Heart of the Outback (9 page)

It felt like a million years since she’d left Jill’s office, yet Alida found it was only a little after four o’clock when she arrived home. She went mechanically about the tasks of getting ready to leave-changing into comfortable travelling clothes, packing her bag, stacking the few perishable foods into a carton, checking that all the windows and external doors were securely locked.

She notified the post office, the gardening service and the security company of her imminent departure and the expected date of her return. The post office would send her mail on. The other two services would see that her house was not burgled in her absence, that the garden and lawns were well-maintained and any junk mail was regularly removed and disposed of.

The last thing she did was make a call to Jill’s apartment, perfectly aware that her friend would not be home yet. She did not want to talk to anyone. It was much easier to leave a message on Jill’s answering machine. She waited for the beeps then spoke quickly.

“It’s Alida. I’m going home, Jill. If anything vitally important crops up, let me know. Otherwise I won’t be back for two months. All the best with everything. Bye for now.”

Satisfied that she had taken care of everything, Alida locked the door leading from the house to the garage behind her and climbed into a big four-wheel- drive Range Rover.

For where she was going, it was the ideal vehicle. High enough off the ground to avoid the crown of sand that built up between wheel tracks, and built to withstand the punishment of corrugated roads and rough treatment, which could result in broken springs and mechanical failures in less durable vehicles, the Range Rover would go where no other vehicle could go.

Alida had been planning this trip for a while. Now that the fashion awards were over, there was nothing to stop her from leaving. She had meant to go this weekend, or next weekend, anyway. Only Gareth could have kept her here. This afternoon’s events had demonstrated how futile that would have been.

Over the past week Alida had checked through all the equipment necessary for the long trip ahead of her. She was well-prepared for all types of breakdowns and emergencies. Such precautions were second nature to her. The Outback was an unforgiving terrain to the careless and inexperienced traveller. A garage mechanic and auto electrician had given everything a thorough inspection, and when Alida switched on the motor, the steady thrum was like music to her ears. It was the sound of freedom from all city cares.

The garage door was operated by a remote control device. Alida felt a grim satisfaction as it lowered and locked after she had driven out. If Gareth Morgan did try coming to talk sensibly to her, he would be waiting a long time for any sign of life from this house. She hoped he burned with frustration. Which wasn’t nice of her, but he and his daughter had soured all her niceness.

It was a relief when she finally left the city and all its traffic behind her. The Great Northern Highway stretched ahead of her, eight hundred kilometres of bitumen road to Meekatharra before she turned inland towards the infamous Gunbarrel Highway that ran as straight as a die through the heart of the Great Sandy Desert.

For quick visits to her home, Alida flew the distance. For her twice-yearly retreats she took the Range Rover all the way. Then she needed the mobility the vehicle gave her so that she could immerse herself in the life and landscape that had always been her inspiration. Both were unique and primitive. By the time she returned to Perth she would have all the ideas she needed for her winter or summer collection, whichever she was working on.

As she drove farther and farther north, Alida felt she was shrugging off sophisticated civilisation. Western Australia was like that, she reflected. Despite its immense area, covering more than two and a half million square kilometres, three quarters of its small population lived in or near its capital city. It was still the Frontier State, with its scattered homesteads, vast distances and rich mineral deposits. It was mainly the gold rushes of the old days that had brought progress in Western Australia, but it was the land—always the land—that dominated it.

The sheep and cattle station that Alida’s family owned was nowhere near as big as Gareth Morgan’s Riordan River Station. Nor as prosperous. But they made a reasonable living out of it in the good years. Drought, of course, was always the enemy. The soil was not bad. It simply lacked water. Feed was sparse in the dry years when only the underground bores kept them going. Yet it was the kind of life that seeped into a person’s soul and held them captive. Alida knew her parents would never give it up. Neither would her two younger brothers.

If she hadn’t been a girl, if her mother hadn’t been so committed to giving her every opportunity to develop her artistic talents, if so many sacrifices hadn’t been made on her behalf, sacrifices Alida felt constrained to repay by striving for success, then she would never have made her life in the city.

Her parents were proud of all she’d done and achieved. How could she deny them that pleasure? She kept a foot in their world even if she couldn’t share it completely. It was probably better this way, Alida thought despondently.

Her brothers wouldn’t have liked her bossing them around. That had been all right when they were kids, but they were grown up now with tough individual attitudes of their own. By the time she had finished school, their positions in the family had been reversed, with the boys being given the more important responsibilities. Gone were the days when her parents had said, “Alida can do it.” Or “You boys do what Alida tells you.”

Apart from that, she did enjoy designing, and it meant that her brothers would inherit the station. Where there were men to carry on, that was the natural order of things. Of course, she would always have a home there. She could stay as long as she liked, and whenever she wanted to. But the expectation had been that she would get married one day and go wherever her husband took her. Life ran along very simple lines in Outback country.

One very simple rule was: do what has to be done. Gareth had said that this afternoon, except he had assumed he could depend on his daughter to follow his lead. That had backfired on him. His daughter didn’t want Alida taking her mother’s place. Well, that was fine, Alida thought bitterly, because Gareth didn’t want her taking Kate’s place, either. An affair on the side was all he wanted her for.

Tears blurred her eyes. She hastily wiped them away. She would not cry over Gareth Morgan. Never again. She and Andy were better off without him. And his brat of a daughter!

Alida drove until her eyes were smarting with fatigue. She stopped at a roadside diner obviously popular with the truck drivers, since several big rigs were pulled up outside. She ordered a hamburger and French fries, knowing she needed the sustenance to keep going. The waitress was cheerful and talkative and the serving was more than generous. The plate overflowed with French fries and Alida could hardly get her mouth around the hamburger, which was piled high with fried onions and bacon as well as the usual salad accompaniments.

Surprisingly it aroused her appetite, and Alida thoroughly enjoyed her meal. She eavesdropped on the truckies’ rather loud conversation, smiled at their ribald jokes and good-humoured patter with the waitress. Somehow it eased her inner misery, bringing things back to normal.

Long ago, when she was a child, the Aborigines had taught her that you either laughed at life and learned to flow with it, or you fought it and went mad. Of course, they had been talking about accepting and empathising with their life and land. The city didn’t breed that sense of togetherness with the environment. But already the city was a long way behind her.

She drank two cups of coffee, then feeling much more relaxed and refreshed, she set off again, hoping to do a few more hours’ driving before she had to stop and sleep.

Whether the meal had relaxed her too much, or the lack of restful sleep last night was catching up with her, Alida didn’t know, but she found her eyes glazing again all too soon. Knowing it was stupid to fight it, she pulled into the next lay-by along the highway.

The air mattress and blankets were all ready for her in the back of the Range Rover, and Alida was asleep within seconds of settling herself.

The morning light woke her. She drove on to the next fuel stop, filled up her petrol tank, used the rest room for a wash and tidy up, grabbed a cup of coffee and was back on the highway within half an hour. The last stretch to Meekatharra was no hardship to Alida. The thought of getting closer and closer to home was heart-lifting.

There had been some early spring rains, and on either side of the road, countless millions of pink and white everlasting daisies stretched as far as the eye could see. This was wild flower country, and Alida knew there were over four thousand plant species in this arid wonderland, but they needed rain to make them bloom. It had been a good year, one of the best ever, and the flowers reflected the ideal conditions.

She stopped in Meekatharra for breakfast and to refuel for the last leg of the journey.

Meekatharra was a small quiet town, yet it was an important centre of supplies and services for the inland. It was one of the bases for the Royal Flying Doctor Service in Western Australia, as well as the School of the Air, which had directed all Alida’s correspondence lessons before she was sent away to boarding school in Perth.

Being at Meekatharra always brought back fond memories of the camp schools she had attended, when all the children from the stations in the areas were billoted in town for two weeks a year. This was to give them a taste of real classroom lessons, as well as the opportunity to mix and play with each other. They had been good times—the highlight of the year in some ways—yet Alida was always glad to get home. A town was interesting to visit, but she never envied the town children their life.

There were two hundred kilometres left to travel, most of it towards Wiluna before turning off on the station track to the homestead. This was all dirt road, which meant driving at a much lower speed, but Alida didn’t mind. The closer she got to home, the more content she felt.

The rich red earth, the mulga trees, the stunted desert acacia, the yellow daisies and purple pigface splashing colour over the rolling plains, the occasional clumps of ghost gums marking waterholes and the rocky outcrops of sandstone, striated and shimmering with desert colours in the white-hot sunshine, a herd of wild camels in the distance, idly grazing on edible trees and shrubs—all of it was part of the magic for Alida.

I can forget Gareth here, she thought. He and his daughter will fade into inconsequential pieces of the past that won’t matter any more. Andy and I will share our life. I don’t need any part of them.

The thought of her son brought a smile of happy anticipation. Two weeks ago she had flown him up to Meekatharra, and her parents had met them there and taken him home with them, only too happy to mind him for her during the busy time leading up to the awards presentation. It would be so good to hug Andy in her arms again and listen to his little-boy chatter as he told her all that had happened to him during his adventures with Grandpa and Grandma.

It was a joy to finally reach the turn-off to Rose Station. There was no sign, no gate, no fence, only a track leading off into the wilderness, yet to Alida it was as familiar as the back of her hand. Eventually she came to gates and fences but they were few and far between. In good country, twenty thousand acres would carry twenty thousand sheep or more. Here in the Outback, the same number of sheep needed seven hundred and fifty thousand acres, and the station owner only saw his full stock twice a year at muster.

Then at last the homestead with all its outbuildings came into view, and Alida recklessly accelerated, uncaring of the bumps and potholes. She might not have noticed the plane sitting on the rough homestead airstrip except for its whiteness glinting in the sun. It looked like a new plane and an expensive one. A six-seater Cessna if she was not mistaken. Which meant visitors.

She wondered who of her parents’ or brothers’ friends could afford such a sleek machine, then shrugged away the speculation. It could be someone who was lost. Navigation was tricky when the land looked the same for hundreds and hundreds of kilometres. In any event, as far as Alida was concerned, it didn’t matter who it was. She was home, back where she belonged, once more safe in the heart of her family who loved her.

Her mother was on the veranda, waving to her as Alida drove up to the house, a cloud of red dust churned up behind her. Her mother—still tall and straight and indomitable. The house—hardly an elegant structure, rather ramshackle with the additions made over the years, but solid and spacious and practical for the hot dry climate that prevailed most of the year.

Alida brought the Range Rover to a halt at the front steps, leapt out of the high cabin and bounced around the vehicle in sheer exuberance. She did not notice that the smile of welcome on Mary Rose’s face was somewhat strained. She looked for Andy to be on the veranda with his grandmother but her quick scan was stopped dead by the two people who had no right to be there!

Her feet faltered in midstep. Alida could feel her heart catapulting around her chest as Gareth Morgan rose from the cane armchair in which he had been sitting, determined purpose stamped on his face. Stacey Morgan hastily stood and pressed herself to her father’s side, looking anxiously at both him and Alida.

The plane. Alida’s stunned mind slowly made the connection. Somehow Gareth had found out where she was headed and had flown here ahead of her. The shock of seeing him suddenly gave way to sickening panic. Her eyes flew to her mother’s.

“Where’s Andy?”

“Not here, Alida,” she answered quietly, her lined and weathered face creased in concern. “He went out with your father and brothers early this morning. They’re fixing the fence on the eastern run.”

Alida almost sagged with relief. Gareth hadn’t met Andy yet. Nothing irreparable had been said or done. Except her mother now knew who was Andy’s father. The knowledge was written in the strained look in her eyes.