Page 13 of Wings Above the Mallee

Charlee rolled her eyes. ‘Told you, I’m not wasting my time there anymore.’ Her innate intelligence had taken her through Year 12 exams and into uni, despite the trauma. Keeping her there had proved to be another issue.

‘It’s not a waste, Charlee,’ Ethan admonished, though his tone was gentle. ‘You just need to shop around, find the degree that suits you.’ He turned to Sean. ‘Yeah, that’s where we met.’

‘You’re … studying?’ Sean asked hesitantly. Evidently the age gap wasn’t only in Heath’s mind.

‘Mature age, obviously,’ Ethan said with a self-deprecating grin. ‘Took me a while to figure what I wanted to do, too.’

‘Which is?’ Heath knew it was going to be one of those bullshit, no-use-in-the-real-world excuses to live on Centrelink for decades.

‘Teaching. Senior students. Figured I might have some good life experience I can pass on, if I can work out the correct way to do it.’

With the uni year less than a couple of months in, Heath could imagine how quickly Ethan’s commitment would fade. ‘And when are you planning to finish that?’

‘End of the year. Would have been done earlier, but you know—’ Ethan hunched a shoulder ‘—late starter.’

‘Never too late to get the old grey matter churning,’ Sean said, and Heath wondered whether Ethan caught the dig at his age. ‘Which reminds me, I’ve put your name down at the tourist centre, Heath. They had an ad on the community noticeboard, looking for members for a new Regional Action Group. Seems Settlers Bridge is experiencing a boom in tourism and they’re keen to make sure it doesn’t get out of hand.’ Sean grinned.

‘What the hell, Dad? I’ve no interest in regional development—’

‘Or anything else, it seems,’ his father said, unusually pointed. ‘But I’m sure they could use your financial expertise.’

‘Ha!’ Charlee chortled. ‘How does it feel to have someone pulling your strings? I told you Heath’s always making decisions on my behalf,’ she added to Ethan.

Heath sighed, the brief anger that had threatened to erupt suddenly ebbing, overwhelmed by the pointlessness of it all. ‘It wasn’t onyourbehalf, Charlee. And, like I’ve said, I wasn’t the one who made that decision.’

‘And like I’ve said, Mum’s not here to corroborate that, is she?’

For a moment he saw a flash of the old Charlee, who had loved to sink her teeth into a good argument. Back then, though, she’d relied on facts and evidence. Now she relied only on anger to back up her point of view.

Even when she clung to that point of view as a means to destroy herself.

7

Amelia

Amelia stared at the face of her watch in the first light of dawn. It was ninety-one hours since she’d had more than a couple of hours of unbroken sleep. The sleep deprivation woke the memories of last time she’d felt like this, seven years ago; although now she experienced only the dizzy exhaustion, without the overwhelming joy that had created a surreal—and ultimately predictive—sense of a life too good to be true.

The farmer Taylor had introduced her to three days earlier, Roni, had offered to take in the lamb, saying he’d be company for her massive old merino, Goat, who had loudly greeted them from a paddock alongside the farmhouse. But Amelia had clung to the scrap of furry wool. She recognised the underlying psychology that rendered her unable to let the animal go, but that didn’t change her reaction: the lamb needed her love, her protection, and she wasn’t about to fail. Not again. So she’d named the lamb Karmaa, and had spent the last three nights propped against the footrest of the oldvelour lounge chair in the rental Taylor had organised for her, the lamb lying against her naked chest beneath a soft blanket from the well-stocked linen closet. With each breath she prayed that her own heartbeat would encourage the tiny, erratic flutter of the lamb’s life. Roni and her vet husband, Matt, had warned that attempting to raise a newborn lamb was likely to fail, but Amelia was determined that, at the very least, Karmaa wouldn’t die alone and unloved. He would be warm and cossetted, sliding into a deep sleep knowing neither pain nor fear.

Biggles balanced on the arm of the chair, holding slices of fruit between her tiny pink-palmed paws and nibbling delicately, her fawny brown ears twitching as she watched the lamb curiously from big, chestnut eyes.

‘That’s another night he made it through, Biggles,’ Amelia murmured as the lamb moaned in his sleep. She had been alarmed to discover that the animal verbalised dreams as much as any child, uttering sad, lonely bleats that she thought had to be evidence of his trauma.

The brushtail dropped the wedge of pear and scooted onto Amelia’s shoulder, curling in close against her neck as they both waited for the lamb to wake properly.

Karmaa raised his head then struggled to stand, his tail frisking through the hole in the nappy Amelia had modified for him. He thrust his head into the crook of Amelia’s elbow, soft lips seeking.

‘Actually have an appetite today, do we?’ Amelia said, trying not to let herself get too excited. ‘Let’s get that bottle on to warm, then.’

As she walked down the hall, she opened the door to the bathroom, where Dusty slept on a branch Amelia had rigged over the retro pink ceramic bathtub. Accustomed to human hours, Dusty tended to wake later than wild birds. Now shefluffed her feathers and observed Amelia with what seemed a degree of annoyance.

Amelia chuckled. ‘Sorry, kiddo, but Mum has to get ready for work today. You’ve got five minutes before it’s my turn in here.’

Dusty fluttered to her shoulder. Her beak loomed intimidatingly into Amelia’s line of vision, but she knew the bird was leaning in for a ‘kiss’. Occasionally she regretted having encouraged that behaviour when Dusty had been a nestling, entirely dependent on Amelia for company and warmth. The great, slightly curved beak was an impressive weapon and more than capable of taking out Amelia’s eye. But, although Dusty would occasionally seize and twist Amelia’s fingers when she was being closed away for the night, the magpie always regulated her own behaviour, and was gentle when she approached Amelia’s face.

The rising of the sun made responsibility for the lamb weigh less heavily. As Karmaa staggered on scrawny little legs to trail Dusty, who marched imperiously around doing her morning inspection of the house, it seemed that, despite his size, he might survive. Amelia fed him the enriched milk, a tiny amount so he wouldn’t bloat, as Roni had cautioned that was one of the leading causes of death in rescued lambs. After discovering that Karmaa aspirated, breathing the milk into his lungs, Amelia had changed from using the stock teat Roni had supplied to a baby bottle and nipple. That purchase probably had her new local store gossiping, if the arch of the cashier’s tattooed eyebrows was anything to go by, but the slower flow did the trick.

Karmaa tired himself suckling, then curled up in the dog bed Amelia had bought from the local hardware shop and lined with a sheepskin throw pinched from her own bed.

---