Prologue
Day 1
Bottle Tree Creek, Northern Territory
Mid-December 2010
‘There, Missy. A nice cuppa.’
Olivia turns from the keyboard and glances up at her housekeeper. ‘Thanks, Nora. Just what I need!’
Nora slides the mug of tea across the desk and turns back towards the hallway, propping at the last minute against the door jamb. ‘Oh, almost forgot. Hector phoned earlier. Says he’ll have the guests’ bus in about six-ish. There’s a group of ten onboard. Three couples and four singles. One was last-minute. Joined the group in Darwin. We’ll have to sort that out when the bus arrives.’
Olivia hears Nora’s purposeful clatter from the kitchen as she sips her tea. Bottle Tree Creek’s guests come in all ages and from a variety of backgrounds. Last week’s batch had left early this morning. Now, staff will be putting the finishing touches to the cabins in readiness for today’s arrivals. Vase of wildflowers in the living rooms. Carefully folded towels and scented toiletries in each bathroom (vanilla candles and guava-and-plum spa gel are popular). DVD player and access to the latest Foxtel movies.
Luxury in the bush: that’s what Olivia’s guests pay for and expect.
The room is quiet now, except for the buzzing of a fly at the screened window. Olivia blinks and stares blankly towards the sound. She thinks about Richard – her journalist friend – and his Darwin apartment that looks out over the sea. It’s peaceful there, up above the bustle of the city, a haven from the cars and noise.
Somehow, he’d managed a full-page editorial in last weekend’s edition of Brisbane’s Courier Mail, detailing her life on Bottle Tree Creek, her community involvement. Her work promoting the cattle industry and tourism. The current writing of her autobiography, the release date to coincide with the centenary of the Campbell family’s ownership of the land.
The article contains a photo of her standing next to one of the station horses, looking trim in jodhpurs and a chequered shirt, and an American cowboy-style hat the photographer had insisted she wear. Idly she traces a finger over the words, the image.
At the age of sixty-eight, her achievements all march behind her, documented in the pages of the autobiography she’s almost finished writing. Her eco-cabins and outback experience opportunities have won her a bagful of tourism awards, but accolades haven’t righted the wrongs or changed her personal history. Or restored the one relationship that’s still missing from her life.
Olivia closes her eyes and draws a deep breath.
She doesn’t need to tally the years since she last saw her son David’s well-loved face – she knows them instinctively. Twenty-two birthdays and Christmases they haven’t shared. Twenty-two anniversaries of his leaving that she’s struggled through. Awful agonising days when her heart aches again and again at the way things ended between them.
She wonders what he’s like today. Is he taller than when she last saw him? Has time softened his anger? Does he still have the habit of throwing his head back when he laughs, just like his father.
His father!
A memory, almost physical, jolts back at her as she turns to her keyboard again, and she swallows hard. Keep going, she tells herself. You can do it. It’s only thoughts and words and they can no longer hurt.
Her self-imposed Christmas deadline for the manuscript is only days away, but today she is struggling. She has left this chapter until last. Not because it’s the end of her story – it isn’t – but because it’s the hardest to write.
Her fingers move tentatively across the computer’s keyboard. She’s remembering that last day with her husband Paul. In her mind’s eye, she pictures his ute as it roars away from her, spewing dust and stones in its wake. David is there too. Yelling at her, at his father. The red dirt churns from the ute’s rear tyres and eddies around him as he punches his closed fist into the air. Olivia isn’t sure who is the angriest. Father or son? But both for different reasons.
Now, from the front yard, one of the station dogs barks. Olivia, searching for a hazy memory and the words to describe it, pauses in her typing, distracted. From the window beside her desk, she can see Hector’s station bus approaching along the road that winds beside the creek, carrying the latest group of guests.
Abruptly the vehicle stops at the front of the homestead. The passenger-side door opens and a young girl emerges. Backpack slung over one shoulder, she makes her way towards the house, disappearing from Olivia’s sight as she walks behind the oleanders. There’s a faint knock at the front door. Nora will get it, she thinks.
Moments pass. She hears the murmur of voices and suddenly Nora’s in Olivia’s study, frowning. ‘Sorry to bother you, Missy, but there’s a girl waiting outside. Dunno who she is and she’s not sayin’ much, except that she needs to talk to you.’
‘To me? Are you sure?’
‘Olivia Campbell, that’s who she asked for.’
Puzzled, Olivia makes her way down the hall to the front door.
The girl from the bus waits on the verandah, propping the screen door ajar with one foot and balancing her backpack with the opposite hand. She’s mid-teens, Olivia guesses. Her long hair is pulled to one side in a ponytail, which falls across one shoulder. Her face is flushed. With heat or annoyance?
Then Olivia comes to a halt and everything tilts sideways.
The girl’s face jars at her – strange, yet not strange at all. Reminding her of someone she might have known a long, long time ago, or should know now. And a memory struggles towards her from the distant past.
‘Who are you?’ Olivia’s voice is as soft as the mauve shadows that stretch across the lawn.
The girl steps inside and the screen door slams behind her. She lets the backpack slide from her shoulder down her arm until it lands on the floor.
Thud!
No one moves. From the front lawn, a magpie sets up a tentative warble. The sound rises, then dies.
‘I’m Frankie,’ the girl says, crossing her arms defiantly.
There’s a slight waver to her voice, and a hesitation, then she ploughs on.
‘Frankie Campbell. Your granddaughter! But I don’t suppose you even know I exist.’