Moonlight Plains

by Barbara Hannay

  She was putting the milk away in the kitchen when Ed returned from his digging. While he washed his hands and face, she made another pot of tea and set it on the table with a plate of sandwiches – homemade bread and cheese – plus the last bottle of her great-aunt’s pickled chokos from the pantry. She hoped her great-uncle wouldn’t mind about that.

  ‘I thought you might be hungry,’ she said, wondering whether people from Boston ever ate such rustic meals. She was sure she’d read in a novel that Bostonians dined on creamed oysters and coffee.

  ‘I feel almost ashamed to admit to hunger today, but this looks wonderful, thanks.’ It was impossible to miss the sadness in Ed’s eyes and the slant of his mouth, but he showed no qualms about spreading thick dollops of the yellow pickle onto the cheese, and he wasted no time in tucking in.

  Kitty agreed that it seemed wrong to be hungry, but she definitely felt better after some food . . . until a new worry loomed.

  ‘Ed, you’re not going to leave today, are you?’ she asked as she gathered up their plates. ‘Even if the creek’s gone down, you should stay for another night. I don’t think I could cope with being left alone here now . . . with Bobby.’

  Ed looked up at her, his dark eyes gentle with sympathy.

  Kitty strengthened her plea. ‘Could you possibly stay until my great-uncle gets back?’

  ‘When’s he due back?’

  ‘Tomorrow.’

  ‘Then that’s fine. I can certainly stay overnight.’ Ed rose, almost as if he was standing to attention, and then he gave the slightest hint of a bow as he smiled at Kitty. ‘It would be my very pleasant duty.’

  In that moment, he looked every inch the tall, handsome prince that Bobby had claimed him to be.

  They planned to bury Bobby in the cool of the afternoon, which meant there were still hours and hours to fill. While Ed went back across the paddocks to inspect his plane, Kitty cleaned the few dishes they’d used at lunch, then she washed Ed’s flight suit and hung it out to dry, before going to the chicken coop to collect the day’s eggs.

  Ed was gone a good long while; he was frowning and looked angry when he returned.

  ‘How’s your plane?’ Kitty asked.

  ‘It’s fine. A couple of knocks but the undercarriage is okay.’

  ‘But you’re angry.’

  ‘Sure, I am. I could have taken off if only I’d had the damn fuel. There’s enough cleared ground.’

  With surprising force, he slammed his fist into a verandah post. ‘I can’t believe we survived dogfights with the Nips in New Guinea and then flew back into this fiasco. It’s crazy.’

  ‘Bobby was worried you’d blame yourself.’

  ‘Of course I blame my–’ Ed turned to frown at her. ‘What did Bobby say?’

  ‘He said you’d blame yourself, but he insisted that the crash wasn’t your fault.’

  Ed sighed. ‘Of course it was. I was responsible.’

  ‘You ran into a tropical storm and were driven inland, Ed. Then you ran out of fuel. How is that your fault?’

  ‘There were six Airacobras caught in that storm but we lost visual contact. I’m not sure what happened to all of them. Some probably landed on a beach up on Cape York. But I was pigheaded. I decided to push on. I thought I had just enough fuel to reach Townsville and Bobby –’ His face twisted in a grimace of pain. ‘And Bobby stuck with me. I failed my first real test of leadership,’ he said with a sad shake of his head.

  If Kitty had been braver she might have given Ed a hug. He probably wasn’t accustomed to battling with feelings of guilt and failure.

  ‘I – I guess these things happen in war,’ she said gently.

  Ed stiffened. ‘Yes, of course.’

  She wondered if he was thinking, as she was, that the war might get a lot worse before it was over.

  But then her own feelings of guilt came back in a rush. ‘I lost Bobby’s lucky dollar.’

  The very thought of the bright shiny coin made her cringe. One minute Bobby had been showing it to her, proud as punch and the next –

  It was too awful to remember scrambling on the floor, desperately searching for the coin.

  Don’t worry, sweetheart. I guess my luck ran out.

  ‘Kitty, you know you can’t blame yourself for that. It was a fluke. A freak.’

  ‘But if I’d looked under the house, I might have found it.’ Her face crumpled as she remembered the desperation of that search. ‘I was too scared of snakes.’

  ‘And so you should be,’ Ed said, watching her with the glimmer of a smile.

  A shiver-sweet smile that arrowed straight to Kitty’s heart.

  The afternoon dragged on. Kitty told Ed he should rest, but she wasn’t surprised when he turned this down. She knew they were both too tense and miserable to relax. Ed’s cotton-drill flight suit was almost dry and she brought it inside to iron.

  ‘You don’t have to do that,’ Ed said when he found her setting up the ironing board, balanced between the backs of two kitchen chairs.

  ‘I want to,’ Kitty said.

  ‘But I might be wading through that creek again tomorrow morning.’

  ‘The creeks can go down very quickly once the rain stops. We may as well have you looking like an airman and not like a no-hoper.’

  ‘It seems like too much trouble.’

  He looked slightly worried as he watched her use a thick pot holder to lift the iron from the wood stove where it was heating. Kitty wondered if he’d ever seen his mother do any ironing or laundry work.

  ‘It’s no trouble at all,’ she said breezily. ‘But I’m afraid I didn’t use any starch.’

  ‘I’ll forgive you.’ With his arms folded across his chest, Ed leaned a bulky shoulder against one of the kitchen cupboards and stood, watching her, his mouth tilted in a wry smile, as she ironed.

  Naturally, his attention made her self-conscious, but she could hardly tell him to go away, and she turned a simple task into something of an ordeal, ironing in creases and then having to sprinkle warm water and re-iron the creases out. And twice she almost burned her hand, despite the pot holder.

  Eventually the sun began to sink towards the western treeline and it was time to bury Bobby.

  As Kitty helped Ed to carry him in the carefully wrapped sheet, she was reminded of their journey the previous night when they’d carried Bobby from the plane. Had it really only been yesterday? She remembered the hours she had spent sitting alone with him, singing to him, hoping . . .

  Just stay with me, Angel . . .

  How vain she’d been, imagining that her singing might save him.

  Now she was acutely aware that this Australian bush was foreign to Bobby. His home was in Minnesota and Ed had told her that it snowed there, so it seemed wrong that he should be laid to rest in this hot, red dirt surrounded by khaki gum trees. She wanted to shoo away the nonchalant, pink-breasted galahs that fed noisily nearby on grass seeds, and she wanted to frighten off the curious kangaroos that watched, ears twitching, from the shade of wattle clumps.

  She was determined that she wouldn’t cry again, even though hot tears stung her eyes and burned her throat. She wanted to be strong, wanted to show Ed she was not a weakling.

  She managed pretty well until she tried to sing the Twenty-Third Psalm, but from the first words – The Lord is my shepherd – her voice faltered, and when she got to Yea, though I walk in death’s dark vale, she couldn’t go on.

  She simply couldn’t.

  ‘Hey, it’s okay.’ Ed slipped an arm around her shaking shoulders.

  ‘I’m s-sorry,’ she whispered, struggling to hold back her tears. ‘I – I c-couldn’t even s-sing a psalm for him.’

  ‘You’ve been magnificent, Kitty. You sang for Bobby last night when he needed it most, and that was wonderful. Way more important.’

  He said this so sincerely that she could almost believe him.

  They sat on the verandah, watching the last of the sunlight. Kitty lit pieces of dried cow dung in a tin sau
cer to keep the mosquitoes away. Ed had changed into the freshly ironed flight suit for the burial, and now he lowered his long frame into a cane chair and smoked a cigarette.

  ‘You must be terribly tired by now,’ she said. ‘I slept last night, but I still feel exhausted.’

  ‘I’m not surprised. You’ve been through quite an ordeal.’

  ‘But I haven’t, really. Not compared with those poor people in London who’ve had to deal with the Blitz.’

  Ed shot her a questioning look. ‘Sure, the Londoners have been brave, but you’re a girl on your own in the middle of nowhere.’

  It was true that a lot had happened. She thought about it now, remembering her fear when she first heard the approaching aeroplanes, then meeting Ed and Bobby, Bobby’s initial terror when he saw her with the potato sack over her head, the hours she’d sat with him . . .

  Just stay with me, Angel . . .

  ‘I can’t stop thinking about him,’ she said softly.

  ‘Yeah, I’m the same.’

  ‘He was only nineteen, the same age as me.’

  ‘Yeah.’ After a small silence, Ed asked, ‘You’re nineteen?’

  ‘Yes. Why? How old did you think I was?’

  ‘I – I wasn’t sure. I’m no expert on women’s ages.’ The hint of a smile warmed his voice.

  ‘How old are you, Ed?’

  ‘Twenty-one.’

  ‘An old man.’

  ‘One of the oldest in my unit.’

  Gosh . . . So many young men, all of them putting their lives on the line. Kitty shivered and tears brimmed again. She sniffed, hoping the tears wouldn’t fall.

  ‘Do you believe in heaven?’ she asked after a bit.

  ‘Do you?’ Ed countered.

  ‘I don’t know.’ Kitty had been having trouble with the concepts of God and heaven even before the war began. Now, she found it really hard to understand how the Great War, the war to end all wars, had finished just five years before she was born and yet here they were, at war again. What kind of God allowed the people he loved to annihilate themselves like this, over and over?

  ‘My grandfather would have a fit if he heard me say this,’ she said, ‘but I can’t help thinking that death might be a bit like before we’re born, when we know nothing . . . when we have no consciousness.’

  Ed’s eyebrows rose. ‘You could be right. But even before we were conceived, I guess we were still an idea, a prospect, a possible dream in our parents’ heads.’

  ‘Probably.’ She realised that Ed was smiling and she wondered if he was amused by her simplistic attempt to ponder one of life’s greatest mysteries, but she found herself smiling back at him. ‘And after we die, we go back to being an idea in people’s memories.’

  Their smiles held for a moment, but then they sobered. Kitty thought again about Bobby.

  ‘You know . . . he only had seven hours of flying lessons before they packed him into that plane,’ Ed said.

  ‘Seven? Seven hours?’ It seemed impossible to Kitty. ‘What about you? Don’t tell me that’s all you’ve had too.’

  Ed shook his head. ‘I joined up last year and so I had several months of training.’ He drew on his cigarette, then let out a heavy, smoky sigh. ‘Damn it. I don’t know if Bobby even kissed a girl.’

  ‘Oh, he has,’ Kitty said.

  Ed shot her a look of sharp interest. ‘Did he kiss you?’

  ‘No. Don’t be silly.’

  ‘But he talked about girls?’

  ‘Not really,’ Kitty admitted. But she couldn’t help remembering how Bobby had cheekily offered to make room in the bed for her, despite his terrible injuries, and how easily the nickname Angel had come to him. She was quite sure that he would have flirted with her if he’d been well enough.

  ‘He didn’t need to tell me,’ she said rather brashly. ‘A girl knows these things.’

  ‘Does she, now?’

  The mild amusement in Ed’s eyes made Kitty feel foolish, as if he’d caught her out pretending to have a vast knowledge of men and kissing. In reality, she’d only ever kissed Andy and that last time had been so rushed and furtive she could scarcely remember it.

  And yet now, just talking to Ed about this subject felt dangerous and exciting, as if she was a moth fluttering too close to a flame.

  ‘I need another cigarette.’ Ed was frowning as he reached into his pocket.

  Kitty watched his handsome profile, admiring the way his lips held the cigarette at a jaunty angle as he struck the match. She watched the dark wing of his hair shining in the last of the daylight as he dipped his head to hold the cigarette’s tip to the flame. He looked so sophisticated.

  ‘Can I have a puff?’ she asked.

  If Ed was surprised, he quickly covered it. ‘Sure.’

  Kitty took the cigarette, carefully holding it between two fingers, and took a little puff, pleased that she didn’t cough.

  ‘You don’t need to share. Have one,’ Ed said, casually flipping the soft packet of cigarettes towards her.

  ‘No, I’m fine, thanks.’ She’d begun to feel woozy almost straight away. ‘That puff was lovely though.’

  Perhaps it was just as well that the cicadas started to trill then, signalling nightfall. She and Ed went inside and lit lamps, and as there were plenty of eggs, Kitty made an omelette for their supper.

  They ate in the kitchen once again and she allowed herself only one fanciful moment in which she pretended that Ed was her man and that they ate alone like this, just the two of them, all the time.

  Then she was shocked by her silliness. She really was the dizzy limit, as her grandmother had told her many, many times.

  To remind herself that Ed was way out of her league, she said, ‘Bobby told me that you’re a Boston blueblood. What does that mean?’

  Ed gave a smiling roll of his eyes. ‘It means very little, to be honest.’

  Not satisfied, Kitty pushed. ‘Bobby didn’t seem to think so.’

  He shrugged. ‘Well . . . it means I come from a family with very high expectations.’

  ‘Oh.’ Was that all? She felt quite disappointed.

  ‘And it means I heard plenty of paternal lectures in my childhood,’ Ed expanded.

  Thinking of her grandfather, Kitty was instantly sympathetic. ‘Lectures about religion?’

  He laughed. ‘About religion, about money, about sober habits and the importance of family. My family is terribly snobby, I’m afraid.’

  ‘And rich?’

  ‘Well, yes. But don’t worry – this war is knocking any snobbery out of me fast.’

  ‘So what did your family say when you joined up?’

  Ed drew a sharp breath. ‘My mother spent a week in bed with a migraine. And my father . . . was at a loss at first. After that, he was angry. I was in the middle of a law degree at Harvard and he couldn’t understand how I could give that up. He decided I was simply looking for adventure.’

  ‘Were you?’

  Ed stared at her for a moment and then his eyes twinkled. ‘Partly.’ He put down his fork and leaned back in his chair, looking around him at the simple homestead kitchen with its wood stove and kerosene refrigerator, the gentle lamplight.

  ‘I felt as if I’d been living in a gilded cage,’ he said. ‘So yeah, I admit I probably joined up initially to escape the pressure and expectations. But the thing is, I’ve already learned so much – important things – mixing with men from all over, and from all walks of life.’

  ‘What sorts of things?’ Kitty asked, fascinated.

  ‘Well . . .’ In the ruby glow of the lamp Ed shifted the salt and pepper shakers as if they were chess pieces. ‘I’ve found that the most unlikely people have the qualities I most admire,’ he said quietly. ‘Not cleverness or wealth or authority, but things like tolerance, kindness, courage . . .’

  Across the table his dark eyes met Kitty’s and he smiled again. ‘Who would have thought I’d find all that in a young girl in the Aussie outback?’

  After their simple sup
per, Ed insisted on helping with the washing up.

  Kitty protested. ‘I know you’re exhausted.’ He’d had next to no sleep last night and the day had been gruelling.

  She was pleased when he acquiesced and left her to the dishes. ‘If you’re not ready for sleep, go into the lounge room,’ she said. ‘There’s a lamp in there and matches to light it. Have a smoke, or you can read a newspaper if you like, although they’re a couple of weeks old.’

  A neighbour had dropped the newspapers off with their mail after he’d been to town. But perhaps she shouldn’t have mentioned them. They only carried bad news. The Japanese had landed at Hollandia in New Guinea and two British cruisers – HMS Cornwall and HMS Dorsetshire – had been sunk off the coast of Ceylon.

  She finished the dishes, which didn’t take long, then went into the lounge room and found Ed asleep in her great-uncle’s armchair.

  His cigarette had burned down and was in danger of singeing his fingers, so she carefully removed it and stubbed it out in the ashtray. Then she stood looking down at the handsome stranger who’d arrived in her life only twenty-four hours ago. So lean and dark and princely.

  She imagined bending down and kissing him while he slept. Like Sleeping Beauty in reverse, she thought, and sharp tingles rushed painfully over her skin.

  She remembered a new song she’d heard on the wireless just before she left Townsville: Peggy Lee, with Benny Goodman’s orchestra, singing ‘I Got It Bad’.

  20

  Moonlight Plains, 2013

  Sally couldn’t quite believe the excitement that buzzed through her as she drove to Moonlight Plains, conscientiously early, on the following Thursday morning.

  Ever since her beachside confession to Megan she’d felt unexpectedly liberated and unfettered by the guilt that had plagued her for over two years. Perhaps she really might be ready to move on at last.

  In fact, as her little car ate up the kilometres between Townsville and Charters Towers, she thought there was every chance that if Luke mentioned kissing her again, she would suggest less talk and more action.