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CHAPTER SIX
KEE WOKE WITH a start. Where was she? It took a second for the room to come into focus. She was in a large double bed, Benni curled up beside her. An extremely comfortable bed it was, too. That’s right, the outstation. Daisy’s place. She touched her daughter’s hair lightly, satisfying herself that she was safe and well, and fast asleep. She rubbed the sleep from her eyes and rolled over, careful not to wake Benni.
They’d made it through the night without incident. Actually, it was the best night’s sleep Kee had had in months. Which surprised her. When she’d crawled into bed next to her daughter to sing her to sleep, Kee had been wide awake, still on edge and wary. Worried that perhaps Daisy might return early. Worried that Bruno might find her. Worried about how long it would take to fix her car. Desperate to get back on the road.
With a good night’s sleep, came clarity. Nothing seemed quite so desperate now. They had a roof over their heads out of the heat—Kee had left the air conditioning running all night, pure bliss, they even needed to pull the blankets up at one stage—a place to hunker down for a few days and rest and recuperate. Her fears from last night seemed silly now. Bruno would never find her here.
Slipping out of bed, she tiptoed barefoot across the floor, closing the bedroom door behind her. Filling the kettle with water, she turned it on, then padded quietly to the door, pulling it open to stare outside. It was still early, the sun barely above the horizon, and the world was painted in pink and gold hues. The air was still, not a breath of wind. Trees formed a curtain around the outstation, fringing it with green, branches reaching for the indigo sky. And while it wasn’t exactly cold, there was certainly a cool ambience, as if the day were holding its breath, revelling in the dawn before the heat of the sun came to turn everything into a furnace again.
The sound of birdsong hit her. So many birds. Kee knew enough to understand they must be near a water source somewhere. And it was attracting the birds in their hundreds, thousands, even. They wheeled in great flocks above her, then headed out over the treetops and disappeared into the veil of trees. Brightly colored parakeets, large, white cockatoos, and hundreds of small, brown birds hopping from branch to branch between the leaves. Even at the concrete water trough, the birds had flocked to drink in the early morning, delighting Benni with their squawks and flapping. But this was something else again.
Kee was suddenly, deliriously happy that she and Benni hadn’t had to spend another night camped out in her car. She stood on the wooden platform of the outdoor patio and breathed deeply. In and out. In and out, until a blanket of peace descended over her.
“Mummy, where are you?” Benni’s voice sounded from inside. The hint of concern in a daughter’s voice had her hurrying back up the steps to the door.
“Good morning, my darling.” She scooped her daughter up into her arms and kissed her sleepy face. Benni wrapped her skinny arms around Kee’s neck, and she drew in her child’s warm, sleepy scent. They were safe. At least, for a little while.
The morning slipped by easily. Kee found a washing machine in the bathroom and put on a load of clothes. Washing was a luxury she could barely afford while they’d been on the road. Most of it done by hand in the hotel bathroom sink. Then, after she’d seen Bruno and they stayed away from hotels and people, it’d been in a gas station bathroom sink, sometimes dirty and cracked. She and Benni had been living in the same outfits for the past three days. While Benni watched another of her favorite shows on the TV, Kee hung their clothes out on the line beside the house. They’d dry quickly, the heat was already building, even this early in the morning.
Kee kept one eye on the satellite phone Wazza had given her as she went about the chores, trying not to hope too hard that he would call soon. Hoping for news of her car. Not wanting to admit that she missed his soothing voice, his take-charge attitude. His quiet presence that made her feel somehow safe. But the phone never rang. Perhaps she should call him. But no, she would wait at least until lunchtime, even though her fingers itched to push the button.
There was no bath for Benni, but her little girl had gotten used to getting clean in a shower on their travels. Kee unwound her daughter’s long braid and washed her hair quickly under the spray of water, Benni giggling and telling her she liked the smell of this shampoo. Daisy had good taste in toiletries, it seemed. After drying Benni, she let her sit on the bathmat, wrapped in a towel, while Kee showered. She would’ve liked to take her time, luxuriate in the warm streams running over shoulders, but Wazza had mentioned how precious water was out here and so she was as quick as could be.
Then she and Benni had a breakfast of toast and jam and tea, still wrapped in their towels, while they waited for their clothes to dry. Kee took a chance, when she ducked out to the washing line, clad only in her towel. But there was no one around to see her. It was heaven to slip into clean clothes and she was reminded that the simple things in life often gave the most pleasure. Jean shorts and a T-shirt for both of them, with sneakers on their feet. There was no need for anything fancy. Kee had only packed practical clothes for herself and her daughter. But at the last minute, Kee had slipped one of her summer dresses in on top. It might come in handy if she ever needed to dress up for an occasion, although what that occasion might be was beyond Kee’s imagination.
Benni wanted to go exploring, and so, as soon as they were dressed, they went outside before the midday heat really settled in, the sat phone tucked into the back pocket of her shorts. Kee wouldn’t go any farther than the first ring of trees, wanting to always keep the house in her line of sight.
Benni handed Kee another leaf to add to her collection, and Kee dropped it into Benni’s backpack, which contained all sorts of offerings. Large nuts, fallen from the trees above, bits of bark run through with shades of red and ochre, a fossilized insect husk Kee had refused to touch, some oddly shaped seedpods, and a large, red rock. Benni was a collector. Back at home, she had shelves full of things she thought were beautiful. Colorful bird feathers. Stones of all shapes and sizes stored in little piles, or left individually in-between more collections of shells, both large and small. Benni always came back from the beach laden down with so many treasures that often had to be washed in fresh water to get rid of the smell. Sometimes, when Benni wasn’t watching, Kee might even threw away some of the dried seaweed and bits of sponge that retained a fishy aroma. Kee was interested to see what Benni would pick up here. Back at the water trough, Benni had half-heartedly collected some of the sharp rocks from beside the edge of the road. But after the first day, she’d lost interest and stopped handing her mum things to keep.
“This is fun,” Benni crowed. “A better adventure than sleeping in the car.”
“Yes, it is, my bunny.” Kee watched her daughter fondly. The little girl was hunkered down next to a large tree trunk, poking at the bark with a stick. Kee often wondered where her child’s interest in nature had come from. Certainly not from her. Not from Jakov, either. Jakov showed absolutely no interest in the garden, and refused to let them have a pet, no matter how hard Benni had begged. Kee loved animals, of course. She worked in a shelter, helping to save the discarded cats and dogs people no longer loved. Benni loved animals, too. But her fascination went much deeper than that. She liked to get down on her belly and prod and poke at the small insects in the grass. To dissect each flower, pull its petals off one by one and then document their exact coloration and number. Perhaps she was going to be a scientist when she grew up.
Kee hoped she was around to see that day.
Some of her trepidation returned and her anxiety ramped up at that thought. Bruno wouldn’t give up looking for her. Not with Jakov urging him on. Why hadn’t she listened to her parents? Followed their wishes and married Reyansh, like they wanted, then none of this would be happening. Her marriage had been decided ever since Kee had turned ten. Her parents had made an agreement with Reyansh’s parents that it would be so. An arranged marriage. It was more common than people realized in Indian culture. People still clung to the old ways and traditions, her parents especially, wanting to keep their customs alive, even though they’d moved to a different country. Reyansh didn’t want it, either. He was a nice enough man; they’d grown up together, the two families united in friendship. But Kee didn’t love him. And she’d been determined to marry for love.
So, when Jakov had come along, she’d jumped in with both feet, without testing the waters first. He was exciting, good looking, seductive, a diamond in the rough. All the things that Reyansh wasn’t.
Her parents refused to see it her way, however. She had shamed them, let them down in front of their friends. No amount of arguing would get them to see that Reyansh felt the same way, that he didn't want to marry her, either. By the time she met Jakov, her father had stopped speaking to her, and her mother would turn sad, brown eyes in her direction whenever she entered the room and shake her head slowly. But Jakov had been an answer to her problems. A way to get out of from beneath her parents’ control.
When she announced she was going to get married to this Croatian man she had met only a few months prior, her parents had taken the news badly, banishing her from the house, her father going as far as disowning her. Kee thought they were being melodramatic and overly harsh, and so she’d stuck to her guns, believing they would come around in the end.
But they hadn’t. Poor little Benni had never met her maternal grandparents. They refused to have anything to do with her. Which made her increasingly sad. Made her rely more and more on Jakov’s family for help with the new baby.
Kee wondered how Pooja was doing. Her sister had stood by Kee in the beginning, arguing against their parents, saying Kee had every right to choose who she wanted to marry. But in the end, they’d threatened to disown her, as well, and Pooja wasn’t that strong. Her sister was a stickler for the rules. She was daddy’s girl and liked the comforts of living at home. Pooja was no rebel like Kee. Would Pooja go ahead and wed the man her parents had picked out for her? Only time would tell.
“Look, Mummy, look,” Benni squealed. “It’s so pretty.” Benni was poking at a brightly colored beetle, clambering up the bark in a hasty retreat away from Benni’s stick. It was the color of a red ruby, bright as a jewel, and Kee leaned in for a closer look.
“Leave it, honey. It belongs in the bush. Shall we take all your treasures back to the house? We can sort through them on the kitchen table.” It’d be nice to get back into the air conditioning. Still only mid-morning, and the temperature must be hovering over thirty degrees.
Suddenly, the sound of the vehicle brought Kee’s head up. A dust plume rose above the trees behind the outstation. “Quick, get inside,” she ordered. They both scampered toward the house. Kee shut and locked the door behind her, breathing heavily. Was it Wazza? Or someone else coming down the track? She wavered between wanting to make a run for it—but where would she run to?—and wanting to hide in the bedroom, wait for whoever it was to go away.
“Who is it?” Benni was staring at her wide-eyed, and Kee knew she needed to stop being afraid. If only for her daughter’s sake.
“I’m not sure,” she admitted. “Let’s look out the window.” Kee lifted Benni up and then stood on tiptoe, so they could both peer out the small window in the back wall of the shipping container. All the windows were small in this house, and this one in particular was up high, meant to let in light more than afford a view.
A glint of white flashed between the trees as the vehicle approached. Wazza drove a white, four-wheel-drive. But then again, so did most people out here. She couldn’t count how many white vehicles she’d passed on the road to Dimbulah.
