Rain Music (16 page)

Ned returned inside and poured himself a drink. He realised unhappily that although this place might be sealed off from anyone coming down the track through the bush, the river was an open frontier. For the first time since being here, he felt vulnerable. While those men had said they were Carlo's friends, Ned was sure now that they weren't and Ned's gut was telling him something wasn't right at all. Maybe he should report the matter to the police, but it was getting too dark to drive to the roadhouse. He was sure to get lost on the poorly marked track. Anyway, by the time he had a chance to speak to the police, the men would be long gone. Whatever he decided, there was nothing he could do until morning.

*

But the next morning, after a surprisingly good night's sleep, he began to feel optimistic again. The dark clouds that had been looming over his mood yesterday had begun to dissipate, and he decided that by now the men would be well away and there was no point driving all the way to the roadhouse to report the incident to the police. Although he really didn't believe a word of what they had said, without Carlo, it couldn't be proven that they were not his friends. They'd been rough and rude but there were a lot of colourful characters in these parts. He comforted himself with the thought that he would be unlikely to ever see them again.

So with renewed determination, he took up his guitar again to work on a tune that was just starting to make itself known in his head. An hour or so later, he heard the approach of a car. He wandered down to the gate but didn't open it until he recognised the driver as Frederick.

‘Hi, Frederick, what are you doing here?' asked Ned, pleased to see the congenial roadhouse owner.

‘Thought I'd get away for a bit and take a drive out here to see how you're going,' Frederick said as he parked the car, lifted a box out of the passenger side and got out. ‘Brought you a few goodies from Theresa.'

After Ned had made them both a coffee, the two of them wandered out to the terrace overlooking the river.

‘Looks so peaceful and sluggish, that river,' said Frederick. ‘Hard to believe that shortly, when the wet arrives, it will be a raging torrent covering most of the garden and will come up close to the house. Still, you've got a bit of time before that happens. What have you been up to, getting on with your music all right?'

‘Not as well as I'd like – it's hard graft – but this is a nice place to work. Peaceful and quiet, except for yesterday,' replied Ned, and then told him about yesterday's encounter with the two men. When he had finished the story, Frederick clapped him on the shoulder in a comforting fashion.

‘You're right, those men sound a bit rough, but you have to remember that we get quite a few odd bods in this neck of the woods. Take Jack, for example.'

‘Jack doesn't make me feel uncomfortable like these men did,' replied Ned.

‘Good to hear that. Jack's not everyone's cuppa, but as far as I'm concerned, he's all right. And mind, he's a good friend of Carlo's, too. Maybe these guys were just two more of Carlo's odd collection of mates. I wouldn't be too concerned, but then I wasn't here yesterday,' said Frederick.

‘Well, I was, and I don't think those men knew Carlo at all. Both were nasty bits of work. I did think of reporting them to the police, but it was too late to drive to your place.'

‘It's a pity that you don't have a sat phone. Those phones can mean life or death out here.' Frederick scratched his chin. ‘Ned, do you want me to ring the police for you back at the roadhouse? I can't guarantee that they'd drive all this way out here to speak to you, though.'

Ned hesitated but then shook his head. ‘Thanks, but no, Frederick, you're probably right about those blokes. I don't want to put the police to any trouble. This is a hell of an out-of-the-way place. I reckon the men will be long gone by now, so it'd be a wild goose chase. They were shady, but they didn't actually do anything besides nick some alcohol and a bit of food.' He shrugged. ‘But if those men were really Carlo's friends, I have to question his taste!'

Frederick laughed and chatted a bit longer. Then he drained his coffee cup and bid Ned farewell. Watching Frederick drive off down the track, Ned felt the stillness and solitude of his bush setting settle around him once more. Glancing about, he thought he felt eyes on him.
Get a hold of yourself
, he thought.
There's nothing there
. But even so that night he didn't sleep well and he began to look forward to heading back to Cooktown even more.

6

The morning after her
trip to the Daintree, Roberta drove Bella the hour and a half
back to Port Douglas to collect her car. As they drove down the coast through the green cane fields, Bella was struck again by the beauty of the region. The hills in the distance were not as clear as they had been a few days ago, but the sky was still gloriously blue and the sea the gorgeous turquoise colour that one associates with the tropics.

They passed a car loaded with holiday gear and suitcases and Bella smiled to see a small boy and girl laughing excitedly in the backseat. Suddenly a memory flashed into her mind from when Ned had been about ten and she must've been seven or eight. They'd been on a family holiday in the mountains of Victoria and Alex had taken them out hiking to a lookout. Alex had kept up a brisk pace and Ned had complained loudly about being hot and tired. Alex had replied that the exercise was good for him. When they reached the lookout, Alex had quickly taken a photo of them looking at the view, and then they began the hike back to the car. Ned's whingeing increased in volume till he was silenced by a rebuke from Alex, who was marching ahead of them both. Bella trotted in his wake trying to catch up to him, but Ned lagged further and further behind. About ten minutes later, Ned came sprinting up to Alex, tears in his eyes.

‘I've lost my jumper!' he cried. ‘I can't find it!' Alex had groaned, very loudly. Ned had worn his favourite football jumper on the hike. Ned loved his footy jumper so much that he rarely took it off. Everyone knew how attached Ned was to it and it was a family joke. Alex wheeled around.

‘Why on earth did you take it off?'

‘I was hot,' Ned said. ‘So I tied it around my waist and it must have fallen off.'

‘How could you be so thoughtless, Ned?' Alex asked, clearly frustrated. ‘Stop crying and let's start looking for it.' He strode back down the path. They searched for a while but saw no sign of it. Alex became quieter and quieter and he began looking at his watch.

‘Kids, I'm going to have to take you back. It's getting dark and it's not safe for us out here,' he said. Ned protested loudly, saying that they couldn't just leave his favourite jumper behind, but Alex insisted. Without another word, he bundled them into the car and drove quickly to their accommodation, Bella and Ned both in tears. As soon as Alex had delivered the children to Josie, he drove back to the park, armed with a torch. It took him more than an hour to find the jumper.
When Alex returned with the jumper, he seemed like a hero to Bella. Ned was happy too, but the jumper story had come up several times over the years, always to demonstrate how irresponsible Ned could be. Thinking about it now, years later, Bella realised that although Ned was quite young when the incident occurred, the event seemed in many ways to be typical of the fractious relationship between Alex and Ned.

‘Can I ask you what you plan to do next?' asked Roberta, rousing Bella from her reverie. ‘Are you staying here for a bit or are you going to try to find your brother right away?'

‘I'll stay overnight in Port and have a bit of a look around. I plan to try to contact a couple of musicians who backed my brother's show in Cairns. I'm hoping they might have a better lead on where Ned's gone. They live on the Atherton Tablelands. Who knows, Ned might be up there.'

‘Atherton is a great area. It's a good place to stop and look around,' replied Roberta.

‘The whole of Far North Queensland is amazing,' said Bella with a laugh. ‘I can understand why my brother is roaming around up here. It's an intriguing and beautiful place.'

‘I've got time for a cup of coffee, if you like, before I have to get back. I think everyone will be fine for a couple of hours without me,' said Roberta.

She parked the car near the pier and the two walked into a nearby café.

‘I loved your camp,' said Bella as a hot latte was placed in front of her. ‘But I really missed good coffee.'

The two women sat there quietly, enjoying their coffee and flakey almond croissants as they watched several tour boats taking their passengers out to explore the nearby Barrier Reef.

‘By the sound of things, you and your brother must have been close for you to go to all this trouble looking for him,' said Roberta when she had finished her last mouthful of croissant.

Bella was thoughtful. ‘We were very close when we were younger, but not so close lately. We used to get on really well.
Ned used to tease me, but it was never in a nasty way. We used to goof around a lot together; tripping each other up, spilling water, stupid things like that.'

‘Yeah, I know exactly what you mean,' said Roberta with a smile.

‘Ned had an annoying way of looking at things sometimes. Once when I fell over, he didn't help me up right away, but asked me what the ants were like close up,' Bella smiled, rolling her eyes
.
‘Mum always says, “Ned's just Ned,” and accepts him as he is, which is good, but I think she lets him get away with too much. Certainly things she'd pull me up on.' Bella stopped, suddenly shocked at this outpouring. ‘But
when we were kids and I was scared or upset, Ned would sing to me, or make up a song to make me smile. He was gentle, though he could get protective if he thought I was being teased or bullied by someone at school.'

‘That's what big brothers are for,' said Roberta. ‘Was he always into music?'

Bella nodded. ‘Yes, but especially after he started high school. He was a more than competent cricketer but preferred spending time in the music room. I guess Mum and Dad should have figured out early on that music would be Ned's first love. Of course, for professionals like my parents – well, Dad especially, he was a doctor – music wasn't considered a proper career.'

‘Yes, I suppose I can understand that. Making music your career can be very difficult. It's not a safe option.'

‘Well, Ned was encouraged and given every opportunity to achieve. But it always seemed to be easier for me; Ned never quite fitted the mould expected of him. I was a daddy's girl, no doubt about it.' Bella paused to take another sip of her coffee. Ned had always been a dreamer. Alex had called him irresponsible.

Bella finished the last of her coffee and said, ‘That was delicious. Do you have time for another, Roberta?'

When Roberta nodded, Bella got up, went to the counter and placed the order before returning to her seat. She smiled at her friend.

‘My family isn't nearly as interesting as yours, though!' Bella said. ‘You were telling me how they lived in the Daintree? Were they able to own the land?'

Roberta gave a small smile. ‘Hard as my great-great-grandparents worked, they were never able to save enough to buy any, and because my great-great-grandfather was an Islander, he couldn't borrow money from the banks. So they would never have been landholders if it hadn't been for my great-grandmother. She insisted they take in an abandoned baby girl. The child was born to a Kanaka woman and an Irishman. I don't know what happened to the Irishman, but the woman died when the baby, who was called Clare, was about a year old.
So our family decided to look after her.'

‘Even though they weren't related?' Bella asked. ‘That's so generous.'

‘Yes,' said Roberta, smiling. ‘Our people take care of each other, even when we're not directly related. Clare was a pretty little thing, and when she was about four or five a wealthy planter who lived further north came to visit. Evidently he'd heard about Clare and he asked to buy her.'

Bella gasped. ‘
Buy her?
'

Roberta nodded. ‘He promised that she would have a proper education and grow up with his own children. My great-great-grandmother didn't want to sell little Clare, but she felt that the child would have a better chance of having a comfortable life with a rich white family than with us.'

Bella was astonished. ‘I can't believe that someone would just rock up and
buy
a child. Was she going to be a servant, then?'

Roberta was thoughtful. ‘It sounds odd now, but laws were pretty lax in those days, and I think that there were some very loose arrangements about children. And she wasn't trained as a servant. This white family had children of their own and Clare was given the same opportunities they had. She received a proper education. And this girl had an exquisite singing voice.'

‘Do you know what became of her?'

Roberta nodded. ‘She was given singing and music lessons and she grew up to become a very popular singer who travelled all over the country. But she was always known by the name her white adoptive mother gave her, Atlanta, Attie for short.'

‘Heavens, what an exotic name,' said Bella in an amused voice.

‘Well, the upshot of it all was that my great-great-grandmother, because she was Scottish, was able to buy land for the family once they had the money from the sale of the little girl.'

Bella shook her head in wonder. ‘Amazing. I suppose your family was very sad to lose Clare?'

‘Well, my great-grandmother was, but when she heard that Clare was giving concerts all over the state, she was proud that she had been able to give her that chance.'

‘That's quite a story. Did Clare, or rather Attie, go on to have a family of her own?'

‘No, she didn't. I think she just liked to perform. But all our family loves music and singing, so I like to think it was the influence of our people all those years ago that started her on her musical path.'

After they had finished their coffee, Roberta took Bella around to the hotel
where Bella had left her car and was booked in for the night.

‘I'll have a look around Port Douglas before I go back down to Cairns. I can't thank you enough, Roberta.' Impulsively, Bella hugged her and Roberta smiled.

‘I have a feeling we'll see each other again,' she said.

‘I hope so. I'd like that,' replied Bella.

‘By the way, I think our Antony is rather smitten with you,' Roberta said, winking, as she was climbing back into her vehicle.

‘He's just a flirt,' Bella said cheerfully, waving a hand. ‘Thank you for everything and let's keep in touch.'

*

After Hidden Cove, Bella found Port Douglas a bit too touristy for her taste, in spite of the fact that the town was abuzz with the news that a golfer had just been bitten by a crocodile while on the golf course.
Bet that's not on the usual tourist itinerary
, Bella thought to herself as she lazed in the hotel pool, cooling off.

She'd rung her mother and told her about the wonderful time she'd had in the Daintree, and Josie had told her
that she'd had a brief chat with Ned a few days earlier. Unfortunately he hadn't mentioned where he was staying. Ned had seemed fine, Josie had said, but he was still disinclined to come down to Tennyson for his father's dedication ceremony. ‘Such a shame,' said Josie, sighing. ‘In years to come, I think he'll regret his decision. But there is nothing I can do about it. It's his choice.'

But I can still do something
, thought Bella fiercely. She had finally received a text from Ned saying he was too busy to catch up with her while she was visiting Queensland. She'd texted him back saying she was happy to travel to wherever he was, but she'd got no response. Hearing the disappointment in her mother's voice, Bella began to feel fired up about Ned all over again. So when she'd hung up from Josie, she tried once more to ring the number that Sarah had given her for the backing band. Her call went unanswered, yet again. This was the third time she had tried ringing since she'd arrived in Port Douglas. How on earth was she going to track Ned down if her phone calls weren't answered?

Later, sitting in the shade under an umbrella, she saw she'd missed a call and immediately rang back.

‘Hi, Irene, it's Bella. Sorry, I missed you while I was in the pool.'

‘Lucky you. I'm slaving away in a studio, listening to a group lay down some tracks. It's like a cave, no windows, no light!' She laughed lightly. ‘Roberta tells me that you had a great time together. I can't chat at the minute, but just quickly, would you like to come to Cairns for a show tomorrow night? There's a couple of new bands performing and they are super good. I was given some free tickets, if you'd like to join me.'

‘That sounds great, Irene. I'm in Port Douglas now, but I'm leaving in the morning,' replied Bella.

‘I see. Well, why don't you hop in the car and come to Cairns? You can stay the night with me if you like.'

Bella laughed. ‘Sounds fabulous. I'd love to have a night out. Thanks for thinking of me and for the offer to stay. Text me your address and I'll mosey on down. See you then.'

How friendly the people were up here in the north, thought Bella as she drove through Cairns the next day, looking for Irene's place. Was it the climate or the slower, more casual way of life? It was certainly a contrast with Tennyson, which was a bit on the formal side. People didn't walk around Tennyson in shorts and halter tops, or wearing the tourist uniform of Bermuda shorts, thongs and singlets. Shops here were filled with colourful versions of Hawaiian and Indian print tops and caftans as well as the ubiquitous souvenir T-shirt. The atmosphere and setting was all about being on holidays. Even the locals working in the shops and businesses wore a uniform of bright shirts and cheerful colours, giving the impression that as soon as they finished work they'd be off swimming, fishing or boating.

After meeting her cheerfully at the door, Irene showed Bella to the small guest room in her high-rise apartment
.
Bella admired the room, which was painted bright blue. On the wall were a lot of photos of different tropical fish, making Bella think that she would be spending the night in a coral reef.