CHAPTER
17
Kirsty spent the hour after Joe and Pete left the cowshed cleaning.
She dragged buckets of water up from a nearby trickle running its way through the screefall to the gully, and began washing away the dirt from the plane’s fuselage and windscreen. A hose with water pressure would have been a welcome addition to the shed’s stash of discarded bits and bobs, but great-granddaughters on a budget couldn’t be picky. By the time she’d slung water everywhere and scrubbed the metal down with some crusty old rags she’d rehydrated, she could seeDoreen Annewas looking very old. Very tired. Very … unloved.
‘What was Old Bill like, Doreen Anne?’ she said. ‘Was he kind? Were you kind?’
The plane, of course, had no answers to give her. It sat silently on its desiccated wheels. Gus had reappeared during the afternoon and collapsed in the broad swathe of sunlight streaming in the gap made by the ancient sliding door. Someone—Joe, she supposed—hadgiven the rollers a splodge of grease and fixed a new handle to the outside.
‘What next?’ she said. If she was really going to do this—fix this old girl up to be a museum display—she needed to get serious. Starting with paint, and vinyl, and—she bent down under the plane to roughly measure the dimensions of the crumbling tyres—some aircraft wheels that were going to be difficult to match.
Who knew where tiny plane wheels were made, anyway?
Lucky she had a few contacts in the engineering division at Mediflight. Maybe they could offer her some pointers.
Tonight she’d google paint specs on warbirds, and tomorrow afternoon she could start taping up the trim. But first, she needed to visit Carol and see if she’d had any luck with Bill’s war record. Where had he flown? When did he enlist? How did his Wirraway end up abandoned in a New Guinea jungle? While she was in Clarence, she could pop into the supermarket and buy up food supplies now she knew she had a fridge to use. Perhaps grab a little camping lantern and some mosquito coils; the front verandah of the Station Cottage, as rustic as it currently was, would make the perfect campsite. And then when she returned, she could settle down and start reading Bill’s journal.
She dug her phone out of her backpack and scrolled through until she found the mobile number Carol had given her.
‘Carol?’ she said. ‘It’s Kirsty. I wondered if you were free this afternoon. I was going to pop in and collect that journal from the suitcase.’
‘I’ll be free as a freaking bird at five o’clock, pet. Why don’t you come and collect me from the museum and we can pop into the pub so you can buy me a shandy. With a bit of luck, it’ll be happy hour.’
Laughter and clinking glasses were Kirsty’s first welcome to the Clarence Pub. As she stepped through the wide wooden door, the smells of beer and hot fat and sweaty men playing darts reached her. Workboots squeaked on old floorboards, and a small fire flickered merrily in the coal grate fireplace.
She scanned the crowd for a spare table. Earlier, Carol had taken one look at Kirsty’s ute before announcing her hips were playing up and she had more chance of climbing Mt Warning than getting herself into the passenger seat today. And so they’d ambled (well, shuffled) along the riverbank while Carol pointed out the high water mark from the last flood on every building and street sign they passed.
Now Carol was giving her a nudge towards a stool.
‘You wouldn’t prefer a table, Carol?’ Was it polite to mention the walking cane?
‘There’s more gossip at the bar, love. Now, quick, you plant your bottom on that stool, and I’ll let Hogey here hand me up onto this one.’
A leathery-looking bloke who could have played a stunt double for Crocodile Dundee set his beer down and gave Carol a boost.
The man behind the bar grinned, but his attention was on Carol. ‘I wish you’d stop bossing my customers about, Mrs Wallace.’
‘I am eighty-three years old, Will,’ she said. ‘I’ll boss about anyone I like. Now, this young lady is going to buy me a shandy.’ She faced Kirsty. ‘Have you met our new publican, dear? He’s also your landlord’s brother. One of his brothers, anyway. Will, meet Kirsty.’
‘Hi,’ she said, reaching across the bar to shake his hand. She could see the resemblance, but Will seemed a younger, shorter, beachier version; where Joe’s hair was dark and ruthlessly short, Will’s hair made him look like he could break into a Bee Gees hit at any moment.
‘Well, shit a brick,’ the leathery bloke said. ‘You’re the one shacking up at the farm, are you?’
‘Um … yes.’ Wow. Newshadtravelled. She held out her hand to him, too. ‘Kirsty Fox.’
‘You can call me Hogey,’ the old bloke said, ‘if we get along. You can call me Gav otherwise. Gav Hogan. I’m the mechanic in town.’
‘Hogey’s just been telling me about his latest girlfriend,’ said Will to Carol.
‘Not another one,’ said Carol.
‘Hey, Shirl’s a good sort,’ Hogey—or perhaps it was still Gav to her—said. ‘Other than all the crying she does on the phone to her daughter up in Queensland. Takes the shine out of a date, when me and Shirl are gettin’ up close and personal and the phone rings six dozen times.’
‘Tough,’ said the publican, who seemed to talk in one-word sentences between pulling beers.
‘Got any advice?’ said leathery guy.