‘It’ll pull out,’ she had demurred, stunningly aware of his extreme good looks and lithe, suntanned body.
‘Not if we eat a couple first,’ he’d replied. So they had done so, sitting at a picnic table under the palms amid the flowering hibiscus and bird of paradise bushes, with the blue heave of the sea beyond. He carried a stock knife in a pouch on a plaited belt and had sliced the cheeks from a mango: her first taste of the golden ambrosia known as the queen of fruits, and the first incipient stirrings of attraction. She had never been in love before . . .
Tilly blinked, mourning for that lighthearted younger girl in her weightless summer frock with life’s promise still unfilled before her. ‘Well,’ she said, pushing the memories away, ‘thanks muchly, Connor. Now I’d better let you get on. Don’t worry about them,’ she said as he bent to retrieve the tools and leftover wire. ‘I’ll put them back.’
‘It’s fine. I’m going that way anyhow. And it was a pleasure, Tilly.’ He headed for the shed and finally she was free to retreat indoors. Her sense of shock had lessened and her heart had quietened, because of course she was mistaken. Half a second, maybe less, wasn’t long enough to identify anyone, especially someone whose face had been in profile and turning away at the time. Still, rooted before the basin, repetitively washing her hands, Tilly couldn’t forget the unpleasant sensation in her chest as the vehicle had sped off before she could address the passenger – whose half-averted profile, she had to admit, had been a dead ringer for Gerry’s.
Chapter Eight
The following day, contrary to Sophie’s expectations, Luke didn’t return to the homestead until late afternoon. Tilly, occupied with her own thoughts, failed to notice his absence until she was sitting down to her sandwich lunch. Due to the nature of their work, the rangers were often late so she thought no more about it, and when he eventually turned up just on sunset, she greeted him with a question. ‘I expect you must be starving?’
‘Hmm?’ He blinked as if woken from a dream. ‘Oh, hi, Tilly. What did you say?’
‘I asked if you’re hungry.’
‘Not really. I had a cuppa at the camp. And lunch too, so that’s fine. Look, do you think you could cut my hair tonight? It’s a bit shaggy, don’t you reckon?’
Tilly was a little surprised, for this was normally Sophie’s task carried out on a Sunday, but she considered the question. ‘I expect so, if you’re happy with short back and sides?’ She had regularly cut Gerry’s hair and that of any of the fishermen who had asked while they had been in the camp. ‘It’ll be hand clippers though, nothing fancy.’
‘That’s fine. Sophie,’ he confided, ‘does a sort of pudding basin job. I thought you might make a better fist of it. Just not too short, please. It’d be great if you could do it after tea.’ Seeming to feel the oddness of the urgency, he added lamely, ‘It’s driving me mad at the moment.’
‘Okay, then.’
When the washing up had been done, Tilly took a sheet from the linen chest and told Luke to bring a chair out onto the verandah. Moths were circling the light bulb and the breeze from the river nipped at her bare ankles as she parted his dark hair and pinned a section of it up.
‘What are you doing?’
‘Checking for nits,’ she teased, ‘and dandruff. Thankfully you don’t seem to have either. So, how short do you want it?’
‘I’m beginning to think this was a bad idea,’ he said. ‘Look, nothing too drastic, eh Tilly? More a tidy up, like.’
‘Don’t worry, I’ve done this before. Since when have you worried about your appearance anyway?’
‘Well, a feller doesn’t want to look a freak,’ he grumbled.
‘Your birds won’t mind,’ she said lightly as she combed and snipped, then the penny dropped as she made the association. ‘Oh, so that’s why you were late home! How long is she staying?’
The back of his neck reddened, then he laughed. ‘This is your famous female intuition, is it?’
‘Huh-uh. This is a young man acting out of character – it can only mean you fancy some girl. Don’t worry, your secret’s safe with me. How about I put some extra cake in tomorrow’s smoko? You could ask her to share it then.’
‘That’d be great. Not that I’m saying . . . I just like your cake, Tilly.’
‘Course you do. Right, keep still if you value your ear.’
The following morning, as Tilly handed Connor his thermos and packed lunch, he surprised her by asking, ‘D’you ever get a day off? I’m heading down to the coast today. I wondered if you’d like to come for a drive?’
‘Well, I’d love to,’ she said regretfully, eyes turning to the tiny office on the verandah, ‘but I can’t. I have to be here to check in the visitors.’
‘Ah, I forgot about that. Pity. I was looking forward to the company.’
‘You can have it.’ Sophie looked up from the sink where she was sterilising the joeys’ bottles. ‘Go on, Till. You haven’t had a day off since your last trip into Darwin. I’ll be here. No reason I can’t book them in.’
‘Are you sure? Well, thanks, Soph. Oh, wait a minute – what time do you think we’d be back? Because there’s dinner . . .’
Connor considered. ‘Mid arvo-ish. That suit you? We could make it earlier if you wish.’
‘No, no, that’ll be fine. I’ll just make my lunch and grab a hat. Five minutes, no longer.’
‘Take your time.’ He settled his hip against a corner of the range and began leafing through one of Luke’s magazines as she reached for the sandwich makings she had only just put away.
The drive to the coast was neither quick nor smooth going, but Tilly thoroughly enjoyed it. The novelty of a morning free of chores, and the changing scenery as the track led them north from the palm-fringed river country through the paperbark forests to the coastal flood plains, kept her interest piqued. The road was dreadful: they bumped and jerked their way over stony ledges and gutters, through drifts of ashy sand where the paperbark trunks stood like sentinels blocking her vision, to the bone-hard jolting of the bulldust patches where the pale dust rose like fog behind them.
‘Sorry about the road.’ Connor grimaced as the wheels fell into a hole concealed beneath deep bulldust.
‘Heavens, it’s not your fault. You get used to it, anyway. Not that I’ve been on this one before,’ Tilly added truthfully.
‘So you don’t have much opportunity to get away from your base?’
‘Not through the season. And when the tourists stop coming, it’s either too hot or too wet for unnecessary travel. I’ve been out once or twice late in the year with the rangers when a fire’s come in close to the homestead, but that’s at night, and country I’m familiar with.’ Tilly drew in a satisfied breath. ‘This is all different.’
‘You really like the bush then?’
‘I do now. The first time I came out to the fishing camp at McArthur I was petrified. I worried about snakes, of course. And crocs. And the sheer bigness of it all. The land seemed so empty. Well, it is,’ she admitted fair-mindedly, ‘but I came to see that it wasn’t necessarily a threat. I mean, the sky is big, and I suppose a meteorite could fall out of it and kill you, but it’s not like it would be on purpose, is it?’
‘Of course not.’ A smile tugged at his lips. ‘So you’re saying you regard the bush as a passive entity, not an aggressive one?’
‘Mmm – maybe “indifferent” is a better word. It’s been here forever. When you think that those rocks,’ she pointed as they passed an outcrop of boulders, their surfaces pitted by weather, ‘would’ve been lying there when William Dampier was stooging around the north coast – well . . .’
‘Or even when the pyramids were being built,’ he suggested. ‘You’re right. As a species we haven’t really made much of an impression on this bit of the earth’s surface – a few tracks that half-a-dozen monsoons would swallow up as if they’d never been. A pristine canvas. Just as it was, in fact, before the first white man set foot on this country.’
&nbs
p; ‘Well, I hope our work means a bit more than that!’ Tilly protested. ‘We’re here to protect the wildlife. The land couldn’t sustain itself without its birds and animals, you know.’ She caught herself. ‘Sorry, I was forgetting that you’re a botanist, and know all about the interrelated chain of . . . Dear me, I’m beginning to sound like one of Luke’s lectures!’
‘That’s all right. Those who believe in what they’re doing have a right to be passionate. So, does Matt lecture too? Somehow he doesn’t strike me as the type.’
Tilly smiled. ‘I think he’d sooner cut his tongue out! No, Matt’s better with his hands than his voice. He’s our fixer – everything from the radios to the vehicles. I think he grew up on a farm, but that’s just an impression. He never talks about himself. I’ve always assumed he had an unhappy childhood – only because he was asking me about mine,’ she added quickly, ‘so I could be quite wrong about that.’
‘And was yours happy?’
‘That’s what he asked too. Why’s everybody suddenly interested in my past?’
Connor shrugged. ‘Just making conversation. You all seem to mesh quite well together, though you’re obviously all different. Is that hard – living as isolated as you all do, I mean?’
Tilly shook her head. ‘Not really.’ She pondered the matter, squinting a little, eyes thoughtful as she considered her answer. ‘It hadn’t crossed my mind before, but we all give each other space. That’s probably why it works. That and having our own interests. Sophie’s passionate about the job, Luke’s got his birds, and Matt his tinkering and his chess.’
‘And what about you, Tilly? What keeps you going?’
Sensing his genuine interest, she tried to answer honestly, though the question was closer to the bone than she liked. ‘I think it’s knowing they all care about me,’ she said slowly. ‘Sophie’s more like a favourite aunt than a cousin, but the boys have sort of adopted me as – well, a sister, I suppose. It’s been’— she searched for a word that fell somewhere between ‘hard’ and ‘devastating’ to describe the past two years—‘difficult, you know.’ Once, her heart mourned, once upon a time . . . She shook the memories aside, saying, ‘They’ve been there for me from the start. Like family. So,’ she added, firmly changing the subject. ‘What about you? Where did you grow up, and were you a happy kid?’
‘I was a lucky one.’ Connor swung the wheel to skirt a fallen branch. ‘I’ll shift that on the way back. My father died when I was a nipper, but my grandfather filled the gap. He was pretty young still, and as I was only three when my father went, and Gramps lived in the next street, I just transferred the bond I’d had with my dad to him. He turned up for everything – birthday parties, footy practice, parenting night, the time I got into trouble at school . . . Most of the kids thought he was my father.’
‘And your mother never remarried?’
‘Nope. Dad was her one and only, she always said.’
‘That’s sad,’ Tilly observed. ‘What did your grandfather do?’
‘For a living? He was a nurseryman.’ Connor grinned. ‘I was potting plants by the time I was ten. It was a fun way to fill the weekends, till I got older. It sucked a bit then, of course, I had other interests, but I never got over my fascination for plants.’
She nodded. ‘Yes, our interests broaden as we grow, and teenagers rebel. But you obviously came back to it?’
‘Mmm. I took biological sciences at university and majored in botany. I’ve never regretted it.’ He pointed ahead where the suddenly sandy track curved through tall, clumpy grasses and low scrub. ‘The coastline’s just through there. Fancy a stroll along the beach?’
Chapter Nine
The Gulf was flat, the tide out. Pausing where the sand began, Tilly drew in a lungful of warm, salty air and scanned the wide, curving bay whose shores were as flat as the distant sea. Sunlight winked on wet sandbars and the shallow channels between them where sea-water lingered. There was no breeze. Insects buzzed amid the stalky grass clumps and the hardy convulvulus vines sprawling over humps in the sand. The wind must build them, she thought vaguely; there seemed no other way to account for their existence. On the horizon, sea and sky met so closely she had to blink to tell the difference.
‘Well, I can’t see that many boaties would get in here,’ she observed. ‘You could wade out for miles, it’s so shallow.’
Connor shook his head. ‘There’ll be spots where it’s deeper. Channels to navigate. In any case, not everything that comes has to be physically brought. See that tree?’ He turned and waved inland at the broad dark shade of a substantial-looking tree with a girth far larger than Tilly’s arms could encompass. ‘Its seed probably got here the same way that mangroves and coconuts do – brought by the sea itself.’
‘Really?’ Tilly wandered back for a closer view. ‘It must be old to be so big. What is it?’
‘A tamarind. From somewhere in Asia.’ He assessed its size. ‘Could be over a century since it grew its dicots.’
‘Its what?’
‘First pair of leaves. They’re called cotyledons, but if there are two, and there are in this instance, they’re called dicots.’
‘Oh,’ Tilly said. ‘Okay, Mr Botanist. A century – really? I didn’t think anything lived that long in the north. A case of quick growth and early death, like poincianas and wattle and – other stuff,’ she ended lamely, temporarily unable to name more. ‘I don’t know much about plants,’ she confessed.
‘Still, you grow a mean garden. Anyway, I’m starving. What about lunch? I’m thinking that shade looks pretty good.’
‘Yes, I’m hungry too. I’ll fetch it,’ she said as he moved towards the track. ‘You go look for your unwanted immigrants.’ His eyes flickered, not catching the reference, and she laughed gently at his mystification. ‘Your foreign weeds, Connor. We can’t have them taking over, can we?’
‘Not on my watch,’ he agreed.
It was pleasant in the shade. The ground beneath the tamarind was bare and one exposed root made a comfortable place to sit. A myriad of small green pods covered the tree and Connor pulled one off, breaking it open to show Tilly the half-formed seeds.
‘You can make a paste from it. They use it a lot in Asian cooking,’ he said. ‘This one’s immature, but when the pods are ripe the insides are quite pleasant to chew. A bit astringent.’
‘Oh yes, I remember trying it,’ she said. ‘There are lots of Asian restaurants in Darwin and Cairns, and Gerry loved eating out.’
‘Darwin, eh? My favourite town. Did you spend much time there?’
‘Just quick visits. Gerry would mostly sail the boat across through the Straits, then I’d fly to Darwin and he’d pick me up. Sometimes, if there was gear to bring in, we’d drive. And then do the reverse when the season ended. He wouldn’t leave the boat up here through the monsoon.’
‘Too risky,’ Connor agreed. ‘These are great sandwiches. You weren’t a chef, were you, in one of those fancy Cairns eateries?’
Tilly smiled. ‘’Fraid not. I didn’t train for anything. I guess you learn what you have to, to get by. And I enjoy it – like you enjoy plants.’
‘Well,’ he said, wadding the plastic wrap from his sandwiches and draining his cup, ‘maybe we ought to be starting back. I’ve a couple of creek banks I need to check out on the way. And I don’t want to make you late. It’s been nice having company though.’
‘I’ve enjoyed myself,’ Tilly replied, getting up, ‘despite the road! I think I’ll have a dig at Matt about it. He’s in charge of the grader.’
‘A man of many parts,’ Connor quipped. ‘Anything he doesn’t do?’
‘Not much if it’s mechanical. If he’d finished high school, I’m sure he could’ve been an engineer. Or maybe an inventor. Binboona would be lost without him. Sophie says so, and she ought to know.’
Connor didn’t hurry their return. They stopped twice beside the banks of steep, narrow creeks still trickling with wet season run-off. Growth along them was vividly green in c
ontrast to the russet and gold of grasses on the flats.
‘You’d think they’d have dried up by now,’ Tilly said. ‘Nothing’s fallen from the sky since the start of April.’
‘It’s seepage water, coming from the higher ground,’ Connor explained. ‘The country’s a sponge, so it takes some draining when the rains finally stop. Ah,’ he said with satisfaction, ‘I thought there was a chance . . .’
‘What?’ She stared around at the rampant growth, wary of snakes.
‘Look up. Hang on while I grab the glasses.’ He brought them from the vehicle and offered them to her. ‘In the fork of the ti-tree there – what do you see?’
She focused the binoculars, saying, ‘I can’t . . . oh, yes, I’ve got it. Wait! That’s not an orchid, is it? There’s not much to it.’
‘It’s showier when it flowers, though still pretty hard to spot. It’s a dendrobium. They call it the Onion Orchid because of the little bulb it grows. You’ll have to come back later in the year though to see it in bloom. Round late August should do it.’
‘Well, thank you, Connor.’ Tilly handed the glasses back. ‘I didn’t expect you to go out of your way to find one for me, though. I suppose a photo wouldn’t be possible? You can barely see it with the naked eye.’
‘I’m afraid not. I’ll just have a quick squiz a little way up the creek. Moving water can spread a lot of seeds. If you’d rather wait in the vehicle . . .?’
Eyeing the long grass and the saw-edged fronds of pandanus, poking out like green spears, Tilly agreed. Waiting, she squinted up again at the growth in the tree hollow. A couple of leathery looking shoots were all that was visible. She’d never have noticed it, but botanists, she supposed, knew where to look. It was warm in the vehicle; no breeze blew and the silence was broken only by the drone of flies. She watched a dragonfly with azure wings hover above a weed and pushed the hair back from her face. Connor was taking a long time. Tilly stared along the creek but there was no sign of him returning. Bored, she flipped the catch on the glove box, finding the usual stuff: vehicle manual, tyre gauge, a stubby pencil, a torch, a crumpled box of tissues, and a slim handbook on northern orchids. That would do. Opening it, she settled to read until Connor returned.
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