by Janet Tanner
‘I don’t understand.’
He reached for her hand. Hurt, she jerked away. Again he reached for it. This time she let him take it, felt his fingers and thumb smoothing it as they had when she was lying battered in the hospital.
‘Tara – I could be sent overseas at any time. Right into the field of battle. When I was in Tobruk we worked under fire most of the time. The hospital was bombed. Men were killed. I was hit myself …’
‘Yes, I know.’ Tara had heard before of the piece of shrapnel Richard had taken in his leg which had necessitated his being shipped back to Australia. ‘But surely that’s all the more reason for …’
‘I don’t think so.’ The sun was catching the tiny fair hairs on his forearm, making them shine like burnished gold. ‘When I commit myself I want to be sure of what I can offer. In time of war that is very uncertain. I could be wounded or crippled. I don’t count that as a very good prospect for the woman I love. With things as they are she might even find herself a widow. I don’t think it’s fair to ask it.’
Tara’s jaw had dropped slightly.
B’Jesus he was talking about commitment commitment – he was talking about marriage! The little tremble ran through her again and the whole of her skin felt like a pincushion.
‘But you might not be sent overseas,’ she said eagerly. ‘I’ve heard furphies that if 138 AGH goes anywhere it will be to Queensland.’
‘Yes, I’ve heard that rumour too. I think it’s quite likely. But that’s not to say I will be staying with it.’
The shiver turned chill.
‘What do you mean?’
‘138 was not my original unit. ‘I left them behind in Tobruk. After Tobruk they went to the Holy Land. Now I believe they are in Columbo.’
‘Columbo?’ Tara’s geography was sketchy. ‘ Where is that?’
‘Ceylon. One of the places the Japs would like to get their hands on.’
‘But you might not.’
‘That’s a chance I am prepared to take.’ He stood up, holding out his hand to her. ‘I think we ought to be getting back, Tara.’
Defeated for the moment she got up too. But she was thinking: if he is that serious then surely I can get around him! Not today maybe, but as long as we are together here I’ve got all the time in the world.
Above the withered trees the sky was deep, deep blue with hardly a fleck of cloud in sight – it was hard to imagine the deluge that would soon come, within the next month almost certainly. But the land was crying out for rain, the vegetation stretching hungry arms for it, the earth bone dry and cracking like a half demolished termites’ mound. As they walked Tara’s toe scuffed it and clouds of red dust flew up around her feet.
She pulled a face. ‘Ugh – it’s got between my toes now. It gets everywhere, this dust. Did you see Kate when she came back the other day? They had had problems with a derailment on the line and brought her back up the track in a truck. She was dickered – you would have thought she was a redhead!’
Richard laughed. Most of his tension had dissolved now. He was holding her hand loosely, fingers interlaced with hers; the warmth of them seemed to touch her heart.
‘Speaking of redheads,’ he said, ‘do you remember Alys Peterson?’
The warmth became a sudden chill of warning. ‘Of course I do.’ How could she ever forget Alys? What about her?’
‘I heard the other day that she may be coming back.’ His tone had not altered nor had his step, it was still long and loping, but suddenly she found she had almost to run to keep up with him.
‘Alys? Coming back?’ The breath was tight in her throat – that was why she seemed to be almost running …
‘Yes. Someone ran into her aunt – Sylvia Crawford, you know? She had had a letter from Alys. She is well on the way to recovery it seems and she is anxious to knuckle down and do her bit again as soon as she is able.’
‘She’s coming back here?’
‘Somewhere in the Northern Territory, I should think, since it’s her Aunt Sylvia’s domain. It will be good to see her again, won’t it?’
Tara could not answer. She was picturing Alys as she had last seen her, lying in her hospital bed, face waxy but still incredibly beautiful, red-gold hair lying in a soft drift across the pillow. And Richard looking down at her with an unmistakable expression in his eyes …
A few moments ago she had been convinced that Richard could be hers. Now, suddenly, there was a shadow across the sun and that shadow had red-gold hair and aquamarine eyes. Not to mention a cut-glass accent and a look that said she was from Richard’s world, the world of gentility and plenty, the world that she, Tara, had peeked into as a hungry child might peek into a shop window, nose pressed against the glass, but a world she had no place in.
If she comes back I have lost him, thought Tara. If she comes back he will look at her again as he looked at her then – he’s doing it already. Just mentioning her name is making his eyes go all soft. And he has the nerve to talk to me about commitment! Who does he think he is kidding? These high ideals are all very well – how high would they be if she came back?
‘We saved her life, Tara, you and I,’ he said. ‘It’s a rather special feeling, isn’t it?’
Each word was a barb in Tara’s heart; each barb only increased her determination. She had thought she had all the time in the world to get Richard. Now she knew she did not. But days, weeks – whatever was left – would have to be enough. She would not let Miss Melbourne 1942 waltz back and take him away from her. Whatever she had to do she would do it. And when Alys Peterson came back she would discover that the situation was not quite the walkover she might have expected!
Chapter Thirteen
Alys Peterson swung her Alfa Romeo motor car through the gateway in the camphor laurel hedge of the Toorak mansion, jammed on the handbrake and sat for a moment looking down across the spires and rooftops to Hawthorn and Kew with their backdrop of the Dandenong Range a misty silhouette in the purple distance.
Beautiful. Beautiful like the house that had been built here to take full advantage of this view, all shuttered windows, white gables and arches beneath its red tiled roof. But no amount of beauty could prevent the restlessness that burned and bubbled in her veins – or compensate for the trapped feeling that encompassed her every waking moment. That was too deep-rooted, too much a part of the fabric of the place which her mother had moulded and transformed with her own special talent to a showpiece of taste and breeding. When it came to the house Frances had had it all her way – and when Frances had her way there was no more charming a woman in the whole of Melbourne, Alys thought wryly.
Today, for the first time since she had been brought home wounded and too weak to protest, Alys looked at the house and was not swamped by the feeling of being caught in a luxurious trap. Or, if she was still inside the cage, at least now the door was open.
Alys’ lips curved and she stretched her back against the car seat luxuriating in the fact that now at last there was no more pain. She had known she was better, had hardly needed Dr Whitehorn to confirm it, but now he had and his words sang in her like heady wine.
‘A marvellous recovery,’ he had said, looking at her over the top of his spectacles which had, as usual, slipped down his nose. ‘ It never ceases to amaze me how resilient is the young human body. You’re as good as new, Alys.’
She had not spoiled the moment by reminding him that it was not quite true. No point in dwelling on the permanent effects of the wound caused by a piece of flying metal. She had come to terms with that weeks – no, months – ago. All that mattered now was that Dr Whitehorn was telling her she was fit and that meant that at last she could go back to her beloved Northern Territory and do something useful once again.
Leaving the car on the drive, Alys got out and ran up the two stone steps to the front door. It opened at her touch and she went on in to the hall, spacious and vaulted, crowned with a cupola which ensured if never appeared dark or unwelcoming, and brightened with vases o
f fresh flowers.
‘Mother, I’m home!’ Alys called. Her voice echoed round the lofty hall. For a moment there was no reply and Alys was about to go upstairs to her room when Frances appeared in the doorway which led to the rear of the house, carrying a garden basket in which she had been collecting sprays of mimosa.
‘Darling, do you have to shout?’ Her eyes strayed to the front door still standing ajar: ‘And don’t tell me you’ve left that motor car of yours on the drive again! Daddy gets so annoyed if it’s in the way when he comes home.’
‘Morrie can move it,’ Alys said unperturbed. ‘You know he loves driving my car.’
Frances’ lips tightened a shade. Sometimes she thought it would be better if Morrie drove the car all the time, with Alys in it. At least she would have some control over where her daughter went and what she did since it was she – or Daniel at any rate – who paid Morrie’s wages.
‘Where have you been anyway?’ she asked now.
‘To see Dr Whitehorn. He says I’m a hundred percent.’
‘Does he.’ Frances’ dry tone implied that she doubted the professional judgement.
‘Yes. So there’s nothing to stop me getting back into the thick of things. I’ll write to Aunt Sylvia tonight.’
‘Do you really think that is wise?’
‘Why not? I’ve been sitting around here and stewing for long enough.’
‘Well, I don’t think it’s wise, Alys. In your state of health …
‘Mother, I told you! Dr Whitehorn says I’m perfectly fit!’
‘I can’t see how that can be. You were brought home at death’s door.’
‘But I’m not at death’s door now, Mother. I don’t want to go on living like an invalid forever.’
‘And I don’t want you to go off again, Alys. Not while this dreadful war is going on, anyway.’ She turned away dismissively, a short, stockily built woman in an expensively tailored shirt and tweed skirt, crossing the hall to the drawing room door. ‘I’m just going to do the vases – why don’t you help me?’
‘Mother!’ Exasperated, Alys followed her. ‘You know I’m useless at flower arranging. And you can’t change the subject just like that. I’m sorry if it worries you but when it comes to war it’s up to everyone to do what they can.’
‘You don’t have to tell me that!’ Frances said with an indignant upward thrust of her chin. ‘No one has done more for the Red Cross than I have. The jumble sale I organized last week raised a lot of money and the series of whist drives has been most successful. If you would only interest yourself in it, Alys, you could be a great help to me.’
‘But I’m not interested in it!’ Alys picked up a sprig of mimosa which had fallen onto the polished surface of the sideboard and rolled it between her fingers. ‘I want to go back to driving my ambulance.’
‘I should have thought after what happened you would be only too glad to stay out of harm’s way.’
‘Perhaps so, but I’m not.’
‘Oh, I don’t know!’ Frances sighed heavily. ‘I don’t understand you, Alys. I just don’t understand you at all. And another thing. Why did you find it necessary to visit Donald Whitehorn in his consulting rooms when he always comes to see us here at home?’
‘Because I felt so much better and he wasn’t due to come until next week. And I wanted to talk to him quickly, without you fussing, Mother.’
Frances’ eyes narrowed. Like Alys’ own they were aquamarine, but much paler, like bits of greenish glass. ‘ I see. You preferred to go behind our backs.’
‘Nothing of the kind!’ Alys could feel the annoyance prickling her skin like heat-rash. ‘It’s simply that I’m twenty-two years old and if I want to see the doctor without your permission I shall do so.’
The colour came up in Frances’ face also, a dark flush staining her cheeks and extending down her neck.
‘You are a great worry to me, Alys.’ Her voice had that angry edge to it which had struck terror to Alys’ heart as a child. ‘Why you can’t be more like Beverley I’ll never know. Find a nice young man and settle down – that’s what I’d like to see you do. But you couldn’t be content with that, could you?’
‘Not if he was anything like Bev’s Louis, no, I certainly couldn’t! Look, Mother,’ Alys deliberately softened her tone, ‘I’m going back to Northern Territory and there is no point arguing about it. I’m sorry if you’re not happy about it but you really must let me live my own life.’
Anger turned to hurt martyrdom. ‘Have it your own way, Alys. You know whatever I say or do is because I am thinking of your good. That’s all I have ever wanted. Unfortunately, caring so much about you when you behave so recklessly means you are a constant worry to me. And I can only hope with all my heart that you don’t live to regret your folly.’
‘I hope so too, Mother,’ Alys said maintaining her level tone with a supreme effort. But as she marched up the stairs to her own room she could feel the blood pounding angrily behind her temples. It had always been the same – always! Warm cloying sweetness as long as she was doing exactly as her mother wanted. Icy disapproval at the first signs of rebellion and if this failed to work then the trump card – moral blackmail. You worry me. You make me unhappy. You’ll be the death of me. She shouldn’t have had children – she should have had clay dolls, Alys thought bitterly. That way she could have moulded them the way she would like them to be – little extensions of herself. As it is …
I shall have to be very strong, Alys told herself. And I shall sit down and write to Aunt Sylvia immediately.
Alys laid a sheet of tissue paper on top of her favourite linen dress, smoothed it out and held it down with one hand while she closed the lid of the blue leather suitcase. Then she straightened up, brushing a strand of hair off her face and looking around the familiar room to see if she had left anything important out of her packing. Nothing obvious. Her china dolls, of course, sitting in a row on their shelf and watching her with their glass eyes blue and unwinking in the pale damask rose faces that Beverley had used to nag her to wash with milk and cotton wool. She couldn’t take those. Nor the heavy cut glass perfume atomizer that stood on the dressing table. They were things that belonged here in her room in Toorak, they had always been here and they would still be here when she returned. She felt a swift ache of sadness as she looked at them, mementos from her childhood when she had been as innocent and happy as Robyn without any desire to be anywhere but in the home where she was loved and cherished. How long ago those days seemed – and yet in some ways how close, as if should she reach out she could almost touch that other self across the years.
She sighed, then as the door opened she turned towards it.
‘Mummy!’
‘What are you doing?’ Frances asked. She was wearing a floral dress with a shirt top and skirt of unpressed pleats and in spite of the heat she looked as cool and elegant as ever.
‘Packing,’ Alys said. ‘You know I’m going in the morning.’
‘I can see you’re packing.’ There was an edge of sharp impatience in Frances’ tone. ‘ Why didn’t you ask Norma to do it? Heaven knows it’s difficult enough to get maids these days and as for keeping them for more than a few months … While we have one you may as well make use of her.’
‘I preferred to do it myself,’ Alys said smoothly.
Frances did not answer. Her disapproval hung heavy and cold in the air and when Alys could stand the accusing silence no longer she said: ‘Do you think I have time to wash my hair? What time is dinner?’
‘The time it always is – and no doubt if you want to wash your hair you’ll do so whatever I may say.’ Again there was an uncomfortable silence. Alys caught herself from making an angry retort and felt another stab of that nostalgia which had ached in her just now. Impulsively, she turned to her mother.
‘Please, Mummy, don’t be like this! There’s no need, you know. You just make it hard for both of us. I don’t want to upset you, but …’
Frances jerked her hands
away. Her eyes were hard, as hard as the glass eyes of the dolls on the shelf.
‘I suppose there’s a boy behind it.’
‘A boy?’
‘There usually is when you’re so set on having your own way. I haven’t forgotten …’ she broke off, clamping her lips shut.
Suddenly Alys was trembling. The sadness was sharper now, a physical pain in her chest cutting off breath.
‘Forgotten what?’ The emotion was all there in her voice placing emphasis on each syllable of the question. She knew what Frances meant all right but she had to hear her confirm it before she could really believe her mother could bring it up after all this time.
For just a second Frances hesitated. Two high spots of colour had appeared in her cheeks so that it looked as if she was belatedly showing, the effect of the heat.
‘That rogue who tried to worm his way into your father’s bank balance,’ she said tartly. ‘ You were a fool for him and you’ll be a fool again. My God, when I think of what a fool you were – and worse! All I hope is that you learned your lesson. I may as well warn you I couldn’t stand for a repeat of that episode.’
And then the pain was very sharp in Alys, the past too real – and too bound up with the present.
‘I loved him, Mother,’ she said. ‘You never understood that did you? Because you didn’t approve you were so darned sure he was wrong for me.’
‘He was.’
‘How can you be so certain of everything? It’s terrifying … Don’t you realize that if you had taken a different attitude Race might be alive today?’
‘Don’t begin blaming me for that, Alys. There was no call for you to go to Bathurst that day – none at all.’
‘But you were going to send me to Darwin without giving me the chance to see him or speak to him.’
‘It was for your own good.’
‘Rubbish! When did you ever think of my good? Your interpretation of it, perhaps. But always what you wanted for me, never what I wanted for myself. Oh, when I think of the things that are done because they are supposed to be for someone’s good! It’s frightening the way some people are so damned sure they know what’s best for everyone else.’
