Where the River Runs Read online

  Fleur McDonald has lived and worked on farms for much of her life. After growing up in the small town of Orroroo in South Australia, she went jillarooing, eventually co-owning an 8000-acre property in regional Western Australia.

  Fleur likes to write about strong women overcoming adversity, drawing inspiration from her own experiences in rural Australia. Fleur currently lives in Esperance with her two children, an energetic kelpie and a Jack Russell terrier.

  www.fleurmcdonald.com

  OTHER BOOKS

  Red Dust

  Blue Skies

  Purple Roads

  Silver Clouds

  Crimson Dawn

  Emerald Springs

  Indigo Storm

  Sapphire Falls

  Missing Pieces of Us

  Suddenly One Summer

  Fool’s Gold

  First published in 2018

  Copyright © Fleur McDonald 2018

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The Australian Copyright Act 1968 (the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or 10 per cent of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to the Copyright Agency (Australia) under the Act.

  Allen & Unwin

  83 Alexander Street

  Crows Nest NSW 2065

  Australia

  Phone: (61 2) 8425 0100

  Email: [email protected]

  Web: www.allenandunwin.com

  ISBN 978 1 76063 314 1

  eBook ISBN 978 1 76063 780 4

  Cover design: Nada Backovic

  Cover photographs: © Mark Gray, www.markgray.com.au; and © Ty Milford/Masterfile

  For you

  ‘Music is the universal language of mankind.’

  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

  CONTENTS

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  EPILOGUE

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Prologue

  2001

  ‘Chelsea, I’ve told you time and time again, it’s your third finger, then thumb under, then fourth finger and thumb under for a double octave C major scale,’ said Mrs Maher in a frustrated tone. ‘I just seem to keep repeating myself. In fact, you might as well pack up for the day. You’re not listening, once again.’

  Thirteen-year-old Chelsea felt like screwing up her nose and crossing her eyes behind Mrs Maher’s back, but since the piano teacher was sitting beside her and would probably see, she decided the punishment wouldn’t be worth it. The old dragon would probably insist she practise scales for the rest of her life. Boring!

  Two weeks ago she’d heard a Madonna song on the radio. It had been a live version, played only on the piano, and the simple melody had made Chelsea fall in love with it. Some of her friends had laughed, told her she was behind the times, but Lily hadn’t. The two girls had spent hours dancing in front of the mirror, learning the words and singing at the tops of their voices.

  Chelsea had tinkered on the piano, working out the notes and finally getting the tune for ‘Crazy For You’. Of course, if she’d looked hard enough when she’d visited Adelaide with her family, there would have been a music shop that sold the sheet music, but Chelsea preferred to nut it out for herself. The sheet music would’ve meant she had to play the piece the way it was written. Working it out for herself meant she could play it exactly how she wanted to. Did it really matter if her technique wasn’t perfect when she could touch the keys on the piano and make them sing sweeter than anyone in the school? The music theory was boring. She just wanted to play her own way, not the way she was told to, or expected to. Her Great-Grandfather Baxter had once told her she was unique, and Chelsea planned to keep it that way by rebelling against the rules.

  Chelsea had heard Mrs Maher tell Mrs Granger, who was her English teacher: ‘That Chelsea Taylor, she’s the best student I’ve taught since I’ve been here. Very talented.’

  ‘If you can keep her interested in the piano, you’ll have done better than the rest of the teachers here,’ Mrs Granger had responded. ‘Chelsea lives in a world of her own. No focus at all, staring out the window or lost in her own thoughts most of the time. Frustrating, because she’s really quite intelligent.’

  ‘I’m not sure it’s a world of her own,’ Mrs Maher had countered. ‘I don’t think she likes to conform with the school rules so she does things her own way.’

  The warm glow Chelsea had felt when she’d overheard the conversation started in her belly again. Well, until she remembered the last thing Mrs Maher had said. What would she know? Adults, even if they were right, didn’t know anything about kids!

  Instead of making a face at her piano teacher, she smiled and ran her fingers over the keys, causing a storm of notes to erupt, before settling into the beautiful and melodic chords of another Madonna song, ‘Live To Tell’. She remembered the tune by heart. Learning to read music had always seemed a bore to her, especially when she knew she could remember the song easily. Perhaps not exactly as it was scored, but did that really matter? All the best musicians put their own spin on the music they played.

  As her fingers ran across the keys, she imagined herself on stage in front of a packed audience at the Opera House, just like Richard Clayderman. Her Great-Grandfather Baxter had listened to the pianist and, although she’d never been to one of his concerts, she imagined what it must be like to play in front of a huge adoring audience.

  Clayderman’s music was continually played on the CD player she had saved up for, although neither of her parents could understand why she liked solo piano music when she could have been listening to good old country music like Slim Dusty or Kenny Rogers. Or even Anne Murray. It wasn’t that she didn’t like the country scene; she loved all sorts of music.

  ‘Music is putting a sound to your feelings,’ her great-grandfather had always said. ‘There is a piece of music for every emotion.’

  Chelsea had always agreed with that, and it didn’t matter to her if it was a modern pop song or a piece written hundreds of years ago. If she could feel what the music was saying, then she loved it. And the music helped calm her when she wanted to scream and yell at her mother, who had never understood her.

  To her it was neither here nor there that the piano she was playing was slightly off key and an upright rather than a grand, with worn yellow ivories rather than glossy ones. She didn’t hear anything but the music swirling up into the rafters of the concert hall and the applause afterwards.

  ‘All right, all right, that’s enough. I said pack up,’ Mrs Maher snapped, bringing Chelsea abruptly back down to earth. ‘Is your mother picking you up today?’

  Chelsea’s fingers itched to keep playing
but she knew that tone. Reluctantly she took her hands away and placed them in her lap.

  ‘I think so,’ she sighed. ‘I’ve got netball practice this afternoon.’ She scowled at the thought of running around a court playing a game that held no interest for her. Gathering up her sheet music, she stuffed it into her bag. She hated netball and the after-school training. It meant time away from her horse, Pinto, and the piano. But her mother had been an A-grade goal defence and thought her daughter should be exactly like her.

  Unfortunately, Chelsea was nothing like her mother, not in looks, stature or sporting ability, or in personality. Her mum was tall and willowy, which had helped her in playing a goal defence. Her shiny black hair was usually tied up in a ponytail and she kept fit playing sport and working on the farm. Chelsea was shorter, and a little heavier than she should be. Her hair was an uninteresting mousy brown like her dad’s, but she had inherited his crazy-coloured eyes—sometimes brown, sometimes blue, depending on what she was wearing. Dale, her annoying older brother, said her eyes made her look like a madwoman. And, according to him, she looked even crazier when she was playing the piano.

  ‘Get stuffed,’ was her standard reply. Those words were exactly what she wanted to say to her mum when she dragged Chelsea to after-school practice and yelled advice from the sideline.

  Wednesdays were a special kind of torture for Chelsea.

  Mrs Maher broke into her grumpy thoughts about the afternoon’s activities. ‘Where’s your practice book?’

  Chelsea fished around in her schoolbag then brought out a tattered A4 notebook and handed it over, so Mrs Maher could write down all the boring scales and exercises she was supposed to do before next week’s lesson—not that she did them often.

  After a moment of scribbling, Mrs Maher handed it back to her, and Chelsea looked at what her next week’s practice would be. To her surprise she saw the scrawly handwriting said: Play. Play whatever you like, but make sure you play for at least two hours per day. Chelsea blinked as the book was snapped shut with such force it sounded like a clap.

  ‘I’ll see you next week. Make you sure you practise everything I’ve written down.’

  That was her standard line and Chelsea wanted to ask why she’d changed it from tedious chords, arpeggios and scales, but instead she shoved the book into her bag and hoisted it over her shoulder.

  ‘See ya!’ she threw over her shoulder as she rushed into the bright sunlight and heard a voice calling her.

  ‘Chels! Have you finished?’ Her best friend Lily Jackson was sitting underneath a large pepper tree. ‘I’ve been waiting an age.’

  ‘Yeah, I’m sure she kept me in there longer than normal. Got this idea I have to do everything perfectly.’ She slung her bag down and pulled out her plastic lunchbox, hoping against hope that there was something left in there from yesterday. Her stomach had been rumbling ever since she’d realised she hadn’t packed her lunch this morning. The curried egg sandwich would still be on the kitchen bench where she’d left it before she’d ridden her bike to the end of the driveway and caught the school bus. It was Dale’s fault. He’d distracted her by teasing her about falling off Pinto yesterday and landing in a patch of bindi-eye prickles.

  Yes! SAOs and Vegemite. They’d be soggy by now, but she didn’t care. It was something to fill her stomach and distract her from the thought of netball practice.

  ‘Did you forget your lunch again?’ Lily asked.

  ‘Uh-huh,’ she answered around the crumbs.

  Without saying anything more, Lily handed her half of her ham sandwich. ‘You’re always doing that!’

  ‘Dale was teasing me, so it’s not technically my fault this time. He distracted me.’ Lily gave Chelsea a look which included raised eyebrows and disbelief at the ‘not technically my fault’ excuse. ‘And then when I started riding my bike, I had all these notes running through my head. Tunes which would sound like rain if I played them, and I wanted to get to the school bus so I could write them down before I forgot.’

  ‘And did you?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Get it all written down before you forgot?’

  ‘Yeah. I wanted to play it to her today,’ Chelsea nodded towards the music room. ‘But I knew she wouldn’t listen to it. Or she’d tell me off: “You can’t compose music when you don’t understand the basics, Chelsea.”’ She imitated her teacher’s snooty voice.

  A horn tooted and both girls looked up as a mud-covered ute pulled up.

  Chelsea sighed, then waved reluctantly. ‘What is she doing here and why is she so embarrassing?’ she muttered as her mother opened the ute door and walked towards them, pulling her hair back in a ponytail and tying it with the ever-present elastic tie she kept on her wrist. Dressed in jeans, knee-high boots and a red jumper, she looked like she’d stepped out of a fashion magazine. Lily had confided once she wished her mum was as trendy as her friend’s. Chelsea had been shocked. She’d never seen her mum in that light, but she supposed she was trendier than Mrs Jackson, who only wore one of two dresses to church every Sunday.

  ‘Wow, she looks like she’s stepped out of the Cleo magazine I’ve got hidden under my mattress so Mum can’t find it,’ Lily said, staring until Chelsea hit her arm gently.

  ‘Wait until she starts yelling at you to make sure you’ve got a clear centre pass at netball. She won’t look so trendy then!’ She made a wide-eyed stare, imitating her mum as she called from the sidelines.

  Lily giggled and shoved some more sandwich into her mouth.

  ‘Hi, girls! Why aren’t you out on the oval playing with all the other kids?’

  ‘Because we never are, Mum,’ Chelsea answered. ‘We don’t like sport.’

  ‘Oh, rubbish,’ Pip said, reaching up and tightening her hair tie. ‘Everyone likes running around playing four square or dodge ball, don’t they, Lily?’

  ‘We don’t,’ Chelsea said emphatically. ‘What are you doing here, Mum? I didn’t think you were coming in until after school.’

  ‘I’m here for a netball club meeting, and Mrs Maher rang to say she wanted to talk to me, so I thought I’d kill two birds with the one stone. Any idea why?’

  Chelsea stopped chewing and looked up, fear trickling through her stomach. ‘No. Have I done something wrong?’

  ‘I don’t know, have you? Better go and find out. I guess she’ll be in the office. Coming?’

  Reluctantly, Chelsea crammed the last of the sandwich in her mouth and grabbed her bag. What if Mrs Maher didn’t want to teach her anymore? Sure, she didn’t like the woman, but that would mean she wouldn’t get to play during school hours and the piano was the only thing that kept her sane. After all, it wasn’t like her mum understood her, because if she did, she wouldn’t gently poke fun at her love of all the things that were important to her. Her horse, her music, the type of music she liked! Or push her to play sports all the time. Her mother didn’t do that with Dale. She was always telling him how clever he was and how she was proud of the way he’d got the sheep in from the bottom paddock.

  Her dad didn’t really get her either. He loved music, but to him it was a form of relaxation rather than a real job, and she’d like to make playing the piano a real job, but she didn’t really know how. Anyhow, her dad was always in the background saying encouraging things, rather than: ‘Someone who knows how to pass the ball well doesn’t just use their body weight, Chelsea. They use elbows and fingers. Come on Chels, I’ve shown you this before …’

  What. Ever.

  Chelsea gave Lily a rueful look as she got to her feet. ‘See ya in class.’

  ‘Good luck.’

  ‘How did your lesson go today?’ Pip asked as she hurried Chelsea towards the staffroom.

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘Did you remember to bring your sandshoes for netball training? We’re going to be practising passing and ball handling. It’ll be great to see how much you girls have improved since last week, with the new exercises. I’ve got a whole lot more to give you.’ Pip stopp
ed at the front office door and looked at her daughter.

  Chelsea could read the excitement in her mother’s face and felt a rush of annoyance. She hadn’t done any training during the week, only played the piano and ridden Pinto. Why her mum had to be her netball coach, she did not know. Sighing, she followed her mother through the doorway and stood behind her, fidgeting while Pip gave the receptionist a warm grin and asked to see Mrs Maher.

  When the piano teacher arrived, she put her hand up to stop Chelsea from following them into the staffroom. ‘Wait here,’ was all she said.

  Chelsea crossed her eyes at Mrs Maher’s back then slumped on a couch in the waiting room, her hand tapping in rhythm to the tune in her head.

  Ten minutes passed before her mother came out, looking dazed and holding a shiny folder. She said to Chelsea, ‘Mrs Maher thinks you’re good enough to get a scholarship to the Conservatorium.’

  Chapter 1

  2018

  Chelsea drove slowly through the small country town of Barker. Her home town was nestled at the base of the Flinders Ranges and had a population of only a few hundred people. Her eyes searched the streets to see what had changed in the past ten years. The trees that had been planted in the middle of the main street were green and lush, but the lawn beneath them was dry. So dry she’d probably cut the soles of her feet if she ran on it like she and Lily had in the middle of one night, the last summer she’d lived at home.

  The town was quiet. The streets were empty and there was a total of three cars parked in front of the supermarket. The supermarket was the first change she noted. It used to be owned by Mrs Chapman; now it boasted the logo of the IGA chain.

  The newsagency seemed the same, as did the post office across the road. There was a war memorial near the trees in the medium strip, and her mouth pulled up in a half-smile as she remembered the night she’d stayed at Lily’s place and they’d snuck out after midnight to roam the streets. They’d thought they were so adventurous and daring. Barker was as quiet and safe as a church. Ah, the naivety of youth! But the kids had forgotten that Barker was on the main road between Perth and Sydney so there were strangers passing through all the time. They had just never imagined anything untoward could happen in Barker. It was a sleepy town where nothing exciting took place.