Blue Skies

by Fleur McDonald

  Leaning her head against the cabin window, she secretly caressed the bump and thought miserably about her condition. Her mother had presumed the baby was Michael’s, which Kathleen had denied, while refusing to name the real father. Her mother had been angry at first, but finally accepted what could not be changed. She had come up with the idea that Kathleen should leave Esperance, and return in a few years with the story of a dead husband.

  Without warning, the train lurched forward and a cloud of steam blew past the window. Panicked suddenly, Kathleen, yanked the window down and leaned out as the train slowly chugged forward, groaning with the weight of the carriages behind.

  A feeling of isolation enveloped her as she swayed with the movement of the train. Her mother, in an uncharacteristic display of affection, ran alongside the train and held out her hand. Kathleen reached for it and their fingertips grazed each other before the train gathered speed and separated mother and daughter.

  Chapter 20

  Amanda raised her eyebrows at the formal invitation she had just received in the mail. Adrian and his bloody dinner parties! Putting it aside she opened the bills one by one, then she got out her cheque book and checked through the stubs. It confirmed what she already knew. She had already written cheques for all of these bills, yet she was receiving overdue notices. She couldn’t work it out. She could even remember putting them in the roadside mail box for collection.

  A call to Malcolm Mackay confirmed that none of her cheques had been presented, so she shrugged her shoulders at the strangeness of it all, cancelled them and sat down to rewrite new ones.

  Amanda was almost done when she heard Mingus stir from his place at her feet, walk to the kitchen and bark. She looked out the window and saw Adrian’s car coming up the drive. She smiled. It had been a few days since she’d seen him and she was looking forward to intelligent conversation and a few drinks over dinner with him tonight.

  She thought ruefully of the glitch in their relationship, when Adrian had suggested she have babies and leave the running of the farm to the menfolk, but once he realised that wouldn’t happen, he’d backed down and declared himself happy with the way things were. ‘After all,’ he’d said, ‘I’d much rather spend time with you than not. When you’re ready to advance our relationship, let me know.’

  Well, Amanda had been pondering that for a while and she thought tonight might be the night.

  She put down her pen and jumped up to go and meet him.

  They sat on the verandah and gazed across the paddocks that were just beginning to turn golden with the approaching summer’s heat. The sheep grazed quietly in the front paddock and Amanda could see Jasmine her special stud ewe with her triplets near the house.

  The lambs had grown quickly and, even though all three were ewes, she knew that would be a great addition to her flock,genetically speaking.The thumping growth rate had impressed her and she was sure that they would be great mothers and milkers when the time came, and the ram she’d been hoping for would come next time, she was sure of it.

  Mingus sat at Amanda’s feet and both Adrian and Amanda held chilled glasses of wine – she was beginning to develop a taste for it.

  Amanda glanced at Adrian out of the corner of her eye. She could see the beginnings of grey streaks in his sandy hair, which reminded her that he was some years older than her. But his face was smooth, with no indication that he’d worked hard in the sun. That was because he hadn’t. He’d grown up on a wealthy property which employed others to do the manual labour.

  When she was by herself, it was easy to imagine the two of them together, but as soon as he arrived, all those feelings flew out the window. She suddenly felt she owed him for the time he had put into helping her. And deep down, she knew that wasn’t a good basis for a relationship.

  ‘Have the hay contractors finished making your hay yet?’ she asked, suddenly uncomfortable with the silence.

  ‘They’ll be two more days, as long as the weather holds out. The bureau is forecasting a weak cold front to come through in the next three days. Hopefully they’ve got the timing right and we’ll finish. I don’t want to lose the quality of the hay now.’

  He was interrupted by the ringing of the phone.

  ‘Be back in a sec.’ Amanda raced into the house to answer it.

  ‘Mandy! How are you?’

  ‘Hannah! Where are you? What’s all that noise in the background?’

  ‘Just on my way into the city for some drinks with the girls. What about you, what are you up to?’

  ‘I’m having drinks on the front verandah with Ade.’

  ‘Oh, sorry, should I call back later on?’

  ‘No! Talk to me, tell me how everything’s going.’

  Amanda smiled as Hannah recounted her week’s adventures, the grain deals she’d done and the volatility of the market. She finished up with: ‘So what’s happening on Kyleena? It seems ages since I was there, but it’s only been three weeks! I’m missing you and all the sheep – not to mention the hay!’

  Amanda laughed and was surprised by how good it felt. She tried to remember when she had laughed last. She hadn’t even realised that she hadn’t been laughing lately.

  ‘Well, Ade and I went away to the south-west for a weekend, Jasmine had triplets . . .’

  ‘Triplets? Bloody hell, has she got someone to help look after them? Who’d be a stud ewe?’

  ‘She doesn’t have to wipe their bums and bath them, you idiot! She’s managing fine. The best bit about it was that she wanted all of them right from the word go. I didn’t have to muck around making sure she’d take them all, her mothering instinct was just there.’

  ‘Mm, well, I’m pleased it’s her and not me. What else is happening?’

  Suddenly Amanda found herself pouring out all of her anxiety about the cheques. ‘I can’t think how it could’ve happened, Han. I can distinctly remember putting them in the mail box.’

  ‘Maybe the postie didn’t put them into the post office, or they just got lost. Sometimes it happens. I wouldn’t be too worried about it, Mandy. Just pop a note in with the cheques you’re writing out now and apologise. Now listen, I’ve got to fly.’

  ‘Talk to you soon then?’

  ‘Take care, Mandy. Love you lots!’

  Amanda hung up the phone, turned around and let out a little squeal! ‘Ade, I didn’t hear you come in! You gave me a fright.’

  ‘Sorry, just came to get another bottle of wine. You didn’t tell me about the mail. If any of those businesses give you a hard time, just let me know. I can fix it for you.’

  Amanda smiled and went to give him a hug. ‘A fix-it man! Just what I need.’

  ‘I know you do,’ he said as he wrapped his arms around her.

  Chapter 21

  ‘Mandy, it’s Adrian. I’ve been called away to Perth for a few days – business, unfortunately. Sorry, I’m going to have to cancel tonight. I’ll call you when I get to Perth and tell you about it then. See you in a few days.’

  Mandy listened to the message with a sense of relief. She hadn’t really wanted to go across to Paringa tonight, with its shiny new shed, brand-new John Deere tractor and beautiful sheep yards that Amanda would’ve given her eye teeth for. And that was without starting on the house! Even though it was many years old now, the renovations that had been completed throughout good seasons put most farmhouses to shame. Built on the side on a rise, the wide verandahs looked over the vast acreage that Adrian’s father had accumulated over the years. Inside, views from the formal lounge showed manicured gardens and lawns. But all that ostentatious wealth made her uncomfortable.

  Amanda glanced around her home and wondered why Adrian kept coming here when he was used to such luxury. Why would he want to spend time in her dark, cold, musty house? He really must like her, she realised.

  With Mingus at her heels, Amanda decided that it was time to go down to Karru paddock again. She had a special spot along the riverbank that she visited in memory of her father.

 
; As she walked through the bush, she thought about the time after her father’s death. She’d spent hours searching the riverbanks for a sign of him – a piece of clothing, his watch, anything. But she’d found nothing. She eventually came to understand that the searching was part of her grieving, but also a sort of healing. She’d discovered parts of Kyleena she hadn’t known existed. Like the little cave that butted up against Paringa’s boundary and the sweet grasses that grew between the granite rocks on the river’s edge. She’d found donkey orchids and native pine trees. The canopy of mallee trees which let only glimpses of the blue sky through, somehow making the songs of the birds seem louder and more tuneful. Sometimes she saw kangaroos resting under the trees. Once she’d seen an echidna snuffle its way across the ground and disappear into the thick undergrowth.

  The bush was nowhere near as thick as it had been when her grandfather, Michael Greenfield, had first come to Kyleena. The stock had woven paths through it and eaten the new growth. Walking through these stock pads was one of Amanda’s favourite pastimes. She came as often as her busyness allowed – it was where she liked to think about and talk to her dad, try to work out what he would’ve done when she had problems. She always left feeling relaxed and peaceful.

  The only part she really hated about coming here was having to walk past the pit where all her sheep were buried. The sheep she had failed. Older farmers had said she couldn’t have done anything different but she thought she could’ve. She could have put them in the shed, for example. But she hadn’t, and every time she saw the pit a feeling of desperation came over her. The terror that it could happen again, that she could kill helpless animals once more, was overwhelming. The guilt still weighed on her – and it gave her new insight into her father’s reaction to her mother’s death. If she was so upset about the sheep what must he have been feeling as the driver of the car in which his beloved wife was killed?

  That had put some of his behaviour in perspective. She’d begun to wonder if maybe Brian had been suffering some kind of depression. Knowing the stoic man he was, there was no way he would’ve ever discussed his feelings with anyone. Amanda didn’t even know who he could’ve talked to even if he had wanted to. He was friends with lots of other farmers, but she couldn’t think of anyone he would’ve felt comfortable talking to – except Helena.

  All of her frustration and resentment of her father had disappeared, leaving her instead with a deep sense of sadness. She’d been so caught up in her own grief, too stubborn and headstrong to see that Brian had been crying out for help. That left Amanda with a ghastly question: had her father fallen, or had he jumped?

  But she tried to avoid such morbid thoughts. Today she was happy meandering down the track, stopping to look at the wildflowers that had begun to appear and enjoy the smell of the bush that the morning’s brief shower had intensified.

  She wandered along the river’s edge, stepping carefully on the moss-covered rocks, peering into rock pools to see if she could see any yabby shells and watching the water birds. Climbing to the highest point of granite, she surveyed the scene before her. Unable to see Kyleena because of the bush behind her, she looked instead across the river and onto the land of Paringa. Adrian’s Hereford cows were grazing on the perennial pastures he had planted on the edge of the river. He had cleared a lot of his bush country and turned it into good grazing country – although it was so low-lying Amanda wondered apprehensively what impact it may have on his land in years to come. Amanda knew that Michael had refused to clear his, first needing shelter for his stock and later for fear of rising salt.

  She turned slightly and caught a glint of a tin reflection on Paringa, far from the boundary. Staring hard, she realised it was Adrian’s house. She hadn’t realised it was so close to the river.

  Amanda stopped and looked around, trying to see this area as if she’d never been here before. There was something niggling in the back of her mind.

  The fence.

  Amanda scrambled down the granite on the western side and came up against the remnant vegetation block, which she’d been told her father had fenced off about twenty years before.

  She ran her eye over the fence. Old. Rusty. Wire netting? Hand-cut posts from yate and paperbark trees? That wasn’t used anymore – hadn’t been for forty or fifty years. Amanda could remember reading in her pop’s diary how excited he’d been with the new fences that had been researched and shown to work in the late 1950s. He’d set about replacing his old fences, like this one, with plain wire fences, steel and wandoo posts. This couldn’t be a remnant vegetation section then. The fences were too old.

  Amanda cocked her head to one side, thinking, then pushed her way into the overgrown bush for a look.

  After a while she began to feel like she knew what it must’ve been like for the early settlers fighting their way through scrub and thick undergrowth as her arms and legs were scratched by prickly banksia trees and kerosene bush. Some parts were so thick that she couldn’t push through and she had to backtrack and find another way. Under the trees there was a thick layer of dead leaves and twigs and it was eerily quiet except for the occasional birdcall.

  As she stumbled through, she found a trench that had been paved with stones, much like a gutter for running water. Intrigued, she followed it, thinking it would take her back to the river’s edge, but instead she found an old shack in a clearing, the trench running into a large pit that was also paved with natural rocks.

  She walked around the outside of the hut in wonder, finding old mulberry trees still growing near a fenced-off area. There were some chives growing near the rusty gate in what Amanda assumed were once garden beds. Maybe it was an old veggie garden.

  Amanda’s skin started to tingle. She must be the only person who knew about the hut. It was built of iron, nailed onto thick wooden posts with a hole for a window, covered with what looked like old wheat bags. There was a narrow wooden door at the front of the hut, and Amanda could see gaps between the frame and door. She wanted to push it open and see the inside, but the thought of coming face to face with a tiger snake and its family was too frightening.

  After several more minutes of exploring, she realised she could hear the river trickling and followed its sound.

  The way back to her ute was easier, following the river’s edge, for which she was pleased. The sun had begun to sink. She realised that she still hadn’t organised something to wear to Adrian’s dinner party on the weekend. And with the discovery of the hut, she was determined to find out more about it.

  Chapter 22

  ‘On the channel, Amanda?’ Damo, Adrian’s workman, called over the two-way.

  ‘Yep,’ she answered as she held her breath and slowly manoeuvred the tractor and large green chaser bin through the gate. She was heading for the silver silos full of barley, her fifth load for the day, but still got nervous going through gateways. She was petrified that she’d hit the strainer post, or damage the bin somehow. She’d only just started to use the throttle to its fullest in the last two loads, much to Damo’s frustration.

  ‘You’re too slow – any slower and you’d bloody stall!’ he’d said earlier in the day.

  ‘I’m still learning,’she’d shot back at him. He’d turned away, muttering something about ‘the boss’s girlfriend’. Amanda had bitten her lip and concentrated so hard on increasing her speed that she was exhausted now.

  ‘Are you nearly back here?’

  Amanda smothered a sigh of frustration. ‘No, Damo, I just left. I’ve still got to get to the silo and unload. I can see Tom on his way back though,’ she said, as she saw the other chaser bin rumbling towards her. ‘Okay, Tom?’

  ‘Yep. I’m about three minutes away, Damo, so keep yer hair on, would ya?’ Tom suggested. ‘It’s not going to rain for the next few days and we’re all working as hard as we can.’

  Silently, Amanda thanked Tom for stating the obvious but she also knew how everyone turned into ogres when harvest was on. Bit like shearing really, she thought ruefu
lly, thinking of her dad.

  She let out her breath in a whoosh as she trundled slowly through the gate. Once she was in the laneway, she upped her speed and headed off to the gravel turnaround, where five huge silos sat waiting to be filled with the yellow grain.

  She still wondered how she’d managed to con Adrian into letting her drive a chaser bin this harvest. He was determined that she wouldn’t, then the early November rains had put his program back and caused a fly-wave throughout the district. Amanda had spent days jetting sheep and treating the ewes that were struck.

  Then one of Adrian’s employees had resigned when his father had taken ill in Victoria. Adrian had searched high and low for someone else, but all the seasonal employees seemed to have been snapped up, so, reluctantly, he’d agreed Amanda could have a go.

  The minute Amanda had got into the tractor, she’d wondered if she’d finally picked on something she couldn’t do. This new John Deere tractor was so big compared to her twenty-year-old one, the chaser bin rumbling behind the tractor like a thunderstorm, when empty, and when it was full, the bin pulled every time she hit a bump, making her think she had a flat tyre, let alone something worse, like a wheel had fallen off or an axle had snapped. Of course Adrian’s warning that chaser bins could tip over if you hit a large dip had left her with sweaty palms, a lump in her throat and butterflies in her stomach. Then there was Damo’s insistence that she drive faster than she felt comfortable doing. And it wasn’t just that! It was the forward and reversing, trying to line the auger up with the open hole at the top of the silo and letting the grain flow in, making sure the silo wasn’t so full that the grain overflowed. There were so many things to think about! But she also knew she wasn’t a quitter, so here she was the second day with all the signs of nervous anxiety, about to unload the golden grain. Tom had assured her it would get easier as she got more experienced – she was looking forward to that day!