom for me? Yuck!' She had touched her sweaty face and felt the grit transfer from her fingers. Her hair must be full of it too. Sweat beaded on her cheeks, itching its way downward to the point of her chin. It was so hot it
had
to rain, she thought, but when she looked hopefully across the paddock, the grey leaves of the mulga hung listlessly under the cloudless, dust-stained sky. Down near the sheds a motor was running – the pump on the truck, transferring fuel – and from the kitchen came the bump of the oven closing and Helen's tuneful humming. Just another day at Redhill.

Their second visitor was also a semitrailer, this one loaded with tonnes of cattle lick in white nylon bags. Sara added another mug to those on the table, next to Helen's date cake. Afterwards she went down to the sheds with Becky to watch Jack spin the forklift back and forth between truck and shed, unloading the heavy pallets. Frank was out on the bulldozer that day, pushing scrub. Helen later confided that it was a task she hated him doing.

‘He's as stubborn as a donkey,' she said. ‘He knows he should be taking it easy but men never really accept that they're mortal. Well, his heart is, and the doctor has told him so.'

True to her promise, Helen was giving Sara baking lessons and her pupil was rolling then folding dough into a long plaited loaf.

‘Is there a history of heart disease in the family?'

‘Not that I'm aware of. He's just worn his out with a lifetime's hard work, but he's too damn pigheaded to admit it. All he needs is long ears and a tail and you'd know him for an ass.'

Sara smiled at that. ‘Are donkeys so stubborn, then?'

‘Very. When the kids were young they had one for a pet. Nothing much under a tractor could shift it, unless it wanted to move, but they loved him anyway, stubborn old brute that he was.' She smiled faintly, remembering. ‘I think both my kids were born with a death wish. They used to race him at the creek bank and then jump him over it, to see how long they could stay on. Bareback, of course – a recipe for a broken neck.'

Sara laughed. ‘I can believe it. Beth told me about them catching snakes. Snakes! What else did they get up to?'

‘Climbing the mill,' Helen said promptly. ‘Jack was just six the first time Frank hauled him down from the homestead mill. It had a thirty-foot tower.' She shook her head. ‘They were so naughty. I couldn't take my eyes off them. They both got into the stock tank one summer – to cool off, Beth said. If the station hand we had working for us hadn't heard them, they'd have drowned. There was no way they could have got themselves out again. And they were forever wandering off, following the goats.'

‘Getting lost, you mean? Should I tuck the ends under or press them into the loaf?'

‘Tuck them under. Luckily they never did – get lost, that is. We told them to always look for the mill head to find their way home, but people have died in the bush, even with roads to follow. Did you ever hear of Elizabeth Darcy and her son?'

‘What about them?'

‘They vanished from Malapunyah Station, oh, years back. In the forties, it would've been. Bred to the bush, but they just disappeared one day and were never seen again. Elizabeth's husband searched for them for over a month with every man he could raise, including trackers. It's a puzzle that's never been solved.'

Sara paused, fingers poised over the beaten egg. ‘But – what – how?'

‘Nobody knows. It's not the only mystery, though. The bush holds many secrets. People vanish, perish, are murdered – like the Bowman family. They were travelling down to Adelaide. They camped by the side of the road one night and some nutter shot them. Back in the fifties, that was. Or those kids who disappeared from Kings Canyon a dozen or more years later. Their parents were station folk but it didn't help. They found one boy dead, the other was never seen again.'

Sara was thoughtful as she spread the glaze over her loaf. ‘I suppose that sort of thing happens more often these days. People killed or taken, I mean, but in the forties? Could somebody really have spirited the Darcys away? The country seems awfully empty to me now, so what must it have been like back then when travel was so much slower and more difficult?'

‘I don't believe anyone else was involved,' Helen agreed. ‘Something happened to them – snakebite, an injury, perhaps, and somehow the search missed them. It's rough country up there and there's plenty of it.'

‘And the children at . . . Where did you say it was?'

‘Kings Canyon. It's a holiday spot the tourists visit. The children were quite young and at first they were thought to have drowned. It was only later that they widened the search to beyond the canyon, but it was far too late by then to recover them alive and everyone knew it. A child can perish in a day out here, even in early summer, which at the time, it was. The media blamed the parents for the children's disappearance, which was unfair. I'd like to have seen those journalists keep up with my two! There was a huge turnout of searchers – police, army, station people. Months later, it might even have been a year or more, they found the boy's body, then the mother took her own life. It was all very sad, but it can happen. It pays to remember that.'

‘But that's so awful! The poor parents,' Sara exclaimed.

‘Yes, dreadful.' Helen went to the window. ‘I wonder where that child is?'

‘I sent her to the chook pen,' Sara offered. ‘We've been experimenting with dyes made from grass and stuff. I thought we'd hard-boil an egg and paint it.'

Helen's face softened. ‘You're good for Becky, Sara. Beth said you were and I've seen for myself how much time and thought you put into her day. A nice change, I must say, from some of the young women who come out to the stations. Come out here to work, they claim, but they're just looking for husbands.'

Sara rinsed her hands, then whisked the bread bowl under the tap, hardly knowing how to answer.

‘Well,' she said, ‘I've had one husband and I'm not in a hurry to find another.' A burr of sound beat against her eardrum, growing rapidly louder, and she raised her brows at the older woman. ‘It's not Friday, is it? No, of course not. Then I wonder who that could be?'

It was Clemmy Marshall driving a green Land Rover with a canvas back. The canvas was red with dust, but Clemmy looked fresh and attractive in short blue shorts and a patterned top. She waved from the gate, then looked down to unlatch it. A baseball cap covered her hair and wraparound sunglasses obscured her eyes, but neither concealed her wide smile.

‘Hello, Helen. Hi, Sara. I'm heading into the Alice. Thought I'd stop by and see if there's something I can take in for Beth, or if there's anything you need brought out?'

‘That's good of you,' Helen said. ‘We'll think about it. Come in and have a cuppa while we do.'

‘Love to.' Clemmy negotiated the steps, fluttering her fingers at Becky who had popped her head out to see who the visitor was. ‘Hello, ducky. How's your brother doing?'

‘Getting better, Mum says.' The girl stared curiously. ‘What's a ducky?'

‘Just a name. Like pinhead, only nicer. It means you're sort of cute.' Clemmy wrinkled her nose at her.

‘Sara calls me chicken,' Becky revealed.

‘Does she? Do you like it?'

Becky thought about it. ‘It's okay. We're gonna paint an egg.'

‘After we've had some tea,' Sara said. ‘You want to wash your hands, and maybe ask your nan if you can put a pretty cloth on the table for our visitor?'

Becky shot off as though galvanised.

‘I'll put the kettle on,' Helen said to the young women. ‘Sara will show you the loo if you need it.'

Clemmy grinned. ‘I do, thanks.'

Sara meanwhile was working out distances. ‘You didn't drive all the way in here from the bitumen?'

‘No, I came the back route. Rougher but miles shorter. The road comes due south from Walkervale to Kileys bore. Used to be the main track, about a hundred years back. So, how are you passing the holidays?'

‘I hardly know. Here you are.' There was a pause but when Clemmy emerged to wash her hands, Sara continued, ‘The time's gone by so fast. Helen's teaching me to bake all sorts of fancy bread, she's a real master at it. There's the garden, I just hose things but it's not quick, and there're little jobs about the place I do. Becky and I have a project going too. The drillers are coming in next week. Did you hear that they found good water for Bu– Mr Morgan?'

Clemmy was smiling and nodding. ‘I'll bet you never knew so much went on out in the backblocks.'

‘I didn't. Nor that it led to gossip! Here's a man I barely know and I'm tattling his news as if I had a back fence to lean over.'

‘Don't worry about it. News is currency out here. There's poor value in people who don't listen and pass on what they hear.'

When they reached the kitchen the table had been spread with an embroidered cloth and Becky was carefully creasing paper napkins. Helen had put down cups and saucers in place of the regular mugs, and had found something better than the breadboard to hold the slices of fruit cake.

‘Wow!' Sara surveyed the table. ‘The napkins are a great touch, Becky. Do you remember the pretty table you made for me on my first night? It was so nice. It made me feel special, like you really wanted me here.'

Clemmy stroked the cloth. ‘I know what you mean. I feel special now too. How long is it since you've seen your mum, Becky?'

‘I dunno.' Becky wriggled, looking to Sara for the answer. ‘Ages an' ages. She's not coming home when Sam gets out of hospital neither 'cause they're gonna stay at Nan's house.'

‘Well, what if I was to take you into town to see her, and bring you back Sunday? Would that be all right, Helen?'

The child's face lit up as she swung to face her grandmother. ‘Could I, Nan? That would be so cool! Oh, please say yes. Please!'

Too late, Clemmy realised the quandary she had placed the older woman in. She bit her lip. ‘I should've rung you, given you time to – but I just thought of it. She would be safe with me but of course it's for you to decide.'

‘I don't know.' Helen hesitated. Len was out for the day and in his absence responsibility devolved upon her. ‘It's been almost a month but what would Beth . . . I mean, she spends all her time at the hospital.'

‘Why not ring her and ask?' Sara interposed.

She nodded decisively. ‘We'll ask your mum, pet, and if she says you can, then you may.' She looked at Clemmy. ‘I'm sorry, what's your surname again? And it's in today and back Sunday?'

‘Yes, and it's Marshall, Clemmy Marshall. Beth and I are old friends.'

When Helen went to make the phone call Sara pointed Clemmy to a chair. ‘Have a seat. I'd pour but —'

‘Let's wait.' Clemmy agreed, biting her lip. ‘I hope I haven't offended her, only it's such a long time to be away from your child.'

‘It's a kind thought.' Sara's own thoughts were on clothes for Becky. She could go in what she had on, but would need better outfits for Friday and Saturday, as well as a toilet bag, pyjamas, hair clips . . . She glanced down at the familiar, daggy trainers dangling from the child's chair. Something more respectable for her feet too, and a hat? Did her wardrobe run to a town hat at all? Then Helen was back, smiling. Becky's eyes flew straight to her face.

‘Mum said yes?'

‘Better than that! Sam's going home today. She was getting him ready when they called her to the phone.' She beamed at Clemmy. ‘She said to thank you, she'd love to have a visit from Becky and you. I'll give you the address – oh, haven't you started yet? Let's have a cuppa first, then I'll write it down for you.'

‘I could find your house, Nan,' Becky burst out.

‘I'm sure you could, pet,' Helen said tactfully. ‘But Mrs Marshall might forget how to get back to pick you up. So I'll write it out anyway.'

‘And I'll pack her clothes,' Sara volunteered. ‘If there's anything special you want to take, run and get it out, chicken. We mustn't hold Mrs Marshall up too long.'

A bag was soon packed, Sara sorting quickly through the clothes Becky pulled from the drawers in her room. There was a cloth hat, and an almost new pair of red sneakers. Sara tucked a hairbrush into the bag and said, ‘Run and wash your face. Oops, nearly forgot your PJs. Tell Sam hello from me, won't you? And have a great time with your mum.'

‘I will. I wish you were coming too.' Becky danced from the room to hug her grandmother, the dog and, at the last moment, to rush back and enfold Sara's waist in a bony embrace. ‘Bye, Sara.'