‘Oh, much the same, love. He created a bit about going into care – I think the room being different upset him.’ She took her suitcase that the silent pilot pulled from the rear door, along with the mailbag, which he exchanged for the one Tilly held.
‘Thanks, Mike. See you. Come on, Mum.’ Tilly grabbed the case and shepherded Elaine towards the vehicle. ‘Hop in. No, leave the window up. There’ll be clouds of dust when he starts moving.’ She slammed her own door and sat waiting for the plane to taxi away, then begin its take-off run. ‘We have to see him off the ground,’ she explained, starting the engine as the Cessna flew off. ‘We’re not far from the homestead. I’ve been really looking forward to this. How long can you stay?’
‘Ten days including travel – one to come and one to go – so that’s eight here. I wanted to leave on a weekend, but they told me the little plane only flies on Wednesdays. Why’s that?’
‘It’s mail day, Mum.’
‘What – only once a week?’
Tilly looked affectionately at her mother’s indignant expression and nodded. ‘Yep, this is the back of beyond. The tourists all say that too – well, the ones from Sydney and Melbourne, anyway.’
‘It doesn’t seem right! Why, I remember when the postie came twice a day.’
‘And I’ll bet there’re a few old timers up here who remember when they got their mail once a month,’ Tilly said. ‘You get used to it. Mail days are a treat – that’s the way to look at it. Same as anything – scarcity adds value.’
‘It wouldn’t suit me.’ Elaine gave her daughter a searching look. ‘But something obviously agrees with you. You look so much better than when I last saw you. Happier too. I’m glad, love.’
‘It’s been two years, Mum,’ Tilly responded as she turned off the road and slowed before the homestead. ‘A lot of water’s gone down the river since then. New home, new life, new job. Well, here we are. Sophie’s home today, so we’ll have a cuppa and catch up, and you can settle in at your leisure. You’ve got eight days to do exactly as you please, and I’m going to see that you do. God knows you’ve earned a break.’
Elaine smiled at her daughter. ‘Take Two and cocoa after dinner?’
‘If that’s what you want,’ she replied, nodding at the figure that had emerged onto the verandah. ‘There’s Sophie waiting for us now.’
Chapter Twenty-six
Luke’s first question as he stepped through the door that evening was whether the photographs had come on the mail.
‘Of course not,’ Tilly said. ‘It’ll be next week at the earliest. Luke, this is my mum, Elaine.’
They shook hands. ‘Nice to see you here,’ he said. ‘Tilly’s been looking forward to you coming. We all have. She told us you were a wonderful cook.’ The last was said hopefully.
Tilly rolled her eyes at him. ‘What he means, Mum, is that when you’ve eaten some of the meals he makes, you might want to take over the task.’
‘But isn’t that your job?’ Elaine looked puzzled.
‘We share the cooking now, Elaine,’ Sophie explained. ‘Didn’t Tilly tell you that she’s training to be a ranger?’
‘Oh, yes, but I thought that was just studying that she did of an evening.’
‘On-the-job training,’ Luke said, ‘and our stomachs suffer for it.’
‘Well, of course I’m happy to help out. I love cooking.’ Elaine smiled.
‘You’re on holiday, Mum,’ Tilly protested. ‘I want you to see more of the place than just the kitchen. It’s really beautiful – there’s the beach and the river walks. We could take you out to Sandstone too, that’s a spring at the foot of the escarpment . . .’
‘I’m sure that with a bit of organisation we could fit that in,’ Elaine said. She cast a judicious glance around. ‘You seem to have quite a good set-up and plenty of freezer space. Does the plane bring your fresh provisions in? I didn’t see anything unloaded today.’
Sophie shook her head. ‘Too expensive. We have hens, the station supplies our meat and we grow fresh vegies. Well, Tilly does mostly. Before she came, we lived on tinned stuff and a bit of bush tucker. Luke’s our fossicker.’
‘Oh.’ Elaine looked doubtfully at the young man, visualising who knew what, Tilly thought. She turned to ask the silent Matt, ‘And you’re a ranger too?’
He met her gaze only long enough to shake his ginger head. ‘Nope. Handyman, that’s me.’
‘He keeps things running, and grades the roads.’ Tilly grasped the opportunity to speak of, if not to, him. ‘We couldn’t operate without Matt.’
‘That’s a fact,’ Sophie agreed. ‘And like Luke and me, he has no particular talent with the pots and pans, so if you’d like to help out in that department, Elaine, we’d all really appreciate it. And I’ll see to it that you have time to get around the place as well. And what’s more’—she sent a minatory glance around her co-workers—‘we’ll do the washing up. All of it, guys. Least we can do.’
There was a murmur of assent. Tilly said, ‘Well, that’s torn it, Mum. Just keep it basic, hmm? Or they might wind up kidnapping you.’ Moved by a sudden impulse, she leant across from her chair and hugged her mother. ‘I’ll do breakfast. You look tired, so you’re going to start your holiday with a nice lie-in and a cuppa in bed, okay?’
Elaine, the odd silver hair glinting through the brown, looked lovingly upon her daughter, the delicate skin about her eyes creasing as she smiled. ‘Oh, but it’s good to be with you again! Don’t spoil me too much or I’ll never want to leave.’
In the morning Elaine, as promised, rose later than the rest to find her daughter humming as she moved about the kitchen sterilising a feed bottle and chopping up meat for the birds. ‘I had such a lovely sleep,’ she announced. ‘Where’s everybody?’
‘Sophie’s down at the vehicle shed, I think. Luke’s gone off to do the chores at the camp and Matt was heading for Spadgers Creek – the station. It’s our next-door neighbour. They’re killing today, he said.’
‘Killing what?’ Elaine looked startled, then concerned.
‘A cow, I suppose. Or a bullock. I’m not sure. For meat. There aren’t any butcher shops out here, Mum.’
‘Oh.’ Elaine looked relieved. ‘You had me worried there. So what would you normally be doing?’
‘Helping Luke. But just now I’m making you breakfast. Toast and a soft-boiled egg? With coffee?’
‘Sounds lovely. As a matter of interest, who cooked last night’s tea?’
‘Sophie. It was her turn. Ghastly, wasn’t it?’ she said cheerfully. ‘I’ve given them simple recipes to follow, but I really think she’s worse than Matt. He at least gets his spuds cooked through.’
‘Well, I’ll see what you’ve got presently and work out tonight’s menu. Actually, it’ll be a treat. Your dad eats very simply these days, so it’ll be a chance to spread myself a bit. What’s the meat you’ve got there for?’
‘We’ve a couple of injured birds – it’s for their breakfast. And we have two joeys, with one still on the bottle. We’ve just got rid of two black cocky chicks, and I nursed the dearest little sugar glider . . . Oops, the toast is ready and the egg’s coming. Sit down and I’ll get the coffee. Then I’ll have to head out for a bit.’
Tilly attended to the morning chores and returned to find Sophie and her mother talking companionably over the washing up. She left them to it to work in the garden, weeding, watering and picking some early tomatoes. An hour or so later, the first of the campers departing Binboona began to appear, and by noon, new travellers were coming in.
A red Toyota towing a dust-shrouded camper trailer pulled up at the house and, while his mate stayed in the cab, the driver got out, introduced himself as Gordon Chant, and asked to speak with the boss.
‘That would be Sophie Barker, the head ranger,’ Tilly said. ‘Hang on and I’ll get her.’
She found her cousin in the office. ‘Somebody asking for you, Soph. Just turned up – I don’t know what he wants.’
Sophie went out to speak to him while Tilly watched unobtrusively through the louvres of the tiny verandah office. Presently her cousin turned back to the verandah steps to yell, ‘You there, Till?’
‘Yes?’ She appeared framed in the doorway.
‘Come and meet Gordon. Looks like we’ll be seeing a bit of him. He builds stuff, and right now he’s heading out to Sandstone to see the layout there and work out a quote for the boardwalk. It seems that the WPA have made a decision on the springs.’
‘They didn’t let you know?’
‘It’ll be in the next mail for sure. The company would want something in writing, for the records. Right, I’m off. I’ll lead them out. Is Luke home?’
‘I haven’t seen him. He was taking a group on the river walk this afternoon.’
‘Okay then.’ She grinned, slamming a fist into her other palm. ‘Hot damn! I never really thought . . .’ She trailed off and bustled away to the shed.
‘What’s happening?’ Elaine looked up from her task as Tilly returned indoors.
‘Looks like we might be getting the Sandstone Springs opened. You remember I wrote you about them? Mmm, something smells good. What are you making?’
‘Honey and cinnamon cake. The honey’s very dark. Is it local stuff?’
‘You could say so. Luke found a sugarbag nest last month. That’s the hive of the native bee. Bit messy to get, but worth the effort.’ Tilly sat at the table watching her mother decant the steaming cake onto a cooling rack. ‘Tell me about Dad. How bad is he really? I mean, is he likely to die? What does the doctor say?’
‘Oh, he’s good for a while yet,’ Elaine said, setting the tin down and going to the kettle. ‘I’ll make us some tea. It won’t be the dementia that kills him, but his blood pressure is very high, and I worry about strokes. He gets very disturbed at times – I never know what sets him off, but it’s risky, Dr Peter says. Though how you can keep somebody calm when you can’t communicate with them, I don’t know.’
Tilly rubbed her hand. ‘I’m sorry, Mum. You’ve had a pretty thankless time of it.’
‘And you haven’t, love? It’s all right. It’s different now, of course. Mostly he’s like an angry stranger, but I manage. I don’t forget what I owe him and that helps.’
‘Marriage shouldn’t just be about duty,’ Tilly said. ‘If things had been different, if you hadn’t had me, you’d never have looked at him.’
‘And what would life be without my daught—?’ Elaine bit the words off. ‘I’m sorry, love. I forgot about Francie when I spoke.’
‘It’s all right, Mum.’ Tilly’s smile slipped as once echoed again in her heart. ‘It still hurts to remember – it always will – but I don’t want to forget her either. And lately I’ve felt more accepting of things . . . not that I have any choice. But life does go on. I suppose it must if one is to survive.’ She wondered briefly if she should tell her mother the truth, that Gerry still lived and was almost certainly engaged in criminal activity. But why wreck her peace of mind? Instead she said, ‘And as a matter of fact, just recently I’ve met somebody I rather like. I’m not saying we’ll ever have a relationship, but just being interested shows I’ve given up grieving, doesn’t it?’
Elaine abandoned her tea-making task to give her daughter a hug. ‘I’m glad to hear it, love. No, stay there, I can find stuff.’
When both were seated with their cups before them, Tilly turned hers in its saucer, saying slowly, ‘Then you don’t think it’s wrong?’
‘Of course not. What an idea! The heart knows, Tilly. And we all need love. Am I going to meet him?’ A thought struck her. ‘It’s plainly not Luke – he’s only a lad.’
Tilly laughed at the idea. ‘And madly into a gorgeous student called Jane. And before you ask, it’s not Matt either.’
Elaine’s face cleared. ‘Good. I shouldn’t say it, but I haven’t really taken to him. I thought him a bit shifty.’
‘Oh, he never meets anyone’s eye,’ Tilly said, understanding perfectly, ‘but he’s okay. A hard worker, just not very social.’ The last thing she wanted was for Matt to suspect dislike or caution in her mother’s manner towards him. Unless he was a very good actor – though, of course, he must be, Tilly mused – he had yet to discover that his stash in the drum had vanished.
‘So?’ Elaine prompted.
‘He’s a botanist and his name is Connor. He’s staying in the camp and yes, I expect that you will meet him. But no embarrassing questions, okay? In fact, no questions at all, Mum. I want you just to act as though you’ve never heard his name before. He is not to become a talking point with you and Sophie hatching plans.’
The blue eyes, so like her own, twinkled at her. ‘I shall be the soul of discretion,’ Elaine promised. ‘No wonder you look so much better. I didn’t think it was a good idea for you to stay out here, but Sophie was right all along. I shall have to tell her so. But she probably knows that already. Even when we were self-absorbed teenagers, very little got past her.’
Chapter Twenty-seven
If Elaine’s words did nothing to calm her daughter, Sophie was, in any case, far too preoccupied with excited plans to worry about Tilly’s love life.
She and Luke would head back to Sandstone first thing tomorrow, she said. They had to decide where best to site the new ranger’s quarters, and to choose a layout for the projected camp. Gordon had calculated that his own assessment, which involved pegging the route the boardwalk would take, should occupy him for a week, even with his mate Adam’s help. Luke was scratching out a rough map from memory, talking all the while: the water table was going to be a problem for the builders; they would need height as the valley was a floodway in the Wet; the station itself would probably be a small kit-home, certainly the most affordable when it came to freight and the labour of erecting it . . .
Tilly listened, bemused by the speed of it all, though she doubted they’d see much progress beyond the planning and perhaps ordering of supplies this season. The monsoon took a big chunk out of the year and no contractor would risk being wetted in for months at a time. Still, ‘It’s really going to happen,’ she said.
Sophie beamed at her. ‘Yes. Do you mind hanging on here tomorrow and seeing to the customers? I need Luke out there with me. We’ll have to service the camp on the way – unless Matt could fill in? That would free you up.’ She turned to him but he was shaking his head.
‘Sorry. My towbar’s cracked and needs welding. I gotta get it to the station.’
‘Why, are we out of oxy?’ Luke asked.
Matt cast him a pitying look. ‘Oxy weld won’t do the job. Needs arc. I’ll run the coastal road on the way back,’ he offered.
‘Yes, that’s an idea.’ Sophie nodded. ‘Sorry, Till. Looks like you’re stuck with the washing up.’
‘That’s okay.’ She had been hoping to pull camp duties, which would give her a chance to see Connor and perhaps learn the outcome of his Darwin trip, but it would have to wait. ‘We’ll cook, Mum. Get a few meals in the freezer so you can have a day or two out. Maybe see Sandstone Springs for yourself. It’s an amazing sight, the ferns and flowers. Like an exotic garden with the waterfall trickling down the cliff.’
‘And that’s another thing, speaking of water.’ Sophie made a note. ‘We can’t just plunk a pump and engine on the main hole. We’ll have to run the tailpipe back into the scrub, have a discreet little shelter shed. And some way of shifting it at need. Maybe a hoist? We can’t go cutting a track into it for vehicular access.’
‘Getting it in will be the hard part,’ Luke said. ‘The weight of it, I mean, given you could bog a D4 in that ground . . .’
Tilly shook her head at Elaine. ‘Television in the lounge? Or Take Two? It’ll make more sense to you than all this.’
Friday saw Luke and Sophie back at the springs for the day, knee-deep in sketches and rough maps of the site. They needed to get something on paper for head office in order to have proper plans drawn up for the builders to follow, Sophie said. Tilly vo
lunteered for camp duties, delegating Elaine to feed Harry while she loaded the day’s supply of wood.
Her mother eyed the eager bird with some trepidation. ‘He’s awfully big. Why’s he opening his wings like that? He’s not going to attack me, is he?’
‘Of course not! He’s just impatient for his breakfast. Chuck him some meat and he’ll settle down. He couldn’t attack a beetle with that beak, and that’s the trouble. It’s why we have to feed him.’
‘If you say so.’ Elaine, sounding unconvinced, obeyed and then gasped in admiration as the brolga adroitly caught and swallowed the double offering. ‘He’s so quick!’
‘Well, he has to get it from the air because he can’t pick it up. Throw it one bit at a time.’
‘Oh.’ Pity captured Elaine, instantly changing her caution into partisanship. ‘You poor thing,’ she cried. ‘Here, have another. You’re really quite a handsome fellow, aren’t you?’
Grinning to herself, for she’d banked on the change, Tilly called, ‘Right, I’m running way late, Mum, so I’m off. Nobody’s likely to come, but if they do, just get them to sign in and pay – you know the rate. I’ll be back in an hour or so.’
The camp was astir by the time she arrived, and she’d barely started unloading before Connor was there, heaving the firewood off for her.
‘Thanks. How are things? Any developments?’
‘You look happy,’ he commented. ‘Did your mum get here?’
‘Yes, on Wednesday. She’s got eight days all up so if you’re around, you’ll get to meet her. So, no news of villainy?’
‘Not from my end. My man at the station said there’s been vehicles using the coastal road lately. Would they be yours?’
She was surprised. ‘They shouldn’t be. Matt was going to check it today.’
‘Yes? I wonder if he’s meeting somebody.’
Head on one side, Tilly considered the proposition. ‘How would he arrange that? I mean, the other guy would have to know where and when, wouldn’t he?’
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