The Bush Telegraph, page 12
Connor stopped the car. ‘I know, mate. I was stupid to step in front of you.’ He weighed his words. ‘You have to be careful of those moments.’ He thought of the night he and Jayden’s mother had conceived him. Even then, he’d known she wasn’t the right choice. ‘Those brain farts can ruin your life and take others with you.’
His son nodded, but there was the glint of tears in his eyes. Connor gripped Jayden’s shoulder and held his son’s gaze. Had Jayden done something else stupid today?
And right there, Connor made the decision to open up more to his son. Communicate. ‘Forget all that for now. I want to show you something. Look out the window. Look at this land. The mountains. Really look.’
Jayden’s eyes skimmed the nearest beasts as if looking for what his father was going on about. He shrugged, puzzled.
Connor didn’t blame him. He’d never spoken about this before. ‘Look at the land. Look at the cattle. One day this will be your family station, if you want it. And if you don’t’—he shrugged, though the idea was oddly more offensive than it had been last week—‘that’s okay too. We can sell it.’
Connor looked towards the distant hills. He hadn’t even driven out to his favourite places yet. Hadn’t shared them with his son. ‘I know you miss Sydney, but I’m glad I came back to be here with your gran, and I’d like to stay at least for the next six months and really give it a go. But if you still want to go back to the city after that time, we’ll talk about moving there until you finish school. We’ll decide together.’
Jayden narrowed his eyes as if not sure his father was telling the truth.
Connor nodded slowly. ‘I mean it. If we have to move to the city for a few years, that’s fine. I’m asking you to give it a chance now, though.’ Connor slowly extended his arm and waved it. ‘This place. This station. Your great-great-grandfather settled here with a cart of supplies. He built the fences and generations of your family have survived and thrived and cried on this dirt and sand. It might give you tough times and joy, but it’s one hundred per cent real.’ And didn’t throw you to the wolves if someone told lies about you.
His son still didn’t say anything, but he certainly didn’t look bored. ‘I’m sorry I treated you like a child while your grandmother was dying. I can see you need to have more purpose in Spinifex than just school. Let’s start again and we’ll work together to bring the place up to scratch. I’ll teach you what I know about running a station – you’ll learn a lot in six months that will help set you up for life – and you can see if your birthright has meaning for you.’
His son’s eyes widened and slowly he looked around.
Connor needed some feedback. ‘What do you see?’
Jayden shrugged. ‘Nothing.’
‘You can do better than that.’
Jayden shrugged again. ‘Endless plains of low scrub and clumps of straggly trees.’
‘Those straggly trees are acacia and gidgee trees. There are only a few stands of gidgee left in all of Australia. The first peoples from this land used to make boomerangs and nulla-nullas out of that wood. It’s hard. They reckon it’s the third-hardest wood in the world. White men make knife handles out of it. It makes great sticks to poke a fire with, too. It burns for hours.’
Jayden’s eyes flickered. Connor had him now – he couldn’t hide his interest. Finally. ‘What else can you see?’ he asked gently.
Jayden’s head turned slowly. ‘The ground’s uneven in places. Little dips and hollows.’
‘That’s because this whole area used to be a great inland sea. You can find fossilised shells in the ground. That’s why when it floods the water rolls across everything.’
Jayden turned to stare down at the homestead. ‘Is that why the house is on poles?’
‘It is. The first house went under in a flood in my grandfather’s time. So they built this one up higher.’
‘Did the people get washed away?’
‘No. They sat on the roof until the water went down. Great-grandad made a shelter and stored food and water in the roof. My dad was a baby. They lost most of the cattle, though.’
He could see now that he needed to share his love of the land with Jayden. A love that had been buried with the blur and buzz of the city. A deep passion he’d let go of, which now surged back into his chest with ridiculous ease. Right now, he just wanted to enjoy how that made him feel. To savour the moment.
‘It’s just dirt and rocks?’ Jayden said, not derisively, but with a genuine curiosity.
Connor nodded. ‘With a huge history. Up in Winton, there are dinosaur bones and dinosaur trackways that people come from all over the world to see. Here it’s dry at the moment, but the mesas are amazing. When the rain comes, the grass glows green like magic. The paddocks have wildflowers and the coats on the cattle will shine like mirrors.’
‘You’re in a good mood.’
Connor looked at his son and laughed. ‘Guess I am.’ He started the car again. It might have to do with the fact that this morning, for the first time, it felt like there was something good to come out of being back home. He had been on the front foot with Maddy for a while there, too.
How did that make him feel? The best he’d felt in months, actually.
Not like the man who had been accused of something he’d never done. The one who found he only had fair-weather friends.
Not like the dad who had lost communication with his son – the son who had run him over, even if he believed Jayden had pressed the accelerator instead of the brake as he’d sworn.
Or like the failure of a man who couldn’t honour his mother’s dying wish to break through the walls of his brother’s addiction.
When he’d been verbally sparring with Maddy, Connor had felt alive and amused and stupidly eager to act on the urge to push over walls for her. She just needed to point out the wall for him.
Chapter Twenty-one
Maddy
On Monday morning, the corellas screamed and chattered as they sat like pegs on the powerline above the strip of bitumen as Maddy and Bridget crossed the road to the school.
Jayden lounged against the school fence as if waiting for someone, and he straightened when they approached.
‘Good morning, Jayden.’ Maddy smiled at the boy.
He didn’t return the smile; he held out his hand instead. ‘I brought your money to give back.’
She frowned. ‘Why? Didn’t you think you did a good job of the car?’
He shrugged, refusing to look at either Bridget or her. Then kicked a stone. ‘It was okay.’
‘Then keep the money. Come back next weekend, on Sunday, if you want more work. I can always find something. Maybe you can save up for something?’
‘Why would you want to help me?’
‘I’m helping me by passing on jobs I don’t want to do. But don’t feel obliged. Anything between us is settled now. You can do as you want.’
‘We’ll see, then.’ He nodded and turned away. Then he stopped and turned back to Bridget. ‘You coming in, Locke?’
Bridget looked at her mother and shrugged. ‘Bye, Mum.’
‘Bye, Bee. Have a good day.’ She leaned in and kissed her daughter, while Jayden rolled his eyes. The kid must be learning survival techniques because he withheld any mocking words at least and she was tempted to lean over and give him a big smooch on the cheek just to embarrass him. It was probably better to wait a few more days before she did that.
‘Have a good day, you two.’ She nodded at Jayden and backtracked towards the shop. She wanted to have a word with Mrs Cook. She’d avoided the shop all of last week because she’d been busy, but also because she hadn’t been ready to acknowledge her flight from the town with someone who might remember her and want to talk about it.
It was time now. She wondered if it was the positive response she’d got from Connor on Saturday that had made her okay to see someone who knew her from before. Was she so fragile?
Maddy turned into the old-fashioned doorway and pushed open the creaky door. The wood against her hand was thickly crusted with years of repainting and small scales of paint flaked and floated towards the ground as the door swung open. She hoped it wasn’t lead paint.
Behind the counter, an elderly lady with grey hair and eyes as bright as her apron turned her way. Maddy was touched to see the recognition in those eyes. For a second, it made the face lift before it resettled in the sea of wrinkles.
‘Madison.’ Her soft voice held a distant Scottish glen. ‘I remember you.’
‘Mrs Cook. I remember you, too.’ And your accent. It was strange to hear this quiet voice from the past. Apart from old Mick, who’d been too sick to talk, this woman was the first person who’d really known her from before, and she also had been kind, if too careful in the end not to notice that Maddy had needed a friend.
‘I remember when you had that baby all by yourself and nobody knew. You were a brave little thing. Is that her I saw going to school this morning?’
Maddy blinked at the praise. ‘Yes. That’s Bridget. She’s eleven.’
Mrs Cook shook her head in confusion. ‘Why would you come back here? The town’s been fading since the pub burned down. And all that nasty business happened.’ The older woman tilted her head and her brows furrowed. ‘I’d run a mile from here if I was you. Can’t you see the town is miserable and dying?’
Maddy tried for a lighter tone. ‘That would be a shame. Spinifex needed another nurse for the health centre. I’m a nurse.’
‘And a good one, I hear.’ Mrs Cook snorted. ‘We never did anything for you.’
And there it was. Maddy lifted her chin. ‘I didn’t ask for help. And in the end . . . Someone did help me.’
‘Yes.’ Mrs Cook lifted her own chin. ‘Alma did. And it cost her the pub.’ Maddy winced, but the woman went on musingly. ‘Though she wrote to say she’s very happy with you on that island. She sends me Christmas cards, you know.’
‘She told me. She enjoyed your cards, too.’ Maddy swallowed the lump in her throat that had risen as Alma had in the conversation. ‘Alma passed away nearly ten weeks ago. In her sleep.’ Maddy blew out a breath with the last word. ‘We miss her every day.’
It was Mrs Cook’s turn to blink and her mouth opened as if in protest. ‘Alma? Gone? I’m sorry to hear that.’ She shook her head as if still not believing, then she sighed and looked at Maddy. ‘A tough old bird, she was. She managed better on her own than I ever have.’ She glanced around at the rundown shop with the grimy windows and shrugged. ‘What can I do for you, now?’
‘I should have been in earlier, but last week turned busy.’
Mrs Cook nodded. ‘I heard you did a good job with Mick.’
‘Thank you. It was a team effort.’ Maddy picked up a black-tipped bunch of bananas from a yellow pile. Fifty cents each, proclaimed the price on a small stick sign. ‘I’m almost out of fruit and Bee loves bananas on her cereal in the mornings.’ She put them on the counter and held out a five-dollar note. As Mrs Cook opened the till and gave the change Maddy added, ‘I saw your daughter, Kelly, yesterday. She’s a beautiful young woman. Has the look of her sister, Trudy. I remember her more clearly from before.’
‘My Trudy married a station hand and he works with good owners. They have a nice jackaroo cottage and two babies.’ Mrs Cook smiled. ‘She’s still a looker. Took after her dad, God rest his soul.’
The older woman glanced around the dim shop again. ‘Everything was tidy when Bill was alive. I could do with someone to mow the lawn and trim that tree back at the side. It’s different when there’s no strong man around with a bit of get up and go. But he’s gone. Like a lot of the oldies are.’
‘I’m sorry for your loss. I remember your husband.’ He’d worked for the council and had kept not just the shop and residence tidy. ‘He kept the whole town spruced and trimmed.’
‘That he did.’ Mrs Cook stood, leaning a little on the counter, lined and leathery, but her eyes were still large and beautiful, and when she smiled her face lit up.
‘But I think both your girls get their looks from you.’ Maddy had the impression the older woman didn’t smile often and she suspected she was lonely with the strain of running the business on her own. She had been good to Maddy. ‘I remember when you sent those things for Bee when she was born. Clothes and nappies. When I had nothing.’
‘Pshaw. It was nothing. Too little, too late.’ She shrugged. Then she looked up as the rest of Maddy’s comment sank in. ‘Where did you see my Kelly?’
‘At the clinic. Just for a check-up for one of the boys.’
‘Her man’s out of work and four mouths to feed. They’re finding it hard with him away looking for some job they can move to. Spends too much money on drink. To cope.’ Mrs Cook looked like she wanted to spit a bad taste from her mouth. ‘There’s a lot of that going on. Waste of young life. Told you the town was dying.’
She looked down as she circled the glass counter with a cloth, as if rubbing out a particularly stubborn spot. ‘You’d know about that. Men who need to drink. He’s getting worse, that man.’ She sighed. ‘I can’t help her. Everyone makes their own bed to lie in.’
Maddy knew that one, for sure. But she also knew no comment was wanted, so she left that where it needed to be left today. She decided she’d check on Kelly again. Another service the town needed was drug and alcohol support. Earlier rather than later.
She remembered her and Bridget’s unproductive ice-cream search on Sunday. ‘Do you sell boxes of individual ice-creams?’
‘Not normally, but I could get them in for you?’
‘Would you? Please. Two boxes of those plain little tubs of vanilla would be fine.’
Mrs Cook nodded. ‘The truck will come in Thursday.’
‘You get your deliveries once a week?’
‘Twice. The road train comes early Mondays and Thursdays. About seven am.’
‘Can I make a large order to fill up my freezer on Friday if I send a list and give you my credit card number?’
‘It’d make my day.’ Mrs Cook smiled. ‘Send the list over sometime today and I’ll send the order through.’
She’d like to surprise Bridget with a full cupboard and freezer. She wanted to teach her to cook. ‘I see a lot of the smaller towns are struggling with town supplies of water. Spinifex seems fine?’
‘We’re lucky with the artesian water. Tourists complain it has the sulphur smell in the shower, but at least we don’t run out of the stuff. We have water to drink. And it tastes fine when it’s cooled down. Keep a jug in the fridge.’
‘I will.’
‘Those other towns, they’re all standing in the shower with one leg in a bucket to save the little they have. Then tipping it in the loo when they’ve finished with it.’
‘So Spinifex has plenty?’
‘She’ll do.’ Mrs Cook looked satisfied with that at least.
‘So why is the local pool shut? It looks all overgrown and rundown.’ A pool would be good for Bee.
‘It’s been shut for years. The filter system broke. There’s a crack in the concrete, too, so they shut it down. The council said there wasn’t enough profit to make it worthwhile.’
Then fix it for the kids instead. ‘It seems a shame.’
‘Money talks.’ She sighed. ‘The town’s on its way to disappearing, anyway.’
Grrr, Maddy thought, if you say it enough, it will. She glanced out the door across to the empty pub parking area. ‘That’s a new camping ground, but it does seem quieter than eleven years ago?’
‘Amateurs.’ Mrs Cook snorted towards the pub and the empty Van Park. ‘You’ve gotta be nice when people come. Alf’s caravan park never took off and the crankier he got the more people stayed away.’
Maddy remembered smiling at a sign she’d seen on the way to Longreach. A bursting-at-the-seams caravan park she’d passed. Famous for Our Happy Hour. She grinned at the memory. ‘Maybe he needs a happy hour.’
‘He needs a happy Alf, more likely. This whole town needs a happy hour. No wonder the grey nomads go the other way. Up the new road straight to Longreach.’
Maddy thought about the mesas and Winton. ‘I came in that way from Brisbane. The landscape’s spectacular.’
‘So they say. Never went that way. Tourists like the hot springs, too. Like they have in Ilfracombe and Cunnamulla.’ Her wrinkled face lit up. ‘Saw it in a magazine. The way they put those claw-foot bathtubs in at Cunnamulla and run the hot water in. Clever. Sittin’ outside in an old tin bath watchin’ the sunset. I can see how that draws the travellers and their plastic glasses with wine.’
Maddy also pictured that and the thought made her smile. She wouldn’t mind experiencing that for herself. She could imagine the pleasure of lying in a hot bath at sunset. Mostly in the winter, but still the idea sounded amusing. And tranquil.
If Mrs Cook was to be believed, Spinifex had plenty of artesian water that came out of the ground hot. They cooled it in those tall tanks that stood above the town before the cooled parts went into the cold taps. It could easily go into a pond in some ‘funny, rustic’ setting. To draw the tourists back.
The thought swirled into a tiny flicker of excitement. Maybe she could help with some of Alma’s money. ‘Maybe we need to create some FOMO attraction the nomads would come this way for?’
‘FOMO?’
‘Fear of missing out. Something they brag to their friends about doing so they want to come too. Maybe create some employment in town for those looking for work.’ But hot-water attractions were for the cold of the evening or sunset.
She thought of Bee wilting in the sun. ‘Spinifex needs a cold pool for the kids, again. Bridget and I spent the last eleven years on an island surrounded by cool water.’
Mrs Cook gave her a first real smile. ‘I have no idea why anyone would come here from the ocean.’ Shaking her head, she muttered, ‘Mad,’ under her breath.
Then she brightened. And that lovely smile surfaced for a moment as she savoured the thought. ‘Wouldn’t that be a sight to see it open again? I reckon it wouldn’t be just the kids in there splashing around.’ Her bright blue eyes sparkled. ‘I saw a picture on the telly once of those playgrounds where the water comes up from the bottom in a fountain and the kids stand on the water coming out of the ground. Must go through some sort of filter system through the drain because the water runs back inside and pumps out again. We should have one of those.’
