Alice dried her hands on a tea towel. “There’s someone here to see you.”
“Who?”
“Don’t know, Angus. Young lady, good looking, got here about half an hour ago.”
“What does she want, petrol?”
“Not as far as I know; she asked for you by name.”
“What did you tell her?”
“I said I expected you back this evening if you had finished your work but that you might not be back until tomorrow. I gave her a cup of tea and she’s out on the front veranda.”
“I’d better go and see what she wants then. Is she driving a blue car?”
As he opened the door from the kitchen into the long hallway he heard Alice say, “Yes, blue Volkswagen”.
Angus pushed open the flywire door leading from the cool hallway and stepped out on to the polished floor of the veranda and into the last of the day’s heat. A young woman was sitting in one of the armchairs and she stood up. Tall, very slim almost thin, mousy blond hair cut quite short. Her face was tanned and she wore no makeup. A faded blue shirt and equally faded loose-fitting jeans and brown elastic-sided boots completed the picture. She was, he thought, thirty – early thirties?
Angus smiled and held out his hand. “I’m Angus Sinclair.”
Her handshake was firm and she looked him in the eye as she replied, “I’m Patricia Fawcett.”
“Pleased to meet you, Patricia.” He raised his eyebrows trying to ask the question as to why she was there.
“I’ve been trying to ring you for three days. Couldn’t get through so I decided yesterday to drive up here. I missed the gate the first time; there was another vehicle, one of those road trains, and I got lost in the dust and must have driven right past.” She was rushing her words and she seemed a little agitated. First impressions were that she was calm and composed. Now that was changing.
Angus, sensing her mounting distress, said quietly, “I’ve been out on the mill run and doing some yard repairs for a few days, but I’ve had my satellite phone turned on all the time; must be on the blink, sorry about that. But what brings you all the way out here?” He spread his hands palms up, “I’m sorry you have me at a loss.”
“I spoke to your wife.”
“Ex-wife.”
“I’m sorry, ex-wife, and she said she’d been trying to reach you as well and that you could be anywhere for all she knew. She seemed very exasperated with you. So I decided to take some leave and come up here, I felt someone had to find you and tell you.” She made a conscious effort to stand up straight; she pulled her shoulders back and looked at him.
Angus saw this and again said quietly and with a lop-sided grin, “Michelle is always exasperated with me. You still haven’t answered my question though, Patricia. What really brings you to Bangalore? You could have rung the police if it’s an emergency. They would have found me. You could have kept on ringing the homestead number.”
“Ewen hasn’t told you then?”
“Ewen, like his mother doesn’t tell me very much. Like mother like son. We spoke just before he left for Afghanistan for his current tour with the army. Even army pilots are secretive buggers you know?”
“I know. You haven’t heard about Ewen then?”
She was looking at him without blinking. He could see tears welling in her eyes and a cold shiver ran down his back. “Heard what?” He didn’t want the answer.
Visibly holding her emotions in check, very slowly she said, “Ewen is missing, more than a week now. The army didn’t say anything for a few days; security reasons they said, apparently, Ewen’s helicopter took unfriendly fire on a mission. They put down with little damage and came under even heavier fire. Some of the troopers made it back; some didn’t, though nobody saw anybody killed. They split up to distract the Taliban. I think they’ve sent a search party out today their time. My Commanding Officer said he would ring here as soon as they hear anything, but if your phone isn’t working…”
Now she lost her composure and tears filled her eyes and she sniffed as her nose ran in sympathy. She felt her pockets for a handkerchief and couldn’t find one. Angus gave her his; it was big and red and white and a little oily in places. She wiped her eyes and left a smudge of oil on one cheek. She blew her nose and went to hand the handkerchief back and then changed her mind and hesitated.
“Keep it; stick it in the laundry basket in the bathroom later. You must stay the night of course. Sorry silly thing to say, where else could you go? Didn’t mean that either. I don’t want you to go anywhere. I’m grateful that you have come all this way to tell me. The reason you haven’t had any reply from this phone is because Alice only got back from Carnarvon this afternoon. Been away for a week or more seeing her relations and it seems that my phone in the Ute is on the blink. Sorry if I’m not making much sense, I’m trying to get my mind round what you’ve said. Would you like a drink?” She nodded. “Whisky, gin and tonic, beer?”
“Whisky please.”
“Ice, water, straight? I think I’ll join you, the need for beer seems to have gone.”
“Lots of ice please.”
Feeling inadequate but trying to comfort her he said, “Good girl, only way to have it. Go and sit down again and I’ll fetch the drinks.”
Angus’ mind was in turmoil as he went back into the house and then into the lounge to the drinks cabinet. He pulled out a bottle of Johnnie Walker, two tumblers, opened the bar fridge and half-filled both tumblers with ice. He heard Alice, barefooted, softly pad into the room behind him.
“Is something wrong, Angus?”
“Yes, Alice, Ewen is missing in Afghanistan.”
“My God, the poor boy, when did this happen?”
Alice, standing close to the doorway switched on the light. Her ancestors had come from northern India and not Afghanistan and she had never been to either country – yet in Australia they had always, wrongly, been called Afghans. The shock and the pain were evident in her face at the news. She had read about the Taliban and the things that they did. She had seen them on television. She had been a second mother to Ewen. Maybe even his mother in every way except that she hadn’t given birth to him.
Thoughts of Ewen rushed through her head. She thought about his mother, Michelle, who, almost from the beginning, had been too busy for children, too busy for Bangalore except when it suited her. She had insisted that the children went to boarding school as soon as they were old enough. ‘Just babies really,’ thought Alice.
Then in the nineties when wool prices crashed due to the stockpile, Michelle left Bangalore for good, preferring to live in their house in Claremont, one of the better suburbs in Perth. But Ewen and his sister Rachael stayed in boarding school.
Both schools were no more than five minutes’ drive from where Michelle lived, so when she could spare the time, which wasn’t often, she saw them at the weekends. As these thoughts rushed through her head, Alice thought about her
