Out of Alice (3 page)

And that was how she had seen him, the man from the beach encounter, coming out of the alleyway dividing her flat from the drycleaners' business next door. She had watched unseen as he strolled away and then, rendered all but incapable, she had staggered indoors and collapsed into the helplessness only migraine sufferers know. Afterwards, her careful search of the flat had convinced her that he had been inside it. There was no open-and-shut evidence to support her belief – nothing was missing, nothing she could point to to prove it had she called the police, but the subtle signs were there. Remembering it now, Sara shivered, feeling afresh the violation of what had been her home. Then, the next morning at work, an extravagant bunch of flowers had been delivered to her desk with a note from Mike promising to ring her. She had stared at the bouquet as if it had been a nest of snakes, wondering what sort of sinister intent lay behind their arrival. Had she unknowingly attracted the attention of some twisted control freak intent upon forcing his way into her life? You heard about such people and the lengths they went to to achieve their ends. Well, she was not about to play. The dread that had swept over her at their first meeting was warning enough.

It was no wonder then that her boss's fortuitous offer of a temporary transfer interstate, following almost immediately after the flowers, had seen her jump at the chance to be somewhere else. In a fever of motion she had packed up the flat in which she no longer felt secure, stored her furniture, and cancelled mail and phone. Steeling herself to the task, she had also rung her mother, who currently lived three suburbs over, to tell her she was coming to see her. Sara had given a day but not a time to avoid arriving to find her mother out, a not unusual occurrence – Stella excelled at evasion. But this time, rattled and fearful as she was, Sara intended to have some straight answers about the past.

However, when she had arrived, early by design, she had parked her car around the corner, expecting to catch Stella in her housecoat. Instead, to her horror, she had found the same man from the beach knocking at her mother's door and peering into the front window.

Pressed into a hedge, her heart in her mouth, Sara had watched as he banged again, flat handed, against the door, then strode to the next-door neighbour's house. The colloquy that followed was brief. When the door closed he had punched a fist into his palm and then got back into his car and drove off. Sara had waited ten minutes, then went to tap on the same door only to have it wrenched open and a glaring householder confront her with a snarl.

‘What the hell is it now?'

‘I – sorry to be a nuisance.' She was startled by his aggression. ‘I was looking – that is, wondering about the woman next door?'

‘Gone,' he barked. ‘Yesterday, I dunno where, and I don't care, got it? Now, if you don't mind, I'm tryna watch a match.'

The door had slammed on his final word, leaving Sara seething with fury at her mother's duplicity. Stella had agreed to see her. She should have smelled a rat right then, she told herself. When had anything ever been that simple and straightforward with her mother? From all through her growing years, she could only count on one hand the number of times Stella had ever delivered on a promise or answered a straight question. Sara had not expected much from the visit, but this was madness – unless she had already planned the move and simply hadn't bothered to mention it? Sighing, Sara admitted that was possible. The only time she ever heard from Stella was when she was between jobs and wanted money, which Stella expected as her right. Sara's temper rose with the return of one particular memory.

‘It's no more than I'm due. I did plenty for you and don't you forget it, miss.'

‘Newsflash, Mum. That's what real mothers do. Not that
you'd
know anything about that.'

She had had her face slapped for her pains. It always surprised Sara how fast her mother's scarlet-tipped hands could move. Her figure had thickened with middle age but she still carried a trace of the bold attractiveness she had owned in her youth, with her strong features and the dark hair an unlikely shade of blonde. Standing thwarted in the empty street, Sara reflected that she had never found a single thing that she shared with her mother – neither looks, colouring, nor taste. The woman was as complete a stranger to her still as somebody plucked randomly from the far side of the earth. But there was no time now to remedy that, supposing she ever could. The man had driven off, but if he knew where her mother had lived, what would he unearth next? With the hair prickling on her neck, Sara slid into her car and drove away.

By the Sunday she was gone.

Mildura had seemed a haven at first – a warm one, it was true, but she no longer felt hunted. When the eight weeks of her tenure were up, Sara decided, she would apply for another regional posting. She need never return to Adelaide, for the Commonwealth Employment Agency was nationwide. The idea was strangely liberating – and yet it was shattered to a million bits the following Friday afternoon when she had spotted her stalker amid the throng of shoppers in the street where she worked.

Something had changed in the night. Sara lifted her head from the pillow as the steady background
dom dom
of the diesel motor slowed and died. She held her breath waiting for the fan to cease turning then relaxed as it continued. Of course! What had Beth said? They had a solar rig and battery bank – so now, presumably, the power was coming from the batteries that were charged by the array of solar panels she had glimpsed earlier. Sam had said he would show her how it all worked tomorrow. Her thoughts turned to the children, to Becky's ambition and energy, and Sam's quiet reserve. She had envisaged little horrors, spoilt and unruly. They seemed like good kids, she thought, yawning deeply.

Sara's eyelids fluttered and fell, and the intermittent splash of the mill carried her into a dream of two children digging in a shallow creek, like the one they had crossed in the horse paddock. They were building an underground cubby but the dry sand kept caving it in.
Bum! Bum! Bum!
the boy swore angrily. In the dream his face was hidden under a large-brimmed hat. Was he Sam? The sky dazz­led when she looked up, and the glitter of gum leaves twisting against the glare made her eyes water. There was so much they could do.
Bum!
she yelled, flinging herself into a somersault, and the boy laughed, temper forgotten, and stood on his head.

Eyelids twitching, the sleeping Sara smiled, her breaths coming soft against the pillow.

Sara woke with a feeling of wellbeing and lay for a moment considering the fragments of a dream that faded even as she reached for it. Roger had wanted children, but she had not felt ready for them. They had married when she was nineteen, having known each other for less than six months, and divorced two years later when she had come to see that her feelings for him sprang not from love but from dependence. She had never told him much about her childhood – her excuse being that she remembered so little of it – only that she and her mother, Stella, didn't get on. She had said nothing of the loneliness of knowing herself unwanted, of the deep desire for something that was missing from her life. She had feared her father until he vanished into the hospital, subsequently to die – from what, she never knew. And Roger had known nothing of how, despite her best efforts as a child, she had signally failed to win anything beyond a hard stare from her mother and a dismissive
Go on, go outside and play
.

Throughout her brief marriage she had secretly blamed her lack of desire for a baby on her own unhappy experience. Children had always been for her no more than a faint possibility, far in the future. She had her flat, her work and Roger to rely on, and for a while it had seemed enough. But now, remembering Becky's upturned face, and the tender worry on Beth's as she watched Sam, she found her certainties shifting. As if some part of her suddenly yearned to hold a child in her arms.

In the meantime she had overslept; the realisation jerked her upright. By quite a bit too, judging by the sounds she could hear beyond her room.

By the time Sara reached the table the children had almost finished eating and Len was leaving. He had a disreputable felt hat on his head and a packet of sandwiches in one hand.

‘Morning, Sara.' His gaze sought his wife. ‘I should be back by five. The wireless'll be on in the cab. Call if you need me.'

‘Yes.' Beth glanced at Sam and away again. ‘He'll be fine. How did you sleep, Sara?'

‘Like a log,' she confessed. ‘Sorry I'm late. I plainly need an alarm to wake me.' Beyond the windows the first grey hint of day was growing and lights burned in the kitchen.

‘That's okay. School doesn't start till eight. We do keep early hours but you'll see the wisdom of it when summer comes. I'll find you an alarm clock. That's a pretty blue top. Toast? Or would you rather have eggs?'

‘Thank you. Toast is fine.' Sara poured tea for herself and talked to the children while she ate. Sam had missed a year's schooling. He looked more rested this morning but his physical strength was obviously limited. Sara decided against the walk around she had planned and asked him about the property instead.

The taste of the tea reminded her. ‘Who milks the goats?'

‘Me and Mum,' Becky replied. ‘Sam used to help but the yard's too germy.'

‘Germy?'

‘The manure.' Beth had overheard. ‘Infection is a risk we try to minimise.'

‘Of course.' Sara stacked cup and plate and rinsed them at the sink. ‘I'll just clean my teeth, then you can show me your work, Becky. And Sam, you might explain to me how the School of the Air works. It comes on the radio, doesn't it? So we'll all be having lessons today.'

‘ The school's in the Alice,' Sam explained. ‘The teachers call us when it's our turn so we get to talk to her, but not to the other kids. Each class has one session a day.' The brevity of the explanation, she thought, showed his familiarity with an obviously complex operation.

Sara had been nervous about this part of the job but the morning went well. The children knew what was required and made no effort, as Sara had half feared, to play up. Becky was a bright child, articulate during the on-air lesson, gabbling her answers to squeeze in her own breathless snippet of news. ‘Guess what, Mrs Murray? Our new governess is called Sara. She's got ever such pretty red curls.'

‘That's interesting, Rebecca,' the disembodied voice answered. ‘Welcome, Sara. Let us stick to the lesson, though. Now, Billy, what number comes next?'

‘Seven, Mrs Murray,' piped a new voice.

‘Beat ya!' Becky crowed to Sam, who scowled back.

‘I was gonna tell her about Sara. You shoulda let me! I'm older than you.'

‘So what? It's
my
news too!'

Sam was behind in his work. Watching him struggle with a paragraph, Sara also suspected he had poor reading skills. She would have to do some remedial work there, teach him to break the words up and sound them. She found a passage in his reading papers and they began on it, but his concentration soon flagged and by lunchtime he had developed a headache. Beth dosed him with Panadol and sent him to lie down.

‘Is he okay?' Sara was concerned.

Beth sighed. ‘Yes and no. He's been getting a few bad heads lately. It could be that his eyes need checking. Kids with ALL,' she explained, using the medical abbreviation for the disease, ‘can suffer all sorts of latent effects from the treatment – learning difficulties, stunted growth, problems with vision. I'll get his eyes tested next time we're at the hospital. He might need glasses.'

‘It must be so hard.' Sara caught a slipping comb, scooped up a handful of curls and pinned them back in place. ‘Do you have much help on the property?'

Beth was making sandwiches for lunch. ‘None. Len does it all now. We employ men for the musters, but we haven't done one this year. Len and Jack between them can handle what needs doing. It's mostly pushing scrub, bore maintenance, lick runs, repairs – there're always repairs when you can't afford to replace equipment.'

‘Does he work here, then, Jack?'

‘He helps out, and he's the district's general handyman. That's why he's fixing Mavis's fridge. Alec, he's Mavis's other half, is a great bloke but he's useless with tools.'

The kettle shrieked. Sara found the teapot and hunted along the shelf for the tea.

‘Blue tin, at the end.' Beth pointed, setting aside Sam's meal. ‘He can have it in his room,' she explained. ‘Do you have siblings, Sara?'

‘I was an only.' Her smile was crooked. ‘My mother told me often enough I wasn't wanted, so there was never going to be a second child.'

Beth looked shocked. ‘That's too bad.
Not
happy families, then?'

‘No. What about you? Were you a happy kid?'

‘You bet!' A reminiscent smile touched her lips, deepening the creases about the brown eyes. ‘Jack and I both were, but I don't know about my poor mother! I was a terrible tomboy. Always on a horse, or down at the cattle yards or catching snakes. That was our big thing for a couple of years – we were mad about snakes. God, when I think back!' She slapped the last sandwich on the plate and rewrapped the bread. ‘The last one we ever caught was a big brown – longer than I was tall. It could've killed us both and a couple of horses, too. We had it pinned down with a forky stick and were arguing about how to bag it when Dad turned up.' She grinned. ‘Jack got the walloping of his life. Bit unfair, seeing as I'm two years older. I was yarded up in the house and garden for a month over it, and I had to learn to sew. I was going to run away a dozen times.'

‘So you grew up on a property. Near here?'

‘Closer to the Alice. Arkeela Downs – Jack's got it now. It's only small, five hundred square miles. He sold off most of the herd to settle our parents in town the year before last. A good thing as it's turned out, because he got the rain we didn't last summer, so there's agisted stock on it at present. Right.' She closed the fridge door and picked up Sam's plate. ‘Lunch. I'll go see how he's feeling now.'

At three o'clock when school ended, Sara walked down to the horse yards with the children, carrying one side of the feed bucket with Sam. They had spoken to her of their ponies and she had pictured roly-poly Shetlands, but the reality looked like full-sized horses. Becky's was a bay mare called Star (for the mark on her face, Sara learned) and the odd-coloured gelding with the crooked blaze was Sam's.

‘He's called Lancer.' His young owner rubbed the horse's face.

‘What do you call that colour? He's a sort of red,' Sara observed.

‘Yes, he's a red roan. There's heaps of different roans: red, blue, strawberry. When it rains we could teach you to ride. If you stay,' he added.

‘I plan to.' Sara looked doubtfully at the animal. ‘I don't know. He's awfully big. I've never been this close to a horse before.' She raised a tentative hand to pat the dark, muscled neck. ‘Do you like living out here, Sam? I mean, wouldn't you rather be in town, go to a real school, have friends?'

The hat brim tilted as he looked at her. With his bare skull covered and the sun on his face, he looked almost well. ‘Why would I? This is the best place in the whole world. Besides, there's always been Calshots at Redhill.' In a tolerant tone older than his years he said, ‘Droughts pass, you know. This country's had heaps of 'em. Dad told me there was one so bad back when my granddad was young that the camels died, which means there can't even have been mulga left.'

‘Imagine that,' Sara said feebly. ‘So when you grow up you'll stay here, just like your dad?'

‘Course.' He switched back to tour-guide mode. ‘See the little birds on the ground over there? They're called peaceful doves. They come to eat the grain the horses spill.'