Escape to Koolonga

by Amanda Doyle

‘If what?’

  ‘If you—hadn’t—kissed me ---’

  But it was Ridd who was there again, not Kevin at all.

  Ridd looked quite startled. He was pale underneath his heavy tan, and there was a stubble of beard on his chin and cheeks. He looked like a gaunt, grim, sallow-faced pirate.

  ‘Try to forget it,’ said the pirate softly. ‘Just for a while. Don’t think about it just now.’

  ‘Don’t—you—ever think --- ?’

  ‘I’m going to give you an injection, Emily,’ said the pirate sternly. ‘You’ll hardly feel a thing, I promise.’

  And he carried her off to his pirate ship, and the sea lapped gently against the edges of the boat. She was lulled to sleep in the swaying trough of the ocean.

  ‘Are you feeling better. Emily?’

  Ridd smiled a little, felt her forehead with the palm of his hand.

  ‘Much better, thank you. Much, much better. What’s the time?’

  ‘About four o’clock.’

  ‘Morning?’

  ‘No, afternoon. It’s daylight out there beyond the curtains.’ ‘Thursday?’

  ‘No, Friday. Would you like a cup of tea?’

  ‘I can think of nothing I’d like more at this moment, if it wouldn’t be a nuisance?’

  He got up stiffly from the cane chair beside her.

  ‘I’ll get Mrs. Bexley to bring you one,’ Ridd Fenton said heavily. ‘I’m going to go and have a shave.’ He passed his hand over his stubbled chin and went away.

  Emmie did not see Ridd again after that, for days and days and days. She slept, woke, slept, gazed incuriously around the room, spoke to the doctor quite lucidly when he came back again, drank Mrs. Bexley’s endless cups of tea, ate boiled eggs and lightly buttered toast—sometimes with relish, sometimes without—had several short, uninformative, cheering chats with Kevin, slept, woke, slept some more. Finally she asked, listlessly, of Mrs. Bexley,

  ‘Where’s Ridd?’

  ‘Ridd? He’s away, my dear.’ The housekeeper plumped the pillows with efficient briskness and glanced sharply at Emmie’s drawn, pale, upraised face. ‘Why do you ask?’

  Emmie shrugged. ‘I’d like to go home soon. I’m feeling better, and I want to get back to the store.’

  ‘You aren’t strong enough yet, Emmie. Besides, Ridd wouldn’t like it.’

  ‘No, that’s why I asked. I don’t want to go off behind his back again. He’s been very kind, allowing me to come here, getting the doctor, looking after me. You all have.’

  ‘He’d have done the same for anybody. Don’t fret.’

  ‘What about the children? They’ll be fretting.’

  ‘No, they won’t. They’re back with Susan in the meantime. Ridd thought it would be too noisy for you, having them here. You were quite ill for a while, you know.’

  ‘Just a chill. Nothing like that has ever happened to me before. I suppose I was a bit careless when Daisy went missing. I was almost out of my mind, but even so, I should have had the presence of mind to at least put on a coat. Ridd had two, one on, and one spare.’

  ‘That’s Ridd. He’s always organised,’ Mrs. Bexley smiled. ‘He even took Quinty and her kittens over to the school- house with the children, so they wouldn’t mind leaving the store all over again.’

  ‘And Bingo?’

  ‘He’s here, at Koolonga. He might keep him here a while, just until those kittens are big enough to skim up a tree and out of Bingo's way. It solves the problem, and might save you worrying. Ridd’s good at solving problems.’

  Emmie thought about that as Mrs. Bexley whisked over the room with her duster.

  ‘I could take Bingo back when I go. I think I could teach him to get on with the kittens.’

  ‘Maybe,’ Mrs. Bexley shrugged. ‘You can’t go back for at least a week yet, though.’

  ‘A week!’

  ‘That’s what the doctor said, and Ridd agreed.’

  ‘When will Ridd be back?’

  Mrs. Bexley smoothed the coverlet and straightened a couple of small flower-prints on the wall. She had knocked them askew with her duster.

  ‘He shouldn’t be more than a few days, by all accounts. He went off in the plane when he was quite sure you were on the mend. Don’t you remember?’ ‘He didn’t say goodbye, or anything. He just went off to shave.’

  Emmie sounded almost hurt.She was amazed at herself. She checked herself quickly as soon as she was aware of the fact, alarmed at that dull, sad little pang she had suffered just now. Why should he have said goodbye to her? Why should he tell her that he was going away? It was entirely his own affair, after all.

  Emmie was sitting on the veranda when Ridd returned a few days after that. She was fully dressed. It was only the third time she had put all her clothes on, but she had been walking around the verandas each morning and afternoon in her gown and pyjamas, coaxing the weakness out of her wobbly limbs.

  Now she was almost completely recovered.

  She had chosen the north veranda, because it escaped the afternoon sun, and it was from there that she had a clear view of the silver twin-engined aircraft as Ridd brought it in low over the homestead to settle on the airstrip where the orange wind-sock dangled limply in the still afternoon heat.

  The weather had resumed its former habits. The rain might never have been, might never have fallen at all, but one knew it must have, because of the green sward that now covered the dark-soiled plains—short, lush pasture that had changed the entire aspect of the landscape, almost overnight, it seemed to Emmie.

  She watched Ridd as he lifted the latch on the white wicket gate and stepped through, closed it behind him, and came striding over the lawn.

  He had on a pale blue shirt against which his teak-brown face and arms looked swarthier than ever, and over his arm he carried the jacket of his tropic-weight light grey suit. The gaunt, sallow, grim-faced pirate had gone. He must have been a figment of Emmie’s over-burdened imagination. The Ridd who was walking across the lawn towards her was Ridd as she knew him. Handsome, clean-shaven, confident, composed. The Master of the Situation.

  He came along the side path next the gauze, disappeared around the corner and into the house. When he reappeared it was through the hall door which opened on to her own part of the veranda. The jacket had been disposed of, and he carried a tankard of beer for himself in one hand, and a tall glass of lemon barley-water in the other.

  ‘Good afternoon, Emily. I thought you might like that.’ He passed her the tall glass, chinking with ice, hitched his trousers and sat down beside her, shot her one of those quick, comprehensive, sweeping looks. ‘You’re better, I see. Has Mrs. Bexley been looking after you?’

  ‘Quite splendidly, thank you, Ridd.’ She found that she was suddenly, acutely shy. ‘You’ve all been enormously kind, and I’ve been a trouble, I know.’

  ‘No trouble at all, Emily,’ he assured her gravely. ‘We were only too glad to be able to help out.’

  He stretched his legs, searched his pockets in the old, familiar way for his tobacco and papers and proceeded to roll himself a cigarette.

  She waited until he had rubbed the tobacco and tilted it carefully into the oblong wafer of paper, sealed it down and placed it between his lips. Then she said,

  ‘I can’t impose on your hospitality much longer, Ridd. You’ve no objection to my going home soon? Kevin could drive me over.’

  His lighter flared.

  ‘Leave it a few days yet. The end of the week. I’ll take you back myself.’

  ‘Very well.’ It would have been churlish to argue when they had all been so good. Thank you.’

  ‘If you’ll excuse me, I’ll have to leave you just now. I’ve a fair few things to see to, after being away. It’s good to see you’re quite recovered, though, Emily.’

  A little later she saw him, back in the khaki working clothes, walking over the lawn and out of the little wicket gate again, with the broad-brimmed hat pulled down over his face.

  In the cool of the
evening he reappeared.

  “Would you like a short stroll around the garden, Emily?’ he asked kindly. The fresh air might do you good, and things have come on well after the rain.’

  She got to her feet, mildly surprised, but followed him along the veranda, and when he held open the gauze door and stepped aside, she went through and down the steps, and they walked around the paths and lawns and flower beds, Ridd pointing out various shrubs and trees and plants of interest.

  The next evening it was Kevin who acted as her escort.

  ‘Ridd reckoned you might like a dander around outside, Emmie. He said you seemed to enjoy it last night, and a breath of air will do you good.’

  ‘You don’t have to do that, Kev. I’m not an invalid, you know, not now. If I want to go for a walk, I can always do it myself.’

  ‘No problem. It’s my pleasure. And anyway, I want to tell you something.’ At the end of the path by the cypress hedge he stopped. ‘Emmie, Sue and I are going to get married.’

  “Oh, Kevin! I’m so happy for you!’ She turned to him, her face aglow with joy. ‘When? When did you decide?’

  ‘The other day. ‘I’ve been working on it, you might say, and she’s come round to my own way of thinking.’ He chuckled unexpectedly. ‘It wasn’t as difficult as I thought it might be, getting her to agree.’

  ‘I think it’s marvellous news, anyway, Kev. You belong together, you two. I knew it from the start. This is how it should all have been in the first place, if you hadn’t had to obey that call-up. It was all terribly unfortunate and badly timed. In fact it couldn’t have come at a worse moment for both of you, the way you were then.’

  ‘I know. Looking back, I can take a more detached view. I was young, high-minded, idealistic. Enthusiastic in the cause of duty and my own particular definition of patriotism. She couldn’t see it my way, and we didn’t discuss it sufficiently thoroughly or calmly, or we might have seen each other’s points of view. She couldn’t see it my way. She resented my going, saw it as a personal thing.’

  ‘I know. She told me as much. She said you could have got out of going if you’d really tried.’

  ‘That’s true, I could have. But I’d have lost my self-respect, Emmie, if I’d done it that way. I’d have found it hard to live with it afterwards, no matter what Sue thought. I’d have been a fraud.’

  Emmie nodded sagely. ‘I don’t think it was really what Sue would have wanted, either, Kev, do you know that?’ she told him gently. ‘You wouldn’t have been quite the same man in her eyes, afterwards, although she might never have admitted it. Whatever she’d say about it now, I think she respected what you did, even if it made her so hurt and resentful that she rushed into a rather reckless marriage herself because of it. She’ll love you all the more for having gone away, now, I’m sure of it.’

  ‘You think so?’ He grinned, but it was a grin of such pure happiness and contentment that she knew he was sure of it too.

  ‘You’ll have to come to the wedding, of course,’ he told her, as they walked back to the house. ‘You and the kids. It will just be a quiet affair. Sue’s parents and sister, my own family, the Koolonga folk. Very quiet.’

  ‘It won’t be, if the kids are there,’ she felt bound to point out mischievously.

  “They’ll have to be, all the same. Susan insists. They’ve been a connecting link between all of us, a bond. I reckon you came here in the first place more because of them than because of Millie’s store really, didn’t you, Emm?’

  “That’s true,’ she admitted, surprised at his perception. ‘Well, you can have them back on Sunday. Ridd’s taking you home tomorrow, but Sue thought she’d better give you a day to yourself to settle back in again. You did leave in rather a hurry, after all.’

  Yes, she had certainly left in a hurry, Kevin was right about that. She had scarcely given the place, or the way in which she had left it, much of a thought since, but now, as she and Ridd came over the ridge and down on to the plain again, she could see the little white house with its red roof and spindly sugar gums squatting on the scrub-dotted horizon.

  ‘The telephone,’ she asked suddenly. ‘Where did they put it?’

  ‘In the hall. It’s central there. Easy access from the bedrooms, kitchen, and the counter itself.’

  He was right, of course.

  ‘I think you’ll find everything in order,’ he went on. ‘Mrs. Bexley and Susan have both been over since, to keep things right in your absence. When I brought Bingo away, I simply locked it up.’

  Bingo yelped ecstatically from the back seat at the mention of his own name.

  When they got to the front of the store, Ridd stopped the engine, got out and came around to her door. Emmie stepped out, and surveyed the place critically.

  ‘It looks nice, the white and the red, don’t you think?’

  ‘Very nice,’ agreed Ridd somewhat absently. ‘You go ahead and unlock the place. I’ll bring in your gear.’

  He walked around to the boot with the dog at his heel, and Emmie went up her gravel path with the flagstone edging, and opened the front door.

  She walked through the store, past clean dusted shelves, newly piled stock. Sue and Mrs. Bexley had been busy indeed. She’d need to thank them both for this!

  In the hall stood the telephone. There was an oak seat beside it that she hadn’t seen before, and a directory hung from a hook on the wall.

  The key of the back door was on the inside. It had never worked very well, but she turned it in its rusty lock, opened the door, latched it into position to let the draught of air right through the building, and stepped out into the sun.

  The woodshed was full of blocks and kindlers.

  She shut the door again and stood still for a moment, savouring the silence, the peace, and the fact that she was home.

  And then she was running. Running. Stumbling blindly over the hard, hot ground, over the small plot of grass,- with steps that somehow couldn’t cover the distance with adequate speed.

  Even if she had got there earlier—much earlier—she’d have been too late. Much too late!

  The choking, strangled cry she had uttered brought Ridd striding around the side of the house. When he reached her she was kneeling on the ground beside the apricot tree, trying ineffectually to put the pieces together again.

  ‘What is it, Emily, in God’s name?’ Ridd’s voice was harsh with alarm as he covered the last few paces at a run.

  ‘My tree! My tree! My little tree. Just look! Oh, what can have done it?’ She glanced around wildly, her eyes blank with dismay and shock.

  ‘What was it?’

  She swallowed, replied indistinctly,

  ‘An apricot tree.’

  It wasn’t any more, though. Not now. Not after the depredations of whatever it was that had attacked it. There were just a few leaves, dried, withered, half buried in the trampled earth around it. A couple of twigs nearby—twigs that had once been the strong, new lateral branches of her little tree, full of promise and vigour. The main stem was crushed beyond recognition.

  ‘What can have done it?’ she was muttering distractedly. ‘Oh, whatever can have done it?’

  ‘It must have been the sheep.’

  ‘The sheep? What sheep?’

  ‘There’s stock in this paddock now, Emily. The men moved them in when they picked up strength after the rain. We may or may not get a follow-up, you see, and they’ll be nearer for feeding, here at the homestead block.’

  She pushed the hair out of her eyes, blinked at him bewilderedly.

  ‘What sheep?’ She didn’t believe him. She couldn’t! ‘I don’t see any sheep.’

  ‘Emily, it’s a four-hundred-acre paddock,’ Ridd pointed out, and his voice was deep and inexorable, but somehow heavy and sad as well. ‘We have to net young trees if we’re growing them, to protect them from the stock. The men wouldn’t have known that your apricot tree was here, and neither did I.’ He put a hand on her shoulder. ‘We can get you another one,’ he said bracingl
y. ‘We’ll soon get another one, and the men can net it properly for you.’

  She shook her head blindly. ‘It wouldn’t be the same.’

  ‘Why wouldn’t it?’

  ‘Not the same as this one.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘You wouldn’t understand,’ she told him thickly.

  ‘Try me,’ invited Ridd patiently.

  ‘You wouldn’t. You wouldn’t understand at all, Ridd. You’d never understand. How could you?’ She was babbling now, almost incoherent. ‘It’s not just a tree, you see—not just any tree. It was my own little tree, my own little apricot. It came here when I did, at the same time as me. We were both strange, both new, both a bit lost. It was starting a new life, just the same as I was, putting down roots in a fresh, happy place. It liked it here, it was beginning to grow. And now—

  and now ----------- ’

  Her words trailed away, and her fingers were scrabbling in the dust, searching the trampled earth, working frantically as she gathered the broken pieces tenderly, found the leaves, tried to put them on to the thin, smashed branches, tried to put the pathetic little twigs back on to the fractured trunk of the tree. But they didn’t stay, of course. She willed them to weld themselves together again, but they didn’t. They stayed there while her shaking fingers held them, and then they just fell away, and only the stump remained.

  When Emmie saw that no possible miracle could bring the apricot tree back to life, she cried. She just went on kneeling there, with her shoulders slumped and her hands covering her face, and cried. Quietly and without hope.

  And then she felt herself being lifted up. Ridd stood her gently on her feet, turned her towards him, pulled her into his arms and cradled her head against his khaki shirt.

  ‘Don’t, Emily,’ he pleaded, and his voice was so deep and husky that she hardly recognised it. ‘I can stand anything— or I thought I could—but not that. Not that you should cry. Please, Emmie, you mustn’t cry like that.’ And then, because she couldn’t seem to stop the sorrow that was welling up

  inside her, and the tears that were running through her fingers, his hold somehow tightened, and his own fingers buried her face even deeper against his broad khaki chest. ‘Don’t, Emmie. For God’s sake, darling, hush! I understand, of course I do! I understand more than you think, much more than you suspect, my little, wilful, independent, pioneering sweetheart. But you mustn’t weep like this. You mustn’t cry, Emmie. You don’t belong here, really, don’t you see? You don’t belong. It’s not the place for you, this. place, a lonely store at the back of nowhere. You’re young and lovely and fresh and sweet. Too young and lovely and sweet to spend the rest of your life out here all alone, like your little apricot tree might have done. You don’t belong here alone, my darling. You belong with me.’