Julie Blog #13

THERE ARE STILL remote regions deep in the New England Ranges where isolated families live in near-total self-sufficiency, devoid even of such mod-cons as electricity, television and telephone, and the corner supermarket. Old-fashioned and of simple taste, their lives revolve around the family farm, the church, visits to neighbours, and the occasional CWA or farmers’ meeting.

Content in their seclusion, one of the few worries such families entertain is the prospect of losing their beloved chicks to Sinful Sydney.

On a sleepy Saturday afternoon two such fledglings, of the nest of Healey, lounged in the deep shade of a large currajong tree and contemplated Life as portrayed in the Australian Women’s Weekly. Their backrest was the side of a rotund cow which was languidly chewing its cud. Her calf dozed at their feet.

‘Look at this,’ fumed sixteen-year-old Rebecca, casting her eye over the social pages.

‘Openings of art displays, theatre first-nights, polo parties, and what do we have to look forward to? The church social in two weeks’ time and Granny Harvey’s birthday party a month after that! I wish we lived in the city instead of stuck away up here in the mountains!’

‘Umm…’ replied seventeen-year-old Janert, her mind more than hald on the eight young steers she was training for her very own bullock team. How to hitch them together? Leather straps and ropes, of go truly colonial and make yokes from bent tree branches?

The whining roar of a motor in low gear broke the somnolence of the afternoon.

“Someone’s coming!’.

Both girls leapt excitedly to their feet and ran to the front gate, where they coulkd get a clear view oc the road winding up the hill. The cow followed with swinging udder, the bucking and bellowing behind. A new white Range Rover, filmed in dust, swept through the gate as the girls opened it and they caught a glimpse of a lifted hand.

‘Mrs Gayle!’

They watched the vehicle halt at the top of the drive and Mrs Gayle emerge, an elegant advertisement for Country Road in beige skirt, striped shirt and silk scarf.

Mrs Healey was nicely caught out on the verandah in her tatty old dress and puppy-chewed thongs. The girls saw the two women enter the house together, initiating all manner of wild speculation because, it must be admitted, the two families did not move in the same social sphere. In fact never, ever in living memory had a Gayle, of sandstone mansions and sweeping lawns, visited the dusty, rocky, pet-infested, ramshackle and homely home of a Healey.

Through the window their mother called the girls in to prepare tea and cake for their visitor. As they entered Janet noticed that her mother’s feet were now incongruously clad in her best high-heeled dancing shoes.

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