Turn Left at Bindi Creek

by Lynne Wilding

  ‘What will we feed them? Spaghetti and meatballs with salad and garlic bread?’

  ‘Yeah,’ they chorused, Luke’s voice the loudest, since that dish was his favourite.

  ‘Can we have cheesecake for dessert?’ Adam asked.

  She smiled at his sophisticated tastes. When she’d been a kid, fruit salad served with ice-cream or cream had been a real treat. ‘Sure, if you and your brother muck out the shed, and Sheridan feeds the chooks.’ She glanced at her daughter, who didn’t seem too enthusiastic. ‘There’s a bucket of scraps on the verandah.’ Her voice held a note of sternness as she added for the twins’ benefit, ‘Uncle Wes won’t be impressed if he sees you not looking after the horse he got for you and Luke, and the other animals. You said you would, you know.’

  ‘Okay, Mum,’ Luke promised. He turned to his twin, who was now four centimetres taller than him and three kilos heavier. ‘Come on, Adam, let’s go do it.’

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  The drive from Sydney to Bindi Creek to bring Jason home from hospital was more pleasant than Brooke had anticipated. For some reason she’d felt nervous because he was still swathed in bandages, but she needn’t have been. Jason seemed happy just to be out of hospital, and who could blame him? He’d been poked, prodded, ordered about, cajoled and encouraged until he hardly knew which way he was going.

  Before his discharge, Brooke had been told what to expect when he was home. Jason was ‘functional’, they’d said. He could look after himself—shower, dress and feed himself—so he shouldn’t be treated like an invalid. She was given several bottles of medication and told he must take them to stay on an even keel mentally, but some tablets were going to stimulate his appetite, so she could expect him to gain weight. And finding his limitations, what he could and couldn’t do, would be a matter of trial and error. Brooke had scoffed at that. What was needed was time and love.

  The sutures on his head had almost disappeared beneath sprouting black and grey hair, as had the multitude of contusions and swelling to his face and neck. And his hand was healing slowly. The plaster cast had been removed, the hand re-X-rayed, then it had been plastered again and would remain so encased for another two weeks, when it would be reassessed.

  The next several weeks were going to be a voyage of discovery for the entire family, and Brooke forced herself to be optimistic that it wouldn’t be as hard as the hospital staff said it might be. No-one really knew how much of Jason’s memory and intellect had been destroyed by the accident—only time would tell them that.

  The first two weeks went by without incident, though Jason showed no interest in going into the surgery, as if he had forgotten that part of his life. He was happy and able to do simple chores around the house, things he had once loathed doing. Making their bed, sorting the washing and bringing in wood for the fire—because the spring weather was still cool and most days the fire burned in the living room till they went to bed—were tasks he now enjoyed with almost childish enthusiasm. Despite his injured hand, he could mow the lawn, weed the front garden and take over caring for the animals and Brooke’s neglected vegetable garden.

  Once Jason had settled in, Wes came and took him to Sindalee for the day. When they returned after dark, Jason was so exhausted he went straight to bed.

  ‘I’ll make us coffee,’ Brooke said as they sat in the living room.

  ‘So, you’re coping okay?’

  ‘At the moment, yes.’

  ‘Fleece and Drew took Jason riding. He sits a horse okay, considering the problem with his hand. That’ll probably come good later on.’

  ‘It may never work as it did before,’ Brooke reminded him, ‘but in a few weeks, with physiotherapy, he’ll have some use of it—more than he has now.’

  ‘How’s he getting on with the kids?’

  Brooke paused. It wasn’t easy to put into words. ‘It’s…different. In some ways he’s like a kid himself. He likes playing games on the computer—hogs it, in fact. And Sheridan, I think she’s being affected the most. He used to play games with her—she’s a great actress, you know. Now, when she gets out her dolls for a make-believe picnic, or crawls into his lap and asks him to read her a story, he’s not as interested as he once was.’

  ‘It’s going to be hard for all of you, getting used to the differences. Doubly so because he looks like the same old Jason.’ He watched her nod her agreement. ‘I guess you have to reduce everything down to the basics, and not have too many expectations.’

  Had he touched her, had they made love? Wes couldn’t help wondering what the answers might be to these unspoken questions. Damn and double damn! He didn’t want to think about that, imagining her in his arms. Just looking at her, wondering, was tearing his guts apart. His mouth tightened. Jesus! A smart man would go and find a woman and screw her until he got the longing for Brooke out of his system. He pushed the thoughts back to his subconscious. He wouldn’t, couldn’t do that. She’d got too deeply under his skin and now he was stuck with the way things were.

  ‘I know,’ said Brooke, continuing on with the conversation. ‘It’s like having to learn to live with a whole new person. I…I miss the old Jason. We had such a good relationship, we could talk about anything and everything.’ She sipped her coffee as she stared reflectively into the half-empty cup. ‘He can be so quiet sometimes, and I wonder what he’s thinking. Oh, I don’t know,’ she said, suddenly impatient with herself. What was she doing? Whinging. She didn’t want to burden Wes with her problems; he’d been a good friend to both of them. ‘Sorry.’ She gave him an apologetic smile. ‘I get a little blue sometimes, when I know I shouldn’t. We still have him with us, even though his progress is slower than I’d anticipated. I’m just thankful he survived the accident as well as he did. I mean, he could have ended up a quadriplegic, or brain dead.’

  Wes grinned at her briefly. ‘Count your blessings, hey?’

  ‘I guess.’

  ‘And Dr John is working out okay?’

  ‘He’s…’ she sought the right words, ‘working very hard, but he’s young and doesn’t have much of a bedside manner, according to several patients.’

  ‘They’ll get used to him,’ Wes said gruffly. He really wanted to ask how she was coping: was she managing emotionally and financially? He knew that he dared not. There were some lines he couldn’t cross, friendship or no friendship. She looked drawn and tired, and he was sure she’d dropped a couple more kilos in weight, but it was better not to verbalise that either. Instead he asked, ‘How’s the naturopathy business going?’

  She groaned. ‘Slowly. I’m picking up the occasional patient, but I’m no competition for John. Yet.’

  ‘I said it would take time.’

  ‘Mmm,’ she said, giving him a droll look. ‘Do you always have to be right?’

  The grin he gave her was maddeningly self-assured. ‘I prefer to be—it makes life easier for me.’ Then he thought of something. ‘Fleece said she’d be happy to babysit for you whenever you need to take Jason to the doctor’s, that sort of thing. She can ride over from Sindalee, sleep over then go back the next morning.’

  ‘That’s kind of Fleece. I’ll probably take her up on it.’

  ‘And if it’s okay with you I’d like to take Jason up to Sindalee once a week for the next few weeks. He likes being there and I’ve got plenty of odd jobs—nothing too onerous—to keep him occupied.’ He watched her think about that proposal for a while. When she was mulling things over she had the habit of fiddling with the back of her hair, a gesture he found curiously endearing.

  ‘Wes, you don’t have to. He seems happy here, and he’s going to have to find things to do so he doesn’t get bored. I can’t, and I can’t have someone else, be with him all the time. I’m going to open the naturopathy room five days a week now, during school hours, to try to generate more business. He can be with me sometimes but he has to learn to cope with being alone.’

  ‘Sure, but until he settles into things, I thought it would help.’ He stood up, p
reparatory to leaving, and loped towards the doorway.

  ‘All right,’ she capitulated with a grateful smile. ‘It would help.’

  There were times when she didn’t know what she would have done without Wes’s support. She and Jason had virtually no family. His brother, Justin, rarely left Kununurra, though she had kept him posted on how his brother was improving, and apart from Jean there were few she felt comfortable in asking for help.

  Sharon Dimarco and Vince Gersbach’s engagement party was the talk of the town. Anyone of any standing was there and Sharon had put on a magnificent display to mark the occasion.

  Driving home, Brooke’s thoughts wandered as the station wagon ate up the kilometres back to Bindi Creek. It had felt strange to attend a function without Jason by her side, but she knew that, until he was better, she had to get used to it. She had decided not to take him with her when the invitation had come because she didn’t want people to stare at him as if he were some kind of oddity. Not that he looked odd—he didn’t, except for the regrowth of hair on his head. It was growing in straight spikes, interspersed with patches of grey that hadn’t been there before.

  She sighed. It was still early days but she was finding Jason’s recuperation more taxing than expected, and utterly time-consuming. The first six weeks there had been slow but encouraging progress. He was interested in the children, in what they did at school. Even so, she couldn’t deny that he was different: quieter, slower in his speech, unable to participate in lively conversations because he couldn’t follow the gist of them. And now his improvement had plateaued.

  He liked to be cuddled and to give her the occasional peck on the cheek, as the children did, but nothing more. There was no lovemaking. Once she had tried to get him aroused, but it had been a dismal failure: he had stared at her as if she were asking him to do something unnatural. She hadn’t had the confidence to try again and had accepted that in that area things might take time, or…maybe that’s how it was going to be from now on.

  The neurologist he was seeing had said not to expect too much too soon. But she did. She was trying so hard, doing everything she could to stimulate mental and physical responses in him. She wanted him whole again, as soon as it could be managed. She needed the old Jason: the helpmate, the friend, as well as the lover and father.

  Brooke had had to decline going to Janice’s wedding because of family and financial pressures. The necessity of this had saddened her, since it had been years since she’d seen her friend. They’d managed a week at Cradle Mountain and then a few days in Launceston when Sheridan was small, but that had been almost five years ago. She had looked forward to seeing her old friend again, and showing off her wonderful family.

  Her foot eased off the accelerator as she blinked back a few tears. That was followed by another longer sigh.

  To get her mind off her problems she made herself recap the engagement party. As usual, with Sharon doing the organising, it had been a glamorous affair, and only the crème of country society had been invited. At forty, Sharon remained a beautiful woman, and she had looked particularly stunning in the strapless ivory evening gown with its sprinkles of diamantés across the bust line and around her slender waist. In a way it had been a double celebration for Sharon because, as well as becoming engaged to Vince, she was telling anyone who’d listen that she had landed a small part in a movie being made in South Australia at the beginning of next year. How she had got the role was hush-hush, but Vince had confided to Brooke and several others that, while staying in Melbourne, she had literally bumped into a producer she had known in Italy and the offer had stemmed from that meeting. Talk about luck!

  Brooke had thought Hugh Thurtell didn’t look well. When he’d given the speech and toasted the newly engaged couple, he had stumbled over words and had seemed unusually breathless. She had mentioned her concern to Wes and he’d agreed that his neighbour seemed to be going downhill. Apparently the old fellow stubbornly refused to have a check-up.

  As she turned off the highway onto the Bindi Creek road, Brooke remembered something else. The looks Sharon had flashed at Wes on and off all evening had been very strange. Sometimes furtive, sometimes almost openly challenging. But why? It made her wonder if Sharon still harboured a yen for Wes. People acquainted with Sharon knew she was a determined woman, that once she’d made her mind up about something she didn’t easily let go. So, had she really reassessed her goals and decided to settle for Vince because she could get him, or did she have another agenda? With Sharon, you could never be quite sure.

  Brooke didn’t bother to stifle her yawn as she turned into the drive and parked in the carport. The car clock showed 12.30 a.m. Jean would be pleased to be relieved of her babysitting duties.

  ‘It’s all right, Dad,’ Sharon said. ‘Vince and I will tidy up.’ She was watching her father shuffle across the living room, occasionally picking up a glass or a plate of half-eaten food. ‘You look exhausted. Why don’t you go to bed.’

  ‘Right, love. I am a bit tired.’ Hugh blew her a kiss, waved to Vince and disappeared down the hallway towards his bedroom.

  ‘Ahh, alone at last,’ Vince whispered in Sharon’s ear as he sat down next to her. ‘It was a great night, wasn’t it, darling?’

  ‘Great?’ Plucked eyebrows lifted, then slowly settled. ‘Yes, I suppose it was.’

  ‘It sure was,’ Vince enthused. ‘You did a terrific job with the organising. Lots of people said so. Bethany said you should do it professionally—not that you need to, of course.’

  Sharon basked in the glow of his compliment for a few seconds. The evening had gone well, that was true enough. Vince had made a great host and was sweet and attentive. A pity she wasn’t madly in love with him, as she pretended to be. Unbeknown to him she had agreed to become engaged to him for one reason only: to see if the engagement had any effect on Wes Sinclair. For a couple of seconds her teeth ground together in vexation. It had not! Damn the man. Wes was smart. Business-wise he knew a good deal when he saw it. Then why in God’s name couldn’t he see that they, that Minta Downs joined to Sindalee, would be the envy of everyone in and outside the district?

  He was still involved with Brooke d’Winters, that’s why. Her hazel eyes narrowed pettishly. The business with Jason—the accident, Brooke being virtually on her own and financially vulnerable—had combined to increase his involvement with the d’Winters family rather than lessen it. Thinking about it made her quite liverish. Brooke only had to crook a finger and he would go straight to her. Christ Almighty, it just wasn’t fair. She’d hoped when she’d heard of Jason’s accident that the d’Winters family would leave Bindi Creek—better still, the district—for good. That wasn’t happening because Wes Sinclair didn’t want it to and he had so much influence. Her lips clamped together with temper. She got so mad when she thought about it.

  ‘Are you going to help clean up, darling?’ Vince encouraged as he pushed himself off the sofa. ‘I’d rather not face it in the morning.’

  ‘I suppose so.’ She stood up and headed for the kitchen. The caterers had left the room in a mess, and she’d be having words with them tomorrow. If they thought she’d pay top dollars for such sloppiness they’d soon learn otherwise. ‘I’ll do the kitchen, Vince, you go through the rest of the house.’

  Timing, she reminded herself, was everything. It had been perfect timing to become engaged to Vince, even though she hadn’t made her mind up whether she would marry him if Wes didn’t shape up. It was smart to have a fall-back position, and that’s what Vince was. Kind, patient, generous Vince; she could wrap him around her finger, no problem at all!

  Unusually for a woman almost totally involved with her own pleasures and satisfaction, her thoughts turned to her father. He wasn’t well; even Wes had commented. It was time to get tough in that regard, too—find out what was wrong with him. She’d make an appointment for him to see that young doctor locuming for the d’Winters. Yes. Soon.

  ‘But I don’t want meatloaf for dinner, I want hamb
urgers and chips,’ Jason said for the third time. He was watching Brooke move about the kitchen, getting things ready for the evening meal.

  ‘We had hamburgers last night, remember,’ she reminded him.

  ‘Yeah,’ he nodded. ‘They were yummy. That’s why I want them tonight. Don’t like meatloaf.’

  He probably didn’t remember what meatloaf tasted like, she thought as she saw his jaw jut out stubbornly. The old Jason had rarely been stubborn, about anything. The old Jason hadn’t cared what he’d had put before him for dinner; he had loved anything and everything.

  She tried to reason with him. ‘We don’t have any buns, and I don’t like to serve the same meal two days in a row. That’s boring for the cook and for those who have to eat it.’

  ‘Not boring.’ He crossed his arms aggressively and stared at her, his blue eyes fixed and unblinking. ‘I like hamburgers. Love hamburgers. Didn’t get hamburgers in hospital.’ He stopped for a moment, then came up with what he thought was the solution to the problem. ‘Why don’t you go and buy more buns?’

  Brooke ran her left hand through her fine hair in consternation. She knew it wasn’t smart to give in to him, that the more she did, the more he would expect her to, as a child would. But she was discovering that when Jason got his mind fixed on something, it was very difficult, almost impossible, to turn him around.

  Last week he had suddenly decided that he wouldn’t shower any more, that he had to have baths instead. It was only a little thing, but when Jason took a bath, half the bath water ended up on the floor. God knows what he did in there, with his plastered hand wrapped in a plastic bag so it wouldn’t get wet. This meant she had to do a major mop-up job before anyone else could use the bathroom.

  And, early one Sunday morning, he had decided out of the blue that he wanted to go to church. It was a remarkable decision because he’d never gone to church in all the years they’d lived at Bindi Creek. So the family had all dressed nicely and trotted off to services at the Anglican Church. Reverend Dupayne had been rendered speechless when he’d seen the d’Winters clan in toto sitting in the second pew.