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“Tim told me you liked our Jane,” Jenny said.

Jenny ... Jenny?

“Is he here, too?” Gemma asked her pretty hostess.

“Oh, no, he went somewhere else, and no doubt by now is somewhere else again. That’s Tim.” A smile at Gemma. “You know, I’ve got to know you quite a lot through Tim.”

“He comes here often?”

“Never fails to call in whenever he passes north. Now have your breakfast, dear, while it’s hot.”

Gemma nodded, and found she was hungry. After all, all they had had yesterday had been tea. No one had wanted to eat. She asked Jenny, who had remained in the room, had she heard about the Mitchells.

“Afterwards, dear, I want you to eat while my offering is still edible.”

Gemma smiled at her, and complied.

“You didn’t bring any clothes with you,” said Jenny, moving around and taking up and putting down Gemma’s few things, “and I’m plumper than you. But better too big than too small. We can always take things in. That will be your job this morning, Gemma, putting tucks here and there.”

“But my own things should be available as soon as a truck can get through to the homestead again.”

Jenny kept on picking up, putting down.

“Also,” said Gemma, “I won’t be here long.”

This time Jenny did speak. “The Bitumen is cut,” she said. “You'll have to wait until the overflow drains off. Why the sad look? Am I that bad?”

“You’re wonderful, and that’s the reason for the look. You simply can’t want me around. Your husband—”

“Larry is cut off on the other side of the Bitumen. He would be relieved to know I have company.”

“Is this a station, Jenny?” Gemma did not know where she was.

“Yes, but not the sort of station you’re thinking about, it’s a filling station, a very important thing up here where the gas stops can be hundreds of miles apart.”

“We’re on the highway?”

“Just now” ... ruefully . . . “we’re on an island, and the highway is somewhere out there.” Jenny pointed and laughed. “But don’t worry, it runs off quickly, not like—” But she did not finish that.

“How would Tim get through? You said you thought he had.”

“He would fly.”

“That’s what I’ll do, then,” decided Gemma. “As soon as I find out about the Mitchells.”

“It may take you longer than you think,” Jenny warned.

“Finding out about the Mitchells?”

“No.” Jenny was quiet a moment. “No, that won’t take long. But getting away will. Even after you emerge from being marooned, there’ll be a queue-up of travellers wanting to. fly south.”

“But if Mr. Torrance—”

“He would see to it that he went first.” Jenny’s voice held pride.

Gemma was quiet a moment.

“Was I brought here to you,” she asked Jenny presently, “because you do good things like this? Like taking in stranded people?”

“I would take them in, of course, everyone up here would, but Tim came to me at once with you.”

“I don’t remember.”

“No, you were practically out to it, poor dear. Timothy could have put you in a rabbit warren and you wouldn’t have noticed.”

“But he didn’t, he brought me to Jenny’s.”

Jenny ... Jenny?

“What comes after Jenny?” Gemma asked at last.

“Jenny Webster.”

No, it meant nothing. Gemma decided not to try any more.

“What is it like outside?” she asked.

“Clear.” Jenny seemed to be hanging back for some reason, Gemma noticed. “There’s quite a lot of blue in the sky, but the water is still coming, of course.”

“How long will it come ?”

“Until all the sources are exhausted. It’s really a wonderful thing, it’s just that in some places. . .” Jenny’s voice trailed off. “But,” she went on at once, “it’s marvellous to see the shrunken dams swell out again, the dry waterholes fill up, the windmills have something to turn round for. Drought is a horrible thing.”

“Worse than flood?”

“I believe so, Gemma, even though—” Again Jenny did not finish.

‘'It was a brooding sort of day yesterday,” Gemma sighed. “Almost like a wet blanket. Is it again now ?”

“No. All that’s over.”

“I’ll get up, Jenny,” she decided.

“Yes, I suppose you’d want to. But before you do—”

Gemma looked quickly up. She had heard a different note in the woman's voice. “What is it?” she asked, Then she asked instinctively and at once:

“Is it Tim?”

“Oh, no, he’s all right. I don’t know where he is, but he’ll be all right. It’s—the Mitchells.”

“But they’re all right, too. We saw them leave on the ’copter. Isabel was nervous but very pleased with herself and her daring. Chris was too tired to care. But they’re—all right.”

Jenny sat down on the bed beside Gemma. She found Gemma’s hand and held it in hers. '

“The helicopter crashed,” she said quietly.

“Oh, no!”

“It happened quite soon after it left you. You would even hear the noise, but would put it down to one of a hundred things that were happening all at once out there.”

“Did Tim know?” asked Gemma.

“Not till he came in with you.”

“But he said that there’d been a signal that the light was too bad for another rescue.”

“There was a signal, but it wasn’t for that. It was for—” Jenny bit her lip. “Afterwards,” she said, “another helicopter did get you off.”

“In the first helicopter, were they—were Isabel and Chris—”

“The 'copter crashed,” repeated Jenny. “It was everyone, Gemma. There were a married couple and their baby, too, they’d only come north a month ago. And the pilot. And his helping hand.” She sighed.

There was a long silence in the room. Gemma looked without reality towards the window. She could not believe it. She felt she never would.

“Twins,” inserted Jenny gently, “shouldn’t be parted.”

“Perhaps you’re right.” Isabel, Gemma was thinking, in pain because of what lay ahead for Chris, her twin. What had she said? Her half.

“What about Boothagullagulla?” she asked at last.

“It’s completely inundated. Not even a sign of the homestead or of any of the barns. Nothing but water. It will be like that for a long time, the experts say. The subterranean source is still disgorging.”

“The great snake,” smiled Gemma sadly.

“Yes.” Jenny smiled sadly back. “Chris Mitchell’s great snake waking from his long rest at last.”

She left Gemma after that, and Gemma lay back trying to realize things, trying to accept them, put them in perspective, but it was hard.

At last she got up, put on the likeliest dress that Jenny had left for her, then went outside.

They were, she saw, on a veritable island. Evidently the service station-occupied the highest spot for miles, for everywhere else was water. Evidently, too, Tim had brought her to Jenny just in time, got out himself in time, though the Bitumen, which Gemma could faintly decipher to the left, was draining off quite quickly, as Jenny had said. Gemma could even see, if indistinctly, the ink blue surface of the road.

She sought out Jenny and found her in the kitchen.

“Tell me other things,” she begged. “I have to know.”

‘‘Not much more to tell, but ask me, anyhow.”

“What about Mannering Park?”

“It took a battering, but it came through with everyone safe. All the other places did as well, Bellbrae, Everham, Two Gums, Blue Bush.”

“You seem to know them, Jenny,” commented Gemma.

“I should do, my father had a holding here. Pm a Top End girl. Then when I married” ... a pause ... “it was to a local man, as most of the girls do marry.”

Gemma nodded. Jenny, she was thinking again, Jenny?

“Jenny Lawson.” She said it aloud, only half recognizing her own voice.

“Yes, I was Jenny Lawson once. It was before I remarried. I married Larry.” Jenny was looking closely at Gemma. “But, of course, you know all that.”

“I don’t... I mean .. . yes, Jenny, I have heard.”

“Certainly you’ve heard. Up here, Gemma, it’s no different from anywhere else. We have our own little intrigues, our own little suspicions and gossips. I was the topic of one of those gossips.”

“And—Tim?”

“And Tim,” Jenny agreed. “I think,” she said after a few moments, “you’d better tell me your version, Gemma.”

“Not mine,” explained Gemma, “but as told to me.”

“By a Mannering, no doubt. But please go on. I can take it.”

“There’s nothing to take, Jenny. I mean, nothing against
you.”
Gemma was remembering Janet’s: “She eventually got rid of her husband. He was a pig, and I don’t blame her.”

But after that, when Gemma had asked : “Through evidence with Bruce?” Janet had laughed:

“Oh, heavens no, through the Territorian. After encouraging her to go ahead, he faded out. Poor little girl left high and dry. There was quite a scandal.”

“No, nothing against you,” Gemma repeated to Jenny.

“I know,” nodded Jenny, “all the venom went on Tim, and he wouldn’t do a thing about it. Gemma, my first husband was no good. I could give you a lot of instances, but it’s all past history now.”

“How did Tim come into it?” asked Gemma.

“Among many other victims of Rod’s dishonesty ... yes, his name was Rod... was Tim. Tim called at our place one day to see Rod, and Rod” ... she bit her lip ... “and Rod—”

Gemma said quickly: “It doesn’t matter, Jenny.”

“But it does, because I want you to understand. Rod was being cruel. He was often cruel.”

“You mean—physically cruel?”

“Yes. Tim came in and—well, it was the beginning of the end. No, it was the end, really. Tim threw Rod out—literally threw him. When Rod acted legally against me later, he cited Tim, and Tim just let him."

“Yet—”

"Yet there was nothing, nothing except a man who couldn’t stand by and see a woman hurt. I told him I was making a public, announcement, and do you know what he did? He laughed. He said it meant as much to him as water on a duck’s back, and Gemma, I believed him. He wasn’t affected at all. At least, not until—”

“Yes?”

“When he left you with me last night, he said: ‘Mind her, Jenny, the Mannerings as well as the flood have been at her. You know what I mean.’ ”

“And you know?”

“Yes. I knew they’d been saying what was untrue. For it was untrue, Gemma. Tim Torrance never cared one iota about me. I don’t think he would have even looked at me had he not walked in that day.”

“But you, Jenny?” Gemma asked carefully.

“Oh, I loved him. I still love him, will always love him. He brought me back to life, and he brought me Larry. Larry was one of Tim’s men. When Tim saw how it was with us, he set Larry up here He said a thirty-six-wheeler was no place for a family man.” Jenny laughed.

“And is there to be a family?”

“Of course. And the first son will be Timothy. And what will the Mannerings. and all their friends, have to say about that?” Jenny laughed .. . and suddenly Gemma was laughing, too.

“After a penguin at a white dove party,” she pointed out, “there’s little left to say.”

 

It was a week before the water drained away sufficiently for the cars to come through again.

First of the long contingent from the south was Larry Webster, anxious to be back with his wife again.

He reported the Bitumen as perfectly safe once more, in perfect condition for wheels of all sorts, from four to thirty-six, a fact that left Gemma frankly wistful for her small car still under water at Boothagullagulla. She had rung for an air passage south, but had been told that there were still many applicants before her, and she felt she was intruding now on a tender reunion. Larry denied the intrusion part, but he did come up with the bright idea of providing Gemma with one of the garage models.

“I want it taken down to Sydney,” he said, “and you’d be helping me no end.”

“You would also be getting rid of me before another week,” laughed Gemma. “No, I know you didn’t mean it that way, Larry, but I just couldn’t help saying it. Of course I’ll take the car down. It’s the least I can do.”

There was nothing else to wait for. There was still no question of going out to
/
Boothagullagulla . . . perhaps there never would be, the inland sea that had arisen might never recede again. Not in this century. So—

So Gemma left the Websters in Larry’s car to be delivered to Sydney, left after many hugs, many kisses and a few tears.

She was still wiping the tears away miles down the Bitumen when she heard that imperious, demanding horn,. Only one person, she thought, would accost her like that. She put her foot down on the accelerator. Last time, Mr. Territorian, I had only a small car, she was thinking, this time it’s a fast model, and the race is really on.

But she might as well have put her foot down on butter. The thing passed her, every wheel of the thirty-six wheels splashed mud at her. And then, two hundred yards ahead, it slewed round and cut her off. The fool, the utter fool, she thought, this is the highway, this is the Bitumen just opened up again, ready to be used again, cars will be coming at any moment.

But, and Gemma would never know why, they did not come. Not now.

Only the Territorian came, slowly, almost indolently, as once he had come carrying in his arms a small bewildered Harriet, and saying:

“I have a passenger for you.”

He said it again now, but she could see no calf. She told him coldly:

“This is not my vehicle, I’m delivering it for Larry Webster. You can’t put any calf in the back seat of this car as you did with mine."

“Little Harriet,” he nodded. “She’s all right, you know. I checked on her. She’s grown, and I don’t think you’d remember her, nor she you.”

“I would remember,” Gemma assured him.

“You think so? Then you might also remember me. Name of Torrance. You might remember that I bought you a ring at The Alice.” He waited a long moment, then:

“Why in heaven aren’t you wearing it, girl ?”

The ring. It was round her throat on a slender chain. It touched her heart. She had threaded it on the chain and put it near her heart the night he had given it to her. She had never taken it off.

“I took you to Jenny’s,” he said. “I know Jenny. You couldn’t have stayed with her and not learned the truth. Jenny’s all right, a great girl, but she still talks.”

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