opened. “So do tell me more about the food on the submarine,” said Linda as a plump lady with curls and a kindly smile came into the drawing room. Clara stood and was introduced to Mrs. Darlington. They’d talked, eaten a meal the locals called “tea,” and drank tea, which was also called “tea,” and then…the bell on the telephone-instrument on the wall jangled.
And things started getting far more complicated.
Her mother had been whisked to the hospital, having fallen ill during dinner. Fortunately one of the leading physicians of Westralia had been there. He suspected some kind of tropical mosquito-borne disease. She was in quarantine…Dr. Leaming would come and examine Clara shortly. Could she spend the night here rather than go back to the guest house? No, she couldn’t see her mother.
The next day Clara had at least got to speak to her mother. It hadn’t been comforting. Mother had barely known who she was talking to let alone making any sense. And apparently she’d come out in a rash and was running a temperature. Dr. Leaming came to check Clara once again for any signs of either. Apparently the submarine crew had been checked too.
The Westralians, particularly Linda’s stepmother—she wasn’t at all the kind of wicked stepmother from the fairy stories, but rather one who tried too hard—had been very kind.
Kind, but not understanding. “Oh, we can’t let you go back to the submarine crew, my dear. Not without your mother. It…it wouldn’t be decent. No, you must stay with us, mustn’t she Linda?”
Linda agreed with her stepmother immediately.
And thus the days had dragged on…and then things got worse.
Far worse. In an attempt to distract her, Linda and her stepmother had taken her shopping that day…in the pale pre-dawn when Ceduna got most of its work done.
And she’d got the message.
A message from a spy, and a rendezvous she couldn’t make.
Linda Darlington was annoyed at being used as a babysitter, this evening of all evenings. With the certainty that her stepmother was going to be out of the house for hours and that her father was going to be at this dinner at the Clarion, she’d been very daring. Nicky would visit her at home. And now…well, Father had said she must try and be nice to this foreigner. His idea of “someone your own age” was anything from newborn to about ten. She was, she had to admit, a little curious about life somewhere—anywhere—beyond Westralia. Or Ceduna. “Deadunda,” as Nicky called it. He was a clerk on one of the rail companies, and she’d met him quite by accident at Strunkenwight’s Lending Library. He’d turned around and bumped her pile of books out of her hands and apologized and picked them up for her. And then, well, he was there every Thursday when they went to change books. He was much older, and quite a catch because of it. Most of the girls at her school weren’t allowed beaus. She might not be allowed one either, but she simply hadn’t mentioned it.
It took Linda a few seconds to realize that this time at least, her father had been right. It had to happen if only by accident sometimes. Clara was only very slightly younger, and made up for it with a certain degree of assurance. And she didn’t set her rules by Ceduna schoolgirls.
Linda had been quite looking forward to having made friends first with someone who, compared to everyone else, knew the world, who understood that your parents having gotten divorced wasn’t a disease…and had the kind of confidence that the girls at school who ran everything seemed to have.
And then Clara’s mother ended up in hospital.
And then something else happened—something Clara wasn’t talking about. It was probably her boyfriend.
Tim Barnabas had had quite high expectations of Westralia, mostly thanks to Cookie, the submarine’s Westralian cook. Cookie was a good ’un, kind to a hungry young submariner, full of jokes, and decent to work for. Tim didn’t mind being up to the elbows in greasy water or any other dirty job. They had to be done, and Cookie did them, too.
Cookie never made Tim feel that he didn’t think of him as quite human. That had happened in Westralia, quite a lot, and it was worse working on the steam mole. It seemed the overseer really didn’t like “Abos” on his machine, and did his best to make their lives so miserable they left, even though it was hard to get anyone to work on the drilling