Sapphire Falls Read online

  Charlie’s brown eyes staring solemnly at her. An old soul in a young body.

  She gasped as a shaft of pain pierced her heart. Grief hit her like a tidal wave. Charlie would never know his own son.

  She put her hand up against the wall to steady herself as her vision blurred, her heart beating so fast it was hard to catch her breath.

  ‘Fee?’ Scott had opened his door to fetch the next patient and quickly grabbed her before she fell. He got her back inside his office and sat her in the chair.

  ‘Breathe slowly,’ he instructed. ‘In,’ he stretched the word. ‘Ouuuuttt. In, ouuuutttt. That’s right.’

  Slowly her vision started to clear and her heart began to slow.

  ‘Sorry,’ she mumbled.

  ‘That’s a panic attack,’ Scott said, ignoring her apology. ‘Have you had one before?’

  ‘No, I don’t think so.’

  ‘I don’t find this at all unusual after everything you’ve been through.’ He paused. ‘Look, Fee, I can’t give you any medication to help with this type of problem because you’re pregnant and, honestly, talking and working through your emotions is the best way to deal with grief, not tablets. I’ll give you the number of the psychologist who visits here monthly. Go and see her—you’ll be surprised at how effective it is.’ He pulled out a piece of paper and wrote on it. ‘Talking is important,’ Scott repeated. ‘She can give you some strategies to deal with all the emotions you’re feeling right now. You’ve got so much going on.’

  He looked at her with compassionate eyes, and at the sound of his sympathetic tone, Fiona felt herself well up again. She tried to shake it off. She would be strong for Charlie. For this new life growing inside her.

  There was no other choice; this was how it was going to be.

  Fiona accepted the piece of paper he held out. Scott helped her up and escorted her into the waiting room, where Jo and Carly were waiting. She could feel people staring at her, watching her every move. She imagined them gossiping about her later. Telling their friends what they’d seen. She could almost hear the conversations in her head—God, she’d heard similar ones in the deli and at the hairdressers. It made her want to scream.

  ‘Let’s get out of here,’ she said to her mother. Jo and Carly closed in around her.

  ‘What did the doctor say?’ Carly asked as soon as they were settled in the car.

  Fiona hesitated. She wasn’t sure she was ready to share her news yet. Not with all these emotions running around inside her.

  ‘Fee?’

  Jo was leaning over the passenger seat and looking at her intently. In that instant Fiona knew there was no point in hiding anything. They would work it out very quickly. Plus, she needed to go to the hospital.

  Looking out the window, she saw heavy grey clouds gathered on the tops of the hills that surrounded the town. Like cotton wool, they lay across the peaks, hiding the trees that grew there. Raindrops started to ping on the roof of the car and run down the windows. She wished Charlie was there to see it. He had always loved the rain.

  ‘I’m pregnant,’ she said.

  Carly inhaled sharply and covered her mouth.

  Jo sat upright and became very still, staring at her, before reaching out and holding Fiona’s hands in hers.

  ‘I don’t know what to say.’

  Fiona gave her a watery smile. ‘Didn’t we have this conversation last night? Me either.’ She looked across at Carly. ‘You’re going to be a grandma, Mum.’

  Clearly overwhelmed with emotion, Carly just stared at her daughter in the rear-view mirror. Fiona wasn’t sure whether to take that as a good or a bad sign.

  The rain became heavier and it wouldn’t have mattered if anyone in the car was speaking or not; they wouldn’t have been able to hear.

  Finally, Carly put the keys in the ignition and drove them all to the hospital.

  Fiona slipped out of the house and made a beeline for the rain gauge to measure how much had fallen in the hours they’d been out.

  It had been getting a bit dry in the last few weeks and the crops needed the moisture. Ten millimetres would be just about perfect.

  She snuggled further into her jacket against the bitter winds that were blowing from the south. The dark clouds above were scurrying, doing their best to keep up with the wind, while the sun was hovering on top of the hills, about to set. Shadowy clouds crossing the sky made it seem darker than usual for that time of the evening.

  The gum trees she and Charlie had planted together along the driveway were bending over, leaves streaming from their branches.

  Sick of her hair whipping across her face, she pulled it back into a ponytail and fastened it with a hair band she kept on her wrist.

  Looking across the land, scenes from her life kept flashing before her. Everywhere she looked she could see Charlie.

  He was in the machinery shed, grinning from underneath the tractor as he greased it. He was in the ute, out in the paddock or walking across the crops as they pushed their way through the soil; on his hands and knees, checking the precious seedlings for insects or diseases. He was there in the sheep yards, pushing his hat back and wiping sweat away from his brow, teasing her.

  Oh and then … That time in the shearing shed. Fiona pressed her hands hard into her chest to try to stop her heart from physically hurting.

  They’d just finished crutching lambs to send to the abattoirs and Taylor Swift came on the radio. Moving in time to ‘Style’, Charlie had given her an impromptu striptease, before pulling her into his arms and whispering: ‘You and me, babe, I promise you, we won’t go out of style. It’ll always be us.’

  They had tumbled onto some empty wool packs and made love as the sun was sinking below the horizon, the lambs’ hooves clicking on the grating and the tin roof creaking above them.

  So many memories. So many good times. And now he was gone.

  She wanted to cry but something didn’t let her. Numbness? Detachment? Disbelief? Absolutely. And more.

  With shaking hands she pulled off the rain-gauge lid and reached inside. There was a perfect ten millimetres of water.

  She raised her face heavenward and let the gentle spit of rain, which had just started, fall on her. ‘Thank you,’ she whispered, needing to believe that Charlie had sent it.

  Turning away, she ran towards the house, not wanting to be outside after dark. She found she was getting scared at night without Charlie lying alongside her in bed.

  As the rain started again, in earnest, her foot hit the verandah and she raced inside, stopping only to throw one more glance across the land.

  Now, she had to check every room and convince herself there was no one else in the house—her over-active imagination, she knew, but she couldn’t help herself.

  Satisfied she was on her own, she dragged a chair across the front door and jammed it under the handle. That security would have to suffice until she could find someone to put some locks on the door.

  Chapter 3

  ‘Push ’em up, push ’em up!’ Fiona yelled to the dog at the front of the race. ‘Get in there!’

  Obediently, Meita jumped over the yard railing and plunged in among the lambs and under their bellies. Fiona could hear her muffled barks as she made her way towards the end of the race, making them pack up against one another. A few minutes later she appeared from under the last lamb, her tongue hanging out, the grin on her face wide.

  ‘Speak up,’ Fiona commanded, holding on tight to the gate and pushing it against the rump of the last lamb. ‘Hey! Hey, get in there!’ She let the gate rest against her thighs and used her hands to twist the stub of its tail. After a heavy shove, she chained the gate shut.

  ‘Good girl, Meita,’ she said, bending down to pat the dog, who now sat at her feet. ‘Good to go, Mark!’ She gave the thumbs-up sign to the stock agent standing at the front of the race.

  He opened the gate into the weighing crate and the first lamb ran in. Fiona watched with relief as she saw Mark run a blue rattle mark down it
s back, let it out, then repeat it on the next lamb.

  She looked around and nodded to herself. It was a lovely time of year—the country was green and even the yards, which were covered in small purple stones, were a pleasure to work in—there wasn’t any dust. Although she was always careful where she put her feet—the stones had caused her to roll her ankle on more than one occasion.

  Charona was in the southern Flinders Ranges area, sandwiched between Booleroo Centre and Melrose. The country was undulating and deep creeks ran around the bases of hills as well as through them. From where she stood in the yards, she could see the tree-covered mountain of Mount Remarkable. In a good rainfall year, when you were close enough to the creeks, you could hear the trickle of little waterfalls as they ran over the moss-covered rocks around the thick gum-tree trunks. Every waterfall Fiona saw she called Sapphire Falls—it sounded strange, she knew, but it didn’t matter if it was only an inch or two feet high. It was still a waterfall and she loved it. This country could be so dry and harsh. A waterfall made her feel like she was on holidays, somewhere lush and tropical. As a kid, she’d spent hours on the edges of Rocky River, floating leaves and sticks down it. She’d always thought the sun on the water had looked like diamonds sparkling, but diamonds were clear. The water there was blue. Like sapphires.

  During summer, it wasn’t anywhere near as pleasant. Days of forty degrees in a row and shimmering heat mirages over dry and dusty country with no feed. She was sure this country grew stones. When they hand-picked them every year, they never seemed to get them all. She’d lost count of the number of times she and Charlie had had to clear the paddocks of stones before seeding season. But that was part of living in this country and she loved it regardless.

  Now, however, casting her eye over the lambs, she smiled. They were good—as good as the ones she and Charlie had ever produced. Heaving herself over the rail, she walked towards the front, pushing the lambs as she went.

  Her slowly growing belly brushed on the rails.

  ‘Sorry, Mark, I’m a bit slow!’

  ‘You look like you’re doing pretty well to me,’ he answered.

  ‘What are they averaging?’

  They talked figures for a while, but the noise from the lambs separated from their mothers, in addition to the clanging of the gates and the barking from Meita, made it almost impossible to hear.

  To Fiona, the monotony of the pushing, weighing and letting out was soothing. She’d done this thousands of times and here, in the yards, surrounded by the ewes, lambs and her dog, she felt calm and peaceful. Even though her heart still ached and fear rolled around in her stomach every time she thought about the bank.

  Despite all of this, how could she not enjoy the sun shining after so many grey days? She’d begun to hate the dark, overcast days with a passion. It didn’t matter that they brought life-giving rain and the promise of a bumper season. The darkness of them mirrored her mood.

  When the sun shone, it lifted her. The glistening raindrops on green grass, which shimmered in the sunlight, made her happy. As did watching the sheep graze on the hilly paddocks. The green grass screamed of positive things.

  The gently undulating country, dotted with gum trees and crisscrossed with minor creeks, had been her home since she had left the small country town of Laura and moved to Charona with Charlie.

  In one way it had been hard to leave her mum; in another it had been easy. After all, Carly had been her rock ever since her dad had walked out on them when she was thirteen. It had been their mum who had held the family together, working two jobs so she could keep both William and Fiona at boarding school. It had come at a cost though—her once sweet, tender mother had become overbearing and brittle. Frightened of losing her children as well as her husband, she began to force herself into their lives and business. She hadn’t been at all happy when Fiona had announced her intention to move to Charona with Charlie.

  Fiona stood fast, though, despite her mother’s vocal reservations, and gave up her receptionist job at the Laura council office to be with Charlie. It hadn’t been a hardship—she hadn’t really enjoyed the job and, as much as she loved Carly, she loved Charlie too.

  Before Charlie, all she’d ever done on the land was drive through it to get to other towns. The land, she’d discovered, was a living, breathing being and she had fallen in love with it, the stock and the lifestyle almost straightaway.

  She learnt quickly, and it hadn’t been long before she came to understand the breeding of prime lambs and could run the sheep program with only a little help.

  It was Charlie who had renamed his farm Charona—a mixture of their names—and it was Charlie who had encouraged her to be involved. He had wanted someone who would work alongside him and be his partner in every way.

  Now, these were the things that Fiona knew she needed to keep her going. Especially considering the bank had just told her they were going to freeze the business bank account. Charlie had left a will, giving everything to Fiona. But Wayne Fontana, the bank manager, had rung that morning, very apologetic. Something out of his control, he’d told her. Thank goodness it was a close-knit community and he’d told her what the next step would be. That wouldn’t have happened in a city, she was sure. Maybe it shouldn’t have even here! But it had and she was grateful for his insight.

  ‘Transfer as much money from your overdraft as you need for the next couple of months,’ he’d told her. ‘Put it in another bank account and you’ll still be able to operate. It’s not frozen yet, so do it as quickly as you can.’

  She’d done just that, worrying she hadn’t taken enough out, then she’d rung Mark to come and weigh these lambs. If she could sell a few hundred, that would give her extra breathing space until probate was issued. She needed the money because it was going to be tight. The money side of things was new to her—Charlie had done all the budgets—so she was relying on help from the bank manager and knowledge from Mark.

  Charlie had inherited the farm from his grandparents, Stephen and Bessie, who passed over their own son. That was a skeleton in the closet and not one Fiona knew a lot about. She was sure his parents wouldn’t tell her about it now. The little time Fiona had spent with them hadn’t left her with an urge to see them again. Ronda and Don were mean and self-centred.

  Ronda, unfriendly and cold. Don, loud and obnoxious, happy to cut his son down at any turn. Their open animosity towards Charlie had made Fiona angry and she had said as much to Ronda over a Christmas roast lunch five years ago. That had been the last time Charlie and Fiona had seen them.

  Both had been so glad when Charlie’s parents decided to leave the district and move to Victoria, after buying a small block in the mountains. There would be no visits from Charlie’s parents unless they invited them. Fiona often wondered how they could have produced such a gentle and sweet-natured boy.

  She lifted her face towards the sky, feeling the warmth of the sun on her skin, and she was almost happy. Almost. Some of the sorrow and shock melted into the rhythmic sound of gates opening and closing, of lambs bleating, and work. Her mind was kept busy doing something she loved.

  As the yards began to empty out, it became quieter and easier to talk.

  ‘So how are you going, Fee?’ Mark asked as he ran the blue marker down the back of another lamb, indicating it was ready for sale.

  Fiona gave a tight-lipped smile. ‘I’m doing okay,’ she replied in a practised tone.

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Well, the bank rang today and said they were going to freeze my bank account, I’m tired, I’m sad and I still feel sick most mornings, but it’s just in passing. Nowhere near as bad as it was. And out here, doing what we’re doing, I can almost forget.’ She crossed her arms and frowned.

  ‘Morning sickness is a bastard,’ Mark agreed. ‘Debby really suffered, too.’

  Fiona ran her hands over her stomach. ‘I just feel fat and stretched. Hate to think what I’m going to feel like in five months’ time, when it’s time to pop.’ She paused.
‘Do you know, the funny thing is that I haven’t got any spatial awareness now? My stomach seems to bump into everything, even when I think I’m far enough away from it!’

  Mark let out a laugh. ‘Don’t think you’re on your own there.’ He paused as he patted his large stomach. ‘What’s this about the bank?’

  Swallowing the lump that appeared in her throat without warning, she nodded and told him what the bank manager had said.

  ‘Wayne is a good bloke. He’ll be keeping an eye on you,’ Mark reassured her. ‘We’re all watching out for you, you know.’ He let the last lamb through the gate. ‘It’s been a hell of a time—not only for you, but for Geoff and Leigh as well. The ripple effect of this has been huge, and you’ve all suffered in different ways.’

  Fiona inhaled sharply. ‘Everything considered, I don’t think I’m doing too badly. Four months and one week preggers.’ She looked towards the mob of sheep that were milling around, trying to find scraps of green grass in the compound. There was never much in the yards because at this time of year, when there were so many ewes and lambs coming through, it didn’t get the chance to grow. The sheep nipped it off too quickly.

  ‘Everything else? I don’t really have a choice, do I? I have to get on with life. I have this little one to think of. Just got to keep going. It’s the evenings that are the worst. I feel pretty empty then and, for some stupid reason, I’ve started to get scared when it’s dark. The house creaks and groans a lot—sometimes I think there’s someone prowling around.’ She let out a laugh. ‘Silly, really. There’s never anyone there—just my imagination. It would be so easy to fix. Get some locks on the doors. Must get around to that.’ She tried to brush it off.

  Fiona wouldn’t tell him about the nights she sobbed so hard she fell into an exhausted sleep, or the early mornings when she sat by the window and just looked out across the land. Or the times when she sat for hours at the computer, willing her mind to think about anything but the last image she had of Charlie. Sometimes the time spent at the keyboard was put to good use. She would research the best drench or new husbandry techniques for getting ewes in lamb.