Sarah's Baby by Margaret Way Page B

said mildly. “I just want to grab a few minutes of your valuable time. What do you say to getting out of town?” He searched her face for understanding. “How about our old pocket of the creek, or does that have too many traumatic memories?”
    â€œI don’t care.” Her face twisted a little as she said it. In her body, perhaps, she’d always be fifteen.
    â€œOh, yeah, I’m sure you scarcely remember.” He was silent until he pulled out of the parking bay and drove to the end of the main street, which was, in fact, the only street of any significance. People conducted their business there. It was called O’Connor Street after an intrepid young adventurer who really didn’t know a lot about adventuring. Or not in the Australian outback, at any rate.
    Dominating one side of O’Connor was the shire council building, pristine white, surrounded by palms and beds of decorative grasses. It had been built with McQueen money and designed by a talented architect. It looked impressive enough. Air-conditioned for the comfort of the mayor, his mother (Kyall hadn’t been a bit surprised when she was elected) and the councillors, ten at last count. The pub on the other side. The Sweeney. Version three. Two had burned down, but photographs of the original quaint old building with its corrugated iron roof lined the current pub’s walls. The hospital had half a block to itself. The theater stood on the corner—the Endeavour. That was Harriet’s baby. It served as a cinema, as well. Again, mostly McQueen money. In some respects his grandmother was generous. In others? Well, she was miserly as hell.
    â€œHow are you, anyway?” he asked Sarah, at the same time lifting a hand to hail another driver, someone Sarahdidn’t know. A big man with a large, handsome head, and probably a body to match. Normally she would’ve asked who it was, but didn’t. Not the way she felt.
    â€œHow would you expect me to be?” she asked. “My world will be a different place without Mum. We mightn’t have seen each other all that often, but we always kept in touch. I knew she was there.”
    â€œI’m sorry, Sarah.” He glanced at her lovely wounded face. “It was obvious to everyone how proud your mother was of you. How proud the town was. Harriet in particular. So my grandmother did some good things. You’d never have become a doctor without her. Takes a lot of money.”
    â€œAnd we had none.”
    He sighed. “I meant gifted people sometimes need a helping hand with the practical realities—like medical-school fees. You always were good at healing. Remember how you used to find berries and fungi in the bush? Water roots? You used to rub them on my cuts and scratches.”
    â€œLoaded with antiseptic properties. I found them because I used my eyes. And I listened. There’s so much to be learned from the Aboriginals. They’re the ones with the special relationship to this land.”
    â€œThey never plant gardens,” he mused, thinking how denuded the homestead would look without its gardens. “They’re not interested in cultivating gardens at all. Even vegetables to fill out their diet. I know they look on the whole natural environment as their garden, but to me and the rest of us who spend a lot of money and time surrounding our houses and public buildings with beautiful gardens, it seems they’re somehow deprived.”
    â€œThey don’t see it like we do,” she said simply. “Nature is their garden. Ancestral beings left them enough to eat. They have intimate knowledge of all the plants and trees. What they can eat, what they can use to heal. They useeverything to the full. They can find water where we see a barren desert. Remember old Jalgura showing us how to extract water from the roots of the mallee? We were just kids and he must’ve been nearing a hundred.”
    Kyall nodded. “I