Out of Alice (5 page)

When lessons were over Sara produced the ringbinder she had filled with sheets cut from manila folders to serve as an album. ‘It's a scrapbook,' she explained. ‘I thought you might like to make your own collection of pictures and stories about yourself and your life on the station. Because it is sort of special, you know. People like me, from the city, don't understand it at all. So it'd be like a pioneer's diary. You can cover the pages in pretty paper if you like – your mum gave me some gift wrapping – and you can draw pictures and colour them in, or cut them out of magazines and paste them, or use photographs. Whatever you like.'

Becky fingered the stiff sheets, eyes bright with dawning possibilities. ‘Did you make one when you were a kid?'

‘No, but then, I had no one to help me, or buy me things. Your mum said you can raid her sewing box for bits of lace and ribbon. And if you keep your birthday cards . . .'

Becky nodded vigorously.

‘Well, there's heaps of pictures on them you could cut out and use. What do you think?'

‘Oh, yes! Are you gonna help me?'

‘To start you off, but it's
your
book remember. And when it's done you might even want to take it into town to show Mrs Murray. You do see her sometimes?'

‘'Course. At the School of the Air break-up. We always go to that. And the sports days. I can show Nan too, and Pops. Wait'll Mum sees it! You have the best ideas, Sara! I'm so glad you came. I like you heaps better than Gela. Sam does too, only he won't ever tell you. That's 'cause he's a boy, Mum says.'

Sara was touched. She said lightly, ‘I'm glad to hear it. As it happens, I like you too, chicken. And Sam. Come on, then. Let's get started.'

The following day school had just ended when the peremptory blast of the Toyota horn announced Jack's arrival at the front gate. Becky whooped and ran, Sara following more slowly. It seemed wrong to walk out leaving the house unlocked. Jess, lying under the oleanders, swivelled lion eyes to watch them pass.

‘You're sure it's okay? Even the windows are open.' Sara wedged the cake tin under the seat. She wore a long-sleeved shirt of pale blue over jeans, and had enlivened the straw hat's crown with a matching blue scarf.

‘Jess is here. You try getting past a cattle dog,' Jack replied. ‘Here, wriggle over, Squirt, and tuck your feet back. You got enough room there, Sara?'

‘Yes, thanks. Heaps.' The rifle, clipped in its rack, promptly nudged her hat off. She dumped the hat on her lap, fingering the scarf. ‘So, where's this bore?'

‘North.' He jerked his chin as he set the vehicle moving. ‘And strictly speaking it's a well, not a bore. There's about three hundred head running on it.'

‘So it's quite important,' Sara guessed, and caught the affirmative dip of his chin.

‘They all are. Water's precious out here, so we check 'em regularly. Don't do much else really these days, apart from pushing scrub – that's the mulga we knock down to feed 'em.'

‘It'll be a long drive, if that driller Harry spoke about does make one for you out where all that dry feed is,' she observed.

‘It's called the Twelve Mile,' Jack said, ‘the plain, that is – part of the Forty Mile. And you're right about the distance. Incidentally, you don't “make” bores, Miss Blake, you put them down.'

‘You do? Sounds like getting rid of an old dog,' she said straight-faced and caught the edge of his grin from the corner of her eye.

Once through the horse-paddock gate Jack turned up along the fence, heading north, crossing over the shallow creek that ran through the paddock.

‘Skippers,' he said.

‘What?' Sara caught up. ‘Oh, the creek. Skipper who, then?'

‘No one. Skipper was a nag.'

‘Of course. I understand that Charlotte was a camel. Funny sense of priorities you people have out here.' His lips twitched and she settled back, enjoying the drive despite the roughness of the track and the fact that there was nothing to see but scrub and sky. The sheer emptiness, coupled with the knowledge that there wasn't another soul (save Len), within two hours' drive in any direction, was somehow invigorating.

The change in the country, when it came, was disconcertingly abrupt. The harsh red soil and grey scrub vanished and there was suddenly a diversity of shapes and colours in the timber. A smudge of ochre ridge grew in the distance, glimpsed through the taller line of timber that she had come to recognise as a watercourse. There was even an emu; Becky pointed it out.

‘There – by the conkerberry bushes.'

‘I see it,' Sara assured her. To Jack she added, ‘The hills are pretty. Is that where Redhill got its name?'

‘Yep. We're a practical lot out here. Walkervale's named for Tom Walker, who pioneered it. And it's said Wintergreen came about because there was good winter rain the year it was taken up. It doesn't happen often but when it does . . .' His face softened. ‘Well, it's worth seeing.'

‘You love it, don't you? Beth said you've got a property too, is it like this?'

‘A bit,' he conceded. ‘Desert country but more stone. Miles of spinifex ridges, a couple of good springs in the hills and the rest is like this place – mulga, and great herbage when it rains, but it's basically a battler's block. My parents managed on it but things are tighter these days. There's Kileys.'

Sara searched ahead, then spotted the glitter of a mill wheel above the trees. Myriad thin tracks Sam had told her were cattle pads wove in towards it, and the bare ground all about the bore was darkened by years of dung. Cattle stood and lay about under the trees, their ribs and hipbones prominent. Jack drove slowly past them to stop in the shade by the creek bank. He switched off and the silence brought the buzz of flies into the cab, the squawk of a white cocky, and the drag of the working mill rods.

‘Well.' He thrust his door open. ‘I'll go check things. Reckon you girls can get a fire going and put the billy on? There's matches in the glovebox.'

‘Yes.' Sara didn't intend admitting that she had never built a fire. Becky helped, gathering up handfuls of dried gum leaves that proved very combustible. As the blue smoke curled up into the pyramid of twigs and larger branches, Sara had a sudden, brief flash of memory – a family picnic with just such a fire and a billy heating beside it. The image was gone almost before she could grasp it, lost in the aromatic smoke. The smell of the burning leaves must have triggered it, she thought, staring blindly at the crackling flames. But who was the family involved? Certainly not Stella, who had nothing but scorn for ‘the sticks'. But for Sara to have the memory, surely she must have been there?

Becky was returning from the bore with the filled billy. Her mind in a whirl, Sara took it from her, casting a doubtful look at the water. ‘Is it clean?'

‘'Course! I got it from the outlet, not the trough.'

‘That's okay, then, I think. Oh,' Sara remembered in dismay, ‘I didn't bring any cups.'

‘Under the Toyota seat.' Becky rummaged to produce three enamel pannikins. ‘The green one's Uncle Jack's.'

Sara stared at their blackened interiors. ‘Well, they definitely
aren't
clean. Come on, a bit of sand will work wonders.' She sploshed a little water into one of them and headed down the shallow creek bank.

‘It's only tea stains,' Becky protested.

‘And this will get rid of them.' Sara wet a little sand and scoured the enamel. ‘See, you have a go. You have to wet the sand, though.'

Becky's enthusiasm soon took over. Sara let her finish the job, reflecting that she was a good kid, eager to try anything new. The creek sand was coarse and scattered with tiny spiral shells and millions of gum nuts from the white-trunked eucalypts lining its bank. She wondered if the seeds were ever washed to where they could grow. It seemed unlikely in such a desert place, but only water could have made the creeks, so they must occasionally fill. She wished she could see it. A whiff of burning gum teased her nostrils and she found herself remembering the children of her dream. They had been at a place somewhere like this, the sand as loose and as hot against the thin soles of her sandals. She could smell the gums and the moisture trapped beneath the deep sand.
We could dig a soak.
The ghostly words trickled through her mind and she recalled her own eager reply.
Yes, let's!

Sara jerked herself back to awareness, blinded by light. She had left her sunnies in the vehicle. Where had that voice come from? A shiver went through her as if something cold had traced a line down her spine. Cicadas shrilled and the long fingers of the eucalypt leaves spun in the heated air. She mopped her face on her sleeve. She was sweating but her skin felt cold. What was wrong with her? She turned towards the bank, meaning to find her sunglasses, and saw instead a man's dark outline looming above her. Terror blanched her face. She shrieked, ‘No!' then the blackness roared over her and she fell into darkness.

Sara woke to the heat of sun-baked earth at her back. It took her a moment to remember where she was, then she saw the man's shape crouched beside her and recoiled before recognition overtook her instincts and she relaxed. ‘What happened?' Her head spun as she sat up.

‘Take it easy. You fainted.' His gaze left her to find Becky watching big-eyed beside him. ‘It's okay, Squirt. Could you get me a cup of water? Good girl.' The child scampered off and Sara reached vaguely for her hat that had fallen off; she felt shaky and lightheaded, and wilted before Jack's accusatory gaze and the sudden harshness of his voice. ‘You scared the crap out of the kid, shrieking like that.'

‘I'm sorry,' she said stiffly, embarrassed. ‘I don't know what —'

‘Drink this. You're probably dehydrated.' He thrust the cup at her and waited, frowning while she drank.

‘You want to tell me what's going on?' His tone had moderated. ‘You saw me on the bank, squawked like a frightened chook, then dropped like a poleaxed steer.'

Her face reddened and she bit her lip, not meeting his gaze.

‘Maybe it's not my business but Beth's not here, and Becky's my niece so . . . You don't suffer from epilepsy or anything like that, do you?'

‘Of course I don't!' she cried, stung. ‘I'd have said if I did. Anyway, I hold a driver's licence. And I can't be both a hen and a steer!' Sara caught herself and reined in her temper. ‘Look, I'm sorry. Perhaps it was the heat. I've never fainted in my life. That's the first time ever! So if you're worried about Becky, you needn't be. Where is she, anyway?' She looked frantically around.

‘Making the tea. She's okay.'

‘With boiling water and an open fire?' Alarmed, Sara struggled up, briefly dizzy again as she bent for her hat.

‘She's a bush kid.' He spoke calmly. ‘She's been making billy tea for ages.' He took her arm as she climbed. ‘Go and sit down. You need tea with plenty of sugar, and I'm serious about your liquid intake. It's easy to get dehydrated out here.'

Becky, her face grave, was sitting on the trunk of a fallen gum; Sara joined her there. ‘Sorry, chicken. Did I scare you?'

‘A bit.' Sara felt the child's scrutiny, read the uncertainty in her dark eyes. ‘You're not getting sick, like Sam, are you? He fell down like that too, right at first. His face went all white and he went to sleep just like you, only he didn't yell.'

‘I'm sorry,' Sara repeated gently. ‘That must've been awful for you. But people can faint for all sorts of reasons. Your uncle thinks I haven't been drinking enough water.
I
think I just got too hot. Look, let's have some cake. That'll make us all feel better.'

It worked with Becky. She was soon chatting away again. Jack squatted on his heels near their log, drinking from the green pannikin, his previous suspicions of her fitness seemingly forgotten. Not that she blamed him. He was obviously fond of his sister's children and it was bad enough having one of them at risk . . . She fought to keep her mind from replaying the incident and was visited with an idea instead.

‘Becky,' she said, tossing away the dregs of her tea. ‘I want you to pick a few leaves off all the different sorts of trees and bushes you can reach. Can you do that, do you think?'

‘Yes. Only, why?'

Sara smiled. ‘You'll see. It'll be something for your book, another surprise.'

Later that evening, with Becky asleep, Sara asked Len if she could use the printer in the office. Jack had gone off to the quarters by the time she had finished, and shortly after he left Len excused himself and she heard his bedroom door shut. Night shrouded the homestead; the diesel was off for once and somewhere nearby a mopoke was calling. Sara trod quietly out into the garden to gaze at the starry expanse of sky, stiffening as she felt a cold touch on the back of her leg. Thoughts of snakes shot through her mind, then sense returned and she stooped to fondle the dog's head.

‘Jess. You miss him, don't you? Never mind, he'll be home soon.' The dog's tail swung against her knee, then Jess padded off and Sara returned indoors. When she was in bed she finally let herself think of Kileys bore and what had happened there. Below the frustration and fright bubbled a small measure of excitement, for she was almost certain the tiny instant of recall was a memory. She had first thought it a dream, but it seemed too real for that. Besides, dreams didn't come with olfactory and sensory impressions. She had smelled the gums, and the burn of the hot sand had been real. It was no dream. She and the little boy had been there – well, not to Kileys, obviously, but they had played in a creek very similar to that one. The question was, where? And why had she screamed at the sight of Jack? Though it hadn't been at
him
, she knew, because she'd been dazzled by the sun and had only seen his shape. Just, she suddenly realised, as she had only seen the shape of the man, who had subsequently stalked her, that day at the beach, the first time the sense of terror had overwhelmed her.

Sara knotted her brows, staring into the blackness. The only light came from the illuminated dial of the alarm clock on the dresser. The darkness of the room was like her memory, she thought, the tiny pinpoints on the clock face the pitiful segments of all she could recall. It was as nothing set against the dark, but she had to hold to it and struggle with the blackness until something was forced to yield. Only when the glitter of yellow light had grown to flood the room would she know what was hidden within it.

Something had made her faint and, whatever Jack had said, it wasn't dehydration! Abruptly Sara remembered the incident in Mildura and bit her lip. And she'd told him today's fainting spell was a first. Damn! She had never intended to lie, which reminded her again of her stalker and that sent her thoughts uselessly back to her reason for being here. Weren't deliberate omissions a form of lying, anyway? There was so much she hadn't told him but how could she, when so many things made so little sense? Sara wished there was somebody she could talk to about it all. Beth, perhaps, if she were home and unburdened by Sam's illness, but she couldn't lay her problems on top of the far more urgent ones her employer already had.

Beth had rung earlier that evening but Len, returning from the office where the phone was, had simply shaken his head at his brother-in-law's lifted brow. ‘Not so hot,' he'd murmured. ‘She thinks they'll wait an extra day in town. Sam's feeling a bit tired.'

‘Well, it's a long trip,' Sara said, her gaze on Becky. ‘I thought I was never going to reach Charlotte Creek when I came out.'

‘Yes.' Len twigged, and injected heartiness into his voice. ‘A good sleep-in and an easy day, that's all he needs to be as fresh as a daisy.'

‘Is that like a fresh horse?' Becky wrinkled her brow. ‘How can a daisy be fresh?'

Sara turned her palms up in bemusement, and it was left to Jack to sort out the difference for his niece between a frisky mount and a newly opened flower.

In the morning it was Jack who came in with the milk bucket while Sara was turning chops in the pan. She raised pale brows at him, her fiery curls neatly confined by two combs.

‘I didn't know you could milk. Is Becky with you?'

‘Morning, Sara. She's finding something for her hair.' His own head was bare. The muscles swelled in his forearm as he lifted the bucket and strained its contents carefully into the milk pan ready for scalding. ‘Milking's easy enough. I learned as a kid; we always had goats. Milk and meat in one parcel.'

‘Sara, can you help me, please?' Becky proffered a scrunchie in one hand, the other holding her gathered hair. Sara turned off the stove, combed the girl's ponytail with her fingers and secured it.

‘Phew, you smell awfully like goat. Go and have a really good wash.'

Becky giggled and ran off making bleating sounds. Jack, rinsing the bucket at the sink, said abruptly, ‘You're good with her. The last girl was hopeless.'

‘Thank you.' Sara heard the approach of Len's boots and the light patter of Becky's returning feet. She said quickly, ‘Later I'd like a word, about yesterday. If you have the time?'

The grey eyes rested on her face, then he nodded. ‘I'll make some.'

Sara cut lunches for both men, fed Jess and the hens, started the garden sprays and bustled Becky into the schoolroom with the reminder that her lessons had to be finished in time for the mail.

‘But it's only Wednesday!'

‘I know, but there's lots of work still to get through today and tomorrow. Besides, if you work hard this morning, you'll have time to do another page in your scrapbook. And I've made you some special sheets, see?' She showed her the paper printed over with the various leaves collected from Kileys. ‘Maybe you could write a little story on them about yesterday – having tea in the bush at the bore, with Uncle Jack, and picking these very leaves.' She touched their outlines.

Becky's eyes lit up as she gave Sara a swift hug. ‘You have the
bestest
ideas!'

‘Don't I just? Let's get started, then.'