Heart of the Outback (14 page)

The whinny of a horse drew her attention to the stable yards beyond the barn. The thought of an early morning ride before anyone else was up was attractive. The idea had no sooner drifted through her mind than she saw Stacey leading a saddled horse to the stable yard gate. The girl was clearly intent on going out for a ride by herself.

Alida frowned. As confident as Stacey might be in looking after herself, this was not familiar country to her. If she went too far, did she have the tracking knowledge to find her way back? Alida hesitated only a moment before turning to the wardrobe to get out her riding gear. Her company might not be welcomed, but it was better to be safe than sorry. Besides, it was a chance to speak to the girl and perhaps establish some understanding between them.

By the time Alida set out after Stacey, the girl and her horse were only a spurt of dust in the distance. Alida followed as swiftly as common sense and the inclination of her horse allowed. She enjoyed the canter. She hoped that Stacey would see that they actually had a lot in common, and that Alida could and would fit into her life and Gareth’s. She had to. For Andy’s sake, if not for her own.

It was one of those ironies of life that Stacey should choose as her destination the same waterhole where her father had persuaded Alida to marry him. Alida dismounted and tethered her own to a nearby tree, then followed the girl’s footsteps across the dry creek bed to the other side of the waterhole. She found a pair of riding boots and socks placed neatly together at the base of the rock climb that she and her brothers had attempted and failed so many times.

“Stacey?” she called, hoping the girl had not climbed her way into trouble.

“I’m up here.” There was a slight quaver in her voice.

“Are you okay?”

Silence.

Alida couldn’t see her, but the sound of her voice had come from the split chasm above the waterhole, and that section was definitely dangerous. Alida went to the horses and removed the bridles and reins. They would do for a makeshift rope if one was needed to haul Stacey to safety.

“Alida?” There was a touch of panic in that cry. Pride giving way to fear.

“I’m coming,” Alida yelled as she ran across the creek bed.

“I… I need help.”

“Hold on as best you can, Stacey. I’ll get to you as fast as I can make it.” She hung the reins around her neck and swiftly removed her own riding boots and socks.

“The ledge crumbled under my foot and…and I’m not sure I should move.”

“Don’t move. Just hold on and wait.”

With the expert knowledge of many previous climbs, Alida started up the easiest rock buttress.

“Alida?”

“I’m on my way.”

“Maybe… maybe you should get Dad.”

A vote of no-confidence, Alida thought grimly. The problem was that Stacey might not be able to hang on that long. Toes could cramp. She might be tempted to move and get herself into a worse jam.

“Stacey, I’ve lived here all my life,” she reminded the girl. “I’m older than my brothers. I used to get them out of their scrapes. Some of them involved this rock face, which I know as well as the palm of my hand. You might think of me as a soft city person, but before I was sent to boarding school in Perth, one of my jobs was to lead out a team of Aboriginal stockmen on muster. I was in the saddle for twelve hours at a time, and camped with the men for up to six weeks bringing the stock in. So please, give me a little credit for knowing what I’m doing, will you?”

Silence.

Alida hoped it meant Stacey was digesting that information. “I wasn’t meaning to brag. That was just the way it was,” she said matter-of-factly, hoping to keep Stacey’s mind occupied until she could reach her. “My mum and dad couldn’t afford permanent help, so I filled in wherever I was needed. I guess you’ve helped your father on his station, too.”

A pause, then, “Did you hate being sent away to school?” Stacey’s voice was less of a quaver now, more filled with curiosity.

“Yes. It felt like being put in jail. And all the other girls seemed to know more than I did about everything. But it was what my parents wanted for me, and it was costing them so much to give me a proper education that I knew I had to do the best I could. I got used to it after a while, but I was always glad to get home.”

A longer pause.

Alida quickened her progress as much as she could, but the footholds were tricky with loosened shale and she had to feel her way carefully in some places.

“My mother used to teach me,” Stacey said in a forlorn little voice.

Alida didn’t know what reply to make. Stacey’s mother was a touchy subject. The girl didn’t want Alida trying to take her place. Heaven alone knew what Stacey thought about Andy’s conception while her mother was still alive! How had Gareth explained that?

“I guess you miss your mother very much,” she offered sympathetically.

A choking sound.

Alida’s heart sank. The last thing she needed was Stacey being emotional. She tried to force the girl’s mind onto something else.

“I think you ought to get your plaits cut off,” she said. “With your small face you’d look much prettier with short hair.”

The sniffing stopped. “My mother liked my hair long. She used to brush it every day,” came the angry protest.

“Well, she’s not here to brush it any more. And I bet it’s a nuisance to you at boarding school,” Alida suggested. The appeal to vanity didn’t seem to be working.

“It is not. I can keep it just like my mother did.”

“It’s your hair, Stacey.”

“You’re only saying that because…”

Silence.

“Because what?” Alida prompted.

“Because you hated my mother!”

So the terrible truth was out. Alida took a deep breath and produced a flat matter-of-fact voice. “You can’t hate someone you don’t know, Stacey. I never knew your mother. I couldn’t hate her.”

“You did so hate her. When you spoke about her in the car you hated her.”

“Not her, Stacey. I hated the position I was in. I never meant to be the other woman in anybody’s marriage. If I’d hated your mother, I could have hurt her by telling her about Andy. I could have written her a letter. Or sent her a photograph. But I didn’t do it. I never did anything to stop your parents from being happy together.”

She reached the cut in the rock face and edged around it. Stacey was clinging to a fissure on the next giant step up and about two metres along from Alida’s position. Her feet were hanging onto a ledge that had broken away on either side of her. A tear-streaked face peered down at Alida, but the dark eyes were clear of any distorting moisture.

The incline was such that they could both lean against the rock face, which gave them some security against falling headlong down the chasm. Alida judged that with the reins looped under Stacey’s arms, the girl could slide down to Alida’s level and be steadied there.

She set about making the necessary loops as she calmly explained to Stacey what she wanted her to do. It was a tricky manoeuvre that required both nerve and steady caution. The girl looked frightened but she didn’t lose her head and panic. She followed Alida’s instructions step by step. When Stacey had as firm a grip as she could get on the fissure, Alida braced herself to take the weight should the girl fumble the foothold on the lower level.

“Okay. Press yourself against the rock. Take one foot off the ledge and steady yourself before taking the other off. Then let go slowly and slide.”

There were a few teetering moments before she landed on the lower ledge, but Alida had the reins pulled tight in a flash, slamming her forward against the incline. She was safe. Yet in the next instant there was a shower of stone from where she had hung onto the fissure, and although it would have been quite harmless, Stacey panicked into moving away from it. She lunged towards Alida, accidentally unbalancing her.

Even as Alida began to fall, it spun through her mind that she had to let go the reins. She opened her hands and the leather straps slid away from her. Stacey’s scream rang in her ears, but there was nothing Alida could do to save herself. She was falling the wrong way—outwards—and the last thing she thought of was to let herself go limp. Then her head hit against rock and she knew nothing more.

How long it was before she became conscious again, Alida had no idea. Time was meaningless. She gradually became aware of pain. It felt as though her head was splitting. There was whirling darkness. Movement. Noise. She forced her eyes open. At least she thought she did, but still there was only whirling darkness.

“Alida.”

Gareth’s voice, urgent, harsh with concern.

The pain in her head was excruciating as she turned it towards his voice.

“Thank God!” he breathed. “Alida, try to move your legs.”

She did. A little. She seemed to hurt all over.

“That’s fine,” Gareth said in a shaky relief. “Lie still now. We’re almost back at the homestead.”

“Gareth, I can’t see,” Alida forced out, her voice sounding thick and faraway.

“There’s nothing important to see, Alida,” he soothed. “Some bruising. A few cuts and grazes that will soon heal. No bones broken that I can detect. Just lie still and don’t worry about anything. Stacey’s okay. She climbed down and rode back to us for help. And you’re going to be okay, too.”

But her eyes were open. She was sure they were. So why couldn’t she see something besides whirling darkness? The vehicle she was in? Gareth? He was beside her, wasn’t he?

“I can’t see,” she said again, a welling of panic heightening the pain.

“Open your eyes.”

“They are open. Aren’t they?”

She heard his sharply indrawn breath. Then in a strained voice, “It must be concussion. Close your eyes and rest, Alida. Don’t worry about it. We’ll get you to a hospital as fast as we can.”

People got dizzy from concussion. She knew that. But surely they didn’t lose their sight altogether. That didn’t seem right at all. Yet if it wasn’t right, then she had somehow gone blind.

Please God, don’t let it be so, she prayed in desperate anguish. Let it be only temporary. She couldn’t be blind. Not from such a simple accident. Not when she was going to marry Gareth. Not when she had saved Stacey. Please, God, don’t let it be so.

The last week before the bandages came off was the hardest for Alida. As much as she told herself she should be abrim with anticipation for the moment she saw light again, she could not quell the fear of that moment never coming. What if the surgeon was wrong? What if the operation hadn’t been a success? What if she stayed blind forever?

The long days of darkness seemed interminable. The loss of sight made her feel helpless, disoriented, claustrophobic, totally cut off from the world she had always taken for granted. Whenever she was alone, a crazy panic about the future would creep up on her and overwhelm all the common sense she tried to apply.

Gareth seemed to take it for granted that nothing would go wrong as far as her eyes were concerned. The damage caused by internal haemorrhaging had been repaired and it was only a matter of time before she had her sight back. All the arrangements of the wedding were made. The waiting was almost over. There was a deep impatient hunger in his kisses that stirred an equal hunger in Alida, a desperate hunger for everything to turn out right for them.

In some ways the accident and her temporary blindness had not been a bad thing. These past weeks in the hospital and then this nursing home had given her much more assurance that her marriage to Gareth was not such a terrible gamble. He had stayed on in Perth to be with her and Andy, making sure she got the best treatment, keeping her company, meeting her city friends and getting to know them.

He liked Jill Masters. She could tell from the easy rapport between them. He was neutral about Suzanne Day, polite to her but nothing more. Ivan Poletti he was slower to accept. If Alida didn’t know better, she would have thought Gareth was jealous of their friendship. But that was ridiculous. And gradually she heard amusement in Gareth’s voice when he spoke of him or to him.

It also relieved Alida’s mind that Gareth never said anything negative about her career although she knew he didn’t like it. The idea of giving it up and living full-time with Gareth was very tempting. Somehow dress designing held no compelling interest for her anymore. It had always been a substitute for what she really wanted. Yet reason insisted that it was wiser to keep on with it and retain some independence.

If she couldn’t have Gareth’s love, she might very well need a breathing space away from him, something to pour herself into and forget what she didn’t have. Besides, wasn’t it said that absence made the heart grow fonder? Perhaps it would sharpen Gareth’s desire for her after each separation, and keep that spice in their marriage for him.

Sometimes when he sat with her at night and softly stroked her hand and arm, she let herself imagine he really loved her. Gareth was such a strange mixture of hardness and gentleness. The ruthless savage she had called him in her mind was not so much in evidence these days.

To her surprise and intense pleasure, he had presented her with an engagement ring, an emerald surrounded by a flowing wave of baguette diamonds. It wasn’t a bond of love. She knew that. Gareth had spelled out what it meant.

“I know I haven’t done much right by you, Alida, but I hope this will make up for some of the hurt I’ve given you. It’s a token of my esteem for you, and a symbol of my commitment to our marriage.”

It made Alida feel that he did care for her, above and beyond sexual attraction. Although a little worm of cynicism whispered that the gesture was probably more aimed to ensure that she didn’t change her mind about marrying him.

That was why he stayed on in Perth with her. “Don’t you have to get back to Riordan River, Gareth?” she had asked in the early days after the operation on her eyes.

“I’m not going until I can take you with me, Alida,” he had replied, firm resolution in his voice.

That had been his plan before the accident, to take her and Andy straight to Riordan River with him.

Gareth was taking no chances that their marriage agreement would break down anywhere along the way. Yet she had no intention of changing her mind. Andy adored his father. Stacey showed every sign of accepting her. Alida sensed there was an underlying guilt in all the girl’s visits to her, but at least there was no sign of hostility.