Glad to have a friend, she thought. She hadn’t realised how friendless her life had become. She had people who cared about her — people who would help her — but no friend her own age. She’d never got on with Amy, even when they were at school. Jeff and Sandy had been her friends, her life. Now Jeff was gone, and Sandy was a stranger.
But it was more than that. She liked this man. Everyone in the valley had known her as a little girl, still saw her as a child in some ways. Even Sandy seemed to have grown up so much more than her during his years on battlefields.
He probably had. But Nicholas spoke to her like an equal, not like a girl to be patted on the head, and told to leave the affairs of war to men.
Could a ghost from the future be a friend?
‘What day is it in your time?’ she asked suddenly. ‘You can tell me that, can’t you?’
He looked startled. ‘Wednesday.’
‘It’s Wednesday here too. I’m sorry — I have to go, or my brother and sister will miss me. But could you meet me here in ten days’ time? Please?’
She held her breath. Please let him say yes, she thought.
‘Ten days?’
‘You’re not leaving the mountain yet, are you?’ Please don’t let him have to go, she thought, not when I’ve only just met him.
To her relief he shook his head. ‘No.’ He gave a small smile. ‘Not when I’ve just met a ghost. Can’t we meet tomorrow?’
She let out the breath at the eagerness in his voice. ‘I’m going to be busy.’ Busy on the round-up, busy going to Gibber’s Creek to pay the rates if she got that hundred pounds. She didn’t know how long either of those might take, and she might have to wait till Mr Mack or one of the other neighbours was free to take them to town in their cart. ‘I’ll be here in ten days’ time.’
‘Too busy to meet someone from fifty years in the future?’
‘Yes. I’m sorry,’ she added. ‘I’d come if I could.’
‘All right.’ He gave a lopsided grin. ‘I’m probably crazy, dreaming I’ve met Flinty McAlpine on a mountainside… Maybe everyone is crazy up in these mountains. Maybe the air up here makes you absurd, the scent of flowers and rock and snow. And I’ve never spoken like that to anyone in my life before. You’re my only friend here, you know that? And you’re fifty years away.’
She felt the warmth of the word ‘friend’ trickle through her. ‘People in the valley are nice.’ She hesitated. Were they nice in another fifty years?
But he said, ‘Yes. They’re nice. But I don’t know them yet.’
‘Don’t you have other friends? Where’s your family?’
‘In Sydney. Dad used to be a country doctor. I miss the mountains — that’s one of the reasons I came up here. And to escape their fussing. Friends…’ He shrugged. ‘Everyone I used to know sees what I haven’t got.’ He gestured at his legs. ‘Not who I am now. Except you. It’s not fair, you know. You’ve got an apparition who knows what’s going to happen in your future. Maybe if I sit here long enough someone will appear who can answer some questions for me.’
‘What questions do you want to ask?’ She knew the answer before he spoke.
‘Will I ever walk again? Ride a horse? They talk about prosthetics. False legs,’ he added. ‘Not wooden legs in my time. They say the ankle even bends. But it’ll take a long time to get used to them. Some people never do. I…I haven’t been able to face starting.’ He patted his bathchair. ‘Took me long enough to work out how to get around on this. Even having a…going to the toilet took me almost a week to work out.’
‘I think you’ll walk again,’ she said quietly.
‘And how do you know that?’
‘Because you’re here, up in the mountains. A man who won’t ever walk again doesn’t go to mountains. He stays on flat land, where he won’t be tempted to climb up into the trees, up to the snow line. Every time you see an eagle you’ll think, I can’t fly, but maybe I can walk. And that’s how it begins.’
Had she said too much? The silence grew. No, not silence, birds yelling all around them, the mutter of the creek below. ‘I can see why they talk of you,’ he said at last. ‘You’re something special.’
‘So are you. You said you were brave at Long Tan. I don’t think you’re any less brave now.’
‘Well, thank you, Flinty McAlpine,’ he said softly. ‘Maybe you have answered my question at that. How about another? Will I fall in love? Will the girl I love manage to see me, and not a cripple?’
‘I know it’s yes to the second if it’s yes to the first.’
‘How can you be so sure?’
‘Because I’ve never thought of you as a cripple at all.’ She knew he could hear the truth in her voice. ‘I’ve thought of you as a ghost, as a stranger. And as a bit odd,’ she added honestly. ‘Your shirt, your hair, the way you talk sometimes. But not a cripple.’
‘Flinty! Where are you?’
‘I heard that this time! Like it was coming through a long bubble. It is a sound from your time, isn’t it? Is it your brother?’
‘Joey,’ she said.
‘He has a voice like a crow…’
‘Only when he yells. Coming!’ she yelled up to Joey. ‘Put the kettle on! See you next week,’ she said hurriedly to Nicholas, in case Joey decided to come and see what she was up to.
He nodded. Once again she had to force herself to hurry away from him, to do her duty instead of stay. She could feel him watching her as she ran out of the fog, knew that the second he vanished, she vanished for him.
She slowed down to a walk.
He was real. He was back in his future too. But it was as though he’d dragged a new future back for her to ride on, one where she could muster brumbies and earn a hundred pounds.
The girl from Snowy River.
She tried to think of all the things to do today. Make a big stew that would last Joey and Kirsty till Mr Mack could collect them in the cart so they could stay with the Macks. She’d have to leave Mr Mack a note, because he’d argue against her going too if he knew. Cook dampers — she’d need to take food with her. Pack up her saddlebags without the others noticing.
Convince Sandy to take her with him. Work out how to get a mob of brumby hunters to accept a girl.
But she was the girl from Snowy River. She’d work out a way to ride. Somewhere, down the tunnel of the future, she already had.
Chapter 8
24 November 1919
Dear Diary,
I knew Sandy would help me. He mightn’t love me any more, or even want to be my friend. But I’ve known Sandy Mack all my life. Sandy is as immoveable as the Rock sometimes. But he’ll never say no if you need him. No matter how much the war had changed him, Sandy is solid forever.
She found him in the paddock behind the Macks’ farmhouse, saddling Bessie by lamplight. The dawn was a whisper on the horizon. She had expected he would start early — it was a full day’s ride down to Drinkwater, and he’d want Bessie to rest before the muster.
‘Flinty! What are you doing here?’ Sandy stared at her. Her breasts were bound under Dad’s biggest shirt and jacket, the baggy trousers held up by Dad’s belt to disguise her shape, a big knitted cap over her plaits and a big hat crammed on top of that; Empress was loaded with her swag and saddlebags. Sandy seemed to force himself to stand straighter, out of that slight crouch.
She flushed, aware of what she must look like, wishing that she could at least have worn clothes that fitted her. ‘Going to the muster with you.’
Sandy’s eyes examined her again, the swag, the shine on Empress’s coat from a recent brushing. ‘No.’
‘Because it’s dangerous? I’m a better rider than you, Sandy Mack. And you know it.’
‘Because they won’t accept a girl. I didn’t organise the muster, Flinty. It’s up to Drinkwater’s manager to say who goes. I was only invited because I was in France with his son.’
‘They’ll think I’m a boy dressed like this.’ She hoped.
‘You move like a
girl.’
‘No one can see how I move in this jacket. Not till we’re on the muster anyhow.’
He turned his back on her and began to tighten Bessie’s girth. ‘No.’
‘Sandy, please! We need the money! There’s rates and…and all sorts of things.’
His hands stopped moving, but he still didn’t look back at her. ‘I’ll give you half my share.’
‘I don’t want charity! I can do this, Sandy. You know I can.’
‘It’s not charity. Jeff was my mate.’
And what am I? she thought. A ghost from your past? I’m more real to Nicholas than to you. ‘If you won’t take me I’ll come anyway. Follow you down to Drinkwater. You can tell them I’m a girl then, if you want to. If that’s what you’d do to the sister of your best mate.’
She’d meant to hurt him. She’d succeeded. She hadn’t known it would hurt her too to see the pain as his shoulders hunched again, defeated. ‘I can’t stop you, can I?’
‘No,’ she said, more gently. ‘Sandy, I’m sorry. I know it’s going to be embarrassing when they find out I’m a girl. But maybe it won’t matter once I’ve proved I can do it.’
He turned so she could see his face again. ‘That’s not what I care about. What if anything happens to you?’ For a moment she felt warm to think he still cared enough to worry about her, until he added, ‘Who’d look after Kirsty and Joey?’
‘Nothing will happen. I’m sure of it.’
‘You can’t be sure.’
‘Sandy.’ Her voice was as flat as his had been. ‘I’m coming with you.’
He stared at her for a second more, then finished saddling Bessie.
The dawn air stung her cheeks. It was strangely companionable, riding with Sandy through the trees. He hadn’t spoken to her since they’d left the Macks’, but they’d ridden like this so many times before. She could almost hear Jeff’s horse behind theirs, imagine that any moment she’d hear him say, ‘Last one around the next bend is a rotten egg,’ his laughter floating back as he kneed his horse and flashed past.
For a moment Jeff’s presence was so real she turned to look at him. But there were only trees, the bark curling, only tussocks, only the glint of rock. No brown-eyed brother.
The sobs took over her body: unexpected, as they always were. She’d be forking hay and suddenly think of Dad, worry about Kirsty catching the polio, and wish Mum was there. And Jeff.
She forced herself to be quiet, even as the tears fell, thinking of Jeff. There’d been an article in the Sydney paper, a month back, about a soldier who was supposed to have died but who’d lost his memory and, having been in a French hospital all along, had come back to his family. There’d been the sudden flowering spring of hope — she supposed everyone who had lost a brother, son or lover had felt the same hope when they’d read that. But Sandy had been with Jeff when he died.
Jeff was gone. Two horses through the trees, not three. And she only had Sandy today, and him unwilling. If only…
‘Flinty?’
Sandy had drawn Bessie close to Empress. For a second she thought she saw the old look there: not just concern, but the sort of love that meant you shared each other’s pain.
The look vanished. He was the new Sandy again, watchful, his face carefully blank. ‘Are you all right?’
‘Yes. The wind stung my eyes, that’s all.’
There was no wind, but he seemed to accept her words. He reached down and undid a saddlebag, then steered Bessie closer so he could pass her a sandwich. ‘Mutton and chutney,’ he said.
‘I brought my own.’ Bread and treacle. Her mouth watered at the thought of Mrs Mack’s chutney.
‘Mum made enough for an army. There’re date scones too. They’ll turn into rocks if we don’t eat them fresh.’
She took the sandwich; ate a scone too, rich with butter and strawberry jam. She licked her fingers, glanced at him, then said carefully, ‘How’s the lambing going?’ It was the most neutral topic she could think of.
‘All right.’
‘Any foxes down your way?’
He shrugged.
‘Heard the dingoes call last night. Joey said at least if they are up our way they’re not at your lambs.’
No answer. He didn’t even look at her. Each offering had seemed to make him sit stiffer in the saddle.
He didn’t want to talk. Either he was still angry that she had manipulated him into helping her pretence, or he was showing her that there was no point trying to re-establish what there’d been between them before.
She pulled Empress back slightly and let Bessie go first between the trees.
Chapter 9
Dear Diary,
When I cry about Jeff these days I feel more the loss of what could have been, than of the brother I grew up with. For years after the war — even before that, while he was still alive in France — I waited for his voice everywhere, from the boys’ bedroom in the morning, from the paddocks in the afternoon, waiting for him to open the kitchen door and throw his hat onto the hat stand — he could land it on the hook by the time he was ten; none of the rest of us could manage it — and yell, ‘What’s for dinner, Mum?’ lifting up the lids and sniffing. Mum said he just inhaled leftovers, the year before he enlisted. Jeff just had to pass through the kitchen and somehow the leftover leg of lamb was just a bone, and the cake tin was empty, and all the crusts had vanished from the bread. Jeff loved crusts. I always gave him mine, and he gave me the centre of his sandwiches.
I still miss him, the boy I knew then. But he’d have vanished, even if he had come home, just like the girl I was has long gone too.
No, what I miss now is what we might have become. I would have smiled and cried at his wedding (to anyone except Amy — I’d had to grit my teeth every time Jeff even danced with her).
He’d have been uncle to my children, and I’d have been aunt to his. Christmases of families together — Jeff gave the worst and best presents ever, like that year he made each of us a penny whistle, and Mum had to hide them in the biscuit tin just to shut the racket up.
Silly, I suppose, to grieve over what might have been. Jeff might have decided to be a butcher and move to Brisbane, and I’d never have seen him again except maybe once or twice for a visit. But he’d never have been a butcher, or moved to Brisbane either, and even if he had it wouldn’t have mattered. He’d have been happy, because Jeff was the sort who always was happy, if he could have been; I’d have known that, and been happy for him too.
Undated, probably late 1920s
She woke to the scent of grilling chops, and bread fried in mutton dripping. It took a moment to realise where she was — in the men’s quarters at Drinkwater Station, four beds to a room, the others empty now. She’d slept in, tired from almost no sleep the night before, having to pack and saddle Empress after Joey and Kirsty were asleep, and ride down the mountain to find Sandy before he left.
She sat up and rubbed her eyes. They’d arrived late last night and been handed plates of bubble and squeak — dinner’s roast mutton, baked potatoes, pumpkin and cabbage all fried together, then cold jam roly-poly, eaten in the strange too-bright ‘electric’ light, the generator muttering in the shed behind. She had been relieved that the men in the room slept in most of their clothes too, only taking off their boots. Best of all, there was a row of dunnies out the back, for privacy.
She felt to make sure that her beanie still covered her plaits, bent to lace her boots, then stepped outside.
There was movement at the station now. Last night’s quiet was over.
All the tried and noted riders from the stations near and far had gathered at the stockyard, between the river and the big main house, shrouded in its dapple of English trees. The word had got around.
It was an extraordinary sight to a girl whose life had been the mountains and the valley, with a few short visits to Gibber’s Creek.
The station stretched around her: paddocks of neatly strained fences; stockyards and sheep runs; some kind of gre
en-leafed crop, strangely bright and uniform, between here and the wide glint of the river; well-built smaller houses, each with their own garden, probably for the farm workers; more than a dozen big sheds apart from the one where she’d slept the night before — haysheds, shearing sheds, what looked like a farm shop; and more she couldn’t identify.
It was more like a town than a farm.
And people. There seemed to be dozens of them: young men with bright scarves, old men with stubble. There were horses tethered to the railings and horses already saddled. She panicked for a second. A thousand pounds wasn’t going to go far divided between all these riders. Then she realised that one knot of men and horses was slightly apart from the others, Sandy among them, with Bessie and Empress already saddled.
Sandy had said you had to be invited to this muster. The others must be there just to see them off — or hoping for a last-minute invitation.
Like her.
But at least Sandy had saddled Empress. Which meant he must have already told the manager he’d brought a friend — unless Sandy expected her to be sent off so firmly she’d want to get on Empress and ride away, fast.
She visited the dunny hurriedly, washed her face and hands in the horse trough, grabbed two chops congealing in grease and a hunk of fresh bread still hot from the morning’s baking, then stepped back into the bustle of the courtyard, tearing at the bread and meat with deliberately bad manners, lengthening her stride, her hat well down over her face.
There was a woman among the men by the stockyards now, next to a man in a tweed jacket and flannel trousers, obviously not intending to ride today. He seemed to be the only person here who didn’t look excited. He almost looked amused. Beside him a small boy in boots and moleskin trousers stood his ground among the adults and horse legs that towered above him.
Flinty stared at the woman curiously. It was hard to tell her age. Her face was half hidden by a big sunhat tied with chiffon under her chin. Flinty had imagined the owner of Drinkwater would wear moleskin trousers, but she wore a dress — the prettiest dress Flinty had ever seen, and out here in the dust of the horse yards too. It was made of what looked like green silk, belted low on her hips, just like the new fashions in the newspapers.
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