The fourth day came in very hot. Cardinal Ralph had gone with Dane to bring in a mob of sheep, Justine sulked alone in the pepper tree, and Meggie lounged on a cushioned cane settee on the veranda. Her bones felt limp, glutted, and she was very happy. A woman can live without it quite well for years at a stretch, but it was nice, when it was the one man. When she was with Ralph every part of her came alive except that part which belonged to Dane; the trouble was, when she was with Dane every part of her came alive except that which belonged to Ralph. Only when both of them were present in her world simultaneously, as now, did she feel utterly complete. Well, it stood to reason. Dane was her son, but Ralph was her man. Yet one thing marred her happiness; Ralph hadn't seen. So her mouth remained closed upon her secret. If he couldn't see it for himself, why should she tell him? What had he ever done, to earn the telling? That he could think for a moment she had gone back to Luke willingly was the last straw. He didn't deserve to be told, if he could think that of her. Sometimes she felt Fee's pale, ironic eyes upon her, and she would stare back, unperturbed. Fee understood, she really did. Understood the half-hate, the resentment, the desire to pay back the lonely years. Off chasing rainbows, that was Ralph de Bricassart; and why should she gift him with the most exquisite rainbow of all, his son? Let him be deprived. Let him suffer, never knowing he suffered.
The phone rang its Drogheda code; Meggie listened idly, then realizing her mother must be elsewhere, she got up reluctantly and went to answer it. "Mrs. Fiona Cleary, please," said a man's voice. When Meggie called her name, Fee returned to take the receiver. "Fiona Cleary speaking," she said, and as she stood listening the color faded gradually from her face, making it look as it had looked in the days after Paddy and Stu died; tiny and vulnerable. "Thank you," she said, and hung up.
"What is it, Mum?"
"Frank's been released. He's coming up on the night mail this afternoon." She looked at her watch. "I must leave soon; it's after two."
"Let me come with you," Meggie offered, so filled with her own happiness she couldn't bear to see her mother disappointed; she sensed that this meeting couldn't be pure joy for Fee.
"No, Meggie, I'll be all right. You take care of things here, and hold dinner until I get back."
"Isn't it wonderful, Mum? Frank's coming home in time for Christmas!" "Yes," said Fee, "it is wonderful."
No one traveled on the night mail these days if they could fly, so by the time it had huffed the six hundred miles from Sydney, dropping its mostly second-classpassengers at this small town or that, few people were left to be disgorged in Gilly.
The stationmaster had a nodding acquaintance with Mrs. Cleary but would never have dreamed of engaging her in conversation, so he just watched her descend the wooden steps from the overhead footbridge, and left her alone to stand stiffly on the high platform. She was a stylish old girl, he thought; up-to-date dress and hat, high-heeled shoes, too. Good figure, not many lines on her face really for an old girl; just went to show what the easy life of a grazier could do for a woman.
So that on the surface Frank recognized his mother more quickly than she did him, though her heart knew him at once. He was fifty-two years old, and the years of his absence were those which had carried him from youth to middle age. The man who stood in the Gilly sunset was too thin, gaunt almost, very pale; his hair was cropped halfway up his head, he wore shapeless clothes which hung on a frame still hinting at power for all its small size, and his well-shaped hands were clamped on the brim of a grey felt hat. He wasn't stooped or ill-looking, but he stood helplessly twisting that hat between his hands and seemed not to expect anyone to meet him, nor to know what next he ought to do.
Fee, controlled, walked briskly down the platform. "Hello, Frank," she said.
He lifted the eyes which used to flash and sparkle so, set now in the face of an aging man. Not Frank's eyes at all. Exhausted, patient, intensely weary. But as they absorbed the sight of Fee an extraordinary expression came into them, wounded, utterly defenseless, filled with the appeal of a dying man.
"Oh, Frank!" she said, and took him in her arms, rocking his head on her shoulder. "It's all right, it's all right," she crooned, and softer still, "It's all right!"
He sat slumped and silent in the car at first, but as the Rolls picked up speed and headed out of town he began to take an interest in his surroundings, and glanced out of the window. "It looks exactly the same," he whispered.
"I imagine it does. Time moves slowly out here."
They crossed the rumbling wooden-planked bridge over the thin, muddy river lined with weeping willows, most of its bed exposed in a tangle of roots and gravel, pools lying in still brown patches, gum trees growing everywhere in the stony wastes.
"The Barwon," he said. "I never thought I'd see it again."
Behind them rose an enormous cloud of dust, in front of them the road sped straight as a perspective exercise across a great grassy plain devoid of trees.
"The road's new, Mum?" He seemed desperate to find conversation, make the situation appear normal.
"Yes, they put it through from Gilly to Milparinka just after the war ended."
"They might have sealed it with a bit of tar instead of leaving it the same old dirt."
"What for? We're used to eating dust out here, and think of the expense of making a bed strong enough to resist the mud. The new road is straight, they keep it well graded and it cut out thirteen of our twenty-seven gates. Only fourteen left between Gilly and the homestead, and just you wait and see what we've done to them, Frank. No more opening and closing gates." The Rolls ran up a ramp toward a steel gate which lifted lazily; the moment the car passed under it and got a few yards down the track, the gate lowered itself closed.
"Wonders never cease!" said Frank.