‘Nonsense. We really are pleased to have you and it will be wonderful to get to know you. Your grandmother always spoke so highly of you. To be honest, in what she said, I could detect a fair amount of her in you, so it will be interesting to see just how much you take after her. You don’t look a whole lot like her, but in personality I think there are going to be a lot of similarities.’
She motioned towards, Aurora’s empty cup and plate.
‘If you have had enough tea and cake, we might get your stuff now and that will give you an opportunity to have a rest if you feel you need one, or at least give you some time to yourself. Let you get the feel of the place. You have picked a good day to arrive in one respect. Everybody bar us and the two little girls are right out in the back corner of the property. It takes quite a while to get out there, so they are staying overnight. They’ll be back tomorrow. Hopefully you will have found your feet before you get mobbed by them all when they get back.’
Fiona gave a short chuckle and rolled her eyes and despite only having known Fiona for about a half an hour, Aurora felt comfortable with her.
‘The cake as you know, was lovely, and the tea as well, but I’ve had enough thanks. Even though I have just spent a heap of time in the car, a chance to just do nothing would be great. Speaking of the car, if you don’t mind, I’ll get you to show me while we’re out there where you want me to leave it.’
Fiona rose from her seat, gathered the cups, saucers and plates and carried them over to the sink. She returned for the teapot. Trudy rose and replaced the remainder of the fruitcake, the butter and the milk in the fridge. Fiona walked past Aurora, touching her on the shoulder again as she went past.
‘Come on. We’ll get your stuff, I’ll show you to your room and then I’ll show you where everything is in the house.’
Aurora followed her back along the hallway, her eyes darting around the rooms they passed, taking it all in. She could imagine each generation passing everything down to the next and it made for a real feeling of continuity, a shared past.
After they had retrieved her bags from the car and she had moved it into the large shed out the back, it was a bit of a relief to flop down on the bed and mentally regroup. She was lying on her back across the bed, her feet hanging over the side. She couldn’t help but admire the décor of the room that they had given her. It was really lovely. The queen size bed had a heavy timber frame with a square for a mosquito net on top of the head end and there was in fact, a net draped and fastened to the sides of the bed head. The bed covering was a log cabin quilt done in shades of blue and purple.
Another very old, but still lovely looking rug was on the floor between the bed and the door. There was a blanket box at the foot of the bed. A giant tapestry of roses in shades of pink and red hung between a timber chest of drawers with an ornate mirror and miniature drawers on top and a three door wardrobe with a large oval mirror in the centre door on the wall across from the foot of the bed. On the exterior side wall in the middle there were timber French doors with leadlight done in burgundy and green, with crinkly looking clear glass. Another antique looking rug sat on the floor between the side of the bed and the French doors. Fiona had told her when they brought her bags in that the French doors led to the side verandah. The timber all matched, appearing to Aurora’s limited timber knowledge, to be oak. The furnishings in the room created a feeling of old-world elegance.
Aurora was impressed, not only with her room, but with the layout of the house in general. All the rooms, except the kitchen, fed off the central hallway: two corner bedrooms, another bedroom on either side of the hallway beside them, the formal lounge next door along, with the formal dining room across from it, two large children’s bedrooms next along, with the hallway terminating at the doorway to the kitchen. The kitchen spread across the rear of the house. A new extension came out from the kitchen with two toilets, two bathrooms and a laundry with two washing machines.
Fiona had told her a brief history of the place when she had showed her through the house. Her husband’s grandparents had bought the land and built the original house. The grandparents had taken the bedroom on the left hand, front corner as their own. When her father-in-law, George, who had been the eldest child, had married, he and his wife, Sophie, had taken the front, right hand bedroom. These two corner bedrooms had two sets of French doors onto both the front and side verandah. When she and her husband, Arthur, had married, they had taken the room that mirrored this one on the other side of the house. Originally, Fiona had supposed that this room had been meant for Will, Arthur’s older brother, to take when he married, but he had unfortunately never married, so this one had always been the guest room. All the children while they were growing up had slept in one of the two children’s bedrooms back towards the kitchen.
The front, left-hand bedroom was now occupied by Fiona’s son, Trevor. He and his wife, Helen, who died giving birth to their second child, had moved into it when they had married. The front, right-hand bedroom was now occupied by Trevor and Helen’s eldest son, Richard, with Trudy, his wife. Kate and Harriet were in the children’s room on the left-hand side. The other one was currently vacant. Trevor and Helen’s youngest son, Callan, lived in one of the barracks rooms at the rear of the house. Fiona had offered to take Aurora on a tour of the other buildings in the morning.
Aurora stared at the ceiling and started to wiggle her feet from side to side as new thoughts started to take form. If this had always been the guest room, and Gran had stayed at this property, then she must have stayed in this room. Aurora couldn’t help but wonder exactly how long ago that had been and had it looked the same then — had her grandmother lain down on the same quilt, looking at the same furniture as she was?
She unconsciously started to move her feet from side to side more quickly as she chewed on her bottom lip, wondering. The biggest question of all was why had Gran never mentioned Bilgarra Springs, or the Fairleys? She threw that around in her head for a minute or two, but with the realisation that there was no way to get an answer to that question, so thinking about it was a complete waste of time, Aurora decided that she may as well get up and unpack her stuff.
She unzipped the larger of the two bags, pulled open one of the large drawers and started putting in her jeans, shorts, long-sleeve shirts and t-shirts. When she opened one of the smaller top drawers to put her underwear in, she found a leather-bound book sitting there with ‘Journal’ stamped across the front. She figured it must have been left there by one of the other guests. On opening it to see if there was a name inside, her breath caught in her throat when she saw ‘Isabella Munro’ written in her grandmother’s unmistakeable handwriting. She quickly closed it back up.
No mistake then. This was her grandmother’s journal; the one that the note had mentioned. Fiona had obviously left it here for her to discover in her own time and without the awkwardness that would have been present if she had handed it over. Aurora gently placed it on the top of the chest of drawers. She wanted to read it but at the same time she didn’t want to read it. She found that the presence of the journal just produced more questions. Why was it left here? Why did her grandmother want her to read it? And why now, and not while she had been alive so that they could have discussed it together?
Aurora wasn’t ready to face the journal right now. She found it a little unsettling. It had been a really long few weeks since Gran’s death and the last couple of days had been quite taxing. Now was not the time; maybe later, but certainly not now. She tried to ignore the presence of the journal as she unpacked the rest of her stuff.
Unpacking didn’t take that long — the nervous energy made her whip through it all in record time. It was all of fifteen minutes later when everything was put away and she found herself standing in front of the chest of drawers, again looking at the journal. She reached her left hand out towards it, traced her fingers over the word ‘Journal’ and then withdrew her hand. She wanted the contact with her grandmother, but she was anxious over w
hat might be inside the journal. It felt a little like snooping.
She quickly reached out, picked it up and placed it in the bottom drawer under one of the bulky jumpers that she had brought along with her just in case. She hurriedly pushed the drawer closed and took a step backwards. She spun and flopped on the bed, grabbing her book that she had placed on the quilt. She didn’t think that she would be settled enough to read, but she may as well give it a go. It wasn’t long before her eyes drifted shut, a mere three pages of the novel read.
When Aurora opened her eyes it was getting dark. She swivelled around, dropping her legs over the side of the bed and sat up. She hoped that they weren’t waiting for her to have tea. After waiting for a couple of moments to fully wake up, she got up and went through to the kitchen. As she reached the kitchen she could hear Fiona and Trudy’s voices coming from somewhere outside. She went through the bathroom and laundry area, stopping in the doorway. Fiona and Trudy were sitting in the middle of a large, covered, paved courtyard area.
The house wall met one side of the square. A long building with lots of doors sat to the left. Another building ran along the back of the area, with only one door at the far end. There was a gap probably around five foot wide between the edge of the paved area and the building at the rear filled with cactus plants and rocks. The fourth side wasn’t flanked by a building, but Aurora could see the gate that led to the large round yard, that she assumed that they used for horses. A tin roof covered the area and there was a long table with benches on either side of it down the middle. The area had a very relaxed feel to it.
Fiona and Trudy were seated on either side of the table at one end. Trudy had her back to the doorway. They had been busily discussing one of the horses and hadn’t heard her approach. Fiona glanced up and spotted Aurora, shooting her a wide smile.
‘Come and sit down and join us.’
Trudy turned as Fiona spoke, also wearing a smile. Aurora went and sat down beside her. It was so quiet out here that Aurora was a little unnerved. She was that used to sitting after dark on the patio outside her unit and having the noise from the road traffic as well as the harbour traffic that the silence was almost shouting at her. She guessed that she would get used to it. She figured that the irony of it would be that she would get used to the silence, only to return to the general hum of Sydney which would in turn unsettle her.
After sitting down, Aurora noticed that it wasn’t as quiet as she had originally thought. Very faintly she could hear the girls giggling and fooling and it sounded as though it was coming from the side of the house near the round yard. There were even a couple of tiny yelps thrown in.
‘Trudy and I were just sitting here enjoying the peace and quiet. Usually at this time of night we’re all out here eating and with fifteen of us, you can imagine what that is like. Hopefully they’ve had a good day and will wrap it up tomorrow. They’re out in one of the really large paddocks that we have out the back of the property. Every few months they muster the cattle that are in there, tag any that missed out last time, cut any youngsters that need it, or if it’s a heifer they separate it out and bring those back here. Because the property is so large, there’s another set of yards out there. They will run them all through the crush, check them, spray them and do whatever else is necessary. Assuming that they got finished with that today, they will move them to the paddock next to it tomorrow to spell the one that they were in.’
Trudy cocked her head to address Aurora.
‘We’re hoping that it all gets wrapped up in the back corner tomorrow. Cal, my brother-in-law, and obviously Fiona’s grandson, has a new mare arriving the day after tomorrow and we’re hoping that he will be here to receive her. On top of that, we have all been itching to check her out. He bought her two months ago and we have been really looking forward to her arrival. She has fantastic bloodlines and will hopefully produce something really special.’
Fiona spoke next to fill in the gaps for Aurora.
‘Cal started breeding horses about five years ago. He started with Australian Stock Horses because they are useful out here. In the last couple of years he has introduced some Thoroughbred bloodlines to produce a really quick moving horse, but one that is still intelligent, able to be educated and a working horse. The foals that he has produced aren’t old enough yet to see any firm results, but we are all hopeful. The mare that arrives the day after tomorrow is a Thoroughbred mare and he intends to put his Stock Horse stallion over her.’
Aurora didn’t know what to say to this as she had no experience at all with horses, or breeding anything, so she merely nodded to show that she understood what they were explaining. She’d rather not make another fool of herself by saying something ridiculous. She figured she would find out anything that she needed to know over the next month.
Fiona rose from the table.
‘That pie is probably just about ready to eat. I’ll go check.’
With that Trudy jumped up, stuck her head around the corner of the house and called the girls to come and wash their hands. She then went over to a large, old sideboard that was positioned on the house wall, beside the door. She took out crockery and cutlery and returned, passing some to Aurora. The rest she spread out on the other side of the table, except for her own set. The two girls came running around the corner of the house and straight into the bathroom.
Aurora heard a stern ‘Girls!’ from Fiona, followed by,’You pair are really lucky that you didn’t run into me with this platter. How many times do you have to be told not to run through the buildings? Make sure that you wash your hands well before you go out to the table please. You’ve been playing with the puppies out in the dirt.’
Fiona came through the doorway, quietly followed by the two girls, now somewhat more subdued, their eyes flicking to Aurora and then quickly looking away in case she saw them. Fiona carried a platter that held a steaming pie, the pastry of which looked absolutely fantastic, along with a creamy looking pile of mashed potato, corn and other vegetables. It smelled divine. As the girls sat down, Aurora’s stomach grumbled in anticipation. She suddenly realised that she was really hungry. She hoped like mad that the noise of the wooden bench on the concrete pavers as the girls sat down had covered the noise from her stomach and that the other ladies hadn’t heard it.
Fiona served the girls, allowing the others to serve themselves. As Aurora lifted the first forkful of pie, her mouth watered in expectation. The pie tasted as good as it looked and smelled. She wondered which of the two ladies had made it. It really was good. Aurora generally had a very expressive face and the delight over the pie must have shown as Fiona caught her eye and briefly gave her a knowing smile. It was nice to eat with others in comfortable silence. Any dinner gatherings that she usually attended were generally full of people each trying to outdo the other and blow their own trumpet.
It seemed to be a different world out here — from her limited contact so far, they seemed to be different people with different values. Both Fiona and Trudy seemed to be genuinely nice, down to earth people. People like that were rare in Aurora’s world where it was all about climbing the academic ladder. Both women presented an unusual experience to what Aurora was used to. Trudy didn’t appear to be shy as Aurora had originally thought, she just seemed to have an inner peace that allowed her to comfortably remain silent until she had something to say. Fiona oozed confidence and authority, but gently rather than harshly. She decided that it may be nice getting to know these two women. The month ahead was not looking like being anything like Aurora had expected.
With another mouthful of pie, Aurora glanced up at the skyline. The black tree shapes silhouetted against the red-orange sky were fantastic, a sunset worth looking at, which she decided sort of figured as she was further west after all. For the next month she had this to enjoy. New horizons symbolically meant new and promising prospects opening up and she wondered if, half-hoping, there was some message in there for her.
four
Surprises
/> Aurora rolled over in the semi-darkness. Footsteps up the hallway had pulled her from her quasi-sleep state. She hadn’t slept well last night. She had lain in the dark and looked at the shadowy form of the chest of drawers for what had seemed like hours. She couldn’t bring herself to pull the journal out though. When she had fallen asleep, she had tossed and turned, her mind full of dreams of her grandmother, her grandfather in some, even her parents popped up at one point. She hadn’t dreamt of her parents for years. All in all it hadn’t been a particularly restful night. At the moment she felt like she had been run over by a bus.
She rubbed a hand over her eyes and lifted her wrist, making a concerted effort to see the time on her watch. Now that she had woken up a little more, voices drifted through to her occasionally. Her watch said 5:48. She desperately wanted to roll over and go back to sleep. She felt as though she had only slept for an hour. She figured that part of the sleep problem was these wretched pyjamas. She didn’t ordinarily sleep in them as she usually managed to get them thoroughly wrapped around her and had to keep untangling herself, which she had also done last night in between the weird dreams. The bed was comfortable and she hadn’t overheated, or been too cold for that matter. Noise hadn’t been a problem either. Her mind must just have been in overdrive.
She threw the covers off and rolled out of bed. It was only Trudy and Fiona as far as she knew, so she padded out to the kitchen dressed as is. They were unlikely to be offended by a t-shirt and cotton boxer short PJs. As Aurora made her way down the hallway she was wondering how she was going to do this early morning thing. It wasn’t the early rising that was the problem, it was the talking to people. She normally got up at home early, but found that she didn’t enjoy talking to people until she had been awake for at least an hour or so. She had been exactly the same when she was married, although it had taken Peter a little while to get used to not talking to her and leaving her alone. Now, early mornings were her quiet time; a chance to slip into the bustle of the day. No students, no parents, no colleagues, no phone calls, no emails — just her and Orinoco having coffee and breakfast on the patio, sometimes with the newspaper, sometimes not. She briefly wondered how Orinoco and Tim were getting along. She so hoped that everything was alright. Too bad if it wasn’t, there was not a lot she could do about it.
Bilgarra Springs Page 4