Chapter 45
CHAPTER
By the time Matilda and Amy are settled at school and I’ve turned onto the road to Roxburgh Estate, the sun is setting orange through the eucalypts. Delphinium, her graceful thoroughbred head looking over the stable door, nickers when I approach.
‘How about we go for a stroll?’
The horse pricks her ears as I guide her through the gate that leads to the fire trail and bushland.
Crickets chirrup. A pair of scarlet robins tweet from a branch that hangs over the track like extras in a Hallmark movie.
Grey-crowned babblers. Turquoise parrots.
Crested shrike-tits. Black-chinned honeyeaters.
I can’t always see the birds, but I know their calls and habitats.
I know whether they’re safe or endangered.
I know Sebastien too. He’ll always be brave and protective, but he’s also thoughtful and curious.
He snaps when he’s anxious and sometimes he smiles.
He cares about me. He cares about Matilda.
Memories take shape. Lying in his arms. Long-distance phone calls.
He’s not only brave and protective and thoughtful and curious but loving.
I have no idea if that means he’s in love with me, but I’m in love with him and that must count for something.
Er-woof-woof. Er-woof-woof. A male barking owl.
Bright yellow eyes. Brown feathers and white spots on his wings.
Is he searching for a mate? When I tighten the reins, Delphinium stops on the track.
Er-woof-woof. A female owl. Er-woof-woof.
The same song in a different pitch. I’m risking my heart in caring for Sebastien; he’s risking his heart in caring for me.
It’s tempting to call him like he asked me to, but there’s a better way.
I squeeze my legs against her sides and Delphinium walks on.
‘I’ll find him,’ I tell the mare. ‘We’ll talk face to face.’
Angelina will be listening in when, at seven on Monday morning, I call Nate.
‘Heya, Flick.’
‘Tilly and I enjoyed the party.’
‘Good to hear.’ He sounds sleepy. ‘You’re up early.’
‘Did I wake you? I’m sorry.’
‘Not a problem.’
‘If I ask you something, can you keep it to yourself?’
‘Shoot.’
‘On Saturday night, Sebastien said he’d be away for a few days. Do you know where he was going?’
‘Just a sec.’ A shuffling. The clicking of keys on a keyboard. Angelina’s mumble, then Nate again. ‘Got it! Six hours north. A wetland he’d heard about. Last night and tonight he’s got a room booked at the Homestead Inn at Warren.’
My heart jumps around. ‘That’s close to the Macquarie Marshes.’
‘Something to do with the UN, right?’
‘The wetlands are protected under the Ramsar Convention.’
‘How about that?’ More clicks. ‘He’s hired a Landcruiser—I’ll send through the registration.’
‘Where is he going after Warren?’
‘He’s booked a night at an Airbnb in Ballimore. Just a pit stop. He’s due back Wednesday morning to tie up the Dougie loose ends.’
Reed swamps, water couch grasslands, red river gum woodlands and silvery sheets of ground water appear in fits and starts as I drive to the information centre on the outskirts of Warren.
When I describe Sebastien to the middle-aged woman behind the counter and ask whether she’s seen him, she coughs a laugh.
‘Rare to see a bloke with his looks turn up on a Sunday afternoon.’
She hands me a map. ‘This is what I gave him. Not many places tourists can access in the wetlands, so you might be lucky and spot him. You said you’re familiar with the district?’
‘Not as a tourist, but yes.’
‘If he followed my advice—and why wouldn’t he when I know what I’m talking about—he’d have driven north towards Carinda yesterday. Today, he’ll be heading to the Monkeygar Crossing out west of Gibsons Way. We had rain out there last week, but he should get through all right.’
‘If I don’t have any luck, I know where he’ll be staying tonight.’
‘Reception is dodgy around here, but you could try calling.’
‘If I can’t find him, I will.’
‘You want to surprise him, don’t you, love?’ The woman winks. ‘A man as pretty as him could be worth it.’
It’s after midday by the time I reach the newly built Monkeygar Crossing observation area.
A white Landcruiser is parked off the road.
Ten metres away, accessible via steep metal steps that look like a ship’s ladder, is a platform that overlooks private land and beyond that, the wetlands.
Sebastien, looking through binoculars, is dressed in weekend casual: a blue shirt with the sleeves rolled up, navy linen shorts and sneakers.
He must be aware that someone else is here, but he continues to scan the floodplain.
‘Have you seen a sharp-tailed sandpiper?’
He freezes. Then he turns. Brow creased, he searches my face.
‘Lisse.’
‘You said I should call but …’ I link my hands, pull them apart, shove them in my pockets. ‘I wanted to talk to you face to face.’
After storing the binoculars in a backpack, he walks down the steps, dropping the bag at his feet before facing me again. I take his hands and hold on tightly.
‘Tilly asked whether you’d persevered with your dragon book and I didn’t know whether you had or not. Also, it’s not that I don’t know you, it’s just …’
He squeezes my hands. ‘Tell me, Lisse.’
‘I didn’t want to lose you. That’s what I’ve been afraid of.’
‘Are you still afraid?’
‘You take risks, and I can take risks too. I want to be with you more than anything. That’s why I’m here.’
He releases a hand, touches my cheek, closely considers my mouth. ‘When you pulled yourself out of the swimming pool in Denman, when I saw you at the stables … I didn’t know I could feel like that. Everything changed.’
His strength. His scent. His sensitivity. Everything changed for me too.
‘I know more about flight.’ I hold my palm against his cheekbone, draw a gentle line beneath his eye with my thumb. ‘You know more about birds.’
Holding me firmly by the shoulders, he kisses my mouth briefly but possessively. Then he frowns. ‘I have a problem with the birds.’
‘What problem? Maybe I can help.’
‘They all look the same.’
‘Come with me.’ I grasp his hand with both of mine and tug. ‘I’ll take you to a place where tourists can’t go.’
‘No problem, Flick.’ Rory Ablett, curly black hair pulled off his face in a topknot, flashes a smile.
‘Always good to see you.’ Rory, who was born out here and works for a government organisation that monitors the marshes, has access to privately owned properties that surround the wetland’s waterways and plains.
He waves flies from his face with an Akubra. ‘There’s petrol in the buggy, so go for your life.’ He looks dubiously at Sebastien’s shoes. ‘How about I find you gumboots, mate?’
‘We’ll stay clear of the bogs,’ I say.
‘What about snakes?’
‘I’ll take care of him.’
‘Is he your fella?’
Sebastien takes my hand. ‘Yes.’
After following the river for a few hundred metres, we climb a ridge that gives 360-degree views of the reserve.
Spiky reeds and grasses fringe hectares of shallow water.
Birds in their thousands glide across the surface, forage on the banks and fly in formations overhead.
Sebastien and I sit close in the buggy. A thigh.
An elbow. A shoulder. I’m jittery with nerves, but I’m not afraid. Yes, we have to talk, but this feels—
‘How many species of waterbird?’ he asks.
‘Around seventy.’ I park under the shade of a grey gum with sprawling silver branches. We jump from the buggy, me with my camera and Sebastien with his binoculars.
Sebastien points. ‘Is that a sandpiper?’
‘That’s a duck.’
He curses under his breath. ‘What kind of duck?’
‘A blue-billed duck. It’s a threatened species.’
‘Down there by the fallen tree. That looks like a goose.’
‘A magpie goose. That’s a threatened species too.’ A painted-snipe, the bands under her wings startling white, hovers above the grasslands.
‘What’s the one with long legs?’
‘A brolga. And the birds to the left are herons.’
‘They’re not all waterbirds, are they?’
When he steps behind me and pulls me against his body, I lean against him. ‘The woodlands provide habitat for other species, too—over a hundred and fifty of them.’
He points. ‘What’s that?’
‘A square-tailed kite. And see the birds hopping and dipping their heads? They’re hooded robins.’ Sebastien nuzzles my neck and kisses a trail up my cheek to my temple. A flick of his tongue. My skin warms. My legs wobble.
‘We could go back to your motel.’
His grip on my waist tightens. ‘We haven’t seen the sandpipers yet.’
He keeps me close as I search with his binoculars. His body is hard, strong and lean. His breaths are uneven, like mine.
I almost wish I don’t see what I do. Reluctantly drawing away, I hand back the binoculars and pick up my camera, zooming in as I renew my search.
‘Look to the left of the coolabah, the tall tree with a wide trunk,’ I tell Sebastien. ‘A row of red river gums follows the bend in the river. Focus on the ground between the fifth and sixth trees. Can you see them?’
Silence, then, ‘I think so.’
The sharp-tailed sandpipers, as if aware we’ve spotted them foraging in the shallows, rise all at once. Camera clicking, I follow their flight until they disappear in a bed of reeds.
‘What did you think?’
‘Small.’ Sebastien lowers the binoculars. ‘Brown.’
‘They have a rufous-brown cap on their heads, but at this time of year they’re mostly olive-grey, black and off-white. Did you see their long narrow beaks? Their feathers come to a point at the back.’
‘One of them was much larger than the others. Why was that?’
‘The bird with white markings around his eyes? That wasn’t a sandpiper.’
‘What was it?’
‘An Australian painted-snipe.’
‘The sandpipers were small.’ He smiles. ‘Admit it.’
‘They lose up to half their body weight getting here.’
‘Eleven thousand kilometres from Siberia and Alaska along the East Asian–Australasian Flyway.’
I lower the camera. ‘You don’t forget much, do you?’
‘What you say is important.’