‘Yes. We were considering Carcoar, but Bindi Creek seems a more interesting, slightly bigger town, and it doesn’t have a medical practitioner. I asked Frank Galea, at Bindi, about the place. He told me there were lots of small properties scattered around the plains and slopes around Bindi. That would help to make a practice there more viable.’
‘It’s marginally closer to Sindalee, too,’ Wes reminded him. ‘My men get the odd broken leg or dislocated shoulder. Having medical help closer would be an advantage to me as well.’
‘You’re right. I’m hoping many property owners will think as you do.’
Wes nodded thoughtfully. ‘Won’t it be a major change for Brooke, though?’ Looking in her direction, he asked, ‘You’re a city girl, aren’t you?’ He watched her nod in agreement. ‘Life in the country is quite different to living in a big city.’
‘I know,’ returned Brooke, ‘but I believe it will be good for the family as a whole. And with these two,’ she ruffled the twins’ hair, ‘I have plenty to keep me occupied.’
Grudgingly, Wes admitted to himself that he liked the way she behaved with her boys. A little over four years ago he had worried that Jason might be making a mistake in marrying this woman, but she seemed devoted to him and to the children. The kind of mother he had hoped Claudia would be.
‘Brooke’s studying naturopathy too in her spare time,’ Jason advised with a sly, sideways glance at his wife. ‘So, one day the d’Winters will have it all covered—traditional and natural medicine.’
‘Don’t know whether country folk will go for that sort of thing,’ Wes muttered gloomily. ‘As a whole they’re pretty traditional. Newfangled approaches don’t impress them.’
‘Don’t they use old-fashioned home remedies sometimes?’ Brooke wanted to know. ‘Such as honey and hot lemon juice to relieve sore throats and parafin for constipation?’
‘I guess so.’
Why was she trying to explain it to him? He was such a healthy specimen she doubted that he needed a doctor very often. ‘That’s mostly what naturopathy is: using natural ingredients and approaches rather than synthetic or chemical ones to treat a range of medical problems,’ Brooke continued, noting with some amusement that she had young Fleece’s attention. ‘For example, if a doctor was treating a patient for migraine, he or she would prescribe rest, and the patient’s examination of what may have led to the migraine—a neck problem, food allergy, stress—to determine a possible cause. Then he or she would probably prescribe a strong analgesic for pain, perhaps an anti-nausea drug too. On the other hand, a naturopath would suggest specific herbal remedies to ease the pain and inflammation caused by swollen veins in the migraine area, but would also study the patient’s diet and lifestyle as possible causes. And, possibly he or she would suggest a course of certain vitamins.’
‘Mummy. I want more food,’ Adam’s plaintive cry cut across his mother’s discourse and broke the serious tone of the conversation.
‘Just like his old man,’ Wes muttered, with an accompanying gruff laugh.
‘So what do you think about me coming back to the country?’ Jason asked his long-time friend.
‘Well, from a personal point of view, such as seeing more of you, I think it’s great. At the community level we can do with more country doctors—in small towns they’re pretty thin on the ground. From a financial point of view, for you,’ he looked at Jason for a couple of seconds, ‘it will be a major change.’
His last remark rankled with Brooke. ‘We’re not interested in the money angle,’ she said defensively. ‘Jason and I feel strongly about practising good medicine where it’s needed, not in getting wealthy by over-prescribing and over-servicing, which is how a percentage of city doctors make their extraordinary salaries.’
Wes held up both hands as if to fend off an imaginary attack. ‘Okay, okay. Calm down, Brooke. I’m not attacking your standards, I’m just pointing out the pros and cons.’
‘It’s all right, love.’ Jason tried to calm her too. ‘It’s good to get an objective viewpoint.’ He glanced across at Wes, and there was no doubting his sincerity when he said, ‘It’s something I really want to do. We know it’ll be very different for all of us, but overall I think the change will be for the better.’
A man with principles. A rare commodity these days, Wes thought. City life and medical success hadn’t changed his boyhood friend, and Brooke, whom he sensed wasn’t his number one fan, seemed one hundred per cent supportive of her husband, which raised her a notch or two in his estimation. ‘Then I’ll support you every way I can,’ Wes declared with a slight inclination of his head. ‘When will you decide?’
Jason’s gaze moved to Brooke. He smiled. ‘I believe we already have. If we can get the cottage we inspected at Bindi Creek for a reasonable price, that will be our new home.’
After their meal the d’Winters followed Wes and his children in their Range Rover out of town, where they visited the picturesque Japanese Gardens.
They walked the path around the small lake, the bonsai house and all the way up to the lookout from where they had a panoramic view of the garden and the countryside. Fleece, who’d been there often, explained, ‘The Cowra Tourist and Development Corporation, and the Australian and Japanese governments started it. The garden was designed by a Japanese landscape gardener.’
‘How do you know all this?’ Brooke asked, curious as to the girl’s knowledge.
‘Our class did the gardens as a school project this year,’ Fleece told her. ‘The garden is a kind of reconciliation symbol because of the Cowra breakout, which happened during World War II.’ She looked at Brooke, ‘You know about the breakout, I suppose?’
Before Brooke could answer, Drew, who had decided to come out of his shell a little, recited the essential information as if he had learned it by rote. ‘The camp had over four thousand prisoners, but only the Japanese—there were about a thousand of them—tried to escape. Four soldiers were killed and two hundred and thirty Japanese prisoners of war died during and after the breakout. The POWs set fire to twenty huts too.’
‘All right, you little ghoul, that’s enough. You’ll frighten the twins,’ Fleece remonstrated at her brother.
‘I’m not frightened,’ Adam assured them.
‘Me neither,’ echoed Luke, but not so confidently.
Brooke shuddered at the evoked memories of the breakout, which had occurred so long ago. She glanced at her boys and prayed that they would never witness such horrors. ‘This place is absolutely beautiful,’ she said softly.
The landscape architect had gone to great pains to make a harmonious statement between gum trees, conifers and flowering shrubs, and even in mid-spring many of the cherry trees retained their pink blossoms. Other flowering plants, mostly with white flowers, added to the sense of peacefulness, but the occasional red-leafed shrub—she had no idea of its botanical name—gave the shrubbery a spectacular splash of colour. Overall, the visual effect was enhanced by the man-made stream, which meandered from high on the hill down to feed the two lakes and was cleverly landscaped to look natural.
‘Perhaps it’s a fitting memorial to those who died, but more hopefully, for permanent peace here and around the world,’ Brooke said. Years ago she had enjoyed the Chinese Gardens in Darling Harbour when Jason had taken her to see them, but the beauty of this garden, the lush green lawns and the splendour of the shrubs, surpassed those at Darling Harbour.
‘Can we feed the goldfishes?’ Luke, bored by the talk of war, wanted to know as they were heading in the direction of the feeding platform at the top lake.
‘Yes, Luke. They’re called koi, or carp,’ Fleece told him. ‘Here, throw the pellets into the water. Look! See, they’re coming to the surface to eat them.’ She laughed. ‘They’re always hungry.’
For safety’s sake, Brooke held the waistband of Luke’s jeans so he wouldn’t accidentally throw himself into the water too.
‘You’ll be off to high school next year, won’t you?’ Brooke aske
d Fleece.
‘The year after this. I’m only in fifth grade at the moment.’ She sighed and was quiet for a while. ‘Mum wants me to go to boarding school, at Kinross in Orange. I don’t want to go. I know I’ll hate it.’ She glanced at Drew, who was helping Adam throw food pellets to the fish. ‘And he’d be so lonely. I just won’t go. They can’t make me.’
Mildly shocked by the vehemence in her voice, Brooke tried another tack. ‘I’ve heard that boarding school can be a lot of fun. You’d make new friends, have new experiences, and you’d get a really good education.’
‘I don’t care about any of that. And I’m already an A-grade student. I want to stay at Sindalee.’ She glanced around to see where her father was. He and Jason were ten or so metres further along the path. ‘It’s Mum’s idea; she’s the one who wants me to go there, just ’cause she did.’ She looked up at Brooke and her dark eyes sparkled with passion. ‘I hate her, you know. She’s made Dad so unhappy, and Drew too.’
Appalled by the strength of Fleece’s outspokenness, even though Brooke was a virtual stranger, she was momentarily at a loss to know how to react. ‘You…you shouldn’t hate your mother, or anyone, Fleece. Hate—it’s such a destructive emotion.’ Would a ten-year-old understand that?
Dark eyes turned belligerent. ‘What would you know about hate? You have a cool life. Jason loves you, the twins are adorable. You’re obviously happy. You know nothing about hate.’
‘Is that so?’ Fleece’s misery moved her. The young girl seethed internally with unresolved feelings of resentment, so much so that psychological counselling was possibly a way to go. Not that she could suggest such a thing to Wes Sinclair. Instead she opened up, recounting some of her own feelings: ‘We all have our own problems to deal with,’ she confided. ‘A few years ago I lost my mother and my brother in a terrible car accident. I couldn’t do anything to help keep them alive. Afterwards, for a very long time, I hated the doctors who had failed them and I hated myself for being so useless.’
Fleece’s eyes flickered with something. ‘Really?’
Brooke nodded. ‘Yes, really.’ She smiled at Fleece and gave her a spontaneous hug. ‘You’re young, and you can’t be expected to understand why some adult relationships don’t work out. When there’s a break-up it hurts—like hell. So you get angry with the person who you think is to blame for it.’
Fleece gave Brooke a penetrating look and said in a thoughtful manner, ‘You’re smart, aren’t you? No-one’s spoken to me like that before.’ She was quiet again as she mulled over Brooke’s words. Then she said, decisively, ‘I still hate her, though; I can’t help it. And now she’s getting married again, to a barrister in Brisbane. I’ll probably hate him too.’
Brooke fought hard to contain a smile. Young Fleece enjoyed shocking people, she realised. But this time she wouldn’t allow herself to be shocked. ‘Well, as I see it you can go two ways: hate people and feel miserable about it, or decide not to magnify the problem in your head and just get on with living, enjoying life as someone your age should.’ She gave the girl a brief, sideways glance. ‘I know what I’d be doing.’
Fleece didn’t answer, but her expressive face showed that she had taken Brooke’s words in and was thinking about them.
The following week was enjoyably hectic. Brooke and Jason made an offer on the cottage in Bindi Creek, which was accepted, and spent more time in the small town to check out the amenities thoroughly. Brooke was pleased to discover a small public swimming pool situated close to the widest junction of the creek, from where they pumped in water. That meant Jason, because he was a good swimmer, could teach the twins how to swim—an essential skill, considering the property they were buying dropped down to the creek.
The day before they were due to return to Sydney they drove to Sindalee, where Wes and his family were putting a barbecue on for them as a low-key welcome to the community.
The moment Brooke laid eyes on the property and homestead, she knew how much out of their league the Sinclairs were, financially speaking. They had approached the house via an unsealed road lined with Japanese conifers, which swept majestically in a circular fashion towards a broad stretch of grass complete with vibrant, flowering beds of roses. The single-storey, colonial-style Australian home had appeared before them, long and large. A tiled, covered verandah ran around the front and one side of the building, and hanging baskets of various vines and flowering shrubs softened the blonde-brick facade. At the side of the house stood a wide pergola-covered patio, a barbecue area and a sparkling, landscaped swimming pool bordered by a security fence. Further back she saw an all-weather tennis court with a cabana and floodlights for playing at night.
After meeting twenty or so people in quick succession, and tracking down the twins, who had already befriended a couple of children a few years older than them, Brooke stepped back to the edge of the crowd. She happily sipped her glass of locally produced white wine and watched the goings-on.
Wes was organising the steak, chicken and sausages on an enormous barbecue with Jason’s help. The Stephanos family was there with Nathan, and Brooke noted with some interest that Fleece paid the boy better than average attention. Smiling slightly, she wondered if Wes noticed the prepubescent attraction between the youngsters. She chuckled to herself. If he did he’d probably pack Fleece off to that boarding school straightaway.
‘May I get you a refill, Brooke?’ a smiling, grey-haired man asked as he came up to her.
She twirled the wine around in her glass and shook her head. ‘I’m fine, thanks. Hugh, isn’t it?’
He grinned. ‘Hugh Thurtell. I’m one of Wes’s neighbours. Our properties border each other on the western side. I remember Jason’s dad, you know.’ His eyes took on a faraway look and he glanced at Jason working at the barbecue. ‘Andy d’Winters was a fine shearers’ cook, and that’s something of a skill, ’cause some cooks are pretty crook.’ He shook his head as if the memories of bad meals made him uncomfortable.
‘You own the Minta Downs property, don’t you?’ she asked. ‘That’s where Jason’s father died, I believe.’ She looked towards Jason for a moment. ‘He told me it was an accident with a horse.’
‘Yes, a sad situation. We had a stallion at Minta. My father bought the horse, intending to put it to stud because of its good breeding lines. Thunder was his name, and he was thunderous by nature. Thunder got loose one day and Andy tried to round him up. The horse suddenly reared up—two stockmen saw it happen—and kicked old Andy in the head. Killed him stone dead. Damned shame.’ He looked over towards Jason. ‘Shot Thunder myself, I did. That horse wasn’t good for anything but causing trouble.’
Brooke smiled briefly at Hugh Thurtell. ‘It must have been hard for Jason’s family back then, losing the breadwinner.’
Hugh’s crinkled-up eyes softened. ‘It was. We did what we could for Maisie, but she was a very independent lady: said she and her boys didn’t want charity. Somehow she made ends meet. Took in dressmaking and used to work in Cowra, at Anthony’s Drapery Store, until the place closed. It’s a Chinese restaurant now.’ He shook his head regretfully. ‘That’s progress, I s’pose. Maisie worked herself into an early grave, making sure that Justin and Jason got good educations. Both boys have done well.’
A female voice sounded from behind Brooke’s left shoulder, purring reproachfully, ‘There you are, Dad. I’ve been looking all over for you.’
Hugh raised his glass and downed the rest of his beer before he answered. ‘Ahh, Sharon. Come and meet the newest addition to our community.’
Brooke half-turned towards the woman. Her eyes widened briefly in acknowledgment of the woman’s striking beauty. Tall, a perfect figure, the blonde woman before her was impeccably made up and dressed as if she had just stepped out of the pages of Vogue magazine. Momentarily she experienced a small twinge of envy for the long, red, polished nails and her air of self-assurance and sophistication, though it was almost out of place among this group of graziers and their wives.
‘Brooke, meet my eldest daughter, Sharon Dimarco. Sharon’s recently come back from overseas. Lived in Italy for years.’
‘How nice. I’ve always wanted to visit Italy,’ Brooke said, lost for something more interesting to say.
Sharon’s smile was polite, fixed, as if she’d heard the remark a hundred times before. She came back with the obvious: ‘So you’re the new doctor’s wife. From Sydney, aren’t you?’
‘Originally from Hobart, but I’ve lived in Sydney for almost five years.’
‘Do you play bridge?’ Sharon watched Brooke shake her head, and her tone became slightly plaintive when she asked, ‘Do you ride? No! Oh, you’ll have to learn. Everyone around here rides.’
‘Not everyone, love. Your sister, Bethany, doesn’t.’ Hugh glanced at Brooke. ‘Bethany’s allergic to horse hair; it gives her asthma.’
‘I’m not allergic, but I am a bit frightened of them,’ Brooke admitted, her smile hesitant. ‘They’re so big and…unpredictable.’
‘They’re pussycats,’ Sharon said dismissively. ‘You just have to let them know who’s boss.’ She thought for a moment. ‘Do you play tennis?’
Clearly Sharon Dimarco was trying to find some mutual ground. ‘I do, in a fashion, but Jason reckons I’m not very well coordinated.’
‘Oh, that doesn’t matter. When you get settled at Bindi you’ll have to come to Sindalee and we’ll have a game or two. Wes and I play well together; we usually have a game once a week.’
As they talked, Sharon mentally dissected Brooke d’Winters as a person, and found her lacking. Ordinary clothes, no designer labels. And where did she get her hair cut? At some cheap-cuts hairdressing salon, probably. The style suited her though, she admitted grudgingly, even if it was unsophisticated. The doctor’s wife seemed to be the earnest, honest-to-goodness, motherly type. As boring as her sister, Bethany. Normally she would have decided that Jason’s wife wasn’t worth the effort of cultivating, but since her return she had tried hard to impress her father with the fact that she had changed, that she was a nicer person, and she suspected that he thought Brooke d’Winters was charming.
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