Rain Stones 25th Anniversary Edition

by Jackie French

  Harry clambered into the seat. The rough bark of the branch scratched him as he hauled himself up. Then he was flying, held in the cane chair, out of the shadow into daylight. The hot air rushed past his face. Back to the tree trunk. He tried to push, but his legs were unsure. One of them missed the trunk. He could see the girl’s face in the branches above him.

  ‘Grab the branch!’ she yelled, hauling at the chain.

  Harry grabbed. The branch was rough under his hands. The swing dropped beneath him. He hauled himself slowly up the branch. It was broad and gnarled. Bits of bark flaked off as he wrapped his legs around it.

  ‘Coming?’ yelled the girl to Anne, below.

  Anne nodded. She pushed harder than Harry as she jumped off the branch. She swirled beneath them. Back to the tree, another push and suddenly she was up there too, rocking slightly as she tried to balance on the branch. The swing swung down below them.

  The girl looked impressed. ‘You’re the first person who’s ever done that first go,’ she informed Anne.

  ‘I like trees,’ said Anne. ‘I used to have a rope in a tree at home. Before we came down here. I did gymnastics at school too.’

  ‘What’s gymnastics? Is it like eurhythmics?’

  Anne stared. ‘Don’t you have gymnastics at school?’

  ‘I don’t go to school,’ said the girl. She chewed a plait thoughtfully. ‘My parents won’t let me go. I’ve got a governess. Miss Kittenwhite. She’s asleep though. She sleeps every afternoon. I’m supposed to sleep too, but I don’t. It’s the only time I’ve got to really do anything. You want to climb higher?’

  ‘Sure,’ said Harry, anxious to show that not only Anne knew about trees.

  ‘I’ll show you the way. You’ve got to get closer to the trunk to get very far. It’s just like a ladder if you take it properly.’

  She half knelt on the branch and inched towards the trunk, her feet on each edge of the branch, using her hands like a chimpanzee. Harry edged along on his bottom. Anne came cautiously after him.

  The girl was standing now. ‘Watch where I go,’ she said. ‘Put your feet where I do.’

  Up to the next branch, halfway round the tree from the first, up to the next. The branches were smaller now, but still thick. The wind tugged the leaves, dark green against the blue sky, like a roof above them. The shadows danced on the patchy grass below them.

  ‘My grandmother planted this tree,’ said the girl. ‘Eighty years ago.’

  ‘Our grandmother lives here,’ said Anne. ‘Is she yours too? That means we’re cousins.’

  The girl looked puzzled. ‘I didn’t think I had any cousins,’ she said. ‘No one’s ever said anything about them.’

  ‘You live here, don’t you?’

  ‘Of course.’

  Anne shrugged. ‘Then you have to be our cousin. Maybe no one told you about us because we lived in Darwin. It was too far to come down for Christmas or anything. We’ve only been back down south for two weeks. You must be Lauren or Katy.’

  The girl shook her head firmly. ‘I’m Dorothy Penelope,’ she said. ‘Dorothy Penelope Bridges Macpherson.’

  ‘Are you sure you live here?’ demanded Harry.

  ‘Of course I’m sure,’ said Dorothy Penelope.

  Harry shrugged, and caught Anne’s eye. It was crazy to stand in a tree arguing. They’d work it out down on the ground.

  ‘It’s cooler up here,’ said Anne.

  ‘It’s always cooler,’ said Dorothy Penelope. ‘You can breathe up here. The air’s always moving when you get closer to the sky. I bet if we could climb right into the sky it’d be blowing a gale. Maybe it’d blow us right across the sea to China.’ She looked at the next branch then looked doubtfully back at Anne and Harry. ‘I don’t think we can all go up any more,’ she said. ‘It wouldn’t hold all of us. We can go further out on this one if you like. You can see more out there.’

  She clambered onto all fours once again and began to feel her way along the branch.

  ‘Do you think it’ll hold us?’ worried Harry.

  ‘Of course,’ said Dorothy Penelope. ‘It’ll bend a bit, that’s all. Come on.’

  Harry looked unsure. Anne edged past him, out towards Dorothy Penelope. Harry followed cautiously. The branch creaked beneath him, bending down till the leaves touched the one below.

  ‘Hey, do you think this is safe?’ he called.

  ‘Come on!’ yelled Dorothy Penelope. ‘You can’t see anything there. What’s the use of being up a tree if you can’t see the sky?’

  Harry edged along again. The branch bent further then was still. He reached the two girls. The three of them sat on the bending branch with their legs swinging down.

  ‘Oh wow!’ exclaimed Harry.

  They were above the garden, above the house, above the world. He could see the brown hills, the trees like Lego pieces, round and green against the freckled grass. A mob of horses drowsed in the heat beneath a far tree.

  ‘You can see for miles,’ he breathed.

  Dorothy Penelope nodded. She was gazing far into the distance.

  ‘I come here every afternoon,’ she said. ‘Sometimes I go a branch higher but you don’t see much more up there. Sometimes it’s windy and the whole tree moves and I feel like I’m flying with the wind. Once a wedge-tailed eagle came right down and looked at me. Maybe it thought I was a bird too. I’d like to be a bird,’ she said, lifting her face to the breeze.

  ‘I can see the pond,’ said Anne. ‘Hey, I didn’t realise there were so many waterlilies in it. We must have missed them. You see things better from up here.’

  ‘What’s that pink stuff?’ demanded Harry. ‘Out by the gate. I didn’t notice that coming in.’

  ‘They’re roses,’ said Dorothy Penelope. ‘It’s a Dorothy Perkins rose. After me. Ronald Simpson, he used to be our gardener, he planted it for me on my fifth birthday. He said it’s a rambler. Just like me,’ she laughed. ‘It always flowers round this time. They’re only tiny but there are always lots of them. They don’t smell much though. It just gets bigger every year. It’s all over the gate and most of the front fence now. My father says we’ll need brush hooks to get through it in a couple of years.’

  ‘It looks like a great big pink carpet from here,’ said Anne.

  ‘They’re prickly when you get into them,’ said Dorothy Penelope. ‘It’s hard to get close enough even to pick a bunch.’

  ‘Hey!’ said Harry. ‘I can’t see our car.’

  Anne craned. ‘It must be round the other side of the house,’ she said. ‘Dad must have moved it.’

  ‘We’ve got a car,’ said Dorothy Penelope proudly. ‘It’s a Ford. What sort’s yours?’

  ‘It’s a Honda,’ said Harry.

  ‘I’ve never heard of Hondas,’ said Dorothy Penelope. ‘I’m not much good at cars. I’m better at aeroplanes. Ansons, Cessnas, Tiger Moths. One day I’m going to fly in an aeroplane.’

  ‘We already have,’ announced Anne. ‘We came back from Darwin in one.’

  Dorothy Penelope turned to her eagerly. ‘Did you really?’ she breathed. ‘A real aeroplane? All the way from Darwin?’

  ‘Sure.’ Harry shrugged. ‘It was no big deal. We’ve flown to Bali too, and Tasmania for the holidays before we went up to Darwin, but I don’t remember much about that.’

  Dorothy Penelope gazed at him. ‘I don’t believe you,’ she said flatly. ‘No kids get to fly as much as that.’

  ‘We did too,’ insisted Harry.

  ‘What sort of craft was it then?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Harry. ‘A 707 or something, I suppose.’

  Dorothy Penelope snorted. ‘There’s no such aeroplane,’ she informed him. ‘You’re making it all up.’

  ‘I am not too.’

  ‘Don’t quarrel,’ ordered Anne dreamily. ‘It’s too nice up here to quarrel. Let’s just look at the sky.’

  Dorothy Penelope craned her head. ‘Cirrus, stratus, cumulo nimbus,’ she chanted. ‘Those are cirrus clouds on
the horizon. I know all the clouds. Sometimes they seem like friends up there. The big grey nimbus are just like Uncle Reg, I bet, all laughing and indigestion after dinner. The cirrus are just like Mrs Amberly at church with her scarves and forgetting things. I bet the cirrus clouds never remember their grammar books or the fingering on the piano or French declensions or any silly things like that. They just know flying and wisping round the world.’

  A shadow flickered across them. A currawong. It gazed down at their faces, then passed to another tree, perched, and began to sing.

  ‘Look!’ cried Dorothy Penelope. Anne and Harry looked. A black line was drifting across the sky, slowly sailing across the hills.

  ‘It’s the wedge-tail,’ said Dorothy Penelope reverently. ‘The wedge-tailed eagle.’

  ‘It looks big,’ said Anne.

  ‘It’s the biggest bird we’ve got,’ said Dorothy Penelope proudly.

  ‘What do they eat?’

  ‘Oh, rabbits and things. Foxes. Sometimes dead lambs, or sick ones. They swim through the sky and look right down to the earth and if they see something they want they land, oomph, just like that, feet first, and grab it.’

  ‘I’ve seen sea eagles,’ said Anne, ‘down at the beach. Not up close though.’

  ‘Have you ever watched the way they fly?’ asked Dorothy Penelope dreamily. ‘They don’t, mostly. They just glide. Glide on the hot air without moving their wings and let it lift them. When they want to move they just twist their wings and let the thermal carry them. I’ve watched them sit for half an hour without moving, just balanced up in the sky. Sometimes they circle the hills for hours without flapping. You can learn a lot by watching eagles.’

  Another shadow crossed them.

  ‘Was that another eagle?’ asked Anne.

  Dorothy Penelope laughed. ‘No. That’s a crow. They’re too heavy, crows. They just flap from tree to tree. All birds fly in different ways. Fantails dart around and swallows swoop and blue wrens flap and dart. One day I’d like to build an aircraft that’d fly in all the different ways there are.’

  ‘What bird would you like to be best?’ asked Anne.

  ‘An eagle,’ said Dorothy Penelope dreamily. ‘I’d be an eagle. I’d watch the ground, like a coloured map below me, then I’d turn and drift into the horizon. I’d float on the air and let it carry me away and when I wanted to I’d soar.’

  ‘I’d rather be a lyrebird,’ said Anne, ‘and sing.’

  ‘I’d rather be a horse than a bird,’ said Harry.

  ‘I’m going to fly one day,’ whispered Dorothy Penelope. ‘I’m going to fly like a wedge-tail, fly like the clouds. I’m going to fly like Amy Johnson.’

  ‘Who’s Amy Johnson?’

  ‘Haven’t you ever heard of Amy Johnson? She’s the first woman ever to fly to Australia.’

  ‘Is she still alive?’

  ‘Of course she’s still alive!’ snorted Dorothy Penelope. Another currawong began to call beyond the garden. ‘I tried to fly once,’ she admitted, ‘when I was little. I took my mother’s silk dressing gown and made it into wings and I tried to fly from the mulberry tree.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘I fell down of course,’ said Dorothy Penelope. ‘I didn’t know about aircraft then. I only knew about birds. I got bread and milk for dinner for a week after that, for taking the dressing gown. My parents just laugh when I say I’m going to fly. They say women can’t fly aeroplanes, that women like Amy Johnson are just freaks.’

  ‘Of course they can fly,’ said Anne. ‘I’ve flown.’

  ‘Have you really? Truly? You’re not pulling my leg?’

  ‘Of course not.’

  ‘What’s it like?’ pleaded Dorothy Penelope.

  Anne considered. ‘It’s not like a bird,’ she admitted. ‘You’re inside.’

  ‘But you can see?’ cried Dorothy Penelope. ‘You must be able to see the world!’

  Anne nodded slowly. ‘It was like that going to Bali,’ she said. ‘All the little islands and the glow of the sand and the colour of the sea. It’s different from when you’re down there.’

  ‘And the sun above you and the birds sailing by your hair and when you turn the world curves with you,’ breathed Dorothy Penelope. She blinked at Anne and Harry as though seeing them for the first time. ‘If you can fly, so can I, no matter what my parents say.’

  Someone below called. ‘Anne! Harry!’

  ‘That’s Dad,’ said Anne. ‘We’d better get down. Maybe Grandma wants to see us. Are you coming, Dorothy?’

  Dorothy Penelope shook her head. ‘Miss Kittenwhite will have woken up by now. If I appear she’ll want me to practise my music or sketch a stupid flower or something. Hey, you won’t say you’ve seen me, will you?’

  ‘We promise,’ said Harry. ‘We might see you later, then.’

  ‘You might,’ said Dorothy Penelope.

  They clambered down the tree. It was hotter at ground level. The air was still. Even the shadows seemed to sink into the ground with the weight of the sun.

  ‘Bye!’ called Anne. There was no answer. They craned their necks but there was no sign of a white pinafore among the branches.

  ‘She’s probably lost in the clouds again,’ said Harry, ‘pretending to be a currawong or something.’

  ‘She’s nice,’ said Anne.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Harry. ‘Weird though. All that about flying. You’d think she’d never seen a proper plane before.’

  ‘Maybe she hasn’t,’ said Anne. ‘Maybe she’s never been to the city.’

  ‘Huh,’ said Harry. ‘She must have seen TV or something.’

  They climbed up to the verandah. Their father was waiting for them. ‘I think we’re about ready to leave,’ he said. ‘Do you want to go in and say goodbye?’

  ‘Will she know us now?’ asked Harry.

  Their father shook his head. ‘I don’t think so, son,’ he said. ‘She seems a long way away today. In you go. Your mother’s still there.’

  The room still smelt of roses and old lady. Their mother stood up as they came in. ‘We have to go now, Mum,’ she said. ‘Here’re Anne and Harry to say goodbye.’

  The old lady looked up. Her eyes were as blue as the sky. For the first time she seemed to see the children. She blinked. She began to fumble with a brooch at her breast. She held it out to her daughter.

  ‘For the children,’ she said. She met their eyes. There was one flash of recognition. Then the look faded. She glanced up at her daughter and mumbled something.

  ‘What is it, Mum? I didn’t hear you.’

  ‘I can’t stand it here any more,’ said the old woman. Then her face was blank again. She looked out the window.

  Their mother was crying, the brooch crushed in her hand. Anne took her other hand. Their father put his arm around her shoulders and led them out. Harry followed behind, wondering how to comfort her. He stopped at the door and looked back at the old woman. There was something familiar about the way she stared out the window at the sky.

  Aunty Alice met them in the living room. ‘Will you have a cuppa before you head off?’

  Their mother shook her head. ‘It’s a long way back.’ She hesitated, then held out the brooch. ‘She gave me this,’ she said, ‘for the children.’

  Anne and Harry leant over to look. The brooch was a pair of wings, black and gold.

  ‘Her ATA wings!’ said Aunty Alice. ‘She always wears them. She can’t dress herself any more but she always remembers those.’

  ‘You’d better take them back,’ said their mother. ‘She might want them tomorrow.’

  Aunty Alice considered. ‘Keep them,’ she said. ‘She might just remember she gave them to you and be upset if she sees them again. Maybe she really did want the children to have them.’

  They said goodbye to Aunty Alice quickly.

  ‘We’ll be out again next month,’ said their father. ‘You’ll let us know won’t you . . .’

  ‘Of course,’ said Aunty Alice. ‘There’s hardl
y ever any change though. Not now.’

  They sat in the car. Their mother was still crying. ‘If only you’d known her as she was,’ she repeated. ‘If only you’d known her as she was.’

  ‘I remember her a bit before we left,’ said Anne. ‘She used to give me piggybacks. I remember her taking me out one night and telling me about the stars. I was too young to understand.’

  ‘She knew all about the stars,’ said their father. ‘She learnt to navigate by them before the war.’

  ‘Which war?’ asked Harry.

  Their mother crumpled up her hanky and put it back in her bag. ‘The Second World War. I thought I told you. She was a pilot in the Second World War. That’s how she met your grandfather.’

  ‘I didn’t know there were women pilots,’ said Anne.

  ‘She was in the ATA — the Air Transport Auxiliary. That was in England. They ferried planes from one place to another for the RAAF.’

  ‘How did she learn to fly?’

  Their mother smiled. ‘I thought I’d told you that story. Don’t you remember? There was a pilot who flew down to the local racecourse for demonstration flights when she was, oh, about fifteen. She went up of course and asked him home and said she’d pay for three weeks of lessons. He could live with them while she learnt. She just turned up with him that afternoon.’

  ‘What happened?’ asked Harry.

  ‘Your great-grandfather had a fit, but there was nothing he could do. She was determined. I suppose she was spoilt, as the only child.

  ‘So he paid for the lessons. Then he died a year later and she helped run the property. She had enough money then to buy her own plane. She used to fly in all the races. She flew all over the Pacific islands at one time. I’ve got cuttings about her somewhere. She even flew to England. That was in a competition, sponsored by a newspaper, the Daily Mail. She worked as an instructor in a flying school, the only woman one they had. Then war broke out, and she joined the ATA.’

  ‘Did she ever take you flying?’ asked Anne.

  ‘When I was little. She used to tell me and Uncle Ron stories too, every night when we went to bed. About landing on an island when one of her struts broke and there were only palm trees but someone carved her one. It took three weeks. About the time a storm forced her down in the desert and it was too sandy to take off and she had to get camels to pull her plane out. There were dozens of stories. She made you think you were up there with her and the clouds were just a carpet below you, that the world was an apple you could roll over in your hands and look at as you liked.’