Bilgarra Springs (5 page)

The front, left-hand bedroom was now occupied by Fiona’s son, Trevor. He and his wife, Helen, who died giving birth to their second child, had moved into it when they had married. The front, right-hand bedroom was now occupied by Trevor and Helen’s eldest son, Richard, with Trudy, his wife. Kate and Harriet were in the children’s room on the left-hand side. The other one was currently vacant. Trevor and Helen’s youngest son, Callan, lived in one of the barracks rooms at the rear of the house. Fiona had offered to take Aurora on a tour of the other buildings in the morning.

Aurora stared at the ceiling and started to wiggle her feet from side to side as new thoughts started to take form. If this had always been the guest room, and Gran had stayed at this property, then she must have stayed in this room. Aurora couldn’t help but wonder exactly how long ago that had been and had it looked the same then — had her grandmother lain down on the same quilt, looking at the same furniture as she was?

She unconsciously started to move her feet from side to side more quickly as she chewed on her bottom lip, wondering. The biggest question of all was why had Gran never mentioned Bilgarra Springs, or the Fairleys? She threw that around in her head for a minute or two, but with the realisation that there was no way to get an answer to that question, so thinking about it was a complete waste of time, Aurora decided that she may as well get up and unpack her stuff.

She unzipped the larger of the two bags, pulled open one of the large drawers and started putting in her jeans, shorts, long-sleeve shirts and t-shirts. When she opened one of the smaller top drawers to put her underwear in, she found a leather-bound book sitting there with
‘Journal’
stamped across the front. She figured it must have been left there by one of the other guests. On opening it to see if there was a name inside, her breath caught in her throat when she saw ‘Isabella Munro’ written in her grandmother’s unmistakeable handwriting. She quickly closed it back up.

No mistake then. This was her grandmother’s journal; the one that the note had mentioned. Fiona had obviously left it here for her to discover in her own time and without the awkwardness that would have been present if she had handed it over. Aurora gently placed it on the top of the chest of drawers. She wanted to read it but at the same time she didn’t want to read it. She found that the presence of the journal just produced more questions. Why was it left here? Why did her grandmother want her to read it? And why now, and not while she had been alive so that they could have discussed it together?

Aurora wasn’t ready to face the journal right now. She found it a little unsettling. It had been a really long few weeks since Gran’s death and the last couple of days had been quite taxing. Now was not the time; maybe later, but certainly not now. She tried to ignore the presence of the journal as she unpacked the rest of her stuff.

Unpacking didn’t take that long — the nervous energy made her whip through it all in record time. It was all of fifteen minutes later when everything was put away and she found herself standing in front of the chest of drawers, again looking at the journal. She reached her left hand out towards it, traced her fingers over the word ‘
Journal
’ and then withdrew her hand. She wanted the contact with her grandmother, but she was anxious over what might be inside the journal. It felt a little like snooping.

She quickly reached out, picked it up and placed it in the bottom drawer under one of the bulky jumpers that she had brought along with her just in case. She hurriedly pushed the drawer closed and took a step backwards. She spun and flopped on the bed, grabbing her book that she had placed on the quilt. She didn’t think that she would be settled enough to read, but she may as well give it a go. It wasn’t long before her eyes drifted shut, a mere three pages of the novel read.

When Aurora opened her eyes it was getting dark. She swivelled around, dropping her legs over the side of the bed and sat up. She hoped that they weren’t waiting for her to have tea. After waiting for a couple of moments to fully wake up, she got up and went through to the kitchen. As she reached the kitchen she could hear Fiona and Trudy’s voices coming from somewhere outside. She went through the bathroom and laundry area, stopping in the doorway. Fiona and Trudy were sitting in the middle of a large, covered, paved courtyard area.

The house wall met one side of the square. A long building with lots of doors sat to the left. Another building ran along the back of the area, with only one door at the far end. There was a gap probably around five foot wide between the edge of the paved area and the building at the rear filled with cactus plants and rocks. The fourth side wasn’t flanked by a building, but Aurora could see the gate that led to the large round yard, that she assumed that they used for horses. A tin roof covered the area and there was a long table with benches on either side of it down the middle. The area had a very relaxed feel to it.

Fiona and Trudy were seated on either side of the table at one end. Trudy had her back to the doorway. They had been busily discussing one of the horses and hadn’t heard her approach. Fiona glanced up and spotted Aurora, shooting her a wide smile.

‘Come and sit down and join us.’

Trudy turned as Fiona spoke, also wearing a smile. Aurora went and sat down beside her. It was so quiet out here that Aurora was a little unnerved. She was that used to sitting after dark on the patio outside her unit and having the noise from the road traffic as well as the harbour traffic that the silence was almost shouting at her. She guessed that she would get used to it. She figured that the irony of it would be that she would get used to the silence, only to return to the general hum of Sydney which would in turn unsettle her.

After sitting down, Aurora noticed that it wasn’t as quiet as she had originally thought. Very faintly she could hear the girls giggling and fooling and it sounded as though it was coming from the side of the house near the round yard. There were even a couple of tiny yelps thrown in.

‘Trudy and I were just sitting here enjoying the peace and quiet. Usually at this time of night we’re all out here eating and with fifteen of us, you can imagine what that is like. Hopefully they’ve had a good day and will wrap it up tomorrow. They’re out in one of the really large paddocks that we have out the back of the property. Every few months they muster the cattle that are in there, tag any that missed out last time, cut any youngsters that need it, or if it’s a heifer they separate it out and bring those back here. Because the property is so large, there’s another set of yards out there. They will run them all through the crush, check them, spray them and do whatever else is necessary. Assuming that they got finished with that today, they will move them to the paddock next to it tomorrow to spell the one that they were in.’

Trudy cocked her head to address Aurora.

‘We’re hoping that it all gets wrapped up in the back corner tomorrow. Cal, my brother-in-law, and obviously Fiona’s grandson, has a new mare arriving the day after tomorrow and we’re hoping that he will be here to receive her. On top of that, we have all been itching to check her out. He bought her two months ago and we have been really looking forward to her arrival. She has fantastic bloodlines and will hopefully produce something really special.’

Fiona spoke next to fill in the gaps for Aurora.

‘Cal started breeding horses about five years ago. He started with Australian Stock Horses because they are useful out here. In the last couple of years he has introduced some Thoroughbred bloodlines to produce a really quick moving horse, but one that is still intelligent, able to be educated and a working horse. The foals that he has produced aren’t old enough yet to see any firm results, but we are all hopeful. The mare that arrives the day after tomorrow is a Thoroughbred mare and he intends to put his Stock Horse stallion over her.’

Aurora didn’t know what to say to this as she had no experience at all with horses, or breeding anything, so she merely nodded to show that she understood what they were explaining. She’d rather not make another fool of herself by saying something ridiculous. She figured she would find out anything that she needed to know over the next month.

Fiona rose from the table.

‘That pie is probably just about ready to eat. I’ll go check.’

With that Trudy jumped up, stuck her head around the corner of the house and called the girls to come and wash their hands. She then went over to a large, old sideboard that was positioned on the house wall, beside the door. She took out crockery and cutlery and returned, passing some to Aurora. The rest she spread out on the other side of the table, except for her own set. The two girls came running around the corner of the house and straight into the bathroom.

Aurora heard a stern ‘Girls!’ from Fiona, followed by,’You pair are really lucky that you didn’t run into me with this platter. How many times do you have to be told not to run through the buildings? Make sure that you wash your hands well before you go out to the table please. You’ve been playing with the puppies out in the dirt.’

Fiona came through the doorway, quietly followed by the two girls, now somewhat more subdued, their eyes flicking to Aurora and then quickly looking away in case she saw them. Fiona carried a platter that held a steaming pie, the pastry of which looked absolutely fantastic, along with a creamy looking pile of mashed potato, corn and other vegetables. It smelled divine. As the girls sat down, Aurora’s stomach grumbled in anticipation. She suddenly realised that she was really hungry. She hoped like mad that the noise of the wooden bench on the concrete pavers as the girls sat down had covered the noise from her stomach and that the other ladies hadn’t heard it.

Fiona served the girls, allowing the others to serve themselves. As Aurora lifted the first forkful of pie, her mouth watered in expectation. The pie tasted as good as it looked and smelled. She wondered which of the two ladies had made it. It really was good. Aurora generally had a very expressive face and the delight over the pie must have shown as Fiona caught her eye and briefly gave her a knowing smile. It was nice to eat with others in comfortable silence. Any dinner gatherings that she usually attended were generally full of people each trying to outdo the other and blow their own trumpet.

It seemed to be a different world out here — from her limited contact so far, they seemed to be different people with different values. Both Fiona and Trudy seemed to be genuinely nice, down to earth people. People like that were rare in Aurora’s world where it was all about climbing the academic ladder. Both women presented an unusual experience to what Aurora was used to. Trudy didn’t appear to be shy as Aurora had originally thought, she just seemed to have an inner peace that allowed her to comfortably remain silent until she had something to say. Fiona oozed confidence and authority, but gently rather than harshly. She decided that it may be nice getting to know these two women. The month ahead was not looking like being anything like Aurora had expected.

With another mouthful of pie, Aurora glanced up at the skyline. The black tree shapes silhouetted against the red-orange sky were fantastic, a sunset worth looking at, which she decided sort of figured as she was further west after all. For the next month she had this to enjoy. New horizons symbolically meant new and promising prospects opening up and she wondered if, half-hoping, there was some message in there for her.

four

S
urprises

Aurora rolled over in the semi-darkness. Footsteps up the hallway had pulled her from her quasi-sleep state. She hadn’t slept well last night. She had lain in the dark and looked at the shadowy form of the chest of drawers for what had seemed like hours. She couldn’t bring herself to pull the journal out though. When she had fallen asleep, she had tossed and turned, her mind full of dreams of her grandmother, her grandfather in some, even her parents popped up at one point. She hadn’t dreamt of her parents for years. All in all it hadn’t been a particularly restful night. At the moment she felt like she had been run over by a bus.

She rubbed a hand over her eyes and lifted her wrist, making a concerted effort to see the time on her watch. Now that she had woken up a little more, voices drifted through to her occasionally. Her watch said 5:48. She desperately wanted to roll over and go back to sleep. She felt as though she had only slept for an hour. She figured that part of the sleep problem was these wretched pyjamas. She didn’t ordinarily sleep in them as she usually managed to get them thoroughly wrapped around her and had to keep untangling herself, which she had also done last night in between the weird dreams. The bed was comfortable and she hadn’t overheated, or been too cold for that matter. Noise hadn’t been a problem either. Her mind must just have been in overdrive.

She threw the covers off and rolled out of bed. It was only Trudy and Fiona as far as she knew, so she padded out to the kitchen dressed as is. They were unlikely to be offended by a t-shirt and cotton boxer short PJs. As Aurora made her way down the hallway she was wondering how she was going to do this early morning thing. It wasn’t the early rising that was the problem, it was the talking to people. She normally got up at home early, but found that she didn’t enjoy talking to people until she had been awake for at least an hour or so. She had been exactly the same when she was married, although it had taken Peter a little while to get used to not talking to her and leaving her alone. Now, early mornings were her quiet time; a chance to slip into the bustle of the day. No students, no parents, no colleagues, no phone calls, no emails — just her and Orinoco having coffee and breakfast on the patio, sometimes with the newspaper, sometimes not. She briefly wondered how Orinoco and Tim were getting along. She so hoped that everything was alright. Too bad if it wasn’t, there was not a lot she could do about it.

Aurora tentatively hovered around the kitchen doorway when she hit the end of the hallway, unsure of what to say or do. Both women were standing at the sink, looking out the window into the early dawn. With their backs to her, Aurora figured it was up to her to make the first move and she hesitantly spoke.

‘Good morning.’

Both heads turned at once, both faces smiling from ear to ear both saying, ‘Morning,’ virtually at the same time. Aurora inwardly winced. Oh crap, they were morning people. Fiona motioned to the teapot sitting beside the stove.

‘We’ve just made that if you want one. If you are more of a coffee girl, there is instant in the cupboard, or a stovetop percolator behind the second door on the left and ground coffee in the fridge. The stove has been lit, so no problem there.’

Fiona turned so that the side of her hip was resting against the sink, her tea cup in her hand. Aurora felt ever so slightly overwhelmed. They weren’t being too in her face, it was just that she was up and now she had to actually talk and move.

She loved coffee, but not first thing in the morning.

‘I’ll grab myself a cup of tea thanks.’

She wandered over to the sideboard, grabbed one of what she was still thinking were heirloom cups and made herself a tea just the way she liked it, weak, milky and full of sugar, before dropping down in one of the chairs at the table. Fiona and Trudy each pulled out chairs and sat as well. Fiona held her hands round her cup and spoke.

‘Trudy and I are normally in the kitchen here at 6 each morning. Breakfast is a bit of a free for all — we have cereals, toast and we normally cook up something. Everybody eats bits and pieces of what they want, or nothing at all, depending. We aim to have breakfast ready and out on the table for 6:30 when everybody converges for about half an hour before they are off to do whatever they need to do for the day.’

Fiona took a sip from her cup before continuing.

‘There is a general rhythm to the days here. Kate and Harriet are home schooled which usually takes up the whole of the morning. If the others are working close to the homestead here I will lend a hand as well as organise morning tea mid morning and lunch in the middle of the day. If they are working away, we send lunch out with them. If they are around for afternoon tea, well and good, otherwise we don’t see them then until tea time. Although everybody tends to hang around here a bit on Saturdays and Sundays. Sometimes the young ones will head into the Greenvale pub on a Friday or Saturday night, otherwise they sit around outside there and entertain themselves.’

Fiona took another sip from her cup.

‘After we’ve eaten and cleaned up we’ll give you a tour of the other buildings.’

With that Fiona flashed Aurora a smile and got up to start rummaging about in the fridge, half-throwing half-placing stuff on the bench. Trudy’s attention was well and truly out the kitchen window. She glanced back and noticed Aurora looking at her. The most beautiful expression crossed Trudy’s face as she spoke.

‘I really love the mornings here. Slowly everything seems to emerge out of the darkness, almost like a dark mist that is slowly receding until the light is fully in and everything is clear.’

There was movement behind Aurora and next thing Kate, dressed in a nightie with sparkly horses running up the front of it and hair in plaits, pulled out one of the chairs and plopped herself down in it. Harriet was a couple of moments later, hair in the same plaits, her nightie had Dora the Explorer on the front. She dropped into a chair as well. Both girls were yawning and furiously rubbing their eyes.

Trudy snapped into mother-mode.

‘How many times do I have to tell you girls to cover your mouths when you yawn? It’s really rude.’

Both girls dutifully covered their mouths before placing their hands on the table and dropping their heads onto their hands. Trudy addressed Aurora.

‘Neither of the girls are morning people. They both take a really long time to wake up and you can’t talk to them or look sideways at them for at least two hours.’

Aurora started to gently laugh. Trudy looked a little surprised. It was obviously not the reaction she had been expecting. With a grin from ear to ear, Aurora explained herself.

‘You do realise that I am exactly the same. I’m fine in the morning, except if you actually want me to talk to you. I am a shocker for not being very communicative first thing. It used to drive my husband insane.’

Aurora quickly stopped talking and dropped her eyes to her cup, realising that she had said too much when she had mentioned Peter. Her marriage was very much a closed issue with everybody and she hadn’t meant to mention it.

Trudy had been watching Kate and Harriet and didn’t notice the unease that flashed across Aurora’s face. Trudy got up from her chair and flashed a quick smile at Aurora.

‘In which case you and the girls should get along just fine. I’ll potter about in here with Fiona if you want to wander off and do your own thing for a bit. We’ll let you know when brekkie is ready.’

Trudy’s focus then shifted to the girls.

‘Kate, Harriet, you can both go and make your beds, get dressed, do something with your hair and we will see you back here soon. You’re both responsible for setting the table. Off you go.’

Both girls slipped off their chairs and disappeared through the doorway and round the corner into their bedroom. Aurora also took the opportunity to disappear and do the same jobs for herself. She couldn’t help but be impressed by the fact that neither of the girls had complained at all about having jobs to do and being told to do them. Not that she had any direct children experience, but from what colleagues at the university regularly complained about with their own children, their behaviour definitely seemed a little out of the ordinary.

After breakfast was done and cleared away — again a job done by Kate and Harriet — Aurora sat on one of the timber benches out in the courtyard and waited for Fiona to show her around the other buildings. Rough and Tumble came from around the side of the house and sat at her feet, well more sat on her feet, seeking her attention. She leant over to pat them but the waistband of her jeans started to dig into her and after a couple of minutes and she was forced to stop. Straightening up, Aurora realised that she had overeaten a little and was now paying the price. There was no way that she could eat toast, bacon, sausages, eggs and baked beans every morning without having a backside like the back end of a bus by the time she went home. It had tasted good though, and she had enjoyed every mouthful. These ladies sure could cook. She mentally snorted at her own feeble efforts at cooking. They might be better off if they gave her something else to do while she was here. After having eaten their efforts, she didn’t think that they would appreciate hers too much. She stretched her legs out in front of her and leant back slightly trying to ease the pressure on her stomach. Tomorrow she would eat less.

Fiona came out, wiping her hands on the bum of her jeans.

‘Ok. Let’s do it.’

Aurora used her hands to push herself up from the timber bench. Fiona came to stand beside her and pointed to the building with the many doors.

‘This is the barracks building where our staff live. We have one married couple, Heather and Con who live in the end rooms. They have a bedroom, a living room, a kitchenette and a bathroom. That’s the first two doors. Then the next two doors are another bathroom and toilet. Then there are four guys in the next four rooms, Matt, Keith, Gerry and Mike. Callan, my grandson, lives in the next room along. Theresa is the next room and the last two doors are another bathroom and toilet.’

Fiona looked at Aurora’s face which held an expression of information overload.

‘Don’t panic too much. You won’t be expected to remember everybody’s name straight up and it will be easier once you have faces to put to each name.’

Fiona inched around a little and pointed to the building behind the cactus garden.

‘This is our stables and tack room.’

There was a series of stepping stones set in the rocks between the plants and Fiona went through and opened the door.

‘Come and have a sticky beak. You will love it. It’s really something else. Cal has done a great job.’

The puppies went to follow them. Fiona turned around.

‘No you pair don’t.’ She pointed at them and her voice turned incredibly stern. ‘Stay.’ Aurora was really surprised to see both puppies head under the table and flop on their bellies. Fiona disappeared through the doorway, leaving Aurora to follow along behind her.

The closer she got to the doorway, the more Aurora was struck by the smell. It smelled so strongly of hay. Once she got inside she could see why. The room was about thirty feet square and all along one wall, to her left, hay was stacked almost to the rafters. On the opposite wall to her right hung rows of bridles, halters, brushes, saddle blankets, horse rugs and a whole stack of bits and pieces that she couldn’t put a name to. Quite a number of saddles sat on smallish logs set out at right angles from the wall. Overall, it was very orderly. At the end of the wall that housed the tack was a large doorway to outside. Opposite that was another large opening that was the beginning of a long, wide corridor.

Aurora was surprised by how light and airy it felt. The fact that the opposite wall of the corridor was open and had yards with white, timber fences running out from it, creating a number of individual, long yards, allowed what would have otherwise been a dark, dank space to be a pleasant area. Painting the interior walls white had no doubt helped as well.

Aurora followed Fiona through the opening. More of the white fenced paddocks came off on the left, a separate one for each of the dozen horse stalls that were located on the right. Fiona lifted her left hand to indicate the first stall.