appeared not to notice her anger.
‘Cradle Lake’s a tiny community,’ he said. ‘They’re geared to help.’
‘They haven’t in the past. You heard Oscar.’
‘Yeah, I talked to Tony about that,’ he said thoughtfully. He had his hands in his pockets and was watching the newborn lamb suckle her mother. The ewe had struggled to her feet. It seemed that maybe life was going to go on after all.
‘It seems your parents pretty much drove the community away,’ he said, and she flinched. ‘Like Richard’s doing now.’
‘My dad left us when Chris died.’
‘And your mother hit the bottle and kept the community away. You cared for her alone, and for Toby until he died. Any time someone came near they were hit with abuse. In the end, when there was no one left but you, you were left to social workers.’
Ginny didn’t say anything in response to that. She remembered that time, though. Just after Toby’s death…
Richard had been eighteen then, and he hadn’t even stuck around for the funeral. He had been ill, but not so ill he had been unable to manage to care for himself. He’d had a girlfriend, and they’d simply climbed into his girlfriend’s combivan and headed for Queensland.
‘I’ll look after him,’ Ginny remembered the girl telling her. ‘The weather up there will be better for his lungs and this way you don’t have to look after him as well.’
Ginny had been fifteen. Toby had been two days dead.
Her mother had been comatose.
That had been when Social Security had stepped in. Ginny had been placed with a foster-family in Sydney-great people who’d helped her get where she’d most wanted to be.
Which was independent.
She had been independent, until the disease had finally caught up with Richard, as they’d always known it would.
And now…
‘Tony’s taken bedding out to your place,’ Fergus said softly, watching her face. ‘In case Richard decides he wants to keep Madison close.’
‘I can’t take care of Madison,’ she said, panicked.
‘No one’s asking you to, Ginny,’ Fergus said gently. ‘There was a bit of a community meeting this afternoon. People wanted to help your family twenty years ago and they weren’t permitted to. Oscar’s the exception rather than the rule. Cradle Lake was horrified at what happened to you, and everyone really wants to help. If you’ll permit…’
‘If I’ll permit?’
‘It has to be your decision,’ he told her. ‘Or some of it does. Whether Richard wants to be a part of Madison’s life, for whatever time he has left, is up to him, but the rest… If he does want to spend time with his daughter, then Miriam will come out here later tonight. She’ll bring Madison with her. And she and Tony will take turns to stay as a live-in nurse to the pair of them. For as long as it takes. I know Richard doesn’t want anyone but he hasn’t a choice in this, Ginny. We’ve organised it to care for you and if he doesn’t want it…well, there’s still the hospice in Sydney.’ He smiled. ‘But I think you’ll find Tony’s persuaded him. He can be very persuasive, our Tony. Best goal-kicker in the district and there’s a reason.’
His smile was persuading her to join him but she couldn’t. It was as if all the air had been sucked out of her lungs, leaving her with nothing.
‘Well?’ he said softly, and her eyes flew to his. His gaze was gentle, questioning, expecting an answer.
‘Tony’s telling Richard that he has no choice,’ he continued gently. ‘He’s telling him that what he’s asked you to do is too hard, and the community as a whole has decided to share. You nursed your little brothers until they died and you nursed your mother. Your mother drove the community away but they won’t stand back this time and do nothing.’
‘They can’t do anything else.’
‘That’s what you think,’ he told her. ‘You have no idea. No one knew that the new people in the Viental place were Vientals, or there’d have been neighbours round here by now.’ His smile deepened. ‘You have no concept of the network in this valley. I’ve been here a few days and already I know that the community network is just plain scary. Casserole production has gone into overdrive. There are even farmers offering to take over livestock duty on this place-not because they like Oscar but because they know you, and they’ve already guessed that you won’t be able to leave Oscar’s stock to fend for themselves.’
She swallowed. ‘I don’t… I can’t… Madison…’
‘There are two things that can happen with Madison,’ he told her, his voice calmly reassuring. ‘There’s no need to look like a startled rabbit, because we’ve talked about that, too.’
‘We?’
‘Me and Tony and Miriam and a number of locals who I bet you can hardly remember but who clearly remember you. The idea is to give you some space. Depending on what Richard wants tonight, there are different courses of action. If he wants her now, then we’ll bring her out here. Miriam and Tony will stay and we’ll nurse her back to health alongside her father.’ He hesitated. ‘It seems hard, introducing a child to a father who hasn’t long to live, but, Ginny, Madison’s almost five years old. I remember a bit of what happened when I was that old, and I bet you do, too. You don’t remember much, but some things stick. We think that maybe it’s more important that Madison be left with a shadowy remembrance of a father than no remembrance at all.’
His voice faltered. She stared up at him. There was suddenly pain in his face.
Pain for Madison?
No. He had his own shadows, she realised. There was a reason he was here.
‘Why-?’
‘Not now,’ he said, and she knew he’d sensed the question that was forming. Somehow he seemed to read her mind before she even knew what she was thinking herself. ‘For now, all you need to think is that Madison is Richard’s daughter. Not yours. There’s no reason why the burden of raising her has to rest on your shoulders. There’s all sorts of couples who’d give their hearts to a little girl called Madison, and you know as well as anyone that fostering-or adoption-can work brilliantly.’
But suddenly once again she heard pain. She could hear it behind the carefully professional words.
She should query it, but there was too much overwhelming her life at the moment to even begin to admit more.
‘I don’t know how I could have her adopted,’ she whispered, and his hands came out and caught her shoulders, holding her steady in the face of her fear. ‘But to take her on… A child…’
‘You don’t need to think of that right now,’ he told her. ‘You just think of the next half-hour. We need to get a bit of sheep’s blood off ourselves so we don’t scare the community of Cradle Lake half to death with stories of our bloody exploits. Then we need to go talk to Richard and to Tony and see what Richard has decided to do.’
Richard was sitting up in bed when they arrived back at the house. He was angry. Ginny got that the moment she and Fergus walked around the side of the house. Tony was at his bedside, seated beside him on the veranda. Listening.
Richard was trying to yell. He was gasping for breath but his anger was palpable. Ginny gasped and started forward-but Fergus’s hand found her arm and he hauled her back out of sight.
‘Let me-’
‘Shh.’
‘There’s no way you can make me,’ Richard was saying.
‘No one’s making you do anything,’ Tony responded, his voice unperturbed. ‘No one made you do anything five years ago. But it’s done, mate. Like the rest of us, you’re now facing the consequences.’
‘I have no intention-’
‘You deny she’s your kid?’
‘No, but-’
‘There you are, then,’ Tony said evenly. ‘It can happen to us all if we’re dumb enough.’ He grimaced. ‘You
