The Indigo Sky

by Alison Booth

  Yet at his most pessimistic, he has no doubt that Eileen will one day abandon him. If she leaves him, he’ll grow old on his own. Although this thought deeply saddens him, he no longer finds it as frightening as he used to.

  Shifting position again, he stretches out his bad leg. Open on his lap is The Stargazer’s Chronicle, a magazine that Jim brought back from Sydney with him. George will probably take out a mail-order subscription for it, as it is unlikely to be available in Burford. Looking around the room, he sees Eileen’s completed piece of embroidery, of the rainbow lorikeets, hanging on the wall. She has already begun a new work. Again it is of birds, for she has a talent for illustrating wildlife. This time they are superb wrens, the male with a vivid blue head and shoulders, and the female more dowdy.

  George knows that the night is clear with no moon. When Eileen goes to bed, which he can’t help hoping will be soon, he will put on his warm coat and beanie, and go out into the garden. Then he will unlock the shed and wheel out his telescope. Afterwards he will dive into infinite space, in which he can always find peace.

  The wind is whistling around Woodlands, rattling the windows and shaking the branches of the trees, which groan and sigh in protest. In the white marble fireplace in the drawing room, a fire has been lit, and three armchairs are pulled up in front of it. Only two are occupied, by Philip’s parents. Philip is sitting at the piano, about to play for them Beethoven’s Piano Sonata, the one he’s now learnt to call the Sonata Pathétique.

  While he guesses that his father will find the music too much, he’s not bothered by this, even though his father has become his hero again since they returned from Europe following the accident. While Philip can recall every detail of the day he ran away from Stambroke, right up to the moment when the car knocked him down, he can remember nothing of the first few hours afterwards. Auntie Susan and Jim have filled in the details though.

  Expelling Philip, rather than Macready and his cronies, was something his father would never forgive. Philip heard every word of the telephone conversation in which his father blew up Dr Barker for Stambroke’s omissions of care, his voice becoming louder and louder, and his face even redder than usual. A gentle soul, a rising star, he’d bellowed into the receiver just before hanging up, who’s been badly let down by your school.

  Giving Barker a piece of my mind, he’d explained afterwards. Sending a kid to board at that college costs a fortune, and they should have looked after his son better.

  Earlier, Philip had overheard Auntie Susan giving his mother a piece of her mind too. He never let on that he’d listened to what they said though. It had been a coincidence that he’d been passing the door of the study at the time. This was the day after he’d got out of hospital and a few days after his parents had arrived back in Australia, when they were all staying at Hunters Hill. Once he’d heard Auntie Susan’s raised voice, he’d frozen. Through the open door he could see his aunt and his mother facing one another. No matter how hard he tried to move, he couldn’t.

  ‘I’ve never understood how you can be so self-centred, Judy,’ Auntie Susan was saying. ‘You’ve got a gifted son with a delicate and sensitive soul, and what do you do? You not only connive with Jack to send him to a school which any fool can see is unsuitable, but you actually leave the country.’

  ‘That trip was Jack’s present to me for my fortieth, darling. You only turn forty once. How could I possibly have knocked it back?’

  ‘Jack said you suggested it. That he didn’t want to go. Really, Jude, you’re the most self-absorbed person I’ve met. Quite frankly, you don’t deserve to be a mother.’

  Yet his mother had taken this criticism calmly. ‘Don’t get so het up, Susan. You’re right of course, darling. I’ve been terribly remiss, I know, but really I had no idea what was going on at Stambroke. Absolutely no idea. I’ll make it up to Philip, you’ll see. And I can’t tell you how grateful I am for everything you’ve done for him.’

  His mother was a liar and he’d known that for months. While he couldn’t help but love her, he would never again completely trust her.

  Now, in the drawing room at Woodlands, he flexes his fingers. His mother has her feet up on a stool and is smiling at him. Of course she will adore the performance he is about to give, even though she’s tired with her pregnancy. And he certainly wants her to rest now, and to eat well, so that the unborn baby will grow big and strong. Thereby will the future of Woodlands be assured. Though his mother is touched by his concern, she doesn’t know his motives. What he wants is for his father to direct to someone else that threat of, All this will be yours one day, son.

  Yet sometimes he thinks that the little brother or sister might be a joy in its own right. That day he’d spent on the beach below Ferndale with Zidra has stuck in his mind. Having a sister would be company when he needed it. And someone else to love.

  Next January Philip will be starting secondary schooling at the Conservatorium of Music High School. After the accident he practised the piano nonstop, and passed the audition with what his teacher described as flying colours, playing the Talivaldis Variations as well as pieces by Chopin and Beethoven. The school is next to the Royal Botanic Gardens in Sydney, and a short walk from the Quay. He will attend as a day boy, of course. That’s because of his extreme sensitivity, Mummy’s said, again and again. And what could be more natural than for him to live at Hunters Hill in term-time and to travel by ferry to the Con?

  As Auntie Susan and Uncle Fred are more than happy with this arrangement, Philip’s future is no longer bleak. Next term he will return to stay with them at Hunters Hill and attend the state school on the peninsula. He will come back to Woodlands for the holidays.

  Now he begins to play, and soon he is lost in the music.

  Not exactly nervous but certainly not composed, Jim is standing next to the war memorial. Soon the bus pulls into the square. It circles him before coming to a halt in front of his father’s shop. Zidra is waving from the window, just behind the driver, and she leaps out first. In fact, she is the only passenger to alight, although there is a clutch of people waiting to get on the bus that is travelling on to Burford.

  Zidra is wearing a thick mauve jumper of some hairy stuff, mohair possibly, and stretch black trousers that show off her long legs, and she is even prettier than he remembers. She comes bounding up to him, and he would like to hug her but feels too shy. Instead they smile and say hello and afterwards there is a slightly awkward silence, if indeed there is ever silence in Jingera, for there is always the sound of the surf breaking on the shore and inevitably some birds calling, even here in the centre of this little township.

  ‘You decided not to ride Star into town,’ he says at last, only to break their silence.

  ‘You’d have been waiting half the day if I had,’ she says. ‘There’s nothing like riding a horse to make you appreciate the distance from Ferndale to Jingera.’

  ‘Ever try walking?’

  ‘No, life’s too short for that.’

  They stroll down the hill to the lagoon. The Talivaldis won’t be collecting Zidra from Jingera post office until lunchtime, and so the whole morning lies ahead of them. After crossing the footbridge, they take off their shoes and walk along the beach towards the northern headland. The river is low and only a narrow channel of water escapes to the ocean. At the base of the cliffs, large boulders are scattered from falls over the centuries, long before European settlers arrived. Now these rocks are occasionally obliterated by fountains of white spray. To the east, the deep blue of the sky cannot match the depth of the ocean’s blue, while to the south, feathery white clouds litter the paler sky.

  ‘Eric sends you his regards,’ Jim says.

  She smiles, and thanks him. It looks as if she will say no more, but it doesn’t matter, he tells himself. She can write to whoever she wants.

  ‘He’s nice,’ she says after a little while.
‘As you’d expect of any friend of yours. We’ve written occasionally. Twice, in fact. He writes to Sally too. He probably writes to girls all over New South Wales, and that’s why his letters are so short.’

  A sea eagle flies overhead towards the headland, where it begins to circle slowly. They walk back again, and conversation is easy for him now. He knows this is because of what she’s said about Eric, and is glad. On the footbridge, they pause and gaze upriver, to his father’s dilapidated fibro boathouse with its rusting corrugated iron roof, sheltered from sight of the town by a bend in the river and a dense stand of trees. Unseen, a bell miner bird trills its single note.

  ‘Remember when Lorna and I took out your father’s dinghy?’ Zidra says.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘It was my idea and it was fun until we got into difficulties and Lorna fell overboard with one of the oars. Mr Bates rescued me and that gave him a hold over me, or so I thought. Kids think they know it all and they don’t know the half of it.’

  ‘We’ll never know the half of it no matter how old we are.’

  ‘So speaks Methuselah. Do you remember, Jim, how you said you’re not interested in horses and you didn’t want me to write about them in my letters?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, what about learning to ride instead? You could get the bus to Ferndale one day next week. We could take the horses out, just for a couple of hours at first, because if you rode for any longer you’d be really sore afterwards. There are some terrific routes we could take. Would next Wednesday suit?’

  ‘Sounds good,’ he says, and is surprised at the joy that floods through him at this prospect.

  Zidra shuts the car door and winds down the window. The car smells faintly of dog. While someone needs to do something about Spotless Spot’s blanket in the back, which stinks to high heaven, she’d prefer this not to be her. Now her mother preselects a gear and clicks into it and they begin their stately progress out of Jingera and up North Road. Mama is no speedster today, that’s for sure, Zidra thinks. She has plenty of time to observe the bush through which they are cruising, with occasional glimpses of the ocean with its regiments of waves rolling into the shore.

  Several miles north of Jingera, Zidra is the first to spot the slender figure trudging along the edge of the road, thumb extended to hitch a ride. As they get closer, her heart stops still. Surely it’s not, it cannot be. But it is!

  ‘Goodness, it’s Lorna,’ her mother now says. At once she slows the car down, and Zidra is out of it before it is stationary.

  So tightly does Zidra hug Lorna that her friend says, laughing, ‘Stop, Dizzy, I can’t breathe. You don’t know your own strength!’ Yet she is hugging her back too, and there are tears in her eyes.

  Now it is her mother’s turn to greet Lorna. Only when this is over do they start to question her, Mama first as usual.

  ‘When did you get out?’ she says.

  ‘A month ago.’

  ‘You didn’t write,’ Zidra says.

  ‘Not yet. Been too busy.’

  ‘Where have you been, Lorna dear? And is that a bruise on your face?’

  Now Zidra notices the large mark on Lorna’s left cheekbone, the side she’s kept turned away.

  ‘I was sent to a family near Hay, on a property there. It was hard work all the time, and no days off. The boss’s son often hit me; that’s how I got this bruise. There’s one on my back too. So I’ve run away and I’m never going back.’

  ‘Good on you,’ says Zidra quickly. After putting an arm around Lorna’s shoulder again, she glances at her mother. There are tears in her eyes, and for once she is at a loss for words while she fumbles in her pocket for a handkerchief. Now is not the time to ask any more questions about the bruises, Zidra decides. She says, ‘How did you get this far?’

  ‘Hitched a lift as far as Jingera and then carried on walking. Not too much traffic on this road.’

  ‘The Princes Highway might have been quicker.’

  ‘Wanted to see my country on the way. Knew someone would come along eventually or I’d get the bus if it ever came. Never thought I’d be picked up by you though!’ Lorna says, grinning.

  ‘We’ll take you to Wallaga Lake. Zidra and I would like to do that.’

  ‘It’s out of your way.’

  ‘Doesn’t matter. We were thinking of going to Bermagui anyway,’ she fabricates, ‘to pick up something from the shops. Wallaga Lake’s not that much further.’

  On the way north, Lorna tells them how she left Gudgiegalah on her birthday, and how lucky she is compared to some of the other girls. The ones who never knew their family or where they were from originally. The ones who’ll never be able to go home because they don’t know where or what it is.

  As soon as they reach the turn-off to the Aboriginal settlement at Wallaga Lake, Lorna will let them drive her no further. ‘I want to walk in alone,’ she says.

  After Lorna gets out of the car, Zidra and her mother watch her stride down the road. At the bend, she turns to wave, her smile bright. She’s going home at last, Zidra thinks. Where she belongs. Like me, she may move on from here. She will be free to choose to move on from here if she wants to. But she should never have been taken in the first place.

  At this moment, a flock of yellow-tailed black cockatoos flies overhead, squawking loudly. Though they seem at first to be making for a dead tree down by the lake, they soon veer sharply to the right and head towards Mount Dromedary, or Mount Gulaga as Zidra thinks of it now. She and her mother both gaze up at this splendid sight.

  When they look back again, Lorna has gone. Around the bend in the road, hidden by trees. She will be running towards the settlement now, to the old cottage that is the Hunters’ home. Shortly she will throw her arms around her mother, and they will laugh with joy, and talk in their language that Zidra doesn’t understand.

  Then this stage of Lorna’s journey will be over at last. But even as she thinks of this, Zidra knows that Lorna’s journey, like her own, is really just beginning.

  Acknowledgements

  Without the enthusiastic encouragement of Karen Colston and Beverley Cousins, this book would not have been written. For their numerous helpful comments on various drafts of the manuscript I thank Karen Colston, Beverley Cousins, Maggie Hamand, Chris Kunz and Lyn Tranter. Thanks also to the wonderful team at Random House Australia, and to Tue Gorgens, Tim Hatton, Sally Humphrey and Justine Small.

  Alison Booth was born in Melbourne and grew up in Sydney. After over two decades living in the UK, she returned to Australia in 2002 and is now a professor of economics at the Australian National University. She is married with two daughters.

  She has written three novels: Stillwater Creek, The Indigo Sky and A Distant Land.

  Further Reading

  Haebich, Anna (2000) Broken Circles: Fragmenting Indigenous Families 1800-2000. Fremantle, WA: Fremantle Arts Centre Press.

  James, Roberta (1988) ‘The Heart of the Matter: The Place of Kinship in the Construction of Contemporary Aboriginal Identity.’ Honours Thesis, Department of Prehistory and Anthropology, Australian National University.

  McKenna, M (2002) Looking for Blackfellas’ Point: An Australian History of Place. Sydney: UNSW Press.

  Wright, Judith (1955) The Two Fires. Sydney: Angus & Robertson.

  PRAISE FOR ALISON BOOTH

  The Indigo Sky

  ‘A charming, big-hearted tale, told with skill and grace’ Madison

  ‘Warm, entertaining and thought-provoking novel’ Woman’s Day

  ‘Captures the heart and soul of a time . . . You can practically smell the eucalyptus, and picture that titular indigo sky’

  Australian Bookseller & Publisher

  ‘A gentle, charming novel’ Townsville Bulletin

  ‘A wonderful Australian story’ Newc
astle Herald

  ‘Once again Booth captures a certain time, place and mood in smalltown Australia’ Sunday Mail Brisbane

  ‘Booth’s first novel, Stillwater Creek, garnered high praise, and this second book is also a riveting read’ Shepparton News

  Stillwater Creek

  ‘A mythical town and its people are brought beautifully to life . . . a really lovely book’ The Sunday Telegraph

  ‘Who could not be charmed by Stillwater Creek? I loved the characters, the scenery, the dramas, the gentle humour and the sense of Australia as it once was. Enjoy a feel-good beach read this summer!’

  Good Reading

  ‘An evocative romantic drama set in a sleepy Australian country town’ Australian Women’s Weekly

  ‘A finely observed historical drama . . . evocative and eminently readable’ The Age

  ‘This gently humorous, sympathetic portrait of life as we led it then, makes us hope for a return visit to Jingera and the people we’ve come to love’ Woman’s Day

  A DISTANT LAND

  by Alison Booth

  Back in 1957, nine-year-old Zidra Vincent met Jim Cadwallader for the first time. Fourteen years later, their bond of friendship – forged during a childhood in the beautiful coastal town of Jingera – is still strong. But is friendship all they dream of?

  Jim is now a respected war correspondent in Cambodia, though he has plans to come home for good. Because there is something very important he wants to say to Zidra.

  Zidra, meanwhile, is an ambitious reporter at the Sydney Morning Chronicle, and the seeds of a major story have just landed in her lap. Life is looking good, if only she could share it with the man who knows her best.

  Then, while at work in the newsroom one morning, Zidra catches sight of a wire service bulletin out of Cambodia.