Judith Clarke - The Winds of Heaven

My thanks to friends and helpers:

Erica Wagner and Sue Flockhart

Margaret Connolly and Jamie Grant

Frances Floyd and Frances Sutherland

Laurie Mooney and Marnie Kennedy

Cathy Jinks and Kathleen Stewart

Robyn Barlow and Roswitha Dabke

Tracey and Tyrone Johnstone

Reis and Nima Flora

Allan Baillie and Graham King

Wendy Dickstein and Brian Gray

And to the librarians of Lithgow, Blackheath, Katoomba and the Lachlan Shire.

And to Dr Jo Tibbetts of Active Computer Support (for many rescues).

Fans poem in Part Four and the Epilogue is the eighth stanza of Henry Vaughans poem, They are all gone into the world of light!

The lines Clementine recites to Fan in Chapter thirteen are from William Wordsworths A Slumber did my Spirit Seal

The custom described by Daria in Chapter six is related in Henri Troyats biography, Gorky

The poem Clementine reads in the school library in Chapter five is A.E. Housmans Into my heart an air that kills

The song Oh My Darling, Clementine is a folk song from the American gold rush

The story Fan tells Clementine in Chapter two is Revenge of the Magic Child (Bidjandjara) collected in The World of the First Australians, by Ronald M. and Catherine H. Berndt

Words of the Wiradjuri language from A First Wiradjuri Dictionary, compiled by Stan Grant Senr. and Dr John Rudder (Language copyright Wiradjuri Council of Elders)

To find help for depression, visit www.beyondblue.org.au or phone 1300 224 636.

Mum? whispered Clementine, Mum, when will we be there? She was whispering because her mother sat so very still and quiet, her knitting abandoned in her lap, her head resting against the back of the seat, eyes closed. She might even be asleep.

Mum? Clementine shifted along the shiny seat till she was right up close, reached out a hand and lightly brushed her fingers across her mothers soft cheek. Mum? she said again, so softly it was hardly more than a breath. Mrs Southey sighed and moved her head a little but she didnt open her eyes. She was asleep.

Clementine slid back into her own seat. She rested her elbow on the windowsill and stared out at the grey-gold paddocks rushing by: paddocks and paddocks and paddocks and then a single twisty tree, quite grey and leafless, a dry creek bed full of stones, more paddocks, paddocks Aa-aah, yawned Clementine, and stretching her legs out, she began to swing one foot, slowly at first, and then faster and faster until a shoe fell off and plopped onto the floor. Aa-ah-aaah! she yawned again.

Oh, it was such a long way to Lake Conapaira! So long it seemed theyd been travelling for whole nights and days, for weeks and months, like the explorers Mrs Carmody had told them about in History, who crossed the mountains and the deserts and the whole of Australia, from sea to shining sea.

But Clementine knew it had only been a day. Only a day since Mum had woken her this morning, so early that it had still been dark outside, with the moon down low in the sky, a raggedy old moon that looked as if something wicked had taken a big ugly bite from its side. It was still dark when the taxi came to take them to the station, and the rattling old train that hurried them into the city was well past Auburn before Clementine saw a single lighted window. The window had no curtains and Clementine could see inside a kitchen where a lady in a green dressing gown, with pink curlers in her hair, was putting a kettle on for tea. By the time they reached Burwood there were lots of lighted windows, and the tiny lamps of shift workers bicycles coming home along the streets, and at Central a pale light was creeping into the concourse, thin and grey as the gruel fed to orphans in fairy stories.

The pigeons! Clementine had never seen so many, whole flocks of them, strutting and squabbling, rising with a great clattering sound when a long luggage trolley rattled by, and feathers like grey snowflakes drifting down from a sky that was plainly morning. She cupped her hands and a single feather landed gently on one palm; it felt warm and mysterious, soft as thistledown.

Clementine! Hurry up! What are you doing, dawdling about back there? Mrs Southey was wearing her hot and bothered look, her face flushed and her second-best hat with the bunch of fat cherries slipped sideways on her curls. She frowned at the feather in Clementines hand. Put that down, its dirty!

No it isnt, its new, it hasnt been anywhere!

Mrs Southey snatched the feather and sent it spinning down onto the tracks where it would get run over by a train. Your hats on crooked, said Clementine coldly, but her mother took no notice. She grabbed her daughters hand and tugged her along the platform where the Riverina Express stood waiting, its huge black engine making short sharp spurting sounds, as if it was eager to be off. A long string of carriages trailed behind it, skirts of bright red dust beneath their windows.

Wheres Dad?

Hes in the train. Oh, hurry, Clementine.

In the train. A small butterfly of hope fluttered inside Clementines chest. Is he coming then? Is Dad coming with us?

You know he isnt. How many times do I have to tell you?

So why is he in the train?

Hes seeing to the luggage. In you go now! Mrs Southey pushed Clementine up three small steps and into a carriage marked Car D. A row of open doors along a narrow passage showed tiny rooms neat as ships cabins and Clementine saw her dad in one of them, hoisting their big suitcase up onto the rack.

Is that our room?

Compartment, corrected Mrs Southey, stepping briskly inside it, taking off her crooked hat, running her fingers through her mussed-up hair. She opened one of the tall cupboards set into the wall and Clementine caught sight of herself in the big mirror on the inside of its door: a skinny little kid in a tartan frock with tartan bows in her hair, standing in the doorway as if she wasnt certain whether to stay out or come in. The little room didnt look big enough to hold three people, though Clementine was so small for her age that people often mistook her for seven, or even six, instead of nine. Her eyes were grey, a dark grey that was almost the colour of charcoal, and there was a faint dusting of freckles over her cheeks and the bridge of her nose. Her bobbed hair was the most ordinary sort of brown, so straight and smooth and slippery that the lovely hair ribbons Granny Southey bought for her wouldnt stay on; they slid down and fell into the dirt and lost their bright new shine.

Mr Southey pushed the big suitcase as far back on the rack as it would go. Then he turned round, wiping his hands down the sides of his trousers, and said to Mum, When you get to Coota, make sure you call the guard to get it down for you. Dont want to start your visit with a strain.

A strain sounded awful to Clementine. What if the guard doesnt come? she blurted. What if he didnt come and they couldnt get the suitcase down and Mum got a strain and then they got carried on past Coota to other places where they didnt want to go?

Youre such a little worrier, Clementine, said Mrs Southey, but her dad winked and said cheerfully, Of course hell come! No doubt about it!

She took a small step into the compartment. Outside a sharp whistle blew and the pigeons rushed up in a clatter. Better be off then, said Dad, kissing Mum on the cheek and catching Clementine up in such a fierce hug that she could feel the buttons on his shirt press hard into her skin. Before shed got her breath back he was gone. He was outside on the platform smiling in at them, a beautiful smile that had a kind of sadness in it, as if she and Mum were going away for ever instead of only for the summer holidays. The train began to move and his face disappeared from the window like a light that had been turned out. She pressed her nose against the cold glass and saw him standing amongst the pigeons and the empty luggage trolleys and the little groups of people waving, getting smaller and smaller and farther and farther away, until the platform vanished, and the station itself, and the railway workshops and they were rushing past the dark little houses of Redfern with their cluttered yards and skinny cats and sooty, sickly trees.