Bilgarra Springs

by Rotondo, Louise

  Aurora closed the journal over her finger, thinking over what Gran had just said. In part she was in agreement with Mr Fairley senior. Basically, their attachment was wrong. Gran wasn’t free at that time to be pursued by another, nor for that matter, to return his attention. Still, if the depth of affection and connection between the two was that strong, who had the right to stand in the way? Her thinking was leading her round in circles and it was starting to annoy her. She opened the journal again.

  30th January 1946

  The hateful telegram from Charles arrived this evening. It was read out at the end of dinner. With a minimum of words, Charles has asked that if the roads are passable, would somebody from Bilgarra escort me to the train station in Townsville on Monday to meet the late afternoon train. He offered to pay all expenses incurred, a nice gesture on his part, but the telegram itself left me cold. I am ashamed of my rude behaviour but I excused myself from the table and fled to my room. Fiona knocked softy a few minutes later. Her tears were no match for mine. She could not stay long with me as there was work to be done. I am beside myself with grief.

  Aurora could well imagine the two young women hugging each other fiercely. At the time their bond must have been incredibly strong. All these years later the love still shone in Fiona’s eyes when she spoke of Gran.

  31st January 1946

  I sobbed for a long time in the darkness of the room last night. Sleep was impossible. After the rest of the household had gone to bed, Will silently entered my room through the open French doors. The evening was quite warm and I had left them open. He simply lay on his side, wrapped his arms around me and pulled me against him. Sleep eventually claimed me. When I awoke the sun was only just starting to rise and Will had gone. I understand his caution, but we only have two more full days together and every minute together is precious.

  A stabbing sadness hit Aurora. She wondered if anyone would ever think that every moment of time spent with her was precious. For that matter, she wasn’t sure that she would ever feel like that about anybody. She returned her attention to the next entry.

  1st February 1946

  Funny how circumstances change one’s perceptions. I have always regarded February as the month of love due to St Valentine’s Day falling in the middle of it. As long as I can remember I have been enchanted by the tale of the martyred saint who so strongly believed in love and marriage that he defied the Roman edict of the time.

  Valentine’s Day. Now that she came to think of it, Aurora could never remember Gran ever observing it in any way. As a child, after she had come to live with the two of them, it had always been her grandfather who had collected materials to make Valentine’s, or later on, given her the money to go and get something. It hadn’t worried her at the time; she had simply figured that it didn’t fit with Gran’s practical nature. The Isabella that was alive on the pages of the journal though, was a romantic. It saddened her to think that her grandmother’s life had been forced by her own choices from one of a carefree romantic to stark practicality.

  In the present circumstances there is little joy in February for me. Rather, it has come to represent all that I am losing with each passing day. My normal carefree nature has deserted me and left a melancholy creature in its place. Tomorrow is my last full day here. My heart could not be any heavier.

  Aurora kept reading.

  2nd February 1946

  We spent the afternoon down by the river, picnicking. I could not have thought of a better way to pass a Sunday afternoon. A spontaneous game of French cricket took place, using a flat tree branch for a bat and a wad of rolled up greaseproof paper from the lunch wrappings as a ball. Later in the afternoon we waded in the river. I felt so uninhibited standing up to my knees in the water, skirt bunched to keep it dry. I am not aware of whether it was an unofficial parting gathering or not. The fact of my departure at daybreak tomorrow was very much at the forefront of my mind, and no doubt both Will’s and Fiona’s. I shall miss them both terribly. As an only child I have not had the experience of siblings and Fiona is as close to a sister to me as I should ever want. I have invited her to visit me in Sydney but fear that it is a dream that may never come to reality. It was decided that Will is to accompany me to the station in Townsville. I think it intentional on the part of Fiona and Arthur that this situation has been engineered, but dare not ask. Fiona maintains that she has too much work to be able to accompany me and it would not be fair to Eloise for her to do so, although I must add that her eyes belie her. Arthur has insisted that the work on the windmill that he has for tomorrow will require his father’s experience, and that Will would therefore be best placed to make the trip. I am more grateful for their thoughtfulness than I can convey. Shakespeare certainly was correct when he said that ‘love looks not with the eyes but with the mind.’ With the benefit of hindsight I can appreciate his meaning. It is so easy to attribute love to all manner of things, when it is what one wants to believe. The mind puts its own interpretation and one sees what one wants to see. I do not doubt that Charles feels affection for me, but love of the kind that I have found with Will, Charles does not feel. Too late I have realised this and tomorrow I start the journey back to the consequences of my unwitting mistake. I would never in my wildest dreams have expected to fall in love with both Will and his lifestyle, but sometimes the unexpected catches us unawares.

  Aurora closed the journal a little harder than she meant to, discarding it on the bed beside her. Her own life had been one of those consequences. Had Gran’s life really been that bad? She hadn’t thought so. Aurora had always been showered with affection and attention. Her mind was frantically searching through memories for any indication that her grandmother hadn’t wanted the life that she had lived. Aurora was quite bent out of shape by that last entry and her agitation made it hard to be still.

  She threw a last confused look at the journal on the bed and opened the French doors, going over to stand against the verandah railing. Maybe, just maybe she was over-reacting. The musings of a young woman about to be separated from the man she thought to be the love of her life should maybe be read in that context. She knew that Gran had obviously gone home and remained married, raising a child and then a grandchild. It could not have been unbearable or she wouldn’t have stayed. Possibly it was the air out here. She felt a little out of character herself.

  Looking out, she was again mesmerised by the stars. She quietly moved along and down the two steps leading off the verandah. The dry grass was crunchy under her feet. To her ears it was making that much noise that she was sure the whole household would hear her. She stood under the stars gazing upwards, her arms wrapped around her in an effort to conserve her body heat. It had been a lovely temperature inside, but the night air had a coolness to it.

  The back of her neck was starting to protest at being bent. She sat, still looking up, and finally laid down on the grass. The magnitude of the night sky struck her. It brought to mind a huge swathe of black velvet studded in tiny crystals. The Southern Cross was the only constellation that she could pick out, but it was like watching the shapes formed by the clouds racing over head all sorts of patterns could be found.

  Aurora thought back to Gran lying under the stars with Will. At least if Gran was here in the wet season the grass would have been green and less scratchy. The dry grass was starting to get itchy on her bare legs and feet. Aurora sighed. She heartily doubted that history would repeat itself and Callan would come out and join her. Then again, who knew, this seemed to be a place where the unexpected happened.

  fourteen

  Fire

  Aurora had woken this morning to incredibly itchy legs and a bed generously littered with bits of dry grass. She knew it was probably extremely stupid on her part, and it hadn’t started out like that last night, but once she had stretched out Aurora had found herself trying to put herself in Gran’s position. She wanted to understand, but a shared experience also increased that feeling of closeness that she had been experiencing since
she read the last entries in the journal.

  Hopefully, they wouldn’t be really busy today and she could take off to the river this afternoon and sit on the bank, maybe even under the weeping tea tree like Gran had. Anybody that knew what she was doing would probably think her nuts, but it may just help to sort out the jumble of thoughts and emotions in her head, and if so, then it was worth everybody thinking she had lost the plot. She meant to wander out the front and have a look for a tree stump too.

  The Jacaranda tree could be something that she could bring up with Fiona but she wasn’t ready to do that yet. Fiona knew all about the situation between Gran and Will and hadn’t said anything. It certainly explained the weird reaction from both Fiona and Arthur when she had walked out onto the verandah with the photo. Fiona could have said something then, but had chosen not to, and Aurora wasn’t quite ready to put that episode behind her yet.

  As things had turned out, there hadn’t been much on in the afternoon and Aurora had been able to slip away. She loved the river. There was no unpleasant noise here, just the water over the rocks and the swish of the trees in the breeze. She had sat on the bank for a while with her feet in the water, before spreading out under the biggest of the weeping tea trees. After last night’s episode with the grass, she had brought a blanket with her today. She had been so relaxed that the lack of sleep from last night had caught up with her and she had nodded off.

  Callan had noticed Aurora heading towards the river and had decided that the jobs in the shed would have to wait. He had barely had a chance over the last few days to talk to her and he felt really guilty. He could only imagine what she was thinking. It wasn’t that he hadn’t wanted to spend time with her or even talk to her about what happened, it was simply that everybody was so used to having all of his time that each time he thought that he would approach her somebody else claimed his attention, which was no excuse he knew, he could have made the time, but that would have been so obvious in front of everybody and it wasn’t that he was shy, but there were limits to what he wanted to share with a dozen or so other people.

  As he approached, he could see Aurora stretched out under the tree on the bank of the river. He couldn’t tell from this far away whether she was asleep or not. He brought the gelding, Sox, a little closer before dismounting and tying him to one of the other trees nearby. As he got nearer to where she lay he could see that her eyes were closed. She looked utterly peaceful and much more relaxed than when she had first arrived. She had been so uptight; little by little she had unwound and given her quirky sense of humour free rein. The more relaxed she became the more she seemed to glow and the result had been nothing short of amazing.

  It was her serene beauty that touched him now. Lost in sleep, her face was completely free from worry and she looked simply beautiful. Not in the glamorous, cover-girl way that the media seemed to prefer, it was more an earthy, natural freshness that captivated him. He clenched his fists beside his body as he stared down at her. He knew that he shouldn’t touch her, that they didn’t have that sort of relationship yet, but he couldn’t help himself. He knelt down beside her and gently ran the back of his hand down her cheek.

  ‘Aurora,’ he softly spoke her name.

  Her eyes flew open, her right hand punched him square in the jaw as she sprang to her feet. Her left hand followed and got him square in the nose before he had realised what had happened.

  ‘Don’t touch me! Don’t you ever fucking well touch me again!!’ Aurora screamed, as she straightened up. The reaction stunned Cal so much that he remained stationary, his right hand automatically going to his nose to check for blood as he moved his jaw. Tears welled in his eyes from the blows. What the hell? Sure, he had probably taken liberties in touching her face while she was asleep, but hey, they had danced together a couple of nights ago and he had kissed her when they were sitting under the tree and she hadn’t reacted like that then. He was at a complete loss to understand why she had reacted the way she had.

  He noticed then, that as her eyes focused on him, comprehension dawned and incredulity was written all over her face. She dropped her head, staring at the ground for a couple of seconds before returning her gaze to him.

  ‘Cal... shit!’

  She ran her hands through her hair.

  ‘I’m sorry.... I...’

  She didn’t say anymore, just turned around and started walking in the direction of the homestead.

  It took Callan a couple of seconds to react and when he did, he quickly sprang up and untied the horse, mounted in a fluid motion and urged the horse into a trot to catch up with her. She hadn’t gone too far and she still had quite a walk before she got back and he hated to think that he had seriously offended her in some way. He really wanted it sorted before he got back to the homestead mostly because he cared for her and didn’t want to cause her any hurt, but also because if Fiona saw how upset she was she would skin him alive.

  His grandmother may be getting on in age, but hell, there wasn’t a man on this property that didn’t have a healthy respect for the hellfire she could produce when provoked and she had made it abundantly clear that anybody that so much as harmed a hair on that girl’s head would have her to answer to. Pity it didn’t work in reverse given that she had just thrown two punches at him that had damned well hurt.

  It didn’t take long for the horse to catch up with her. When he had slightly passed her he drew the horse up and dismounted, intending to talk as they walked back. He figured that they still had a fair way to go and that should be enough time to get to the bottom of whatever it was that had fired her up. Callan gentled his voice as much as possible.

  ‘Aurora, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you and I certainly didn’t mean to overstep any boundaries.’

  Aurora kept walking, her face straight ahead without acknowledging that she had heard him. He tried again.

  ‘Aurora, I’ve said that I’m sorry. Please look at me.’

  Aurora replied this time, but wouldn’t look at him and kept walking.

  ‘Just leave it Callan. I over-reacted. I shouldn’t have hit you but I did. I’m sorry for that. It shouldn’t have happened.’

  Cal wasn’t content to leave it at that.

  ‘I don’t give a damn about you hitting me but I do want to know why. What the hell is going on? Will you stop and look at me and tell me what bloody well happened back there?’

  With that she did stop. She spun around and looked him square in the face, her hands planted firmly on her hips.

  ‘No worries. I’ll tell you what happened back there. I went into survival mode. Here’s the pretty, little scenario of my life Cal. The last time, and I mean the very last time that my caring, sensitive husband touched me, he rendered me unconscious and put me in intensive care.’

  Callan’s face had lost its colour and incredulity was painted all over it. Not content to stop with that, now that she had begun, more bitter fury spilled out, each word oozing sarcasm.

  ‘Yes, imagine that Cal. My fantastically, loving husband literally beat me senseless. But no, he didn’t stop there did he. He kicked and punched until he had busted four ribs, a leg and brought on a miscarriage, although due to being unconscious I seemed to have missed that part. Oh lucky me. The next thing I remember was waking up in ICU. So you know, I just can’t imagine what would have prompted such a reaction out of me. Pretty story isn’t it?’

  With that she turned on her heel and stormed off. Callan, with Sox in tow, followed.

  ‘Aurora, wait for me. I’m sorry. How was I to know that?’

  The sincerity in his voice got her to stop long enough for him to continue, although she didn’t turn around.

  ‘You have to believe that I would never have touched you while you were sleeping had I known that I was going to frighten the crap out of you.’

  Aurora faced him, the anger draining from her.

  ‘I know Cal. It wasn’t until I was on my feet and had already thrown the punches that I realised that you weren
’t Peter. It was instinct.’

  Aurora couldn’t quite believe that she had reacted as violently as she had. It had been eight years since that last episode with Peter. She would have thought that she would have been well and truly over it by now. Obviously, the self-defence training that Mitch had insisted that she take had worked.

  Aurora let out the breath that she had been holding and all of a sudden she looked defeated and worn down. She met Cal’s eyes and was unnerved by the horror that flashed briefly through them. This was why this was an area of her life that she never shared with anybody. She couldn’t stand the sympathy or pity or whatever other emotions the story evoked. There had been more than enough of that from Peter’s colleagues at the time. When it all came down to it, nothing anyone said or thought could change the past, or undo the damage.

  She turned away from Callan and moved off in the direction of the homestead. Cal let her go for a bit, undecided whether to follow her and continue their discussion or leave her alone to deal with it on her own. She had only taken a few paces when he decided that he couldn’t leave her alone and set off after her, his larger strides catching her in no time, Sox being led along behind with his head down. All three walked along in silence.

  They had almost made it to the yards, surrounded by tall gum trees, when Callan touched Aurora’s shoulder.

  ‘Come sit down with me. We’re not finished with this yet.’

  She just nodded. Normally she wouldn’t have shared this with him, but she had already said too much to be able to back out now.