And he smiled, when she finally stood away. ‘I missed you all week,’ he said.
She hadn’t realised that hearts really could flutter like feathers in the wind, just as they did in romance novels. Or that you could almost hear the trees sing, ‘All your dreams are coming true!’ ‘I missed you too. It’s so good to be back. Scarlett is coming to breakfast here tomorrow. She invited herself.’ She walked beside him as Nicholas wheeled his chair across the veranda and into the front hall.
‘That’s Scarlett all right. I’ve told her the real test is when she can use chopsticks.’
‘I can’t use chopsticks.’
He grinned. ‘Told you that was the real test.’ The grin faded. ‘Matron told me about the bloke who attacked you.’
‘Tried to attack me. I got away.’ She wondered if Matron had mentioned Raincloud’s part in her rescue. She decided from his unclouded expression that she had not. Nor would she tell him, for surely it would hurt that Raincloud had done what Nicholas, in his wheelchair, could not have attempted. But she would find a time to tell him of Raincloud’s apology.
‘Jed, promise you’ll stay here till he’s caught. Don’t go anywhere unless I’m with you, or Michael or one of the men from here.’
‘I can look after myself. He’ll be far away by now, anyway.’
‘Jed, darling Jed, you can identify him. He must know that. He might keep looking for you.’
‘Oh.’ She sat, suddenly, on the spindly chair by the hall telephone.
‘You’re safe here. Mrs Thompson won’t let anything happen to one of her own.’
‘But they don’t know if I’m related to them or not.’
‘I’m not related to them,’ he said lightly. ‘But they’ve looked after me.’
‘How is the novel going?’ She grasped the excuse to change the subject.
It worked. ‘Good. Excuse my modesty, but it’s really working. It’s like I’m actually living it now. It keeps dragging me back to work on it. I hope you like the next bit. Don’t suppose you’re any good at typing?’
‘Nope. Brisbane State High doesn’t teach typing. Our headmistress, Miss McCorkindale, said none of her girls were going to be secretaries or in a typing pool.’
‘Too bad. You could have typed it out for me.’
‘I love you to bits, but I’m not going to spend my life typing for you —’ Jed halted, suddenly aware of what she’d said, both the love bit and the expectation they might have a life together, longer than a year or three at university.
Nicholas was aware of it too. Carefully he ignored her words, just as she did. Jed felt her heart beat into the sudden silence between them as Matilda Thompson appeared with Nancy, so perfectly timed that they might have been listening and quite possibly had been. Nancy, awkward with the added bulk of her pregnancy, dropped a kiss on Jed’s cheek. ‘Want your old job back?’
‘Yes, please,’ said Jed with relief.
‘Good. But have a few weeks off first.’
Neither said what both knew. Those weeks were for Tommy.
‘I’ll just go up and say good night.’ Nancy headed up the stairs, one hand on the banister to steady herself.
‘It’s good to see you, Nicholas.’ Matilda Thompson hesitated. ‘My husband would very much like to meet you. He can’t be moved, however . . .’
‘But I can be?’
‘One of the men can carry your chair upstairs. Perhaps two could carry you.’
Nicholas flushed. ‘Like a little boy being carried upstairs to bed? I can get up stairs by myself.’
‘But —’ began Jed, then stopped.
‘I’d rather manage them in private though, if that’s okay.’ All expression had left Nicholas’s face.
‘Of course.’ Matilda Thompson took Jed’s arm. ‘We’ll be in the sitting room.’
They sat, facing each other, in the big soft armchairs. Jed tried to listen through the open door. Matilda Thompson also made no secret of the fact that she too was intent on the sounds outside.
A thud: the chair had fallen over. Softer, repeated thuds: a man hauling himself, using his strong brown arms to pull himself up step by step.
‘He has courage, this young man of yours.’
The Dragon didn’t mean in Vietnam. Jed nodded.
Time passed, thud by thud. At last they heard him call, ‘Would someone mind bringing the chair up?’
‘I’ll do it,’ said Jed.
‘No.’ Matilda Thompson patted her arm as she passed. ‘I’ll get Ned Higgins to do it.’
Jed said nothing as Matilda Thompson left the room. But she was right. Nicholas would be sweating, in pain perhaps. He would not want her to see him like that, nor see the awkwardness as he got into his chair again.
It hurt. Hurt as much as his failure to tell her about Vietnam, how his legs had been destroyed. Hurt almost as much as the ever-present absence of the words ‘I love you’. And yet, despite it all, she could feel and enjoy the softness of the chair she was sitting on, and cherish the love of the old man upstairs even as she grieved for his imminent death. She was here, and now, and not a ghost.
I am stronger, she thought. Nicholas, Scarlett . . . They have not been the only ones healing themselves these past months.
She waited for Matilda Thompson to return, for Nicholas to talk to Tommy and make his hard and laboured descent, and for Michael to arrive, for surely he and Nancy would have dinner there tonight too.
Nancy and Michael, her and Nicholas, and Matilda Thompson, eating dinner. Talking of River View, of the tracking station, so much to hear, so much to tell them all.
Almost like a family.
Chapter 67
TOMMY
25 JULY 1969
Splashdown was due at two-fifty am, Australian Eastern Standard Time. No Australian radio station would be broadcasting at that time, nor the ABC television station. But the man who had designed communication systems through two world wars and many decades had his short-wave radio tuned to Voice of America.
He had not expected to experience this last vigil alone. Nor did he. Matilda sat on the bed, leaning back against his pillows, half dozing. Nancy dozed too, in the armchair. Jed and Michael sat on either side of the bed, each holding one of his hands. Tommy no longer had the strength to hold theirs, nor even to say much from behind his oxygen mask. But his mind was clear.
The commentator on the radio was watching a monitor. Grey fuzz now, he said as the watchers across the world waited for the first sight of the spacecraft, for its parachutes to open.
Or not. A fraction of a second’s miscalculation, and the atronauts would miss Earth, plunging into the cold dark forever. Even if all the calculations were correct, the parachutes might not open, and the craft and its occupants would plunge to a fiery death. They have come so far, he thought. Bring them safely home. As I am home, have been home, for so many rich, filled decades.
Bring them home.
Words, from the wireless, that meant little, as there was nothing yet to be seen, the commentator trying to fill up air time. Words from those about him, that meant much. How lucky to be surrounded by so many good words and people at the end of life.
‘One day,’ said Jed, ‘we’ll build a needle tower up to where the atmosphere ends to make it easier to leave Earth’s gravitational pull. A space elevator, that’s what Clarke and Heinlein call it . . .’
We, thought Tommy, knowing he did not have the strength to smile, knowing it didn’t matter and ninety years had left his wrinkles smiling, anyhow. This girl said ‘we’, not ‘they’, as if she would be a part of the project too.
And possibly she might.
Such good hands to leave the world in. Michael with his Nancy, cherishing the land, which meant Matilda would be cared for too. Jim, a steady business hand: no far seeker, like this girl, but he’d keep the businesses profitable, the men and women employed.
Jim’s sons and Nancy’s child to come: unknown, but how could they not be good? And now Jed, who saw the p
ast and saw the future and, just like him, saw ways to make it happen. His poor lost loved daughter now come home to him at last, with her descendant. It would have been . . . interesting . . . to see what Jed made of her next eight decades, just as he would like to see what humanity made of the next hundred years. A thousand, twenty thousand. It was cruel for a man to be allowed to know humanity’s past, but not its future.
But it was time for him to die.
‘I think . . . yes, we can see it now! The parachutes are opening!’
Jed’s hand clutched his tighter. Even Matilda sat straighter. ‘Tommy, darling, they’re nearly here!’
‘It’ll be on telly tomorrow,’ said Michael. ‘We can all see it then.’
Thank you, my darling son, for sharing this, thought Tommy. Dear Nancy, and the child, Jed . . .
On the other side of the world, three astronauts were coming home. But he was already home, with everyone he loved. He found Matilda’s smile before he closed his eyes.
It was time for him to die.
Chapter 68
JED
Tommy did not die that night, though he did not regain consciousness. His breathing became laboured. The skin shrank from his nose and cheekbones until there was almost a living skeleton lying in the bed.
Jed took turns sitting with him with Nancy, who seemed glad of the company. Nancy sat next to Michael, when it was his turn to watch, but Matilda Thompson sat with Tommy alone, as if even now there were private things for them to do or say.
Jim Thompson arrived mid-morning, a big man who took command of the study and the telephone, seeming to ignore his father upstairs to pay attention to the business that he had inherited. Yet that night, when Jed got up to use the bathroom and peered into Tommy’s room on the way past, Jim Thompson sat there, talking softly about production figures, so that for a moment she thought there was someone else in the room, till she realised Jim was speaking to the man lying motionless in the bed.
Tommy was still alive the next morning too, when Matilda Thompson opened the door to his bedroom. ‘Jed? Sergeant Harrison and another officer are here. They want to speak to you.’
Jed stood, the too many reasons why the police might want to speak to her running through her mind — her escape from the home; new allegations from Debbie; even, perhaps, charges of trespass in the house in Queanbeyan, though she had not harmed it, apart from hammering tent pegs into the floor. And burning some half-rotten planks in the fireplace.
Please, she thought, let it be about the man who tried to attack me.
She followed Matilda Thompson down to the sitting room. The two policemen stood among the plush sofas, the tapestried armchairs and the pale blue curtains. A constable and the older Sergeant Harrison, who had spoken to her briefly about her ordeal a few days earlier.
‘Miss Kelly? This is Constable Green. A body has been found. It may be the man who tried to attack you. We wondered if you might be able to identify him.’
‘Found where?’ asked Matilda Thompson crisply.
‘At the Lions campground by the river.’
‘What?!’ The old woman looked truly outraged, as if the river was sacred ground. Which for her it is, thought Jed. ‘How did he die?’
The sergeant hesitated. But either he believed there was no reason not to make the facts public or he also was too intimidated by Matilda Thompson not to give her anything she requested. ‘We think he was in a fight. Someone — well, his neck was broken.’ He swallowed. ‘I’ve never seen anything like it, Mrs Thompson. I’m not even sure how it was done.’
Jed shivered. ‘I . . . I didn’t do it. I promise. I’ve been here the whole time —’
‘We never thought you did, love.’ The sergeant’s voice was gentle. ‘Whoever did this knew what he was about. I doubt a girl would be able to do it, even if you knew how.’
Jed thought of her rage as she’d thrown Debbie’s heavy black phone on its cord at Merv’s face. Could she have killed Merv then? No, she thought. I hurt him only enough to escape. I stole only enough to survive. But never more than that. Could never, no matter what, do more than that.
‘And you wish Miss Kelly to see the body because . . .?’
‘If I can identify it — him — then the police don’t have to search any more,’ said Jed. ‘Was there a kombi van at the campground too?’
The sergeant did not deny it.
‘Do you think . . . I mean, those girls down —’
‘Can’t tell you anything about that,’ said Sergeant Harrison, but his face went grim. Jed wondered if the police had found other evidence in the kombi van that said this man was truly a murderer.
‘I’ll come.’
‘I’ll come with you. If you don’t mind waiting while I tell my son.’
Jed looked at Matilda Thompson with gratitude, and also with surprise. Leaving the house now meant leaving Tommy. The Dragon gave her a slight smile. It might have meant — while you are under my roof you are my responsibility. It might also have meant — Tommy will not leave this world without me with him. My husband has waited this long to die. He will wait another afternoon now.
Or it might, of course, be one of the meaningless smiles one gave for politeness. But Jed doubted that Matilda Thompson had ever given a meaningless anything in her life.
Matilda drove, the police car following. ‘Thank you,’ said Jed as they turned onto the main road.
Matilda nodded.
‘Thank you for letting me stay at Drinkwater too. I . . . I’ll leave after . . .’ She couldn’t quite say after Tommy’s funeral.
‘If you wish.’ Matilda Thompson seemed to hardly hear her. ‘It is . . . distressing, that something like that would happen at Drinkwater. That campground is on one of the first properties I bought.’
At least it wasn’t at the billabong camp where you saw your father die, thought Jed. Waltzing with Matilda. She wondered if Matilda’s father had named his daughter after his swag, the long open road and high sky and murmur of the bush.
They drove in silence for a while. ‘Nancy seems well,’ Jed attempted.
‘Yes.’
So Matilda didn’t want to speak. Nor had Jed the words to thank a woman who would drive someone who had so lately been a stranger to view a corpse, while her beloved husband lay close to death.
She let herself be driven, silently; got out of the car, silently; and followed the police without speaking into the hospital, along the corridor and down to a big cold room at the back that she realised was the morgue.
A body on a trolley, covered with a white sheet.
‘Are you ready for this?’ asked Sergeant Harrison.
She wasn’t. She’d never be ready for this. But she would never say that in front of Matilda Thompson. ‘Yes,’ she said.
He pulled back the sheet, just enough for her to see the face. It was swollen, bloodless, the tongue slightly protruding, the eyes staring, but recognisable.
‘Yes,’ she whispered, then more strongly, ‘Yes. That’s the man who tried to attack me.’
‘Good.’ The sergeant covered the face again. ‘We found . . . items . . . in the kombi.’ He looked around, clearly not sure he should be saying anything. ‘Your information gets us a fair whack closer to proving he did some other things too.’
He meant the Victorian girls; Jed knew it. The room swam, just for a moment. To her surprise she felt Matilda Thompson’s arm around her shoulders. ‘She would like tea. Sweet.’
‘No. No, really, I’m all right.’ She would be sick if she had to drink tea.
Matilda Thompson removed her arm, opened her handbag and handed her a couple of barley sugars. Jed unwrapped them, and put them in her mouth. The room steadied.
‘Do you know who killed him?’ Matilda Thompson’s voice was terse.
Jed doubted the sergeant would have answered if she had been the one to ask. But ‘Miss Matilda’ could ask anything — and expect an answer. ‘No. But I reckon it was a hard fight. There’s another man’s blood on him, t
he forensics blokes say. Arterial blood.’ He pronounced the word ‘arterial’ proudly, as if he had practised to get it correct. ‘They don’t think whoever did this lived long himself.’
And Jed knew who had done this. Knew it all, as clearly as if she had seen it happen, as perhaps, one day, sitting at that campground, she might see back to the past and watch this man die.
He had been killed by her ghost. He had been the shadow on the hill. He had done this for her and to keep those he loved safe — his nieces and great-nieces and whoever else this man might have attacked, all those he’d loved and still watched over. He’d fought to save everyone’s sisters and nieces back in the war. She supposed he’d done this for them too. That was the trouble with love and protectiveness. It kept on spreading, till you loved the world, and wanted to keep it safe.
Are you really a ghost now, Fred? she thought.
‘You have any idea who it might have been?’ The sergeant had read her expression. He was no fool, for all he had to carefully pronounce ‘forensics’ and ‘arterial’.
Jed Kelly was the girl who did not lie. But telling the truth would bring everything to light that the ghost had tried so hard to hide. She owed him more than that.
But not a lie.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said, letting a hiccup of helplessness into her voice. Matilda looked at her sharply, then let her face go blank. ‘There’s nothing I can tell you that would be of any use.’
Chapter 69
JED
Matilda Thompson took her to the Bluebell Café. She must have been longing to get back to Tommy, but nonetheless she made Jed drink sweet tea and eat a stale scone before she allowed her back into the car. They drove in silence till they reached the first of the Drinkwater paddocks. ‘You know who killed him.’
‘Don’t know. Suspect.’
‘Why don’t you want to say?’ Matilda Thompson frowned. ‘It can’t be your young man, Nicholas.’
It had never occurred to Jed that Nicholas could have broken a man’s neck, though he must have been trained to do things just like that, as a soldier. But could he, in a wheelchair? How could he even have got there? No, she thought, if he had I’d have seen it in his face. And Nicholas would have called the police. Whoever killed that man lived by yesterday’s rules, not today’s.
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