Both men had turned at her approach and now Jimmy said: ‘Somethin’ smells good; I allus likes bringin’ your post, missus, ’cos I reckon the food you produce is a good deal better’n what I get at other stations. And I’ve grown kind o’ fond of settin’ me bedroll down in that little cabin of yourn right agin the creek.’ He grinned at Andy. ‘Kind o’ handy, that creek.’
Andy grinned back though Nancy pretended not to know what he meant. Because of the long distances between stations, Jimmy always overnighted at the Walleroo before going on to his next drop, and since he was a man with a good thirst he enjoyed several mugs of Nancy’s home-brew with his evening meal. She guessed that the trek to the lavatory was probably too much trouble and that he used the creek, though at this time of year it was already only a trickle between its high banks.
‘Two for you, honey; both packages,’ Andy said. He turned to the mailman. ‘Ever since the kid arrived, we’ve been getting packages from England; real nice stuff some of it . . .’ Nancy could see his lurking grin and understood the reason, for some of the baby clothes would have been suitable for Little Lord Fauntleroy and were of small use to Pete Sullivan.
‘It’s the thought that counts,’ Nancy said firmly, however, taking both packages from him. ‘And the reason you think my beef stew is tastier than the stuff served on other stations is thanks to my garden. Onions, carrots, swedes and beans would grow just as well on the Clitheroe and McGuire stations if someone bothered to plant them.’
‘You forgot to say our beef cattle’s the best as well,’ Andy said reproachfully, as the mailman went to his horses’ heads and began to lead them to the paddock where they would be rubbed down, fed and watered by one of the hands. ‘Or mebbe you’ll say the beef is tender because you cook it for hours in the bake oven and not because it’s the best.’
Nancy laughed. ‘What does it matter who does what, so long as it tastes good?’ she asked. ‘Ah, this package is from Anne. It’ll be those rubber knickers she talked about; we’ll be the first people in Australia to have them. And the other one’s from Jess; she said she was making a matinée jacket and matching bootees. She knits beautifully; I just hope these will fit little Pete because he’s shooting up like – like a corn stalk in the wet.’
She began to rip at the package and Andy put an arm round her shoulders to steer her back into the house. Even as they entered the living room, they heard the baby begin to mutter, the sound rising to a hiccuping roar the moment his parents bent over the large rush cradle in which he lay. ‘He’s outgrowing the cradle already,’ Nancy said, ripping open the package as Andy picked up his son and laid him across his shoulder in a very professional manner. ‘Oh, what beautiful work Jess does. Everything will fit him – he can wear them next time we go to town.’ She held up the pale blue matinée jacket, admiring the intricate pattern, so faultlessly knitted, and the lace collar crocheted around the neck. ‘Sensible Jess – she said she’d used cotton, so he won’t get too hot, poor little fellow. But I’d better feed him before I do anything else, or he’ll start bawling and you won’t like that.’
‘I don’t mind him bawling,’ Andy protested, but he handed the baby over and followed Nancy into their bedroom. She laid the baby on the end of the bed and began to remove his nappy whilst Andy went over to the chest of drawers which Ben, the carpenter, had made, and took out a clean towelling square, folding it expertly whilst Nancy dropped the wet nappy into the bucket of water beneath the washstand. She took the clean nappy from him, then glanced up with a teasing smile. ‘No one’s watching, so you can put the nappy on just as soon as I’ve wiped him down and spread zinc and castor oil ointment on his little bits and pieces,’ she said, smiling up at the tall, suntanned man beside her. ‘Go on, Andy. If I was ever taken ill someone else would have to change his nappy, and if Violet wasn’t around . . . well, I wouldn’t trust any of the other gins to do it.’
‘I’m an old hand with nappies,’ Andy said loftily. ‘Look, I’ll put it on while you open the other package. And this evening I’ll help with the chores and rustle up a couple of the gins to give me a hand – or the boys, come to that – so that you can write nice thank-you letters to Jess and Anne for Jimmy to take to the post when he leaves in the morning.’
Nancy stood on tiptoe and kissed her husband’s jaw just beneath his ear. He knew how important her friendship with Jess was to her and how dearly she loved her sister, and she was aware, not for the first time, how very lucky she was. She and Andy did not talk much about their unconventional meeting and marriage, but she had known for a long time now that he loved her with a depth and sincerity for which she had not dared even to hope. It was partly because she had simply accepted the hardships which were a part of life on a cattle station. Every week, she tackled the mammoth task of breadmaking for fifty or sixty people. It took her two whole days; days spent in the sweltering heat of the corrugated iron kitchen whilst she constantly fed the fire with great logs and watched for the moment when perfect loaves could be stood on the window sills to cool. Last year, after the floods went down, she had performed the back-breaking task of planting her garden. In theory the gins or even some of the hands were supposed to help her, but in practice they were not much use. They either buried the seeds so deep that they were more likely to come up in England than in Australia, or they planted them so shallowly that birds or animals ate them before they had even begun to sprout. Then there was soap-making. Before Nancy came to the station, she had thought soap came in pretty packets from Pears, scented with sweet geranium, lily-of-the-valley, or her own personal favourite, rose. Now she knew better. Every so often, she tipped five pounds of caustic soda into a large kerosene can of water, added melted fat, and simmered the concoction over the open range until it thickened and became soap. She then commandeered three or four hands to tip the cooling substance into large trays to set, and then, when it was hard, she cut it into squares. Since it was the only soap available she and Andy had to use it, as did the staff, but the smell was not pleasant and when she opened Anne’s parcel and found it contained, as well as a hand-embroidered nightdress for Peter and several pairs of rubber knickers, two bars of her favourite scented soap, her eyes filled with tears at her sister’s percipience. Wordlessly, she held out the fragrant packets, and Andy bent and kissed her cheek.
‘I know,’ he said softly. ‘I know, my dear love.’
Nancy felt ashamed, then, that she could not answer him in kind, but she was too honest to do so, for she had never felt for Andy the vivid sparkling love which she and Graham had shared. She was fond of him, appreciated his many good points and enjoyed his love-making, but she was not in love with him. As for Peter – Pete they called him – she only had to feel his warm silken skin against her cheek to know such a sense of love and fulfilment that it brought tears to her eyes. But this was foolishness, and as Andy finished pinning his son’s nappy neatly into place she sat down in the cushioned rocking chair which Andy had caused to be made for her, unbuttoned her blouse and held out her arms for the baby, who snuggled joyfully against her and began to suck with a lustiness which proved, at any rate, that there was nothing wrong with his appetite. Nancy sighed with contentment and settled herself more comfortably against the cushions. This one small but essential task gave her more satisfaction than anything else she did. Happily sitting down for the first time for many hours, she let her mind wander to the letters she would write after supper, leaving the clearing of the tables, the washing and wiping of the dishes, and the other multitudinous tasks of the evening in Andy’s capable hands. The staff, of course, provided their own tin plates and eating implements and she suspected that these were almost never washed up, thinking with grim humour that when the crust of stews, roasts, fruit pies and custards grew thick enough the natives would simply bang the dishes on some hard surface until the dried debris cracked off, and return to the yard to hold out the ‘clean’ plates for the next helping of food.
Jess was in the kitchen, preparing a tea tray for Mrs Bellamy. It was a fine August day; a day which had followed a week of rain and high winds, so the old lady had seized the opportunity to take an outing. She in her bath chair, and Jess pushing it, had spent a delightful afternoon in Prince’s Park. They had watched some children playing games on the grass whilst others sailed homemade boats on the lake. They had brought buns in a brown paper bag and fed them to the ducks. They had even walked through to Sefton Park and visited the aviary where Jess had exchanged remarks with a large white bird whose head was capped with bright yellow feathers. ‘It’s a sulphur-crested cockatoo,’ Jess had told her employer, reading the information on the card affixed to the cage. ‘It comes from Australia . . . that’s where my friend is! Isn’t it odd, Mrs Bellamy, to think that whilst we’re looking at these birds in a quiet, green English park, my friend Nancy may be watching one fly across her vegetable garden, or perched on her linen line, and never think it strange.’
Mrs Bellamy had laughed. ‘How long has your friend been in Australia?’ she had asked teasingly. ‘I seem to remember you came to work for me around the time your friend went there, and that’s no more than two years ago. Surely she can’t have grown accustomed to tropical birds in her back garden in a mere two years?’
Jess had giggled. ‘I suppose you’re right,’ she had admitted. ‘And, of course, they won’t talk, because wild birds don’t. But this chap does, don’t you, Cocky?’
‘Doncher, Cocky?’ the bird had croaked, then did a little dance on his perch, pushing his big curved beak against the bars. Jess had put a cautious finger through the wire and begun to rub his head, and the bird had made a small trilling noise and let his grey lids slide up to mask, for a moment, the round bright eyes.
But that had been earlier in the day, and Mrs Bellamy was having a late tea because both she and Jess had been tired after their expedition. ‘I think I’ll have a little nap, so if you don’t mind, my dear, you can help me into bed now and then bring my afternoon tea up at about five o’clock,’ Mrs Bellamy had said. ‘I’ll just have a pot of China tea, some thin slices of lemon and a round of bread and butter.’
‘Cook has made a beautifully light sponge cake,’ Jess had said enticingly. ‘Couldn’t you manage a very small slice of that? She’s filled it with her own homemade raspberry jelly. Can I put a tiny piece on your tray? Only we don’t want to hurt her feelings, do we?’
The cook had been with them three months and was good at her job, and Mrs Bellamy already valued her, so she had smiled and told Jess to include a piece of cake on the tray. ‘Though you may have to eat it yourself,’ she had said warningly. ‘For I don’t feel at all hungry, and I am very tired.’
So now Jess carefully cut a slice of the deliciously light cake, placed it on a pink plate, and added it to the tray. Gladys was washing up at the sink and Cook was having five minutes with her feet up, sitting outside the kitchen door in the sunshine whilst a batch of scones baked in the oven. Jess glanced at the clock above the kitchen mantelpiece. It lacked only a couple of minutes to five o’clock so she would take the tray up now. She had already warned Cook to put dinner back by an hour so that was all right.
Jess went quickly up the stairs and across the landing. She tapped on Mrs Bellamy’s door, not waiting for a reply but going straight in. She had half drawn the curtains across the windows but the room was still very light and her employer was sitting up with a book spread out in front of her, her reading glasses perched on her nose. She smiled at Jess and began to speak, and then, to Jess’s horror, her voice trailed away and she fell forward, giving a little groan as she did so. Jess put the tray down with a crash, heedless of the delicate china, and rushed forward. Gently, she moved Mrs Bellamy back until she was once more resting on her pillows, but there was something in the way her head sagged, something in the almost papery whiteness of her face and blueness of her lips, that told their own dreadful story. Jess did not need to put her fingers round Mrs Bellamy’s thin old wrist to know that she was dead.
‘It was a massive heart attack, but very sudden and quick; she was actually speaking to me when it happened,’ Jess told Ken tearfully, when she met him that evening. ‘I couldn’t have had a better employer, or a better friend, for that matter, so I’m glad she went quickly without suffering. But oh, Ken, whatever will I do?’
‘You’ll have to get another job, of course,’ Ken said slowly. The two of them were sitting in the garden because it was the only place, just now, where they could have any sort of private conversation. ‘Her son seems a pleasant enough gentleman. I’m sure he’ll give you a good reference if you ask.’
‘Ye-es, so long as he doesn’t consider that a reference for a nurse might come better from his wife,’ Jess said, a trifle doubtfully. ‘But there aren’t all that many opportunities for a private nurse, you know. And I don’t mean to go back into hospital nursing, if I can possibly help it. Well, I don’t believe they’d take me, because I’ve been off the wards two years, and I never did complete the training course I started after the war.’ She looked up at Ken, loving the strong planes of his face, seeing the troubled look in his eyes and knowing that he was worried for her, for their future together.
‘You’ll get a job, and a good one, too,’ Ken said comfortingly. ‘But if you don’t, we’ll simply have to get married and scrape by somehow. We’ve both saved a bit, enough to buy a bed and a couple of chairs. I’m sure when my mam and dad married, they didn’t have two farthings to rub together.’ He grinned down at her, his face suddenly looking boyish, mischievous. ‘Well, to tell the truth, I were on the way so they didn’t have much choice, like. But they got by somehow, and at least if we marry there’ll only be two mouths to feed, not three.’