by Margaret Way
And don't you forget it!
Were they teasing her, annoying her, threatening her. What? She was a beautiful young woman on her own. There weren't all that many people about at that hour and it was the weekend. Stern faced he made short work of closing the distance between them while the youngsters broke off what they were saying to stare back at him in perturbation judging from their expressions.
What they saw was a big man, with powerful shoulders, his movements expansive and totally balanced. His tawny hair glowed in the sun. Clearly this was a man not to be trifled with. For that matter he looked like a lion full of pride coming to the defence of its mate.
"Anything the matter, Isabelle?" He stopped beside her, towering over the group as he checked her expression.
She looked up at him. Exposed to his mellow, charming side she now saw the combative daunting male. Well it was a long time since a man had had such concern for her, outside her own brother. "Nothing, David," she answered quickly, seeing how it might have looked to him. "These young people are my friends. I've known them since they were children. Say hello to Mr. Langdon, kids. He's a famous photographer. This is Manny and Jimmy and Charlie Chun Wing." As she spoke she laid a gentle hand on each boy's shoulder.
"Hello there. It makes us very happy to meet you." The eldest, Manny, the spokesman gave a big toothy smile, while the others executed modified bows that looked quite natural.
"I'm so sorry if I startled you," he apologised, his expression lightening. "I rather jumped to the wrong conclusion. I should have realised, Isabelle, you would know a great many people in Darwin."
"You thought we were annoying her?" Manny asked as if that were the last thing in the world they would do.
"How wrong I was, Manny. I can see none of you would do such a thing."
"Never!" Manny shook his jet black head gelled into upstanding spikes. "Nobody could be as good to us as the Sunderlands. Miss Isabelle's father set up Mum and Dad in our shop. My grandma and my Aunt Sooky used to work at the
house. That's where Nan met my Grandpa. On North Star."
"So you see, David, we go a long way back," Isabelle glanced up at him with a little smile. "Please tell your parents I'll call on them soon, Manny."
"I know they would love to see you," Manny who was maybe sixteen responded with great dignity.
"Nice kids," David murmured, after the youngsters had gone on their way with much waving.
"Yes, they are. Manny's very clever. He plans to be a doctor."
"Marvellous, a success story," he said gently.
"I hope he makes it." She started to walk with him, recovering her head and shading her face with the wide brimmed straw hat she had dangled in her hand. They moved together through the entrance gates of the park, the dark green background of magnificent tropical trees animated by shafts of golden sunlight. Beautiful and welcoming as the Gardens were they also performed the practical task of providing a huge area of shade and protecting the city from much of the buffeting winds and torrential rains during the Wet.
Isabelle breathed in the air that wafted from the gorgeously perfumed shrubs in bloom. It was as powerful as any aphrodisiac. "There was a time when Manny's family was desperately poor. Cyclone Tracy wiped out their farm. Their uncle Frankie was killed, poor man. They were such hard workers Dad thought they deserved a helping hand, so he bought them a shop. Fruit and vegetables. They're experts at growing and selling."
"And the conditions would be much like Southern China," he commented. "Your father must have been a generous and kindly man."
Tears stung her eyes. "His good deeds were legendary. Ross is carrying on the tradition."
"You and your brother are very close." Though he dipped his head, he couldn't see her clearly. Enchanting as that daisy decked hat was, the wide brim did a good job of shielded her beautiful face from his view.
She let him have a glimpse of her aquamarine eyes. She was slightly flushed and not he thought from the mounting heat of the day. "You're bound to find out sooner or later, if you don't know already, David." Her tone implied he did. "Our mother left us when we were children. Neither of us thought it possible our parents would ever split up. They seemed so happy. We were all happy. A united family. Dad worshipped her."
"What happened?" he asked quietly.
She bit her lip and shrugged. "I suppose it was all meant to be. But after that I was never quite sure how my own life was going to turn out. Badly as it happens. My mother was visiting another branch of the family in England and fell in love with a distant cousin. It must have been something quite overwhelming. Something that robbed her of all control. My mother was not the frivolous type. Far from it. I remember her once saying nothing was better than a stable marriage. My God!"
"There's a lot of pain in passion, Isabelle."
She looked away at a great circular flower bed flaming with colour. "You don't have to tell me!"
So she had been madly in love with her husband.
"But, we have choices in life, David. There must be a moment when we can pull back. My mother didn't. She gave in to the feelings she had for this man. He ruined any hope she would come back to Dad although she wanted custody of us. Or at the very least me, the girl. Ross was the heir. Males are always on the inside track, especially when it comes to running the family business."
"You felt some resentment about that?"
She shook her head. "No, not at all. Just a simple statement of fact. The fact is I couldn't run North Star. You have no idea what's involved. One really does need a man, a strong man to handle most of the problems. Ross was reared to succeed Dad. No one could have stepped into the role better. Actually Ross feels even more strongly than I do about our mother's defection. No way would he have gone to her. How wildly unfair that would have been to our father. We were tied to him through love and blood and pride in our pioneering family and the land. A judge from the family court talked to us privately. We told him we would never leave our father. We loved him and wanted to stay with him. We didn't in fact want to see our mother."
Her voice was expressionless, hiding he felt sure a torrent of emotions she had locked away.
"I understand your feelings at that time, Isabelle, but do you never miss your mother?" After all he and Sam knew a whole lot about hurt.
She lifted her head, her expression brooding. "If I were honest, I'd tell you I've missed her every day of my life, but that doesn't change the fact I regard her as a traitor. I believe treason is punishable by death."
"You wanted her dead?"
She turned her slender back to him but he could see her shoulders trembling.
"I'm sorry, Isabelle." He had to ball his hands into fists lest he place them on her shoulders. . .those smooth fine boned shoulders.
"Of course not." She turned back, but her eyes were very bright. "Just a figure of speech. I'm really rather a damaged person, David."
He considered her gravely. "Aren't you being a bit hard on yourself?"
"No harder than the gossip." She laughed, but the flowering colour left her cheeks.
It wasn't possible not to reply. "You mean that things weren't well between you and your husband?"
She nodded. "You got it in one. The best way, I suppose, is to ignore it. I suspected you might have my history at your fingertips."
"Why would you think that?" he asked and waited.
"People talk wherever they are. Sydney, Darwin. Nothing too obvious last night, not with Ross around, but enough to cloud people's once good opinion of me."
"So what are you going to do about it? Put them straight?" He stared into her beautiful, black fringed, eyes.
"David, I don't much care. I am what I am. I've never tried to present myself as something different. Anyway, I was talking about my mother. You're too good a listener. For years she wanted me to come to England for the holidays-Dad wouldn't have stopped me-he loved me too much, but I refused to go. For Ross and for me-more so for our father-it was a grief so deep nothing, not even t
ime, could heal the scars."
"So you learned to live without her?"
They walked on, keeping to the golden-green shade. "It wasn't easy but I had a wonderful father and a wonderful brother."
"And a wonderful husband?" He realised he shouldn't have asked her but he couldn't stop himself.
That was his public image anyway. "I can't talk about him, David." At least that was the truth.
"Forgive me. That's understandable. It's been such a short time. I've no wish to upset you."
She could admit one thing however. "I rushed into marriage," she said. "Maybe it was the loneliness we Outback women endure. So much of Dad's and Ross's time was taken up with station affairs. I did my bit. I ran the domestic side and I handled a lot of office work, but I was on my own for much of the time."
"You could have left?"
Her beautiful eyes slanted up at him. "Of course I could but I wasn't fully free. My love for my family made up for a lot. I would have gotten around to it, if it hadn't been for Dad. He was bereft without the woman he'd made his life. I like to think I gave him emotional support even when he told me straight out I wasn't to sacrifice my life for him."
So she was far from selfish. She had a heart. "How did you meet your husband?"
"Why d' you ask?"
He captured her in profile. "I confess I want to know." In fact it seemed to matter greatly.
She took a long moment before she answered. "I was visiting a friend in Sydney. Her family was always on the social circuit. I'd only arrived that very day. Tanya was going to some big party hosted by Blair's mother at their palatial harbourside home. Blair's stockbroker father died of a massive heart attack a few years before. Tanya asked if I could come and Evelyn Hartmann said yes. It was there I met Blair. A fairy tale beginning without the fairy tale ending. Of course I failed to notice that Evelyn didn't like me from the start, but Blair fell in love with me. I was dumbfounded how quickly."
"So for you it wasn't love at first sight?" he asked after a bit, somewhat shamed by the feeling he was glad that wasn't so.
"I'm afraid I missed that experience, David." It wasn't a completely honest answer given her extraordinary reaction to him. For that she felt guilty as though she had broken a serious rule, almost a taboo. So recently widowed in the worst of circumstances, she had no right to be drawn to another man.
"Do you have someone you. . .care about?" He could be living with someone for all she knew.
"No." He answered simply. "I have quite a lot of women friends. I like women. I enjoy their company but to be honest I've spent much of my time travelling the world, particularly South East Asia. I studied architecture as you probably read last night. I have an architectural degree but I only practised for a couple of years before I moved on. I wanted to see the world and I did. In the course of seeing the world I found my first love. Photography. I've been lucky. I'm able to do something I love and get very well paid for it."
"You've been to the war zones as well."
He nodded, terrible memories suddenly crowding in on him. "The horror you've heard about and see on the television isn't exaggerated. The reality is far worse. I had to pull out of it for a while. The sheer scale of the human suffering became unbearable and I came to realise I was highly likely to get killed which wasn't going to help anyone. This breathing space is in the nature of therapy. It's impossible not to witness humanitarian disasters without coming away unscathed."
"I would think so," she said quietly. "The television coverage is disturbing enough."
He sighed deeply. "We're truly blessed living in Australia. From all I've seen it's something to celebrate." He paused and looked around him, deciding to change the subject. "It's remarkable to see how Darwin, not so long ago a frontier town, is booming."
"Yes, it's made a huge leap," she said, a proud Territorian. "Strategically it's become very important. Our Defence Forces are stationed here. The victims of the Bali bombing too were flown straight to Darwin Hospital. I'm sure the close proximity and the skill and dedication of Darwin's doctors and nurses saved lives."
"Absolutely," he agreed. "That rocked us, Bali, so close to home. The shock waves haven't gone away any more than 9/11. It's a deeply troubled world."
"On top of all that the tsunami."
"Yes indeed." His strongly hewn features tightened. "My heart bleeds for the people and the places I came to know and love. I spent a lot of time in Thailand and Indonesia. I've holidayed in Phuket many many times, journeyed through Indonesia, visited the Maldives like so many other Australians. I could have even been there. The wrong place at the wrong time." He released a sigh, glanced at his wristwatch. "I suppose we should go back."
"Good heavens, is that the time?" She glanced at her own watch in amazement. Time had flown. "I've enjoyed our walk. And our talk."
"So have I," he said lightly. No way could he allow himself to show his private feelings. "Has Ross made up his mind do you know?" "To take Samantha?"
"She'll be bitterly disappointed if she can't go along," David said. "Sam can handle herself, but of course I don't want to go against Ross's wishes. I appreciate we're on the verge of the Wet. It would be a matter of getting in and getting out."
"And quickly, taking our signals from the land and the sky. Joe Goolatta will be invaluable there. He's positively uncanny, but this is his land. Filming in far North Queensland you must know what it's like on the verge of the Wet."
"Of course. Some years back I took a helicopter flight from the bauxite town of Weipa in the Gulf to a mineral survey camp near Cape York. It was absolutely extraordinary. One of the great trips of my life. To see that prodigal wilderness from the air was fascinating. Great sluggish rivers twisting back on themselves like the Great Rainbow Snake of aboriginal legend. Hundreds and thousands of birds in the swamps many miles long. The Top End of the continent is still a no-man's land to most of us. Remote, barely accessible, certainly not in the Wet."
She nodded. "It's a pity, tourists, unlike the locals, never see this part of the world at its most spectacular when the wilderness bursts into fruit and flower. The billabongs and lagoons swell to overflowing with the rushing flood waters. Trickling waterfalls turn into mighty torrents. The wetlands abound with birds and I have to say crocodiles. The plains turn a lush green. It's Nature at its most powerful. But the tourists are back home by December before the deluge begins. It's all about picking exactly the right time. Which is what you're trying to do. We've already had a few spectacular lightning storms which will increase. But obviously around now is when you're going to get your most dramatic results. We've come to believe as the aboriginals do the Wet and the Dry is an over simplification. The aborigines recognise at least six seasons, maybe seven signified by the flowering and fruiting patterns of food plants and the migratory and breeding patterns of birds and other animals. They are so attuned to the land they understand it as few white people do." She lifted her head to ask, "You use a digital camera?"
"Just about everything is digital these days, but a lot of the time I prefer to use film. A large format panorama. I've agreed to let Matt, my assistant, take some shots for part of the book so he'll be coming along all going to plan. I'd like to help him out. He's a good photographer but he needs to develop his `eye.' Sam will do the text. Now she really does have an eye. Her children's books they require a flight of imagination-are marvellously entertaining and her illustrations quite magical. She's very talented is my little sister. One day I believe she'll make a name for herself."
"She's already started." Isabelle smiled. "All right, David, I'll put you out of your misery. Ross and I counted up all the risks and at the end of it I managed to convince him it might be a very good idea to take two women along. In fact I'll make it my business to see Samantha has the loveliest time. It will do me good too to get out of the house. I've done so much brooding I sometimes feel I'm going mad. This is Gunumeleng by the way. The trip couldn't be contemplated if we wait much longer for Gudjeuk when the Wet is
really unleashed. It won't be anything out of the ordinary if a cyclone or two blows in. But nothing on the horizon so far." She lifted her head, seeking his expression. "So does that make you happy?"
"That you're coming?"
The way he said it, the look in his topaz eyes made her catch her breath. Telltale colour spread along her cheekbones. "That Samantha is."
Smiling, he took her elbow as they crossed the broad street. "Isabelle, I'm happy on both counts."
CHAPTER FOUR
THINGS moved very quickly after that. By midafternoon Monday they were all assembled on North Star ready to make their journey into Kakadu the next morning. They were to approach the great national park from its western side.
The land baked under a peacock blue sky but each afternoon there had been an ominous build up of cloud heralding spectacular electrical storms with lightning so bright it wounded the naked eye. Their trip had to be fitted in to the brief period before the rains came in earnest and the plains were inundated.