Sarah's Baby. Margaret Way
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in town tomorrow afternoon. Say, around three,” he said, looking every inch the arrogant, always-gets-what-he-wants McQueen. “I’ll come and fetch you at the shop.”
“Kyall. I thought I made it clear—”
“That’s just it.” He mocked her with the merest flash of his marvelous smile. “You never have. To this day. I almost have to wonder if you were part of some conspiracy.” He strode away.
MURIEL DEMPSEY’S FUNERAL was, in every way, an event no one was destined to forget. It brought Sarah back to town, the one place she’d planned never to go again. It brought her back into Kyall McQueen’s orbit with its powerful emotional pull. It struck fear into Ruth McQueen, watching their intense conversation from across the room. Sarah had never spoken out in all these years. Neither had Muriel. Now with Muriel gone, what would happen? Sarah might think she could tell her story with impunity. As always, Ruth would be ready to step in. Nevertheless, fear pounded forcefully through her veins, raising her already elevated blood pressure.
There were anxious stirrings inside Harriet Crompton’s breast, as well. Harriet had once believed young Sarah was pregnant when she left town. She would’ve done everything in her power to help, but Sarah had gone off with Ruth McQueen in the unlikely guise of benefactor and protector. Harriet couldn’t dispute the fact that McQueen money helped many. The child had gone willingly, seduced by education. Lord only knows, she’d been the one to encourage Sarah. Sarah had written to her frequently over the years, sounding fulfilled and happy. Why, then, did she continue to think there was some mystery? Obviously it hadn’t been a pregnancy, after all. Harriet was certain Sarah would never have given up her baby. Muriel, too, would never have given up a grandchild. And Sarah wouldn’t have kept such momentous news to herself. She would’ve told Kyall. For surely Kyall McQueen was Sarah’s first and only lover. Both of them so young, so beautiful, so radiant and careless, suddenly thrust into adult love.
It was a puzzle Harriet often brooded about. Both of them had locked up their hearts. And Muriel…
Harriet didn’t want to consider whether poor Muriel had died of a broken heart.
CHAPTER THREE
LATE THAT AFTERNOON Sarah drove into the desert to scatter her mother’s ashes. Harriet sat beside her in the passenger seat, her mother’s friend Cheryl in the back.
Red sand streamed off in the wind, the four-wheel-drive bouncing over the golden spinifex clumps that partially stabilized the dunes. It was an unending vista, awe-inspiring in its vastness. Low sand plains and ridges extended to the horizon, dotted here and there with a tremendous variety of flowering shrubs and stunted mallee, the branches of which were bent into weird scarecrow shapes.
Desert birds flew with them—the lovely swirls of budgerigar in flocks of thousands, trailing bolts of emerald silk across the sky, the countless little finches and honeyeaters, the pink and gray galahs, the brilliant mulga parrots and the snow-white sulfur-crested corellas that congregated in great numbers in the vicinity of permanent water holes. Apart from early morning, welcoming the sunrise, this was the time of day the birds were most active. In the noontime heat they preferred to preen or doze in the trees to escape the blinding intensity of the sun.
Sarah crossed Koomera Creek at a point where the iridescent green waters had subsided to a shallow, tranquil pool that, up until their approach, reflected the fresh, light green foliage of the river red gums. The brassy glare of the sun was now giving way to a sunset that spread its glory across the sky, innumerable shades of pink, rose and scarlet streaked with yellow and mauve, the whole brushed with deepest gold.
Sarah knew where she was headed. A solitary white-trunked ghost gum that grew out of a rocky outcrop some quarter of a mile on. It was a marker for anyone who got temporarily lost or disoriented in the dizzying wilderness, with its head-spinning, extravagant colors. Burned umber, fiery reds, glowing rust and yellow ochres, pitch-black and a white that glared in the sun.
“We’re here.” Sarah spoke quietly, looking up at the stark white bole and delicate gray-green canopy of the ghost gum, which stood like a sculpture against the incandescent sky.
All three were silent as they approached the curious stony outcrop, its surface so polished by the windblown sands that it reflected all the colors of the setting sun.
When it was time to release her mother’s ashes, Sarah walked alone to the base of the ghost gum, while Harriet and Cheryl stood side by side, quietly saying a prayer for their friend.
“No more heartache, Mamma,” Sarah told her mother silently. “What I did cost you dearly. Forgive me. The Lord will protect and look after you now. You’ll never be alone. Dad will come for you now. Life wouldn’t have been so hard for you had Dad lived. But that’s all past for you, Mamma. Go with God.”
WHEN THEY ARRIVED back in town, Sarah dropped Cheryl off first, both women hugging silently and swiftly. But Harriet’s thick dark brows knit when Sarah drew up at her old colonial, the front door guarded by an eight-foot-high Maori totem pole.
“How do you feel, my dear?” Harriet asked.
Sarah let her head fall back. “Empty. I think that’s the word, Harriet. My mother didn’t have a happy life or an easy life. I wanted her to come to me, but she wouldn’t.”
Harriet thrust out her strong chin. “Listen, my dear, don’t blame yourself for anything there. You were a fine daughter to your mother. I remember very clearly how Muriel’s face lit up every time we talked about you. You realized your ambitions. She was proud of that.”
“They came at a cost.” The words left Sarah’s lips before she could draw them back.
Harriet, too, sat back, still frowning. “I’ve always thought that, Sarah, although you’ve maintained a poised and dignified facade.”
“I learned that from you.” Sarah turned her head to smile.
Harriet’s thin cheeks crinkled into an answering smile. “Ah, my dear, with a face like mine, dignity’s all you’ve got,” she announced mock mournfully. “You were the best pupil I ever had and I’ve had a few that have gone on to make names for themselves, like Charlie Garbutt.”
“I was never as brilliant as Charlie,” Sarah gently scoffed.
“Charlie was and is entirely focused on other planets. He’s brilliant and respected worldwide as an astronomer, but you were more of an all-rounder. Interested in earth-lings, mostly. I don’t think I could’ve wished for three better pupils than you, Charlie and Kyall, who found passing exams with flying colors a piece of cake. Even when you didn’t study. Incredible, the bond between you and Kyall,” Harriet mused, touching the lace on her rather grand, faded gray dress. “Then it was all over.”
“It had to be, Harriet. You know that.” Sarah sighed uncomfortably.
“I know no such thing!” Harriet ripped off her glasses and rubbed furiously at her aristocratic high-bridged nose. “There’s so much I didn’t understand, Sarah.”
“Yes,” was all Sarah could muster.
“Are you coming in with me, my dear?” Harriet heard the exhaustion in Sarah’s voice. “I’ve got a bed made up for you. I don’t like the idea of your going back to the shop.”
Sarah shook her head. “You don’t have to worry about me, Harriet, but thanks all the same. There are things I have to do. Pack Mum’s clothes—” She broke off.
“Cheryl and I can help you do that,” Harriet answered crisply. “You look done in.”
“I’m not a girl any longer, Harriet. I’m not even particularly young. I’ll be thirty-one this year.”
“That’s hardly old! You’ve never looked more beautiful. You have the sort of bone structure that will last. You know, Sarah, if something’s wrong I’d want you to tell me what it is.”
“Plenty is wrong, Harriet,” Sarah found