Hello from the Gillespies (23 page)

In her Adelaide hotel room at lunchtime the next day, Angela was still in bed. She’d had plans to go to a film, do some shopping, take a walk along the river, have lunch out. Instead, she hadn’t left the room. She had slept in. Ordered room-service breakfast. Slept some more. She had just eaten room-service lunch too. She’d had only quick, polite exchanges with the two young porters who delivered her meals. The food was delicious. She’d left her tray out to be collected, as requested. Not even a dish to be washed.

She had watched two programs on the enormous TV: a chat show from America that she had never seen before but found compelling; and a movie starring the actress who had demanded Genevieve’s sacking. Angela had taken pleasure in switching that off as soon as she recognised her.

Around two, her mobile phone rang. She didn’t answer it. Only when it stopped ringing did she check to see who it had been. Genevieve. She felt a flash of guilt, then remembered she was supposed to be having tests. Genevieve would assume that’s where she was, not worry too much about the fact she hadn’t answered. The missed call broke into her hotel room bubble, though. She thought about what lay ahead. The four-hour drive home tomorrow, back to the tension between her and Nick, Celia watching it all, sowing seeds of discord in her sly way. The fun but also the noise of the children. She thought of her Christmas letter too. It was still out there somewhere, possibly being forwarded on and on, like some virus that she’d unknowingly propagated. She’d stopped checking her email in recent days, finding the replies too much to take. She wasn’t going to check it here either. Why bring the outside world in?

But she did need to return a phone call.

Genevieve answered after three rings. ‘Mum, hi!’

‘Where are you? Hawker again? It’s a great signal.’

‘No, the big smoke this time. Port Augusta. We brought Ig here for the day because we are such kind big sisters. Lindy’s at home hyperventilating. She’s spending the afternoon with her dreamboat. Where are you? How are the tests going?’

‘Great. Four down, four to go. But they can’t do the rest until late tomorrow afternoon. So I do have to stay a third night.’

‘You’re making this all up, aren’t you? You actually haven’t left the hotel room, have you?’

First Joan, now Genevieve. Were they mind-readers? ‘I wish,’ she said vaguely. ‘Could you let your dad know?’

‘Of course. And that makes great sense to stay another night. Enjoy yourself. Hang on, Ig’s here. He wants to know whether you’re happy with the hotel or whether you want us to find you a better one?’

‘Tell him I love it. You chose the best one in town. I’d better go. Love to you all.’

‘Love to you too.’

Her conscience niggled at her again after she hung up. How would she explain it when she had to come back again in a week to do the real tests? There was no point worrying about it now.

She jumped as her mobile phone rang again. It was Joan.

‘So, how are you getting on? What were the tests like?’

‘They were actually fine,’ she lied. ‘I’m just back in the hotel room now.’

‘Wish I’d insisted I come down with you. We could have been kicking up our heels in Adelaide together. So what are you going to do tonight?’

‘I might just order room service, I think. I can feel a bit of a headache again.’

‘I’m not surprised. Those tests have to be stressful. Why rush back? Why don’t you spoil yourself and book in for another night? Let me treat you. You deserve it. You’ve had a big few weeks.’

Angela was taken aback to find her eyes filling with tears. She wished she’d told Joan the truth from the start. She’d do it face to face, she decided. For now, she told Joan what she’d just told Genevieve.

Joan whistled. ‘Three full days of tests? They are being thorough. That’s a good sign, I guess. But don’t worry about those tonight. Forget about all of us too. Have some Angela time.’

Angela took her at her word. She ordered room-service dinner, at what felt like the luxuriously early time of six p.m. She even had a glass of wine. There were three films she’d have liked to see, but she didn’t turn on the TV. Instead, she opened the curtains wide and sat by the window, gazing out at the city.

There were people everywhere she looked, going home, heading to work, meeting friends, going for a drink, to see a film, eat dinner. All connected, so close to one another. Sometimes being in the city after all the space on Errigal was quite overwhelming. The room was air-conditioned, but she could imagine the heat outside rising. She’d seen the forecast earlier. Another heatwave was on the way: forty-four degrees tomorrow, the high temperatures expected to last for a week.

She had a memory flash of her first summer on Errigal. They’d married in the autumn. It was six months before she discovered what a summer in the outback could be like. The ground that had been green turned brown. The sun beat down, day after day. She’d coped easily enough with the winter hardships – the frost, having to wait for pipes to thaw, cold rooms. She was used to that, even if the cold of the Australian winter had taken her by surprise. She’d written about it in one of her Christmas letters.
I thought the sun was supposed to shine all year round here in Australia? I’ve been had!
Nick had lit the open fires in their bedroom, the living room and the kitchen. The homestead was so big, but they stayed cosy in the main rooms. When summer did arrive, the thick walls and high ceilings came into their own.

It wasn’t just the weather she’d grown accustomed to. In her early years on the station, she learned to drive not only the car, but also the ute, the tractor and the motorbike. She learned to operate the UHF radios in all the vehicles. She got used to the kerosene fridge. She’d got to grips with the party telephone line they had in the early days too, recognising which series of rings was theirs, which rings to ignore. She learned to hang up if she picked up the phone and heard voices already on the line, hard as it was to fight the temptation to eavesdrop. She’d even learned how to use a gun, in case she ever needed to shoot a snake. She had another memory flash, of the day Nick had taught her.

‘I’m not exactly Annie Oakley, am I?’ she said at the end of that first lesson, looking at all the cans she’d managed to miss.

‘Not yet,’ he’d said. ‘But you’ll get there.’

A week later, while he was out, she spent an afternoon practising. She tried to remember his instructions. He’d told her to aim at the fence line, where the snakes were most often found. So she did, again and again.

‘What happened to the fence?’ he said as soon as he got home.

She stood beside him as he tried his best not to laugh. Their new corrugated-iron fence now had hundreds of tiny pellet shots in it. It looked like a lace curtain.

‘It looks quite pretty, don’t you think?’ she said. ‘Lets the light in now.’

He’d just laughed, planting a kiss on her head.

Her memories were interrupted by a knock at the door. ‘Housekeeping,’ a voice called.

She opened the door, politely declined the offer of the turn-down service but did take the chocolate. She moved back to the window, slowly eating the chocolate, looking out over the city again. She was high up, on the twentieth floor, but she suddenly wished she was even higher, that she could open the window, feel the fresh air.

Another memory flash. This one from just before she and Nick were married. They had all been in Adelaide, Nick and his parents staying with Celia and her husband in their big house in North Adelaide, Angela and her parents, newly arrived from London, in a small, friendly hotel not far from there. There had been gatherings every night with Gillespie cousins, old schoolfriends, many neighbours. A Gillespie wedding was a big deal, Angela had discovered.

Two nights before the big day, Nick had rung her hotel room. She’d already been in bed. ‘See you downstairs in ten minutes,’ he said. He’d hung up before she had a chance to ask more.

She’d dressed again and gone downstairs just as he pulled up at the kerb. ‘Where are we going?’ she’d asked. ‘Wait and see,’ he’d said.

He’d driven her across the city centre, through the suburbs, up into the foothills, then up even higher. Twenty minutes later, they were pulling into a car park high above the city. There were cars all around them, most of them with couples inside. Kissing couples. It was a lookout spot. The bright lights of the city formed a carpet of colour below them, right out to the sea on the horizon. It was beautiful.

She felt like a teenager who’d sneaked out behind her parents’ back, she told him.

‘That was the idea,’ he said. ‘I feel like I haven’t seen you for days. I missed you.’

They kissed. A little more than kissed. She’d missed him so much too. It was wonderful having her parents there, exciting to be caught up in the wedding preparations, but she was longing for it to be just the two of them again. On their honeymoon first. They were going on a driving holiday, all the way along the coast to Sydney, taking their time, stopping when they felt like it. After that, it would be back to Errigal, to start their new life together.

She told him how much she loved him. How happy she was to be marrying him.

‘Not as happy as I am,’ he said.

He’d kissed her again. He’d promised that he would always love her, always look after her. No matter what.

At her hotel window, Angela had to blink away sudden tears. She must have cried more in the past weeks than she had in months. An urgent longing to talk to Nick took hold of her. She wanted to be close to him. To take him in her arms, kiss him, remind him of all they had been through together. Reassure him that they could get through this too. Keep talking to him, keep telling him how much she loved him until she broke through that wall they had built between them.

She went as far as picking up the phone and starting to dial their number. But then she hung up. It was impossible to have a private conversation in their kitchen. She couldn’t ring him on his mobile, either. But it suddenly seemed urgent to tell him how she felt. Tell him she still loved him.

She could email him. Of course. She could go downstairs to the business centre right now and write to him. And if he wasn’t in the office tonight, he would read it in the morning.

She dressed hurriedly, pulling on her shoes, picking up her handbag. In the lift on the way down, she realised something else. Even two days away from Errigal had helped her. She hadn’t had a headache since the one in the specialist’s waiting room. She hadn’t had to once conjure up Will or Lexie.

Perhaps getting away from there would help Nick just as much. Even for a day or two.

As she stepped out into the foyer, she decided. She wasn’t only going to tell him that she loved him, that she had never stopped loving him. She was going to ask him to drive down to Adelaide as soon as he could tomorrow. Even to leave tonight if he got her message in time. Drive down and join her here in this beautiful hotel. Just the two of them. For one night. Two nights. More, if necessary. For however long it took for them to start talking to each other again. The way they used to.

The business centre was closed. Angela went over to the receptionist. The woman was very apologetic, but they were doing maintenance work on the computers. There’d been a network crash. But they would be up and running again in an hour, if Angela didn’t mind waiting. If it was urgent, if she just needed to check her email, she was of course welcome to use the reception computer.

Angela didn’t think she could write the email to Nick with someone standing beside her waiting. She’d liked the idea of sitting on her own in the business centre, taking her time, carefully choosing her words. Thank you but no, she said. She’d come back in an hour instead.

She took a seat in the foyer, trying to decide what to do next. Go back up to her room? Go for a walk? Then she saw a sign by the lift.
Car Park Downstairs
. Her car was there. She hadn’t been outside the hotel in nearly two days. She knew exactly where she wanted to go.

She asked the concierge for directions. Just a half-hour drive, he assured her, marking the way on a map. A beautiful view. Well worth the journey.

‘Have you ever been up there?’ he asked.

‘Not for years,’ she said.

‘Nothing like a trip down memory lane, then,’ he said.

‘Exactly,’ she answered.

She was smiling as she waited for the lift to take her down to the car park.

On a stretch of highway outside Port Augusta, Genevieve, Victoria and Ig were sitting in their car with half-eaten fries and hamburger wrappers on the seats beside them. They were parked outside a McDonald’s. Genevieve and Ig were in the front, Victoria in the back. She hadn’t been happy about it all day.

‘I’m the adult, Ig, you’re the kid,’ she’d said as they set off that morning. ‘Kids sit in the back.’

‘No, it’s my special day out. Robbie and I want to sit in the front.’

‘But there’s more room for you and Robbie in the back.’

‘We’ve got all the room we need in the front.’

She’d had to give up when he buckled himself in, locked the door and pulled faces at her through the window.

‘Can I please have a sundae?’ he asked.

‘Can you actually physically fit any more junk food into your body?’ Genevieve asked.

‘I’ve only had a bit.’

‘KFC for brunch, McDonald’s for afternoon tea. And now you want a sugar hit as well.’

‘I never get this stuff. It’s a treat. You said you’d spoil me today.’

‘I said I’d spoil you, not stuff you to the gills with dangerous additives.’

‘So can I have a sundae? I’ll get you both one as well.’

In the back seat, Victoria groaned.

‘No, thanks,’ Genevieve said. ‘I can’t move as it is. All right, Ig, you can have one. But you have to go in and get it. I’m not your slave.’

‘Cool,’ he said. He took the money from her and was out of the car in seconds.

Victoria was rummaging in Genevieve’s handbag. She took out a paper bag and looked inside at the contents. ‘Do you suppose we should use these pregnancy tests now?’

‘In the McDonald’s toilet? Lovely idea.’

‘It could still be stress, couldn’t it? Or jet lag in your case? Even this many days late?’

‘I hope so,’ Genevieve said.

‘I really hope so,’ Victoria said.

A few minutes later, Ig returned. He was carrying three sundaes in a cardboard tray.

‘That was nice of you to buy all of those with my money, Ig,’ Genevieve said. ‘But I told you I couldn’t eat another thing. Nor could Victoria.’

‘I thought you were joking. Sorry. I’ll have to eat them all myself.’ He started on the first one.

One hundred kilometres away, on the road between the Pugilist Hill lookout and the Gillespies’ homestead, Richard was watching while Lindy changed the tyre at the front of the ute.

‘I’m very embarrassed,’ he said.

‘Why?’ she said, looking up.

‘I’m the man. I should be doing that.’

‘But you don’t know how to change a tyre. I do.’

‘I’m embarrassed I don’t know how to change a tyre.’

Lindy shrugged. ‘You probably know how to do stuff I don’t know how to do.’

‘What else do you know how to do?’

‘Kill a snake. Shoot a gun. Muster sheep. Just ordinary stuff like that.’

‘Can you really do all those things?’

‘I grew up out here, Richard. We didn’t just sit around praying for rain.’

‘No, I guess not.’

They were silent for a moment as Lindy took off the flat tyre and moved the spare into place.

‘That was a great trip today,’ he said. ‘Thanks again. It’s incredible out here.’

‘Jane will kill me for bringing you back late.’

‘We won’t be that late. And she knows why. It’s not as if we deliberately got a flat tyre.’

Lindy had used the UHF radio in the car to contact the Lawsons. She hadn’t spoken to Jane but to her brother Fred, who’d been very warm and friendly. He’d also asked after Victoria. She was brilliant, Lindy had said, laying it on thick.

As she started to tighten the last bolt, she heard a noise from the radio.

‘Lindy? Are you there?’

‘Richard, can you get that? Just pick up the handset and press that button.’

He sat in the front seat and fumbled for the handset, dropping it and disconnecting the call. ‘I’m really failing on the macho front, aren’t I? Can’t change a tyre. Can’t use a walkie-talkie.’

‘It’s a UHF radio, not a walkie-talkie,’ Lindy said, wiping her hands on an old piece of cloth. She leaned past him and picked up the handset again. ‘Jane?’

‘Lindy? Where are you?’

‘On the side of the road with Richard. About ten k’s from our house.’

‘He’s supposed to be back here by now.’

‘I know. Sorry. We got a flat tyre. Didn’t Fred give you my message?’

‘Yes, but how long does it take to change a tyre?’

‘As long as it takes. Why, what do you think I’m doing, Jane?’

‘It’s obvious. You’re trying to keep Richard to yourself for as long as you can.’

‘Actually, you’re right,’ Lindy said. ‘I am.’ She pressed the button and finished the connection. Then she turned to Richard and pulled a face. ‘She’ll really kill me now.’

‘You can drop me off at the gate to their property and I’ll run in.’

‘Their gate is about a kilometre from their house. You’ll need to run fast.’

‘Has she always been jealous of you?’

‘Jealous of me? Are you joking?’

‘That’s what it looks like. She goes to a lot of trouble to put you down. Why does she do that? Because she’s threatened by you.’

‘You really think she’s jealous of me?’

‘Of your whole family, I reckon. She talks about you a lot. In fact, she hasn’t shut up about the Gillespies since I got here. All of you and your mother’s Christmas letter, especially.’

Lindy shut her eyes. ‘Don’t talk to me about that letter. I can’t bear it.’

‘But it was a brilliant letter. The Lawsons had a whole file of your mother’s letters. I read a few of them.’

‘How nice of Jane to show you.’

‘I enjoyed them, Lindy. Your family sounds like fun.’

‘Yes. So much fun. If you like asylums. I suppose they acted this year’s letter out in front of you?’ She could tell by his expression that they had. ‘It must have been hilarious.’

‘It was. But I was laughing at them, Lindy, not at your family.’

‘Sure.’

‘How can I fix this? I know, can I drive? Let me at least show you the tiniest element of masculinity.’

‘Do you know how to?’

‘Please, Lindy, I’m trying to salvage some pride here.’

‘It’s pretty hard on these roads. You have to go really slow, be careful passing other cars, watch out for stones —’

‘Please.’

She gave him the keys.

‘That last letter from your mum was pretty memorable,’ he said as they started moving again. ‘Maybe she’ll start a trend. No one usually tells the truth in those letters, do they?’

‘I don’t know and I don’t care. If she ever sends out another one, I’m divorcing myself from the family and never coming home for Christmas again. Slower, Richard. I know it feels like you’re crawling but you have to take it really easy out here.’

They drove on for five minutes. ‘See,’ he said, smiling over at her. ‘I do have some macho cells in my body.’

‘You’re a very good driver. You’re just going a bit fast again. And there’s a car coming.’

It was a tourist four-wheel drive, also going too fast.

Lindy put her hand on the dashboard. ‘Richard, seriously. I know these roads. Can you slow down a bit, otherwise —’

The other car passed them. A stone flew up into the windscreen. It shattered.

Richard slammed on the brakes. They skidded to a stop. He turned to her. ‘That happens?’

‘That happens,’ Lindy said.