Gibber’s Creek Gazette, 27 February 1974
Prime Minister Gough Whitlam today announced that Australia’s new governor-general will be Sir John Kerr, present Chief Justice of New South Wales. Sir John has previously been a judge of the Commonwealth Industrial Court and in the ACT and NT Supreme Courts . . .
SAM
Sam’s ute trundled up Dribble’s driveway in a haze of dust, purring along nicely since he’d put in the new exhaust. He reached into the back seat for a Tupperware container, then knocked perfunctorily on the back door before setting the container on the table. ‘Lamb meatballs with yoghurt, spinach, cucumber and pasta. Leafsong says don’t heat it up. It’s meant to be eaten cold.’
‘Sounds delicious.’ Jed reached up to kiss him, then began to put out plates. ‘Scarlett! Dinner’s here!’
‘Coming.’
Sam reached for the knives and forks. He looked up to find Jed regarding him. ‘I think I’ll cook dinner tomorrow,’ she decided.
‘You can cook?’ Jed hadn’t cooked anything except boiled eggs and toast in all the time he’d known her.
‘Of course I can cook. I’m an excellent cook. I just worked in too many greasy spoon cafés to feel like cooking for a while.’ Jed grinned. ‘Now I do.’
‘Goodo.’ He sat, then helped himself to the food. ‘Before I forget.’ He hauled a once-cream envelope out of his shorts pocket. ‘It’s our invitation to Felicity’s twenty-first birthday party, up at Rock Farm. You too, if you like,’ he added to Scarlett, despite the fact the invitation hadn’t included her. But Felicity was a good sort, though Scarlett would need to stay in the house, not camp, which might be crowding things a bit. But they’d manage.
‘Not for me, thanks,’ said Scarlett, wheeling herself to the table next to him. ‘I wouldn’t know anyone.’
‘Nancy, Michael, the boys, Matilda . . . they’ll all be there.’
‘I see them here.’
‘Fair enough.’ Sam took a mouthful of cold lamb. Good, though he’d have preferred it hot. He suddenly realised Jed hadn’t responded. ‘Jed? Everything okay?’
‘Yes. Sure. When’s her party?’ Her voice seemed falsely bright.
‘Not till April. There’ll be a cast of thousands, so we’ll have to camp.’
‘Really?’ Sam relaxed at her genuine interest. For a moment he had been worried that she wouldn’t want to go because Nicholas would be there. Jed’s not wanting to see Nicholas would be almost as bad as her wanting to see him. But he knew his Jed. There was no way she’d be with him if she still loved Nicholas.
‘I’ve never been camping,’ Jed was saying.
‘You told me you’d slept under bridges and —’ began Scarlett.
Jed cut off what Sam presumed might be a far too interesting list of places Jed had sought shelter. Sometimes he wanted to grab that stepmother of hers and her stepmother’s ex-boyfriend and tell them exactly what he thought of them. But people like that rarely felt shame, only anger at those whom they’d hurt, in case they got a niggling suspicion that perhaps, indeed, they should feel shame by the bucketload. ‘Sleeping rough is not the same as camping, with a tent and sleeping bags . . . I presume we will have a tent and sleeping bags?’
Sam grinned. ‘Tent if it rains. Swags if it doesn’t. It’s good to have the stars as a roof sometimes. Or would you rather have a tent anyway?’
‘Swags sound good.’
Excellent. It should be a wonderful party. Sam suspected that Felicity and Nicholas were going to use the occasion to announce the date of their wedding. And a night up in the mountains, the air tasting of cold tin and the stars glinting brighter than they ever did down here, would be the perfect time to offer Jed the ring Mum had agreed would be perfect for the woman he was going to marry. Just the two of them, with the song of Rocky Creek, maybe even an early streak of snow up on the mountaintops.
‘Why are you grinning like that?’ asked Scarlett.
‘Dreaming of camping up in the mountains,’ he told her truthfully. ‘Anything interesting at school?’
‘Would you BELIEVE! Mrs Enderby laughed in geography when I told her about plate tectonics. She said floating continents was the silliest thing she had ever heard of . . .’
Sam let the talk wash over him. Good talk, from people he loved. Sometimes he thought some angel must have waved its wings over Gibber’s Creek in the last few years. A federal government that wanted to do good things so you didn’t have to think about what they were planning next in detail, which was exactly the kind of government he preferred. Mum and Dad happy, Mum no longer harried by the financial worries at the factory. Jane cutting up frogs or whatever she was doing at uni in Sydney. And him, saved from a fate worse than death, trapped in an office at some construction company. Instead he worked with his hands and his brain, doing things that the planet needed, with the scent of the trees and the soil around him, in the place he’d never wanted to leave, no matter how good the pay was up in Sydney.
And Jed. Wonderful Jed who laughed with him and challenged him, and Scarlett to round off the family. He carefully hid another grin. Matilda and Nancy had probably already written to Mum, planning the wedding. Maybe even had the invitations engraved, with everything but the date.
Sam reached for another helping of meatballs, content. Life wriggled like a creek, sending you around bends you never expected, with droughts and floods thrown in. But he and Jed had finally landed where they were supposed to be. No doubts, no wanderings, just years ahead unfolding with all they loved around them . . .
He scraped the last of the pasta salad onto his fork. ‘Anyone for pudding?’