by JH Fletcher
Up. Up. Until at last, the very air swinging crazily, he dragged himself onto the ridge. With sight failing, dust and death in his mouth, he stared at …
Infinity.
So, he thought. Beyond the last blue ridge everything continues as before. A landscape containing nothing but vastness, isolation and heat, a silent grey shimmer extending to a horizon as still and smooth as the rim of a bowl. The only movement a distant boiling of dust, wind-blown.
It was for this I came, he thought. It was this I wanted to paint, eternity in the last slow dying of the light. He looked again, trying to force his eyes to take in for the last time the flare of red and green and gold that he knew lay there, concealed beneath the grey veil of heat.
Let me see them one more time, he prayed to what might be. Let me taste once more the ecstasy of colour. And waited, in humility and faith. The day drained nightwards. The sun, sinking behind him, caught fire. The colours came, softly, to illuminate the land. The violets and prussian blues. The ultramarine, umber, sienna; all the glory.
Thank you. He did not know whether it was mind or tongue that spoke. Thank you.
He repeated it again and again; the words, like the rebirth of colour, an exultation and singing.
In his mind he painted feverishly, applying each pigment to the canvas in turn, each separated from the rest to give it room to breathe, to expand. The painting became, not a representation of light, but light itself.
The plume of dust hung motionless.
He thought, There is no wind.
He fought to focus haze-dazzled eyes. Failed. A dust-devil, he thought, eating up the motionless plain.
Then doubted. As he watched, it moved again, swinging nearer. Swing low, sweet chariot, comin’ for to carry me home. Come in, then, if you’re coming. Come in, number one. And wondered if he had become mad or was merely dead.
The dust, swirling. The bubbling froth of surf. Colour and form whipped in tumult, coalescing into …
The features of the girl, between him and the horizon, him and emptiness. But fading, fading. On his knees, he reached out desperately to her.
Come to me, my only love. Come to me.
Too late. Fading. Too late. Fading.
Gone.
Cal, bereft, staring at emptiness.
For a moment the haze cleared. At the centre of the dust plume, a white shape moved steadily across the valley from right to left. Legs and arms formed exclamation points as he struggled frantically to feet that danced, feebly, upon the rock. He flung out his arms, was at once blown sideways by the wind of his movement. He tried to cry out, could not. Tried to wave. Could not. His arms fell hopelessly. He slumped; first to his knees, then forward on his face. He lay still.
Upon the valley floor the vehicle, tethered to its plume of dust, drove on.
SEVENTEEN
Stella sat alone in the salty dark, surrounded by the reverberation of the trampling seas. The hours she had spent with Kathryn Fanning had soothed, but now was the time to think, to feel, for anguish to come rushing into the emptiness that echoed in time with the waves.
Strange how that child had been so sure that Cal was still alive. All the odds were against it, yet it was true that people sometimes knew these things. As for Hennie … Stella had no feeling, one way or the other.
I have made no attempt to keep in touch, she told herself. I have lost the knack of communication.
For reasons she could not explain, she felt bereft that it was so, as though an opportunity had offered but now was lost beyond recall.
Again she thought of Kathryn. That child, she had called her. It seemed to her now that in all the ways that mattered Kathryn was older than she was. She wondered why it should be so, feared it might be because Kathryn loved another person whereas she, Stella, had always loved only herself.
She thought rebelliously, If I don’t look after myself …
And paused.
That was it. Of course.
I shall pray no more to find someone I can lean upon. Neither Cal nor Hennie nor any man will be my custodian. I, alone, will make my destiny.
Easily said.
At least try, she told herself.
She went slowly out of the house, crossed the spray-wet galaxies of rocks, followed the spider’s-web path between sea and dreams, ducked her head beneath the capstone, came with trembling breath to the solemn stillness of the shrine.
And looked.
The ferns were withered, the ranks of shells lustreless. She took them all, scraping every particle into her cupped hands, went out awkwardly, cast the remnants into the air. The wind sucked them away. The sea’s pageant rolled on.
‘I am free,’ she cried, weeping.
Free to make a new life, to be lonely.
She turned and went back into the house. I shall be resolute, she told herself, and wiped away tears. Somehow, somehow, I shall live my life.
Marge Fanning came on silent feet. Stood in the doorway. Kathryn lying on her back on the bed in her room. Empty room, empty heart, empty eyes.
‘Telephone, Kathryn.’
She did not move but watched beyond the shadowed ceiling the diminishing figure of the man. Whom now, she had to accept, was lost.
‘Phone, Kathryn.’
She came back. Her eyes focused on her mother’s face.
‘Who is it?’
‘Channel Nine.’
The two women stared at each other.
‘Perhaps it is good news.’
A forlorn offering. From the first Marge Fanning had been opposed to the masculine threat of Cal Jessop, but now was frightened of what might be the consequences for her child if the news was not good.
‘I’d better go and find out.’
Kathryn forced herself upright, swaying. She walked in dread and ashes to the door. Passed through, while her mother, frightened mouth and eyes, gave her space. Reached the phone. Took it up. Held it to her ear.
‘Hullo?’
Her eyes stared blindly at the cool, white-painted wall. Against which memory and hope and grief lay, silent as dust.
‘Yes. This is Kathryn Fanning speaking.’
And stood while a man’s voice quacked softly. Marge watched, trying to out-guess the silence.
‘I’ve heard nothing at all,’ Kathryn said. ‘Not from the police or anyone. Nothing.’
Again the faint, sibilant quacking. Kathryn as still and pale as a statue fashioned in chalk.
‘I see. Thank you. Thank you.’
Replaced the phone. Turned, staring at her mother through a drenching of silent tears.
‘Some scientists from the Observatory at Arkaroola found him in the Gammon Ranges.’ In the air about her Kathryn saw images: all her hopes, all the glory. Her dust-grey lips barely moved. ‘They were going to take observations from one of the peaks in the district and found him there, on the summit.’
Marge held her breath.
Kathryn turned blindly, almost collided with the wall. Was still marooned in that place to which she had retreated during the last days. And again swayed, breathing.
Beyond the window the dark air carried the tang of salt. Kathryn opened her mouth to taste the awareness of a life restored, of light returning after days of darkness.
‘They brought him out,’ she said. ‘He’s alive.’
About JH Fletcher
JH Fletcher is the author of eight romantic historical novels, published to both critical and popular acclaim. The author’s plays for radio and television have been produced by the BBC and the South African Broadcasting Corporation, and many of this author's stories have been published in Australia and throughout the world.
JH Fletcher was educated in the UK and travelled and worked in France, Asia and Africa before emigrating to Australia in 1991. Home is now a house within sound of the sea in a small town on the South Australian coast.
Also by JH Fletcher
View from the Beach
Keepers of the House
Fire in Summe
r
Sun in Splendour
The Cloud Forest
Voice of Destiny
Eagle on the Hill
First published by HarperCollins Publishers Pty Ltd in 2001
This edition published in 2013 by Momentum
Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Ltd
1 Market Street, Sydney 2000
Copyright © JH Fletcher 2001
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
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A CIP record for this book is available at the National Library of Australia
Wings of the Storm
EPUB format: 9781743342442
Mobi format: 9781743342459
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Proofread by Jason Nahrung
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