Stillwater Creek (16 page)

Ilona stared hard at the book. Perhaps she should get up and turn on the ceiling light rather than rely on the rather feeble glow of the lamp. The lines of print were starting to look like rows of tiny black ants marching across the page. She blinked and the ants turned into words. If she were not trying to delay the moment when those breakers of fear started rolling in, she would go to bed. Each night she tried to divert the tidal wave by reading anything she could lay her hands on; novels mostly, from the local library. Although the library collection was small, it would take her years to work through it for she read English so slowly. Yet always she would learn; always she would struggle to improve herself and that way, would control her fear.

Reading some more, she halted at the word
peregrination
; she had no idea what it meant. If only she had more energy she would look it up. Her vocabulary was expanding rapidly although she had to be wary of using a long word when a short one would do. Her grammar was possibly impeccable. Those many hours of studying had certainly brought dividends but she suspected her speech was still slightly too formal. In the future she would endeavour to use colloquialisms. When
people talked, she listened out for them and stored them away in readiness for the day when she would have enough confidence to employ them. Although despairing of her own accent, she found the local accent far worse, for it was so different from the way that English was spoken in Bradford. Here it was not always easy to understand what people said. Their vowels were different and if she imitated them, they thought she was making fun of them;
taking the piss,
or
making them look a right galah.

After a while she got out of her chair and tiptoed into Zidra's room. The girl was sleeping on her side with her hair partly concealing her face. The top sheet and blanket had been thrown back, and lay twisted together at the bottom of the bed.

Ilona watched the rise and fall of her daughter's thin chest, clad in white fabric patterned with blue roses. Here in Australia Zidra would be safe, she reflected, safe from the aftermath of the savagery delivered and received by her generation. Not to mention the Red Menace that everyone talked about, although she suspected no one really knew what was happening behind the Iron Curtain. Only a few years ago the Russians were generally regarded as saviours but not in her Latvia. Now they were the enemy and all those former allies were hurling propaganda at one another as if they'd never fought on the same side to defeat the Nazis. She sighed, though not loudly enough to disturb Zidra. If the politicians were to be believed, the biggest peril facing the civilised world was communism. That was what the Prime Minister, Mr Menzies, said and that was what people thought. Propaganda or the truth, there was no way of telling, not until it was all in the past.

Kissing Zidra's forehead, Ilona smelt the sweet scent of clean skin. She knew she would do anything to protect her daughter, anything. She had to; she was the only survivor. She hadn't died
when all those others in the camp had died. She hadn't died when Oleksii had died.

Suddenly she found she could scarcely breathe, her throat felt so constricted. A black wave of despair began to wash over her, and might have engulfed her had she not focused on Zidra. Her daughter was her reason to live. Without her, the guilt at surviving would be impossible to bear. Shutting her eyes, she crouched next to the bedside for some minutes, listening to the distant pounding of the breakers and the quicker rhythm of Zidra's breathing. Everything was going to be fine. She had endured that moment, she would get through all such moments. After smoothing a strand of hair away from Zidra's nose, she untangled the top sheet and pulled it gently over her.

Later she made a cup of tea and took it onto the side verandah. The old cane chair felt slightly clammy with the salty air. As her eyes adjusted to the dark, it became possible to distinguish the glimmer of the lagoon and the dark shape of bushland separating the estuary from the beach. Beyond, the crests of the breakers were silvery in the moonlight. She stared up at the stars, so numerous that they formed a great white band they called the Milky Way. It was a soothing sight but not quite soothing enough. Why she'd unburdened herself to Cherry that afternoon she couldn't understand. Perhaps it was because of Cherry's kindness in offering to do those alterations for her; perhaps it was because Cherry had laughed so much at the story of the beach rescue. But another possibility was that meeting Peter Vincent had reawakened some of those old memories she'd spent years forgetting. War and the legacy of war. So many lives lost or blighted. Even in a town as remote as Jingera, the war memorial was covered with the names of locals who'd lost their lives in the last one and in the one before.

So when Cherry had asked about her past, all that stuff about her mother sewing for her and her life in Bradford and their decision to emigrate came pouring out, but nothing about the war. She might think of it but she would never talk of it. And she would avoid seeing Peter Vincent again. He unsettled her.

Cherry had seemed genuinely interested in her story but when she'd touched her tattoo, and such a gentle touch it had been, Ilona had felt as if she might break down altogether and she couldn't have that. Rebuilding her life had been a battle that she was winning, she knew it, but she had to keep control. For Zidra's sake as well as her own.

Long after she had finished her tea, she continued to sit on the verandah. In the distance the breakers rolled in, an endless thud, thud, thud on the shore. An unexpected pleasure of living here was this feeling of closeness to nature, closer than she'd ever felt anywhere before. A large bird flew into the tall eucalyptus tree at the bottom of their yard, one of the pair of owls that lived there. It began to call, a strange boo-book sound that had startled her when she had first heard it, but which was now reassuring. Several doors up the Burtons' baby started bawling again and then abruptly stopped.

Now her attention was caught by a light bobbing along, on the far side of the lagoon, towards the bridge. A few seconds later she discerned a figure walking across the bridge.

A cloud passed over the moon but still she could make out the shape of the man holding the torch. A large man, who now moved on, over the bridge and up the hill towards her house. She slipped inside, locking the door behind her. Peering through the front room window she saw George Cadwallader limping past the house, torch illuminated. Perhaps he too
suffered from insomnia. Or perhaps the only time he had for walking was at night.

She struggled on with reading. With three new words collected, she looked them up in the dictionary.
Peregrination:
the action of travelling or of journeying.
Hyssop:
aromatic herb with blue flower.
Heinous:
hateful, odious.
Cherry peregrinates picking hyssop heinously.
It didn't sound right somehow. Nor did it sound better when she substituted George for Cherry, but at last she had wearied herself to the point of exhaustion and beyond.

In bed she lay quiet. In bed she waited for those black breakers of despair to come rolling in from the depths and wash her into a turbulent sleep.

Late the following Saturday afternoon, Peter Vincent began the journey to Woodlands to collect the kelpie pup, and to endure that infernal dinner party Judy Chapman had organised: he'd been dreading it for days.

A mile or two beyond Jingera, he saw Tommy Hunter walking along the side of the road, a bucket and rod in one hand and the other hand half-heartedly thumbing a lift. He'd known Tommy for years; had met him when they were boys fishing in the lagoon at Jingera. Tommy was wearing a pinstriped jacket, the predecessor to Peter's winter-weight suit and which he'd passed on to Tommy some months earlier. It suited Tommy far better than it had ever suited Peter, and he must find it more comfortable too, for he was never without it, even on the warmest day. Peter stopped the car and opened the boot for the bucket.

‘You must have half-a-dozen whiting there. Looks like a good dinner.'

‘Might've stayed a bit longer if I 'adn't left me dog tag be'ind. Get thrown into the lockup after six without it.'

‘Ah, the dog tag.' Peter felt slightly awkward, as if he himself was responsible for those exemption certificates issued to
‘deserving' Aborigines who would otherwise be banned from town after sundown. He added, ‘But surely the police would recognise you.'

‘That don't matter. Only way they know I'm deservun is if I'm wearun me dog tag. Anyway we blackfellas all look the same.' He didn't sound angry about it; it was just a statement of fact, like a comment on the weather.

‘How's the family?'

‘Good. Littlest goin to school next year, and Lorna's got a new friend.'

‘Who's that?'

‘That girl whose mother's from overseas.'

‘The Latvian woman's daughter?' Peter didn't understand quite why he felt so pleased with this connection. The day he'd first seen the woman with the purple hat at Woodlands, she'd been holding the hand of a young girl with a mop of curly brown hair. Perhaps it was just that he liked the idea of Tommy's oldest daughter befriending the girl. He added, as he did every time he saw Tommy, ‘Need some work?'

‘No, they're pickun at Prentice's, and the fishun's good.' Tommy laughed.

After dropping Tommy off at the camp by the river, where half-a-dozen kids raced towards him, Peter drove on through the long valley leading to Woodlands. Even here, where the shape of the landscape encouraged clouds to precipitate when they reached the escarpment, the countryside was beginning to look dry.

The closer to Woodlands he got, the more slowly he drove. It was when he got to the top of the first rise that he saw it, and an instant later he heard it: the Tiger Moth aeroplane flying low up the valley. With sweating palms slipping on the steering wheel, he pulled the car off the road and stopped the engine.
He knew what was coming next: that terrible sensation in his breast like a trapped bird flapping around his heart. To forestall it, he gulped the slightly dusty air deep into his lungs. Despite this anxiety, he couldn't help but squint up at the sky. Immediately before the escarpment, just before it was too late, the plane performed several loops upwards. Then it changed direction and flew westwards and out of sight.

It was over, it was gone, and he was panting as if he'd run a mile. Taking out a handkerchief, he wiped his damp hands and neck before getting out of the car. Up and down the gravel verge he marched, breathing deeply all the while. This feeling of panic happened every time he saw or heard a plane. Every time.

Years ago his reactions had been different. Years ago, on a summer's evening just like this, he'd witnessed something that had changed his life. Driving along the Braidwood Road near his parents' property, he'd seen a tiny plane challenging all notions of flying as a means of moving horizontally from one point to another. Instead it had swooped up and down at right angles to the earth's surface. Twisting up like a corkscrew, its fuselage glinting as it caught the slanting rays of the late afternoon sunshine. Then flattening out before plunging straight down, wings tilting first to one side and then to the other. For an instant Peter had thought that it must surely bore straight into the ground, but it had suddenly flattened out and flown conventionally, flown horizontally, for perhaps half a mile. After that, as if fatigued by such monotony, the pilot had twisted the plane up into the sky again and repeated the whole performance. How exhilarating it had looked. How fantastic it would be to defy gravity, to swoop through the air like an eagle, like Icarus. He had longed to try it.

This vision he had kept to himself. Once the Empire Air Training Scheme had started, not long after war had been
declared, he had enlisted. Never would he forget the medical inspection, in a shabby barn of a hall that stank of disinfectant and sweaty feet. He'd stripped to the waist and taken his place on one of the rows of benches until it was his turn to be called. Several doctors, who had seemed ancient but were probably no older than he was now, had occupied the examination booths. One by one they'd determined the fate of the men enlisting. Eventually it was his turn. Of course he'd got in. He was the right physical type, the right age, had been to the right school. After that, he'd been sent to Williamtown for training and had been one of the first embarking for Canada, and then for England, to join an RAF squadron.

Now he stopped pacing up and down the verge of the road and looked up at the sky again. An empty sky. As empty as he felt inside, and lonely too. Normally being alone wouldn't bother him; it was what he sought after all; but this was more a sense of isolation and it was a new feeling. Nervousness, he supposed, at the prospect of sitting through Judy's match-making attempt that was doomed to failure from the start. Yet this would only last a few hours and he'd had plenty of experience dealing with her efforts. Feeling calmer now, he looked around him. White daisies flowered along the roadside and, in the paddock beyond, there was a purple smudge of Paterson's Curse that someone should get rid of.

A honking from a car caught his attention. Ian and Joy Sutherland pulled up beside him, in a new-looking Chevrolet covered in a film of pale dust. They ran a property a few miles away and he hadn't seen them for months.

‘Broken down?' Joy called through the passenger window.

‘No. Just stopped for a breather. Car's running sweet as ever.' Although trying to look normal, he felt he was grimacing rather than smiling.

‘Time you got rid of that old thing and got a proper car.'

Peter stroked his Armstrong Siddeley. ‘These ones last forever,' he said. ‘Aluminium body.'

‘Like a plane.'

‘Just like a plane.' But the aluminium body was the only similarity, he thought.

‘Heading for the Chapmans' dinner party, aren't you?'

‘Yes, and I'm picking up a new kelpie too.'

‘See you there. Give us a bit of a head start so you're not eating our dust!'

The Sutherlands drove up the valley towards Woodlands. Peter rolled a cigarette while he waited for them to get ahead, and then started up the engine.

Now he was at Woodlands, sitting with the Chapmans and their other guests in the drawing room. Through the French doors he could see the blaze of gold as the sun sank below the rugged mountains and then the sky faded to a bleached blue. The upright chair on which he perched must be a valuable antique or its lack of comfort would surely have led to its disposal years ago. Opposite him, Judy Chapman and Grace Smythe, elegantly arranged on a sofa, were chatting vivaciously. They might almost be sisters the way they looked alike and spoke alike and dressed alike. But Judy was a little warmer than Grace, who had a hardness about her, a coldness, in spite of the lovely features. Both were wearing dresses of the same clinging silky fabric. Both were striking in an over-painted, over-treated way. He looked obliquely at Grace. Too much make-up, dress too low-cut, too much cleavage on show. Catching the direction of his eyes, she smiled at him. She thought he found her arousing but the last thing he wanted was titillation from this painted lady.

Shortly the maid announced that dinner was ready and they moved into the dining room. Peter found himself seated between Judy and Grace. With longing he thought of the peaceful kitchen at home. He wished that Judy had placed him next to Ian Sutherland, who usually had a few good yarns to spin. This was what he hated about dinner parties, being wedged between women who either made fun of him or wanted him to marry their unattached friends. He didn't know quite what was expected of him. Maybe he had once, years ago, but not any more. If he wasn't charming, the women would dismiss him as dull and he wasn't sure he wanted that. His ego was too big, or too fragile. But if he was too charming, amazing Grace might fall for him. That would be far worse; he had to get through the rest of the weekend. He wanted to do it with grace but without Grace. In spite of himself, he grinned.

Judy saw the grin and smiled encouragingly. He reminded himself of the reason he had come: for the tennis the next day and because of Jack Chapman's kelpie. The dinner party was part of the price he would have to pay. Deliberately he asked Grace if she were interested in cattle breeding and saw the smile fade from Judy's face.

The conversation lapsed. At the other end of the table, the others seemed to be arguing about the hydro-electricity scheme. Peter sipped his wine carefully. He had to be careful not to swig it down as if it were the beer he'd rather be drinking. Seeing the jug of water in the centre of the table, he offered to pour for his neighbours. When he'd finished, Grace leant towards him to take the glass and their fingers touched. So too did their shoulders. Suspecting she was deliberately leaning against him for far longer than necessary, he looked at her. Watching for his reaction, she was certainly teasing him. Unfortunately, in his haste to look away, he found he was
peering straight down her cleavage. Staring at the far end of the oval table would help to distract him from the blush suffusing his face.

Judy Chapman towards one end of the table, Jack Chapman at the other. The contrast between host and hostess couldn't be greater. Judy's skin so white and her hair so flaming red; Jack's face so flaming red and his hair so white, so prematurely white. Judy so Eastern Suburbs Sydney, Jack so much the farmer: it was a miracle they'd ever got together. Opposites attracted; but it was more that money attracted money. Wiley's Woollen Mills meeting Woodlands Stud Farm. There could be no more blessed an alliance than that of the heirs to the fortunes of each. Little Philip Chapman would be sitting on a pretty fortune when it was his turn to take over and so far there were no brothers and sisters to share it with.

Then Peter realised that conversation at his end of the table had been resumed and it was time to abandon his reverie.

‘The Abos are going to be moved on,' Judy was saying. ‘That camp's a disgrace.'

‘They're not doing anyone any harm there, Jude,' Jack said.

‘They've got their own reserve up at Wallaga Lake. What more do they want? That's prime real estate up there, or it will be in a few years' time.'

‘They live in such frightful squalor,' said Grace, shuddering. ‘And such ugly faces.'

Peter struggled to prevent his distaste from showing as he said, ‘Some are quite beautiful. Just as some white people are ugly and others beautiful.' He didn't add what he was thinking, that some people can change from beauty to ugliness in just a few seconds.

‘I must tell you about the new piano teacher I found in Jingera,' Judy said, evidently judging it politic to change the
subject. ‘Such a character. I had her come out for an interview and she insisted on playing the piano to show me how good she is. She did play brilliantly, but do you know what she chose? Shostakovich!' Judy opened her arms wide in a theatrical gesture, as if inviting the others to share in the hapless pianist's folly.

The piano teacher might be the Latvian woman. Peter waited. He could see that the other men at the dinner table looked slightly bemused but the women seemed to know what was expected of them.

‘That Russian composer.' Grace was the first to offer an explanation. ‘Communist of course. Stalin's poodle.'

‘Stalin wouldn't have a poodle. He'd have a Borzoi.'

‘You always take things so literally, darling.'

‘Do you think she's a Communist, your piano teacher? Exciting to have a Commie spy at Jingera.'

‘Hardly. What on earth would anyone spy on there?' Judy dismissed Jingera with a wave of her hand but then recollected that this was Peter's territory. ‘Except for darling Peter. I'm sure he's worth spying on.'

‘Who is she?'

‘Ilona Talivaldis. I've hired her to teach Philip once a week. She's terribly talented. Originally from Poland or Estonia or somewhere. She arrived down here only recently. I was really lucky to find her. It was through Mrs Blunkett.'

‘Infernal talker, that woman,' commented Ian Sutherland, the first words he'd managed to contribute for some time. He was sitting on the other side of Grace, who had her back to him the better to talk to Judy on Peter's other side.