The Audrey of the Outback Collection (15 page)

Against one wall of the room was a red chair with two big wheels at the front and a small one at the back. Audrey guessed it was for people who couldn’t walk.

The other patient was deeply asleep. Her snoring was a dead giveaway. But in a snoring competition, Douglas would still win.

‘Fair dinkum,’ said Audrey. ‘You’re a sight for sore eyes, Mum.’

Mum whispered back, ‘What are you doing here?’

‘I’ve come to see if you’re still alive.’ Audrey took her mother’s hand.

‘I
am
.’

‘I know. You’re talking.’ They smiled at each other.

‘The sisters might be cross if they find you here.’

‘I washed my hands three times so there’s no germs.’

‘I’m sure there isn’t.’ Mum’s fingers twitched against Audrey’s.

More shouting came from the back of the hospital.

‘My goodness. Something’s going on out there.’

‘My friend, Boy, is distractionating the nurses, so I could sneak in.’

Mum winced. ‘He’s doing a good job.’

The woman in the next bed didn’t move. Her mouth hung open as she snored.

Somewhere at the back of the building, a baby cried. It reminded Audrey of the way baby birds nagged for attention. ‘Can you come home soon, Mum?’

‘Soon. When I stop feeling so sick.’

‘I don’t expect Mrs Paterson is used to people spitting up at her house.’

‘Certainly not.’

‘That would be on her “Don’t” list, for sure.’ Audrey saw her letter folded neatly on the bedside table. ‘Did you like my letter? It was long and I did it all by myself.’

‘It made me smile,’ said Mum. ‘Are you and Dougie all right?’

‘Yes. He said a whole sentence. And I’ve got a project. I’m looking for Mrs Paterson’s good side. You know, like Dad says.’

Her mother’s face went pink when Audrey said ‘Dad’.

‘It’s harder than I thought, but I found
some
good things already. Mrs Paterson is knitting me a red thing. It’s going to have arms. She likes books. Her hands are soft … for an old lady. She let me make her a cup of tea and she only told me what to do five times.’

Mum’s eyes looked moist. ‘It’s lovely to see you, but you’d better go now. I don’t want you to get into trouble.’

Reluctantly, Audrey agreed with her mum. Mrs Paterson’s ‘Don’t’ list for outside the house didn’t include sneaking into the hospital. But only because she hadn’t thought of it.

Boy’s shouting had stopped. Perhaps he had lost his voice.

Audrey hugged her mother, wishing it would go on forever, but knowing it could not.

Twenty-five

Audrey and Douglas followed Mrs Paterson into the ‘Smith of Dunesk’ mission church.

Excitement tightened inside Audrey. She tried not to think about the store they were visiting next and what treasures might be there.

First, Mrs Paterson had to do a duty with some flowers. Audrey was glad the goats hadn’t eaten them all.

‘
Kookookaakaa
…’ Douglas mimicked his favourite bird at the top of his voice.

Mrs Paterson turned her head to give him a stern look over the flowers she was carrying. ‘
Sssh
.’

Douglas’s call was loud, but the church was empty. If God made birds in the first place, he wouldn’t be upset if someone liked them so much they made bird noises in his house.

‘Wait here while I fetch a vase.’ Mrs Paterson headed for the back of the church.

The bumpy mission walls were whitewashed. Long, wooden benches stretched across bare floorboards. On the far wall was a plastered ribbon. The writing on it said,
Seek ye the Lord while He may be Found
.

Mrs Paterson returned with the flowers in a white vase and sat them on a table. Audrey wished she had thought to take her mum some lavender yesterday. But a hug was better than flowers.

Douglas stuck his thumb in his mouth.

‘
Ye
is a funny name, isn’t it, Mrs Paterson?’ said Audrey. ‘Is he from another country? He sounds like a China man.’

Mrs Paterson made a spluttering noise that Audrey couldn’t quite work out. It must have been a squashed sneeze caused by flower pollen.

‘
Ye
means You,’ the old lady said.

‘Someone couldn’t spell too proper then.’

Mrs Paterson fiddled the lavender to each side of the vase. ‘It’s Old English. No one speaks that way any more.’

Audrey sat on one of the hard, wooden benches. ‘Is that another one of those dead-thing languages?’

‘I suppose you could put it that way.’ Mrs Paterson bent to scoop up a stray petal that had drifted to the floor.

‘So why did someone write dead words on the wall?’

‘Oh child! The things you say.’ Mrs Paterson’s eyebrows rose. ‘The
meaning
is not dead. It tells us to look for the Lord.’

Audrey scratched her head while she thought hard about that one. ‘But isn’t He invisible?’

‘You look into your heart … and in the Good Book. There are ways to find Him.’

A warm feeling swept through Audrey. She glanced out through the open doorway to where Stumpy waited on the path. Mrs Paterson
did
believe in things that were invisible.

Twenty-six

Mrs Paterson, her neck stiff, strode past the Royal Victoria Hotel. She walked faster than usual. ‘Riffraff,’ she muttered.

The way Mrs Paterson said ‘riffraff’ made the hotel sound like a bad place. But the verandah was clean and the plants in tubs were neat and green. The schoolteacher lived in the hotel, so it couldn’t be too bad. Boy had told Audrey that she gave handers to children who got up to tricks, so she didn’t stand any nonsense.

It would hurt a lot to be whacked on the hand with a cane. The teacher had already given Boy handers eight times. Audrey was impressed. Even though she didn’t think it was too smart to put flies in the teacher’s drinking water.

Boy also said that there was a table in the front room of the hotel where people hit balls with sticks and tried to get them into little holes. That would be fun. But a visit to the store would be better than a peek in a hotel. The store had lollies.

‘We
must
get you a pair of decent shoes, my girl,’ said Mrs Paterson. ‘Those boots belong in the bush.’

‘That’s a true thing,’ said Audrey. ‘I
live
in the bush, Mrs Paterson.’

‘
That
is obvious.’

Douglas didn’t care about shoes. He didn’t bother to wear them most of the time. At home, he only went for shoes when the three-cornered jack prickles were bad.

Audrey and Douglas followed Mrs Paterson into the store.

Goods of all kinds were stacked from the floor almost to the ceiling. There were more things in one room than in the whole of Audrey’s house.

‘Do not touch unless you intend to buy,’ said Mrs Paterson.

Douglas’s little fingers went straight to the handlebars of a bicycle. He tilted his head to look at it sideways. Audrey wondered how people could ride bicycles without falling off. But then, people balanced on horses without falling too often. Gently, she guided her brother away from the bicycles and pedal cars.

The store shelves were loaded with packets, jars, tins and bottles. Audrey saw colourful biscuit tins, Vincent’s Powders for headaches, Fowler’s Lion Brand herbs and Life Savers, lollies with a hole in the middle. Maybe you could stick your tongue in it for fun. Boy’s sister, Jessie, might like them.

Every time Douglas saw something he liked, he tugged at Audrey’s hand. She hoped he wouldn’t pull free and run off. He’d be sure to knock something over.

Two women stood at the high front counter, chatting. They said hello to Mrs Paterson, then kept talking without pausing for breath. One of the women wore lipstick so red it looked like the setting sun after a bushfire. She asked her friend, ‘Did you hear about the Jenkins boy?’

Pins and needles ran down Audrey’s arms.

‘He had a sudden attack of appendicitis. Stopped as quickly as it started. He was lucky.’

‘Quite a fuss at the hospital. He made enough noise to wake the dead.’ The woman pushed at the corner of her lips with one finger, as though she was worried her lipstick was sliding away.

‘No good ever came of listening to gossip,’ said Mrs Paterson from behind Audrey.

Audrey jumped.

She wanted to hear what the woman said about Boy. It had been her plan that sent him to the hospital, clutching his stomach and wailing. Audrey didn’t like keeping the secret, but Mrs Paterson would be as cross as two sticks if she found out.

The gossiping women moved onto another topic.

Douglas stood with his face glued to the counter that had the lollies. Audrey spied some ribbons. Brightly coloured and in small rolls, they looked like a rainbow that had been separated into strips.

Mrs Paterson moved to stand beside Audrey. Her black dress rustled. The smell of lavender hung about her.

‘Leaping lizards!’ said Audrey. ‘Aren’t they pretty?’

‘I cannot imagine what lizards have to do with ribbons.’

Audrey thought about tying yellow ribbons onto the end of her thick, fair plaits.

‘You’d look nice with that one.’ Audrey pointed to a roll of thin ribbon that was the blue of a summer sky.

Mrs Paterson stiffened. ‘I only wear black.’ Her voice was tight. Twin patches of pink appeared high on her cheeks.

Sometimes what people
didn’t
say was more curious than what they
did
say. Audrey wondered if she was the only one keeping a secret.

‘May I please try on the black ones?’

Twenty-seven

Audrey stared at a pair of shiny black shoes. Her mouth started to water. She used to think that only happened if you were hungry and saw food. Now she knew shoes made it happen too.

She swallowed, and then reached out to stroke one of the black shoes. It had a large bow on top and a thick heel. She screwed up her face, then grinned.

‘Whatever are you doing, Audrey Barlow?’

Audrey looked up.

Mrs Paterson had a pair of brown lace-ups in her hand. Solid and squat, they looked dull compared to the shiny black pair.

‘I can see my face in the shiny stuff.’

‘Sit there.’ Mrs Paterson pointed to a stool. ‘Try this brown pair on.’

Audrey felt disappointment like a lead weight in her chest. She dragged herself over to the stool and plonked herself onto it. Then she slowly slid off her old boots and wriggled her bare toes.

Douglas danced over to watch.

Mrs Paterson held out a brown shoe. Audrey put it on. It felt stiff, heavy and uncomfortable.

‘Try both on and take a few steps to see how they feel.’ Mrs Paterson looked over the top of her small round glasses.

Audrey plodded up and down.

‘You look like a cow,’ said Douglas. ‘You got big feet.’

Audrey giggled.

Mrs Paterson sighed.

‘May I please try on the black ones?’ asked Audrey. Her voice was calm but her heart was going pitter-pat.

Mrs Paterson sighed again. Audrey took that as a
yes
. She removed the brown lace-ups and put on the black shoes.

‘Bet I don’t look like a cow with these on, do I, Dougie?’ Audrey whispered.

‘No.’ Douglas jiggled on his little legs. ‘You look like an
emu
. I want lollies now. Owinge ones.’

Her chin raised, Audrey walked just the way Mrs Paterson had done past the hotel.

‘Why are you walking in that ridiculous manner? Are the shoes too tight?’

Audrey shook her head. ‘This is how
you
walk, Mrs Paterson.’

The old lady’s eyebrows shot up. ‘Nonsense. If I held my nose that high in the air I could not see where I was placing my feet.’

Mrs Paterson hadn’t seen herself walking, so she probably didn’t know how she did it.

‘I could be a lady in these black shoes,’ said Audrey in her sweetest voice. The one that always made her dad suspicious.

‘I suppose it wouldn’t hurt. They fit. And they do look as though they might last,
if
you treat them carefully.’

‘I’ll really look after them. I’ll spit on ’em and everything.’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘Dad says that you have to spit on your shoes to make them really shiny. He calls it
spit and polish
. Not that he cleans
his
boots. They’re too old, but …’ Audrey faltered. ‘’Course, he’s a man and men are allowed to spit. We don’t, because we’re ladies, aren’t we?’

‘I hardly think spitting of
any
sort should be encouraged.’

‘Too right.’ Audrey nodded.

Mrs Paterson pursed her lips, then said, ‘I suppose if a simple pair of black shoes prompted an improvement in your manners, that would be a good thing.’

‘Fair dinkum.’ Audrey slapped her thigh with one hand. ‘I’ll look like the cocky’s corsets.’

Twenty-eight

Audrey and Boy sat on a large rock, just outside of town. The rain had cleared, but there were still puddles on the ground. Audrey wished there was a way to take the puddles back home to the bush.

‘It’s better watchin’ the trains out here than at the station,’ said Boy. ‘We got it all to ourselves.’

‘Is it time yet?’ Audrey leaned forward for a better look along the railway line.

‘Sometimes it’s late if sand has blown on the track. Dad says they sometimes hand out shovels to the passengers so they can help clear it. Me dad’s a guard. He’s got a hat and everything.’