Daphne went on in that quiet, steady voice, and some of the rigid tension in Soretta’s neck eased a fraction. ‘I’ll just reinforce this, strap it down more firmly so it won’t shift in flight, and get a couple of intravenous lines in.’ Daphne shot her a look. ‘Can you hold this again firmly while Rex rolls him so I can slip the bandage under?’
Soretta hadn’t even noticed the pilot had crouched down beside them. ‘Of course.’ It was done swiftly, much more securely than Soretta had been able to manage, and then a bag of intravenous fluids was thrust into her hands.
‘And this, sweetie. Just hold it up when I say.’ Within seconds two bags of fluid were raised over her grandad.
Fifteen minutes later Soretta sat quietly in the spare seat in the tiny aircraft cabin and watched Daphne struggle to keep her grandfather alive as the pilot revved the engines.
Twin IV lines ran fluid into his veins on each wrist. Oxygen blew into the mask on his face and the compression bandage on his stomach had finally stopped seeping. But still her chest felt leaden with anxiety as she listened to the increasing timbre of the plane’s engines as at last they began to take off.
Billie Green made the turn into the main road of the outback town and breathed a sigh of relief. She was finally on her way to achieving her dream of joining the Mica Ridge Flying Doctor Service. This was something she’d been planning to do since she was a child.
Mica Ridge, the next biggest town to Broken Hill on the border of New South Wales and South Australia, was a long way from boys in balaclavas, or the past she’d worked so hard to forget. But here, with the Barrier Ranges to her back and the Menindee Plains in front of her, she could feel the sense of impending doom about her daughter seep away. It felt good to come back to the place where she’d grown up. And it felt safe for Mia.
Eighteen years, a daughter and her medical career later, she was returning stronger than when she’d left Mica Ridge as a heartbroken orphan. A lot of that had to do with the elderly aunt who’d believed Billie could do anything, no matter what obstacles appeared. And there had been obstacles.
Billie guessed she needed to practise her aunt’s kind of faith in Mia because obviously trying to protect her daughter from the world wasn’t working. Today, even during Mia’s time as a learner driver at the wheel, she had bombarded Billie with her tirade against moving. Mia had been like an angry bee trapped against the glass as she’d railed bitterly about being uprooted from her friends and familiar surroundings. Her daughter’s quite impressive stamina had lasted most of the trip yesterday and today. She’d only been diverted when one of the families of emus had run beside the car or one of the majestic wedge-tailed eagles had soared from the side of the road. Two days of a narky Mia and Billie’s head had felt like it was going to explode.
Billie could see Mia’s black hair swivelling as they both got out of the car so Billie could drive through the built up area. Apparently Mia didn’t think it was a built up area.
‘You have to be kidding me,’ she heard Mia mutter.
‘What did you expect?’ Billie said mildly as she met those green eyes which everyone said were so beautiful, and so unlike Billie’s blue ones, then watched them widen with horror at the stark contrast a country mining town was proving to be to cosmopolitan Sydney.
Billie lifted her eyes to the skyline for strength. Felt the squeeze of homecoming again. She’d loved those peaks. Apparently, Mia wasn’t appreciating the last rays of the sun that tinged the clouds pink and fairy-flossed each jagged ridge rising from the creviced rocks, drawing in the tourists.
They drove off again, and at this time of the day, with the quiet streets of tiny restored miners’ cottages and the magnificent heritage buildings from a long-gone mining boom, Billie could see there might be little to excite a teenager. But Billie saw the banks of roses everywhere—how could she have forgotten they bloomed so magnificently out here?—and they were in front of every civic building and every yard as if the hot dry world was just what they’d ordered.
Peace settled over her. There was so much more to this place than Mia knew.
‘I can see why you haven’t been back since you were my age.’ Mia said.
‘No you don’t.’ I would have come earlier except you kicked and screamed so much about leaving Sydney. She didn’t say it again. Or comment on Mia’s chequered last year. ‘The schools are good and outback people are amazing.’
A snort. ‘What people?’
Billie suppressed a sigh. ‘You’ll see.’
As if to support her words, as they drove further down the one wide main street they began to see movement under the huge overhanging verandahs outside the shops. Saw tourists peering into an old-fashioned department store turned into an art gallery, an early 1900s legal firm refurbished and morphed into stylish apartments with scalloped wood and marble ledges, people taking photos of the magnificent clock tower of the post office, and the austerely elegant police station that loomed in a circle of glowing Peace roses.
Then the biggest pub came into view. A grand old lady with upstairs verandahs circled in white lace railings, while downstairs tables spilled out onto the wide footpath under a trellis covered in green-leaved grapevines. Beckoning travellers to share the oasis in the heat.
Even Mia gave a grudging nod.
Billie smiled with relief. It was even better than she remembered. ‘See? Not what you expected after the arid land of the last few hundred kilometres.’
‘Not as big as Broken Hill.’
‘But just as good,’ Billie said, remembering the sometimes not-so-friendly rivalry between the two towns.
Mia sat up a higher as she spied a posse of six-packed cowboys leaning on their four-wheel-drive utes, whip aerials, dish-sized spot-lights and rear-mud flaps all bigger than necessary. They all had akubra hats glued to their heads in expectation of a good time in town.
Billie remembered them. The boys from the bush. She bit back the smile so her daughter couldn’t see her amusement.
At the end of the main block there was a shopping centre where once there’d been a horse paddock, and they began to see more townsfolk. Families with toddlers. Elderly couples moving towards the caravans parked at the side of the road. Smartly dressed businesswomen, testimony to a town that had reinvented itself as an artist’s mecca and a hub of tourism.
Her daughter offered a seemingly reluctant, ‘We’ll see.’ But her neck stretched sideways as she watched the young men disappear in the rear-vision mirror and the bracelets on her wrist jangled as her hand went unconsciously to her black ponytail.
Billie sighed. She hadn’t moved Mia here to fall into the same traps she’d been heading towards in Sydney; she’d hoped her daughter would dive into her studies again with a new school and a clean record, but she guessed change had to come from within.
But there was always hope. Her aunt had always said, ‘Anyone could make mistakes,’ and Billie’s blunders had been monumental.
She turned left towards the Flying Doctor Base, away from the direction her parents’ house lay, if it was still there. Those memories were for another day and a quiet moment, but she would go there soon. Lay to rest the gnawing feeling of needing to say goodbye to her late childhood, which had been left so abruptly.
No, today was for the shared housing on the outskirts of town they’d been offered as an easy transition. She didn’t think they’d be there long. Billie wanted a more permanent place to live. She wanted to finally put down roots, think of a life for herself as a woman, not just a mother, because soon Mia would finish school. Maybe she could purchase a property with an overseer close to town. The utopia of waking up to no neighbours, no passing cars, a vista to restore her soul, seemed almost within reach. Good grief. Where had that come from?
‘Where’s the school?’ Billie’s least favourite tone grated in Mia’s petulant voice.
Billie snapped back into parent mode. She was good at that. ‘Halfway between here and that pub you were so interested in.’
> ‘Who, me?’ But there was a reluctant smile from Mia and Billie relaxed a little. The surly princess act had been getting old.
She checked the house numbers and pulled up outside a modest grey-painted duplex, sensibly constructed with a concrete block that looked more depressing than welcoming, the whole yard encased in a running blank wall of brown colour-bond fence. She bit back a sigh. ‘We’re here,’ she said brightly.
Mia looked at the uninspiring duplex and concreted yard. ‘Goody.’ She rolled her eyes.
Oh, dear. There had been a lot of similar places in the last ten years. ‘Let’s get unpacked. We’ve got a big day tomorrow.’
Mia’s response was a hunch of her shoulders and a snort. ‘You’ve got a big day. You’ll be doing what you’ve always wanted to do. I’m doing what I’m told.’
‘Nice change. How about we unload the car and sort our gear?’ Billie’s mild comment seemed to have the desired effect because Mia slid from the car and opened the hatchback. They always travelled light. Her rule for so many years. Imagine if she changed that? Let herself accumulate possessions instead of constantly being aware that they’d be moving on?
Billie peered under the lid of the tin mailbox at the head of the path and lifted out an envelope with her name on it. She smiled wearily. ‘We have a key. Good start.’
TWO
Daphne shrugged the tightness out of her shoulders and waggled her head to loosen her neck. A fifteen-hour shift wasn’t going to stop her calling in to make sure Lachlan Byrnes and Soretta were okay.
They’d rushed Lachlan straight from the plane into an operating theatre and an hour ago he’d been holding his own but still in recovery. The nurses thought he’d make it, but it would be a while before he’d be back riding quad bikes again. Though he probably would. At seventy, the accident he’d had would have killed a lesser man. A testimony to what a tough old boot he really was.
Daphne had picked up noodles and fried rice for a late supper, and a plastic bottle of iced coffee because the girl looked half-starved. Daphne was sure Soretta was doing the workload of three men out there on the station. She’d also picked up a slightly stale iced cupcake and one candle. Some birthday the poor girl had been subjected to. A fact she’d discovered when she’d asked Soretta how old she was. Daphne had no doubt that if the birthday girl hadn’t been so shaken by the accident she’d never have told her that.
She nodded to the nurse at the desk, and thought wryly how already they were used to her dropping back to check on patients she’d brought in. A yawn crept up on her and she bit it back as she knocked quietly on the doorframe of the waiting room. She glanced at the plastic swing doors into the operating theatres and recovery to her left, but they hung silently in the deserted corridor.
Soretta jumped up and then her face fell when she realised it wasn’t someone to tell her about her grandfather.
Daphne watched the effort Soretta put into trying to smile and felt her heart contract. To hide the fact that she’d seen it, Daphne put the carry bag of food on the table, but she couldn’t ignore what came naturally and she stepped in to put her hands around the young woman’s back and give her a brief hug. After a few seconds Soretta relaxed and hugged her in return. She wasn’t very good at it. That was okay. Daphne was.
Then Soretta stepped back. ‘Daphne. You didn’t have to come.’
‘Of course I did. Have you heard anything?’
Soretta lifted her head as though it weighed as much as one of those boulders that crowned the ridges outside of town. ‘He’s in recovery. And he’s alive.’
‘They make them hardy out here.’
Soretta almost laughed but it turned into a sob. Her hand flew to her mouth as if it was the absolute worst noise she could have let out.
Daphne’s voice lowered until it was almost a whisper. ‘You’re allowed to cry, you know. I won’t tell anyone.’
Soretta sniffed it all back and set her mouth firmly.
‘And studies suggest tears are endorphins so when they soak into your skin they make you feel better.’
Soretta sniffed again and then, despite herself, she did smile weakly. ‘You’re a beautiful lady.’
Daphne looked away. Compliments about her looks made her uncomfortable. To be honest, any compliments made her uncomfortable because she didn’t believe them, but that wasn’t Soretta’s fault. She’d held onto lots of hang-ups from childhood. ‘Not so sure about that one but I did bring food. Have you eaten?’
A shake of a red ponytail. ‘I couldn’t.’
‘Try now. He’s in recovery and would probably prefer if you didn’t faint when you see him.’
This time Soretta produced a real smile. Peered into the white plastic carry bag and sighed. ‘Chinese? Yum.’
Daphne pulled out plastic plates, knives, forks and two serviettes. ‘I’ll set up while you wash your hands.’ They both looked at the blood caked under Soretta’s fingernails.
Soretta’s smile fell and she nodded before turning to the sink in the corner of the room. When she came back everything was laid out on the table and the smell of hot oyster sauce drifted in eddies between them.
‘Dig in. I’ve brought enough for both of us. You can debrief while you eat. We didn’t have time to talk about the shock you must’ve had.’
Soretta’s pale brows drew together. ‘I need to give you money for this.’
Not happening. Daphne patted her pocket. ‘I’ve got a bill right here for you.’
She saw Soretta blink, saw the smile peep out again, and felt the warmth expand inside her. Soretta was a good girl.
‘Okay. I won’t try to pay you. But I owe you one,’ she said with a nod that promised this outback girl did not forget favours. Ever. ‘Thank you.’
‘My pleasure. Now speak.’
They both sat, and haltingly, with more pauses at the beginning until it started to come out in a rush, Soretta told of Klaus jumping off the bike with news of the accident and how she’d found her grandad, his face white like the ghost gums that had surrounded him, softly moaning with agony, seeping blood into the red earth. How ghastly it had been moving him. His groans and gritted teeth. Her glancing at the sky for help.
Daphne resisted the impulse to squeeze Soretta’s hand. ‘You did well. I know it must’ve been hard to move him. Normally it should be avoided, but this time it was the right thing to do so we could take off again almost straight away.’
Soretta’s eyes stared into a corner of the room and Daphne knew she was back in the lonely paddock again. ‘That plane landing was all I wanted to see.’
‘Waiting is the worst,’ Daphne said quietly. ‘At least the strain of organising the transfer to the strip gave you something to do while we were coming. Another reason it was a good thing you moved him.’ Risking paralysis from a spinal injury versus bleeding out with the delay. It had been a hard decision for the young woman, Daphne thought grimly.
The young woman shuddered. ‘At one stage I thought he’d gone. Then I saw his chest move. If you hadn’t been as fast as you were he would’ve died.’ Her voice cracked on the last word and Daphne wondered how many times Soretta had repeated that to herself over the last few hours. He would have died! That was the problem. Reliving the fear.
‘You’re going to have to let that go and concentrate on the fact that Lachlan didn’t die. He’s still holding up a bed so we’ll take his tenacity and run with it.’ She paused to let the words sink in.
She needed to reach the panicked centre of Soretta’s shocked brain. ‘Will there be anyone at the station when you go home? Do you want to stay with me in town while you visit your grandad in here?’ She thought about the new doctor and her daughter at the other end of the house. Soretta wouldn’t be a bother to anyone.
Soretta looked up. Her chin set stubbornly. ‘Thanks, Daphne, but once he’s stable I’ll go home and come in the afternoons. Get home before dark. There’s only Klaus—our backpacker from Germany. I’ve got the dogs and the horses. And a couple of
lambs in the laundry.’
Of course she would. ‘So the three of you have been running the station? What happened to the other help?’
Soretta shrugged, philosophical. ‘The Swiss contingent left soon after the satellite dish blew off the roof in the dust storm last month. They’ll do without a lot but they won’t do without the internet.’
It was a big property. Somewhere around a hundred thousand acres, Rex had said, though to others around here she guessed it was mid-sized. A lot for three people. ‘Can you get the dish fixed?’
She shook her head. ‘Not until it rains. You know the old story. Asset rich, cash poor, and a drought.’
So Lachlan would be lying in bed here stressing about the station for the next month or two. ‘So there’s a lot on both your minds?’
Soretta hesitated. ‘I really need a cash-paying job. But I need to be on the station.’
Tricky. ‘What can you do?’
Another shrug. Daphne guessed Soretta was capable of doing anything a man could do. ‘Farm stuff. Muster with the quad. Maintain the troughs and the pumps and sort the sheep and cattle. Fence.’ She grimaced then brightened. ‘I can do accounts.’
‘That’s good.’ Encouragement was all she could offer. Nobody around here had much to add up with the drought going on.
Daphne scooped a fork full of noodles into her mouth and her stomach rumbled. She’d missed lunch. Thought briefly of the extra padding around her waist and mentally shrugged. This was a mercy dash. She had to eat with Soretta. And everyone knew carbs were more comforting. ‘So accounts and farm work. But these are all things you need to do at home, too?’
Soretta nodded glumly. ‘We only need a small cash flow to stop us going backwards and pay for minor expenses. Just for food and a way to attract casual labour until mustering. The last lot of feral goats we mustered brought in enough to pay the bank for this month.’
Daphne watched her pause for a minute. Then Soretta sighed and shook her head, making a strand of hair fall in her eyes. ‘At the moment I need my grandad to be able to walk out of this hospital in one piece.’
The Homestead Girls Page 2
