“Beautiful day for flying.”
“Perfect!”
“Good gracious!” Olivia burst out in surprise as she looked towards the waiting helicopter where a group of men were standing.
“You can’t back out now, Ms Balfour,” McAlpine told her with a mocking sideways glance.
“I didn’t mean that at all. I’m actually looking forward to the flight. It’s the helicopter. I’ve never seen one like it before.”
“Goodness, and I thought you’d seen everything. Maybe not done everything.”
“And what is that supposed to mean?” Her tone, had she known it, was cool on the way to arctic. Victorian, really.
“A fairly harmless remark, I would have thought. What you’re looking at—what we’ll be flying in—is the newest addition to McAlpine Aviation which has a three-state charter. The Territory, Western Australia and Queensland. You may not know—then again you might, as I suspect you’re a very well-read woman—Qantas, the national carrier, spells out Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Services. It was founded in 1920 and it’s actually the oldest continuously operating airline in the English-speaking world.”
“I did fly Qantas from Singapore,” she said, finding herself caught up in the story.
“At the time of our worst cyclone ever—Cyclone Tracy which devastated Darwin—Qantas established a world record when six hundred and seventy-three people were evacuated on a single Boeing 747. I was just three at the time but I vividly remember it.”
“The cyclone or the flight?” She shaded her eyes to look up at him. It was surprisingly good to have to look up at a man. Even if it was McAlpine.
“Both. My family has always had a keen interest in aviation. My grandfather, Roscoe McAlpine, established McAlpine Aviation. General air charter, jet charter, helicopter, freight. Supporting government agencies with fire and flood operations. That kind of thing. We’ve grown exponentially since Granddad’s day. He would have been so proud. The irony is he was killed in a light aircraft crash when he was a very experienced pilot who had flown hundreds of hours in very hazardous conditions.” He shrugged fatalistically, but Olivia could see the hidden grief.
“Am I the only passenger?” she asked, looking uncertainly towards the waiting men.
“Do you need reassurance? They’re not cattle rustlers. All three are company employees. They’re coming with us,” he supplied briefly.
And pray tell exactly where?
She had the sense not to ask.
Words simply could not describe her feelings as Olivia looked down at the primeval wilderness that was to be her home for the next five months. It would be fair to say she was shocked out of her mind.
Dear God! she prayed fervently. How am I going to be able to withstand it?
God answered very promptly. Buck up!
The famous early explorers of this continent— splendid, intrepid men of British stock—would have quailed at the prospect of having to transverse such a place, which looked to her distraught eyes like no other kind on earth. What lay beneath her had to be one of the last remaining great wilderness areas on the planet.
There was no sign of human intervention, let alone habitation, apart from the lonely cluster of white buildings that looked like an outback version of Stone-henge. Extraordinary as it may appear, she couldn’t think she would enjoy her stay at all. This vast landscape glowed as fiery as Mars, the red soil held together by what looked like giant pincushions in the most amazing shades of burnt gold and burnt orange. And she with the English-rose complexion! She would probably shrivel up in a matter of days.
Don’t allow yourself to get fazed.
She knew it was extremely important to maintain order of the mind. Order, after all, was the bedrock of her being. She was a Balfour and a Capricorn to boot.
The two men McAlpine had taken on board were fortyish, lean outback characters in cowboy regalia. Both looked as if they could easily wrestle a bullock to the ground, but they were most courteous and soft spoken when introduced. They sat up close to McAlpine, the boss, often exchanging remarks in unison. The “great minds think alike” syndrome, she thought.
She had been allotted a seat in the farthest row, deciding there and then she wouldn’t let McAlpine see how the sight of his ancestral home was affecting her. She realised everyone couldn’t live in a stately home but this rather beggared belief.
She wouldn’t have need of any of the nice things she had brought with her. They would be as out of place in these surroundings as one of Bella’s outlandish sequinned party dresses.
Bella, oh, Bella, what did we do? She hoped her twin—she was missing her dreadfully—didn’t feel as scared as she did.
What are you scared of? McAlpine?
Minutes later they landed, smooth as a bird, on the front lawn of the homestead, a green oasis in the fiery red wilderness that went on and on and on, so it seemed to fill the known world. Towering palms, graceful unfamiliar trees and a riot of prodigally blossoming shrubs offered all-round protection to the building which looked hardly bigger than a cottage. She could see a silver stream snaking away into the distance. She wondered if crocodiles, flourishing as a protected species, sunned themselves on the banks, using them for slipways.
Safely on the ground now, she looked around her with stoicism. Eventually it came to her.
He’s having me on!
Well, she could take a joke as well as the next woman. Even with her sunglasses on she had to shade her eyes from the fierce, glittering sun. She tried to focus on the homestead and its square white facade. It was a genuinely small timber construction set on very high concrete piers, probably for ventilation and to keep the building above possible flooding. Latticework closed the space in, acting as a trellis for a magnificent flowering vine with huge bell-like golden-yellow flowers. And such a fragrance! One could get drunk on it.
The roof of the homestead was corrugated iron painted green, as were the shutters on the French doors that opened out onto the broad covered veranda. Planter-style chairs were set at intervals along with huge pots of rather wonderful tropical plants. More astonishing plants with great curling fernlike waves grew profusely out of hanging baskets. Hot or not, with a little TLC and a drop of precious water one could maintain a dream of an indoor garden. A vision of Balfour Manor’s splendid English gardens—especially the rose gardens—broke before her eyes.
Home! Oh, God! More than ever she felt like a fish out of water.
On the thick springy grass, she soon discovered she was wobbly on her feet. “OK?” McAlpine broke away from his men to take her by the arm with what seemed genuine concern.
“I’m perfectly fine, thank you,” she said stiffly, somewhat intimidated by the vibrant male sexuality.
“That’s strange. I could have sworn you were thinking, Where the hell am I?“
“Then
