Baby At Bushman's Creek

Clare was unimpressed. ‘It’s still not exactly teeming with excitement, is it?’

‘I guess that depends what you find exciting,’ he said. There was a faint undercurrent of amusement in his voice, and Clare looked at him suspiciously. ‘What does it take to excite you?’ he added with a sidelong glance.

His face was perfectly straight, but she was sure that he was laughing at her. Lifting her chin in an unconsciously haughty gesture, she met his eyes defiantly.

‘More than a few lost cows and a couple of kangaroos,’ she said in a tart voice. ‘Is that the best Bushman’s Creek has to offer?’

‘That depends what you’re looking for,’ countered Gray, and this time she definitely saw one corner of his mouth curl upwards before he looked away.

They flew on and on, until Clare began to wonder if they were ever going to get there, but at length Gray pointed out a line of trees snaking across the landscape, their leaves notably greener than the others. ‘That’s the homestead creek,’ he told Clare. ‘Even when it’s dry like it is at the moment you can still find a few waterholes. And that’s the homestead down there.’

Clare peered out of the window, but she couldn’t make out more than a jumble of tin roofs flashing in the harsh sunlight and shaded by a cluster of green plants and trees that looked a surprisingly lush set against the bare brown paddocks that surrounded them.

The plane dipped down over the nearby yards, where what seemed to Clare an enormous number of cattle were corralled. She could make out a couple of men who waved a greeting as the plane flew over and touched down at last, about half a mile from the homestead, bumping to a halt on the rough airstrip.

‘Welcome to Bushman’s Creek,’ said Gray.

Having slept peacefully through the noise and vibration of the flight, Alice woke up the moment they lifted her out of the plane. She was fractious as they got into the inevitable ute that had been left standing in the shade of a boab tree, and cried all the way back along the rough track to the homestead.

‘What’s wrong with her?’ asked Gray, eyeing the screaming baby uneasily.

‘There’s nothing wrong with her,’ snapped Clare, her nerves frayed by Alice’s distress. ‘She’s hungry and she needs her nappy changed, that’s all.’

She was so concerned to make Alice more comfortable that she had little time to take in much of the homestead. ‘You’d better use my room,’ said Gray, carrying the case into the welcome coolness of the house. ‘It’s the only one that’s been used for a while. At least you won’t have to sweep the dust away before you can find somewhere to put her down.’

His room was dim and cool and plainly furnished. There was a wide bed with a cover loosely thrown across it, a chest of drawers and a sturdy chair. The effect was one of uncluttered masculinity, quiet, comfortable and practical. Not unlike Gray himself, Clare couldn’t help thinking as she laid Alice down on the bed and changed her nappy. She wished she could lie down herself, but she knew that once she did she would fall asleep. The excitement of the flight had somehow kept exhaustion at bay for a while, but now that they had finally arrived Clare felt it sweep back with a vengeance.

Bracing herself against it, Clare tucked Alice back into her clothes and picked her up. Alice’s sobs had subsided slightly, but she was still grizzly, and Clare kissed her and patted her back as she carried her in search of the kitchen. ‘I know, I know, you’re hungry. I’ll get you some lunch.’ Somehow she was going to have to get through until Alice’s bedtime, she realised wearily. There was no way she could sleep while Alice needed her.

Finding herself in a large, open living area, Clare slowed and looked about her. The homestead wasn’t at all as she had imagined it. It was newer than she had thought it would be, and had an improvised air, as if rooms had been added onto this central area as and when they were needed, but the atmosphere was surprisingly cool, thanks to the deep verandah that went right around the homestead and kept out any direct sunlight. Every door and window was fitted with a fine mesh screen to keep out insects but to let any breeze into the house.

Clare hadn’t expected to find it such a restful house, but Gray had been right about one thing. It was badly in need of a clean. Dust lay thickly on every surface, and when she turned round she could see her own footsteps clearly marked on the floor.

‘I did say it was dirty,’ said Gray, appearing with the last of Clare’s bags and reading her expression without any difficulty.

‘I know,’ said Clare. ‘I just didn’t realise quite how dirty you meant! Don’t you possess a broom?’

‘I’m hoping that you’ll find it,’ said Gray dryly.

‘I think I’d better!’ She clicked her tongue as she looked around her in dismay. ‘How could you let it get into this state?’

He shrugged. ‘It’s a question of priorities. I only use the homestead to sleep at the moment. I’m out all day, I eat in the cookhouse with the stockmen, and if I do sit down it’ll be in the office or on the verandah, never in here.’

Alice was still grizzling, and Clare cast her a harried glance. ‘I’ll have to worry about the cleaning later,’ she told him. ‘I need to feed Alice first. Where’s the kitchen?’

‘In here,’ said Gray, leading the way. ‘I’m not sure there’s much to eat in here, though.’

‘That’s all right. I’ve got some jars of food for her. All I need is to be able to boil some water at the moment, and later I’ll have to set up the steriliser.’

‘I expect we can manage that,’ he said, opening a door into a large room complete with fitted units, an enormous cooker and an array of steel fridges. ‘That’s where the beer’s kept,’ said Gray, seeing Clare’s eyes follow a trail of footprints through the dust to the fridge at the end. He didn’t actually smile, but the creases on either side of his mouth deepened in a way that made something shift inside Clare, and she turned away, suddenly brisk.

‘Where would I find a kettle?’

‘What about you?’ Gray asked as she opened a jar. ‘I could find you something to eat in the cookhouse,’ he offered, but she shook her head.

‘I’m not really hungry. A cup of tea will be fine.’

Alice was a messy eater, even by the standards of most babies, and Clare wasn’t surprised when Gray left them to it after seeing what she did with the first few mouthfuls. He said that he would go and see how the men were getting on in the yards.

Clare didn’t expect to see him again that afternoon, but she was just removing Alice’s bib when he came back into the kitchen. ‘I think there might be an old highchair somewhere,’ he said, watching as Clare lifted Alice out of the backpack.

Clare’s face lit up. ‘Oh, that would be wonderful!’ she said eagerly, and smiled at him, surprising a strange expression in the brown eyes before they were quickly veiled. ‘I don’t suppose there’s a cot, too, is there?’

‘There might be. As far as I’m aware, my mother never threw anything away, and all the stuff she used when Jack and I were small just got dumped in the unused quarters. I’ll get one of the men to look them out tomorrow.’

Having taken Alice out of the backpack, Clare realised that there was nowhere to put her down. ‘I think you’d better stay there until I find that brush,’ she said to the baby, settling her back into the seat. Alice looked puzzled to find herself back where she had started, but she made no objection, merely sticking her fingers in her mouth and sucking them as she regarded Clare thoughtfully.

Gray was watching Clare too. She was straightening her shoulders in a gesture of unconscious weariness, and he frowned. ‘You’re not going to start cleaning now?’ he asked sharply.

‘That’s what I’m here for,’ she said, with a smile that somehow turned into a yawn.

‘You can clean tomorrow,’ said Gray in a brusque voice, looking at the smudges of exhaustion beneath her eyes. ‘Right now you need some sleep,’ he added bluntly.

‘I can’t.’ Clare tucked her hair behind her ears and wished Gray hadn’t even mentioned the word sleep. ‘Alice slept in the plane. She’ll be wide awake for hours now.’

‘I’ll look after her.’

Clare had the feeling that Gray had taken himself by surprise as much as her. ‘You?’ she said blankly.

‘Why not?’

‘I thought you were busy?’

‘Things seem to be going all right at the yards. I’ll need to go and check how they’re getting on, but there’s no reason why she shouldn’t come with me, and in the meantime I’ve got plenty of paperwork to catch up on. She can be in the office with me.’

‘But…that wasn’t the arrangement,’ stammered Clare. ‘You don’t want to be bothered with a baby.’

‘I don’t want to cope with her when you’ve collapsed with exhaustion either,’ said Gray roughly. ‘You’re no use to me as a housekeeper if you’re so tired you can hardly stand upright.’

Clare tried to push aside the tantalising prospect of being able to lie down and close her eyes. ‘I don’t know,’ she said, worried. ‘Alice can be difficult…’

‘I manage four thousand square kilometres out there,’ said Gray, nodding his head in the direction of the window. ‘Are you telling me I can’t manage a baby?’

‘One baby takes just as much attention as a cattle station,’ Clare pointed out. ‘If not more! You can’t just prop her on a fence and forget about her while you get on and do whatever you do to all those cows! You won’t be able to take your eyes off her for an instant.’

‘You’ll have to trust me,’ he said, putting an end to argument by calmly lifting Alice out of her seat once more. Then, when Clare just stood irresolutely chewing her lip, he took her arm in a firm grip with his free hand. ‘Come with me.’

Clare found herself propelled back across the living area to his bedroom. ‘Maybe just for an hour,’ she mumbled, succumbing to temptation and the force of his will. She had held out against the exhaustion for so long that no sooner had her resistance cracked than she was overwhelmed by a great, crashing wave of tiredness, so that she stumbled and would have fallen if Gray hadn’t held her up.