obviously didn’t hear the phone?”
“No, I wasn’t really listening. I thought another hour or so.”
He rested his big arms and hands on the table and looked at her trying to smile, “They rang about five minutes ago. There’s no real change. Rachael took the call. They said Ewen has been put into an induced coma. Rachael says that’s quite normal, probably a good thing. They are concerned that he may have some bleeding in the brain. The report really was that he is still gravely ill; they are worried about the injured leg, the one that’s broken. The other leg is okay. They don’t want to move him until they are sure that he can stand up to the journey. They say that will be another twelve hours at least and they won’t ring again until this time to-morrow unless there is some real news. Oh yes, when they move him it will be to Germany and yes, he will be allowed visitors. There is some short stay accommodation on the base and there are several hotels nearby. The names of the injured will be released at…” he looked at his watch. “By now, the press will now have names and the army, or the ADF, or whoever does it, will have issued a press release.”
“It’s like Rachael said then, these things take time.”
“Looks like it, doesn’t it?”
“I was hoping that we might get better news. I feel so helpless…”
“You mean being out here? You can go with Michelle and Roddy if you want. Rachael and I will get your car down to you. We could probably get it on one of those vehicle-transporters from Carnarvon. That wouldn’t be any trouble. I have a car in Perth at my parents’ that you could use until we got yours down there.”
“No, I didn’t mean out here, Angus. I just meant being so far away from Ewen. But I suppose if Ewen was in Perth there wouldn’t be anything that we could do except wait. No, I’m glad I’m here, like I said, I like the peace and quiet; it’s something new for me.”
“Some people from the city can’t stand it. A couple of days at the most, being without their mobile phones and text messages, seems to drive them crazy. We even had a young lad out here who went around all day with an ‘IPod’ or whatever you call them, plugged into his ears all day – hated the quiet.”
“It’s strange, I haven’t missed my mobile phone one little bit, yet back in Perth I was never without it. I could even talk to Ewen while I was sitting in a café having coffee and he was thousands of kilometres away…” As Pat had been talking Angus noticed that her bottom lip had started to tremble and as her voice trailed away she looked away from him, tears welling again in her eyes.
He reached over the table and took her hand. He’d never felt comfortable in the presence of emotion, especially when women cried; he’d never been able to handle it. Yet now, now he could see this girl, this young woman opposite him doing her best to be brave because her lover, his only son, was in some hospital in Afghanistan…
“Pat?”
She looked at him, blinking back the tears.
“Pat, it’s not supposed to sound like I’m sure it will, but we have a long way to go with all of this…it’s only just starting.” It was the best he could do.
She covered his hand with her other hand and tried to smile and found she couldn’t. She looked up at him across the table and into his dark eyes. They sat there looking at each other; the need to talk had gone.
Angus noticed how small, soft and cool her hand was resting on the back of his. How she gently moved her thumb almost stroking the back of his hand. He heard footsteps approaching along the veranda and gently took his hand away from under hers and noticed that she didn’t stop looking at him. As Michelle came around the corner of the house, she looked away.
“Angus, Roddy and I are ready for off; have you heard the weather forecast today?”
“No. Why?”
“There’s a cyclone brewing north-west of Wyndham. The tracking predictions are that it will go west and then curve and come down the coast.”
“We haven’t had a decent cyclone for years. It’s three or four days before we will feel any effect if it does decide to come down the coast.”
“Don’t you think Patricia should leave? She could finish up being stranded here for weeks if the creeks come down.”
“Hardly weeks, Michelle, but we’ll keep an eye on it. Same thing applies to Rachael, I suppose. She only has a week off.”
“I tried to find her to tell her but Alice says she’s gone off riding with Ali. He’s been schooling some horses that he’s just broken in, so she could be anywhere.” Michelle was obviously exasperated again, unable to exert any influence on her daughter and she made no secret that she didn’t approve of Rachael going off with Ali. Angus just looked at her impassively.
Angus got up. “I’ll run you out to the plane. You coming for the ride, Pat?”
As they drove to the airstrip Roddy asked, “Thought any more about cattle, Angus?”
“Think about it all the time, Roddy; the wool market looks a lot better this time. We have another two hundred bales in the next auction, the last of last year’s clip. Father will go down there again as he always does.”
Michelle interrupted from the back, “Why don’t you just make the decision, Angus? You know it’s the best thing. I hear everyone is moving out of sheep.” Again she sounded exasperated.
“Not that easy, Michelle, you know that. The Old Man and his father and his father before him have all run sheep out here. It would be hard on him if I sold them all.”
“But it’s you that has to make a living out here, not your father; he’s got enough for five lifetimes for goodness sake!”
Roddy asked, “Are the cattle available?”
“Oh yes. Be a bit of a challenge getting what we would need, but they are out there.”
“Sheep prices good?”
“Not bad. Looks like the export wether trade is good and mutton prices are better than they’ve ever been. If this cyclone comes down we will have them all in good order in a few months.” Angus turned and smiled at Roddy with an air of resignation. “Maybe that will help me make the decision. Still don’t know how I’ll tell the Old Man though.”
“He knows what’s going on, Angus,” Roddy said smiling. “We met them, or at least they were at the same art gallery function as us a couple of weeks ago, and during the drinks and nibbles session later he told me he was optimistic at the recent rises. He had all the numbers at his fingertips. We didn’t discuss Bangalore directly, but he did say he knew sheep numbers were dwindling in this country. I think he keeps in touch with what’s going on through his club and the Pastoralists and Graziers.”
“He does. I know that. He still attends meetings, I think. He reads everything he gets from the P & G, he reads the rural press and I know he talks with the wool brokers all the time.”
Michelle and Pat were sitting in the back of the Mercedes and Michelle joined in the conversation. Again her voice had a shrillness about it and she made no effort to hide her exasperation. “Well, you must do something, Angus. Everyone in town is saying that wool is finished. Why, I heard the other
