Master of the Outback

by Margaret Way

  “And you’ve turned the gentle approach into an art form.” Genevieve smiled back. “No one seems to know where the phrase came from. Some say Baden-Powell, the founder of the Boy Scouts, during his time in West Africa. Others think it’s Chinese. Whatever it’s origin, caution is very good advice.”

  Nori looked conflicted. “Ms Trevelyan told us not to tell her where Bret is if she asks. Perhaps we should?” She looked to Genevieve to decide.

  “Well, I don’t know, do I?”

  “Steven spoke of Camp Five,” Nori offered tentatively.

  “Look, let her go in search.” Genevieve took less than a few seconds to make a decision. “I’ve a feeling she’ll find him wherever he is.”

  An impish smile curved Nori’s lips. “You forget my husband will warn him.”

  Less than ten minutes later Liane strode purposefully into the house, pushing with her usual arrogance past Nori, who had greeted her at the door.

  “I’m after Bret.” She spoke in her clear piercing voice. “It’s fairly urgent. Did he say where he and the men would be working today?”

  “I’m so sorry, Ms Rawleigh. I have no idea.”

  “I’ll find him.” Liane chopped Nori off. “Where is Ms Grenville? Surely you know that?”

  “In the library.” Nori felt confident Gena could handle such an abrasive person.

  “No tea for me,” Liane called, although tea had not been offered. “I’ll have a word with Ms Grenville, then I’ll be off. Where’s Ms Trevelyan, by the way?”

  Nori suddenly saw a way to spare Gena too much of Liane’s company. “She will be downstairs shortly,” she fibbed.

  “Then I won’t be here.”

  In the library Genevieve awaited Trevelyan’s ex-fiancée’s entrance. Another bumpy conversation? She sat at ease, playing with the pen in her hand.

  “What? Nothing to do?” Liane dispensed with civilities.

  “Plenty to do. Just taking a break.”

  “You don’t happen to know where Bret is?” Liane was making no attempt to be friendly.

  Genevieve shook her head. “Sorry. I wouldn’t know.”

  “Of course you wouldn’t,” Liane said after a moment’s consideration. “I can’t believe you’ve hung in this long. Hester must be the ultimate slavedriver.”

  “Actually, we get along like a house on fire,” Genevieve said.

  Liane bit off a laugh. “Come on, Ms Grenville. I’m not a fool.”

  “Did I suggest you were? Ms Trevelyan is a very interesting woman. We have much in common.”

  “Like that dreadful old maid’s bun.” Liane gave a disparaging laugh, running a hand over her long glossy dark hair, tied back with a silk scarf. She looked great in riding gear, down to the glossy boots, a cream akubra in her hand. All set to chase after Trevelyan, in fact.

  “I think the term ‘old maid’ is politically incorrect.” Genevieve sat back, pondering the issue. “Many women remain unmarried by choice. Others have tragedies in their lives, or responsibilities as carers to a family member or invalid parents, that prevent them from taking the step of marriage. There’s no call to be rude either. Now, I must get on,” she said, borrowing Hester’s autocratic manner. “Ms Trevelyan will be joining me shortly.”

  “Better you than me.” Liane took to her heels—a woman who couldn’t get away fast enough.

  Her dreams were back. She was always in peril. This vivid dreaming had started shortly after she had lost her mother. Maybe a learned psychotherapist who had years of experience could explain it all to her. Her dreams reflected her unresolved grief and her insecurities, perhaps? Logical enough, yet she knew explanations wouldn’t help. Nor would they stop the dreams. They happened—like her moments. She couldn’t shut the door on them. She had no choice. Perhaps her over-active imagination wasn’t satisfied with her writing alone?

  That night she had to shake herself awake. She pressed her hands to her eyes, then lifted herself up on one elbow. Moonlight was streaming into her room. It was an extraordinarily beautiful night. So light! She could almost see the two shadowy figures at the end of her bed. They didn’t frighten her. Rather, the shapes caught in the silver-white radiance embraced her, calming her.

  She had been dreaming of Catherine. Nothing strange about that, as Catherine was in the forefront of her mind. What was unusual was that Catherine in her dream had had a companion—another fair-haired young woman. Their arms had been linked, as if they were friends. She’d seen them as clearly as they had her. Only as she’d called to them they’d begun to walk away from her, taking an upward path. The landscape was like the dark, disturbing backgrounds da Vinci had sometimes employed in his paintings. Genevieve had recognised the wild bush. At the foot of the steep incline was a stream, raging over rocks, carrying debris.

  The dream still held her fast, frame after frame. She felt anxiety…dread… A name kept repeating itself, yet she couldn’t hear clearly enough to make it out, though she strained and strained. Was it Cat? Catherine?

  Snap out of it, Genevieve. Snap out of it.

  It was a familiar ritual, this self-admonition to bring her out of her troubling dreams. Some people had pleasant dreams—a rehash of events in their lives. Others had no memory of their dreams. Why was she the way she was? God knew. She couldn’t command her dreams, even though she craved a good night’s sleep. And any attempt to interpret or understand her dreams she had long since abandoned.

  Only this one had been different. Catherine and the other young woman had been trying to tell her something.

  What?

  It would come to her if she didn’t force it. Perhaps when she awoke in the morning the message would come intact into her mind. She had often tried to no avail to recall a name in the night, only to have the name pop into her mind the instant she woke up. The brain, the greatest computer of them all, had been searching all night.

  She awoke with a shock, for a moment not knowing where she was. Dawn was sifting into her room in a luminous mist. Down in the garden a bird was singing its heart out. Thousands of other voices would soon join it. The ritual dawn chorus—the warbling of the wild. Now she knew she was on Outback Djangala. It was imperative she get up immediately. Go looking for Trevelyan. Hopefully he hadn’t yet left the homestead, although she knew he started his long days at dawn. The name that had been buried in her subconscious had come instantly into her waking mind.

  Kit. Christopher.

  Christopher Wakefield was Sondra’s grieving husband.

  She was meant to understand that Kit Wakefield was falling into the abyss. His grief over the tragic violent death of his young wife loomed so large in his life it was oppressing him to the extent he felt there was no point in going on.

  She rushed along the corridor, down the steps, her long red-gold hair whipping behind her. No time to dress properly. She had pulled a pale green caftan with gold embroidery over her head. No shoes either. All she knew was she had been given a responsibility. That responsibility was to tell Trevelyan. He was the one who would act.

  Miracles of miracles, he hadn’t left the homestead. He was standing at the front door. Liane was with him. She appeared to be arguing strenuously with him about something. Genevieve hadn’t gone downstairs for dinner the previous evening to join them, claiming she had too much to do. She had settled for a tray in her room. As had Hester.

  “Bret!” she cried out, desperate to gain his attention.

  He swung to see her slender body in fluid motion. The loose garment she was wearing clung to its contours as if she was wearing nothing beneath it. She appeared to him like some inspirational figure out of a beautiful painting. Immediately he was impelled to go to her, feeling a sense of alarm. What was it she wanted? The urgency in her beautiful face was plain enough.

  “Genevieve, what’s w
rong?”

  “It’s not me,” she panted, “but I have something to tell you. Something to pass on.” Up close to him now, she sought and held his eyes.

  “Is she for real?” Liane demanded hotly from behind them, outraged by Genevieve’s extraordinary appearance—and at this hour! The supposed ghostwriter had undergone a highly unwelcome transformation. And that pre-Raphaelite hair! Who was this Genevieve Grenville? What was she up to? Liane’s eyes took on a hard light. Time to check this ghostwriter out.

  Genevieve placed an urgent hand on Trevelyan’s arm. “I had a dream—”

  “God, not Martin Luther King?” Liane burst out in scorn.

  Genevieve looked back almost blindly at the scornful face. “It was a young woman in his campaign office who actually said, ‘I have a dream’. King took it up.” With relief, she turned back to Trevelyan. “Kit Wakefield is in trouble,” she told him, as she was meant to. “I fear he’s suicidal.”

  A long swathe of glorious hair was coiled around her throat. Trevelyan found himself reaching out to loosen it. His answer was gentle enough, but mixed with caution and concern. “Genevieve, you don’t even know Kit.”

  “Sondra told me.”

  Behind them Liane let out an angry bark of laughter. She was shocked and alarmed by Trevelyan’s hand on Genevieve’s hair. “You talk to ghosts, do you? I repeat—are you for real?”

  Genevieve spun so the loose sleeves of her silk caftan billowed like wings. “Who’s to say what’s real and what isn’t? Not you!”

  “I beg your pardon?” Liane was genuinely taken aback. “The consensus of opinion among those with their heads screwed on is there are no ghosts,” she said, with biting sarcasm.

  “Not everyone adheres to that.” Genevieve concentrated her attention on Trevelyan—the only one who mattered. “She came to me in a dream. I often dream. I have good reasons to trust my dreams.”

  “Oh, this is too much!” Liane groaned. “I could throw up.”

  Trevelyan turned on her. “We can only hope you won’t match the deed to the words.”

  Liane almost danced in her fury. “Bret, you can’t let this lunacy go by. You really ought to pack her off home. Clearly she’s unbalanced.”

  Genevieve barely heard the interruption. “He needs you today.” She stared with great intensity into Trevelyan’s dark eyes. “Trust me. I’ll pack up and leave if I’m wrong.”

  “Is that a promise?” Liane shouted.

  Both Trevelyan and Genevieve ignored her. “You have real fears for his life?” Trevelyan asked, without any discernible note of scepticism.

  “Sondra fears for his life,” she corrected.

  There was fierce anger in Liane’s face. “God, I have to pinch myself hard. You’re not listening to her, are you, Bret? She’s a nutcase.”

  “We all have fears for Kit,” said Trevelyan.

  “Not me!” Liane uttered harshly. “He wasn’t in love with her anyway. Kit has always loved me.”

  Trevelyan rounded on her. “Is it always going to be too late for you to wake up, Liane? Kit fell out of love with you long ago. He married Sondra. They were happy.”

  Liane’s ice-blue eyes grew bright with rage. “I know better.”

  “Stop now, Liane,” he warned. “It won’t hurt to take the helicopter over. Do you want to come?” he asked Genevieve, excluding Liane. “I’ll give you three minutes to get dressed.”

  Genevieve took off on winged feet, her ears blocking out Liane Rawleigh’s spiralling cries of protest.

  Trevelyan set the helicopter down as light as a bird on a greenish-brown patch of lawn. They had scouted the relatively small Wakefield spread from the air. No sign of human life. Cattle sitting in the shade of the trees. Six or seven brumbies, running like the wind. Emu mothers and chicks trotting in procession.

  They were now approaching the large timber homestead—a pleasing building with a broad front verandah. “Stay behind me,” Trevelyan said. “I’ll check the house out first.”

  What marred the scene was its air of abandonment, the desolation that hung over the house and grounds. A fairly extensive garden that once would have flourished was now withered and forlorn, except for a solitary yellow rosebush that defied the odds and continued to produce beautiful blooms. Sondra would have been the gardener, Genevieve thought. Such blooming was a small miracle in itself. Her mind was continuing to make connections. Irrational, maybe, but she stooped to pluck a perfect yellow bud. The petals gave off an exquisite perfume.

  Trevelyan called Kit Wakefield’s name. No answer. He took the short flight of steps onto the porch at a leap and tried the door. It was open. He pushed it back against the wall, shouting Kit’s name. If he was anywhere in the vicinity he should have heard.

  “Where they hell to begin, then?” he muttered to himself.

  “He’s in the house,” a voice said softly.

  Genevieve had come up behind him.

  “Ah, Genevieve!” There was no clear reason for any of this, but he was following her lead as if impelled.

  “I didn’t make the decision,” Genevieve read his mind. “The decision was made for us. We have to find him.”

  They did find Kit Wakefield. He was lying on the double bed in the main bedroom, his long thin body turned away from them. There was a letter propped against the alarm clock on the nearest bedside table. A twenty-two rifle was leaning against the wardrobe. Alarm washed through Trevelyan, although he knew at once the rifle hadn’t been put to use. Yet. The dry, stale air was heavy with the smell of alcohol.

  “Go outside, Genevieve,” Trevelyan said over his shoulder. “Wait on the porch.”

  “Please, I’m all right here.” She didn’t want to go away. She had to stay.

  Trevelyan didn’t bother to argue. He knew she wouldn’t go. He put his arm on the young man’s shoulder and shook him violently. He desperately needed a response.

  “Kit!” He leant over the bed, shouting in Kit Wakefield’s ear. “Come on, Kit. Wake up. It’s me, Bret.”

  Wakefield didn’t stir. Then, after a few silent heartbeats, he articulated one badly slurred word. “Bret?”

  “Yes, it’s me, man. Wake up,” Trevelyan ordered forcefully. “We need to talk.”

  Kit didn’t answer.

  “Go find a bucket and fill it with water.” Trevelyan gave Genevieve the order.

  “Shouldn’t be hard to find one.”

  She was back within moments. Trevelyan took the brimming bucket from her, then pitched the entire contents over the figure on the bed.

  This time Kit reacted. He threw himself over onto his back, panting, spitting, spluttering madly, “Oo! Did you have to do that?” he croaked. There was a note like betrayal in his voice. It was clear he had wanted to be alone to do whatever he had intended to do.

  “You bet your life I did,” Trevelyan responded vigorously. “What’s going on here, Kit? What the hell is in that note? I see it’s addressed to me.”

  “You’re the top bloke, Bret,” Kit mumbled. “Who else?”

  He looked ghastly, Genevieve thought. His light brown curly hair was dark with sweat, and badly tousled—as if he hadn’t brushed it for days on end. His half-open shirt exposed his ribcage. His ribs were so close to the surface they were almost breaking through the skin. He had badly bloodshot eyes, and he was extremely pale considering he lived and worked on the desert fringe.

  “Kit, you’re not acting like the man I know you are,” Trevelyan said rousingly. “I understand your grief, but you’ve got people who care about you.”

  “No Sondra.” Kit was totally unable to hide his unrelenting grief. It had drained him of the will to go on.

  What Genevieve did next was instinctive. She moved from behind Trevelyan’s tall figure that had partiall
y blocked her, joining him at the bedside. “Sondra doesn’t want you to die, Kit,” she said, with all the persuasiveness she could muster. “She wants you to live.”

  Kit Wakefield stared back at her with a kind of stunned dismay. “What are you telling me? Who are you anyway? An angel?” His bloodshot eyes moved sharply to Trevelyan. “Who is this woman?”

  “She’s with me. She’s staying at Djangala.”

  Kit broke in on him. “You think because of that—?” He sat up, groaning, startled into action.

  “I trust her,” Trevelyan said with finality. “There are times one has to put one’s trust in someone without understanding why. I’ve always relied on my instincts—especially when I feel there’s danger. Genevieve had a very vivid dream with Sondra in it. She was saying your name, over and over. When Genevieve woke this morning she knew she had to do something. She did the right thing. She came to me.”

  “A dream? You saw Sondra? But I don’t know you. You never met Sondra,” Kit protested, clearly distressed.

  “I knew her in my dream,” Genevieve said. “She had long blonde hair. She was very visible. She wanted me to tell you she wants you to live.” Genevieve leaned over, placing the yellow rosebud in Kit Wakefield’s nerveless hand. “You have to look your grief in the face. This is what she wants.”

  “God!”

  Kit Wakefield thrust one desperate hand through his knotted hair. His right hand, however, clung to the yellow rose that showed no sign of wilting in the heat.

  “Sondra doesn’t want me to die?”

  He stared back at Genevieve as though she just might be a heavenly visitation. She was certainly different from anyone he had ever known. More significantly, Bret trusted her.

  “Sondra sent us here, Kit,” Trevelyan said. Whether it was making sense or not—and surely it couldn’t be—Kit was definitely responding, Trevelyan thought. “What I want you to do is get up, shower and shave, throw a few things in a bag. We’ll make you some strong coffee, then I’m taking you back to Djangala for a little R&R. You look awful, by the way,” he said with a bracing smile. “It’s like I said, Kit. You have friends.”