Matilda's Last Waltz (58 page)

Meander was in the middle of nowhere and reminded her of home. And yet the distances between properties were much less, the grass a little greener, the colours softer. What she missed were the flocks of birds, the jarring calls of the parrakeets and galahs, the laughter of the kookaburra.

Finn showed her the little wooden house that sat perched on a low hill surrounded by acres of grassland. It seemed too small for the large family that lived there now and she wondered why they didn't build on to it.

‘Probably got no money,' Finn explained. ‘Most of Tassie's landowners are money poor and land rich. They have no idea of the worth of some of their handed down heirlooms because all they care about is the land.'

He smiled down at her. ‘Rather like their counterparts in New South Wales.'

‘Not all of them,' she said in mock severity. ‘I know exactly what I'm worth, and I don't plan on ever being poor again.'

He laughed and held her for a moment. ‘Come on. I'll show you my old school.'

They visited the one-room school house, the secret hideaways that all boys seemed to have when they were small, and the little town twenty miles away where he showed her the cinema and the ice-cream parlour and the long sandy cove where he remembered swimming in the icy sea.

Parts of Tasmania were very different from the parched outback and Matilda sometimes found it hard to remember this was all part of the same country. Here the grass was lush and mostly green. Great mountains soared on all sides, and lakes as big as the ocean sprawled in majestic swathes in the valleys. Trees grew crisp red apples and soft fruit, and fields of lavender and poppies swayed in the warm wind.

Rocky crags guarded the south-eastern coast, with perilous cliffs overshadowing stretches of sand so white they hurt the eyes. Waterfalls plummeted hundreds of feet into jungle valleys. Quiet secluded bays buzzing with insects, drowsy with heat, were the perfect hideaway for lovers to swim and lie in the sun. Pine and eucalyptus forests spread as far as the eye could see. The curious Tasmanian devil, platypus and wombat were shy creatures, only seen if the watcher had endless patience and knew where to look.

Matilda and Finn spent two weeks exploring the island, taking the time to laze in the sun and swim in the chill waters. They visited Hobart and climbed Mount Wellington, toured the market on the waterfront and went sailing around the tiny islands. In the evenings they ate delicious crayfish or rainbow trout, washed down with glasses of fine wine that had come from the fledgling vineyards at Moorilla.

At night she lay in his arms, drowsy with their lovemaking, sated and content. Never, in her wildest dreams, could she have imagined a more perfect honeymoon.

‘I wish we could stay longer,' Matilda said wistfully as the plane swept from the tiny runway.

Finn took her hand and squeezed it. ‘I promise to bring you back before we're both old and grey.' he said, then smiled. ‘It will be our own special place.'

*   *   *

They finally arrived back at Churinga to find the Bitjarra gone. They had been drifting away over the past year but now their gunyahs were empty, their cooking fire cold.

Matilda looked at it sadly. It was the end of an era but the beginning of something very much better. Perhaps, in their own mysterious way, they had realised she no longer needed them.

Life fell into an easy pattern. Finn moved his things into the house and arranged for a manager to live at Wilga. He would still breed droving horses but needed someone on the property to look after things. In six months they travelled to Broken Hill and, after one or two other important calls, went to see Geoffrey Banks and signed an agreement to make Wilga and Churinga one property.

Matilda adjusted her will, encompassing both properties, and couldn't help but smile at Geoffrey Banks as she did so. How right he'd been with his advice. Life was indeed full of surprises.

*   *   *

They had returned to Churinga, and Matilda waited until they had finished their evening meal and were sitting on the verandah. Finn pulled her on to his lap and they watched the moon sail above the trees.

‘I've got something to tell you, Finn,' she said finally. ‘It's to do with that visit I made while you were ordering your new riding boots.'

He was nuzzling her neck, his scratchy chin causing her to tingle with delight. ‘Mmmm?'

She pulled away from him, laughing. ‘How can I concentrate when you do that, Finn? Stop a minute and listen.'

He softly bit her neck. ‘I'm still hungry,' he growled.

‘Finn,' she said firmly. ‘I've got something to tell you – and it's important.'

He looked at her, his face suddenly serious. ‘What is it Molly?'

‘We're going to have a baby,' she said quietly, waiting for his reaction.

He stared at her for a long moment and then his awe and delight appeared in a wide grin. He picked her up and whirled her around the room. ‘You clever, clever girl! Why didn't you tell me?'

She laughed and begged to be put down. ‘Because I wanted to be sure,' she said breathlessly. ‘At my age it just seemed so daft.'

He kissed her then with aching tenderness. ‘Precious, precious girl,' he murmured against her lips. ‘I promise you, our child will have the finest property in New South Wales and the most loving parents. Oh, Molly, Molly. This is the greatest gift you could have given me.'

Matilda hugged her own contentment and joy. She still couldn't believe it, and as the months slid by had to keep putting her hands on her belly to confirm she wasn't dreaming. She yearned for the time to pass quickly and yet was almost jealous of sharing such a miracle.

How lucky she was, she told herself repeatedly. How loved and wanted after all the years of isolation. This child would want for nothing. She and Finn would love and cherish it, and he or she would grow up strong and healthy in the good air of Churinga and Wilga.

The baby was due to be born in the winter. The shearing season was over and as she went into the last six weeks of her pregnancy, Matilda began to feel her energy decline in the humidity. It was already raining and the creek threatened to run a banker. Finn had gone with the men to round up the mob and take them to the higher pastures, and from there he would visit Wilga and make sure it was prepared for the winter.

Matilda moved slowly around the house, the weight of the child making the heat seem more intense. She had planned to finish decorating the nursery Finn had built on to the side of the house, and despite his orders to leave it for him to do, she wanted to surprise him.

Besides, she told herself fiercely, you're getting too soft and lazy sitting around the house all day doing nothing. It's time you got on with something.

She gathered up a bucket of water, a penknife for scraping off old varnish, cleaning cloths and beeswax, and plodded into the nursery. It was small and bright with a large window overlooking the paddock. It smelled of newly cut timber. She had already whitewashed the walls and wanted to paint a mural of Churinga behind the small cot Finn had built several weeks before. The mural was to be a surprise and she was glad he would be gone long enough for her to finish it. He fusses too much, she thought indulgently, and will only get under my feet.

Finn had brought a chest of drawers and a wardrobe from Wilga. Matilda decided that before she could begin on the mural, she would clean them out. Everything had to be just right for when the baby came. She knew this almost obsessive need to clean and dust was all a part of her nesting instincts – much like the wild creatures of the outback.

With the warm water and cloths, she scrubbed away the dust from the bottom of the wardrobe and hummed to herself as she lined the shelves with paper. Then she polished the wood until it gleamed and stood back to admire the effect. The furniture Finn had brought with him had seen better days. Once the pieces had been put in here they'd almost been forgotten in the hurly-burly of the shearing season. Now she was pleased with how the wardrobe looked and turned to the chest of drawers.

As she opened the top drawer, she heard something rattle and then thud. Whatever it was, Finn had obviously forgotten about it. Now it had fallen down the back into the cavity behind the bottom drawer.

One by one she pulled the drawers out and set them in a stack on the floor. Then, puffing and blowing, she got down on her knees and scrabbled about in the dusty darkness. With the bulk of the baby between her and the furniture, it was difficult to see what she was doing.

Her fingers found something slippery and cold. It felt like a tin box. She pulled it out. Catching her breath, she looked at it more closely. It was a long, thin biscuit tin with a faded picture of tartan and thistles on the lid. It had once been filled with shortbread.

She gave it a shake. Something slithered and rattled inside. Intrigued, she prised off the rusting lid with the penknife.

Instead of biscuits, she found a few letters, a couple of newspaper cuttings and some photographs. Putting the letters aside, she looked at the photos. There was the house in Meander, the beach at Coles Bay, and Finn, smiling and proud in his school uniform.

She smiled and kissed the photograph. How she would tease him when he got home. Those knees!

Moving on to the next photograph, her hand stilled and the child in her belly gave a vicious kick. Here was Finn standing between two people Matilda would have recognised anywhere.

‘That's impossible,' she breathed.

But when she opened her eyes again and read the newspaper obituaries. She knew it to be true.

And yet it made no sense. No sense at all. For how had the schoolboy Finn ever known Peg and Albert Riley. The Sundowners had gone back to Queensland, hadn't they?

The faces blurred in and out of focus as her thoughts became more contorted. She remembered Peg's voice the last time she'd heard it. It echoed in her head and seemed to fill the room, the house, the paddocks, and the miles between the years.

She stared at the back of the picture, but couldn't read the words that had been written there – couldn't focus at all. Yet she was loath to read them – wanted to turn the clock back – forget the picture even existed. It couldn't exist. Not here on Churinga. Not in a chest of drawers Finn had brought from Wilga.

‘No,' she breathed fiercely. ‘No, no, no.'

But she couldn't ignore the writing on the back of the picture, and despite her reluctance found herself drawn to it.

‘Good luck, son. Ma and Dad.'

Matilda swallowed hard and angrily, forced herself to think straight. It had to be a coincidence, she was just being overdramatic. Peg and Albert had had their own child, changed their name and moved to Tasmania. Of course, that was it. Logical really.

Finn's voice echoed in her head.

‘Ma told me I was adopted. It explained why my dad never showed me any affection.'

‘That doesn't mean anything,' Matilda said into the silence. ‘They adopted him in Tassie. It's just a twist of fate he came here.'

She sat on the floor of the nursery, the photograph gripped to her chest as she tried to claw back the calm she knew she would need to recover. She had let her imagination run away with her, she told herself firmly. Women in her condition often went a little mad.

Her gaze fell on the tightly bound stack of letters. With a quick glance she realised most of them were from friends, men Finn had gone to war with, horse breeders and farmers. Matilda began to believe she really had been mistaken.

Then she found the one from Peg.

Mis-spelt, the writing almost illegible, it had obviously been meant to be read after her death. The words danced before Matilda, hammering their message home as surely as nails in a coffin.

Dearest Son,

This has got to be the hardest letter I've ever had to write but you should know the truth, and now I'm gone, I hope you find it in you to forgive me for what I done. I take all the blame, yer dad didn't want nothing to do with it – but fate offered me a chance, and I took it.

Yer mum was only a kid herself when she brought you into the world, with not much of a future and no man to care for her. She was real crook after giving birth to you, and when I held you in my arms, I knew I couldn't let you go.

I stole you, Finn. Took you away from that poor wronged child and gave you the best I could give, 'cos I knew she wouldn't have been able to look after you even if she'd wanted to – which I doubt. We changed our names to McCauley years ago, but you won't find no papers proving anything, and it's better you don't know where you came from. She thinks you died at birth, Finn. God forgive me for the lie, but me and Bert couldn't have kids, and when I saw you, I knew it was meant to be.

Matilda was almost numb with shock as the feeling of dread returned full force. Her clumsy fingers knocked the tin as she dropped her hands to her knees and something glinted as it fell to the floor.

She picked it up and let it swing like a pendulum in the sunlight. The gold and enamel glittered as she sat there mesmerised.

Catching the delicately engraved heart, she traced the initials entwined on the back and froze. With a deep breath, she forced herself to open the tiny catch and look at the two faces set in their ornately worked frames – and knew there could be no mistake.

The loss of her mother's locket had always been a mystery. Now it had been returned to Churinga to haunt her.

Her baby weighed heavy within her as she clambered to her feet.

‘It's impossible,' she muttered. ‘Impossible.'

Silence surrounded her. The day lost its brightness and she thought she could hear Peg's voice again.

‘Your baby died. Your baby died. Your baby died.'

Matilda covered her ears and stumbled out of the room. Her feet led her on the inevitable journey she had no wish to take – but knew she must. Across the kitchen and out on to the verandah. The nightmare walk she had made once before and would have done anything to wake up from. Then into the yard and through the white wicket gate into the graveyard.