The Sun Is Often Out

Chapter One

It was strange, she thought, to travel back to your first home without any memory of it. To meet family you would have always known if not for a twist of fate. To be given so much without living parents to bestow it on you.

The landscape as May peered from the window of the train was unfamiliar, not at all like her fevered imaginings when she would ask her mother about the country. She'd never mentioned vistas like these—the blue of the vegetation the same colour as the ocean in a storm, the jagged cliffs leading not to water but to a place unknown, unseen. The coast was her only point of reference, other than those she read in books. The descriptions she gave her only daughter were merely comparisons to Sydney—unfavourable ones, about grass which never greened and dust which never rested on the ground it came from. Unbearable heat, with no sea breeze to reprieve—only westerly winds from the arid inland. The sun, always out, always beating down, penetrating all hats and freckling all complexions. Her mother had been a vain woman, and not strong. When the train left Mount Victoria all May could see of the landscape were eucalypt trees, their tall pale trunks towering into the cloudless sky above, so she turned her attention inside once more.

Aunt Mary dozed beside her in the carriage, a bird-like woman she had never met before, unlike any aunt she had envisaged. She had many children, so May had expected her to be fat and jolly and permissive. Instead she had come into the sick room with all the vigour and practicality of an experienced nurse, though she was not unkind. May had heard her hushed conversations with her dying mother by eavesdropping at the door, heard her promise to care for her niece as her own and bring her up with her own children in the country. Before her mother took her final breath she had ushered May in to kiss her on the cheek and promise to be a good girl. It was Aunt Mary who had taken her into the city from Coogee and outfitted her in the white silk dress she wore now for mourning, as well as various other sundries her mother had been unable to provide during her illness. She had held her hand while her mother was lowered into the ground at St Jude's cemetery, the only other mourners the rector, his wife, and their maid from Coogee. Clara Arabin had not been one for making friends.

After her belongings had been packed they had stayed in a small women's hotel in the city as a treat, before leaving from Redfern station the following morning. May had not been impressed by it—a long wooden platform surrounded by an iron shed, no more elegant than a shanty. Surrounding the platform was a desert of hard-packed clay and out-of-service wagons, and she worried her dress would be filthy before she even got onto the train. Aunt Mary directed the porters to collect their trunks and put them into the baggage car while May waited nervously on the platform, inspecting her dress and shoes for any dirt which may have attached itself to her. Once her aunt returned they found their seats and settled in, and she watched from the window as dirty-faced boys not much older than her ran about the yard, fetching and carrying boxes to be shipped into the freight wagon, while an older man supervised, a lit hand-rolled cigarette hanging from the edge of his mouth.

A loud whistle blew, and May jumped, startled by the shrill noise. Aunt Mary patted her hand and said: "Just the conductor. We'll be off in a minute."

She settled into her seat and closed her eyes as the steam engine rumbled to life, shooting white clouds out the sides of the train. May peeked out in amazement, eyes wide as the locomotive lurched to life and began its long journey to Lithgow. She spent most of the trip watching from the window, her old life on the coast falling away to be replaced by the new.

As the train emerged from the bush and began to weave its zig-zag path down the mountain May peered down at the lower tracks, a mixture of exhilaration and fear in her stomach. The height had not been so obvious as they ascended the mountains but as she stared at the expanse below she felt a little dizzy. The train pulled into the first switchback, stopped for a moment, then jerked to life again in the opposite direction. The jolt rocked Aunt Mary from her slumber and she laughed as she saw the terror on May's face.