Bangalore. Roger Crook

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СКАЧАТЬ didn’t turn round to look at her. “The traps are set, Michelle; that’s what he was doing last week. The truck is coming on Tuesday. We think we should have three hundred by then. I told him to work the horses, so he’s not just playing around on some recreational pursuit; we will need them for mustering the breakaway country at shearing. We do know what we are doing.

      “I have three dog teams out there now. They are keeping the wild dogs under some control, so we are keeping the sheep in good order. Don’t know where I would be if it wasn’t for some of the old Aboriginal families who enjoy being out there.”

      Michelle dismissed Angus’ comments on wild dog control as if they didn’t matter.

      “Well, I hope Ali knows what he’s doing with those horses. We don’t want Rachael having a fall. That would be all that we would need right now!” Angus didn’t reply.

      They pushed the gleaming white Cessna out of the hangar and while Roddy did his pre-flight checks Michelle watched Angus and Pat stow Roddy’s and her luggage in the rear locker and on the back seats. She made no move to help them.

      The checks complete Roddy smiled and shook Angus by the hand. “All complete, Angus. We’ll give you a ring when we get there.” With genuine affection he kissed Pat on the cheek and gave her a hug. “Chin up, Pat, give me a ring when you are in town. I’d like you to have a turn in this plane and tell me what you think. Saturday or Sunday is a good time for me.”

      “Thanks, Roddy. I’d like that.”

      Michelle kissed Angus on the cheek but otherwise didn’t touch him. She turned to Pat, looked at her and then, as if it required an effort, gave her a kiss and what could have passed for a hug. She didn’t speak to either of them.

      Pat and Angus watched the Cessna taxi out to the end of the runway and turn into what little breeze there was. The pitch of the engine changed as Roddy opened the throttle and let the brakes off. The plane accelerated quickly and after what seemed only a few hundred metres it was airborne and climbing quickly to the north. Then he banked steeply and flew back over the landing strip now heading south and for Perth. As he passed them he dipped his wings.

      Pat and Angus were still standing, side-by-side, almost touching. They watched the plane until it was a speck in the sky and then it disappeared. Pat became aware that Angus had made no effort to move so she stood quietly by his side. The heat of the day combined with the rain from the thunderstorms made the atmosphere oppressive, stifling. She could feel the perspiration running down her back and between her breasts.

      She realised that in the rush of the morning she’d forgotten to put her bra on. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d forgotten, probably never.

      Her mother had insisted she wear a bra as soon as puberty had set in. Like all teenagers Pat had fought her mother when it came to clothes, but her mother had always won. Loose jeans. Loose shirts not tee-shirts.

      In the Air Force, the dress code imposed by her mother had stood her in good stead. She remembered her mother’s words: “Clothes must be appropriate for the occasion, Patricia. People judge you by what you wear – always remember that.”

      Now she was standing, barefoot in the red dirt, dressed in a pair of Rachael’s frayed denim shorts that had started their life as jeans and a very old tee-shirt with ‘Trust me I’m a doctor’ just discernible on the front. Bareheaded and without a bra and feeling a freedom that she had never felt before. And there was no one to judge her.

      Angus was motionless and still looking at the horizon, the vast red landscape that stretched out before them. Then, without looking at her, he started to speak. “You know, I’ve never been far away from this place. Perth…Sydney and Melbourne a couple of times…Went to South Africa once to look at some merinos but I was on my own in a big group of married couples so it wasn’t much fun. I was glad to get home. Went to Bali once with a girlfriend –lady friend really – hated it. We had a row and I came home and left her there…never saw her again.

      “I’ve been trying, standing here in this vast placid landscape, to imagine what it’s like to be a combat soldier these days, flying in a war zone as desolate and barren, exposed to the enemy as it is in Afghanistan. I’ve been trying to imagine what it’s like to be my son – trying to get in touch with him somehow…I can’t…he’s out there somewhere…in a coma…in a bed in an ICU, in a plane with tubes sticking out all over him…maybe he’s dying…maybe he’s already…I feel helpless. He and I have never been as close as say, Rach and I.

      “He’s always been so driven. I hardly got a chance to know him with him being at school in Perth, and then he was in the army. I was thinking, they were only with me until they were about twelve; then all I saw of them was for about three…four months a year. Hardly enough time to get to know him as a boy…I don’t know him as a man – he’s almost a stranger – yet he’s my son…”

      Angus’ voice trailed away and he stood still, looking into the distance and ignoring the flies that clung to every drop of moisture round his eyes and mouth. Pat looked at him and saw tears trickling down his face; he was making no effort to brush them away. Before Pat could speak Angus continued. “If there isn’t time to make up for the years…I don’t know what I will do…I just feel so helpless…”

      Pat moved her hand the few centimetres between them and took his hand in hers and squeezed it gently. His big calloused hand remained limp so she raised it to her lips and gently kissed it. He still didn’t move. “C’mon Angus, let’s go and get a cup of tea.” Still hand in hand she led him to the waiting Mercedes. She opened the passenger door for him and without a murmur he got in and she shut the door.

      When she started the car the cool air from the air conditioner wafted over them. Angus took a big red handkerchief from his pocket wiped his eyes and blew his nose. When Pat looked at him the agony from a few moments ago had gone from his face and he was looking at her with a half-smile. He reached over and brushed her face with his hand, “Thanks Pat.” When he took his hand away she wanted to follow it. Instead she put the car in gear and set off down the track to the homestead. As she drove she felt calm and for some reason that she didn’t understand, in spite of all the turmoil that was starting to engulf them, she felt free, a freedom of what – her soul? Her spirit? She didn’t know.

      All she knew was that since arriving at Bangalore she had started some kind of metamorphosis and it wasn’t finished. She thought of a caterpillar turning into a butterfly. Was that it? Instead of flying in a machine, was she going to learn to fly – free? Had her life so far been that of a caterpillar? A butterfly in a caterpillar’s skin, just waiting for time to pass and the right conditions to wrap herself in a cocoon and then emerge as a different creature, unrecognisable from the previous life. Was that it? Whatever it is, she thought, I’m powerless against it out here in this vast place, close to something very gentle, yet raw and powerful.

      Three hundred metres away, sitting on their horses under a couple of big gum trees Rachael and Ali had been watching Pat and Angus. Because of the dark windows on the Mercedes the only bit they had missed was the moment of brief intimacy when Angus had touched Pat’s cheek.

      Ali and Rachael were both wearing jeans, riding boots, old shirts and big stockman’s hats. Their eyes were shaded from each other. Rachael broke the silence. “Well – what did you make of that?”

      “Nothing.”

      “C’mon, Ali…They were holding hands!”

      “He’s a big sensitive man that dad of yours.”

      “C’mon, СКАЧАТЬ