Page 58 of Down the Track
‘No, that wasn’t it. I’m not even vaguely sweet, as you well know. No, it was you I felt an obligation to, and I don’t mean your career. Lying here in a hospital bed can make you rethink the years you’ve spent devoting yourself to a career, I can tell you. No, I decided that yourlifeneeded some help. And I wanted to remind you of a time when you were happy.’
‘I’m not following.’
‘Western Queensland. Remember when we first dug out there? The firstwintonotitan. You were so young, and I was so full of myself.’ Jedda was leaning against the plush orange cushion, her eyes closed, a smile on her face, her voice deep and contemplative. Her hair—often unruly—had pressed out into a dark halo about her head. She was as unlikely a saint as Jo could imagine, given her impatience with religion, and yet the mood in the bland hospital room had acquired a certain gravitas. As though the words said here mattered more than words said any-old-where.
‘I was so intimidated by you,’ Jo said, eating the last of the jelly beans and leaning forwards to hold Jedda’s hand. ‘You were this legendary tyrant. Australia’s most globally respected palaeontologist and awoman. I wanted to be you so badly.’
Jedda smiled. ‘I was awesome, wasn’t I?’
‘What’s all this “was” nonsense? Youareawesome.’
‘And you were so serious. So keen to succeed.’
‘Yeah. Well. Being keen isn’t always enough, is it?’
But Jedda was right. Shehadbeen keen. And she’d had a burning ambition to prove herself that had perhaps made her blind to everything in her life that wasn’t her career. Like a young Hux and his declaration of love that had freaked her out so badly she’d left the country.
‘That was a great dig,’ murmured Jedda. ‘Remember?’
Jo remembered, all right.
‘Are you angry with me?’
Jo sighed. ‘No. My life did—does—need a do-over. But it’s not an easy thing to do.’ Especially for her. She had the emotional intelligence of a house brick, which meant she just didn’t knowhowto reboot herself.
‘I’m sure.’
‘Speaking of do-overs, guess who the pilot was when me and the Cracknells flew out to Corley Station?’
Jedda’s eyes widened. ‘Not that handsome fellow you had the fling with.’
Jo smiled. ‘He was handsome, wasn’t he?’
‘Stop gloating and tell me the rest. Is he still single? Is he still a looker? Did he recognise you?’
‘Yes to everything. We didn’t exactly have a happy reunion, though. He was mad with me.’
‘For breaking his heart. Yeah, no surprise there.’
Jo sat back. ‘That’s what he’s kind of been hinting. Why didn’t I know at the time?’
Jedda squeezed Jo’s hand. ‘Because you may be one of the best students I’ve ever had the privilege of teaching, Jo, but when it comes to real-world stuff, you’re not too bright.’
‘Is that your idea of tough love, Jedda? Because what you just said there was. Tough, I mean. And not necessarily love.’
‘Oh, stop your whining and open the window, would you, Jo? This inside air—I don’t like it. I don’t like to think of it whipping about in horrid pipes all over this horrid building and then coming out of that grubby little grill in the ceiling and spilling down onto me. If there’s a breeze blowing across Moreton Bay, I’d like to feel it.’
Jedda’s voice had lost some of its oomph and her face had grown slack.
‘I’ll see if it opens, Jedda,’ she said softly.
‘Good girl,’ murmured her friend. ‘If I keep my eyes closed, I’ll be able to imagine myself outdoors again, a long way away from this effing hospital, with my hands in the dirt.’
CHAPTER
23
Hux drove over the cattle grid that marked the northern boundary of Gunn Station, a cold band of dread tightening around his heart.
