by Margaret Way
“I am expected?” She tilted her head to look up at him. It was a great feeling.
“Of course you’re expected,” he said.
“How good is that!”
The housekeeper, Dee, early fifties, dressed uniform style in crisp navy and white checked cotton, showed her to her room. Dee was a small, wry, smiling woman with a pretty cap of salt and pepper curls, velvety dark eyes and a copper skin. Amber guessed she was highly efficient. She gave the impression of being a durable sort of woman. A woman one could depend on. From her colouring and a certain lilt in her speech, Amber thought she might also have aboriginal blood in her. Later, she was to find out that it was through Dee’s maternal grandmother.
“I hope you like where I’ve put you, miss,” Dee was saying, turning to gesture to the tall lanky man with a head like a bald tyre who suddenly appeared with Amber’s luggage in hand. This had to be Chips. “Just beside the bed, thanks, Chips.” Chips nodded, giving Amber lots of curious looks, almost as a child would.
“Leave ’em, dear,” Dee continued in a brisk motherly tone. “God bless.”
Chips deposited the luggage where told, then reached out to shake Dee’s hand. “Bless you, Dee. You’re a lovely person.”
Dee took his arm and began to walk him to the door. “You’re a lovely person too.”
“That was Chips,” Dee said when she returned from seeing him off. “If you wondered why I didn’t introduce you, Chips would have plonked himself down on the bed and told you the story of his life. Not a happy one until he arrived on Jingala. He’s a good bloke is Chips. He used to be a stockman, but he took a terrible kick to the head from his horse. Its name was Lazy May, believe it or not, six and more years ago. Since then he’s been a little slow, but talkative if you know what I mean. Once he gets started, it’s hard to get him to stop.”
“But he’s got a good home.”
“We all have.” Dee gave a heartfelt exhalation. “The MacFarlanes have always been revered the length and breadth of the Outback. Cal is the best there is. Now, want me to unpack for you?’
Amber smiled. “Thanks, Dee, but I can manage. I’m sure you’ve got other things to do. And please do call me Amber.”
“Beautiful name for a beautiful woman,” Dee announced, giving Amber’s face and bright mane of hair a worried glance. “You’re gonna have to watch yourself out here, Amber. I’d hate to see you burn. You the redhead an’ all with that lovely skin.”
“I’ll take care,” Amber said. “My colouring isn’t as fragile as it looks.”
Dee laid a hand briefly on Amber’s arm. “I’ll look around for an Akubra,” she said. “Got a whole bunch o’ hats for guests and the like. Lunch in a half hour. Mrs MacFarlane not so good today. So you mightn’t see her. Had a real bad night with the little fella. I’ve given up offering to watch him. We don’t get on so good and I get on with most people. That’s me and the young Mrs MacFarlane, that is. I have to say she’s got herself one difficult little soul. Doesn’t want to be held. Doesn’t even want to eat. Cries all the time, poor little scrap. Mrs MacFarlane is kinda delicate, high-strung, and it’s communicating itself to the little fella, in my opinion. Not that I ever had any kids, I’m sorry to say. Me fiancé, Des, was killed in the big stampede nearly thirty years ago. So that was that! Just thought I’d fill you in. Ya have to know.”
“And I appreciate it, Dee.” From what she had seen of the easy-going Dee, Amber had to wonder just how nerve-ridden Jan MacFarlane was. “Cal did mention about the baby,” she said, finding his first name strange on her tongue. This guy was an Outback prince! “Mrs MacFarlane is suffering post-natal depression?” she asked. “Life must be very harrowing for someone going through such a trauma. So many cases reported lately.”
Dee nodded. “Celebrities coming forward to tell of their experiences.”
“In the hope it might help other young mothers in the same situation. It must ease the burden and anxiety to know you’re not alone. Others suffer and come through.” She had sensed a certain lack of empathy in the Cattle Baron. She didn’t expect it in this nice motherly woman. It could be difficult for a man—especially a man of action blessed with superb health—to properly understand how badly a woman could suffer from PND. But why wasn’t Dee more openly sympathetic? “There isn’t a nanny to help out?” Obviously there was money to burn.
“Two ex-nurses-cum-nannies came and went. Experienced, capable women, especially the second, Martha. Unfortunately, Mrs MacFarlane made them feel bad,” she confided with a hint of grimness. “She’s just come unstuck. Not every woman is a mothering kinda woman. She won’t have any of my girls, my house girls, good girls, look after the little fella. Not good enough. It used to be called racial discrimination.”
“Surely not?” Amber was appalled.
“Beyond reason!” Dee shrugged. “She wouldn’t let me even pick ’im up for a good while until things got too tough and Cal had to step in.”
“But what about her husband?” Amber asked, feeling dismay for mother and child.
Dee gave a sad smile. “Mr Eliot is a lovely man. He adored Miss Caroline, but she died of breast cancer. We didn’t think anyone would ever come along to measure up. But then he met Mrs MacFarlane at a big fund-raiser in Melbourne. She had some job in finance. Worked for a merchant bank. It was a kinda whirlwind affair. Cal didn’t even meet her until the wedding. Small and quiet. I think she thought Mr Eliot would buy a place in Melbourne so they could settle there. They couldn’t have discussed it because Mr Eliot’s heart is here. He’s terribly distressed about it all but he’s kinda useless in this type of situation. And Mrs MacFarlane!” Dee lifted her narrow shoulders. “You’ll see.”
With Dee gone, Amber looked around her, her mind awhirl. So even in Paradise there was trouble. Her accommodation, however, was everything she could have wished and dreamed. She had been given a beautiful room—it was big, bright and airy, with the characteristic Asian elegance and simplicity. The colour scheme was subtle—brown, beige and white with colour coming from silk cushions and the beautiful rugs on the dark polished floor. She sat on the canopy bed, staring upwards. It was very romantic. She tried a few bounces. Lovely! The bed was made of ebony, draped in mosquito netting with a heavy ivory satin flounce to match the flounce on the canopy. The timber floor simply glowed. There was a long antique Asian chest at the foot of the bed, two teak tub chairs and a big comfortable day bed upholstered in white cotton with brown and white scatter cushions. As a touch of whimsy, near the shuttered doors was a wooden camel, honey-gold in colour, about four feet high with topaz glass eyes. She loved it.
She stayed where she was for a few more minutes, soaking everything in, then she rose from the bed to inspect the work-manlike desk and chair in another corner, exquisite ivory lilliums in a glass vase standing on the desk’s surface. She wondered if the desk had been installed especially for her. Directly outside the series of open shutter doors were some densely planted green shrubs of much the same height, she later found out to her astonishment were Camellia sinensis. In other words, tea. She had thought the crop required a tropical environment with high rainfall. The bushes she was looking at appeared to be thriving in a place that rarely saw rain. She wondered if all those soft green shoots were ever plucked. It was all so exotic, so wildly incongruous, she couldn’t wait to begin her desert adventure. Her image of the charming, debonair Sean, who had so badly let her down, was fading daily under this battery of change and excitement.
The thought struck her that she was good with children. Maybe in some way she could help out? A problem existed. Another thought popped up. Could that have anything to do with the Cattle Baron inviting her to stay? Was she to fill the post of nurse-nanny? Was it too churlish to wonder? Two nannies had come and gone. Was she Nanny Number three?
Don’t be ridiculous, girl. She chided herself for the thought. The invitation had nothing whatsoever to do with the current crisis.
Could it? she see-sawed. Why he hadn’t eve
n asked her if she was good with kids? A fit person in every sense of the word. She was being plain silly. And cynical. It wasn’t the Cattle Baron’s crisis anyway. Little Marcus’s mother and father had to address their own problems. Help was available. Favourable results were on record.
She headed to the stylish en-suite bathroom, which was stocked with everything she could possibly want for the foreseeable future, to take a quick shower to freshen up after the long trip. The Cattle Baron had promised to show her around as much as he could of the vast station.
Vive Le Cattle Baron!
She was hardly out of her room in the east wing on her way downstairs to the living area when she heard raised voices much further down the wide corridor. The polished floor was partially covered with a jewel-toned Persian runner which muted her footsteps. Correction: she heard one raised voice—a woman’s, head-splittingly emotional, and the low rumble of a man’s. What to do? Pop back into her room? For the life of her she couldn’t move…
“Jan, please…” The male voice, closer this time, was full of anguish and pleading.
Better to go forward than backwards. Amber pinched herself and moved on.
“I swear to God I’m going crazy! I don’t know what to do. I never thought it would be like this. I wish I’d never married you. I wish you’d never talked me into having a baby. I only did it to please you. I hated being pregnant, big and bulging, my figure ruined, my breasts turned to marshmallow. I don’t want babies. I don’t want this one. It’s not normal. All it can do is cry.”
A door must have opened because now Amber could hear a baby screaming. She winced. It had to be filling its little lungs with painful pockets of air. The sound was heartbreaking and, she had to admit, very hard on the nerves.
The low rumble again in response. The next moment a tall, spare man with a gentlemanly elegant air stepped into the corridor. Frozen in place, Amber met his deeply troubled eyes. They were bright blue in his tanned face. Though the colour of the eyes was different, she could see the strong family resemblance between Eliot MacFarlane and his nephew.
It was a bad moment. “I’m so sorry,” Amber found herself apologizing. “I’m Amber Wyatt, Mr MacFarlane. Cal invited me to stay. I was just on my way down to lunch.” She hastened to move on, not wanting to embarrass him further, but his wife, looking more like his daughter, and holding a screaming baby, made a rush through the open doorway at him, leaving Amber fearing she was going to throw him the distressed little bundle.
“That’s right! Go and leave me,” she shouted with a kind of withering contempt. “Go on. That’s all you’re good for, Eliot. Shut me out.”
Eliot MacFarlane didn’t answer. He looked unbearably embarrassed. It was then that his wife spotted the agonised Amber. “Who the devil are you?” she demanded in a tone of voice one wouldn’t use with a masked intruder.
“For goodness’ sake, Jan, this is Ms Wyatt, Cal’s house guest,” Eliot MacFarlane broke in, sounding seriously horrified.
“Right!” Jan MacFarlane’s acknowledging laugh had nothing to do with good humour. “You haven’t struck us at a good moment, Ms Wyatt, as you can see. You married?”
“No.” Amber shook her head. She had arranged her hair in little side plaits, with a thick plait to hang down her back.
“It’s not what it’s cracked up to be.” Jan MacFarlane spoke bitterly, still studying Amber in detail. “I’m not myself any more.”
Amber was trying hard to imagine what “myself” was like. Janis MacFarlane was good-looking, as the Cattle Baron had told her, but devoid of any hint of softness or warmth. She had long dark hair, huge dark brown eyes that dominated a fine-boned face. Thin enough to be anorexic.
“Would you like me to take the baby for a moment, Mrs MacFarlane?” Amber offered. The poor little scrap was scarlet in the face, little arms clawing the air. He was clearly deeply distressed. That really smote Amber’s tender heart.
“Sure. Take him. But to where?” That bitter laugh again. “I’d say he comes from hell.”
“That’s unforgivable, Jan,” Eliot MacFarlane protested, looking utterly mortified. He let his hand rest lightly on his little son’s head.
Amber reached them in a flash. Janis MacFarlane was a teenie bit scary, maybe self-obsessed. “Here, give him to me, Mrs MacFarlane. Dee told me you’d had a bad night. You should rest.” Gripped by compassion, she took the little bundle that was all but thrust at her. Marcus MacFarlane’s tiny face was all bunched up, flushed scarlet with the effects of exertion.
“Hey, little fellow. You’re in some distress, aren’t you? Hey, little Marcus?” she began to croon, hoping the gentleness in her voice would take effect. She had soothed friends’ babies plenty of times but this little fellow’s cries had a different ring. She began to walk, putting the baby very gently over her shoulder, holding him firmly and rubbing his tiny back. “You must stop crying now, little man. Everything is going to be just fine. Stop crying now, Marcus.” She rubbed and patted as she spoke. “You’ll see.”
Busy calming the baby with her back to the others, she didn’t see Cal MacFarlane stride up the staircase, his body language tense. He was quickly followed up by Dee, kneading an apron.
“Well, I never!” Dee exclaimed, eyeing the spectacle of nurturing woman and child. “The little guy likes you, Amber,” she said with relief, studying the pinched little face inclined over Amber’s shoulder. They had heard the baby’s crying. It had gone on more or less non-stop for months. Now, incredibly, the crying had turned off like a tap and the baby was making a grab for Amber’s red-gold and copper plait.
“For two minutes, I’d say!” Incredibly, Jan MacFarlane sounded so furious with Amber’s success she might have been jealous.
The Cattle Baron sloughed a heavy sigh. “Lovely! We came to collect you for lunch, Amber.”
“And I’ll be there. I’m hungry.” Amber resettled the baby in her arms, enormously glad the little fellow had settled, if only for the time being. The angry red was leaving his small face, leaving isolated blotches that looked so pathetic that tears sprang into her eyes. Marcus at this stage didn’t appear to have inherited his parents’ good looks, but he was staring up at Amber as if to say, This is the way I want to be held.
“Maybe Marcus can come with us?” she suggested, meeting the Cattle Baron’s ultra-cool eyes. She was wary of putting Marcus down, even warier of handing him back to his mother. “He seems to have settled now. He can lie beside us while we eat?” She waited for approval, in the next breath realizing she should have looked to the baby’s parents.
“Well, we can give it a try.” Cal was as surprised and grateful as Dee. “You’re joining us?” He looked to his uncle.
“You go, Eliot.” Janis MacFarlane all but spat the words, as though she would be better off without him. “Ms Wyatt is right. I need to rest.”
“See you soon,” Cal MacFarlane said smoothly, but with a saturnine edge to his voice.
A fearful worry from birth, little Marcus, to all appearances, was thoroughly intrigued by the new woman in his life, especially her warming, glowing red hair. He lay on the floor beside Amber in his bouncinette, which she kept rocking from time to time with a little movement of her foot.
This is nothing short of a miracle, Cal was thinking. It was clear the beautiful Ms Wyatt loved babies and babies loved her. Maybe the gentleness of her manner, the soft crooning voice—she had a lovely voice, which would have worked well for her on television—and the beauty of her person was central to the big turnaround. He could see his uncle was so grateful he had tears in his eyes. Like little Marc, Eliot had taken a shine to their guest. The real tragedy was that Jan wasn’t trying an inch. She was tremendously self-involved. In his judgement, it was part of her character. So when did the baby blues end and this post-natal depression begin? As a condition, it was a curse. But did every sufferer set out to be nasty to everyone they came in contact with? Was Jan by nature nasty? Cal didn’t think nastiness was specific to the condi
tion they kept going on about. He was no expert on such matters, but he knew Jan had held down a very good job in the world of finance before her marriage—she was highly intelligent—but directly after the civil ceremony she had begun acting as if she had married into royalty. How Eliot had never spotted her social ambitions during their all too brief courtship he didn’t know. Not that he was any expert either at spotting the flaws in women. Brooke was trying pretty hard to make a comeback. No chance!
“Just a moment of madness, darling. I was so lonely without you and Chris was there. Love had nothing to do with it. It was just sex, which was pretty damned ordinary. Nothing like you and me.”
Talk about an excuse! At least Brooke had her own money, the only daughter of a fellow station owner. Jan had expected that she and Eliot would settle down in Melbourne, where she could swan around enjoying Eliot’s not inconsiderable fortune. The honeymoon had lasted six months of luxurious world travel, but he knew how much his uncle had missed Jingala. He was a MacFarlane. It was in his blood.
Lunch consisted of a delicious tomato and goat’s cheese tart with wonderful flaky puff pastry, and a beautifully crisp green salad with just the right dressing. It went down well. Baby Marcus remained calm and at peace as though all he ever needed was to be with people, having his bouncinette gently rocked. With coffee Dee, aided by her well-trained, part-aboriginal helper, Mina, a gentle, pretty young girl aged around sixteen, served another delectable tart, nectarine this time, oozing fruit, with a scoop of ice cream. Normally Amber didn’t do sweets for lunch but this time she made an exception.
“So what now?” Cal asked, readying himself for just about anything. Ms Wyatt might very well elect to bring the baby on their tour of the station. Talk about a woman who used her own initiative!
Unaware of his wry admiration Amber looked down at the baby in the bouncinette, a considering expression on her face. “I think our little Marcus might sleep. Look, his breathing is giving way to a nice easy rhythm. Isn’t that lovely? I wouldn’t even take him out of the bouncinette. What do you think, Dee?”
