Silver Clouds (23 page)

And Edward, cheeky, fun-loving Edward?
He fell from the windmill in the house paddock.

Our boys are buried not with my William but under the grove of mallee trees we always joked would become the cemetery. Uncle Sam picked the spot when we first came out here, saying it was the coolest and most peaceful place on the station. We've always known and been prepared for death out here, but we never thought we would bury so many there so quickly.

It could have weakened a lesser family, but their deaths have made Tom's and my resolve stronger than ever to make this stretch of land into one of the best stations on the Nullarbor.

Yes, tonight, sitting in front of our fire, we are a lot more solemn and sad, but we won't fail, because that is not a word either Tom or I understand.

Tessa drew a sharp breath. She'd had no idea what Aunty Spider had faced – such disaster and sorrow! Spider had never spoken about it, never mentioned those losses. In fact, she'd rarely talked of early times, except to recall what year they'd had a good clip, or bad rains.

This must have been why she was so understanding, so sympathetic, when Kendra had been killed. Because she understood loss by accident. Lord, it made the things Tessa had faced seem insignificant by comparison.

Nine words, in particular, had jumped off the page for Tessa: ‘He fell from the windmill in the house paddock'. So Kendra's death wasn't the first one on Danjar Plains! The local Aborigines might have said the place was cursed but, really, accidents were nothing but bad luck or bad management. At least, that was what Spider would have said, but it was not necessarily what Tessa believed.

Restlessly, she got up and paced. What a horrendous year for them all, but it was just like Aunty Spider to not give up, the tough old bird. Obviously she'd gone on to do what she had promised ‘the boys', because Danjar Plains, although a small station, was a good one.

Tessa placed the 1957 diary on the pile next to her and opened another.

Tuesday, 8 July 1958

It is going to be a good season – the grass is long and the bush green (or rather a bluey-silver) with new shoots. We have started to see the budgerigars in large flocks. The noise they make is just deafening and when they fly together they seem like one green cloud moving across the sky. I rode my bike out to
Jackman's paddock yesterday and there they were lining the trees. From a distance it looked like the branches had some kind of growth all over them! It really was an incredible sight. I've been here now since 1928 and while the birds come every year, I don't believe I have seen so many. Dear Uncle Sam would have told an old wives' tale about why they are here in such numbers, I'm sure.

They drink from the puddles and the dams we have dug. Even though there are heaps of live ones, there seems to be many dead ones too. Who knows why, but I am continually scooping them out of my house water tank.
This impresses me no end. Tom says he'll bring me back a gas cannon next time he goes to Kalgoorlie. It will keep them away from my fruit trees, which I've so carefully looked after and which these pesky birds love to eat!

. . .

Sunday, 13 December 1959

We are celebrating tonight. It is the biggest wool clip we have ever sent off. And it went by truck. Yes, I know, we've been doing that for a few years now, but I still find it strange seeing the bales loaded one by one onto motorised machinery, rather than the trailers pulled by the camels down to the sea.

. . .

Thursday, 14 January 1960

Well, well, isn't Tom a dark horse? He has arrived home from his annual break in Kalgoorlie with a bride in tow. Always to be expected, I guess, but at 29, I did wonder if marriage would pass him by. Lucy is a station girl from further north of Kalgoorlie and is a good worker. We will get along fine.

. . .

Monday, 28 March 1960

Fires have been bad throughout the summer – the dry storms and lightning strikes have kept everyone alert. But tonight there is soft and steady rain from a cyclone on the northwest coast. It should put paid to any wildfires still burning.

. . .

Sunday, 22 December 1963

I think the most exciting news I have is I am an aunty to a sweet, dark-haired child. His nose is tiny and his mouth seems to open all the time. His skin is like his father's, a dark olive, which means he won't get burnt!

Lucy is well and the birth seemed easy – but how terrible of me to say so when I haven't had a child. What I mean is, there weren't any difficulties. Thank goodness. I had been terrified there may be.

They have named the boy Paul.

I am going to tell Tom I will move out of the homestead. What way is it really, to have a family when you have a sister living with you.
I will move to the little hut we first built when we arrived. It is plenty big enough for me and won't require too much fixing. Lucy will need a house and amenities. It will help, too, if she's near the house windmill – much easier for the vegie patch.

Tessa stopped reading. That baby was her dad. She'd just read about the birth of her dad out here on the Nullarbor. And obviously the house Aunty Spider was referring to was where Tessa had been raised. She tried to imagine what it would have been like, alone except for a doting family. No friends outside of the station. What a lonely existence.

She flicked back through the rest of the books and opened up 1967's diary.

Thursday, 19 January 1967

The wool market is very much in the doldrums at the moment. The money we should have received for the last clip isn't what we'd budgeted on and it means we will have to put on hold some of the water development we wanted to do. We also found the cull ewe price wasn't what we were hoping for, either.
I'm thinking we need to diversify. Perhaps buy
some cattle. Our neighbours have some cows for sale and we could buy a bull easily enough.
It would help alleviate the money pressure for a year or two. I hope.

Tessa found herself not just wanting, but also
needing
to know what happened in the early years, when there weren't any diaries. But there had to be! Spider wouldn't just stop writing them.

And then she remembered she hadn't returned Elsie's call.

Tessa picked up the phone.

‘Hello, Elsie. It's Tessa.'

‘Tessa dear.' The joy in Elsie's voice shocked Tessa. The old lady must have been waiting to hear from her.

‘Yes, it's me. How are you, Elsie?'

‘I'm getting along just fine. I keep myself busy.'

‘What do you do?' Tessa asked out of politeness, when what she really wanted to do was ask a million other questions.

‘Oh, you know, the usual sort of things. I help out at the museum once a week, visit all the old people in the hospital who haven't got anyone else. That sort of thing.'

‘All the old people? Elsie, you're eighty-four! How old are the old people you visit?'

‘Some of them are younger than me, but they're ill. Unfortunate for them, really. But there are some as old as ninety, you know!'

Tessa laughed. ‘I think you and Aunty Spider may have been hellraisers when you were younger.'

‘Ah yes, my dear. We could well have been. But no different to you or Ryan or any other young person.'

‘Elsie, I'm wondering if I could ask you something?' ‘Of course dear. Anything.'

‘I've been reading Aunty Spider's diaries. I've found quite a few but there are some years missing. I would've thought there should have been others around, but I can't seem to find them. Have you got any idea where they'd be?'

‘Here in my spare room.'

‘Beg your pardon?' It was the last answer she expected.

‘She gave them to me for safe-keeping. There was a time, although I'm not sure why, that she felt the place for these wasn't on Danjar Plains, so she sent them to me. One's family history is very important. It shows later generations where you've come from and why your family is the way it is today. I don't mean just yours, Tessa, I mean anyone's. Everyone has a right to know about his or her heritage. But for some reason she told me I had to wait until the time was right before handing them on. But without any other instructions from her, I do believe that time is now. I've got them all packaged up ready to send.'

‘Wasn't safe?' Tessa was still back at Elsie's first sentence. ‘Why?'

‘I can't tell you.'

‘Can't or won't?'

‘Can't. I don't know why, other than she wanted them off the place. But I happily took them.'

‘Have you read any of them? Can you give me a clue?'

‘Tessa!' Elsie sounded shocked. ‘Never would I have broken my dearest friend's trust like that. Never.'

‘Sorry.' Tessa felt suitably chastised. ‘Sorry. I was only joking.'

‘Trust is something to never joke about.'

There was a pause while Tessa tried to work out what to say next. ‘She had a pretty hard life, didn't she?'

‘We all did back then, but we never saw it that way,' Elsie said. ‘It was the way life was. Everyone experienced the same things. There was death, you accepted it. There were fun times, you enjoyed them. No point in moaning or whining. Life was just there to be lived the best we could.'

‘Did you tell her that when her uncle and brothers died?' It was a loaded question. Tessa still wasn't convinced that Elsie had spent as much time with Spider as she claimed. After all, her aunt had made no mention of her. But still, she seemed to know so much.

‘I didn't have to tell her, dear. She already knew that.'

‘The diaries are very scarce with info, especially personal stuff. I thought that was what they were for, to record your deepest thoughts.'

‘Ah, but that's where you're wrong, Tessa. Diaries back then were for historical reference. That's how most people wrote them – so younger generations would know what we did. Letters were for personal thoughts. Even if you wrote them to yourself.'

Tessa's desire to read those diaries and whatever letters she could get her hands on was so strong she wanted to jump down the phone and grab them that very moment. ‘Are there any letters you can send me?' she asked.

‘No, dear, I don't have them.'

Disappointed, she said: ‘So, I'm assuming I won't get anything much out of these diaries? If it's all just historical recounts?'

‘It depends on what you do with the information you read. Sorry to be so cryptic!' Elsie let out a chuckle as if she wasn't sorry at all and Tessa snorted at the absurdity. It was almost like talking to Aunty Spider all over again.

‘She knew she would send me mad, trying to figure this out, didn't she?'

Elsie chuckled again. ‘I don't think it was her intention, but she wouldn't have been surprised! Goodbye, Tessa, dear. I'll take the parcel to the post office tomorrow.'

‘Thanks, Elsie. Take care.'

Tessa hung up and jiggled her knee in agitation. There was something hidden in this family, a secret of some sort. Elsie knew what it was, but she was a bloody vault.

Tessa would find it, she was determined. Then she realised: she'd forgotten to ask Elsie about the rings.

Chapter 23

Tessa rummaged through the storeroom at the homestead trying to find an old sleeping bag and tarpaulin she could use as a swag. There were heaps of blankets at Spider's and she had a couple of those, but she needed something waterproof in case there was a dew.

The Muster was only days away and with the planning and helping her mother to get everything ready, the family investigation had been put on hold. She couldn't help but wonder when Brendan would get there. She was very keen to see him – the spasmodic phone calls had only whetted her appetite.

She wasn't sure how she felt about her first Muster since Kendra had died. It was too long ago for anyone to bring it up, but the fact remained, she'd only come back once after the accident. Her presence was sure to stir some interest from the locals who knew her story.

‘What'd you find, love?' Peggy was standing in the doorway.

‘I've got a holey sleeping bag, but I can't find anything else I can use as a swag.'

Tessa turned around. Dust freckled her nose. Her mother gave a little chuckle. ‘You look like the Tessa of old,' she said, reaching out to pick a cobweb off her daughter's fringe. ‘And your hair has grown. Thank goodness for that. I must say, petal, you look much better. Fresher. I'm so pleased you've stayed for a while. Now, did you see anything in the cellar when you were down there?'

‘No, not that I remember.'

‘Well, there's probably something in the shearers' quarters. Head over and have a look there.' Her mother paused. ‘Actually there's a chance Spider's swag is over there with all of ours. Why don't you see if you can find it.'

Uncomfortable at the thought of sharing her great-aunt's sleeping space, she wrinkled her nose. ‘I'll see what I can find,' she answered.

The shearers' quarters were probably seventy years old. They were made from limestone, with walls nearly twenty-five centimetres thick. Tessa had never thought about how much effort would have gone into building them, but as she placed her hands on their coolness, she knew it must have taken years and much man power. How they could have managed to get the ceilings as high as they did was beyond her.

She cautiously stuck her head through the door and looked around. Snakes and all sorts of creatures might be found here, so she wouldn't be setting a foot inside until she'd carefully surveyed the room.

The small kitchen was neat and tidy, but empty. A little bedroom opened straight off it. Years ago it would have been the cook's bedroom, but Spider had always refused to let a cook in here while she was able to keep up with the huge hunger demands shearers had. She would vault from the shearing shed to the kitchen and back again. Tessa never knew how she managed such a workload.