Although Lucy keenly felt the loss of her much-anticipated Sydney Christmas, her sacrifice was rewarded. She felt an ancient welcome at Prussia, a strange connection to the place, as though it was familiar to her from a long, long time before. The days of the muster passed in a happy blur of activity. The only dampener on her experience was her feelings for Ted. Over the last few weeks he had continued to largely ignore her, while she herself was only becoming more and more preoccupied with thoughts of the ringer.
At night they all slept in swags; each of the children had their own, although the twins and Snoz most often ended up in the same one. Lucy had brought Mel’s swag, though at first she felt uncomfortable about using such a personal item. On the first evening she looked wistfully after Stumpy and Ted as they headed outside to bed down in the cool stillness of the night. It was something Lucy had always dreamed of doing, something that she felt would in some sense make her more truly Australian.
The second night was Christmas Eve, and Lucy was occupied until quite late, stuffing some old pillowslips with goodies for the children. She watched from her swag, bleary-eyed at dawn, as the children discovered their surprises with noisy delight.
There was no mustering on Christmas Day. Instead they played cricket all morning and spent the hottest part of the day diving in the lagoon for the lost cricket ball. Lucy had never seen Ted so relaxed, and even Stumpy joined in with a will, despite his creaky joints. They sat up a little later around the fire that night, and after much supplication from Stumpy and the kids, Ted produced an old guitar. To Lucy’s amazement he seemed to know an endless supply of old droving songs, which he played and sang with haunting beauty.
Lucy found she had to look away from Ted’s face, his hair and eyes golden in the light from the fire, and into the flames as he sang. This was a cruel trick he’d sprung on her; his resonant voice seemed to pierce her through the heart. As lovely as it was, she wished herself far away from this enigmatic man who had so affected her.
Lucy was so overcome with visions of the lonely bush wanderers from Ted’s songs, she plucked up her courage and decided she would sleep out in the open that night. Once the children were asleep, she dragged Mel’s swag out through the door, and with her torch, began searching for a flat piece of ground where the grass wasn’t too long.
‘You right, are ya?’ Ted’s voice asked from the darkness nearby.
‘Oh,’ Lucy said in surprise, ‘I thought you were asleep.’ She hurriedly chose a spot and after climbing quickly into the swag, extinguished the light.
Moments later the whine of a mosquito sounded near her ear. She brushed it away and pulled the canvas cover over her head. In no time she was roasting inside the stifling swag, and more mosquitoes had come to the party. She tossed and turned in annoyance.
‘Not much fun without a net.’ Ted’s toneless voice drifted out of the gloom.
Lucy felt like snapping at him. In the daylight she’d noticed the mosquito net he’d rigged up neatly over his swag, tied to the low branch of a sapling. She supposed he was lying there smirking to himself over her predicament.
‘Why doesn’t Stumpy get bitten?’ she asked in exasperation. ‘I didn’t see a net over his swag.’
‘Probably does,’ Ted replied. ‘Skin like a leather boot, old Stump.
Seen some weather over the years.’
Lucy felt a sting on her cheek and slapped at it. ‘Well, unfortunately, I don’t have leather-like skin,’ she said tetchily. A moment later she was out of the swag and readying herself to drag it back inside in defeat.
‘Wanted to have a crack at sleeping out, did you?’ Ted asked.
‘I’ve always dreamed about sleeping under the stars,’ Lucy said regretfully.
‘I reckon you must’ve forgot about the bities when you were dreaming that dream.’ Ted chuckled.
In disgust, Lucy began to haul her swag back towards the hut.
‘Oi,’ Ted called. ‘You can squeeze in under here if you really wanna.’
Lucy halted to consider the offer.
‘I’m pretty sure I don’t snore,’ he added.
Moving quickly, before the chiding voice in her head could start up, Lucy located Ted’s net with her torch and made her way over. He reached under the edge of the net and pulled her swag in. Shep, who was sleeping at Ted’s side, woke indignantly and moved over to make room.
‘Thanks, Ted.’ Lucy smiled at him in the torchlight as she climbed inside the net and settled down on the swag.
He returned her smile with a quizzical one of his own. ‘Jeez. Never shared my net before. Gives a whole new meaning to having protection when you sleep with a girl.’ With that, Ted rolled over, and moments later appeared to be asleep.
Lucy lay awake, gazing up at the Milky Way and the great pulsating stars that seemed to be hanging so low in the sky. She tried to locate the Southern Cross, but the firmament was so crowded with multitudes of smaller stars that she couldn’t make it out. She gave herself up instead to the scents and sounds of the night: the eucalyptus, crushed grass and honey blossom; the throbbing crickets, a singing frog, and the rustle of a night bird in a nearby tree. Last of all she listened to the quiet even breathing of the man beside her; though her heart was singing with happiness, she felt a lump of longing in her throat.
‘Goodnight, Ted,’ she murmured.
By the fourth day of mustering, Lucy was sore in muscles she’d never known she possessed, chafed and bruised in places, but feeling immensely proud of herself. She no longer required constant instruction, and was nearly sure that she’d moved in status from hindrance to help. As she’d always done before, she hung near the tail of the mob when they moved the cattle; more often than not, she towed the aged grey gelding Smudge, tied to Pagan’s tail, with both twins on board. She felt that she was truly beginning to read the cattle, and Shep was always nearby, ready to nip in the bud any sign of trouble. By following him and the loud directions from the twins behind her, most of the time Lucy managed to put herself in the right place.
‘You’re a bloody sight more use than you look,’ Stumpy said admiringly as they sat at the rough log table for their fourth evening meal.
They swam in the lagoon each afternoon, Lucy soaking her tired body in the cool water while the children performed acrobatic dives from an old timber diving board that stretched out across the water between two patches of lilies. Each evening, the children helped happily with the cooking, and Cooper and Billie were able to raise a blazing fire in minutes. Lucy added her own touches with onion, spices, tomato paste and garlic, and even threw in some mushrooms gathered around the Prussia stockyards, serving up some pasta sauces that proved quite popular. After a few attempts and some tuition from Stumpy, she and the children were also able to knock up a reasonable damper; as a surprise one day, they even produced some popcorn in the camp oven.
‘Thought I knew it all when it came to camp-oven cookery,’ Stumpy said approvingly after tasting some. ‘Wait till I serve this up to the fellas out on the run.’
Lucy was learning a great deal about yard work too. After each muster, there was drafting to be done. Lucy helped the children with the slide gates, improving greatly in her judgement and reflexes as the days went by. She also helped with bringing the calves up the race to be branded, and received a few nasty kicks in the process.
The branding and castration, while gruesome at first, were so quickly and expertly done that the calves were finished before they’d even registered what was afoot, hurrying back to their mothers for a comforting suckle. For Lucy it was wonderful to feel truly part of the operation.
After her first blissful sleep-out, Lucy had failed to move her swag back into the hut, and thankfully none of the children had seemed to notice its absence. Once they were all bedded down, she read them stories; sleepy from the long days of physical exertion, they were usually asleep before she’d finished. Then Lucy went outside to join Ted, who silently held the net open for her. They lay talking quietly as they watche
d the sky fill with constellations.
The sixth day was their last at Prussia. Exhausted after branding two large paddocks of cattle, they all went to bed even before it was fully dark. Lucy looked around self-consciously as she climbed under Ted’s mosquito net, but Stumpy’s swag was well away, in his favourite spot near the water. She and Ted talked over the day for a while in lowered tones and Lucy tried to remember if she’d ever had a better holiday than this one. Then, for some unknown reason, she thought of Gemma, and wondered what luxurious activities her holidays would be comprised of, and whether she too had enjoyed Christmas. Then seeing Ted was still awake, she felt compelled to tell him all about Gemma and her marriage to Lloyd. It was completely dark by the time she’d finished, and Lucy was just concluding that Ted must have dozed off when he suddenly began to speak softly and gruffly, telling her a little about his father. Lucy listened silently to the few small details Ted imparted about Jumbo—the horseman, guitarist and master of drovers’ ballads—before they both went to sleep.
A few hours before dawn, Lucy was woken by a gentle touch on her hair. With her back to Ted, she lay motionless, her eyes wide open, while his large rough hand softly stroked the back of her head and neck. After a few minutes, she was so overcome with tingling emotion that she turned to face him. Snuggling closer, she reached out to him in the darkness and found his face. She stroked his cheek, then ran her fingers through his hair.
With a sudden jerk, Ted moved out of her grasp. His silhouette, sitting bolt upright, was clearly furious. ‘What the bloody hell do you think you’re doing?’
Stunned, Lucy was momentarily speechless. Finally she stammered, ‘Ted . . . I’m sorry . . . I just thought you wanted—’
‘Yeah, righto,’ Ted interrupted. ‘I know what you thought.’ His words were snarled in a voice so hostile that Lucy caught her breath and said no more. She rolled over and away from him, and hugged herself tightly in her shame. Ted sat still for a minute, before sighing deeply and lying back down. There was a long silence while Lucy lay numbly with her eyes jammed shut.
‘You still awake, mate?’ Ted’s voice was barely audible now.
‘Yes.’ Lucy surprised herself when the word came out as a sob.
‘Lucy . . . you thought wrong, eh.’ His voice was gentle this time.
‘I don’t mean to hurt you, mate, but you thought wrong.’
Lucy lay silently, with all the words she wanted to say on the tip of her tongue, ready to spill out. Ted was the one who’d touched her first—she’d done nothing wrong, as much as his tone suggested otherwise. But something held her back and she remained silent. She would not punish herself by trying to communicate with this man any longer.
She had just fallen into a light doze when again she was awoken in bewilderment by Ted’s touch. She was outraged, and wriggling out from under his hand, she sat up and was about to challenge him when she noticed he was confusedly searching around for her in the folds of her swag, muttering sadly and incoherently, clearly fast asleep. Her rage subsiding, she lay back down and endured the fondness of his caress until he fell still once again. She lay wide awake beside his sleeping form, wondering numbly who he’d fancied he was stroking in his dream. Someone she knew, Tash or Bri perhaps? Or was it just an elusive figment of his imagination? Lucy stared wide-eyed into the night, the rhythm of the crickets and frog song merging strangely with her throbbing heart.
Chapter 34
The day after the Prussia party returned to Charlotte’s Creek, Mel and Dennis arrived home, bringing with them news of the old man’s death and funeral. Mel seemed serious but peaceful, and Lucy noticed a new, distant look in her eyes as they sat at dinner. To Lucy it looked as though Mel had been on a spiritual journey, similar in some ways to her own recent experience at Prussia. It was as if they’d both been gone for weeks, Mel wandering in the hanging universe between life and death, and Lucy herself a resident of the timeless world belonging to the little stone hut with its lily-covered lagoon.
Now she ate her meal, curiously pondering the sensation of being seated in a chair again, after so many days of sitting on a log bench, the ground, or some other rough perch provided by nature. She was also pining for the crackling company of a fire, and regretfully noted the absence of the distinctive smoky tang in the tea she was sipping. In the midst of her musing, she became aware that Ted was studying her. She caught his eye, but he looked away unhappily. Her appetite suddenly gone, she struggled to finish the rest of her meal, and departed to the safety of her cottage at the first opportunity.
She’d just pulled the sheet up around her chin, a shield against any mosquitoes that had found their way inside, when a sudden pattering of rain started up on the corrugated iron above her. Lucy realised how lucky they’d been, all those nights sleeping out in the open and not a drop. She thought back to the first time she’d heard the entrancing sound of raindrops on the roof of the Grey Lady’s hut. It had been a new sensation for her, as her solid brick, clay-tiled Sydney home, with its thick plaster ceiling, had only ever produced a muffled hum when it rained. An insignificant noise in the city, it could barely hold its own against the distant roar of the traffic, even in the heaviest of showers. She’d never taken much notice of the sound back then, and the vital, life-giving role of the rain had never occurred to her. In Sydney, wet weather had always been largely a nuisance, an indication that indoor lunchtime duty would be on the cards the following day at school. It was only since coming to Charlotte’s Creek that she’d recognised the rain as the miracle that it was.
Back then, secure in her parents’ home, the sound of falling rain had never been attached to any deep feeling. But in her current state of anxious exhaustion, emotion washed over Lucy as she listened. The steady drumming, which she usually found beautiful, made her acutely aware of her aloneness. Holding tight to her pillow, she took a deep breath and tried to subdue the feeling of desolation threatening to engulf her. She squeezed her eyes shut in an attempt to hold back the tears, but an image of Ted’s face sprang up. Was he listening to the same sound? If he was, she told herself angrily, he certainly wouldn’t be wasting a thought on her. She gave in to self-pity then, her body shuddering with sobs. Then all at once she thought of Mel, and all the troubles the mother of five had weathered, and as the tears finally subsided, sleep unexpectedly stole in. In her semiconscious state, she was a little girl again, safe and warm. And the pounding of the rain was much kinder to her on the edges of her dreams.
Gwen kindly offered to drive Lucy to the airport at Townsville, saying it would give them a chance to have a ‘good old gossip’. However, Lucy wasn’t in the mood for small talk.
Gwen seemed a little disappointed with her unresponsiveness.
‘Thank goodness you’re going home to your mother for a while,’ the older woman said at last, ‘Just plain exhausted, and is it any wonder?’
Lucy just smiled, so Gwen pressed her further. ‘It can’t have been an easy year for you, we’ve had so many ups and downs and I’m well aware that you’ve borne the brunt of Melissa’s moods.’
‘I’ve had a wonderful year, honestly Gwen,’ Lucy said.
Gwen laughed and shook her head. ‘Dennis and Mel don’t deserve you. It beats me how you can tolerate their behaviour after growing up in a family like yours. It’s certainly taking its toll on Noel. He’s been utterly impossible lately.’
‘I really hope things improve next year,’ Lucy said earnestly.
Gwen sighed. ‘I hope so too.’ They drove on in silence, both lost in thought as the four-wheel drive wound down the range towards the cane fields on the outskirts of town.
Gwen kissed Lucy on the cheek at the airport and drove away, leaving her to wait in silence with her thoughts. At first she worried over the plight of the Wests, but then, inevitably, her thoughts turned to Ted. He’d arrived at her cottage that morning just in time to carry her bag to Gwen’s car, but when Lucy had looked up at his face to thank him, it had revealed nothing, his features fixed
in their habitual immobile solemnity. She’d felt like screaming at him, pounding him with her fists, demanding he tell her his thoughts, explain himself. But instead she’d farewelled him politely and allowed him to tip his hat and walk wordlessly away.
Lucy was plagued by thoughts of the ringer all the way back to Sydney, but at the sight of her smiling parents waiting at the airport, her spirits lifted somewhat. She enjoyed her January holiday, and by the end of her three-week stay she felt strengthened and refreshed. After months of independence and self-sufficiency, she was more aware than ever of her parents’ tendency to mollycoddle her; nonetheless, she drank it up, recharging her well of patience and endurance to be drawn from in the months ahead.
But after a week of solid rest and relaxation, she began to feel surprisingly aimless. There were no lessons to prepare for, no tricky relationships to negotiate and not a single animal to be fed. Her thoughts began to stray to the children, to Mel and Henry, her chickens, Shep and Snoz. And Ted? Lucy supposed he was plugging away as usual, her absence of little consequence to him. But without a doubt, Lucy was anticipating her return to the north. So much so, that when Mrs Bolton rang to tell her of a twelve-week long-service-leave teaching position that she was ‘required’ to fill, Lucy could again refuse without a trace of regret.
One disappointment during her time in Sydney was that Gemma was away with Lloyd, holidaying in the Irvine chateau in the south of France. On discovering her sister’s absence, Lucy realised just how much she’d been anticipating seeing her again. However, the day before Lucy was to leave for Charlotte’s Creek, Marie took a long-distance phone call; it was Gemma, asking especially to speak to Lucy. A little nervous, Lucy took the phone into her room to be out of earshot before beginning to speak. But Gemma’s voice came down the phone with her usual warmth.
‘Hello, Aunty Lucia.’
‘Aunty?’ Lucy echoed.
‘Yes, Luce! I wanted you to be the first to know—I’m pregnant!’
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