Australian Affairs: Wed. Barbara Hannay

today, his return visits had always been temporary, a short spot of leave before he was back in action. This time, it was unsettling to know he wouldn’t be going back to war. His four years of service were over.

      Yeah, of course he was lucky to still be alive and uninjured. And yet, tonight, after one phone conversation with Ellie, Joe didn’t want to put a name to how he felt, but it certainly wasn’t any version of lucky.

      Of course, if he hadn’t been so hung up on leaving a widow’s pension for her, they would have been divorced years ago when they’d first recognised that their marriage was unsalvageable. They could have made a clean break then, and by now he would have well and truly adjusted to his single status.

      Almost certainly, there wouldn’t have been a cute complication named Jackson Joseph Madden.

      Jacko.

      Joe let out his breath on a sigh, remembering his excitement on the day the news of his son’s birth came through. It had been such a miracle! He’d even broken his habitual silence about his personal life and had made an announcement in the mess. There’d been cheering and table-thumping and back slaps, and he’d passed his phone around with the photos that Ellie had sent of a tiny red-faced baby boy wrapped in a blue and white blanket.

      He’d almost felt like a regular proud and happy new father.

      Later, on leave, when his mates quizzed him about Ellie and Jacko, he was able to use the vast distance between the Holsworthy Base and their Far North Queensland cattle station as a valid excuse for his family’s absence.

      Now that excuse no longer held.

      He and Ellie had to meet and sign the blasted papers. He supposed it made sense to travel up to Karinya straight away.

      It wouldn’t be a picnic, though, seeing Ellie again and looking around the property they’d planned to run together, not to mention going through another meeting with the son he would not help Ellie to raise.

      And, afterwards, Joe would be expected to go home to his family’s cattle property in Central Queensland, where his mother would smother him with sympathy and ply him with questions about the boy.

      As an added hurdle, Christmas was looming just around the corner, bringing with it a host of emotional trapdoors.

      Surely coming home should be easier than this?

       CHAPTER TWO

      WHEN ELLIE’S PHONE rang early next morning, Jacko was refusing to eat his porridge and he was banging his spoon on his high chair’s tray, demanding. ‘Eggie,’ at the top of his voice.

      For weeks now, Nina, the nanny, had supervised Jacko’s breakfast while Ellie was out at the crack of dawn, delivering supplements to the cattle and checking on the newborn calves and their mothers.

      Now Nina was in Cairns with her family for Christmas and as the phone trilled, Ellie shot a despairing glance to the rooster-shaped kitchen wall clock. No one she knew would call at this early hour.

      Jacko shrieked again for his boiled egg.

      Ellie was already in a bad mood when she answered. ‘Hello? This is Karinya.’

      ‘Good morning.’ It was Joe, sounding gruff and businesslike. Very military.

      ‘Good morning, Joe.’ Behind Ellie, Jacko wailed, ‘Eggie,’ more loudly than ever.

      ‘Would Friday suit?’

      She frowned. Did Joe have to be so clipped and cryptic? ‘To come here?’

      ‘Yes.’

      Friday was only the day after tomorrow. It wasn’t much warning. Ellie’s heart began an unhelpful drumming, followed by a flash of heat, as if her body had a mind of its own, as if it was remembering, without her permission, the fireworks Joe used to rouse in her. His kisses, his touch, the sparks a single look from him could light.

      In the early days of their marriage, they hadn’t been able to keep their hands off each other. Back in the heady days before everything went wrong, before their relationship exploded into a thousand painful pieces.

      ‘I could catch a flight that arrives in Townsville around eight a.m.,’ Joe said. ‘If I hire a car, I could probably get to Karinya around mid-afternoon.’

      ‘Eggie!’ Jacko bawled in a fully-fledged bellow.

      ‘Is that the kid crying?’

      His name’s Jacko, Ellie wanted to remind Joe. Why did he have to call him ‘the kid’?

      Holding the receiver to one ear, she filled a cup with juice and handed it to Jacko, hoping it would calm him. ‘He’s waiting for his breakfast.’

      Jacko accepted the juice somewhat disconsolately, and at last the room was blessedly silent.

      ‘So how about Friday?’ Joe asked again.

      At the thought of seeing him in less than forty-eight hours, Ellie took a deep, very necessary breath. ‘Friday will be fine.’

      It would have to be fine. They had to do this. They had to get it over and behind them. Only then could they both finally move on.

      * * *

      Joe was an hour away from Karinya when he noticed the gathering clouds. The journey had taken him west from Townsville to Charters Towers and then north through Queensland’s more remote cattle country. It was an unhappily nostalgic drive, over familiar long, straight roads and sweeping open country, broken by occasional rocky ridges or the sandy dip of a dry creek bed.

      The red earth and pale, drought-bleached grass were dotted with cattle and clumps of acacia and ironbark trees. It was a landscape Joe knew as well as his own reflection, but he’d rarely allowed himself to think about it since he’d left Queensland five and a half years ago.

      Now, he worked hard to block out the memories of his life here with Ellie. And yet every signpost and landmark seemed to trigger an unstoppable flow.

      He was reliving the day he and Ellie had first travelled up here, driving up from Ridgelands in his old battered ute. No one else in either of their families had ventured this far north, and the journey had felt like an adventure, as if they were pioneers pushing into new frontiers.

      He remembered their first sight of Karinya—coming over a rise and seeing the simple iron-roofed homestead set in the middle of grassy plains. On the day they’d signed up for the long-term lease they’d been buzzing with excitement.

      On the day their furniture arrived, Ellie had raced around like an enthusiastic kid. She’d wanted to help shift the furniture, but of course Joe wouldn’t let her. She was pregnant, after all. So she’d unpacked boxes and filled cupboards. She’d made up their bed and she’d scrubbed the bathroom and the kitchen, even though they’d been perfectly clean.

      She’d baked a roast dinner, which was a bit burnt, but they’d laughed about it and picked off the black bits. And Ellie had been incredibly happy, as if their simple house in the middle of hundreds of empty acres represented a long and cherished dream that had finally come true.

      When they made love on that first night it was as if being in their new bed, in their new home, had brought them a new level of connection and closeness they hadn’t dreamed was possible.

      Afterwards they’d lain close and together they’d watched the stars outside through the as yet uncurtained bedroom window.

      Joe had seen a shooting star. ‘Look!’ he’d said, sitting up quickly. ‘Did you see it?’

      ‘Yes!’ Ellie’s eyes were shining.

      ‘We should make a wish,’ he said and, almost without thinking, he wished that they could always be as happy as they were on this night.

      Ellie, however, was frowning. ‘Have you made your wish?’