Cane Music by Joyce Dingwell

Author:Joyce Dingwell [Owner]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SEVEN

Later that afternoon, without any preliminaries, without any advice from the Radar Cyclone Warning Station who were taken by surprise as well, “Roberta” howled in.

Usually “mare’s tails”, which were streaks of high cirrus cloud like the long tails of wild horses galloping across the sky, ushered in these North Australian cyclones. But Roberta, perhaps because she was an out-of-season visitor, simply struck.

One moment the sky was that bright flag blue so typical of Queensland, then within minutes ... seconds ... cloud filled its entirety. It was only a sullen grey at first, but from the east rose a bank of formidable black that spilled like ink from a giant bottle to cover the heavens as far as the eye could see. It grew dark as night.

All lights had to be switched on, and Roslyn, checking on Marco, was thankful that Clementine had installed its own electric plant, for the old man was not looking as well as he had earlier, and it would be a worry to have to cope by candlelight. Because, she thought, with an estimating glance to the obscure scene beyond the window, with everyone switching on from a main at the same time, restrictions would be a first emergency, but with one’s own source it was a different proposition.

“Our lights will be switched off.” It was almost as if Marcus Moreno had read her thoughts. He had entered the bedroom and was standing looking down at the patient.

“Why?” Roslyn asked. “I mean” ... a quick glance to old Marco ... “I’ll need them.”

“We have ample lamps, good lamps left over from the days when we had to rely on paraffin. But it was why? you asked. The answer is that it will be the elements depriving us, nature’s not man’s, something that even our expensive and efficient machinery has to bow to. In other words, Sister, we’ll not ask for trouble by staying on.” A pause as he looked again at the patient. “He’s not so bright, is he?” Marcus had lowered his voice even though the old man had drifted off and could not hear them.

“No,” Roslyn admitted. She ran the tip of her tongue round her lips preparatory to asking him something. She wanted him to arrange for Doctor Carlton to return. She had a feeling that the old patriarch—

“I’ll see to the lamps,” Marcus said almost harshly, and was gone before she could make her request. Roslyn shrugged and dismissed his abrupt departure as just another Marcus Moreno discourtesy.

So far, despite the high wind, the rain was still just rain, she reassured herself, heavy enough to drum on the roof and slash at the window, but not the horizontal deluge she had been warned about up here. The shrubs, too, though bending over, were taking it all bravely, the travellers palms standing up and not permitting one torn leaf.

She checked Marco again and though no better, he also seemed no worse. Perhaps it was just as well Marcus had gone out before she could ask him about the doctor; he could have put her down as someone ready to panic.

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