I forgot to mention that while I was in England I kept in regular touch with John via reverse-charge phone calls. I hated mentioning this to Dad, but I worried that he would be concerned about getting a large telephone bill when I departed, something that as a pensioner he could ill afford, and I knew that he would never have mentioned it himself. I remember that a few days after Mum died, John asked if he could speak to Dad. I was delighted and impressed. Men as a rule are not good at handling emotion-charged issues, and I had not expected him to get personally involved. So I said my goodbyes, then called Dad to the phone and left him alone to chat with John. When he appeared some time later his eyes were glistening and his voice was not steady. He took my hands in his and said “John is one of the finest men it has been my privilege to meet. You take care of him. You'll never find anyone as good again.”

“I know that Dad,” I said solemnly, thinking for a second of how I could so easily have thrown it all away. “Believe me I know how fortunate I am.”

My plane journey back to Australia was uneventful, and in stark contrast to the trip over, a journey I wanted to forget. I had told John that I could manage the train journey home on my own, since I knew how busy he was, so it was a total surprise to me when I came through the doors into the arrivals lounge to see him standing there. In fact I stopped dead in my tracks and the man behind nearly ran into me with his luggage trolley and just avoided me with a muttered curse and I had to send a hurried “Sorry” after him. Then I raced to the end of the barrier and straight into John's arms, and to my acute embarrassment started to cry.

“Oh dear, am I such a disappointment?” John joked.

“Oh no!” I cried “It's so wonderful to be home after all that's happened. I just want a peaceful life for a while with no dramas. But what are you doing here? I did say I'd take the train home.”

“Well, you have Steve to thank for that,” said John, “He rang a couple of weeks back wondering if his 'star pupil' was interested in a night flying course, and after I told him what had happened, he made me promise to tell him when you were coming home so he could fly me down to pick you up.”

“So where is he?” I said, looking round.

“I think he went to see a man about a dog,” replied John, and I immediately understood that Steve, suspecting there might be a bit of emotion on display had decided to give us some privacy for our initial meeting.

“Well, I think he's had enough time looking at that dog, so why don't we find him?” I said, and John pointed out the coffee shop on the far side of the hall. We walked over and I gave Steve a hug and told him I was the luckiest woman in the world to have two such wonderful men to look after me.

“ 'A friend in need is a friend indeed' " I said, “If you or your family ever need to be flown anywhere, you've got to promise me you'll give me the opportunity to repay your kindness.”

We made our way over to Archerfield and soon we were winging our way over the familiar territory, back to my beloved home. Steve landed at the Station and we alighted, together with my suitcase, and then he took off again to head home. John drove us down to the homestead and to my surprise and delight, everyone who was free was waiting there to greet me. I knew that the occasion called for some sort of speech, so we climbed the steps of the verandah and I turned and looked down at all the smiling faces looking up at me. I couldn't help it, my eyes started to sting with suppressed tears.

“First let me say how happy I am to be home again among all of you, my friends. As you know I went to say farewell to my mother, and she sent you all a message. She wanted you to know how much she enjoyed her visit here and meeting all of you, and she sends you all her greetings, love, and best wishes.”

I don't know why I said 'sends' rather than 'sent' but to the aboriginal stock-men especially, I think they understood, I know I did. John came up and put his arm around me.

“The Missus is very tired after her long journey, but in a few days we are going to have a big barbecue to welcome her home and to remember her mother, and I hope everyone can attend.”

With that he led me into the house. Nothing had changed, it was all there waiting for me just as I wanted. I was tired after the long flight, but not too tired for John. I wanted to make love to him so desperately, that I suggested we retire early for the night, and he was nothing loathe. Lying on the bed, our bodies entwined, I realised what a difference it was to be with the man you loved and how if I had given in to Sam, it would have been such a poor substitute for what I had with the man I adored.

The homestead continued to hold surprises. A couple of days after I arrived back, and the day before the barbecue, I was looking for something, I forget what, and opened a cupboard door only to be confronted with items I'd never seen before. At the bottom was a large grey box with a handle on top, much too heavy for me to move. On shelves above were some round cans and some film reels, and I realised that the box must be a film projector. Some of the cans were labelled Charlie Chaplin in 'Easy Street', Harold Lloyd in 'Safety Last', Buster Keaton in 'One Week', and there was a few others. There were also some smaller yellow square boxes with Kodak printed on them, and when I lifted them down, I recognised Mary's handwriting identifying them as 'Ayers Rock', 'Trip to Sydney' and some others. These were obviously home movies. I decided that while I would mention my find of the projector and commercial films to John, I would be discreet and not mention the home movies which he might find difficult to think about even after the years that had passed since Mary's death.

“Good Lord!” said John when I told him of my find, “I haven't had the projector out since....well you know. We used to have regular shows outside. There's a screen somewhere. Of course they show films at Hey but it's not practical for a lot of people to go there, so I used to hire films from Brisbane and they sent them out by train. We should do that again.” I realised, not for the first time how Mary's death had impacted on station life in so many ways.

By now we had reached the cupboard and he was inspecting the contents. He lifted out the projector as though it weighed almost nothing and set it up on a table to give it a dust and see if it still worked, which it did. Inspecting the small pile of comedy films, John said “Why don't we show some at the barbecue tomorrow?”

Then he saw the yellow Kodak boxes, and I watched his face keenly to see his reaction.

“Goodness me,” he said quietly “Our old home movies.”

“If you'd like to watch them on your own sometime John, please do so.”

“Yes I'd like to watch them again, but I'd like you to watch them with me, if you don't mind that is?”

“Of course not,” I replied.

“Look, the camera is up here. Why don't we take some more movies — they will be great to look back on in years to come. There's a couple of unexposed reels of film here. They're a bit old, but we could shoot them off and see how they turn out.”

The barbecue was a great success. Jenny and Tom and a few other friends came over, in addition to the Station hands. We watched some of the comedy films, and there's no doubt those comedians of the silent film era were geniuses. Without a word being said, they had us all roaring with laughter. At one point when Jenny and Tom were with John and I, John said “I've been thinking. We should think of a way of raising money for ovarian cancer research. There needs to be a way of diagnosing it before it's too late to do anything about it.” Now you can see why I loved this man so much. What we ended up doing was holding a cricket match at the Hey oval, and a dinner to raise funds. With John's connections, he managed to get a few well-known names to come along to play and quite a few thousand pounds were raised and passed on to a research institute in Brisbane. I didn't expect any magic bullet to be instantly produced. These things take time, but the answer is there somewhere and all it needs is the money to pay the researchers to look until they find it.

One evening John said to me “Would you like to see those old home movies?”

“Of course,” I replied.

So he brought out the projector and we sat there together and watched them. It's one thing to see someone in a black and white photograph, and quite another to see the same person in a colour movie. I could only guess at how old the films were by how John looked, perhaps in his late twenties. Mary was a very pretty woman and seemed even more so in the films. John reached for my hand as we sat there at watched the films which must have stirred up so many memories for him.

“This may sound an odd thing to say, but I wish I could have met Mary,” I said. John looked at me and squeezed my hand.

“I think you would have got on very well, because in some ways you are very alike, although in others very different.” he remarked. “I can't help thinking how fortunate I am to have had two such wonderful women in my life.”