A Thousand Miles Away

by Dorothy Cork

  ‘Is he?’ Farrell’s voice sounded blurred in her own ears. She felt terrible—she wished Helen would go away and leave her alone. All she wanted was to escape into sleep. She lay back on the bed, her head on the pillow, her eyes closed.

  ‘Yes, he is. I’ve known him since I was a child. We were very close. But he’s quite a few years older than I am, and because of that, I guess things didn’t go the way they should have, the way he wanted them to. I married someone else. He was killed in a plane accident last year. I felt I’d never get over his death at the time—but I have. What we had was very sweet—and very young. I’ve grown up since, and I know now that deep inside I’ve always loved Larry. He’s the man I should have married, and when he asks me, I’ll say yes.’

  Farrell opened her eyes and looked at her across the room.

  ‘Hasn’t he asked you yet?’

  Helen gave a little smile. ‘Farrell, Larry is a very sensitive, very proud person. Obviously, you scarcely know him or you’d realise that. If he felt my heart was still with Brian—still anchored to the past—he wouldn’t ask a thing of me.’

  Farrell stared at her, her heart thudding. She didn’t like Helen, but that didn’t prevent her from acknowledging that Helen’s life was linked more intimately with Larry’s than hers was. She and Larry didn’t understand each other, knew next to nothing about one another. Once, Larry had meant to remedy that. Once, when he had thought there was no hope of Helen’s ever belonging to him as he would want his wife to belong...

  ‘He knows how I feel now,’ Helen said softly. ‘We had a long talk in Perth, just recently.’

  The day he left me at Quindalup, Farrell thought dully. She turned her face away from Helen’s gaze. ‘I think I’ll get into bed now. I shan’t come out to dinner.’

  ‘That would be wise,’ said Helen. She sounded smug. ‘It will give Larry and me a chance to talk more freely, too. A third person always hampers the conversation when it’s more or less—intimate. I’ll see to it you get your tray.’

  ‘Don’t bother. I’m not hungry,’ Farrell said faintly. But Helen didn’t hear her. The door had already clicked shut behind her.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Numbly, Farrell got herself to bed. Her body was aching and so was her heart. For a long time she lay quite still, trying to make her mind a peaceful blank, trying to accept what she had to accept. She wished it was about a hundred years from now.

  Someone knocked at the door. For a crazy moment she thought it might be Larry, but it was Mrs. Adams with her dinner tray. Farrell thanked her and managed a smile, and after she had gone, picked uninterestedly at her food. Finally she put the tray aside and got out of bed to stand looking across the verandah into the darkness of the garden. She could smell sweet flower scents and she could hear soft music, the murmur of voices. Helen and Larry were having their heart-to-heart talk. Helen had recovered from the loss of Brian Adams, she was ready to marry Larry who had been waiting for her for—how many years? That birthday card, Farrell thought—he might have sent her that years ago.

  Warm tears began to run down her cheeks, and choking back a sob she climbed back into bed and switched off the reading lamp. She felt sick and sore and sorry for herself, and her bruises were hurting. When, she didn’t know how much later, someone called her name at the door she didn’t answer. She saw a crack of light that widened as the door softly opened, and once again Larry’s voice said, ‘Farrell?’

  Farrell lay quite still. She didn’t want to be told what he thought of her—she didn’t want to discuss Mark or anything at all. She didn’t speak, and after a few seconds Larry closed the door and went away.

  Mornings were always bringing surprises, not always pleasant ones, and the next morning was no exception. Before Farrell was even awake—and certainly she had slept exhaustedly and hadn’t wakened till nearly ten—Helen and Larry had gone.

  ‘To Mullamulla Downs,’ Mrs. Adams told her when she brought Farrell’s breakfast into the bedroom. ‘Helen asked me to say goodbye to you and say it was nice to have met you. Mr. Sandfort wouldn’t wake you. You need all the sleep you can get, he said. How are you feeling this morning, dear?’

  ‘I feel fine,’ said Farrell, who felt terrible. As well, she felt terribly deserted, terribly alone, terribly much in need of a shoulder to cry on. Someone to love her, someone to sympathise without asking questions. And she needed to be a long, long way away where Mark couldn’t find her. And where Larry couldn’t find her either. It was so ironical that he had planned to produce between them a kind of—factory-made love. Now he had no need of that kind of love, and as for Farrell—he had meanwhile, without even knowing it, stirred her to love, a love that was all too real. But that was something he would never know, and possibly never believe if he did know. His opinion of her now must be at an all-time low. She and Mark were ‘as good as married already’, Helen had said...

  Suddenly Farrell felt she couldn’t bear to see any of them ever again. Body and mind she was one big ache, and she wanted her father’s arms around her. She had to get out of here.

  She drank some coffee, ate a little of the toast and marmalade. Showered, dressed—packed. All as if she were making pre-considered moves. She was more concerned with the limitations placed on her by her bruised body than with what she was doing, and when she had finished packing, she looked at her suitcases in a kind of blank surprise.

  How on earth did she think she was going to get away from Quindalup? And where was she going?

  Home, of course. Home to her father, and damn Cecile’s jealousy. She had to cry on somebody’s shoulder and there was only Tony. Aunt Jean had no time for tears. And when she had cried and cried and cried, then perhaps she would have to go back to Perth—unless some other fabulous and intriguing man should materialise and beg her to marry him.

  She heard herself laugh mirthlessly, and was aware she was slightly hysterical, and that the effort of dressing and packing had exhausted her. She was tempted to lie down on the bed, but instead she went out to the garden. The sun was hot and bright, and she had to close her eyes against it. Strangely, in the garden she discovered Mrs. Adams’ car—with the windows down, and the keys in the ignition. By the look of it, the housekeeper had not long finished washing and polishing it. Farrell’s heart leaped. This could be her opportunity. She glanced around and found Mrs. Adams was in the side garden, watering the flowers, and visible from where Farrell stood. So it was no go. But she was not giving up hope, and for the rest of the morning she kept watch, though the chance she was hoping for did not eventuate. But at least the keys were still there.

  They were still there by mid-afternoon, at which time Mrs. Adams set off for a walk into' the gorge, looking for wildflowers.

  Farrell, installed on a lounger under the poinciana tree, watched her go, nervily, and as soon as she was out of sight she went inside for her luggage. Ten minutes later she was driving down the gravel road towards Ansell. She’d stop at some roadhouse overnight, she decided, and telephone through to Larry at Mullamulla Downs in the morning and tell him what she’d done. Because it was a pretty awful thing to borrow someone’s car like this, and she felt decidedly guilty about it, particularly as Mrs. Adams had been so good to her.

  As it happened, however, Farrell didn’t reach a roadhouse that night. Some sixty kilometres beyond Ansell, and within sight of a sign announcing that petrol, meals and accommodation were just forty-three kilometres ahead, the car spluttered and stopped dead.

  Farrell, who knew nothing about the mechanics of a car,, stared around her helplessly. It seemed like the end of everything, particularly feeling as she did. Spinifex country stretched away into the distance wherever she looked. A few crows and a flock of galahs flew overhead against a sky fired gorgeously by the sunset. Soon, she realised with a slight feeling of panic, it would be dark.

  What on earth was she to do?

  The only possible answer seemed to be to spend the night in the car, an unattractive prospect to say the leas
t of it. But it was unlikely anyone would come this way—she hadn’t seen a single vehicle since leaving Ansell. With a deep feeling of despondency, she knew she should have filled up her petrol tank there, but she hadn’t wanted to linger, and the gauge—evidently unreliable—had shown half full. Well, it was too late for regrets.

  She looked around her once more. The sun was going down rapidly, the flat-topped ranges etched dark shapes against the fast fading sky, and now the birds had gone there was not a living creature to be seen. Yet these lands must be part of some pastoralist’s sheep station. There could even be a homestead stuck away behind some rise in the ground. On the point of leaving the car to explore, Farrell changed her mind. She was in no condition for a long walk over rough ground, and suppose she made the effort and found nothing—what then? She would have to find her way back to the car in the dark, and in the meantime, she could have missed out on help. Also it was just possible she might find Mrs. Adams’ car stripped. It did sometimes happen on these lonely outback roads when a car broke down and was left unattended.

  Farrell shivered a little. No, there was nothing to be done but stay where she was and hope it would not be too long before she was rescued. At least she could get into the back seat and try to get some sleep.

  Sleep wouldn’t come however, she discovered. Her mind was too active first with thoughts of her plight, then with thoughts of Larry. What was he doing now? she wondered. Had he and Helen already told the Nelsons that they wanted to be married? Were they all perhaps drinking a toast to the future? That reminded Farrell that she was beginning to be very thirsty, and very uncomfortable as well. She would have to get out and stretch her limbs.

  But before she could do so, lights appeared against the blackness of the landscape. Car lights. Not on the road, but obliquely to her right. Someone driving out from one of the sheep stations. Farrell’s heart raced. Quickly, terrified that the driver might be heading in the other direction when he reached the road, and never even know of her plight, she scrambled out of the car, forgetting her aching limbs, opened the driver’s door and switched on the headlights. She counted three, then switched them off—then on again. She repeated the performance several times and then—oh, the blessed relief!—found the car had turned down the road in her direction. Farrell dimmed the lights and leaned back in the seat thanking heaven. She had to be safe now...

  The headlights of the other car dazzled her and it was not until it had pulled up on the road ahead of her and the lights had been switched off that she recognised Larry Sandfort’s Landrover.

  Farrell felt too absolutely stunned to know whether she was dismayed or completely otherwise. She certainly felt quite faint.

  In a few seconds Larry was standing staring in at her. ‘What on earth are you doing here, Farrell? Where’s Mrs. Adams?’

  Farrell stared around her wide-eyed, then suddenly realised what he meant.

  ‘Oh—she’s not here. I—I took the car.’

  ‘What?’ he exclaimed explosively. ‘You’re meant to be taking it easy, not racing round the countryside at the wheel of a motor. What’s the idea?’

  Farrell wanted to cry. Instead she bit her lip hard before she answered. ‘I can’t stay at Quindalup for ever. I was going home. To my father. At least,’ she continued wildly, suddenly aware of the very flimsy nature of her plans, ‘I was going to take the plane when I—when I got somewhere—civilised. But I—I think I’ve run out of petrol.’

  ‘Don’t ask me to sympathise.’ He swung the door open. ‘Move over. Let me see.’

  Farrell complied, than sat silently while he made his tests, and finally pronounced her diagnosis correct.

  ‘No fuel. You’re out of action, Farrell. What are you going to do about it?’

  She creased her forehead slightly. ‘Where are you going, Larry?’

  ‘Where do you think? But I won’t give you three guesses. I’m going back to Quindalup, of course. I left a girl there.’

  Farrell blinked and swallowed, uncertain of his mood. ‘But—but what about Helen?’

  ‘Well, what about her? To hell with Helen! Why talk about her?’

  ‘Because—she talked about you.’

  He looked at her sharply. ‘Did she? And what did she say?’

  ‘That now she’s got over Brian’s death, you’d want her to marry you.’

  ‘And do you care?’ he asked after a moment. Farrell, who wished she had held her tongue, said nothing and he went on, ‘It’s nonsense, anyhow. Helen depends on her physical beauty to bring every man she meets to her feet, but lovely though she is, her attraction for me was never more than skin deep. I’ve known her since she was a child and she was vain and greedy even then. Now let’s forget about her.’

  ‘But you took her home to Mullamulla Downs. I’m sure she thought—’

  ‘Farrell, I can’t help what she thought. All I wanted was to get her out of the way. And I’d have been back at Quindalup long before this if Bob hadn’t wanted me to go over some book work with him. Now for God’s sake don’t start being sorry for Helen—she doesn’t lack for admirers in Perth, she can choose one of them any time she wants. I’m not all that important to her.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Farrell inadequately. She didn’t agree with his last statement, but it was useless to argue, and she was still sorry for Helen. ‘Anyhow,’ she resumed, ‘I didn’t think you’d want to come to Quindalup—not while I was there.’

  ‘Why not?’ Larry had turned towards her and the light from the dash illumined his face sufficiently for her to see the blueness of his eyes, now fixed on her, and she was aware of a weak melting sensation that made her almost incapable of speech.

  ‘I know what you think—that you’re angry about me and Mark—’ It was all she could manage, and it sounded guilty and terrible.

  His eyes still considered her. ‘I might be angry with Mark, Farrell, but I’m not angry with you. I told you I believed you—and I haven’t changed my mind.’

  A shiver went through her. ‘But,’ she said forlornly, ‘you must have heard what Helen said—’

  ‘Yes, I heard it, but I didn’t believe it,’ he said grimly. ‘I’d have told you so last night, but you were asleep when I went to your room. So it had to wait until I’d come back from Mullamulla Downs ... You know, I’m only just beginning to realise how fortunate it was you did run out of petrol, Farrell. I suppose you didn’t tell Mrs. Adams where you were going. Did you leave her a letter?’

  Farrell shook her head. She felt dazed, bewildered. Larry didn’t believe what Helen had said about her and Mark being as good as married! It didn’t seem possible. She had seen the anger in his eyes—she had been so sure of his contempt. ‘I was going to telephone them—at Mullamulla Downs in the morning. From a roadhouse. About the car,’ she said somewhat incoherently.

  He nodded thoughtfully. ‘Who were you running away from? Mark? Or were you expecting to catch up with him at your father’s place?’

  ‘No,’ she said quickly. ‘I don’t want to see Mark. I—I can’t believe he wants to marry me.’

  She saw him smile crookedly. ‘I can believe it. With no effort at all ... Are you interested? Do you want to marry him?’

  ‘No!’ she repeated briefly and vehemently.

  ‘Well, that certainly sounds definite enough ... Where do you want me to take you, Farrell? Are you still determined on going home to your father? Or will you come back with me to Quindalup?’

  Farrell had no idea what to say. Of course she wanted to go back with him to Quindalup, but she was badly confused. She was afraid to examine the stirring of hope in her heart, in case it vanished. Yet Larry had said he believed her—and he had said he wasn’t going to marry Helen. Oh, if only they could go back to the beginning and start all over again with that original proposition of his, how happy she would be!

  ‘Perhaps you want to run away from me too,’ he said soberly, when she didn’t answer. ‘I’m painfully aware that I haven’t behaved in a way to make you feel exac
tly enamoured of me, but I’d like a chance to alter that.’

  Farrell drew a deep slow breath and turned slightly to face him. He was wrong in thinking she wasn’t enamoured of him. She was hopelessly so—and she longed for him to know it. Her lips parted, but she couldn’t speak.

  ‘Do you think I could alter it?’ he asked after a second. ‘Because I love you, Farrell ... Dementedly,’ he added beneath his breath, and reached for her. Dizzily, meltingly, she let herself be pulled into his arms, and she had a crazy feeling she must be delirious. Because it just wasn’t possible that he could love her, dementedly or otherwise. Though after a few minutes of being held closely against his body, with his mouth exploring hers, she was convinced otherwise.

  ‘You see?’ he said when, reluctantly, he let her go so they could both regain their breath. ‘I think maybe—just maybe—I could teach you to love me. You’re a very promising pupil. Will you come to Quindalup and do that crash course we talked about once?’

  He was smiling at her and Farrell rested one hand flat on his chest as she looked back at him. She could feel his warmth, feel the strong steady beating of his heart, and she was ready to die of love.

  ‘I’d like it,’ she said huskily.

  ‘You would? Then you’re an angel. I know I don’t deserve it—that I’ve been unbearable. I can only excuse myself by repeating that unfortunately I’m a romantic—that I’m out of tune with the times, with Women’s Lib and sexual freedom—the lot. Do you know, it made me see red when I thought you’d had a lover. I almost imagined I could hate you—and certainly I wanted to kill him. The trouble was I didn’t hate you—I loved you—and I wanted to be the one to teach you about love—’

  ‘You have, Larry,’ she murmured, raising her face to his and linking her hands provocatively behind his neck. She remembered with amazement her fears that she was frightened of passion and incapable of it herself. In Larry’s arms, she knew that was nonsense.