Fraser flew up to Cue from Perth the day before the shearers left Mirrabooka. Andrew and Mary went to Cue to meet her. Mary had been strangely silent all day and I worried about her."It will be good for you to have your mother with you!” I told her cheerfully as she waited for Andrew to come out to the car.“No, it won’t!” she said sharply.I chose to ignore that. “She loves you very dearly—” I began.Mary looked as though she was going to cry. “She makes trouble between me and Andy every time she comes!” she interrupted me, a queer kind of desperation in her voice.“Well, she won’t this time,” I said matter-of-factly.She tried to laugh. “Will you stop her, Kirsty?”“I won’t have to. When one understands another person really well, no one can make trouble between them!”“I wish I could believe you!” she sighed.I waved them goodbye, standing, lonely, on the front porch. Someone had had to stay behind to see to the men’s lunch and it was natural that that someone should have been me, but I would have loved to have had a glimpse of the nearest town to Mirrabooka, now that Big Bell lay abandoned and empty, the great gold mine closed for ever.The foreman was calling ‘Smoke-o’ as I went past the sheds.
