After the end of a long-term relationship, Alicias life is at a crossroads when news that her mother is critically ill

takes her back to her childhood home of Alice Springs. Though she hasnt consciously intended to remain in central Australia, when Alicia is offered a job setting up a school on an indigenous outstation she decides to stay. Surrounded by the mesmerising beauty of the desert, Alicia takes charge of the new school and, though the challenges are substantial, she finds the work deeply fulfilling. When Alicia meets Patrick through her work, shes instantly attracted to him. Patrick shares much of Alicias outlook on life and their relationship flourishes until they hit a crisis regarding their future together ... From Alice With Love is both a beautiful love story and a thoughtprovoking novel set in the exotic red centre of Australia.

From Alice with Love

A beautiful love story, a thought-provoking novel

From Alice with Love

Jo Dutton

Dutton

Jo

Cover design: Nada Backovic Design Cover photographs: Josephine Pugh/Arcangel Images, Mike Gillam, Andy Rouse/Getty Images

FICTION

From Alice with Love

Dutton
Jo

First published in 2013 Copyright Jo Dutton 2013 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The Australian Copyright Act 1968 (the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or 10 per cent of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution foritseducational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to Copyright Agency Limited (CAL) under the Act. This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.

Arena Books, an imprint of Allen & Unwin 83 Alexander Street Crows Nest NSW 2065 Australia Phone: (61 2) 8425 0100 Email: info@allenandunwin.com Web: www.allenandunwin.com Cataloguing-in-Publication details are available from the National Library of Australia www.trove.nla.gov.au ISBN 978 1 74331 334 3 Set in 11/18 pt Sabon by Midland Typesetters, Australia Printed and bound in Australia by Griffin Press 10987654321
The paper in this book is FSC certified. FSC promotes environmentally responsible, socially beneficial and economically viable management of the worlds forests.

C009448

Chapter 1

d been expecting Mum to call. Id left her quite a few mes sages during the week. When my phone rang just as I was going

to bed and Michaels number came up I half expected it might be her. Alicia, he said. Your Mum is really sick. Shes been admitted to the ICU, they think its acute hepatitis. It was impossible to take in. Alicia, sweetheart, Michael said anxiously, are you there? At first I could only nod. I think I was waiting for it not to be true. The seconds stretched. Finally I said, Yes. How on earth did that happen? I sat down while my stepfather told me what he knew. Hed only got back from a week out bush that afternoon. At home hed found Mum slumped in the bathroom, vomiting, her skin a jaundiced yellow. When he asked how long shed been there, she couldnt tell him; in fact, he said, itd been hard to get any sense out of her. Hed rushed her up to the hospital. That was hours ago. He hadnt wanted to call till he had some idea what was happening. Like
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me he knew there was no way I could have just grabbed a flight anyway. There was only a morning flight to Alice Springs. A team of doctors had assessed her. Shed been put on a range of drugs to stabilise her. Antiviral and immunosuppressant. He wasnt sure of all the details and I didnt really care. I just wanted to know shed be all right. Theyd know more by morning he said. They were waiting to see if she responded to the drugs; if not, they might have to transfer her to a liver transplant unit, probably in Adelaide. That really shook me but I didnt know what to say. He sounded overwhelmed and I felt too far away. Is someone else with you? Yeah, the unholy trinity has arrived. That would be Frank, Iry and Lucy. Part of my Alice family. Good. I better get back upstairs. My phone will be off but Ill check messages regularly. Tell her Im coming. Ill be up in the morning. And keep me updated. If they look like moving her let me know as soon as you find out. Of course, Michael said. See you tomorrow, tell her I love her, and you of course. I rang my ex, Floyd. Wed been together for ten years and though our relationship had ended, the last nine months hadnt been easy for either of us. Leaving my job as a primary school teacher at the same time probably hadnt been the best decision to have made. Financially and emotionally, it had been a difficult time. Just when I thought Floyd wouldnt answer he did. He was in Darwin, getting some background on a story but was coming back to Sydney on the
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red-eye. He suggested we meet at the airport. His calmness steadied me and I was grateful he was still available to me in a crisis. It was a warm night and I packed with the fan whirring, aware that this heat would pale into insignificance when I got to Alice. Everything summery I had went into the case. At the last minute I threw in my bush boots and hiking shoes. Without really thinking about what I was doing I found myself tidying up the flat as though Id be away for some time. As I was clearing up my desk, I came across my employment folder in the bottom drawer, containing my CV, qualifications, references. For some reason I picked it up and threw it in my suitcase too. When Id finished packing, I paced my small balcony, wishing I had a view to calm me. But the ocean was blocked by flats just like mine. Four floors up, I faced the back of other concrete boxes, and the whining of air-conditioning units which had spread like tumours on outside walls, blowing hot air. I couldnt go to bed. Sleeping was impossible. There was no way I could stop worrying about Mum. I felt so useless and scared. In the end I rang a taxi to take me to the airport. It was 4 am, still warm, and on the street, I could hear the sea tumbling in the distance, the waves murmuring reassuringly, and for a moment I thought about how it might be all Id miss. The airport was dead but at least I felt like I was on my way. I organised myself near Floyds arrival gate. To pass the time I watched the cleaners run their machines back and forth over the floors as the terminal slowly came awake. The worst-case scen arios about Mum, that shed die or need a new liver, kept me tightly wound and awake.
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Floyd was easy to spot in the disembarking stream, a head above most of the other passengers. He looked tired, but on spotting me his face broke into a warm smile. As he drew up alongside me he swung an arm around my shoulder, steering me through the crowd into a corner booth in a caf. His kindness in spite of everything that had passed between us made it easier to lose it for a few moments. I felt overwhelmed with sadness and found myself crying on his shoulder. He hugged me, his arms strong and reassuring, his stubbled chin resting on my forehead. Hey, he said, passing me a napkin so I could wipe my tears and blow my nose. Rosll be fine. You dont know that, I replied. Shes tough. Shes the toughest woman Ive ever met. Have some faith. Floyd was good company, telling funny stories about Territory politicians and generally trying to distract me from spinning into too dark a space. No doubt he had heard from mutual friends how much Id been struggling lately. My fragility was no secret and he knew Id been leaning on Mum for support. Times had been hard. I didnt want Floyd back, it wasnt that; I just wasnt confident Id ever get the family of my own I wanted. Floyd and I both started when the baby in a nearby pram began crying. Only its small bunched fists were visible, flaying the air. Isighed. Life seemed so unfair. I folded my arms on the table and rested my head on them. Floyd rubbed his palm in a circle on my back. Itll be alright, he said.
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I hoped so. A message had come through from Michael. Mum wouldnt be moved. See, Floyd said, optimistic as ever. Shes already on the mend.

On the flight, the fear that Floyds presence had kept at bay returned, swamping me. My chest was tight and Panadol seemed powerless against my headache. The cold glass of the window provided some relief, though, so I rested my forehead on it for most of the threehour journey. Descending was an absolute relief; as the familiar landscape moved into focus it calmed me a little, like the presence of an old friend. In steady waves the caterpillar ranges marched away to the west. To the south, ochre claypans were revealed, delicately detailed, indecipherable as ancient maps. As we swooped lower the white conical roofs of Pine Gap came into view. Spooky ears, my childhood friend Lekisha had dubbed them for the spying the defence base was rumoured to do. For a moment the lime-white road to the Aboriginal Catholic Mission, one of the places Lekisha called home, appeared at the tip of the wing before unfurling eastward like a cowboys cast rope. The green smudges took formmulga, corkwood trees, and acacia bushes. And then wed landed with a bump, and were taxiing towards the terminal. The heat hit me like a slap as I stepped down onto the tarmac. Outside of the plane, the country seemed more foe than friend. The sky, vast and daunting, stretched before and above me. Distant brown ranges circled, shimmering threateningly, and heat radiated from the black tarmac.
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Inside the terminal I waited in a daze for my bags, trying to distract myself from my fear by watching the dance of arrival play out. I saw a couple of people I vaguely knew, including the receptionist at Mums work, who smiled at me sympathetically. Wheeling my bags outside, I waited in the stifling heat for Michael. The last time Id been here was at Easter. Floyd and I had come up for a holiday. It had rained for two days and the river had flooded. The waterholes had filled. It was a joyful time, watching the country spring to life as opportunistically as the desert did, in a sudden bright burst of colours. Buoyed by the beauty, inspired by these images of hidden possibilities re-emerging, Floyd and I had almost fooled ourselves into thinking we could make it. Since then there had been barely a drop of rain, not even in January when cyclones often pushed storms inland. The bright colours had long since faded, and the plants did what they could to survive, receding back into a hazy purplish wash over the landscape. At the end of the airport concourse the ghost gum cried tears of sap, leaving sticky amber blotches on the ochre paving. Foreign buffel grass had rampaged through what had been an attractive native garden, reducing it to a scratchy brown patch. Unsettled by how unhealthy everything looked, I hoped it wasnt some kind of sign. Fortunately, just then Michael pulled up next to me in a Land Cruiser, the legal service emblem emblazoned on its door. I threw my cases in the back and opened the passenger door, grabbing the hand rail and swinging myself up onto the seat. Michael leant over and landed a kiss above my eyebrow before Id even shut the door. I gave him a clumsy hug over the gearstick.
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Im glad youre here, he said. How is she going? I asked, watching his face carefully. He played with words in his mouth, taking a long time to choose the ones he wanted. Shes resilient, he said. How careful he was with his words made me certain she was no better than last night. She might even be worse. I fidgeted with my bag. I wanted to ask him more but I thought it might be better just to wait and see her for myself. He obviously found talking about her too hard. Old songs I hadnt heard in a while played on the local radio reminding me of Mum. Everything I saw out the window reminded me of her. The wide sandy river, the red and purple hills, even the buffel grass which she hated. It struck me that if she died Id never be able to bear coming back here, and Id lose both her and this country I loved so much. Shell make it, Michael said in the tone he reserved for facts. In his court voice. Which often made them not facts at all but details in a narrative he was trying to sell. Am I that obvious? I asked. I thought I was hard to read? Who told you that? Floyd. Well, he said. I suppose it depends on the situation. I think blind Freddy could see how you feel right now. He squeezed my hand. The driver of an oncoming van stuck a black hand out the window, the turn of his palm, thumb and finger cocked. Whats up? Was that Henry? I asked, craning my head around to stare after the van. Henry was Lekishas uncle and Id always had a
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soft spot for him. Yeah. Hes been great. A real leader. Now the new housing has been built at Promised Land everyones more or less up there all the time and hes getting the kids in and out to school. Hes running the kids into school in town? Yeah. Thats a big commitment, I said. And expensive too, given itwas a round trip of over two hundred kilometres. Ros found some money to help with the costs. Of course she did. Mum was every funding bodys nightmare. If there was a dollar to be found she could sniff it out. Shed shown a natural talent for finding money since starting here over thirty years ago as a volunteer social worker partnered with an Aboriginal mentor, Lekishas grandmother, Magdalene. It was probably Mums nose for money that prompted the Aboriginal health organisation to give her and Magdalene some of their earliest paid roles. Later, Im sure it was this same skill that had her promoted reluct antly into a management position. It couldnt have been her tact: Mums feisty nature had often landed her in trouble with bureaucracy. It was knowing just how to write a submission that had saved her neck. That and her relationship with Magdalene. With a pang of fear, I wondered what would save her now. They think they might finally get that school up and running there soon, said Michael, clearly determined to keep talking now hed started. Really? I said, jolted back. The dream of starting a school for Magdalenes small community at Promised Land was almost as old as I was.
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Yeah, theyre pretty confident. I heard theres been a response to the last report they wrote to put up to the department. The one Floyd was lobbying on behalf of. Thats good, I said, too distracted for the conversation. We were nearly at the hospital when Michael, ever the pragmatist, made a quick detour home so I could drop off my gear. When we pulled in to the driveway, the house and garden looked the same. The old red gum was still standing. Above the roof line the flame tree was ablaze with tongued red flowers. Fat purple fruit weighed down the mulberry tree so heavily it looked like a weeping variety. At the doorway I nearly tripped over Mums red Birkenstocks. All by themselves they could have made me cry. I put my head down and tried not to look at her old brown leather work bag on the hat stand as I dumped my suitcase on the floor of the entrance hall. Coming out I noticed Mr and Mrs Press across the street sitting on their verandah in the same sofa chairs theyd reclined in for as long as I could remember. Mrs Press caught my eye as I was getting into the car. I raised a hand in a wave but her return smile was so loaded with concern and sympathy that I had to look away in case I started crying again.

Chapter 2

hen we got to the hospital I insisted Michael drop me off in the car park and head on to his office. I saw him waver, his

instinct to support me at war with his duty to return to work. Like Mum, he had always been a complete workaholic. Hed been the senior lawyer at the legal aid office in Alice for decades. I knew even this mornings break would be enough to have created a backlog. There was no mercy in his line of work, no let-up. Go, see whats happening at work then come back, I instructed. Are you sure? Michael! I bit my bottom lip and I think he saw then that it wouldnt have mattered if his desk was totally clear: I had to see Mum on my own the first time. I needed space to cope. He nodded. Take care, he said, giving my hand a squeeze before driving off. ICU was on the top floor of the hospital near the operating theatres. I made my way through the automatic doors and down the hospitals expansive entrance, the big bright mural painted by women I knew failing to get my attention for the first time. I didnt

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notice Frank, Iry and Lucy, who were waiting for me near the lifts, until they intercepted me. Hey, I said, realising now why Michael had agreed to leave me. We hugged in an uncoordinated scramble. Irys hair was blacker and she was thinner. Frank was getting wider. And Lucy looked as blonde and gorgeous as ever. We just wanted to make sure youre okay. Lucy held my hand while she spoke. Thanks, I said. I just want to go up and see her. You dont want one of us to come? Iry asked. No. Im right. They were making me more nervous, not less. Call, said Lucy. For anything. I promised to and having just missed both lifts, took the stairs at a run. On the first floor I turned down the corridor towards the theatre recovery room and then passed through some double swing doors. The meeting room where families are given news of patients and where they can just sit together when things are really bad was to the left. The main door to ICU directly in front. I pushed the buzzer and waited. I was just considering whether I should push it again when a nurse answered. You must be the daughter, she said. Your dad said you were coming. I didnt correct her, only nodded and followed her into the open and falsely cheery light of the space. There, she said, tilting her head and letting me go on ahead. In spite of all my fears and dark imaginings over the last few hours I was underprepared. The impact of the shock seemed to
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travel to me in slow motion. It didnt seem possible that the woman in the hospital bed could be Mum. Her face seemed bloated. Her skin was an unnatural shade of yellow and hung off her loosely. She looked as though shed aged ten years since Christmas. Why did Michael say she was resilient? He should have just told me she looked like she was about to die. Because she did. Mum was on oxygen and had another tube down her nose. Her eyes were taped closed. She was surrounded by machines, boxes that beeped and displayed alarming-looking numbers that flashed red and green like traffic lights. It was hard to know how to get closer to her. Tentatively I chose the side of the bed with the least obstructions and took her hand, bending over to kiss her. I was shocked at how putrid her breath was. A large bag of clear liquid hung on a stand beside the bed, a drip line feeding into a cannula just above her left wrist. I tried to focus on something small, something I could understand, and attempted to read the label on the bag of liquid, but the letters were as incomprehensible as Mum being in such a bad way. No wonder the others thought they should have come up with me. Fear pounded like surf. An undertow threatened to drag me out where I couldnt stay on my feet. The nurse stopped by to check Mums drip and she adjusted avalve. Were getting on top of it, she said. This sort of acute liver failure is most unusual. But try not to worry, all the indicators tell us shes going well. She smiled reassuringly and moved on. How could I not worry? I felt sick with it.
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I knew I should have managed to be tougher for Mums sake. She couldnt bear it when I was upset. But as soon as the nurse turned away I burst into tears. I didnt notice shed turned back until I felt a comforting hand on my back. Its a shock, she said. A big one. Have a cry. Its good. I really cried. Nothing, though, like the crying this room would have seen. The raw grief the nurse would have witnessed. The rituals. Thanks, I said, when Id managed to blow my nose and pull myself together. All part of service, she said, kindly. And its Ali, she added as she moved away. Alicia, I said. I took down the rail on Mums bed and perched carefully next to her, holding her hand tightly, taking in more calmly her ravaged state, her shrunken chest, the worried creases embedded in her face as though, even so heavily sedated, she somehow knew she was in deep trouble. I wanted to do something, to say something, and I remembered how in books and movies people are instructed to talk to unconscious loved onesthat even if they cant respond, they can hear. Youll be right, Mum, I said. I felt a bit silly talking to an unconscious person aloud but I knew the staff wouldnt think it was odd, even if they heard me. I rubbed Mums cool hand warm in both of mine as I wondered what story I could tell her that would best show her how much I needed her. There were so many. In the end I chose an old one, from when I was nine years old and Mum would have been thirty-two. Younger than I was now, I thought.
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Do you remember the time you took me to the waterhole? It was a SaturdayI know because I had a bye at netball and you were home. And suddenly you said, Grab your shoes, a hat were off. They were always spur-of-the-moment decisions, our tripsat least I thought so, but maybe you planned those adventures. Girls business, youd sing out to Michael, and wed head off on what you called a one-box adventure. The single swag would be in the boot, and forty litres of water ready and waiting as usual. I always chose the stuff for the food box. I picked biscuits, fruit and some nuts and dried fruit. A stub end of cheese. And at the last minute I grabbed a few eggs and some bread and you laughed. We always followed the rules and told Michael where we were going and when wed be back. We knew hed give us twenty-four hours leeway before hed come searching, in case wed had a minor breakdown or we were having a good time and in no mood to rush. That happened a few times, didnt it? On that Saturday we headed north, past the turn-off to Promised Land. Remember, Mum, the protest signs on the roadside, the fight still on for the excisions up there. And that old sister of Magdalenes was sitting there next to the signs like she could have been part of the land. And you said to me, Can you imagine begging like that for your home what some fella stole? Of course I couldnt. Still cant. That day we went far, up and then off on the Plenty. It was stinking hot, unusual for early August, and the air-conditioning in the car didnt work. Did it ever, or did you buy the beast like that? I threaded a strand of Mums hair back behind her ear. Shed always been ridiculously tough.
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We lost our way in the scrub searching for the waterhole you said existed somewhere hidden in the hills. Not lost, lostwe could have always made our way back to the main track and then to the main road, we just didnt want to give up. We were quite methodical, I know that. For years I kept in my diary the coordinates you got me to write. I wish I could remember the final onesthen we could go back there. But maybe we can go without them, find it all over again. When youre better, I mean. By dusk we still hadnt managed to find it, and you decided it was too dangerous to keep searching so far off the beaten track in the dark. We saved the rest of the picnic food for lunch the next day and the eggs for breakfast. Good thinking to bring the eggs, you said, teasing me. Maybe you planned this. And when I looked like sulking you tickled me and made me laugh. We ate the last apple as though it was the most special apple in the world. You cut it into wafer-thin slices and fed them to me one by one. We were sitting up on the wide bonnet of the car and once wed finished eating we leant back on the windscreen to watch as the stars emerged from the darkness. The famous desert light show. And you told me that the stars were the souls of children waiting to be born. That that was why all my life Id feel as if Id been here before and had known you forever. Because before I was born Iwas waiting up there, looking down. I imagined then that her grip tightened in my hand. Clearing my throat, I pressed on with the story. As the night grew darker, you made me a bed on the back seat and gave me your sarong to keep the flies and mosquitoes off my face. You camped on the single swag just outside my open door.
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I remember waking before dawn, when the light was the pink and blue of fairground spun sugar, so soft, so beautiful, before it simply melted away into the yellow heat of the rising sun. Ive never seen light change like that anywhere else. In fact, when I think of home its that image of sunrise which always comes to mind. Anyway, I was looking down at you as the first of the suns rays reached you. Your hair was so long back then, lit up like a crown of wild red sparks. It was the first time Id ever really looked at you when you were still. You seemed perfect to meyour proud nose, your wide face, your mouth with the dark pink lipsmore beautiful than an angel. I knew then Id seen you from the sky and chosen you to be my mother. Shed been a good choice. Not always sweet, but fair and strong. Mum could always look after herself and was pretty capable out bush. Getting slightly off course had been unusual, and in the morning it didnt take us long to find the small pool less than a kilometre from where wed slept. The break in the escarpment shed been looking for was hidden around the next bend in the rocky curves of the ranges wed been following the day before. Standing in the riverbed with the water at our feet we spent some time looking up at the face of the range, amazed by its beauty. It felt as if someone, a god perhaps, had gone to great trouble to find just the right shape and shade of red rock to make this dramatic setting. I remember feeling as though my heart would burst with love for the place, for my mother, for the life Id been given. Overcome with emotions I couldnt voice, I ran straight into the water in my shorts and top. After Id splashed her enough, Mum followed me in. It was lovely water, cold and brown but
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clean enough to drink. She told me this was a special place, and that we were lucky Magdalene had given us permission to come. Id never understood why she said that when from memory, the water was nowhere near Promised Land. Why would we have needed Magdalenes permission? We floated for ages in the small pool; when we were cold we got out and lay on the bank and waved our arms to leave angel imprints in the sand. I could have stayed for much longer, but we had to be back before Michael reported us missing. When we left Im sure Mum promised we would go back sometime, but for some reason we never had. Perhaps, if she got better, we could go there again. I stood up and stretched. At the central desk the nurse was busy with the duty doctor, studying some data or other on a computer screen. I assumed some of the information from the monitors on Mum were fed there but I had no real idea how the system worked. I moved a chair closer to Mums bed so I didnt have to perch on the bedside. It wasnt much more comfortable sitting down. There was a deep indent in the seat and it was hard not to be reminded of all those other people whod sat here before me. Waiting. Wondering. Hoping like I was that everything would be all right. With so little control it was a terrifying place to be. I leant my head back, slipped off my sandals, put my feet on the bed and stretched out as comfortably as I could, as close to Mum as possible. Im staying, here at the hospital with you, I said, trying to sound lighthearted, until you at least say hello. High above me on the opposite wall was a single window. Anyone with business in this room had no time for views, but I
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was glad to be afforded a scrap of sky. It was reassuringly blue, with small clouds, white as cotton wool, being chased across it by the wind. I texted Michael. FYI all fine here, no change. Tell others I be in touch. Finally the early start and the stress caught up with me, and Iclosed my eyes, just for a moment.

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