Aggie was a healthy young Aboriginal woman who was a great comfort to Nancy. She had a small daughter of her own named Nellie, but her husband had gone off on walkabout when Nellie, now eight, had been a year old, and had never returned. Aggie was strong and attractive, but she had never wanted another man in her life and was happy to look after little Pete and to help Nancy in the house. She and Nellie shared Pete’s room, as would the new baby when it arrived, and Nancy trusted the younger woman completely, knowing Aggie would die in defence of the two children, should danger threaten them.
‘Missus! The boss says to tell you Aggie and Pete is up an’ doing.’
Nancy swung round and smiled at the big woman almost blocking the doorway. Violet was about fifty years old – none of the Aborigines knew their exact ages – and was another trusted member of the Sullivans’ extended family. Until Nancy’s arrival, the only sort of cooking she knew was camp cooking over an open fire, but because she enjoyed the fruits of Nancy’s labour – the bread, cakes, pies, stews and roasts produced on the kitchen range – she had professed herself willing to learn how to do these things. Nancy was overjoyed to have an assistant and now Violet could be trusted to do a good deal of the baking, though Nancy still preferred to make the great loaves of bread herself since Violet was impatient and hated waiting for the dough to prove.
‘Thanks, Violet; then if you’ll make the porridge and put more bacon in the pan, I’ll take my own breakfast across and eat it with the boss,’ Nancy said. ‘I’ll send Aggie over to fetch the porridge in about ten minutes, all right?’
Violet said that that would be just fine and Nancy escaped from the heat of the kitchen, paddled across the yard and entered the living room just as Andy was about to leave it. He took her by the shoulders and dropped a quick kiss on the tip of her nose before telling her not to worry about anything but to send for him if she needed to do so. ‘You know where I’ll be; down by the lagoons,’ he reminded her. ‘Now hear me. Take care of yourself; February is the worst time we could have picked for a baby to come but I guess you can’t plan nature. I don’t know that I’m much of a hand as a midwife, but Violet told me the other day she’d helped many of the gins to deliver.’ He shot her a shrewd glance. ‘Any more pains?’
Nancy wagged her finger at him reprovingly but could not help laughing. So he had guessed! ‘You’re quite right. I did get a stab back in the kitchen, but I haven’t had one since,’ she assured him. ‘And if I do go into labour, you may be sure I’ll send for you at once. Now off with you and make the river a safer place for our little Sullivans.’
As she had said she would, Nancy worked in the kitchen all morning, and in the afternoon settled down to write to Jess and to her parents and sisters. She had not yet replied to Jess’s last letter. The trouble was, Jess was a poor correspondent, and even with the excitement of her wedding and her new little house to write about, the letter had only consisted of about half a page. Nancy, with many more correspondents to satisfy, always wrote at length. She described a little of her life on the station but not the hardships because, to be honest, she did not want to worry her family, or to let people think that Australia was a dreadful, dangerous place. She wrote of the beauties of the river in the dry, when the families picnicked on the banks and the children swam in the shallows. She told of corroborees when the workers had something to celebrate and of her occasional, exciting trips to the nearest town. She was still keen to persuade Anne to come and visit her too, so she had no desire to frighten her sister off. Anne might come, if only for a holiday, and Nancy honestly believed that if she did so, her sister would fall for Clive’s many charms and would, as Nancy had, grow accustomed to life in the outback.
Of necessity, her letters to her sisters and to Jess were somewhat similar, as she wrote of the impending birth of her second child. Without meaning to deceive, she spoke of Violet as though she were a professional midwife, and of Aggie as though she were the sort of nursemaid that the Kerris family had employed when the girls were small.
She had finished a long letter to her parents, another to her elder sister, and was halfway through the letter to Anne, when she felt another skewer of pain in the small of her back. This time it was so sharp that she could not prevent herself from gasping, and she decided that before continuing with her letter she would get Aggie or Violet to make her a nice cup of tea. After all, it might be only indigestion, and a hot drink could soon cure that. Nancy gave a shout and Aggie’s head popped round the door. She had Pete on her hip and he grinned at his mother with a great display of little pearly teeth. He was almost two and a half now and beginning to talk quite nicely. But Nancy guessed from the flush on his cheeks and the way his yellow fluffy hair stood on end that he had just awoken from sleep, for he usually had a nap after his lunch. ‘Hello, Mammy,’ the child said cheerfully. ‘I want Aggie to take me to the river so’s I can find my daddy, but she says not now. Tell her she must take me now, Mammy!’
‘Certainly not; you aren’t the boss man yet,’ Nancy said teasingly, for when Andy was away from the homestead Pete always said that he was the boss man now. ‘I called Aggie through to ask her to make me a cup of tea, so you can stay with me while I finish my letter. Tell you what, Pete, you can draw a picture for your Auntie Anne while I write.’
Pete accepted a stub of pencil and a sheet of paper with joy and began to scribble, but Nancy found she was restless and could not settle to the long and chatty letter she had planned. Instead, she put Anne’s letter to one side, took another sheet and decided, rather crossly, that she would serve Jess with her own medicine. She would write a short, uninformative letter, merely telling her friend that she was expecting a baby and that, because of the heavy rain, she would probably be unable to post anything after this for several weeks.
She finished the letter feeling slightly ashamed of its abruptness, folded the sheet and pushed it into an envelope. Then she stood up, suddenly realising that whilst she had been writing the rain had ceased and a watery sun had appeared. Pete, sitting on the floor, looked hopefully up at her. ‘I done with this bit of paper,’ he said, and Nancy saw that he had indeed scribbled over every inch of it. ‘Can you take me to the river, Mammy? Aggie says Daddy’s smashing croc eggs, and I want to
see
!’
Nancy was about to tell her small son that she did not mean to traipse down to the river bank when she hesitated, and even as she did so another pain shot through her back, this time accompanied by a cramping sensation in her lower stomach. Abruptly, she made up her mind. She would walk down to the river and take Pete with her. They would stroll quietly along the bank, in the pale sunshine, until they found Andy, and if she had any more pains she would tell him, because someone had to look after Pete while Violet and Aggie helped to deliver the baby. So she stood up and held out a hand, which her small son eagerly grasped. ‘I don’t mean to carry you because I’m not too well at present,’ she explained as they left the house. ‘But you’re a big boy now; you can walk as far as the river and then along the bank. Only, if your legs get tired, you mustn’t expect Mammy to pick you up; understood?’
Pete said, contentedly, that he did indeed understand, and the two of them set out for the river. As they went, Nancy considered her situation. In the outback, a man had to face up to doing things which were normally women’s work, and she knew Andy would not hesitate to help with the delivery of her baby if she needed him. However, she still felt it would be more appropriate for Violet and Aggie to bring the baby into the world, as they had done when Pete was born, leaving Andy to look after their son. It was a pity that they could not have hired a proper nurse for a few weeks, but it did not particularly bother her. Already she was proud of being an outback wife who could cope with anything. And she had great faith in Andy and was fond of him, though she had never known with him the heady excitement which the mere touch of Graham’s hand on her arm had aroused.
As she walked along the river bank the pains came again, a little closer this time, and she began to hurry. Ahead of her, something bobbed in the water, and she pulled Pete closer to her and further from the shore. Was it a crocodile? She peered at the object, then gave a hoarse scream, dropped Pete’s hand, and began to run. At first, she had thought it was just a tree trunk, but now that she was closer she could see that something was trapped in it; a head . . . a man’s head? She could see light-coloured hair, a closed and flaccid eye . . . Andy! It must be Andy! . . .
It was Andy! And suddenly Nancy knew that she did love her husband, loved him much more than she had ever loved Graham, though in a very different way. Graham had been her first love, but now she knew that what she felt for Andy was real love: the sort that never falters, never dies.
Andy was her reason for living, and if he were dead, she wanted to die too. Desperately, she pushed little Pete away from her, telling him to go home, to get help, because his daddy had fallen into the river.
Then, heedless of crocodiles, water snakes, currents, she plunged into the swirling waters and grabbed for the roots of the tree which had trapped her husband, knowing that she must get to him before the trunk got into midstream and out of her reach. But even as she stretched out her hands, another pain clutched her and she missed her step and tumbled forward into the turgid water. For one moment, she fought to regain her footing, then darkness overcame her.
Nancy came round to find herself staring, muzzily, at a patch of muddy grass under her nose. There was pressure on her shoulders, then a voice she knew and loved said briskly: ‘She’ll be good now. I squeezed the water out of her quite easy . . . I saw her fall so she weren’t in the flood long. Don’t cry, Pete, your mammy’s gonna be just fine.’ Nancy felt herself being rolled on to her back and, opening her wet eyelids, saw Andy’s strong familiar face above her, smiling reassuringly down. When he saw her eyes open, he bent and kissed her quickly and softly on her forehead, then addressed someone standing behind him. ‘Lucky we were making our way home when Pete started to scream, otherwise . . . but it don’t do to think about what might have happened. Can you sit up, darling? Only you’d be best in the house where we can get the mud off and find some clean clothing.’
With his help, Nancy struggled to her feet. Immediately, two of the stockmen came across, offering help, but Andy shook his head. ‘Thanks, fellers, but I reckon I can carry her. You bring Pete along; he’s a hero, my son is. Saved his mammy’s life, I reckon. He’s a bonza boy.’
As he spoke, he scooped Nancy up in his arms and she leaned her head thankfully against his shoulder, puzzlement and joy blending as she remembered her reason for charging into the river. ‘Andy, I thought . . . I was sure . . . this great tree came down on the flood and there was a man’s head . . .’ She shuddered, burying her face in his shoulder for a moment, then emerging to say shakily: ‘. . . I honestly thought it was you. Oh, Andy, I never told you before – I don’t think I even knew myself – but I love you more than anyone else in the whole world, and if it had been you . . .’
He was striding towards the house, carrying her as though she weighed no more than little Pete, but at her words he paused for a moment to let the others get ahead. Then he spoke quietly. ‘You’ve been telling me you love me by your actions these past two years and more, and as for thinking it were me trapped in the branches of that tree – well, I’m insulted! It were a bloody sheep off McGuire’s place, I suspect. Still an’ all, I reckon I fished you out before there was much harm done.’
‘A sheep?’ Nancy began to giggle weakly. ‘It was the hair . . . the fur . . . the wool, I mean. It was a blond sheep. No, I don’t mean that . . . you’re a blond man . . . Ouch!’
By this time they had reached the house and Andy laid her on the sofa in the living room, looking down at her with concern. ‘Did I hurt you? Pete, run and get Violet and tell her to make your mammy a nice hot cup of tea with plenty of sugar in it. Tell her Mammy fell into the water . . .’ He looked down at his wife’s face and what he saw there seemed to make up his mind, for without questioning Nancy further he added: ‘Tell her I reckon the new baby’s on its way. Oh, and get Aggie to come as well.’
Little Pete nodded importantly. ‘Tell Violet tea and new baby, tell Aggie to come bloody fast,’ he said. ‘I’ll tell ’em.’
When the child had gone, Nancy tried to swing her legs off the sofa, but Andy immediately pushed them back. ‘No you don’t,’ he said firmly. ‘For once in your life, you’re going to do as you’re told, Nancy Sullivan. You’ve had one helluva shock, what with thinkin’ you’d married a sheep an’ damn near drownin’ in the river. When you’ve had a cup of tea, I’m going to clean you up and get you into your nightdress and pop you into bed.’
Nancy immediately began to protest, to say that she was fine, that she would get on with her chores as soon as she’d had that cup of tea, but even as she spoke another pain arrowed through her back and this time she was in no doubt. The baby was coming and there was nothing she could do about it, so she might as well give in gracefully. ‘All right, Andy, darling,’ she said submissively. ‘Only I don’t think we’d better wait for the tea; the pains are coming every two or three minutes now.’
Andy nodded as though satisfied and within ten minutes Nancy was in bed, clean, and dressed in her best nightgown, her damp hair tied back from her face with a blue ribbon. Andy sat on the bed holding her hands and timing the pains on the big gunmetal watch he kept in the top pocket of his shirt. When the urge to push overcame her, he stayed beside her, giving her every encouragement as she struggled to birth the baby, whilst Violet and Aggie scurried about fetching hot water, bringing the cradle through, and glancing with admiration at their master as he wiped his wife’s face with a flannel dipped in cold water and soothed her between pains with promises that her task was nearly done.