In a fit of sudden annoyance, Grace grabbed a pillow from her bed and sent it sailing across the room. She’d had enough of wheat and sheep. She pulled on yesterday’s moleskin trousers with a fresh shirt, then marched downstairs. It wasn’t early, although the homestead was uncharacteristically quiet. She checked each room and found no one. When Grace came to her father’s study she pushed open the door and, seeing that it, too, was empty, on a whim she sat down on his high-backed chair. The silent space, with its leather-bound books, had always been a good place to think.
After fumbling for a moment, Grace located the letter from Jack she had slipped inside her pocket the day before. There had been so much to do she’d only had time to skim its pages. Now, she held it up to the light.
Darling Gracie,
I’m sorry I haven’t been a very good correspondent lately. The fact is, I got myself into a spot of bother. I was flying back from the last mission (as you know, we can’t say where we go), feeling pretty pleased with myself, when a blasted Jerry in a Messerschmitt opened fire.
There’s nothing to worry about, although I did make a crash landing — just as well it was in good old England. Actually, it was pretty exciting! Only, somehow, I managed to get myself tangled up with my joy stick, which wasn’t the worst thing in the world — it got me a nice rest at some lord’s stately home that’s been made available for pilots who need a bit of time out.
You should have seen the place — it was a huge brick pile with towers and whacking great stables. They had cows grazing on rich pasture, plus plenty of fields sown with barley and oats. It was an impressive set-up, but for all that, I’d take our big, dusty property out in Australia any day. To tell you the truth, I’d be bloody happy (excuse the French) if I never left home again.
Anyway, I’m fine now — I’ve still got two arms and two legs, which means after this is over I won’t have any problems carrying you over the threshold!
Much love, your Jack
Grace smiled. Yesterday, she had been concerned by news of the crash, but now she’d had time to read the letter properly, it was clear that Jack considered the experience to be more like something from a Boys’ Own adventure story.
Yet, still something niggled. She looked at the creased pages again, then stopped when she reached one particular line: I’d be bloody happy . . . if I never left home again.
Grace put the letter down. Her eyes flickered around the room, coming to rest on the brass-mounted globe that stood, as always, next to her father’s desk. She reached out and gave it a twirl for old time’s sake and, as she watched the earth spin, Mademoiselle Elise’s words came back to her as clearly as on the day she’d departed for Switzerland.
‘Ma petite,’ she had said, holding Grace’s hand, ‘it is very beautiful here, yes, and very safe. Your young man is nice. But do not forget, the world is large and full of fascinating people, extraordinary things, wonderful places. Imagine what — or even who — might be there, waiting for you.’
Grace slowly folded the letter and put it back into her pocket. It had been three years since her governess’s departure and the war was still raging. Who knew what the world would be like once it had finally ended? Anyway, everyone said how lucky she was to have a man like Jack in her life — especially her mother. Elise had meant well, but perhaps it was time for the fanciful ‘Mademoiselle Dubois’ to put her foolish dreams of far-flung, foreign escapades aside.
The sudden rap of the door knocker sounded as loud as a rifle shot in the silent homestead. When Grace went to see who was there, she was surprised to find the district’s ageing postman. Usually he passed by on his rounds in the afternoon, and never came up to the house. Brookfield’s mail was always placed inside the corrugated-iron cylinder that stood next to the property’s main gates.
‘Hello, Kev,’ she said. ‘What brings you way out here in the morning?’
‘I’ve a registered letter for Mr Woods,’ he announced, his weathered face stern. ‘It’s from the war office.’
‘That’s odd. Well, just hand it over and I’ll leave it for him. Want something to drink?’
‘I’m right, thanks.’
Grace watched the postman hoist himself into his red van and waved him goodbye. Then she propped the buff envelope on the dining-room table against a vase of pink everlasting daisies. Her father would be sure to notice it there.
But Alfred didn’t return until the sky had a vivid red bloom and the sun had begun to slip beneath the horizon.
‘I rode out with Bill Gleason,’ he explained, when he trudged in wearily through the open door. ‘We had to check the feed in the far paddocks.’
Before Grace had time to mention the letter, Alfred said that he was off to wash and get changed. ‘Then I need an uninterrupted half-hour to look over some crop estimates,’ he added.
Only when her father joined them at the dining-room table did she have the opportunity to point out the envelope.
‘I wonder what this can be about?’ he said, tearing it open.
Seeing him pale, Grace whispered, ‘Don’t tell me something has happened to Jack.’
‘Not Jack, no,’ Alfred responded in a leaden tone. ‘At least we can be grateful for that.’ Yet still, his expression was grave.
‘Grace, Olive,’ he looked at each in turn, ‘I’m so sorry. It’s Reuben.’
‘Siddy! What’s happened?’ Grace began to tremble.
‘I’m not sure exactly. It seems his brigade was completely overrun by German tanks. Those poor souls stuck up near the border trying to defend France didn’t stand a chance. I don’t know what the generals were thinking, sending them into battle like that — it’s blindingly obvious they were ill-equipped and undermanned.’
Alfred laid the letter on the table. ‘We must prepare ourselves for the worst,’ he said. ‘Apparently, Reuben has been missing, presumed dead, for some time. The news was delayed as there was a fair amount of confusion over whether he might have escaped. However, the authorities have now concluded that it is most likely . . .’ His voice broke. ‘Most likely that Reuben has passed away.’
‘No!’ Grace screamed. Then, as the grandfather clock in the hall dolefully chimed the hour, she fell silent. Could it be true? A wave of desolation swept through her. She and Siddy had always had a special connection. She could not believe that her dear, knockabout friend, who knew horses better than anyone and yet played piano with the touch of an angel, could have died. Surely she would have known, surely there would have been some sort of sign? Yet everything had seemed just the same.
Finally, after several minutes, she shook her head with a new self-possession. ‘Siddy isn’t dead,’ she said.
‘Now, dear, of course it’s terribly hard to accept that Reuben will never return,’ Olive began, before Grace interrupted.
‘Please, at least let me hope just a little. You can tell from the letter that the people in charge aren’t sure what happened. If there isn’t a body’ — she shuddered — ‘then maybe Siddy is still out there somewhere.’
CHAPTER EIGHT
January 1944
They were such a great distance from the turmoil and strife, from the bombs and the bloodshed and the terrible battles. Here at Brookfield, there was peace, tranquillity and good fortune. The wheat crop was bountiful and the wool clip had fetched record prices. Demand for the farm’s produce from the Allies’ vast military forces was insatiable.
‘Food to eat, and uniforms to put on men’s backs, that’s what we’re here for, Gracie.’ Her father said it so often that it had become like a mantra. It seemed as if, by working day and night, he was somehow waging his own personal war against the enemies of the British Empire.
Grace glanced at him as he rode by her side, just as he used to when she was a child. Alfred had looked so tired and drawn of late, she and Olive had begged him to slow down. Never a heavy man, he had grown thin. His shirt hung from his shoulders and, beneath the straight brim of his hat, his hair was now more grey than brown.
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‘Everything all right, Gracie?’ her father called as they cantered over the plains.
‘Good as gold,’ she shouted back.
And it was. For once, Grace had seen her father eat a hearty breakfast that morning; in fact, he seemed more robust than he had for days. Relieved, she was able to enjoy riding in the late-afternoon sun across the wide brown acres that he loved.
‘Ah, I can see the problem — Bill mentioned it yesterday,’ Alfred said as a distant dam came into view, its surface glittering in the sunlight. ‘It will be tricky, but between the two of us, we should be able to set things right.’
The bank that bordered the dark water had grown soft and slippery after a sudden summer storm. As Grace slowed her horse, she could see that one of the sheep had strayed into a patch of deep mud and become trapped. It was struggling and making low, piteous sounds.
‘Righto,’ Alfred said as he swung down from his mount. ‘Let’s tether the horses to those red gums and get at it.’
Grace was grateful for the shade the trees cast. Now they had stopped riding, she realised how fierce the heat was.
‘It would be a lot easier if we had a shovel.’ Alfred frowned. ‘Ah well, can’t be helped. Sorry, Gracie, but I’m finding it hard to get down on my knees these days, so it’s up to you. If you don’t get rid of some of that bog, we’ll never get her out.’
‘Great! I get all the best jobs.’
Grace rolled up her sleeves, then crouched down in front of the sheep that, clearly exhausted, was now barely moving. Using a sturdy stick and her bare hands, she cleared away the worst of the clinging mud. A hearty laugh made her look up.
‘What?’
‘It’s just that my sweet little green-eyed girl is practically covered in muck.’ Alfred chuckled. ‘You’d better clean yourself up before your mother catches sight of you!’
Grace pushed a muddy curl under her hat and grinned.
‘Well, I’d better see what I can do about this poor beast.’ Her father’s boots made squelching sounds as he came closer. ‘You support the ewe’s rear so she doesn’t damage herself, and I’ll lift her front legs clear.’
‘Are you sure, Dad? That’s heavy work.’
‘I’ve never felt better in my life,’ he said.
Grace held the animal’s hindquarters while Alfred, breathing heavily as his muscles strained, gently eased the ewe out.
‘We’ve done it!’ Grace shouted.
As she watched the creature wobble away, a piercing cry rang out, immediately followed by a thud. Grace wheeled around. Alfred was lying sprawled and still on the muddy bank.
‘Dad!’ She rushed forward and pressed her ear to his chest. His heart was beating, but it sounded weak. She quickly scanned her surroundings, her eyes wild with fear. If only a farmhand were about, or a drover, someone who could help. But there was not a living soul to be seen, just the flocks of heedless sheep nibbling at the stubbly grass, a remorseless sun in a cloudless sky and thousands of acres of emptiness.
Groaning with effort, Grace heaved her father’s prone body out of the quagmire and into the shade of one of the red gums. Watched by a pair of black cockatoos, she folded his hat, placed it gently under his head, then tried to arrange his arms and legs as comfortably as she could.
Tears spilled onto her cheeks as she whispered, ‘Hang on, Dad, just for a bit. I’ll tell Bill; we’ll come back and sort you out.’
Grace gently kissed her father’s forehead. Then she flung herself onto her horse and began to ride across the plains like the wind.
Bill Gleason alerted Joe and Marjorie Evans — the road that snaked through the Evanses’s property ran close to the boundary where Alfred had fallen. Grace called the doctor.
‘What should I do next?’ she asked the foreman with a tremor in her voice. It broke her heart to think of her father alone and untended. And what if he regained consciousness and found she’d deserted him?
‘Your mother needs you,’ Gleason said as he saddled his horse. ‘I’m setting off straightaway with the young lads. We’ll take care of your dad.’
Despite Bill’s reassurances, Grace felt sick as she watched him and the two boys thunder out of the yard. She was torn, wanting desperately to return to her father yet, at the same time, knowing she couldn’t leave her poor mother by herself.
The two anguished women waited tensely on the veranda. Her mother had screamed when Grace, her face filthy and tear-streaked, had told her what had happened. Now Olive sat stiffly on one of the old wicker chairs, her lips pressed tightly together as she stared straight ahead. Grace’s gaze, too, was locked on the horizon, searching for movement — a shape, a shadow, anything that might give her hope.
Inside the homestead, the telephone rang. Olive sprang up. Grace quickly followed.
‘Yes, yes. I see. Right. I see. Thank you.’ Her mother slowly put down the phone and sank into a chair.
‘The men bypassed Brookfield,’ she said tonelessly. ‘They took your father by horse to the road, then on to the hospital in the Evanses’s truck. He’s had a heart attack.’
‘Don’t worry, Mum,’ Grace said, kneeling beside her. ‘We’ll go straight there now.’
Olive didn’t move.
‘Mum, why are you still sitting down? Dad needs us!’
‘Oh darling, he doesn’t need any of us now.’ Olive gave a wrenching sob. ‘Your father has passed away.’
Dead. Grace was numb. Surely this couldn’t be true. It was Jack who was away fighting, Siddy who was missing. Alfred had been on the farm, safe on his land, protected from misadventure. He was that rare man who, though engaged by the mind’s inner landscapes, dearly loved the earth and its seasons. Now she had been told that her father was no more. It was incomprehensible.
Grace pressed her knees into her horse’s smooth brown flanks, urging him onwards. She was riding hard, her heart thudding, the wind stinging her ears. It was what she craved, something tangible, a harsh, physical connection. Yet, without Alfred beside her, the wild beauty of the landscape offered little solace.
Her father’s funeral was over and, finally, so was the wake. She had listened to Father Bartholomew’s service, but the words of the sermon, the prayers and the lesson had slid past her, every utterance as insubstantial as a cloud of dust motes that, having been briefly illuminated by the light, just as quickly faded.
During the long wake that followed at Brookfield, Grace had felt only a hollow detachment. It was as if she had escaped from her own body and was gazing down while another Grace Woods thanked the mourners for their attendance, offering them sherry while agreeing, ‘Yes, it’s a great loss.’
Once she had left the cleared paddocks behind her, Grace slowed the sweating horse’s pace to a walk in order to negotiate a path between the black pines and the paper-barked melaleuca trees. The creek was close by.
She heard the water before she saw it, the soft, swirling noise it made as it idled past reeds and stones. Grace dismounted and led her horse forward so that he could dip his head and drink. Then, cupping handfuls of water, Grace drank too, before tethering the horse to a branch. Save for the sound of the creek as it meandered by, the low buzz of insects and the occasional currawong’s mournful cry, it was silent.
This was how it had always been, she thought, nothing had changed. The place belonged to a happier, long-ago time in her life, before Jack and Siddy had left for the war, before death had brought sorrow to Brookfield.
Grace sat down on a flat rock by the water’s edge, her back against a tree stump. She thought of the many rides she and her father had shared, their mutual delight in bringing in a good harvest, even the pleasure they’d taken in each other’s company as they went through the accounts late at night in his study.
Her heart ached when she contemplated a future without him. He had always been wise and dependable — so balanced, so certain. He had been devoted to Grace, yet she’d been miles away at the moment of his death. If only she could have told him how much he mean
t to her, smoothed his brow or held his dear hand while he drew his final breath. Overwhelmed by sadness and guilt, Grace hung her head and wept.
A soft, dry wind rustled the leaves at her feet. She felt immensely tired; the day seemed to have lasted an eternity. As her eyes began to close she murmured, ‘I loved you so much, Daddy. Why did you have to go?’
Grace was almost asleep when she thought she heard her father’s voice on the breeze whispering, ‘In the end, we all do.’
When she woke up — she was sure she could only have drifted off for a few minutes — the wind had died down. Other than the gentle movement of the creek sliding by, it was perfectly still.
She untethered her horse and led him out of the scrub, past thickets of flaming red bottlebrush and spiky banksia. When they were clear, Grace hoisted herself onto the saddle and began to ride slowly back to Brookfield.
CHAPTER NINE
Sydney, March 1945
With her eyes fixed on the screen of the elaborately gilded Mayfair cinema, Grace watched intently as the flickering, black and white newsreel unspooled frame after frame of victorious images. Her breath caught as the camera panned across a group of pilots leaping jubilantly out of a row of Spitfire bombers, their faces wreathed in triumphant smiles.
‘They look so handsome, like film stars,’ Charlotte whispered.
‘And do you know something?’ Grace whispered back. ‘To me, every one of them is Jack.’
Sitting in the darkened picture palace, she realised how much her feelings about him had changed. Once she’d thought of Jack as just a sweet local boy who’d always had a crush on her. Now, she cared for him on a deeper level, especially as his letters left her with no doubt about just how important she was to him. Grace had received a postcard depicting Big Ben only the day before; she still recalled the two simple sentences he had hurriedly scrawled: Each night I dream that you’re back in my arms. That’s all I want.
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