Silver Wattle (53 page)

Before we reached the end of the path, Doctor Page stopped. I was worried that he might be feeling unwell. ‘I am too old to hide the truth,’ he said, his voice rising a tone. ‘You and Philip were in love and I pushed you apart because I had my heart set on him marrying Beatrice.’

The force of the truth left us both breathless. Doctor Page had summed up the sorry tale. The cemetery was quiet, as if all the deceased who lay at rest in it were wondering what would happen next. Only the seagulls and the faint roll of the ocean assured me that I had not gone deaf.

‘Beatrice deceived all of us,’ I told him. ‘But I am glad that you and Philip have been able to mend your relationship.’

Doctor Page continued to look at me. ‘And you and Philip?’ he asked. ‘That could not be repaired?’

The pointedness of his question startled me. I shook my head. ‘By the time Philip returned, I was already married.’

Doctor Page glanced back to the path.

‘Is your car waiting for you?’ I asked him.

He nodded and I saw the same Bentley that he had taken me in to meet Beatrice that first time was parked at the gate. The chauffeur opened the door and helped Doctor Page into the car. The old man offered to have his driver take me home, but I told him I had brought my own car.

He opened the window so he could say goodbye again before the car took off. ‘Philip is taking leave in February,’ he said. ‘I wonder if you would like me to give him a message from you?’

The sense of light that had filled my heart at Freddy’s grave burned even brighter. ‘Tell him that Adela says hello,’ I said. ‘Tell him to come and visit me some time. It would be nice to see an old friend.’

Doctor Page smiled and I knew that we had understood each other perfectly.

The time that Klara and I had spoken of arrived: the day she and Robert would leave with the twins for Europe. She had waited until she felt the twins were old enough to travel and—although she refused to say it—until she was sure that I could manage on my own. At twenty-three years of age, she was older than most serious performers embarking on their first tours, but I knew she would be well received.

‘I still cannot convince you to come with us, can I?’ she said on the morning of their departure.

I took her hand. ‘Wherever you are, we will always be sisters. You will always be in my heart.’

Klara kissed my hand and pressed it to her chest. ‘And you in mine.’

I remembered her wedding day and the gulf I had felt opening up between us. I could never have imagined myself living separately from my beloved sister and now I would have to learn to do so.

‘What will you do?’ Klara asked. ‘Now that you will not be making pictures any more?’

‘I will find something,’ I said, and thought of the letter I had received recently from Myles Dunphy, the leader of the new conservationist movement.

Klara studied my face. She pushed a lock of hair off my forehead. ‘It is amazing,’ she said.

‘What?’

‘How much you have grown to look like Mother.’

Uncle Ota, Ranjana, Thomas and I were there to farewell Klara and her family at the dock. Mrs Swan and Mary were there too. Esther was too heavily pregnant to come, but she and Hugh had sent flowers. After the ship disappeared through the Heads, Uncle Ota and Ranjana suggested that I stay the night with them. I was grateful for the invitation. I had an empty feeling in the pit of my stomach.

After everyone else was in bed, I sat up and watched Angel. She was still in the garden, the matron of the local brushtail possums. Cherub and her other offspring had taken up residence in the bush across the road. I took out the letter Myles Dunphy had sent me and reread it several times.

Dear Mrs Rockcliffe,

My breath was taken away by the picture you made in the Blue Mountains. It strikes me that you are a woman who will understand what I mean when I say that tree destruction is a kind of national complex and too much of the character of this country has been ruined in the name of progress. I wish our forefathers had been as sensitive to the balance of nature as you clearly are and had been more intelligent with their axe work. You may have heard by now of our campaign to save the blue gum forest in the Grose River Valley for the purposes of retaining this area of beauty for generations to come. I am writing to see if you will join us in our campaign and allow us to use your picture to raise public awareness of this issue. As we destroy our bushland, we destroy ourselves along with it.

The following morning, I drove back to the mountains with a stronger sense of purpose than I had known for years.

I arrived just after dark to see MP sticking his head out of his box. I thought of the possum population I had seen in Watsons Bay the previous night. In all the time I had been in the Blue Mountains, I had never seen MP with another possum. Why had he never had a mate? I smiled when I realised he may have thought the same thing about me.

‘You are not a young boy any more, MP,’ I told him. ‘Hurry up and make some babies.’

The following morning I drove to the post office to collect my mail, which had been held for me. There was so much that the postmistress gave it to me in a hessian sack to carry it to my car. When I arrived home, I sat on the veranda and sorted out the letters. There were dozens praising
The Emerald Valley
, and a few requests for me to take ladies on bushwalks, which reminded me of the day Hugh and I went to the pub at Blackheath and I had to laugh. Tour guide, indeed!

I sorted the post into three piles: personal letters from people I knew; letters from people I did not know; and bills. My eyes settled on an envelope marked AMS: the Aerial Medical Service.

My fingers trembled when I opened it. My vision blurred and I had to blink a few times before I could focus on the two sentences the letter contained:

The following Saturday, I smoothed the skirt of my new dress and waited on the veranda for Philip to arrive. The dressmaker had sewn the lemon-yellow dress for me in haste because I had realised after years of wearing mostly trousers that I did not have any feminine clothes that were in fashion. I was consumed by a vanity I had not known in years. When I had risen that morning, I had stared at myself in the mirror, trying to guess what changes Philip might see in my appearance. I was almost thirty and the first flush of my youth was gone. The face that stared back at me was harder and the set of the mouth was a little grimmer than before. But I hoped not too much so.

An hour passed and still there was no car on the road and my hopes began to sink. What if Philip was not coming? What if there had been some emergency? I still did not have a telephone so I had no way of knowing. I could go to the post office to see if there was a telegram, but I might miss him on my way. I sat on my hands and bit my lip.

I was aware of a buzzing sound in the sky. I shaded my eyes to see a biplane heading in the direction of the house. The plane flew overhead with a roar then circled and returned, this time so low that my skirt flapped in its slipstream.

Does Philip own a Gipsy Moth, I wondered.

The pilot brought the plane in to land in the empty lot next to the cottage. I walked towards it, aware that I had to stand back until the propeller had stopped spinning.

The pilot lifted himself out of the cockpit. The figure seemed taller than I remembered Philip and for one moment I thought I might have a tourist wanting a guide on my hands. Then the pilot removed his goggles and my heart leapt when I saw Philip’s face smiling at me. He had hardly changed since I had seen him last. His skin was slightly weathered and he looked more rugged, but his eyes were bright and alive.

‘A plane!’ I cried. ‘Does it belong to the AMS?’

‘No,’ said Philip. ‘We have Qantas pilots to transport us. This one’s my own.’

There was a second cockpit in the plane and, rather than walk towards me, Philip went to it and pulled out a flying jacket.

‘l’ll take you up while the engine’s still warm,’ he said. ‘The weather is perfect.’

My heart sank. I was excited to see Philip but the sick feeling that grabbed my stomach whenever I thought of that day in the flying fox returned to me. If I could not put up MP’s box without becoming dizzy, how would I manage a flight in an aeroplane?

‘Come on, Adela,’ Philip said, holding out a helmet and goggles. ‘Suit up!’

I remembered the look in Philip’s eyes when I had turned him away after Freddy’s death. I cringed when I thought of the hurt I had inflicted. I had punished Philip because I was consumed by guilt. But Philip had done nothing wrong; all he had ever done was to try to help people, to love them honestly and to behave with dignity. Both Beatrice and I had let him down. I looked up at him. His eyes were full of warmth. What he was asking me to do now—to go up in the Gipsy Moth with him—was so much less than he had ever asked of me before. Surely I could manage such a simple thing to make him happy?

My knees trembled and my heart pounded while Philip helped me into the flying jacket and strapped me into the passenger seat. I tucked the skirt of my dress underneath me. Once I was actually in the plane, my fear got the better of me. ‘Philip,’ I pleaded. ‘I am not sure I am up to this.’

Philip did not hear me. He strapped himself into the rear cockpit. Our helmets had earcups coupled to rubber tubing and there were mouthpieces. This was our means of communication. He taxied the plane to the end of the lot and turned into the wind. Then he opened the throttle and we commenced our take-off run. My stomach lurched and it took all my willpower not to be sick. The Moth headed straight for the edge of the cliff at full speed, and if it was not for the roar of the engine as we became airborne I would have deafened Philip with my scream.

The plane vibrated as it climbed into the sky under full power. ‘Let’s do a tour of the mountains,’ Philip said through the speaker tube. I was too terrified to look over the side of the plane. It had been a warm day down on the ground, but up in the air the wind bit my cheeks and I could feel my lips cracking.

After a few minutes of flying over bushland we came to a valley and Philip put the nose of the Moth down so that we could take a closer look. I recognised that we were over the Grose Valley and I could see the majestic blue gum forest. My heart fluttered with excitement and for a moment I forgot my fear. It was a bigger picture of the wilderness than I had ever seen before. I was filled with awe.

The rest of the flight was a wonder to me. I could not have imagined the exquisite beauty of the mountains from the air. I found myself envying birds. They saw the world as if from heaven—the tree tops, the sparkling rivers and valleys. When Philip brought the plane in to land next to my cottage, the nervous woman who had climbed into it an hour earlier emerged transformed.

‘So you like flying?’ Philip asked, helping me out of the jacket.

I was so moved I was in tears. ‘I loved it,’ I told him. ‘Thank you so much.’

Philip’s eyes danced over my face. ‘You haven’t changed, Adela. You have always been susceptible to beauty.’

I blushed and looked towards the house. ‘Are you hungry?’ I asked him.

After lunch, we strolled through my garden and I showed Philip my lavender and the box I had made for MP. We stopped near the maple tree I had planted in memory of my mother and father and looked out over the silent, sweeping valley. Philip reached out and took my hand. I clasped his fingers in mine and felt his grip tighten.

‘When I saw
The Emerald Valley
I knew that you had healed. That you had found a new purpose,’ he said, looking into my eyes.

He is going to kiss me, I thought. When I had received Philip’s letter, I had made up my mind that, no matter what, I would not turn him away again. Now was our chance for happiness and, if he still loved me, I intended to take it.

But he turned and stared up at the sky.

‘I have to hurry back now,’ he said. ‘I have some patients to see in Sydney tomorrow morning.’

‘Are you back in Sydney?’ I asked, my heart sinking. Philip had not come for love, he had come for companionship. I had once asked him if we could be friends and I would have to be happy with that. I was thankful that at least he was only going to Sydney and not somewhere as far away as Cloncurry.

‘I’ve helped set up the structure of the medical service,’ he said. ‘Now it’s time for me to return to my practice. But I will act as a relief doctor for the service from time to time.’

We walked back to Philip’s plane and I listened with fascination while he told me about his trips from Cloncurry into the Northern Territory and emergency landings in the mining camps of Mount Isa; about remote places in the Cape York Peninsula and the starkness of the inland towns and their inhabitants’ ability to endure the harshest conditions.

Philip zipped up his flying suit. ‘Can I come again next Saturday?’ he asked. ‘I could take you over the Hawkesbury River.’

Joy tingled through me. ‘You intend to come to the mountains again so soon?’ I asked, unable to restrain a smile. ‘Are you looking for a guide?’

The corners of Philip’s mouth twitched in return. ‘No. I’m looking for a navigator.’

‘What would a navigator do?’ I asked.

‘She would keep an eye out for clearings devoid of tall trees, power lines or livestock in case there is a need for an emergency landing.’

‘I think I could do that,’ I laughed.

Philip strapped himself into the cockpit and waved. I watched the aeroplane lift into the sky and followed its path until it disappeared on the horizon.

A gust of wind blew up from the valley and I hurried back inside. The nights could turn bitter even in late summer in the mountains, and it would be cold enough tonight to build a fire. I opened the door of my cottage and found MP snuggled behind a cushion on the sofa. He was lying on his haunches in a half-moon shape with his tail between his legs and his head tucked onto his tummy. I gently prodded his rump but he was fast asleep.

‘Well, you had better hurry up and find that girl as I’ve been telling you,’ I said. ‘I don’t think I am going to be alone much longer.’