Page 8 of Down the Track
She looked at the letter in her hand and reread the section she’d circled. The paper was onion-skin thin and had three neat folds where the sheet had been creased to fit into the envelope that had landed in her mail tray three weeks ago. The envelope, like all the envelopes she’d received from the Cracknells in the last few months while they’d cooked up a plan, had been embossed with purple lavender blooms and the faint brown speckles the psocoptera order of creepy-crawlies liked to scatter in their wake, as though it had been purchased in the 1950s and had been tucked into an old-fashioned writing bureau in the years since.
Be sure to come on a Monday as that’s the day we treat ourselves to the Senior’s Special at the pub. Seat yourself beneath the Queen when the dining room opens at six. We’ll find you.
There’d been no mobile numbers in the letter. A landline number, yes, but no email, just the usual directionReply to Dot and Ethel Cracknell, c/- Angus at the Yindi Creek Post Office, Queensland, 4734.
After all the to and fro since Jedda had first told her about the Cracknells, Jo had finally made it out to Western Queensland, but where were the women she was here to meet?
A blackboard menu to the right of a servery announced 300 gram steaks and chicken schnitties and enchiladas, all served with chips and salad or veg and mash, and a young woman—a South American backpacker, Jo was guessing from her accent—was taking orders from a thin stream of locals. On the left of the servery was a pinboard, where community notices were tacked on any old how, so many of them that the mismatched papers looked like ruffles on a petticoat from the last century. Which, now she thought about it, rather suited the pub dining room’s decor. Renovation didn’t seem to be a concept known to the publican—not here, and certainly not upstairs, where the narrow corridor and handful of hotel rooms all shared the one terrazzo-floored bathroom.
Jo went over to inspect the noticeboard. Flyers encouraged visits to the Eulo Telegraph House Gallery and a large glossy poster advertised SEE YOU AT THE YAKKA! THE103RDANNUALYINDICREEKAGRICULTURALSHOW ANDSHEARINGEXHIBITION,1ST WEEKEND INMARCH, REGISTER YOUR ENTRIESNOW.
She’d be gone by March. Long gone.
She ran her fingers over a handwritten note about the Biggest Opal Festival in the West and squinted at the faded date. Three and a bit years ago. She smiled; so the noticeboard wasn’t totally current then. A yellowed, tatty business card was deeply pinned into the cork in the corner, and—
Oh.
‘Cocker & Huxtable Helicopter Services,’ she muttered. ‘Mustering, deliveries, special projects. Call now for a quote.’
Bloody hell, would the reminders never cease?
Gavin Huxtable. Helicopter pilot. Former flirt. Former (she felt the blush rising and told herself not to be so freaking ridiculous) lover. She was not here to relive any of that, so why was fate throwing all this nostalgia her way?
At least there was no prospect of bumping into him in person. She knew she wouldn’t, in fact, because when she’d rung the local (the only) helicopter charter operation in town about doing a flyover of the Dirt Girls’ old sheep station, she’d asked who the pilot would be.
‘There’s only one pilot this time of year, love,’ the no-nonsense voice had told her. ‘It’s too early for the big musters and it’s too hot for the tourists, so we’ve just the one owner running the flights in summer. Charlie Cocker. Very experienced; you couldn’t be in safer hands.’
‘And … no other pilots in town?’
‘The other one’s buggered off on holiday. Why do you ask?’
‘No reason.’ Lots of reasons, actually. And it wouldn’t hurt to check one last time …
She prised the card from beneath its rusty thumbtack, then pulled her phone out of her bag and scrolled through to the confirmation email she’d received for her booking tomorrow morning at ten o’clock. Surely she’d have noticed if she’d booked a charter flight with a company name that still incorporated the word ‘Huxtable’? Noticed and either booked elsewhere or abandoned the whole Yindi Creek idea entirely.
Charlie will be at the helipad expecting you and 2 pax (Ethel and Dot Cracknell) at ten sharp. We keep bottled water here in a fridge if you don’t have your own and we encourage passengers to have appropriate sun-safe strategies in place at this time of year including, but not limited to, hat, sunscreen and sunglasses.
The phone number was the same, she noted, but the business name had changed; the email was signedPhaedracilla, Office Manager, Yindi Creek Chopper Charters.
Tacking the old business card back onto the board, she turned to survey the dining room.
There she was, the Queen, in a long white dress with a ceremonial blue sash and a glittering crown perched on brunette curls. The photograph was ancient and faded and behind glass in an ornate silver frame. It sat on the wall above an upright piano which, in place of sheet music, boasted a sign saying, PLEASEKEEPCHILDRENOFFME. Of the newly crowned King, there was no sign. Although, now she thought about it, the state in which Yindi Creek was situated wasn’t called Kingsland, was it?
There was a vacant table near the piano, so Jo took a seat and slung her bag over the back of the chair. She had a feeling building in her stomach now that the meeting was so close, a billowing sort of a feeling, filling up her insides and making her feel lighter than she had in months. In years, probably.
There was something terribly liberating about leaving all her disappointments (and mother guilt) behind her on the runway in Brisbane as she flew the hell away. It felt great. She feltbadthat it felt great, but … it still felt great. To say being here with the opportunity to reboot her failing career maybe only a few shovelfuls of dirt away was wonderful, was just about the biggest understatement since … since … Nope. Despite the whirring fans and the cold water she’d showered under before coming downstairs for dinner, she was still too hot to be thinking up hyperbolic comparisons.
She felt great about being here, end of story. Or did she mean beginning of story?
‘You’ll be Dr Joanne Tan, then, love,’ said a hoarse voice.
Jo looked up. Two women—pushing eighty, she would have thought, although the sun and the dry and the heat out here might have weathered these women the same way it had weathered the landscape—stood across the table from her.
‘Call me Jo,’ she said, standing up. ‘Ethel?’
‘That’s Ethel, I’m Dot,’ said Dot, tipping her thumb at her sister like she was hitchhiking a ride.
Ethel was thin as a greyhound and tall, her hair a grey bob cut that ended in a neat line at her jaw. She had a clipboard in her hand and a pen tucked behind one ear and looked ready to conduct a town meeting or auction off a hundred head of sheep. Perhaps she was the more confident of the two.
