Bilgarra Springs (27 page)

Aurora glanced down at her hands and back up, opening her mouth to speak just as the barista brought the coffees and cheesecakes over. By this stage, Libby looked fit to burst.

‘Enough with the stalling. You texted me to meet, remember?’

Aurora grinned.

‘Ok. Ok. I will start at the beginning. The lawyer called me into his office a week or so after the funeral I can’t remember exactly and told me that under the terms of Gran’s will, before they could transfer anything, I had to go and live and work on a cattle station in Queensland for one month.’

Initially Libby’s jaw dropped. When recovered, she cut in.

‘Your grandmother did what? I can’t believe it.’

Aurora shrugged.

‘You aren’t alone. I couldn’t either and the lawyer wanted me to challenge the will. He made it for Gran but he must have thought that she would come to her senses and make another one before she died. Who knows? At the time it seemed easier to go along with it, what with the funeral not long being over and things being so different...’

Libby cut in again.

‘You mean to tell me that when you disappeared you went to western Queensland. Crap. We should have met at the bar three doors up. I am not sure that coffee is going to be enough to get my head around this. I should have got the triple chocolate mousse cheesecake. ‘

Sadness flicked through Aurora’s eyes at the mention of the cheesecake. The memory of it and that last night at Bilgarra triggered a longing for Cal. She placed a spoonful of the passionfruit and raspberry cheesecake in her mouth and sighed, hoping Libby would take that as enjoyment for the cheesecake. Libby didn’t seem to notice and she mentally congratulated herself – her skills as an actress must be improving. Aurora finally spoke.

‘Desperate times call for desperate measures.’

Libby wasn’t buying the delaying tactics and levelled her gaze at Aurora, narrowing her eyes.

‘So, what happened. You don’t get to stop the story there.’

Aurora started to laugh quietly.

‘I was telling you before you interrupted me.’

‘Ok. Point taken, please continue. I will do my best not to interrupt.’

‘So I went. Flew to Townsville, hired a car and drove to a station called Bilgarra Springs outside Greenvale.’

‘I know that I said that I wouldn’t interrupt, but, you, who won’t come to Melbourne with me, left here, on your own, to drive to a place in the middle of nowhere. I understand why you were out of mobile range now. It sounded silly at the time, but yeah, makes sense.’

Aurora looked at Libby, and raised her eyebrows.

‘I know, I interrupted but cut me some slack. First your grandmother does something seriously out of character and then you do too. But anyway, I will do my best to shut up.’

Libby flicked her hand in the air.

‘Please keep going.’

‘So I went. I spent a month there, learned to ride a horse, went mustering with them, did basically everything that they did, as far as I was capable. Even learnt to cook. Can you believe it?’

‘Frankly, no. I have eaten at your place a few times over the years and I had completely written you off as ever being able to produce anything with more skill required than toast. Crap. You on a horse. I can’t picture that either. Seriously, with every minute the bar is seeming the much better option. It’s Saturday Aurora. No work tomorrow...a few drinks would have worked well’

Aurora pointedly ignored Libby’s rueful comment.

‘Turns out Gran and Pop spent some time there many years ago. I think Gran wanted me to learn something, which I did.’

‘Well that’s obvious. You just told me that you can ride a horse and have learnt to cook. I would say that definitely classes as learning something.’

Aurora looked earnestly at Libby.

‘I don’t mean like that. I think that she wanted me to learn to put things into perspective and give me a reality check.’

Libby looked at her quizzically.

‘I don’t get you. You are the most level headed person I know. Why would you need to have things placed in perspective?’

Aurora looked out the window of the coffee shop and flicked her hand in the general direction of outside.

‘Here, we get so caught up in the trappings of city life the right clothes, the right shoes, the correct brand handbag, having the right look...’

With that, Libby’s eyes opened wider and she looked like she was about to take offence.

Aurora held up her hand in front of her to stop the tirade that was about to pour forth.

‘I am not criticizing you. As an advertising consultant, you wouldn’t be able to do what you do without looking like you know what you are doing. What I am saying is that things here are all about knowing the right people and being popular and acceptable. I am just as much to blame.’

Aurora pulled her own bag up and pointed to it, with its prominent Dolce & Gabanna insignia.

‘But I can honestly say that in the month that I was out there, I think I took my handbag with me once, when we all went to Townsville for the weekend, and quite frankly, nobody cared a damn that it was the latest in D&G. I wore jeans just about every day. They don’t care about brand names. All that matters out there is that you treat people with respect, are honest and don’t bludge. As for the rest, it didn’t matter who my grandparents were, or how many letters I have after my name. They judged me by me. And yes, I learnt something. For that I am very grateful that Gran had the insight to send me there. Also, I fell in love.’

With that last statement, Aurora put a large spoonful of cheesecake into her mouth so that she wouldn’t be able to talk for a bit and fixed her attention firmly on the plate in front of her.

Libby didn’t miss the remark.

‘Excuse me? Did you just say what I thought you did? And you tack it on at the end, like it is something that you give the ‘by-the-way’ treatment to.’

Libby dropped her head onto the table top, glaring at Aurora when she raised it.

‘You suggest that we catch up for coffee, fully knowing that you are about to drop the biggest bombshell ever on me. I so want to hit you right now. In fact, I want to hit you so much at the moment for not telling me that bit first and for just throwing it oh so casually at the end, that I am going to sit on my hands.’

As she spoke, she tucked on hand under each leg.

‘And if you think for one second that this will stop me from throttling you if you don’t give me every single detail right this second, mouth full of food or not, you are sadly mistaken.’

Libby flashed Aurora ‘the look’ the one that she reserved for situations where there was no option but to do things her way.

Aurora smiled.

‘You can carry on all you like. I am busting to tell somebody. His name is Callan. They all call him Cal for short. He is the grandson of Gran’s friends. He’s thirty-eight, tall, blue-eyed, dark wavy hair. Looks like the typical hero from the Western romance novels that you like so much.’

‘Now I really do want to hit you. How the hell did you do that? You have turned down every single person that has asked you out lawyers, doctors, professors, builders, electricians, advertising executives every single one of them and some of them were really hot and great catches. Then you go and snag the sort of guy that the rest of us just dream about with probably little or no effort at all on your part.’

Libby’s eyes went all dreamy.

‘I bet he’s good on a horse too.’

Aurora couldn’t help smirking.

‘Yep.’

‘It’s official. I hate you. Twenty-eight years of friendship ends today.’

With the last statement, Libby positively scowled at Aurora, which just sent the latter into fits of laughter.

‘Come off it Lib. You know as well as I do that you have a fantastic fiancé. Eamon is a great guy and he worships the ground that you walk on.’

‘That is only because I keep the ground worshipable. It takes a lot of work to keep him thinking that the sun rises and sets in me.’

With the last statement, Libby took her hands out from under her thighs and gazed at the gorgeous diamond sitting on her left hand.

‘We both know that he would be completely lost without you. As you would be without him I might add. But don’t get too bent out of shape because I really don’t think that things with Cal can go anywhere. He lives there and I live here and our lives are so different that there is no chance that it could work.’

Libby looked shocked.

‘You’re kidding me, right? You finally fall in love, goodness knows how many years after the end of that marriage with that tosser ex-husband of yours, which, I might add, you have never really spoken about, and you are saying that it can’t go anywhere! This isn’t a situation where you can meet in the middle, but one of you will have to give. Either he will have to move here or you will have to move there. For myself I would like him to move here, it’s not like he would even need to work. You were loaded before your grandmother died and now...well.’

Before Aurora could argue, Libby held up her index finger, the dark red nail glinting in the artificial light.

‘I am not meaning to be insensitive or disrespectful to your grandmother, or to you for that matter, but practically speaking, you don’t need to work anymore either.’

Aurora sighed, following it with a small shrug of helplessness.

‘Yeah. That’s true, but who he is, is so tied up with the land out there that I would never dream of asking him to move here and he knows that he wouldn’t be happy here. As for me, my life is here. The break out there was great, but I can’t imagine living anywhere else. I have a career, students, responsibilities here. We parted on the understanding that we would take it one day at a time and see what happens, but I don’t think that there is a happy ending to this one Lib.’

Aurora’s voice wavered a little at the end, taking Libby by surprise. Aurora never cried, well never in public at least. Lib reached a hand across the table, laying it on Aurora’s forearm. Her voice gentled.

‘All jokes aside Aurora, please think about it. Think long and hard before you decide to throw it all away because you think it might be a little bit hard to make it work. I would hate for you to miss out on a really great thing, which may just last for the rest of your life, just because it meant giving that little bit extra or making some changes.’

Aurora couldn’t speak and only nodded.

Libby sat up, clasped her hands together, suddenly animated.

‘Intentional change of subject coming up. So, tell me all about working out there. I want to know the best bit and the worst bit. Did you have to muck out pig stalls or something equally as horrendous? Maybe you got to muster by helicopter, which would completely make up for having to immerse yourself in pig muck!’

Aurora flashed Libby a relieved smile. She appreciated not being pushed. They spent another two hours discussing the daily life out there before Eamon came past to take Libby to the latest exhibition at the NSW Art Gallery and Aurora left to buy some food and restock her almost completely empty fridge.

Aurora managed to refrain from calling Callan for the rest of that day even though she desperately wanted to. She even managed to make it through a boring ‘work-around-the-house’ Sunday without picking up the phone. She was half looking forward to going back to work tomorrow and half dreading it. She knew from experience how hard it is to go back, but once there it all starts to fall into place again. She wasn’t looking forward to the twenty questions that she would no doubt be subjected to though.