Guardian Nurse Read Online Free Page A

thought.
    She had packed Jason’s little things the night before, put her own in her single case. Burn West’s thick brows lifted at the economy of baggage, but he said nothing. He passed Bill Fu rn ess both ports and took Jason up in his arms.
    The boy was withdrawn again ... a morning ritual, Frances decided. She look forward to the day when she broke down his resistance sufficiently to receive his answering (however faint) a.m. smile.
    The great car was drawn up at the kerb and Frances and Jason were placed in the back seat. However, as four, even five, could have fitted in the front with comfort, Frances did not feel she was depriving anyone. Rather to her surprise Burn West took the wheel. He drove accurately, if, to Frances’ way of thinking, a little contemptuously, apparently contemptuous of the hazards anyone else found in city traffic. She noted that he took the coast road.
    He had chosen this route, she appreciated, to divert Jason, and once the big estate wagon swung down the mountain-sea curves of Thirroul and Bulli the little boy thawed and began to count the ships and point out cliffs and rocks.
    They stopped at an idyllic beach for flask tea ... milk for Jason ... and sandwiches. Before they started off again Frances took Jason to the creaming water’s edge to pick up shells. He found the sand hard going for his clumsy leg, so on the return journey Frances picked him up in her arms. At once Burn West was by her side and taking Jason from her. ‘Don’t ever do that again,’ he frowned. At her look of surprise he said, ‘He’s heavy, far too heavy for a lightweight. I don’t fancy paying out a compensation.’ She did not comment on that. After a few steps he added ... almost humanly ... ‘Also, I don’t want you to be hurt.’
    The humanness spurred her to suggest something that had occurred to her as they had rounded beach after beach. This was a long journey for a little disabled boy and the novelty of the sea eventually would wear off. How interesting if they could turn west, join the Federal Highway to Canberra, from there detour to the Hume Highway ... Gundagai and the Dog sitting on the Tuckerbox ... then on to Wagga Wagga, which would be on the route ... then past Wagga through to Mirramunna.
    He listened to her suggestion and actually approved it. ‘Though I don’t know if he’ll be interested in politics,’ Burn West said of the capital.
    ‘Lake George, then? Imagine this, Jason’ ... she turned to the little boy ... ‘there’s a lake outside the first city of Australia that sometimes disappears and instead of water with boats on it, sheep and cat tl e graze.’
    ‘I want to see that,’ said Jason.
    They climbed up through the rain forests of a shining valley, waterfalls springing but from mountain ramparts, lush green growth on either side.
    As Burn West had shrugged, political history at Canberra at Jason’s age proved not very appealing. The child yawned at the memorials, brightened slightly at the new man-made lake but was pleased when they set off again. He dozed to the fabled Nine Miles from Gundagai, where Frances gently wakened him to show him the Tuckerbox Dog. She sang softly:
    ‘My Mabel waits for me underneath the bright blue sky,
    Where the dog sits on the tuckerbox nine miles from Gundagai.’
    She felt a fool, she had a small, inadequate, rather childish voice, but to her delight Jason asked her to sing it again, even tried a quavery note or two of his own. Mrs. Campbell joined in, Bill Furness. Burn West’s expression she could not see, but she could imagine the thinned, unamused lips. She felt sure her imagination was fact when he drew up rather abruptly at a shop near the Dog and without a word got out of the car. He was gone for some minutes. Ea r-plugs? she wondered.
    Then he returned and he was actually smiling. He handed Jason a perfect little dog on a tuckerbox which not only nodded a head but half-barked, half-sang a tuckerbox song when you wound him up.