Page 43 of The Island Girls

‘This place is absolutely alive with wildlife, Rebekah – and this is only your back garden.’

‘You should wait until you see Pig’s garden – I mean the garden next door that used to be Peggy’s. She’s been gone longer than I have now, but from what I can see, the new owners have kept it just as it was when we planted it together.’

She took him to the front of the house, and they leant on the side fence so Rebekah could explain everything to him. She told him how, back before her graduation morning, she and Peggy had decided to transform the barren and often dusty front yard of her place into a haven for indigenous plants and wildlife. She’d been freshly inspired by the rainforest at South Bank that there would need to be water, and frogs – a kind of mini billabong as a home for insects and skinks. They had planned for as many native flowering trees and shrubs as they could fit into the sunny sections, to draw the honey-eating birds, and she had made contact with a man who could provide them with a small hive of native stingless bees. And in the shady area underneath the front deck of the house, around the damp edges of the billabong, they had planted a young, shade-loving tree fern.

Now, just three years later, the little pond was alive with frogs and insects, and the trees had grown to at least triple the height they’d been when she last saw them. The tiny black bees were busy among the flowers, and there was even a water dragon resting under the cooling fronds of the tree fern.

‘Peggy and I planned it all together. Well – she actually let me do all the planning, and she did as much of the work with me as she could manage. But it was a real joint effort,’ she said with a pleased sigh.

‘It really is something, and quite different from most of the plain lawns I can see up and down the street. I wonder who moved in who is just as keen on the garden as you were?’ Paul asked her just as Helen came along to join them.

‘That would be Tim,’ she said, and gave a little nervous cough. ‘Tim’s been living here for two years now, and he and I have become quite close friends. Actually, he’s coming over for dinner tonight,’ she said, looking as shy as a young girl.

‘Mum? What kind of friends?’ teased Rebekah, but her mum just walked away chuckling.

‘Well, I never thought I’d see that happen,’ whispered Rebekah to Paul. ‘Mum’s always been so independent, and happy with it just being the two of us.’

‘Was she really happy with that arrangement do you think? Or was it just the way it had to be while you were growing up?’ asked Paul, wrapping his arms around Rebekah’s waist as they watched Helen disappear into the house.

That evening, Paul and Rebekah shared a wonderful meal with Helen and Tim from next door who, it was obvious, spent a lot of time here with her mum. He was kind, and helpful, and looked at Rebekah’s mum as though she was the most wonderful thing in his life.

Rebekah took the chance to talk with her mum as they were fetching the dessert from the kitchen.

‘Tim is lovely, Mum, and I’m very happy for you both,’ she said.

‘Steady, love, we aren’t getting married or anything.’ Helen laughed. ‘But he is wonderful, I know. It all started when I needed a hand to chop some wood for the fire – as clichéd as that sounds – but I never have been able to handle an axe, though I can do pretty much everything else for myself. And then we got chatting about caring for that wonderful native garden you and Peggy created and the rest is history,’ she said as they went back to the dining table.

‘Actually, we probably should talk about Peggy, Mum,’ Rebekah began, and she and Paul updated her on all they had discovered so far about Peggy’s interesting life in Poole, and the whereabouts of this mysterious Darrell Taylor.

Paul had used some of his knowledge and contacts to trace what had happened to him, and found that he’d returned to Australia after the war but left the air force, working instead on commercial airlines, and particularly the flying boats that operated right here in Brisbane, out at nearby Redland Bay.

‘He is still receiving a Defence Force pension, and lives in a retirement village down by the water. We have a phone number, but haven’t called yet,’ said Paul. ‘We don’t want to alarm him, and he might be upset to have old memories brought up again.’

‘Why don’t you write a note and deliver it to his mailbox? Leave your phone number, and ask him to call you if he would like you to visit?’ offered Tim.

After dinner, before they went to bed, Paul and Rebekah wrote the letter to Darrell together, telling him about the letter that had been found addressed to him and kept in Poole for over fifty years.

‘I have the perfect place to take you for a day trip tomorrow, and we need to catch a ferry not far at all from Darrell’s address, so we’ll drop this off on our way,’ Rebekah said.

That night, they were asleep by nine o’clock and awake the next morning before dawn, thanks to the jet lag kicking in, but that was a perfect start to the day trip Rebekah had planned for them. They made up a sandwich picnic bag, and added a couple of bottles of chilled beer with some frozen cooler blocks and, borrowing her mum’s car, Rebekah drove them south, over the river, and out to Cleveland. They found the retirement village, and posted the letter to Darrell, hoping they would get a reply soon. From there, they drove to the car barge to North Stradbroke Island.

‘This is one of the islands you pointed out from the plane, isn’t it? Quite a bit bigger than Brownsea, I think,’ Paul commented, and she laughed.

‘Brownsea is a speck on the map compared to Straddie. It’s an island with a lot of Aboriginal history – Minjerribah, in the traditional language – and you’re going to love the scenery. If we were here in winter, we’d be able to spot humpback whales breaching on the ocean side of the island, but I’m hoping today for wallabies, turtles and dolphins at the very least,’ she said as she drove the car off the barge at the end of the trip across Moreton Bay to the island.

‘And I’m keen for you to get your feet wet in the Pacific Ocean, too,’ she said as she parked the car at the gloriously unspoilt Cylinder Beach, named for the perfectly formed surfing waves that crashed onto the shore.

Rebekah taught Paul how to apply sunblock the Aussie way, and they stepped quickly across the baking-hot, silky white sand, and slipped into the refreshing, crystal-clear water that glittered in the sunlight. They jumped over and swam through the surf until they were deep enough to float on the waves as they came in.

‘This is a delectable and rather tiny bikini,’ Paul said, hugging her near-naked shape to him as they floated in paradise. ‘I’m quite fond of the way the weather here dictates clothing that shows me your gorgeous skin, so much of the time,’ he said, and she turned round to encircle his waist with her legs and kiss his salty lips. But, in closing her eyes for a moment, she’d taken her attention off the waves and didn’t see what hit them. They tumbled in the surf, and came up gasping for air, with sand in their hair, feeling like they’d had a round in a salty washing machine.

‘I can’t believe the power in these waves!’ gasped Paul, coughing as he wiped sand and saltwater from his eyes.

‘Sorry, I should have warned you how strong it is – and this is not exactly what we would call big surf. But I’m sure it’s more than you’re used to in England.’ She showed him where thefreshwater showers were at the edge of the beach, and then they relaxed in the shade of the grassy picnic area to eat their lunch, the cool beer soothing their salt-washed throats, then they lay in the shade from a whispering she-oak tree, enjoying a few minutes’ siesta time as the whispers soothed them to sleep.

‘This is a wonderful start to our holiday, Rebekah. What a glorious place. Tour guide extraordinaire, as always,’ he said sleepily, raising her hand to his mouth so he could plant a kiss on each of her fingers.

‘There’s much more to come after lunch,’ she said, turning to her side and draping an arm over his chest, revelling in the prospect of a whole month spent together. ‘Wait until you see the gorge we’re going to walk. It’s too beautiful to describe.’

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