Beyond the Red Horizon, page 9
“I don’t,” Cindy snapped.
Lyle’s mind had gone uncharacteristically blank for a few moments. He tried to pull himself together. “When did this happen, Cindy?” His normally unflappable composure had crumbled, and he felt overwhelmed with panic. “Why are they at the hospital? Are they all right?”
“I know Mrs. Macallister gave birth at home, and Doctor Duff was in attendance, and then he took them to the hospital. I wish I could tell you more, Doctor Macallister, but the message that came from Doctor Duff was brief,” Cindy said. “He didn’t say any more than that, but I gather you should go to the hospital quickly. I’ll let your father know what’s happened when he comes in.”
Lyle dashed away, and Fenella scowled at Cindy.
“Why didn’t you say that Doctor Macallister’s baby had been born while he was out on a call, Cindy?” She was genuinely disgruntled.
“I’m not obliged to discuss the doctors’ personal lives with patients, Mrs. McBride,” Cindy replied. “But now that you know, there’ll be no need for Doctor Macallister to advertise the birth of his baby in the paper, will there?” Fenella McBride was the biggest gossipmonger in Dumfries, and everyone knew it.
Fenella huffed. “I may as well go home,” she said crossly as she stood and headed for the door.
“I’m sorry you’ve had such a long wait for nothing, Mrs. McBride,” Cindy replied a trifle insincerely. “But Doctor Tom Macallister shouldn’t be too long, if you’d care to wait for him.”
“He’s visiting Aileen McConnell, so he could be all day,” Fenella said indignantly. She left the surgery in ill humour, slamming the door behind her.
“Now how did she know where Doctor Macallister was?” Cindy asked herself. There were a few patients like Fenella McBride who attended the surgery and were a constant source of amazement for her.
At the hospital, Millie was weak after fighting for her life. Bonnie was pacing the corridors. She’d seen Millie for just a few moments when she’d been brought in, but then she’d been told that she had to wait outside the ward.
“Is Millie all right?” Lyle cried frantically as he rushed up the corridor towards Bonnie. “How about the baby?” He didn’t wait for an answer before dashing into the ward where Millie was being cared for, and it was just as well. Bonnie had been about to give him a real dressing-down for not being there when Millie needed him. She’d been told that Millie was all right, but she wouldn’t believe it until she saw her daughter for herself. That meant Lyle would have borne the brunt of her anxiety.
“Millie,” Lyle said, rushing to her side. “Are you all right? What happened?”
Dougal appeared from behind a curtain. He had Millie’s medical records and a pen in his hand. “She’s weak, Lyle, but I think she’ll be all right after lots of rest.”
“What happened? Where’s the baby?”
“He’s fine, but we’d like to keep an eye on him for a few days.”
“Why?”
Dougal gestured for Lyle to move away from the bed and then he filled him in on what had happened and the complications with Millie and their son.
“Millie haemorrhaged!” Lyle was in shock. He glanced back at the bed where his wife lay. She was as white as the sheets.
“Yes, she lost a lot of blood, and it didn’t look good for a short while, but I managed to stop the bleeding,” Dougal whispered.
“My God,” Lyle said, realising that Millie was lucky to be alive. “Is the baby all right? You said he stopped breathing. Wait a minute, you did say he, didn’t you? I have a son?”
“Yes, he’s a healthy seven pounds, two ounces, and getting stronger by the minute.”
Lyle could scarcely believe that his son was already out in the world, or that he’d missed his dramatic entry.
“Because he stopped breathing just after the birth, I thought it would be wise to keep him under observation for a few days,” Dougal said. “But of course, that’s up to you and Millie. I would advise that she stay here for several days at least, but again, that’s up to you. You might want to take her home and look after her yourself.”
“She should stay here for a few days, but Millie has a mind of her own, so I’ll see what she wants to do. If she does come home, she’ll be staying in bed for a couple of weeks. I’ll make sure of that,” Lyle said. He couldn’t wait to see his son, but first he had to speak to Millie. “I can’t thank you enough for being there when Millie needed you,” Lyle said emotionally. Dougal had told him how he was passing by his house when Bonnie had been trying to find a horse and buggy to get Millie to the hospital. “I should have listened to my father this morning and not gone out to Glenbracken Farm. He wanted to go, but I was stubborn about it.”
“You did what you thought was right at the time, Lyle,” Dougal said, knowing how worried his colleague had been about his father.
“But it turns out it wasn’t right.”
“Lyle,” Millie called weakly. “Where are you?”
Lyle dashed to her side. “I’m here, Millie.”
“I thought you’d gone,” Millie whispered.
“I was just talking to Dougal.” Lyle pulled up a chair at Millie’s bedside. “I’m so sorry I wasn’t with you, Millie. Can you forgive me?” He felt terribly guilty. While he’d been enjoying his freedom and the sunshine and fresh sea air, she’d been fighting for her life.
“It’s all right, Lyle,” Millie said weakly. “Doctor Duff did a marvellous job. If not for him … .”
Lyle knew he owed Dougal a great deal, far more than he could ever repay.
“How are you feeling, Millie? It sounds like you had a pretty rough time.”
“I’ve nothing to compare it to,” Millie said tearfully. “I just wanted you there with me. Lyle, you didn’t see your wee boy come into the world. It was amazing.”
“I know, and I’ll regret that for the rest of my life. But we don’t have to talk about the birth now, not when you’re so exhausted and need to get your strength back,” Lyle said.
“We do have to talk about it, Lyle,” Millie whispered. “Because I have something to tell you.”
“What is it?” Lyle asked. His heart began to race again. “Dougal said the baby is all right. He is, isn’t he?”
“Yes, he’s a bonny wee boy. He looks just like his father.” Her eyes crinkled at the corners. “At least I think so. Mum told one of the nurses that she thinks he looks like me when I was a baby.” Millie’s smile faded. “Lyle, because of complications during the birth, I won’t be able … .” The words caught in her throat as the true ramifications hit her.
“What, Millie?” Lyle asked gently. He wondered if she was talking about nursing the baby.
Millie took a deep breath. She had to say it. “Jamie is my first, and he’ll be my last,” she blurted out as tears spilled over her eyelashes and ran down her cheeks.
Lyle produced a handkerchief and dabbed her cheeks. “You feel like that now, Millie, and that’s understandable after all you went through, but you might change your mind.” He knew how much Millie loved children.
“It’s not a matter of changing my mind, Lyle.”
“What do you mean, Millie?”
“The damage was too much,” Millie said sadly. “I can’t ever have another child.”
Lyle was stunned. “Dougal didn’t say … .”
“I asked him not to. It was my place.”
Lyle didn’t know how to feel. He was shocked and upset for Millie. “We have a healthy son, and that’s all that matters,” he said, thinking this was what she needed to hear.
Millie looked into his eyes. “Are you sure you feel that way, Lyle?” She wanted the truth. “It was my dream to have a big family with you,” she said, her throat tightening. She felt unable to control her emotions. One minute she felt elated, and the next her spirits were in the depths of despair. “The reality is that Jamie is the only child we’ll ever have.”
“Jamie, is it?” Lyle said, smiling at her and squeezing her hand. They had settled on calling their baby Duncan if it was a boy.
“Jamie Duncan, if that’s all right with you. I can’t explain it, but he just looks like a Jamie to me.”
“I like that name,” Lyle said. “And I’m happy to give wee Jamie all my love. He’s a blessing, Millie.” Dougal had told him that the baby had stopped breathing for a moment after the birth, so Lyle knew they were lucky to have him. He couldn’t even think about how devastating the alternative would have been.
“I’m tired, Lyle. Go and meet your son while I sleep.”
Lyle nodded and kissed her forehead.
Sister McFarlane in the nursery was expecting Lyle. When he walked in, she presented him with his baby son.
“Congratulations, Doctor Macallister. He’s a fine wee lad,” she said, smiling.
Lyle took the tiny bundle in shaking hands. He’d held babies before, lots of them, but this was completely different. This little bundle of love was part of him. His son. He looked down into Jamie’s sweet face, and a wave of intense emotion swept over him. Tears came to his eyes, blurring his vision for a moment. The feeling was so unexpected and powerful that he felt light-headed. He turned away from Sister McFarlane and walked to the far side of the nursery, where he sat on a chair near the window that mothers used to nurse their babies.
As if a higher power were blessing Jamie, the clouds in the sky above the hospital suddenly parted, and bright sunlight streamed in through the window, bathing him in a golden glow. Lyle could see a fuzz of fair hair on his son’s head. It glistened like fine-spun gold in the sunlight, and when Lyle touched it gently, he found that it was as soft as the finest silk. He stroked Jamie’s cheek, and it was like touching velvet—perfect, brand new, and a healthy pink colour. His tiny hands were balled up near his face, and Lyle clasped one between his fingers and marvelled at their perfection, right down to the minute fingernails. Jamie clenched his fingers, and unexpectedly they wrapped around Lyle’s forefinger. Lyle gasped when he felt the gentle pressure. This amazing connection brought a lump to his throat.
Suddenly Jamie opened his eyes and looked up at Lyle, who smiled into his sweet, innocent face. “Hello, son,” he whispered emotionally. “You and I are going to be spending a lot of time together. I have to go to work, of course, and then you’ll be with your mother, but the rest of the time we’ll be together. I may have missed your arrival into this world, but I won’t miss a single milestone from now on,” he vowed.
Jamie appeared to be looking at him in wonder.
“I’m going to teach you everything a boy needs to know.” Lyle had a vision in his mind of them fishing together, kicking a ball, picnicking and cycling, and he sighed in contentment. He was more grateful than ever that the war had ended. He prayed there wouldn’t be another.
Nothing else in the world mattered to Lyle as he gazed into his son’s eyes. Absolutely nothing. His heart went to his son, wholly and completely, and he was overwhelmed with a love he’d never thought possible. For the first time since marrying Millie, Lyle didn’t think about all that he’d given up. And that was the way it was going to be. Jamie would be his life, his reason for living.
CHAPTER 9
The silence on Barkaroola Station was unnerving, the loneliness soul-destroying, the house depressing, so Elena stepped outside to stare at the never-ending brownish grey plains that stretched out before her as far as the eye could see. Now and again she heard a crow caw or a galah squawk, but those were the only sounds to break the infinite silence in the outback of Queensland.
In the months since Elena had come to the Winton area, her thoughts often went back to the day when Aldo had brought her out from town to see their new home for the first time. They’d been staying in a lodging house in Winton for two days, so she’d had no time to get her bearings or her health back. He’d been so excited to show her and her parents the station he’d purchased without consulting her. It was one of the most depressing days of her life, far worse than she’d ever imagined.
One look at Barkaroola Station from the road, and she’d literally burst into tears. Aldo had been bewildered by her reaction, and hurt, but Luigi had been cross with his daughter’s lack of support for her husband’s dream. Louisa made the excuse that Elena was suffering heat exhaustion and needed time to adjust. This was partially true, but Louisa could understand her daughter’s feelings, even though she was hormonal. The house was abysmal; there was no other way to describe it. But they had to think about the baby and Elena’s need for a husband to ensure that her father would never know that she’d lost her virginity to a Scottish man, a Protestant at that, or that he’d abandoned her for another woman.
The house sat back from the dirt road at the end of a dusty driveway, where a crooked piece of wood nailed to a broken fence was painted with the word Barkaroola. The homestead was a wooden building attached to a single stone room, which had been the original dwelling. The same grey colour as its surroundings, it featured a tin roof that looked like it would leak like a sieve and a dilapidated veranda out front, where a few sheets of the rusty iron awning were curling up at the corners. Elena was inclined to believe it was the cobwebs that were stopping the house from imploding, but she didn’t say so.
With much enthusiasm, Aldo assured Elena that he would soon fix up the house, and that it would be the prettiest house for hundreds of miles. Elena said nothing out loud, for fear she’d go too far, but in her mind she wanted him to smash it to smithereens and start from scratch. They’d no sooner moved in when Aldo purchased cattle and horses and then hired help, an Aboriginal drover with ample experience. Aldo then disappeared from dawn till dusk most days. There was no time for repairs to the house, so Elena did what she could to make the three rooms liveable, even though her heart wasn’t in it. Most days she spent crying. But when her parents called for tea, she put on a bright face.
It was now the second of August, the last of the winter months in Australia and, according to Louisa’s calculations, three days before Elena’s baby was due. Aldo was out herding cattle somewhere on their two-hundred hectare property with their drover, Billy-Ray, and oblivious to the fact that her time was near. But Elena and Louisa had come up with a plan. When Elena went into labour, she was to radio the general store in town, which was alongside Fabrizia’s Meats. She would tell the store owner, Mr. Kestle, that she needed to deliver a message to her mother, who would then come out to the station. Elena was nervous about this plan, worrying that the baby might come in a hurry while she was alone, but Louisa had assured her that first babies didn’t come too quickly.
It was a balmy seventy-seven degrees in the shade, but the sun still had a sting in its tail if you stood out in it for more than a few minutes. At night it went down to forty-eight degrees, which was comfortable for sleeping, not that Elena had been able to get very comfortable over the last three months. Thankfully, the winter temperatures were a blessed relief from summer, when it was 104 during the day and seventy degrees at night. In that kind of heat, it wasn’t surprising that the house paint had blistered; all that was left was a faint remnant of the colour.
Elena hadn’t thought she’d survive her first summer in Australia. If she hadn’t been expecting a baby, she would have found a ship going back to England and stowed away. They’d set sail from England at the end of January that year on a White Star passenger liner. It had been freezing when they left Southampton, but they’d arrived in March during the tail end of a particularly hot Australian summer.
The trip had been a nightmare for Elena. She’d masked her morning sickness by claiming to be suffering sea-sickness, but in the end, she didn’t know why she felt so ill, only that she wished could die if just to end her suffering. She didn’t see the upper deck or the sea for at least half of the two-month journey, spending endless days lying on her bunk with a bucket beside her. She was depressed, unable to envisage a happy future. Not with her broken heart. She’d tried to eat at least once a day, but nothing would stay in her stomach. She’d lost so much weight that she looked like a walking skeleton.
Before sailing for Australia, Elena had been dreading seeing the land that was to be her home, but after long weeks at sea, all she’d wanted was to get off the ship and find her equilibrium again, and to stop feeling so ill.
Elena’s pleasure at being back on land was short-lived. They’d disembarked in the sugarcane-producing town of Townsville on Australia’s northeast coast. There they’d spent the night in a hotel, sleeping under mosquito nets and perspiring in the humidity.
The next morning, they caught the early train to the former mining town of Charters Towers, where gold had been discovered on Christmas Eve in 1871 by a twelve-year-old Aboriginal boy named Jupiter Mossman. Jupiter had been with a group of prospectors when a flash of summer lighting frightened their horses, and they bolted. While he was looking for the horses, he found a nugget of gold in a dry creek bed at the base of Towers Hill. Boom years followed between 1871 and 1917. But World War I put an end to that prosperous period, with labour so hard to come by. The mines that did persist experienced problems with ventilation and water. Eventually they, too, were abandoned. Mines in other places in Australia suffered the same fate when gold prices were fixed, and rising costs eroded profitability. Towns that had seen huge population influxes experienced a complete turn-around when the men took their families back to the big cities in search of employment. Country towns that had blossomed shrank to a few hundred residents or even fewer. Some ceased to exist. Those who survived became reliant on farming communities, where immigrants like Aldo and Luigi bought up land, confident they could make a living from raising cattle and selling meat.
The next morning, Luigi, Louisa, Aldo, and Elena caught the train from Charters Towers to Hughenden, 234 miles west of Townsville. The town was named after Hughenden Manor in England, the home of former British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli. The district around Hughenden was a major centre for grazing sheep and cattle. Flinders grass sprouted quickly after rain on the fertile brown clay pans. But in times of drought, the numbers of grazing stock rapidly dwindled.
