On Saturday morning as Liz waited, without enthusiasm, for her new pupil, she added fresh supplements to the troughs in the home paddocks, fed the chooks, collected the eggs and watered the still-struggling veggie garden.
These days, the sun was already high and blistering by nine, and as the house tanks were dangerously low, Liz used a precious bucket of water that she’d collected when she showered. The withered lettuce leaves had long ago been fed to the chooks, but she was trying desperately to save a few of Virginia’s ripening cornstalks and tomato plants, as well as the basil and rosemary bushes.
At the sound of a truck coming along the track, she set the bucket down and wiped her damp hands on her jeans.
This would be the grandfather with Alex. In preparation, she’d printed off sheet music from the internet, but it was difficult to guess the possible standard of an eleven-year-old who hadn’t played the piano for nearly a year.
She planned to suggest that Alex’s grandfather could wait on the side verandah while the lesson took place. She had no intention of letting the old man into the lounge room to glower at her from the sofa while she tried to instruct his boy.
The verandah was shady enough and he could thumb through the pile of cattlemen’s journals she’d set out for him on the cane table. She’d give him a jug of iced water and a glass and hope he didn’t expect a cup of tea and scones. After all, she wasn’t the CWA.
A dusty truck rounded the bend and rumbled to a stop on the pale, brittle grass that had once been lawn.
Well . . . here goes nothing . . .
Liz pinned on a smile.
Her smile faltered slightly when a tall and decidedly athletic figure jumped down from the driver’s side of the truck. She’d been expecting white hair and a stoop, maybe a soft paunch. Certainly not wide shoulders and a flatish stomach and blue-jeaned legs that seemed to go on forever.
If this was Jack Roper, he was a damn young-looking grandfather . . .
Then again, Liz reluctantly remembered, she was a similar age to many grandmothers and she didn’t like to think of herself as elderly, thank you very much. Her surprise wasn’t helped by a sudden, annoying desire to change out of her oversized shirt and to tidy her hair.
It was time to remember that Alex was the focus of her attention. She smiled directly at the boy as she walked forward. He was tall and slim with longish light-brown hair and intelligent dark-chocolate eyes.
She extended her hand. ‘Hi, Alex, I’m Liz.’
The boy nodded shyly as they shook hands.
With careful timing, Liz lifted a deliberately cool gaze to the grandfather. Okay, so up close there were a few signs of ageing. Deep creases gave his face a lived-in look. Silver flecks showed in his dark hair. He wasn’t too handsome, but his face made her think of the tough good guys in movies.
She gave a formal nod. ‘Mr Roper.’
‘Ms Fairburn.’
Had she imagined the faint mockery in his tone as he emphasised Ms? Liz broke eye contact.
‘Come inside then, Alex.’ She gave the boy her warmest smile. ‘We can have a nice chat about the lessons you’ve had so far.’
Alex nodded and Liz fancied she saw excitement burning in his eyes, but as they reached the verandah, she remembered there were questions she needed to ask the grandfather.
‘Alex, why don’t you go on in?’ She pointed to the open front doorway. ‘The piano’s just inside, in the lounge room. I won’t be a minute.’
She turned to Jack Roper. ‘I thought you might like to sit here in this shady spot, Mr Roper.’
She had to look up – she couldn’t address his boots or his shirtfront – but at least she was prepared this time. She was no longer thrown by the rugged looks or the confident blue eyes.
Well . . . perhaps she was still ever so slightly thrown . . .
‘Before I start the lesson, I’d like to understand Alex’s situation,’ she said. ‘About his parents. On the phone he mentioned an accident.’
The grandfather’s face was suddenly bleak. ‘There was a car accident. A fatal one, I’m afraid. We––’ He looked away. ‘We lost them both.’
‘I’m so sorry.’
Jack Roper nodded.
Gently Liz asked, ‘Was either of Alex’s parents a musician?’
‘Simon, his father, was a pianist.’ Jack Roper shrugged. ‘Sydney Opera House. All that kind of thing.’
‘So Alex––’
Liz was cut off in mid-sentence by a burst of music from the lounge room. Stormy right hand octaves gave way to the calm serenity of a wonderfully familiar melody. It was the start of Chopin’s Ballade No 1.
Her jaw dropped. She couldn’t help it. The music was way beyond anything she’d expected Alex to have tackled and although it wasn’t a polished performance it conveyed, right from the start, a wonderfully heartfelt quality, the kind of playing that lifted the fine hairs on her arms.
Young Alex Costello was gifted.
By the shock in Jack Roper’s face, Liz was sure he was as startled as she was. For long seconds they stood on the verandah, locked in mutual surprise as the notes rippled and flowed and thundered around them.
‘You said you’ve never heard him play,’ Liz accused.
‘I haven’t.’ Jack Roper looked genuinely shamefaced. ‘Not for years at least – not since he first started.’ He gave a dazed shake of his head. ‘He’s pretty good, isn’t he?’
‘Yes,’ said Liz sternly. ‘He’s bloody good.’
Liz had given master-classes to several of Europe’s most outstanding students and yet she couldn’t remember a lesson she’d enjoyed more. No doubt it was the surprise of discovering Alex out here in the bush. He was raw and his technique was a little haywire, but he was naturally talented and totally passionate about music. Working with him was exciting and fun.
He’d told her that he’d been teaching himself for the past year, playing on an old piano in the Gidgee Springs Hall after school. The other kids had teased him, but even the least sensitive had eventually caved, apparently. No doubt they were silenced by his obvious talent, and apart from christening him Mozart, the kids had left him to get on with his practice.
‘So who taught you to play this Chopin piece?’ she asked.
‘My dad,’ Alex said, dropping his gaze quickly. ‘He made a recording and I have it on my iPod.’
Liz imagined the deep bond the father and son had shared and a deep lonely pang speared her heart. Her throat was so suddenly tight that for a moment, she couldn’t speak.
Alex was looking at her, his dark eyes worried.
Liz blinked hard. ‘We do need to work on your technique,’ she said, managing a quick smile. ‘You’ve made things hard for yourself at times, Alex. See this bit here? These triplets?’ She played a short passage. ‘I’d like to see you try this fingering.’
She replayed the section, demonstrating again and the sudden excitement in Alex’s eyes was very gratifying.
He tried the notes, copying her.
‘Yes, that’s it.’
‘Wow. It sounds so much better already.’
Liz’s grin mirrored his. ‘And now, with this section here, you could––’
A knock at the door interrupted them. Liz glanced at her watch and realised they’d gone well over the hour.
Of course, it was Jack Roper who stuck his head around the door.
‘Sorry to interrupt,’ he said, not looking the slightest bit apologetic.
‘We won’t be long, Mr. Roper.’ Liz’s response was just a tad haughty. ‘Another five minutes?’ Trust the grandfather to stand by with a stopwatch. He was probably worried she’d charge extra.
‘Take as long as you like,’ he said, surprising her. ‘I wanted to speak to you quickly about one of your pregnant heifers. I noticed her when I was driving in and I thought she looked as if she was in trouble, so I ducked back to check. I’d say her calf is stuck. She’s made no progress in well over an hour. I think she needs help.’
Liz blinked, needing a moment to adjust from the artistic intricacies of Chopin to the practical realities of a pregnant heifer in labour.
‘Would you be able to help her?’ she asked uncertainly. ‘If you like I could try to phone my niece.’
She heard a faint snort from Alex beside her and realised she’d probably insulted the man. Jack Roper was a cattleman after all.
‘I’m sure I can manage.’ His eyes held that faintly mocking light again. ‘But I didn’t want to take any action until I’d spoken to you first.’
‘Well, yes, I appreciate that. Thank you.’ Chin high again, Liz was at her most dignified. ‘Please, by all means, do what you can.’
As Jack Roper turned to leave, however, she jumped impulsively to her feet. ‘Perhaps I should come, too.’
He looked back to her, blue eyes narrowed. ‘There’s no need.’
No. Of course, there was no need. Liz was already regretting her impulse. Damn it, she’d dug a hole for herself and now there was a measure of arrogant disdain in Jack Roper’s gaze.
She’d dealt with arrogant men plenty of times – first violinists, conductors, operatic soloists – and she’d never let them intimidate her. She wouldn’t back down now.
‘It’s not that I don’t trust you, Mr Roper. But it’s our heifer and I’m sure I should take an interest in her welfare.’ She knew Bella wouldn’t dream of letting a stranger deliver their calf without keeping an eye on him. ‘Alex can work on his Chopin. Can’t you, Alex?’
‘Sure.’ The boy looked as if she’d given him an early Christmas present.
Jack Roper, on the other hand, let his gaze linger on her, taking her measure, probably trying to decide if she’d be in the way.
‘It’s your call,’ he said, finally, in a neutral tone that gave nothing away. ‘We’ll use my truck.’
It was almost surreal to find herself suddenly bouncing along in a truck that smelt faintly of hay and dust. And with this tall stranger beside her, Liz felt unusually self-conscious.
When she was young she’d never been attracted to fellows from the bush. Right from the start she’d had her eyes set firmly on a career based in the city and she’d preferred her escorts to be dressed in dinner suits rather than jeans and dusty riding boots.
Now she was conscious of the raw masculinity of the man beside her, so tall and broad shouldered, and with a kind of leashed energy. She was fascinated by his work-toughened hands, spinning the steering wheel or deftly shifting gears, so different from the smooth, manicured hands of city men.
Jack Roper’s strong, long thighs encased in denim were another disturbing distraction.
‘Here she is.’ He pulled up on the edge of the track.
Liz peered past him, looking for the heifer. ‘Is that her lying down?’
Jack Roper nodded and turned off the engine. ‘One thing,’ he said sternly, turning to her.
Up close, his eyes were the incredible blue of the sea on a sunny day. ‘Yes?’ Liz’s voice was barely more than a whisper.
‘You’d better stop calling me Mr Roper.’
‘Right . . . Jack.’
She thought he might smile.
If he did, she missed it. He’d already turned to open the door and climb down.
Jack fetched a satchel and rope from the back of his truck, looped them over his shoulder, then held down rungs of barbed wire with his boot and offered his hand as Liz climbed through the fence.
The poor heifer was lying on her side, her labouring sides inflated, with two little black hooves protruding from her rear end.
‘Did you say she’s been like this for over an hour?’ Liz asked.
Jack nodded. ‘Still no change, I’m afraid.’
‘The poor thing.’
He knelt beside the animal and made soothing noises as he examined her with gentle hands. ‘Just as I thought. The calf’s very big.’
Liz winced in sympathy.
‘She should be okay with help.’ Jack began to tie the rope around the hooves, gently, carefully. Then he wound the rope around his hand to gain leverage.
As a musician, Liz had spent a lifetime noticing hands. Now she found herself once again fascinated by this man’s hands – workmanlike, strong and callused, but long fingered and gentle, too. And she couldn’t help admiring his careful, unhurried manner and the concentration on his face as he slipped one hand inside the heifer to ease the calf’s legs down.
The poor first-time mother deserved shade, but there wasn’t a tree nearby and it was disgustingly hot out in the dry paddock. The sky was cloudless and pale, as if the blowtorch sun had blasted away its colour, and Liz felt dust in her throat and sweat trickling down her spine. She wished she’d thought to grab her hat on the way out.
The muscles in Jack’s arms bunched as he hauled on the rope again, easing one little leg down, and then the other. She found herself holding her breath as she watched him strain, placing a booted foot on the heifer’s rump to gain extra leverage.
He shot Liz a quick glance. ‘Can you get the jar of Vaseline out of the satchel?’
‘Of course.’ She hurried to find it and brought it to him, unscrewing the lid.
Jack held out a hand, palm up. ‘If you could slap a dollop on there.’
‘Right.’ Liz kept a poker face as she deposited a fat blob into Jack’s palm.
Immediately he turned back to the heifer, gently rubbing the soothing jelly around the edges of the straining birth canal.
‘Good girl,’ he murmured, his deep voice calm and soothing. Over his shoulder he said, ‘I’d rather not use the truck to haul it out.’
Liz would rather he didn’t, too.
Then, after wiping his forehead on his shirtsleeve, he was pulling on the rope again, steadily, strongly, his face grimaced with the effort.
Liz bit down hard on her lip, trying to banish threatening memories . . . and at last the little wet calf was slipping from its mother. Jack peeled away the membrane to reveal a dark, silvery grey Brahman.
It was very still.
To her horror, Liz found she couldn’t hold back the past. Suffocating memories crowded in . . . another summer . . . The horrible low pain and her fear . . . and then afterwards, the terrible emptiness . . .
Oh, God . . . the lifeless little body . . .
She superglued a hand to her mouth to hold back sobs as Jack knelt beside the inert calf, stroking its throat. Surely they wouldn’t lose this little one? Suddenly she wasn’t sure she could cope.
She prayed Jack wouldn’t notice.
He did notice. He was frowning up at her. ‘Are you all right? Do you want to go and sit in the truck?’
Liz couldn’t speak, but she shook her head. Walking away she dragged in deep breaths. The air was hot and dry, but at last she began to feel calmer.
‘It’s another heifer,’ Jack said, when Liz returned, his voice lapsing into a quiet, easy drawl.
‘But is she all right?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Are you sure?’
He looked up and frowned at her again, then snapped off a stem of dried grass and tickled the calf’s nose with it. The new baby lifted her head and sneezed.
‘Looking good.’
The quiet certainty in his voice was something to cling to. Liz managed to smile and Jack smiled up at her, and she sensed a moment of connection that resonated deep inside her.
‘Looking wonderful,’ she said.
Five minutes later, Jack had washed up using water from a jerry can in the back of his truck and disinfectant from the medical pack. Meanwhile the calf had started drinking her mother’s rich, nourishing colostrum.
‘About Alex,’ Jack said, staring resolutely ahead at the track as he drove back to the homestead. ‘I had no idea he was so good. I feel like I’ve let him down.’
‘Don’t beat yourself up about it.’ Liz was surprised by how sympathetic she felt now. ‘You’ve had a lot on your plate, dealing with the accident and taking the boy in.’
‘Alex never spoke much about the music. I guess he thought I was a lost cause. He was always listening to it, though, on his iPod.’ Jack gave a small, self-deprecating laugh. ‘I thought he was listening to rock music. Heavy metal.’
‘He might have been. It’s all music, after all.’
‘That’s debatable.’
They shared another smile as they pulled up at the house.
‘Did you know Alex has been practising on the piano at the Gidgee Springs Hall?’ Liz asked.
Jack shook his head, then sighed. ‘What should I do?’
‘He’ll be off to boarding school next year, won’t he?’
‘Yeah. I should check them out, find the best music courses.’
‘That’s important, yes. And there are music scholarships. I’ll make a few phone calls and see what I can find out.’
‘I guess you grew up out here, didn’t you? And you managed.’
‘I did. But I was wildly ambitious.’ Liz shrugged. ‘We don’t even know how serious Alex is about his music.’
‘That’s true, but I guess I could at least buy him a piano.’
‘It would be a nice Christmas present.’
Jack smiled. ‘And here I was wondering what he’d like.’
When they got back to the house, Liz made tea and served it to Jack and Alex along with the last of Zoe’s chocolate cake that she extracted from the freezer.
It was all very companionable with the three of them gathered around one end of the big kitchen table.
‘Amazing cake,’ said Alex. ‘Did you make it?’
Liz laughed. ‘Unfortunately I cannot tell a lie. No. In fact, I’ve never baked a cake in my life. There are good cooks in our family, but I’m not one of them. The baking gene completely escaped me.’
‘But I hope you’ve left some cake for me,’ called a voice from behind them.
Liz turned to see Bella. ‘Um . . . ’
They’d polished off the lot.
With a guilty start, Liz jumped to her feet to fetch a fresh mug for Bella. ‘Have some tea. And you won’t mind about the cake when I tell you how Jack saved our heifer and her calf.’