It was time she did.
And Sam?
She found a writing pad, a pen, tried to think, and then just simply wrote.
Dear Sam,
I am so glad you have found people to share your dreams up at Tuntable Falls. It must be wonderful.
I’m really writing this to say what I should have said before you left, even though by now you might have found someone much less prickly and scared than I am.
I miss you. I’m scared of marriage or, rather, I’m scared of failing at marriage, but only because it might mean that I would hurt you. You are the only person I can imagine sharing my life with forever. Being with you made me happy and a million other good things. I miss that, and I miss you, and I miss us.
Love, always,
Jed
Chapter 56
Gibber’s Creek Gazette, 25 May 1974
New Wing for Gibber’s Creek Hospital
Local MP, Nicholas Brewster, today announced a grant of $250,000 for a new nursing home wing for the desperately overcrowded Gibber’s Creek Hospital, as well as a community health centre. Gibber’s Creek Hospital was constructed in 1912, and has not been added to since.
According to Dr Joseph McAlpine, chair of the Gibber’s Creek Hospital Board: ‘Our hospital and the needs of those in Gibber’s Creek who need medical help have been ignored by Canberra for too long. The new wing will mean no more beds crammed into wards and along the corridors, with no privacy or even room for wheelchairs between them. Gibber’s Creek will finally have a doctor’s surgery designed and built for that purpose — hygienic, with accessible toilets and a soundproof waiting room, instead of making do with shop fronts.’
The grant has been made through the new scheme, which allocated $120 million to the construction of community health centres, as well as for services such as community nurses, women’s refuges, rehabilitation teams and services for geriatric patients.
Additional funding has been made available to state governments to provide alcohol and drug rehabilitation services and mental health services.
LEAFSONG
The Closed sign hung on the Blue Belle’s door, which meant Leafsong would lose the afternoon tea trade. But that was what you did for friends. Especially your only friend.
A friend made tea, in a mug, not a cup, because Scarlett’s hands were shaking slightly and a cup would rattle on the saucer. Scarlett was rattled enough. A friend provided scones, warmed quickly in the oven, because scones were familiar and warm and reassuring. You didn’t have to think ‘Do I like this?’ with scones, or even ‘This is delicious.’ Scones were simply scones; carbohydrates comforted.
A friend hauled out their only tiny jar of home-made raspberry jam, because the raspberry crop had been small that year, so Scarlett would know that offering her raspberry jam was a way to say, ‘I love you.’
And of course a friend listened.
‘She thinks I’m still ten years old!’ Scarlett took a trembling bite of scone. ‘It’s because I still LOOK ten years old. Elf-like.’ She spat out the word. ‘Everyone thinks an elf needs taking care of. A wizened little ugly elf. Even Mark.’
No, thought Leafsong. Mark believes elves are beautiful. Delicate. Fragile. Every time Mark looked at Scarlett, Leafsong could see his pride in being with someone who needed his care.
And when Mark saw her? Lumpen, misshapen, the eyes, the nose, the mouth just slightly wrong. At least Mark did look at her, though never as a woman.
A year earlier she had thought all she wanted was for people to truly see her, not turn their eyes away. The café had done that for her, given her a community of regulars, people who so loved her lemon tarts they smiled at the woman who made them. Once you had shared a smile, you no longer saw the monster, only the friend.
It wasn’t enough. But just now she had a friend to comfort.
‘Thank you for phoning Jed,’ said Scarlett after the last mouthful of scone. ‘I know I should be grateful to her. I AM grateful to her. But I’ve been grateful all my life. I’m so tired of being grateful. Tired of being looked after. I thought for the first time in my life I could make some choices of my own. Five years ago I couldn’t even choose when I went to the toilet . . .’
Boadicea drew up outside, with a slight screech of brakes. Jed entered tentatively, dressed in what Leafsong decided was armour, a long-sleeved, high-necked, low-waisted yellow brocade shift that somehow didn’t look incongruous with yellow thongs.
She sat at the table. ‘I’m so sorry, Scarlett.’
It was the first time Leafsong had ever heard Jed use Scarlett’s real name. She relaxed and moved into the kitchen, where she could still hear everything but give them the illusion of privacy.
Scarlett nodded her acceptance, as if it were her due. Leafsong saw Jed wait for Scarlett to apologise as well; saw the moment Jed accepted it was not going to happen, saw her fear that if she didn’t placate her adopted sister, she might lose her. ‘I’d never stop your allowance,’ Jed said quickly. ‘Or use money to make you do what I want. Whatever you need, it’s there forever.’
Exactly the wrong thing to say, thought Leafsong, chopping parsley to make it seem like she wasn’t listening as Scarlett considered Jed’s words. But also impossible to object to. And Scarlett should have apologised. Because Jed was right. Ra Zacharia was dangerous, though even if she’d had words, she couldn’t have explained why. But she should also have apologised because that’s what sisters did, when they fought. You apologised to each other, even if you’d been in the right, because you were apologising for the hurt your anger had caused too.
Neither Jed nor Scarlett had any experience at being sisters, especially when the older sister’s job was to replace a mother too. Leafsong knew how hard it had been for Carol to accept that their mother had thrust her role onto her older daughter. She also knew how difficult it still was for Carol to relinquish that role, to help her create this café but to stand back while she made choices about it.
Perhaps it was time to say ‘thank you’ again. With eggplant parmigiana tonight, maybe, which Carol adored and she hated, and which took time and mess to create . . .
‘Thank you,’ said Scarlett tightly, at last.
‘I’m just worried for you. I’ve seen a different part of the world from you. The part where people are out for what they can get and will hurt you if it benefits themselves.’
‘Mark isn’t like that.’
‘Are you sure?’ asked Jed gently.
‘Mark needs me.’ Leafsong noted that Scarlett didn’t say why. She had obviously not told Jed about Mark’s recent seizure, nor about his sobbing confession that acolytes were leaving the Chosen. Scarlett was loyal to her friends.
‘Scarlett, Ra Zacharia is no longer trying to recruit people. He hasn’t for years. Except for you. And that worries me.’
‘I know he isn’t recruiting more people. Mark told me that the community can’t support more people and keep its focus. Ra Zacharia isn’t trying to recruit me either. He only offered to help me because Mark likes me. Wants me to be able to walk.’
Leafsong ached for her. Because the one thing Mark 23 did not want was for Scarlett to walk. He had known her for over a year, and had never mentioned it again, and not because Ra Zacharia had forbidden him to. If you truly loved someone, you’d give them their deepest wish, no matter what your guru ruled.
How could Scarlett fail to see that Mark loved her vulnerability?
‘Scarlett,’ Jed spoke carefully. ‘How much do you know about the Chosen of the Universe? More than you’ve told me?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I have a right to a life of my own too! Do you tell me everything Matilda tells you?’
‘No,’ said Jed.
‘Why not?’
Jed hesitated. ‘Because some of it might bore you. And you need permission to tell people some things, and I don’t know enough to do that yet.’
‘That’s probably true. But what’s the
whole truth?’
Truth hurt. And Jed knew it. Which was one reason why Leafsong had chosen silence. ‘You know why. Because it’s linked to places you can’t get to. I’m sorry. I really am. Scarlett, can you tell me what you do know about the Chosen of the Universe? Please? Just anything I should know. Because I love you, and I want you to be safe.’
Scarlett considered the request, then nodded. ‘Okay. Ra Zacharia believes aliens visited us in the past, just like von Däniken does, and all the millions who believe his books. But according to Ra Zacharia, the aliens rejected human beings sixty thousand years ago because we were too backwards, not technologically but spiritually and socially. He thinks that if we can prove to them this time that humanity is capable of being a worthwhile part of galactic civilisation, the aliens will stay and help their followers become perfect.’
‘And the Chosen of the Universe are supposed to demonstrate that?’
‘Yes. By feeling one with the spirit of the universe so deeply that they have been healed of whatever has ailed them.’
‘That’s crazy.’
Leafsong could see the relief on Jed’s face when Scarlett nodded. ‘But people DO believe in crazy things. Lots of people. Even maybe most people. People want to believe in aliens. Just like they wanted to believe in fairies or leprechauns in the past. But science has never found a fairy so now it’s aliens.’
‘Do you believe in aliens?’ asked Jed carefully.
‘I think life on other planets probably exists. But not life we’ll ever be able to talk to. Lichens, viruses . . . Complex life is a miracle.’
‘Have you told Mark that?’
‘No. I don’t want to hurt him.’ Especially now, thought Leafsong, when Mark was scared and vulnerable. ‘The Chosen of the Universe are Mark’s life,’ Scarlett continued. ‘And I’m his friend. His only friend, outside the Chosen. I’m still going out there, Jed.’
‘Please don’t. I’m not ordering you not to. I’m pleading.’
‘Why?’
‘Because there are no aliens arriving next year on 11 November. When that date comes around,’ Jed shrugged, ‘one of two things may happen. Ra Zacharia may convince himself and everyone else they got the date wrong, and that the aliens are still on their way. Maybe they decided to take a detour to look at the moons of Jupiter.’
Scarlett looked at Jed steadily. ‘What’s the other scenario?’
‘Ra Zacharia will stop his acolytes from leaving. Even . . .’ Jed hesitated ‘. . . even kill them. It’s happened before in cults, all too often.’
But some of the followers are already leaving, thought Leafsong. And Ra Zacharia has neither stopped them, nor killed them.
Yet.
The thought startled her. She hadn’t realised how deeply she distrusted Ra Zacharia. Ra Zacharia was a clever man, but Leafsong was clever too, even if she didn’t use her intelligence in conventional ways. And deluded clever men were dangerous. Jed was right.
But even so . . .
For a wonderful three seconds Leafsong imagined aliens descending, waving a transformer device that would make her what she could have been without that small genetic twist that turned her into a troll, not an elf.
But it wouldn’t happen. And even if it could, did she really want to give up herself to become an elf? Even if that meant Mark would look at her, not just as a scone-maker and as Scarlett’s friend, but with love. Someone he might want to touch, as she longed to be touched . . .
It wasn’t fair. Life wasn’t fair. And no matter what Jed thought, this argument wasn’t about Mark, or the Chosen, but about Scarlett’s right to choose her life. Scarlett cared about Mark, but only on the periphery of her life. Leafsong wanted to yell, ‘But what about what is best for Mark? Why don’t you think of him, and not yourselves?’
Yelling that would confuse things more. Nor could Jed or Scarlett help Mark. No one could, until he stood by himself and no longer needed a girl in a wheelchair to help him feel strong.
Nor would he want a girl like a troll. But the next time he came to the café, hoping Scarlett might be there, Leafsong would get him to do the washing-up. Washing-up was soothing, would make him feel useful, would give him an excuse to be in the Blue Belle’s atmosphere of peace and plenty that Leafsong had so carefully created.
It wasn’t much. But it was all she could do.
Scarlett drummed her fingers on the arm of her wheelchair, obviously thinking. At last she said, ‘How about a compromise? I won’t go out to the community. But I will see Mark wherever else I want to.’
Leafsong watched through the slit of the doorway as the tightness left Jed’s face. ‘Thank you. So you’ll come home?’
Scarlett nodded. ‘And Mark can still come to our place?’
‘Of course.’
Scarlett considered. ‘Okay,’ she said at last. She glanced around at Leafsong and gave the beginning of a smile. ‘Thank you,’ she mouthed.
Leafsong managed a smile back. We are so rich, Scarlett and I, she thought. So unexpectedly rich in family and friends and a chance at a good future. If only the ‘if onlys’ didn’t hurt us both so much.
If only. If only.
Chapter 57
Gibber’s Creek Gazette, 30 May 1974
Switchboard for Gibber’s Creek Museum
The 1920s switchboard that has connected so many thousands of calls in the Gibber’s Creek district will be donated to the Gibber’s Creek Museum. ‘They were good days,’ said the last switchboard operator, Mrs Shirley Glens. ‘If there was a flood, you’d just ring everyone along the river to make sure they were okay. I think people liked hearing a friendly voice when they picked up the phone. This STD system just isn’t the same.’
Miss Elaine Murchison, photographer at the Gazette, remembers when she went to a dance with a boy who became ‘a little too fresh’ on the way home. ‘It was about eleven o’clock at night. I walked and walked till I found a telephone box and phoned Dad, but there was no answer — Dad always slept like a log. Mrs Glens in the switchboard told me to stay where I was. She came and picked me up and took me to her place and gave me hot cocoa and kept ringing Dad till he finally woke up. You won’t find an automatic exchange that gives you cocoa.’
JED
Michael was just putting his boots back on when Jed arrived at Drinkwater, walking today using the shortcut across the river bends.
‘I smell gravy. Just had breakfast?’ Nancy’s idea of breakfast was packet cereal. Michael had grown up with Drinkwater’s eggs and a couple of chops or lamb’s fry, with tomato or fried bubble and squeak, followed by stewed fruit and toast. It was amazing how often Michael needed to check on the ewes first thing in the morning and ‘just stop at the homestead for breakfast’.
These days, Jed suspected, the excuse was ‘I’ll just check in on Mum’. Nor was it really an excuse.
Michael nodded. ‘There’re some leftover potato cakes and mushrooms.’
‘I’ll snaffle them then.’ Anita grew up in Czechoslovakia. Her potatoes cakes had grated onion and garlic in them, and her stewed mushrooms were inspired by memories of treasures gathered in her apron under misty forests, before the clang and tragedies of World War II brought her to Australia.
‘Jed, I’m worried about Mum. She won’t see a doctor. Not as a patient anyway.’
‘What’s wrong?’ asked Jed.
‘Nothing specifically. But at her age she needs regular checkups. Blood pressure, stuff like that. Could you have a word with her too?’
‘Of course.’ Though if Matilda had refused Michael’s coaxing — and probably Nancy’s, Matron Clancy’s and Dr McAlpine’s — she was unlikely to change her mind.
‘Thanks.’ He gave her a brief hug, then clattered down the stairs.
She found Matilda drinking a last cup of tea in the dining room, Maxi looking suspiciously satisfied under the table. How many lamb-chop tails had she eaten?
‘Good morning,’ said Jed.
‘Good morning to you too. And no, I do
not need to see a doctor.’
Jed pulled out a chair. ‘Why not? Just so Michael worries less.’
‘Because he might worry even more. When you get to my age, doctors suddenly feel they have the right to tell your relatives about every ingrown toenail.’
‘Do you have an ingrown toenail?’
‘Of course not. I’ve never needed a doctor in my life.’
‘You didn’t even have a doctor when you had Michael and Jim?’
Matilda smiled. ‘I said I hadn’t needed one. Nancy’s grandmother did all that was necessary. The doctor mostly stayed out in the hall, drinking tea with Tommy, who needed him far more than me.’
‘Matilda, darling, what would a doctor find now?’
‘That I am old, and my heart is wearing out.’
Jed forced her voice to be matter-of-fact. ‘It’s had a lot to love.’
‘Love keeps your heart going, it doesn’t wear it out. Time does that.’
‘Doctors can help hearts that are wearing out. Tablets for high blood pressure, or cholesterol.’
‘No. This is between me and death. I’ll die when I want to, and where I want to. I don’t want doctors interfering.’
‘Are you afraid they’ll force you into a nursing home?’
‘Of course not.’ The glint in Matilda’s eye could have cut granite. ‘But once all that kind of thing begins you find yourself with a nurse “just in case”, and a doctor calling in once a week “just in case”. I want to live my last as I choose, with those I love. Which includes you, and my ghosts, and my land.’
‘I . . . I love you too. You’ve shown me who I can be, more than anyone else.’ Did Matilda mean what she said, that she could die ‘when’ she chose? Or was it a slip of the tongue?
Matilda’s tongue never slipped. And if she wanted Jed to know more, she’d tell her.
She found Matilda regarding her, faintly amused. ‘Time for school, child?’
If Blood Should Stain the Wattle Page 34
