Ric crept into the laundry as morning fired the eastern sky. Sophie was still asleep, curled up in blankets on the dusty floor beside the incubator. She looked so tiny. He didn’t know what to do, what to say, how to tell her. The early-morning phone call was seared into his memory, each word, each dreadful pause loaded with meaning.
‘Rachael took an overdose of Valium. She’s been admitted to hospital.’ Hilary Harper’s voice had sounded faraway and unreal.
‘But she was getting better,’ he said. ‘She was getting ready to have Sophie home.’
‘Well, she’s suffered a setback. A serious one, I’m afraid.’
‘How serious?’
‘Rachael’s on a respirator. She’ll recover, but it was touch and go there for a while. As her social worker, I’m hoping to readmit her to the psychiatric clinic. You’ll need to keep Sophie longer than we first thought.’
‘That’s impossible,’ said Ric. ‘What about school? I’m not set up this end for a kid.’
‘Ric, I don’t think you quite understand. This wasn’t an accidental overdose. She’s in no position to care for a child.’
‘Can’t you find somebody else?’ he’d said. ‘A relative or something?’
‘You’re her closest relative,’ said Hilary. ‘And she’s already settled there. Let me contact the principal at Drover’s Central School. I’ll forward the documents you’ll need to enrol Sophie.’ Ric had been speechless. ‘Rachael’s not well enough to talk to you or her daughter right now. The minute she is, I’ll let you know.’
And that had been that. He’d lain in bed for a while, trying to get his head around the news. Then he’d pulled on a pair of shorts and crept into Sophie’s room. Her bed was empty, but he’d known where to find her. She’d barely left the laundry in the two days since the eggs had arrived. She even ate her meals there. ‘I can’t have dinner in the kitchen any more,’ she’d explained. ‘What if the baby swans hatch?’ So Max had set up a card table in the corner, with a cloth and vase of red geraniums picked fresh each morning. He delivered breakfast, lunch and dinner, plus snacks. Last night Ric had sat up with Max and Sophie, playing snap and poker, using matchsticks to bet with. For once the television went unwatched, and now the laundry stank of cigars.
Might as well get it over with. Ric squatted down beside Sophie, and tapped her shoulder. No response. He gathered the bundle of girl and blankets into his arms, and carried her into the house. Sophie stirred and rubbed her eyes as he laid her on her bed. ‘My eggs,’ she said sleepily. ‘I have to get back to my eggs.’
‘There’s something I have to tell you first,’ he said. ‘It’s about your mum.’
Sophie sat up blinking. ‘She’s coming, isn’t she? I can show her the eggs. Do you think they’ll hatch before she gets here? I hope so.’
‘She’s not coming, Soph.’ Ric hesitated. How much should he tell her? Why hadn’t he asked Hilary about how to break the news? ‘She’s back in hospital.’
‘I don’t believe you.’ Tears welled in her eyes. ‘I want to talk to her.’
‘You can’t right now,’ said Ric. ‘She’s too sick.’
‘Mum said she was getting better.’ Her breath came in short spurts, her eyes reproving. ‘In her last letter Mum said I’d be going home soon, that things would be different.’
Ric swallowed hard. He wondered, not for the first time, how long Rachael had been ill. What Sophie had seen. Up till now, each time he’d tried to understand Sophie’s world, she’d pushed him away.
‘You know your mum better than I do.’ Ric moved slowly towards her, hand outstretched, like with a startled colt. ‘Does she get sick a lot?’
‘Mum gets sick all the time,’ said Sophie. ‘Just when I think she’s okay, she gets bad again. I don’t know what to do. Sometimes I think she gets so sad because of me, that it’s all my fault.’ She collapsed in a sudden flood of tears. Ric reached her in a stride and swept her up in a protective embrace.
Max came in wearing a dressing-gown, his face a mask of concern. ‘What’s wrong with Sophia?’
Ric carried her to the lounge room, Max trailing after. He laid the weeping girl on the couch and sat beside her. Max put on an encouraging smile. He pulled a chair close and sat down too.
‘Sophie’s mother had a relapse.’ Ric’s voice was low. ‘She’s back in hospital. Sophie can’t go home next week.’
Comprehension dawned in Max’s eyes and his smile grew more tender. ‘Your mama, she’ll be fine. Lots of good people to look after her in a hospital, eh? She needs you to be brave for her.’ Sophie’s crying slowed to a sob. ‘Can you do that?’ he asked. ‘Can you be brave for your mama?’ Sophie nodded solemnly and Max offered his hand. ‘Let’s go check on your eggs. I think today, they’re going to hatch. Maybe we can take photos of the babies to send to your mama? To cheer her up.’
‘Do you really think they’ll hatch today?’ asked Sophie in a small voice.
‘Yes, but maybe not all of them. You see, mama swan, she lays one egg every day. Ten eggs, that’s ten days. It takes a bit longer for those last eggs to hatch.’
‘Can we go and check on them now?’
‘Sure, we’ll go check, and then we’ll have breakfast,’ said Max. ‘The three of us. I’ll make your favourite omelette. Would you like that?’ Sophie nodded and managed the faintest smile. Ric looked at Max, brows raised in admiration.
In the laundry Max opened the incubator and Sophie gasped. A wet, wobble-headed chick stared from among a pile of broken shell. It was like no cygnet Ric had ever seen. Pinkish head and neck and dirty-white body. Big black bill with a little yellow egg tooth at the tip. Its squashed-up legs and feet were yellow too. Sophie leaned in close and it began a loud peeping. ‘Don’t worry,’ she cooed. ‘Mummy’s here.’ Sophie reached in and took the baby in her hand, raised it close to her face. It peeped louder and nibbled her nose with its tiny bill. She giggled. ‘That tickles. Dad, take a photo for Mum.’
Now another egg was moving, and as they watched a little pip raised on its shell. The unhatched baby joined in the peeping. Sophie’s tear-stained face had turned luminous with wonder.
‘Put the chick back and leave it be until it dries off and goes fluffy,’ said Max. ‘Then it can go in a brooder box. I’ll set one up right in your bedroom. Now, come and have breakfast.’
Sophie put the chick back. ‘I can’t leave them. Can I have breakfast here? Can I leave the incubator door open and watch?’
‘Sure you can,’ said Max. ‘It’s warm enough for them. Ric and me, we’ll go make that omelette.’
The little girl didn’t seem to hear. Max pulled a chair over for her in front of the incubator and Sophie sat down, her eyes never leaving the miracle of birth happening inside.
In the kitchen Ric beat eggs as Max chopped bacon and grated potatoes. They worked for a while in silence. Ric was grateful to have his father there, grateful to share this problem with somebody who cared. And Dad did care; he cared a lot, that was plain. Cared about both of them. He’d changed so much. Why couldn’t he have been like this when Mum was still here? How different things might have been. She could have loved this man, they all could have. But change didn’t happen in a vacuum. Maybe it had taken losing everything to make his father take stock.
‘Can she stay?’ asked Ric. ‘Don’t know for how long. Don’t know when Rachael will be well again.’
‘You have to ask?’ said Max.
‘Thank goodness for those birds,’ said Ric. ‘Whatever they are. She’d be a wreck without them.’
‘Povero bambina,’ said Max. ‘Such a sweet child. Those chicks, they’ll help every time she misses her mother.’
‘Just make sure the goddamn things don’t die on her. Then we’d really be in trouble.’
‘I’ve raised plenty of ducks,’ said Max, with a dismissive wave of his hand. ‘Don’t you worry. They’ll be fine.’
‘But they’re not ducks, are they?’ Ric poured egg mixture into the pan. ‘And they’re not swans either.’ He needed to find out what those big black and white birds were quick-smart. Sophie’s happiness depended on them surviving. Time to talk to Nina.
‘Magpie geese,’ said Nina, after Ric described the birds to her over the phone. ‘At Billabong? I don’t believe it.’
‘Dad said those birds sure looked like geese . . . black and white, with kind of a crest on their head.’
‘Doesn’t sound like they could be anything else,’ said Nina. ‘Although magpie geese aren’t strictly geese at all. They’re the last of an ancient waterbird family and they haven’t lived along the Bunyip since Eva Langley was a little girl. They used to breed in the wetlands and migrate north to permanent lakes along the Paroo River in the dry season. It would be a miracle to find a pair breeding here again. And for somebody to shoot them? It’s disgusting. I feel sick.’
‘Me too,’ said Ric. And he did, as much for the lie as for anything else. Max had been hunting rabbits, he’d said, and discovered the birds shot dead by the nest. ‘At least the eggs seem okay. One’s hatched already, in our old incubator.’
‘How exciting,’ said Nina. ‘You’ll be able to tell straight away if it’s a magpie gosling. They’re very distinctive. Head and breast a kind of pinky-orange, and the rest of the body grey.’
‘That’s them. Now, how do I look after them? Dad says he knows, but he’s only raised chickens and Muscovies.’
‘I imagine they wouldn’t be that different from raising Muscovy ducks. Muscovies are half-goose anyway . . . but wouldn’t you rather bring them here?’
‘Nah, Sophie’s had some bad news about her mum. The birds are a good distraction.’
‘What’s happened?’
‘Nothing I want to talk about on the phone.’
‘Well, tell me in person when I come visit the goslings,’ said Nina. ‘Maybe when your dad’s not around? I’m dying to see them.’
This was a turn-up – Nina asking to come. He gave silent thanks to the little birds. ‘Come round about ten,’ he said. The coast would be clear by then. Max would be off on his regular Wednesday trip into town for supplies.