‘No.’
‘And now I’m going to have a sister too.’
‘Who?’
‘You, silly. Blake loves you too. You know what that means.’
I laughed at the innocence she revealed at times. If only everything were that simple. And I wondered how she knew anyway; had Blake told her? I hugged her tight and she didn’t seem to mind.
‘We’ll see what happens. Things like that take a lot of time.’ And a lot of effort, I reminded myself.
She pulled away then. ‘I didn’t do anything special though, like Mariama or Gul. I have the ring, my brother, everything that Liana got, but he saved me. He was the one. I didn’t save him. I tried to shoot him.’ I heard the echo of the way she used to talk and I pulled her close again. She didn’t need another problem to beat herself up about.
‘If you’re sorry about that, it’s finished with. Don’t worry anymore.’ Then I chuckled. ‘You did save Blake in a way.’
‘How?’
‘You saved him from growing into a nasty old man. If you hadn’t written how you felt in your note, he wouldn’t have learned something new.’
‘What was that?’
‘To let go.’
‘Like me with the kitten?’
I nodded. And something else you did too, I thought, as I held her against me. Asking for stories all the time had helped me through that shadowy land to see Liana as she was, to remember the love, and the stuff we’d shared, without that aching pain of loss.
‘I’m me now.’ It took me a moment to register what Kerra had said.
‘What do you mean?’
‘I don’t want to be Princess Noori or Mariama anymore.’ I kissed the top of her head as I thought about her simple, ‘I’m me.’ She was right. It reminded me of what Zack’s grandmother had said. When you get rid of the illusions hiding what’s true, and start believing who you are, the real you comes into focus at last.
‘You have your own special story,’ I said.
20
I was packing my bag. It was the story of my life; even as a kid I was always packing, either for boarding school in Pakistan or for holidays at home in the village where Mum and Dad worked. Kerra was out with her dad and Matt had already been in to wish me well with his casual outback charm, so it startled me when I heard the quiet knock on the door.
‘How about a ride?’ I saw the appeal mixed with excitement in Blake’s eyes and before he even explained I knew where we’d go. Apparently he’d been packing too—sausages, damper dough, the billy—while I’d been closeted in my room all morning. It didn’t take long to pull on Mrs Townsend’s boots and hat.
We’d just reined in at the gorge and I said without thinking, ‘This time we’ll get to eat it, hey?’ For a second I held my breath, remembering all I’d said when we were there before and I waited for his retort as he turned in the saddle to look at me. But it didn’t come. He appeared beside Rainmaker, lifting me down the way he used to at my riding lessons and I felt the hardness of his buckle brush against me as he lowered me to the ground, heard his sigh before he spoke.
‘I’m sorry about the last time we were here.’ I looked away. It wasn’t only his fault. I burned inside remembering the times I’d baited him, wouldn’t let him alone, thinking I was helping. How much of it was caught up in my own feelings about Liana’s death, I may never know. There were things I wished I’d never said at all.
‘So am I. It wasn’t just you.’ I was aware of him then, just like always. It wasn’t a sensation I could describe. It wasn’t a smell or an image or sound, it was just there, inside my middle, exciting, yet it hurt because there was too much of it and I was scared he might not feel it too.
‘C’mon.’ And I was being led to the ruins by the creek and the antique silent windmill that had no water to pump. It didn’t take him long to set up our picnic. He even spread his hands, as he did last time, inviting me to eat, except I wasn’t about to ruin it.
‘Thanks for this. For inviting me.’ Giving me a second chance. It sounded inadequate; I meant much more.
He smiled. ‘It’s okay. Your riding’s really improved.’ That sounded unrelated but I knew what he meant. Without me learning to ride, we couldn’t have done any of it. And I tried to do the picnic justice. Guys can provide so much food and expect you to be able to deal with it. Eating was the last thing on my mind.
‘Jaime—’ I looked up to find him regarding me. ‘I’m sorry about not supporting you enough with your friend Liana. It’s just that it reminded me of Mum all over again. It was better to keep quiet. I was a wimp.’
I reached over and touched his hand. ‘It’s okay, I understand now. What do you think will happen?’ I was nearly finished my sausage and damper, taking my time so I wouldn’t have to have another. He knew what I meant; just finding Kerra and giving her a ring wasn’t going to heal all their hurts.
‘Matt and Richelle will manage Mulga Spring for a while. Dad’ll come to Adelaide with me and bring Kerra.’
‘For counselling?’
He nodded. ‘For all of us. I guess there’s always hope.’
‘Sounds like what Mr Kimberley, my music teacher, said to me after Liana died. Hope isn’t a way out, it’s a way through. Your family will make it, Blake.’
He finished his sausage then, licked the sauce off his fingers and poured tea from the billy into mugs. ‘Thanks,’ he said as he handed me one.
‘What for?’
‘Hanging in there. Sticking with me—when I acted like a jerk.’ His words conjured up an image of Richelle, saying how I’d stirred everything up, made trouble.
‘Richelle did too.’
‘Yeah, but she’s my mate. She doesn’t have to think about whether she can put up with me for the rest of her life. There’s no personal stake in it, no skin off her nose, what I do really.’
I sat there, the enamel mug suspended between the ground and my face. What on earth was he trying to say? And I wanted him to explain but he began packing up the frypan, dousing the coals. He couldn’t keep still and for one horrible moment it felt like that other picnic. It was all those feelings about Kerra that drove him that time. This time I hadn’t done anything to set him off, so what was wrong? Then he turned to me, his hands full of plates and uneaten damper.
‘But with you, Jaime, it’s different.’
I swallowed the mouthful of tea I took an aeon ago. ‘It is?’
‘Yeah.’ Suddenly he was in front of me, the plates gone, putting my mug on the ground and drawing me up to face him.
I searched his eyes. It was as though there was so much more he wanted to say, that maybe a guy like him would never say, yet I knew it was there, comforting and warm. Like he was sorry for keeping a distance between us; that now he’d let Kerra in, there was more room for me.
‘Jaime?’
‘Yes?’ Did I say that aloud? I was so intent on not missing his words that I’d held my breath.
‘I’m sorry about a lot of things.’ And this time when he drew me in against him, I knew what would happen. I could see it in his eyes, in the way he glanced down at my mouth, and this time there was no pain or the salty taste of goodbye. Once I’d asked Dad how I would know when I was in love. He just said I’d know instinctively and I’d said what a cop out. But I understood what he meant now; an unfurling inside told me that this picnic in the gorge with Blake could be a beginning, not an end. Yet I didn’t know that when I first met him, not even at the Year 12 dinner the year before. I stood back from him, remembering.
‘Do you know, it’s over a year since we first met in the library at school and you thought I was…different. Now look at us.’ All of a sudden I felt shy.
‘They say first impressions stick. You were wrong, you know.’
‘About what?’
He bent down to pick up the mugs, the billy, the plates again.
It seemed all that ‘face to face’ stuff was too much for him too, and it wasn’t until he put the last things in his saddle bag that he flung the answer back over his shoulder as though it was an after-thought. I knew better.
‘About not being a princess from the Himalayas or special.’ He remembered saying that? ‘And if you come again, I’ll take you up over Lake Eyre to see our famous Marree Man. Bet the salt will look just as good as the snow on the Himalayas.’
He led Cador and Rainmaker over. ‘You need to see Uluru too. I went with Mum. She called it the heart of Australia, and you know what? When I put my hand on the rock, I could feel it beating.’ My eyes widened at his raw honesty inviting me inside.
He smiled uncertainly as he held out Rainmaker’s bridle. I’d never thought anything could compare with the Karakorum Mountains or my life in Pakistan. Pakistan would never leave me. There were physical reminders too: kids at school said I had a weird accent and I liked to wear flowing clothes. I’d be embarrassed to be kissed in public, or upset if there was bombing in Afghanistan or Iraq, and I’d sign petitions to free asylum seekers. But I decided Australia was my home, even if I might never fit the mould of what Kate Sample thought was a normal Australian.
As I took the bridle, I felt as if I was accepting more than a strip of leather and a fast ride; that as it warmed in my fingers I was allowing a future within a country that I was learning to love. There was a chance to be myself, wherever I was, even if I’d been raised in two worlds and was living beyond their borders, and possibly always would.
Maybe Blake realised more was going through my head than I could explain as after we’d mounted, he leaned over from his saddle and gently kissed my forehead.
He smiled. ‘Kerra’ll be waiting. Race you home.’
Acknowledgements
Finding Kerra is a work of fiction and the characters are not based on real people. Thank you to Rochelle Manners who believed Jaime’s story was worth reading and for Emily Lighezzolo, my lovely editor, for your helpful suggestions.
Thank you to Gordon, Lyn, Adam, Sarah and Ellen Litchfield of Wilpoorinna Station for your hospitality many years ago. Thanks also to Colin Moulden, Andrea O’Connell, Tim and Sam Prior.
Nazzi’s Indigenous proverb ‘We are all visitors’ can be found at Indigenous Works at www.indigenousworks.ca/en/resources/articles-reports/fire-and-dream.
The original story of ‘Nano Begal’ (Begal’s Mother) that Jaime changes for Kerra can be found in Erik L’Homme (2007). Tales of a Lost Kingdom: a Journey into NW Pakistan. NY: Enchanted Lion Books.
The story Jaime tells about Hamid and his sister is based on Prince Hamid and the Fairy. (n.d.). Brighton: Litor Publishers.
The full story of ‘The Mysterious Traveller’ is found in Mal Peet & Elspeth Graham (2011). Painting out the Stars. London: Walker Books. The mention of this beautiful story and Jaime’s short telling of it to Kerra is used with permission. Thank you, Walker Books Australia.
About the Author
Rosanne Hawke is a South Australian author of 30 books, among them, Zenna Dare, Mustara, shortlisted in the 2007 NSW Premier’s Literary Awards, The Messenger Bird, winner of the 2013 Cornish Holyer an Gof Award for YA literature, and Taj and the Great Camel Trek, winner of the 2012 Adelaide Festival awards. Rosanne was an aid worker in Pakistan and the United Arab Emirates for ten years and now teaches creative writing at Tabor Adelaide. In 2015 she was the recipient of the Nance Donkin Award for an Australian woman author who writes for children and YA.
More from Rosanne Hawke
Beyond Borders : Dear Pakistan
Jaime Richards has spent most of her life in Pakistan and returning to Australia seems like another planet compared to the country she has left behind. Here in Australia, boys try to kiss her, men wear shorts and everyone says ‘cool’ all the time. How will she ever know the right things to say or do or wear? After all, this is meant to be her culture.
This is a story of living beyond borders, and discovering the gift of adapting to new cultures, especially one’s own.
Beyond Borders : The War Within
Taken at gunpoint into Afghanistan, Jaime and her friends are caught up in a shadowy secret world of intrigue and terrorism. Will they escape the Mujahadeen fighting their holy war?
For Jaime, this trip is to prove painful enough to change her life forever, yet rest the ghosts of her past.
Beyond Borders : Liana’s Dance
After her international high school in Northern Pakistan is attacked by terrorists, sixteen-year-old Liana Bedford and the young music and dance teacher, Mikal Kimberley must find a way to rescue student hostages who have been imprisoned in an ancient caravanserai. Liana discovers Mr Kimberley has a secret and to save him and her friends she must overcome her fears and dance for her life.
This is Liana’s story as told by her friend Jaime Richards from Dear Pakistan and The War Within.
Finding Kerra Page 14