Moonlight Plains (28 page)

Dearest Kitty,

It’s a dangerous thing to look back as I have been doing in these letters to you. It’s especially dangerous to dwell too deeply on the twists and turns that our lives have taken.

Fate, if you believe in it, walks such a precarious tightrope. The wrong decisions are made despite the best of intentions. Words that should have been spoken are held back for fear of causing an upset.

I’ve been looking back, however, and thinking about you again . . . thinking in particular about the time we said goodbye at the hospital. I’ve been asking myself why I didn’t take a leaf from that precious old poser Macarthur’s book and promise you that I would return. Instead I gave you no hope, no hint that I planned to come back to Townsville.

Initially, there was the injury, of course – I couldn’t bear to saddle a lively young woman with a blind man. By the time I knew for sure that I was going to be able to see again, so many months had elapsed.

Perhaps, if I’d remained in an Australian hospital it would have been different, but once I was back in America, I experienced a strange sense of disconnection. Perhaps the blindness was part of it, but I felt cut off from the war and from the whole experience of meeting you, as if I was wandering in some kind of emotional wasteland.

Okay, I know that sounds over the top, but I’ve been reading the fairytale Rapunzel to my granddaughter, you see.

I’m sure you know the Rapunzel story, Kitty. The lovely girl is locked away in a tower and a prince discovers her when he hears her beautiful singing. Eventually the witch throws him out of the tower and he’s blinded when he falls into bramble bushes.

I’ve often thought of you as my Rapunzel, banished to that outback homestead. I think I fell in love with you on that first night when I heard you singing so beautifully to Bobby.

The fairytale has a happy ending, of course. After the prince stumbles around in the wasteland he eventually comes across Rapunzel, guided by the sound of her singing. By then the poor girl’s had his babies. Heaven help her, she’s had twins, and when the prince turns up, she falls into his arms, her tears restore his sight and the little family lives happily ever after.

Not so for our real-life story, hey, Kitty?

My sight was restored by medical care and by long periods of rest in faraway Boston. When I finally recovered, I was told that I couldn’t fly again, but I was made a flight instructor and promoted to major.

The war rolled on and eventually I was sent back to the Pacific on a tour of our various bases. My job was to help the pilots adjust to the Lockheed P-38 Lightnings, which replaced the inadequate Airacobras that Bobby and I flew.

But Kitty, even then, when I knew I’d be paying a visit to Townsville, I didn’t warn you I was coming. It was the middle of 1943 and I’d been gone for a year. I suppose I was worried that you’d ‘moved on’, as they call it these days. If I’d written in advance, heralding my return, you might have felt obliged to welcome me, even if you had another guy. I didn’t want to put you in an awkward position.

At least that’s what I tell myself now. Too late . . .

Anyway, I returned to Townsville, which was swarming with more Yanks than ever, and I had an overwhelming sense of nostalgia mixed with soaring hope when I walked over the hill at the top of Denham Street and saw the sea and Magnetic Island.

I was remembering every detail of our weekend in that beach hut, as well as our meals in the Bluebird Cafe, our walks along the Strand, our conversations on the beach, our kisses at the water’s edge.

By the time I walked to Mitchell Street and was knocking on the lattice door on Elsie’s front verandah, I was desperate to see you.

I knew from Elsie’s reaction as soon as she opened the door that my visit would not have a happy outcome. My sudden appearance clearly distressed her and I will never forget the immediate onslaught of loss that hit me, as if a block of concrete had been tied to my hopes. I could feel my heart sinking to the very depths.

Still, I went through the motions. ‘How are you?’ I asked Elsie. ‘How’s Geoff?’

I gave her a food parcel – I can’t remember what was in it now, but she was very grateful. She said they were ‘sick to the back teeth with the rationing’.

And then, almost fearfully, I asked, ‘How’s Kitty?’

Elsie had so much trouble telling me. Her eyes were so sad, her lips were trembling and for a horrified moment I thought something truly terrible had happened to you.

‘Kitty’s married,’ she said at last.

Dearest girl, have you any idea how final and deathlike that word ‘married’ is?

‘She was married two days ago,’ Elsie said.

Two days.

Two days, Kitty!

Elsie was a little calmer then and she added details. ‘Right now, she’s away on her honeymoon. Just a few days at Paluma, up in the mountains.’

There’s no need to carry on about how I felt. In retrospect, I took some small comfort from the fact that you didn’t have your honeymoon on the island.

Elsie told me that you’d married an Australian, a boyfriend you’d known for years, and after a few careful questions, I was sure that he was the guy who’d been lost up in the islands. So I was glad he was safe.

But, damn it, he won you after all, Kitty.

Don’t worry . . . I had to get that off my chest.

What I also want to tell you is this: I’ve lived a long and successful and, I’m very pleased to say, happy life. I chose a suitable wife primarily to please everyone at home, but I was lucky. I loved Rose. Not as much at first as perhaps she deserved, for she was a good, talented, sweet woman, but over the years my love for her grew deeper and stronger and our marriage was, ultimately, very rewarding.

In time, Kitty, you were just a sad, sweet dream that came to me in my dark moments. You’ve helped me through the midnight terrors that visit anyone who’s been to war. So thank you, my darling girl.

I hope you’ve been as lucky as I have.

A tear slid down Laura’s cheek and onto the letter and she sent a hasty, embarrassed glance to the passenger sitting beside her. Fortunately, the portly businessman had become engrossed in reading a report on his laptop almost as soon as they’d taken off from Sydney and he’d only looked up when lunch was served. He certainly hadn’t noticed Laura’s weepy moment.

She looked down at the wet spot on the paper and blotted it with her fingertip, wondering if it would leave a mark. Not that it mattered. Now that she was on her way to Italy, flying somewhere over Northern Australia at thirty thousand feet, she wouldn’t be sharing this letter with anyone.

Perhaps, in time, she might show her father’s letters to her family, and possibly to Jim Mathieson if he kept in touch as he’d promised . . . but she had abandoned her original plan to show the letters to Kitty.

For Laura, the big takeaway message from her journey to Moonlight Plains had been the value and complexity of secrets. She knew now that guarding judiciously chosen secrets was sometimes the wisest action.

Yes, it was easy to feel puzzled and angry about everything that her father had kept to himself for seventy years, but Kitty and Andy had kept an even bigger secret, and reading between the lines, Laura suspected that Kitty’s friend Elsie had probably never told Kitty about Ed’s return to Townsville. Like the others, she’d wisely decided that sometimes the truth could only cause more harm than good.

The astonishing thing was, Laura realised now, that she alone was privy to all sides of this story. Her father would never know about his son, and Kitty would never know that Ed Langley had come back to Townsville to court her.

She wondered if this knowledge had changed her. The whole ordeal of her divorce had been bad enough, but she felt as if she’d been through another emotional maelstrom since she’d opened the first letter all those months ago. Now, after Jim’s revelations at Moonlight Plains, she felt as if her perceptions had been even further ripped apart.

It was hard to judge if or how this had changed her. Perhaps the art classes in Florence would help. She’d enrolled in advanced classes in oil painting that promised, among other things, to help her to express her subjectivity and her perception of situations and surroundings.

Laura smiled. She couldn’t wait to see how the results of her recent journey would filter through to her art. In many ways, the timing couldn’t have been better.

She was still smiling at the thought of Italy and the brand-new set of experiences that lay ahead of her, as she folded the pages along the old crease lines. She slipped the letter back into her purse, her fingers brushing the edge of a coin, the dollar Kitty had given her. A silver dollar from 1923.

Laura took it out to look at it again. So pretty, with the head of Liberty on one side and an American eagle on the other.

‘That’s a Peace dollar.’ Her neighbour was suddenly alert and excited. His laptop forgotten, his eyes were practically bulging behind his spectacles.

‘Do you know about coins?’ Laura asked, holding out the dollar so he could see it better.

‘Yes. These were specially minted in America after World War I to commemorate peace. Look here,’ he said pointing. ‘You can see the word “Peace” under the eagle.’

‘Oh, wow. How neat. Are you a collector?’

‘My father was. I’ve inherited his collection and I haven’t decided what to do with it yet. These coins are getting rarer. I’m not sure how much they’re worth.’

‘Oh, it doesn’t really matter,’ Laura assured him. ‘I won’t be selling this. Its main value is sentimental.’

She had given Kitty her word that once she was back in the States, she would do her darnedest to track down the Kowalski family. Kitty had told her the whole story about Bobby Kowalski and his lucky dollar, and how it had remained lost until Luke’s miraculous find. She knew it would mean a great deal to Kitty if the dollar found its way home.

Just then, the plane made one of those sudden stomach-dropping lurches, and to Laura’s horror, the coin spilled from her outstretched palm. Her heart gave a terrified bound as she grabbed at thin air.

Oh God.

Not again.

‘Oh, lucky catch.’ Her neighbour was grinning broadly as Laura’s fingers clasped around the coin. ‘If that had rolled onto the floor and under these seats, you’d have had hell’s own job trying to find it.’

‘I know . . . I know.’

Laura’s heart was still racing as she slipped the dollar back to safety and zipped up the inside pocket of her purse. She’d never been superstitious, but as she closed the purse with a reassuring snap and set it safely under the seat in front of her, she had an overwhelming prescience that her life was about to change again. This time, for the better.

The tourist cabins took Luke six weeks or thereabouts to complete. The work was straightforward and easy – his uncle didn’t want anything fancy – so the job was nowhere near as interesting or satisfying as his project at Moonlight Plains. But what could a guy expect when he grabbed a quick job opportunity as a hasty escape?

At the time, he’d been sure that it was kinder and more sensible to make a clean break with Sally, far better than watching a great relationship fizzle out until it became stilted and awkward and painful.

Thing was . . . clean breaks were supposed to heal faster, and six weeks should have been ample time to get Sally out of his system, so it was damned annoying that he still thought about her all the time. It was even worse that he had no interest in dating anyone else.

A call from Mac towards the end of November included an invitation to Mac and Zoe’s property, Coolabah Waters – if Luke was at a loose end, Mac could use a hand securing some of his sheds before the cyclone season. Luke knew he should be following up leads on bigger projects, but he still felt restless and unready to settle into something long-term.

So, when Sally’s magazine arrived, he was working on Coolabah Waters and having a beer with Mac at the end of the day, out on the deck they’d both built overlooking the lagoons.

Zoe brought out the mail. ‘There’s something for you, Luke,’ she said, setting a large, stiff cardboard envelope on the timber outdoor table. Her eyebrows lifted as she sent him a pointed glance. ‘From Sally Piper.’

Luke did his best to appear nonchalant as he picked up the envelope and saw his name written in Sally’s curly script. She’d sent it to Richmond, and then his uncle had crossed out that address and forwarded it on to Mullinjim, and finally, Bella had sent it here.

‘I guess it’s a copy of the magazine with Sally’s article,’ he said, and his gut felt strangely tight and nervous. He wasn’t worried for himself, but he hoped for Sally’s sake that the story had turned out well.

Perhaps Zoe and Mac both sensed that he was nervous, for neither of them plied him with questions. Mac paid studious attention to his own mail, while Zoe returned to the kitchen, where Callum was perched on a high stool at the bar eating his dinner. She liked to feed him early and settle him into bed before the adults ate.

Luke opened the envelope, and sure enough, inside were a magazine, a disk and a note. He read the note first.

Dear Luke,

So here it is. I think the spread looks great and the people at
My Country Home
are pleased. There’s talk of more work for me, so that’s great news. I hope you’re happy with the story and the photos and, of course, I also hope you’re well and thriving.

I’ve included a disk with all the photos I took over the weeks at Moonlight Plains. I thought you might like them as a record.

Thanks again for letting me work on this project. I loved every minute.

Love,

Sally xx

Luke found himself mesmerised by those last two words. Love, Sally xx
. Of course, he knew it was probably the way she signed all her letters and had no special significance, but the word
Love
seemed to jump out at him and bounce around in his head.

He looked up to find Mac watching him with puzzled amusement. ‘Well, are you going to take a gander at her story?’

‘Yeah, course.’ Luke folded the letter and slipped it back inside. Then he drew out the magazine.

Moonlight Plains was on the front cover.

A painful rock jammed Luke’s throat. He could remember when Sally had taken that photo in the last week before the party. The painters had only just left when she’d arrived from Townsville late on a Friday afternoon. The sky was turning pink and mauve and the sun cast a soft bronzed glow over the paddocks and trees.

‘I’ve got to get a photo now,’ she’d said, scrambling out of the car and grabbing her camera. Her dark eyes had glowed with excitement. ‘This is going to be
it
, Luke. The one I’ve been waiting for.’

She was right. It was a fabulous shot, totally worthy of its cover spot. Across the bottom of the photo was a description:
Capturing the Romance of the Past: The inspiring story of a forgotten homestead’s restoration.

‘Wow,’ said Mac, his attention caught. ‘That looks amazing.’

‘Yeah.’ Luke gave a shaky laugh. ‘It probably looks better than it does in real life.’

‘Doesn’t matter. What’s the story like?’

Luke turned the pages and quickly found it. Once again, the photos of the finished house were fabulous, especially in comparison with the ‘before’ photos. There were also several photos of himself, including one where he was without a shirt.

The back of his neck grew hot and he knew his pulse accelerated as he scanned Sally’s written words, reading quickly just to get the gist, aware that Mac was watching.

‘Well, it reads pretty well,’ he said, after a bit. ‘Sally’s a good writer.’

He didn’t add that there was far more story about him than he’d expected. Zoe and Mac and the rest of the family would soon see that for themselves. He hoped he wasn’t in for a grilling.

When he finished, he pushed the magazine across the table to Mac. Then he drained his beer and got to his feet, too restless to sit around while Mac read the story. ‘Want another?’ he asked.

‘Sure,’ Mac said without looking up.

Luke fetched two more beers from the kitchen fridge and hung around for a bit, chatting to Zoe and cheekily playful Callum. When he went back out onto the deck Mac was still reading. It was crazy to be so nervous, crazier to be so damn miserable.

‘What do you think?’ he asked as he set Mac’s beer in front of him and resumed his seat.

‘This is great.’ Mac was grinning as he tapped the page. ‘Sally really did the right thing by the old place, didn’t she?’

‘Yeah.’ Luke stifled his urge to sigh and took a swift swig of beer.

‘The story’s as much about you as it is about the homestead,’ Mac added and then he looked up from the magazine and narrowed his eyes at Luke. ‘So, are you two still good friends?’

‘No, we broke up,’ Luke said emphatically.

‘Oh?’

‘What’s with you? What do you mean . . . Oh?’

Mac shrugged. ‘It’s interesting to hear you’ve broken up with Sally. I guess that means you were more than friends.’

Bloody hell. He’d walked right into that one. ‘You missed your calling,’ Luke said through gritted teeth. ‘You should have been a lawyer, trapping people with words.’ And he took a long, deep,
angry
drag of his beer.

Mac leaned forward, his palms open on the table like a peace negotiator. ‘Look, mate, we all saw the signs.’

‘What signs?’

‘Well, apart from the burning way you and Sally looked at each other, Sally worked her socks off at the party – like one of the family.’ He gave a shrugging smile. ‘Only a
very
good friend puts in that kind of effort.’

Great. So after all their subterfuge, they hadn’t fooled anyone.

Luke stared moodily at his beer. ‘It was only ever casual.’ Then he added quickly, in case Mac tried to argue, ‘We had a sort of no-strings agreement. Sally’s still not over losing her husband.’

Instead of answering, Mac looked again at the magazine article, turning the page to a photo of Luke. Eventually, he said, ‘And this husband died how long ago?’

‘Couple of years or so.’

To Luke’s relief, Mac didn’t try to respond to this. He leaned back in his chair, drinking his beer and looking out at a flock of magpie geese flying homewards across the darkening sky.

A cool breeze drifted in, rippling the surface of the lagoon, and from inside the house came tempting smells of dinner cooking and Zoe’s voice, warm and joyous, as she read a bedtime story to Callum.

‘Listen, mate,’ Mac said suddenly. ‘If you’re thinking you could never replace Sally’s husband, I know that’s not true.’

‘You wouldn’t know shit about this.’ Luke stopped in mid-snarl as he remembered. ‘Sorry, I almost forgot . . . about you and Lisa.’

Lisa had been Mac’s fiancée, a city girl, and the poor guy had been mad about her. They were all set to marry when she’d panicked about living in the outback and had taken off one day, driving through a flooded creek. Mac had nearly gone crazy when she drowned.

‘You might remember how hard I was on Zoe when she turned up,’ Mac said. ‘I’d decided that all city girls were the same. They simply couldn’t cut it in the bush.’

As if on cue, Zoe appeared on the deck with young Callum laughing and squirming in her arms. ‘Someone needs to say goodnight to Daddy.’ Her face, framed by dark curls, was alight with happiness.

Grinning, Mac rose and gave her a kiss before he took Callum from her, giving the boy a tickle and making him squeal. ‘So what is it tonight? A helicopter into bed? Or a spaceship?’

‘Helichopper!’

Even before Mac lifted his son high, zooming him through the air and making
whop-whop-whop
noises, the boy was squealing.

At the doorway, he turned and winked, and Luke had no trouble reading his silent message.

Look what I nearly missed out on, mate.

When Luke finally visited his grandmother for the first time since the party, she lost no time in bringing up the subject of Sally. ‘Sally tells me that she’s not seeing you any more.’

‘Well, no.’ Luke tried for a nonchalant shrug. ‘It was never serious. We were only ever casual.’

‘Why?’

He swallowed. ‘That’s how things are these days, Gran.’

‘What nonsense.’

He might have tried to explain about his reluctance to live in the shadow of Sally’s husband, but his grandmother fixed him with an especially stern frown and her grey eyes glittered with something akin to anger.

‘I hope this has nothing to do with our conversation about your grandfather out at Moonlight Plains. You’re not still worrying that Andy was my second choice.’

Luke could feel his jaw tightening and he shifted uneasily in his chair. Why couldn’t they just reminisce about the party? Talk about the weather? Her health?

His grandmother leaned forward, fixing him with narrowed beady eyes. ‘Tell me, Luke. Did you ever see me treat your granddad as second best?’

‘Well, no, but –’

‘Of course not, because he wasn’t.’ She settled back in her chair by the window with a sigh and shifted her unhappy gaze outside to a hedge of bright tropical shrubbery.

Luke thought how tiny and frail and exhausted she looked. He found it almost impossible to reconcile this fragile birdlike figure with the energetic, good-humoured dynamo who used to host their massive family gatherings without ever seeming to tire.

When she turned back to him, she smiled gently. ‘I admit it’s true that when I married Andy I was still in love with Ed and carrying Ed’s baby, but I was fond of Andy. And very grateful.’

Fond? Grateful?
Was that the best she could offer? Luke couldn’t hide his dismay.

‘I know it must be hard for you to understand,’ she went on. ‘But of course, those feelings changed as I grew to love Andy. How could I
not
love him? You know what a kind and caring man he was. Luke, you’d be doing your grandfather a huge disservice if you thought he was anything but the best husband I could have asked for.’

Now her eyes glistened and Luke felt like a heel. The last thing he’d wanted was to upset her. If only she hadn’t started by asking about Sally. He’d been driving himself crazy enough with his own tortured arguments.

‘It’s like the old homestead,’ his grandmother continued, now calmer. ‘Is it second best now, simply because it’s not the same as when it was built?’

‘I don’t think so. No.’

‘But you had no hesitation about changing it from what it used to be. You were quite happy to pull down walls and change the way it looked and worked.’

‘Yes, but –’

‘You rebuilt the house for now, Luke, and for the future.’ She leaned towards him again, her eyes bright and sharp once more in her delicate, wrinkled-creased face. ‘You used your knowledge of the past, but you didn’t leave it stuck the way it used to be.’

‘Well, yes, but –’

‘Just like a marriage.’

She glanced at the magazines he’d brought her and pointed to the top one with a full-page shot on the cover of a celebrity couple embracing. ‘Young people these days have their heads filled with Hollywood and Valentine’s Day, but romance alone can’t sustain a couple through a lifetime. A good marriage doesn’t just happen, you know. It’s built by two people and it takes work, just like building a house. And however it starts in the beginning, if you work together with willing hearts, love –
the real thing
– grows.’

A wistful look softened her aged face. ‘It grew for your grandfather and me, and you know that, Luke – you felt it between us, didn’t you? Andy was not my second best. He became my rock and the most important person in my life.’

‘Yeah, that – that’s great, Gran. I didn’t mean –’ Luke had to swallow to try to shift the gravel in his throat. ‘I guess I was reacting to the shock of learning about Jim and everything.’

His grandmother nodded. ‘It was a difficult way to start a marriage,’ she said softly. ‘Just like the old homestead wasn’t perfect when you started on it. But you and Sally made that old ruin into a beautiful home again. And it’s in better condition now than it ever was.’

Luke was nodding thoughtfully, and he might have said more, if his throat wasn’t still so uncomfortably tight.

‘So don’t talk to me about second best. And don’t ever think of yourself as Sally’s second best.’

He stiffened.

‘That girl deserves better, and so do you.’ His grandmother shooed him with a wave of her hand. ‘Now, go away, darling. I’ve been talking too much and I’m tired.’

‘Would you like me to help you onto the bed?’

‘Yes, dear. Thank you.’

As always, he worried that his big hands might hurt her small, bony body, but she showed nothing but gratitude for his assistance. Bizarrely, as he settled her onto the bed, he could suddenly picture Sally at the age of ninety, with a loving family anxious to help her and with the wisdom of a long and happy life accumulated. A life that had only included him for a blink.