Moonlight Plains

by Barbara Hannay

  Sally was trying to dawdle, giving herself a chance to look up into the gum trees for the koalas that frequented this track, but Josh was a fitness fiend, always wanting to go faster. If he’d been with his football mates, he’d have tried to run the whole way.

  So they compromised, dawdling at times and then breaking into a jog, and then stopping in the gentle winter sunlight to admire the best of the sea views.

  High on the ridge above Radical Bay, Josh stood behind Sally, slipped his arms around her and nuzzled her neck, giving her shivers of deliciousness.

  Loving the moment, she nestled into his warmth, relishing the firmness of his strong chest as she gazed down at the tall hoop pines and the huge, smooth rocks that studded the headlands at either end of the bay.

  ‘Would you like to see the Greek islands?’ she asked him. ‘They’re probably as pretty as this, but there’d be lots of lovely tavernas and gorgeous cafes along the way.’

  When Josh didn’t answer, she turned to him. ‘Earth to Josh? I was asking if you’d like to go to Greece.’

  ‘I can’t,’ he said simply.

  Sally blinked at him in surprise. ‘Really? Why not?’

  Josh was dark enough to look as if he had Greek heritage – black hair and eyes and lovely olive skin. Fancifully, she imagined some long-held family secret that prevented him from ever going to the country of his forefathers. But Josh was looking at her so sadly that she felt an icy chill.

  ‘I can’t go with you, Sally.’ He looked far more serious than her casual suggestion warranted.

  ‘Josh, what’s wrong? I don’t understand.’

  To her horror, Josh was starting to fade before her very eyes. As they stood there on the rocky outcrop looking out at the bay, with the sun shining on their backs and a gentle sea breeze wafting pine scents over them, her husband grew fainter and fainter.

  ‘Josh!’ she cried in panic, but now he was no more than a ghostly outline. ‘Josh!’

  She woke, gasping, to find herself lying in a strange room, and cruel reality crashed over her. A soft moan escaped. Josh was gone.

  Dead.

  The horror of it seized Sally, sickened her. Once again she had to face the awful truth. She’d lost Josh forever. He was never coming back.

  Now, with the dream and the regret so fresh and raw, she looked around her, appalled to find herself at Moonlight Plains, in Luke Fairburn’s bedroom, in his swag on the floor.

  She’d slept with another man. For the first time in her life, she’d slept with a man who wasn’t Josh.

  Silver moonlight had given way to the creamy blue of early morning and Luke was already out of bed. The smell of frying bacon drifted from the kitchen. On the wall in front of Sally, Kitty Mathieson’s pink dress hung from a coat hanger on a hook, and Sally remembered taking it off very carefully last night. Luke’s hired suit was on another hanger beside a shelf that held his other roughly folded clothes – signs that commonsense had prevailed before the longing and passion had overtaken them.

  Sally winced now, as she remembered how that longing and passion had played out.

  What have I done?

  She couldn’t shake off the dream and the happiness of being with Josh. For precious moments, he’d been so real, so gorgeous. She’d been able to touch him, to smell him, and she’d been euphoric, buoyed by an over-the-top joyousness and sense of wellbeing, as happy as she’d been on the night of the surprise birthday party she’d organised for him, when she and their friends had hidden in the flat, waiting in happy expectation for his knock on the front door.

  Instead two sombre policemen had arrived to tell her about Josh’s accident. ‘Mrs Piper? Mrs Joshua Piper?’

  Once again, Sally was gripped by the horror of losing her husband, and remorse clung to her like wet clothing, making her feel terrible about last night . . . as if she’d sinned.

  It was so hard to believe she’d let it happen.

  Clearly, all the loneliness and the isolation of the past thirty months, all the suppressed longing had been ticking inside her like an unexploded grenade. And last night it had seemed as if the whole world was waiting for her to take a step . . . and that step had taken her into Luke’s arms . . . his bed . . .

  She couldn’t have been luckier, really. He’d been lovely.

  More than lovely. He’d swept her away and lit flames of longing that had taken her by surprise. She’d gone a little wild, she remembered now, blushing.

  But thinking about it so soon after her dream, her guilt came back tenfold. Now she felt as if she should apologise to Josh.

  Her social experiment – primarily to please her friends – had gone too far. Way too far. How could she have behaved like that, as if . . .

  As if she was available?

  Luke turned from the frying pan and sent Sally a smile as she came into the kitchen. He looked as attractive as ever with his rumpled, sun-bronzed hair and the whole cowboy thing happening – those shoulders stretching the shoulder seams of his checked cotton shirt, his faded low-slung jeans.

  ‘Morning,’ he said, still smiling.

  ‘Good morning, Luke. I borrowed some of your clothes. I hope that’s okay.’

  ‘Absolutely.’

  His amused glance took in the crumpled cotton shirt she’d found on the shelf in his room and a pair of his track pants that she’d rolled over at her waist and up at the ankles.

  ‘Those old clothes have never looked so good,’ he said.

  Sally wasn’t sure how to react to his compliment so she paid attention to the bacon and eggs in the pan. ‘This smells great.’ Quickly, she added, ‘You were up early.’

  He shrugged. ‘I’ve got those history buffs coming out here this morning.’

  ‘Oh, yes, of course. To see where the plane crashed.’ She frowned. ‘Is there still time to drop me back in town?’

  ‘Of course. No problem.’ He snagged a bright-red enamel mug from the dish drainer. ‘Tea?’

  ‘Lovely.’

  ‘How do you have it?’

  Every time he looked at her, his eyes flashed, sending her happy messages she didn’t want to read.

  ‘White with one,’ she said rather tightly.

  A small silence fell as Luke poured the tea.

  ‘I’ll do the milk and sugar if you like.’

  ‘Sure.’ He handed her the mug. ‘Sally, I’m not quite sure how to put this, but last night . . .’

  She nodded quickly, dropping her gaze again as heat rushed into her cheeks. ‘It was amazing, Luke.’

  It was a mistake to look up at him and see that shining light in his eyes, to see hope, admiration and desire. The warmth of his smile sent a panicky chill snaking through her.

  This was going to be as bad as she’d feared. She’d been reckless and selfish with a really, really nice guy and she’d given him the wrong impression.

  She had to get things right, had to set Luke straight immediately. It was only fair. She spoke quickly, before her courage failed. ‘I’m sorry . . . but don’t expect too much from me, Luke.’

  Several beats passed before he spoke. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  Sally’s chest tightened. Now his expression was wary and she couldn’t blame him. She swallowed nervously. ‘I’m afraid . . . I’m not really . . . available.’

  He stared at her, his green eyes serious. He gave a bewildered shake of his head. ‘What is this? Some kind of a joke? You’re not – you’re not telling me you’re married?’

  ‘No, there’s no one else, not now. But I was married.’ She looked down at her tightly clasped hands. ‘My husband died, you see, and – and I’m afraid I’m not available emotionally.’

  The bacon sizzled and spat in the pan as Luke stood there, clearly stunned, and Sally remembered the way she’d more or less led him to the bedroom last night.

  How could she have been so thoughtless?

  It felt like an age before he spoke. ‘So what was that last night?’ A cool edge had crept into his voice. ‘Di
version therapy?

  ‘No, it was . . .’ Sally stopped. She felt wretched, unwilling to hand out compliments and a rejection in the same breath. ‘I’m sorry. I really am.’

  Luke was staring out through the window now. ‘I’m not the first, though, am I? Since your husband died, I mean. Someone like you, unattached, would have offers from all kinds of guys.’

  ‘No. God, no.’ It was so hard to talk about this. ‘You’re the first, Luke.’

  To her dismay, a red flush stained his neck as he continued to stare out the window. His eyes were narrowed, his expression tense.

  Sally felt worse than ever. How could she explain this without making it worse? ‘I thought I was ready.’

  The silence that followed this was excruciating, but then an acrid smell tainted the air. The bacon and eggs were burning.

  ‘Shit.’ Luke whirled around and grabbed the pan’s handle, pulling it off the flame. Tight-lipped, he used an egg flip to free the blackening edges that had stuck to the pan. ‘This breakfast is stuffed.’

  ‘It’s fine.’ Sally hoped he couldn’t guess how close to tears she was. ‘I like my bacon crispy.’

  With a grim-faced shrug Luke silently served up the brittle bacon and rubbery eggs, setting her plate on the table and indicating that she should take the only chair.

  ‘Thanks.’

  He perched on a metal esky, balancing his plate on a solid, jeans-clad thigh, and scowled as he speared a curling piece of bacon. ‘How long since . . . since your husband died?’

  ‘Two and a half years.’

  Surprise flared in his eyes.

  ‘I know that sounds like a long time,’ she said. ‘I know I have to get over it.’

  ‘It wouldn’t be easy.’ Luke kept his focus on cutting his food.

  Sally tried to explain. ‘I thought – I suppose I assumed that last night was casual.’

  ‘Yeah, well, obviously it was.’

  She knew Luke was trying to sound as if he didn’t care, but his gaze was hard now, even though he countered it with an offhand shrug.

  Their conversation lapsed as they finished their food and scraped the inedible bits into the bin.

  ‘Let me wash up,’ she offered.

  He shook his head. ‘Leave the plates in the sink. We need to get cracking.’

  ‘Oh, yes. Before the visitors arrive?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  She supposed he was relieved to have an excuse to be rid of her quickly and, less than ten minutes later, she was climbing into his ute, once again wearing Kitty’s dress.

  Through the windscreen, she looked up at the homestead. It seemed shabbier in the daylight, with peeling paint and broken guttering and a whole section of the verandah railing missing. But the house still had the strong pleasing lines that would respond well to a makeover.

  ‘You’ll make this place fabulous,’ she told Luke as they drove off.

  ‘That’s the plan,’ he responded grimly.

  Conversation was clearly going to be awkward. She looked out across the paddocks bordered by bushland. ‘Where’s the wrecked plane? Can you see the pieces from here?’

  ‘Not any more. Those trees are in the way. And it’s only a couple of bits of twisted metal.’

  But at least the plane provided an opportunity for a less troubled conversation on the journey into town, so Sally decided to pursue it. ‘Do you know much about the crash? It seems strange that an American plane ended up all the way out here.’

  ‘Apparently there were stacks of crashes all over North Queensland during the war.’

  ‘I wonder why. There wasn’t fighting here, was there?’

  Luke didn’t respond at first as he steered the ute down the bumpy, rutted track, but then he must have decided it was better to talk than to spend the entire journey in uncomfortable silence.

  ‘According the story my family tells, the guy who crashed here was flying back from New Guinea.’ He rounded a bend and their last view of the homestead disappeared. ‘There was a big storm, apparently, practically a cyclone, and the Yanks were blown off course. They were running out of fuel, so they took a chance on landing here.’

  ‘But they crashed.’

  ‘At least one of them crashed and his plane burned.’

  ‘And your family rescued the pilot?’

  ‘I guess. I’m a bit hazy on the details. My grandmother was living here at the time. She was sent out here from Townsville to housekeep for her great-uncle.’

  To Sally’s surprise, Luke sent her a quick grin, and it was the relaxed, almost cheeky grin that had been so appealing last night when they met. ‘My mother reckons Gran was sent out here to keep her away from the Americans.’

  ‘Why? Because the flashy and handsome American airmen might lead her astray?’

  ‘Something like that.’

  ‘But instead the Americans came to your grandmother.’

  Smiling at the irony, Sally looked down at the dress she was wearing. She wondered about Kitty Mathieson and whether she had ever danced with an American airman.

  ‘Was there a romance?’ she asked.

  ‘Doubt it.’ Luke’s hands tightened on the steering wheel. ‘I certainly haven’t heard anything.’

  ‘That’s a pity. A wartime romance would have been a nice touch for my story.’

  He frowned. ‘The magazine story you wanted to write – about the homestead?’

  ‘Yes . . .’ she said, feeling uncertain.

  ‘So you’re still planning to write it?’

  ‘Well, yes, if you’re keen. I’d love to record your progress with the renovations.’

  ‘You’d come out here . . . we’d see each other on a regular basis and we’d just pretend last night never happened?’

  ‘Well . . . I . . .’

  Luke was shaking his head. ‘Sorry. I think you’d better scrap that plan.’

  7

  Moonlight Plains, 1942

  Kitty had just lugged the late-afternoon milk pail up the stairs and into the kitchen when she heard the low drone of aeroplanes.

  She was used to the sound of Allied planes flying high up, but these were coming her way, and they were so low and menacing she was sure they had to be Japs. She froze, her heart thrashing like the pistons on a locomotive. The war wasn’t supposed to reach her all the way out here.

  For six weeks now, she’d been at Moonlight Plains, her recently widowed great-uncle’s property west of Charters Towers. She’d been keeping his house, cooking his meals, weeding his vegetables and milking his two dairy cows, such very different work from her old job on the haberdashery counter at Carroll’s in Townsville.

  Her grandfather had supposedly sent her here to keep her out of harm’s way, but they both knew it was her punishment. Admittedly her ruddy-faced, stout and elderly great-uncle needed Kitty’s help. He’d let everything go since his wife died last year.

  Aunt Lil’s beautiful garden had quickly deteriorated over the long hot summer and the lovely old house had all but disappeared beneath layers of dust. The only thing her great-uncle seemed to care about was his cattle. But although there was plenty to keep Kitty busy, and she knew Uncle Jim valued her help, she still felt like a prisoner, banished into the never-never.

  If she was still in Townsville, she could be helping the war effort. Women were needed for all sorts of work, now that the men were away.

  She threw a frantic glance to the timber-framed casement windows, but they were covered in brown paper, her great-uncle’s version of blackout curtains, so she couldn’t see a thing outside – not a hint of sky, or gum trees, or paddocks.

  Shaking, she put the milk pail down. It spilled, but that hardly mattered if these were Jap planes and she was about to die.

  A loud snarl of engines almost overhead sent her diving beneath the kitchen table. She was sure her world was going to end. The very last sound she would hear was the deafening explosion of a Japanese bomb as it plunged through the homestead’s iron roof.

  She tried to
pray. Our Father, who art in heaven . . . Gentle Jesus . . . Thy rod and staff shall comfort me . . .

  It was no good; her mind kept slipping from the task. Despite her grandfather’s best efforts, she’d never been very good at prayers and now she was going to die like all those poor people in Darwin. At least those people had been together.

  Kitty felt very alone as she cowered beneath the table. Uncle Jim had left two days earlier, after an official order came through to de-stock. For once, he’d agreed with the government. He’d be damned if he’d let the Japs get their stinking hands on his prime Hereford beef, so he was driving his cattle to the saleyards.

  Now the noisy thumping of Kitty’s heart was almost as loud as the roar of the aircraft. She cringed, tense as a shotgun trigger, chin tucked, eyes closed, arms tightly locked around her knees.

  The lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures . . .

  Above her, a droning engine hiccupped, and she heard a sickening whine. A hair-raising screech of ripping metal. And –

  Crrrump!

  The shocking, thudding crash was so close that the homestead’s walls and windows rattled.

  Hands clamped over her ears, Kitty braced for the final explosion. The end of her world.

  She tried to remember the rest of the psalm. He leadeth me beside the still waters.

  Not daring to breathe, she waited.

  And waited.

  Eventually she had to breathe and when she took her hands from her ears, she heard . . . nothing . . .

  Not a sound. Not even a distant thrum of additional planes. The bush had returned to its everyday, comforting silence.

  Cautiously incredulous, Kitty uncurled. She’d been in a tight ball for so long that her stomach muscles and her knees complained as she eased out from beneath the table and tiptoed to the window, pushing it open to peer into the purple-grey dusk.

  She half-expected to see flames, but the paddocks and the bush looked much as they always had. She pushed the casement as wide open as she could and leaned out. A fine mist of rain drizzled onto her face. It had been raining on and off for days and she smelled wet earth, wet grass, wet eucalyptus leaves. She smelled the sweet scent of the mock orange bushes growing in tubs on either side of the stairs and the lilies that had grown from bulbs sent out from Scotland by Aunty Lil’s family. Right until she’d died, Aunty Lil had kept them alive with water from the washing copper.