Things were going unusually smoothly at Redstone. The wet season had been bountiful, the cattle were fat and the gullies still running with crystal streams. Over dinner one evening, Sam told Alice that for the first time in many years, he felt they were truly getting on top of things again. He said that thanks to her determination and drive and Jeremy’s energetic assistance, many of their new plans were well on the way to being realised. There was a unanimous mood of positivity and enthusiasm in the old homestead.
Then the unexpected occurred. The eternally healthy Olive developed a persistent cough, which forced a rare trip to the doctor. The chest x-ray that followed revealed a fairly advanced lung cancer. But worse was yet to come. The cancer turned out to be secondary to one that had started in Olive’s breast, and by way of her glands had successfully established itself in various locations throughout her body. According to the Brisbane oncologists, cure was out of the question, and Olive haughtily dismissed the option of buying some time with chemotherapy. She would spend her last days gracefully at Redstone. So home she came.
Olive’s hacking cough was a constant reminder to the Redstone folk of her worsening condition. In commiseration, King Henry the Ninth began coughing with new vehemence. The bird had become virtually bald over recent months, his feathers having failed to regrow after his last moult. Crouched on his favourite knobbly perch, he reminded Alice of a large featherless hatchling. But despite his appearance and the increasingly sombre atmosphere at Redstone, the bird seemed to be more wickedly jovial than ever before.
Then, lifting his cover one morning, Alice made the sad discovery of his puckered little body, curled up stiff and cold on the floor of his elegant old cage. His remaining feathers were so sparse that his pink goose-bumpy flesh looked almost as though it had been plucked. Alice lifted him out gently, feeling a little guilty over the absence of any real sadness over the loss. She and the bird had never seen eye to eye.
However, her grandmother was excessively distressed over the ancient cockatoo’s passing. She allowed herself to be overwhelmed by misery in a way that Alice and her grandfather had never witnessed before. Three days after the bird’s death, Olive was still inconsolable. In the afternoon, Alice brought her a cup of tea and sat close beside her on the bed.
‘I can’t explain why I’m so upset about him,’ Olive sobbed apologetically, holding tightly to Alice’s hand. ‘I suppose he’s always been a stable presence in my life. My mascot for normality.’ She took a deep breath and wiped her eyes before adding, ‘I just never dreamed I’d be the Elliot who outlived him.’
In the face of adversity, her grandmother had always uncomplainingly put her nose to the grindstone. And Alice knew that her grandfather, who suffered more from low spirits than his wife, had found that during these times his wife had been a rock to which he could cling until the storm had passed. But now she seemed to be giving up, and Alice had never seen Sam so terrified. She made numerous attempts to cheer her grandmother and ease her grandfather’s panic. But eventually, to everyone’s surprise, it was Jeremy’s disrespectful taunting and niggling that managed to rekindle the old lady’s fighting spirit a week after King Henry’s demise. ‘Cheer up, Mrs Day.’ He appeared beside her bed where Alice was also sitting. ‘Now you have a guardian angel, white wings, yellow headpiece – the lot.’ His grin was infuriating.
‘Oh pipe down, Jeremy,’ Olive said irritably, pulling herself up on her pillows a little.
‘Righto then, I’ll leave you in peace.’ He turned to go, but in the doorway he stopped and looked back. ‘In another time and place . . .’ he paused, ‘I know you’ll hear that cough again.’
And then he was gone. And to Alice’s great relief, Olive was laughing.
The illness took Alice’s admiration of her grandmother to a new level. As the weeks passed and she became sicker and weaker, the elderly woman uttered not one word of complaint. Alice’s role changed as time went by. Initially she continued to work outside on the station but came in regularly to check on her grandmother, bringing her things to occupy herself with, crochet, crosswords, and a variety of material to read. Soon, however, even these diversions tired the formerly inexhaustible woman. Olive began to require help even to shower and go to the toilet. So Alice spent more and more time at her side.
Olive never ceased to be a lady. When Alice gave her foul-tasting medicine or a painkilling needle, her grandmother would smile and pat her hand. When Alice dressed the weeping bedsores that had broken through the papery skin, or wiped her clean after she’d finished on the commode, her grandmother would say, ‘Thank you, darling,’ as brightly as if Alice had just handed her a cup of tea and a cupcake.
When it became clear that Olive was dying, Lara arrived at Redstone with her three younger children. She immediately dismissed Alice from her role as primary carer, saying, ‘I’m here now, so you can go and look after Dad.’
But her bossy style of ‘helping’ grated on Olive’s nerves, and the children were in and out of the sickroom, grumbling and demanding things from their mother.
Twelve-year-old Dante pined for his computer games. He wandered around sulkily or watched television, refusing all of Alice’s offers to take him outside and show him the station. One afternoon she came in and heard him bellowing at Lara, ‘They don’t even have a proper TV! It hardly picks up any channels. I’ve never been so bored before. You never told me we were staying this long. I would’ve stayed home with Dad if I’d known.’
Chantel, the quiet, pretty little eight-year-old, floated around listening to the adults’ conversations. She changed her clothes several times a day and gave the distinct impression that she must have been Scotchguarded at birth. Next to the little doll, Alice in her stained jeans and heavy workboots felt like a bunyip from the billabong. But after a few days, Chantel began to accompany Alice outdoors and worry less about ‘getting dirty’.
Chantel liked Jeremy and batted her eyelashes at him when he teased her. She tittered at all his jokes, her hand over her mouth and her little head tilted to the side. Even when, on the third day of their visit, Jeremy told her that she needed a good flogging, she was overcome with hilarity and took it as a compliment.
The youngest, Theodore, worshipped Alice right from the outset, and wanted to go everywhere with her. Alice took the stocky five-year-old out checking with her in the ute and he enjoyed every small task, soaking up information like a sponge. On two occasions she rode out on Bingley to quieten the weaners with Theodore perched on the front of her saddle. Then Lara discovered that there had been no helmet, so any future sessions were forbidden.
One day, Alice and Jeremy took the little boy swimming in the creek, and all three of them had a wonderful time on a rope swing that Jeremy had rigged up over the waterhole. Alice was glad Lara wasn’t there to see what Jeremy taught the sturdy little boy to do on the swing. He returned starry-eyed, wet and in seventh heaven. Lara was furious with Alice. ‘If he gets a middle-ear infection, I’ll know who to thank. And another thing, please refrain from calling him Teddy. You too, Jeremy. His name is Theodore. This is precisely what I was afraid of when we settled on that name. I warned Conrad at the time.’
At this Theodore spoke. ‘I like being Teddy.’
Lara rolled her eyes, looking accusingly at Alice. ‘This serves me right. The minute you let them out of your sight—’
‘Poor kid’ll get bashed at school with a poncy name like that,’ Jeremy interrupted. ‘Did you warn Conrad about that?’
As the days passed, Alice could see that Lara’s care wasn’t helping Olive's state of mind. Previously the old woman had been so calm and accepting, but now she began to moan in her sleep and call out for Sam. On the morning of the sixth day of her stay, Lara was being rude and short-tempered with everyone. Alice went into the sickroom and said, ‘Mum, why don’t you have a day off and spend some time with Pa? I'll look after Ma.’
Lara glared at her. ‘Is that your way of insinuating that I’m not coping here?’
‘Of course not, I just thought—’
‘Do you think I can’t look after my own mother?’
Chantel, who had been listening in the hallway, poked her head around the door to watch. At the same time, Sam stopped on his way out the door and came into the room.
‘Lara, you’re exhausting your mother with all your rot. Come out of here and leave Alice alone.’
This was like a red rag to a bull.
‘How dare you, Dad? After everything I've done for Mum this week. Oh, I see how it is, Alice has become the favourite around here.’
‘Dunno ’bout that, Lars.’ It was Jeremy, through the open window, waiting out on the veranda for Sam. ‘But for one thing, Ali has a bedside manner that leaves yours for dead.’
Chantel’s head was swivelling back and forth excitedly, studying the face of each speaker in turn.
‘Oh really?’ Lara was seething now. ‘Well, seeing as you’re so precious, Alice, I guess it’s a good thing that I didn’t let them put you up for adoption at birth like Mum wanted to.’
At this, Olive started to whimper. ‘Alice, my love, don’t take any notice.’
Sam spoke again, quietly. ‘You take yourself and your mouth away from here now, girl, and leave your mother in peace. Alice will do this from now on.’
‘Mum should be in palliative care, in a hospital with people who are properly trained,’ Lara stated authoritatively.
‘You’ve said your piece, now get out before I give you a hiding.’ Sam was shaking.
Lara looked at him disdainfully and swept out. Chantel trotted after her.
Olive was crying quietly now and Alice ran to her and stroked her forehead. ‘It’s alright, Ma, don’t upset yourself.’
There were two more days of stormy silence from Lara, which everyone felt was a marked improvement. Alice stayed by her grandmother’s side day and night, leaving only for a few moments every so often when her grandfather came in. Teddy stayed for much of the time too, listening to Alice’s gentle voice reading poetry and singing to her grandmother. They played snakes and ladders, fiddlesticks and snap while the old lady dozed. Every now and then Jeremy poked his head in to break the monotony and crack a joke. But Lara stayed away.
‘Alice!’
Alice woke with a start and glanced at the bedside clock. Just after 4 am. Her grandmother’s voice had a note of panic in it. Alice jumped up from the bed that she now slept in, and hurried to her side.
‘What is it, Ma? Do you need something for the pain?’
‘Alice, I’ve never shown you love like I should have. Like you deserved.’
Alice, still waking up, blinked dazedly at the brightness of the bedside lamp. ‘Don’t be silly! You’ve been wonderful to me. Always.’
‘No.’ Olive shook her head fitfully on the pillow. ‘I never looked after you like I did Lara.’
‘Ma, Lara is your own child. Of course you should love her best.’
The old lady let out a deep sigh. ‘So I’ve always believed. But just lately . . . the last few days, I’m not so sure. Things become clearer . . .’ She stopped, out of breath.
‘Shh, Ma, don’t try to talk anymore.’
As much as she loved her grandmother, Alice had always been aware of a distance between them. She’d accepted it, but had sometimes longed for a closeness that never came. Now this distance was dissolving. With only days, maybe hours to live, her grandmother was closing the gap. Alice gently rested her head on the faded patchwork quilt covering her grandmother’s wasted chest. She could feel the shallow rise and fall of her laboured breathing.
The old woman laid a withered hand on the back of Alice’s head and stroked the soft curls. ‘My dearest girl!’ she whispered.
Just after morning smoko later that day, Alice stepped out through the double doors to the veranda for a breath of fresh air. When she returned a minute later, her grandmother’s soul had flown.