A Changing Land

Inside Anthony washed his hands, wondering if Sarah would be back at the serviced apartment where she was staying. He was half-inclined to jump on the next plane to Sydney. He hadn’t been to the big smoke for a while and there was nothing like a motel room for rekindling a love affair. He didn’t need to agree with her decision to fight Jim Macken, but he guessed a little support might make Sarah more amenable towards the land development. In the office he checked dates in the station diary, noting down flight times from the faxed listing the airline circulated every year. He was about to contact the travel agent when the telephone rang.

‘Hey, I was just thinking about you. Must be ESP. How’s everything going?’

‘Okay,’ Sarah said with little enthusiasm. ‘Looks like I might owe you an apology. Frank reckons we probably will have to sell.’

Anthony knew it was a bitter blow for her. ‘I’m sorry. So you’re coming home?’

Sarah sighed. ‘No. I need to see Dad. Tell him about everything.’

‘Oh.’ So much for the trip to Sydney. Anthony flipped the diary closed. ‘Good. I don’t see any benefit in keeping him out of the loop when he caused the problem.’

‘That’s a bit blunt, isn’t it?’

Her voice was tight. Anthony knew he was doing the right thing by deciding to halt the development in the short term. If only she knew how dogmatic she was acting and how oversensitive she sounded. ‘Sarah, I’ve decided to –’

‘If you haven’t stopped the Boxer’s Plains development, Anthony, I want you to immediately. The bank won’t support us. I’ve just spoken to them. They might agree to increasing the overdraft to tidy up anything owing to the contractors – other than that we’re on our own.’

‘I see.’ He scrunched the airline schedule in his left hand.

‘Do you? I can’t believe you didn’t do any budget projections to present to the bank.’ The line was silent. ‘The solicitor agrees that you’ll have to forget about this development of yours.’ Sarah took a breath. She had a foreboding feeling that she was sounding like Anthony’s boss and not his partner and fiancée. ‘Anthony? Hello? Anthony, are you there?’ She looked blankly at the receiver, the line was dead. ‘Damn it.’ Anthony had never hung up on her before.

McKenzie didn’t want to bother Mr Gordon, however intrigue was getting the better of him; that and an empty stomach. Having ridden from Crawford Corner in a flurry of excitement, they soon slowed. The better part of two hours was spent meandering through a grass paddock, after which they trailed the course of the river until midafternoon. McKenzie itched from the heat. When he scratched his hairy arm, dirt caked up under his nails. His stomach was rumbling terribly and his water was near gone. The horses stepped nimbly over fallen logs and then, without warning, they were splashing across a river sluggish from lack of rain. The horses drank for long minutes, slurping up gallons of the brown water, their whiskered nostrils quivering against the liquid.

Oozing mud sucked at their horses as they reached the opposite bank. Then they were urging the horses up the sandy slope and through a path of stringy saplings. A goanna ambling across their path took flight as they approached and scurried quickly up a tree. McKenzie watched the prehistoric beast’s progress. The blacks called them overland trout; reckoned they were good eating. Once or twice he’d tracked a goanna when he was near starving. If you were lucky and the lizard crossed loose dirt, its clawed feet and thick tail left visible impressions. He’d never tasted one though. Never been bitten by one either. The rotting flesh between their teeth left ulcerated, festering sores. Looking back over his shoulder, McKenzie’s imagined feed disappeared as the trees merged and closed in behind him. He figured there would have been a fair chance of hitting him with his rifle. A wounding would do. He could finish the job with a lump of wood.

The day lengthened, layering shadows of light through the scrub. An hour or so would have them back at the station, so he was more than surprised when Hamish announced they would be stopping. They made camp under a carbine tree, tethering the horses nearby. He gathered wood as directed and made a good blaze of it. For once he was pleased to be camping out – there’d be no favours given this night with the Boss about.

‘Have you made a decision?’ Jasperson settled his saddle and blanket by the fire. Pulling a ration of flour from his saddlebag, he knocked up a rough damper with a little water and sat it in the coals.

Hamish removed his jacket and sat, trying to find a more comfortable position. ‘Yes.’ Unfurling a length of calico, he speared a piece of salted mutton and held it over the fire, nodding to McKenzie to help himself. ‘We’ll be taking back what’s ours and a measure of theirs.’

Jasperson chewed thoughtfully on a twig. ‘Times have changed a bit, Boss.’

‘You lost the taste for it then?’ Hamish picked at the shreds of mutton sticking to his moustache.

Jasperson poked at the damper with the twig he’d been sucking.

Hamish spat gristle into the fire. ‘I’ll not be relegated to the common class by a man such as Oscar Crawford. It’s time the Englishman had a taste of what his countrymen did to mine. I will take back my cattle and some of his for good measure and we’ll be doing it this next full moon.’

Jasperson speared the damper with a stick and sat it on the blanket. ‘We’ll be needing Boxer and Luke.’

‘Mungo too,’ Hamish looked at McKenzie, ‘and you, lad.’

McKenzie nodded trying to hide his suprise, his tongue sucking at the dried meat.

Jasperson threw McKenzie a chunk of steaming damper. ‘They’ll be illegal doings.’

‘Are you up for it?’ Hamish asked.

McKenzie looked at the man who owned Wangallon. He thought Hamish Gordon was a respectable pastoralist. His own plans for promotion looked amateurish in comparison and he wondered if he had more to worry about than Jasperson’s inclinations. He took a bite of the steaming damper, the severe heat of it sticking to the roof of his mouth.

‘Well?’ Jasperson’s thin nose was pinched inwards.

The dough caught in McKenzie’s throat. His first sighting of Hamish Gordon occurred at the building of the bore drain. That day the man threatened to shoot anyone who didn’t toe the line. The dough slid uneasily down his gullet. ‘W-whatever y-you want, Mr Gordon. I-I’m your man.’

A crackle of leaves quieted them. Hamish pointed to the left, making a circling motion with his hand. Noiselessly they walked out into the darkness, edging away from the rim of the campfire, their rifles ready for action. They spent long minutes circumnavigating the camp, only to return empty-handed. The bush was noisy once one listened. The dull thud of kangaroos echoed through the timber, a creature squawked as if under attack, crickets chirped rhythmically.

‘Kangaroo?’ Jasperson suggested once they were sitting back within the halo of the fire.

Hamish hunkered down in the dirt, resting his head on his saddle. ‘You keep watch, McKenzie. The bush is busy tonight.’

‘Blacks?’ McKenzie propped his back against a tree. Jasperson shifted a heavy night log onto the fire and moved a little closer to it.

‘Maybe.’ Stars flickered through the trees. Hamish thought they resembled candles sputtering through a mottled cloth of darkening greens and browns. As he drifted towards sleep an image of the miles of flay country extending outwards from the heart of Wangallon came to him. Like a shapeshifter, it merged to form mountains and valleys, easing out over rocky crags and grassy verges to the sandy shoreline of a nation too young to know true hardship. This was not a land like Scotland, where war was waged by those such as the English intent on control. This was not a country where the yoke of suppression had existed for hundreds of years. Hamish’s eyes flicked open.

Sometimes he could recall the tangy scent of the Highlands, the slivering coldness of the loch. Sometimes he wondered what it would be like to return. To walk the pebble-strewn shoreline on acreage he would never truly own. Hamish could conjure his mother, carrying water from the loch, pulping their scant supply of oats for the small cakes she made on the hearth. There was dirt on her smiling face, her coarse woollen skirt was torn and her hair greasy. She had died in the winter, sharing her deathbed with their lone cow; her two surviving sons and a husband worrying about taxes. They were small memories, indistinct, yet recently their importance had grown.

The corridor leading to her mother’s room was long and beige. There were photographs of the Queensland coast between each white doorway and at the end was a soft pink couch currently providing comfort to two young children, who, although having been left with books and soft toys, sat staring straight ahead. Sarah checked the numbers above each door, mentally counting down both the number of rooms left and the months that divided their last reunion. Leaving her luggage at the door, she knocked once before entering.

‘Sarah, it’s good to see you.’ Sarah glanced towards the hospital bed as her father bustled her in, sitting her in one of two comfy armchairs. He looked reasonably well, although tired. His bulky frame was only just beginning to stoop and he filled the room with the unmistakeable genetics of a Gordon male: tenacious, craggily handsome in the later stages of his life with an aura that made people stare on passing. Newspapers were scattered on the wide window ledge and table next to her mother’s bed. Sue Gordon sat upright, a cream bed jacket about her shoulders and a vacant stare boring into the blank wall opposite. Immediately Sarah questioned her presence. She could have waited at her father’s apartment or gone for a walk along the beach or invested in some retail therapy; although with everything occurring at the moment, shopping didn’t hold any interest for her.

‘She’s comfortable,’ her father stated. ‘Of course she doesn’t know where she is, or who I am.’ He cleared his throat. ‘I’m sure the reading helps. You know, otherwise she just lies there, in silence.’

Sarah settled herself in the armchair. ‘You read aloud to her?’

‘Of course, mainly the news, although sometimes I skip to the entertainment page. She always did love the cinema when she lived in Sydney.’

‘Dad,’ Sarah touched his arm gently, ‘you do recall two years ago the doctors said that her mind had basically shut down, so why –’

‘Why bother?’ Ronald snapped. He began tidying the papers, heaping them into a neat pile at his feet. ‘Maybe it makes me feel better.’

There was a bald patch, round and smooth on the crown of his head. The brown of the skin contrasted sharply with the grey-streaked brown hair, yet he still looked younger than his wife. Sarah looked across the small space to where her mother lay. Her father was wasting his life through some strange aberration of guilt. It wasn’t as if he’d been driving a car that led to her mother’s condition, nor could her mother claim a morally unblemished record.

‘Jim Macken has arrived in Australia. He wants to meet you and is claiming his inheritance.’ Having planned on a more subtle revelation, Sarah found herself delivering the news like a corner shop spruiker.

Ronald rearranged the pile of papers. ‘So you didn’t come to visit your mother?’

‘Dad, you know we never had a normal relationship when I was young. There’s no point pretending now.’

He walked over to Sue and tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear.

‘You did hear what I said, Dad?’

‘The doctor gives her a week. She’s stopped eating and, well, I can’t see the point of putting her on a drip.’ He turned to her. ‘Can you? Anyway some of her organs are beginning to shut down, something to do with all the medication she’s been on over the years. Did you know that she used to down painkillers with her martinis, like they were a side plate of olives? Well, anyway, she doesn’t exactly rate for the transplant list.’ He pulled the bed jacket a little more snugly about Sue’s shoulders. ‘She hasn’t spoken to me for over a year, although the night nurses say that sometimes she’s quite lucid.’

‘I’m sorry, Dad.’

‘Well, you two never did get on.’

Sarah’s eyes widened. ‘That’s unfair. I have had to live with the repercussions of your extra-marital affairs: both yours and Mum’s. Both of you playing favourites with Cameron was one thing, but being relegated to the role of second-class citizen, being the recipient of all Mum’s angst, was truly unfair. You’re my father, you should have supported me.’

Her father’s shoulders slumped just a little. ‘I tried to, but no one gave me a manual, Sarah. After Cameron’s death, I’d had enough. I’d battled your grandfather all my life, married a woman with a weak mind and tried to see you safe from harm’s way with a new life in Sydney. I’ve failed in nearly everything I’ve done, including you. You never should have gone back to Wangallon, Sarah. The property should have been sold.’

‘Well now it might have to be,’ Sarah replied.

Ronald turned slowly from his wife and looked from Sarah to the window. His face was unreadable. Then gradually, as if his emotions were rising upwards to fill a blank canvas, his features tightened, reddened and then settled. ‘What is he like?’

‘Stubborn and selfish – all he wants is his share, in cash. He feels no attachment to the property, doesn’t appreciate what has gone into its creation and was angry when he didn’t get the welcoming party he believed he deserved.’

Ronald looked directly at her. ‘He’s been to Wangallon?’

‘Been and gone.’

‘I’m sorry. You shouldn’t have been left with that mess.’

It took some time for Sarah to explain to her father all that had occurred over the last week. Occasionally the furrow between his eyes deepened to a thick crevice, yet he never interrupted her. For once in her life Sarah had her father’s attention. Then the nurse arrived on rounds and there was a checking of Sue’s pulse, blood pressure and temperature.

‘No change,’ the nurse said brightly, tucking the sheets in and adjusting pillows. She nodded in their direction, her gaze resting on Sarah a touch longer than necessary, before leaving the room.

‘Your mother hasn’t had many visitors since she was moved into this ward. She’s more comfortable here though, I think. The nurses are very caring.’

‘What do you think we should do, Dad?’

‘Well, I’m not surprised Frank Michaels advised to sell. But …’

Sarah perched forward in her chair. At last someone was prepared to fight.

‘Better to sell another parcel.’ Ronald scratched above his ear where his hair was thinning.

‘What?’

‘We should off-load twenty or thirty thousand acres on the eastern boundary. It’s less productive than other parts of Wangallon.’

Sarah sat back, deflated. She’d almost believed her father would provide her with a solution.

‘As for Anthony, well quite frankly I’d let him go ahead with a development if the costings work out, but not on Boxer’s Plains, Sarah, that’s good grazing country. It would be a real waste to plough it up; besides, Dad always wanted it left as is. It should be left as is.’

Sarah’s eyebrows crinkled together. Was she reading more into this than needed? It seemed as if both her father and Frank Michaels were overly protective of Boxer’s Plains. ‘We’re not farmers.’

‘Maybe we should be,’ Ronald suggested. ‘Read the rural papers, Sarah. There’s money to be made in grain. It’s a burgeoning commodity and the world needs to be fed.’ Ronald patted her arm. ‘If you and Anthony are going to marry, you’re really going to have to let him manage Wangallon. You can’t have two people trying to lead, not when you’re in a relationship. Don’t look at me like that, Sarah. You don’t have to make everything harder than it is, you know. The development sounds like a good idea so go see the bank and find out what they’re willing to lend and choose another block to do it on. But first things first. Jim Macken has to be paid out as per your grandfather’s terms. He’s entitled to his share. I’d suggest selling the black wattle block on the eastern boundary.’

Everyone – Anthony, her father and the solicitor – all of them had the same point of view. Maybe she was being stupid fighting the inevitable. Maybe she should let Jim have his inheritance. Then she could go home to Anthony and Wangallon. ‘And what about Jim? He wants to meet you.’

Ronald looked down at her and for a split second Sarah glimpsed the unmistakeable hardness of Angus Gordon. ‘I have no intention of ever meeting Jim Macken. To me he exists on paper only and it’s best,’ he looked directly at Sue, ‘that he stays there.’

McKenzie pulled tightly on Lauren’s long hair until her throat stretched out, making her breathless. She could feel her cheeks flush an apple red and she shook her hair free, squinting at the pain. McKenzie gave one final, tumultuous shove and slumped across her sweaty body.

‘Get off. You’re heavy.’ She stuck her raggedy nails fiercely into his arse until he rolled obediently to one side, watching with amusement as she untangled her hair from around his wrist. Lauren wiped at the drops of sweat running down her forehead and fluffed her hair, which was plastered flat.

‘You’re a plain-featured girl.’ He pinched at her nipple, his calloused hands rasping her skin.

‘You’re ugly,’ she retaliated.

He lifted his hand and poked at her soft wet belly, ruffled the brown heart of her before swinging his legs over the side of the lumpy mattress.

He pulled coins from the pocket of his trousers hanging on the end of the bed and added one more than the usual. ‘What’s your game then?’ Lauren asked as he sat the small pile between them on the dirty rumpled sheets.

‘Your voice reminds me of a stray cat I once slaughtered for food.’

‘It’s nice to be appreciated.’ She picked up the coins and deposited them on the rickety bedside table. Struggling upwards, Lauren pulled the sheet up to her waist. Her breasts spread to two soft peaks. ‘Have you got the makings?’

McKenzie tossed her his tobacco and papers. Shreds of tobacco tumbled onto the whiteness of her chest. She dabbed at them with her finger, popping the bits into her mouth.

‘There was a girl once.’

‘Where?’

‘From where I came from.’

‘And where’s that?’

‘Somewhere you ain’t been. Anyway this girl, she followed me about like horse dung stuck to a shoe. She came to my hut, wanting it, and I gave it to her.’

Lauren chewed suspiciously on the tobacco. She wasn’t one for conversing about other people’s problems. Served no purpose for her.

‘Her neck went back like yours did just then. There was this thin line of blue that ran down her neck and I took hold of it and didn’t let go.’

Lauren spat the chewed filaments of tobacco onto the floor, her eyes agog. ‘You killed her.’

McKenzie hunched his shoulders. ‘She’d been wanting it. So I gave it to her.’

Lauren laughed. He was just the type of boy who’d pretend something like that just to make him tougher. He dressed slowly and then splashed water on his face from the bowl on the washstand until his shirt was wet through. Taking a drag of the cigarette, Lauren plucked a stray piece of tobacco from her tongue and flicked it into the air. This McKenzie was a strange one to want her services in the middle of the afternoon. Even with the curtains drawn tight against the heat, one could not escape the thickness of the air. It was an unholy time for fornication. She stepped into her chemise, sweat dripping down her like a washer woman. That was her mother’s occupation and it struck her as funny that on a day such as this they would both be suffering. ‘What’s it like then, being there on that great property.’

‘Good. You want to come and see it?’

‘Why?’ Lauren asked guardedly. Luke Gordon had sent her scurrying out the door whereas this one was giving her an invitation.

‘I’ll be getting my own hut out there.’

Lauren knew that meant he wanted someone to cook and clean for him. ‘Not much interested.’

‘I’m planning to be overseer or head stockman and I figured you’d like that.’

Lauren hunched her shoulders and leant against the walls of the hotel room. She inspected her broken fingernails and took another drag of her cigarette, before dropping the butt in a glass of water on the bedside table. ‘You sick of paying for me?’

‘There’s money in it for you.’ He counted out more coins and sat the pile on the edge of the washstand. ‘You need a home. I could give it to you.’

Lauren wet her lips. ‘At Wangallon? Why?’

Because he had Hamish Gordon’s eye and was about to embark on an adventure that would make him indispensable in the future. ‘Respectability.’ Curled within that one word was Jasperson. Having lost count of the number of times he’d spewed up a day’s food after lying with him, he was ready to rid himself of the man. Besides which he needed the other stockmen on side, not laughing at him behind his back. He was no man’s whore. It had all seemed easily attainable until Wetherly’s arrival. His coming freed Andrew Duff for the role of overseer once Jasperson was out of the way and would bring Mungo back to the head stockman position if needed. There was more than a man too many for his liking. Two of them would have to go.

Lauren looked at him. ‘I’m not a whore, you know.’

‘What’s that meant to mean?’

‘That I’m not just for the asking.’

He grinned. ‘Well I’ve asked four times and you’ve bedded me.’

Lauren pulled on her skirt, did up her blouse. ‘Come back soon and we’ll see.’ She slid the coin from the bed into the palm of her hand and, slipping on her shoes, she left the room.

The wife of a boundary rider, Lauren thought as she walked downstairs. That would be all the boy was offering: Overseer, blah. Still, it was the first offer she’d had. On the landing Lauren looked over the bannister to make sure no one she knew was in the bar, and then she ran lightly across the floor and out the back. The yard was crowded with Mr Morelli’s hens, and the remains of his vegetable garden were a wilted testament to summer and the limited novelty of bucketing water from the hotel’s well. At the splintered gate, Lauren checked the coins in her hand before lifting the latch and running down the side street to her house.

Mrs Grant was in the backyard, leaning over a fire, stirring a blackened cast iron pot bubbling with water and something grey in colour that Lauren imagined had once been white. The baby, her youngest brother, was lying on the grass balling his eyes out, her sister Annie playing in a patch of mud from used wash water. Mrs Grant was a big woman with thinning blonde hair beneath which were round bloody scabs; some dried, some freshly picked and bleeding. She looked up from the copper and grunted towards a balled-up mess of wet clothes, steam rising from the pile into the hot air. Lauren dropped the bundle into another pot of cold water and swished them about with a wooden paddle before proceeding to pull sheets, long johns, petticoats and towels from the tangled mess to throw over the paling fence to dry. Some of the wet things looked clean, others smelled liked boiled rats. Lauren turned her nose up at the stench. No wonder the clothes usually dried and aired for two days.

‘Well?’ Mrs Grant said in a husky voice grown deep with steam and heat. ‘You missed your sister Susanna. She’s gone and got herself with child. Of course the father wants nothing to do with her, called her a slavering whore or some such.’ Mrs Grant wiped her dripping nose with the back of her hand. ‘Don’t blame him.’

The baby was screaming. Lauren digested her sister’s shocking news as the baby digested the thick mud his two-year-old sister was shoving down his throat and up his nose. ‘Mary, Jesus and Joseph, Annie, but you’re a terror.’ Lauren, glad to be distracted, rushed to the screeching, mud-covered blob on the ground. ‘Mother?’ she screamed.

‘Dump him in the bucket,’ Mrs Grant offered helpfully without looking up from the steaming boiler.

Lauren found the three-parts-filled cast iron bucket sitting under the gum tree. She lifted the now silent baby and dunked him three times by the ankles up and down. He came out purple and crying, which clearly was better than muddy and quiet, for Mrs Grant gave a perfunctory look over her shoulder and nodded. With the subdued, spluttering baby on her hip, Annie sulking in readiness for her mother’s sharp backhand, Lauren decided good news was required if she were to have a peaceful night.

‘I’ve an offer of marriage, Mother.’

Mrs Grant dropped the great wooden stirring paddle and, wiping her hands on her apron, trundled across the withered grass. ‘Who is ’e?’

‘A stockman from Wangallon Station, name of McKenzie.’

Mrs Grant rubbed her red peeling hands together. ‘Scottish? Well, the Scots are not bad, you know. Good workers. Serious minded, especially if he be a Presbyterian. Gawd, now there are a mob of churchgoers. And Wangallon, eh? Them Gordons have money. I’ve seen that Jasperson here at the store buying up like he was the King of England himself. You’re not with child? Not that it matters if you’re to be married.’

‘No and I’ve not given him an answer … yet.’

‘What? Are you daft? An offer of marriage from a man who’s not a drunkard, a thief or an old man is as scarce as feathered frogs.’

Lauren placed her hand on her mother’s muscled shoulder. ‘I’ve said nothing for I’m hoping for a better offer.’

Mrs Grant took Lauren’s face in her hand and squeezed her cheeks until her lips popped out an inch from her face. ‘Who?’

Lauren shook herself free, prodding her bruised cheeks. ‘Another from Wangallon.’

Mrs Grant laughed. A great belly laugh that set the baby to crying. ‘What have you been up to, my clever girl?’ From a pile of folded laundry she pulled out a white blouse detailed with fine pintucking. ‘Here.’ She tossed the garment across to Lauren before retrieving a bottle-green skirt. ‘Here, the Peters can’t pay this week. Want to work it off with eggs and butter. Eggs and butter? What do I want with the likes of eggs and butter when I can have condensed milk and a joint of beef.’

Lauren grinned.

‘Men like to be chased just a little, my girl. So you dress yourself up real nice and use some of the money in the jar under my bed to hire yourself a dray and horse. And check the almanac at the store. That way you’ll be safely travelling on the night of a waning full moon.’ Mrs Grant winked. ‘They can’t rush you back now can they, if it’s too dark to travel at night.’

Lauren swirled across the brown grass with the second-hand skirt and blouse clutched between her fingers. She was going to visit Wangallon and show Luke Gordon that she was a lady, one very much in demand.

Sarah opened her eyes to a strip of light. She focused slowly, feeling a crick in her neck. The room was in semi-darkness and the light came from the bottom of the door, beyond which muffled laughter sounded. She straightened slowly in the chair, recalling a late lunch of packaged sandwiches, uncomfortable at her father’s insistence at her staying in the room with her mother while he returned home to shower and change. Streetlights lit the drawn curtains behind her, footsteps sounded in the corridor. Sarah wanted to leave, yet she was aware that once she stepped beyond this room where the woman who should have loved her lay, she would not return. This would be the culmination of her long goodbye; one that had started many years ago.

Hesitantly Sarah walked to her mother’s side. Vividly she recalled the day of her brother’s death. The carrying of his body to the Wangallon dining room table and the outpouring of grief as they stood gazing in shock at his wrecked body. Her mother had blamed her for Cameron’s death because it was Sarah who had wanted to go riding that morning. And before that blame had been years of disinterest. Why? Because Sue Gordon loved and lost a man who was not her husband and then she lost her love child.

‘You should have loved me,’ Sarah said bitterly to her mother. ‘You were so caught up in your own world that you lost something precious –’ she reached over and flicked on the night light – ‘me.’ In the soft light her mother looked almost serene. There was a curve to her lips and the vertical lines that fanned from her mouth in a web of disappointment had smoothed. Her eyes were closed, her breathing steady. ‘I needed love too. I needed your support.’ Her mother’s eyes opened so slowly that Sarah imagined her waking from a deep sleep, one that spanned hurt and betrayal and love. Despite the improbability of her mother returning from the mental abyss which engulfed her, Sarah leant forward and lifted her hand as if to test her mother’s sight, although she doubted if Sue had any synapses left that could join form and reality.

‘She can see you.’

Her father stood beside her, a paper bag of takeaway in one hand, a thermos in the other. ‘It’s time to let go of the past and move forward, Sarah,’ he said wearily. ‘You need to do it for all our sakes.’ He placed the items on the chair near him.

Sarah wanted to argue with him, yet somehow the words were already dissolving.

Ronald took her by the shoulders, turned her towards him. ‘She’s not like you, Sarah. She never could be like you. Can’t you forgive her?’

Sarah shook her head. ‘I can’t Dad. At least not at this moment.’ Too much had occurred in her life to date to make forgiving or forgetting easy. Maybe when she was older with a family of her own she would come to understand her mother’s attitude, but not now. Everything still seemed so raw.

‘You will one day, Sarah.’ Ronald moved a step closer to his wife’s side. ‘In some respects I blame myself for your mother’s troubled life,’ Ronald revealed quietly. ‘She never loved Wangallon. She didn’t fit into the bush.’

With her father’s words Sarah understood the heart of her parents’ troubled relationship. Her father loved Wangallon enough to spend nearly his entire life there while knowing his own father would never pass on the reins to the property. And he had loved Sue, wanted Sue, even knowing that his life was not for her. Sue’s time on Wangallon had eaten away at her until the final irrevocable loss of her child, Cameron. Sarah suddenly understood that Sue Gordon had no room in her heart for her daughter because it was broken before Sarah was born.

‘She was a city girl,’ Ronald said fondly. ‘Used to parties and socialising and getting dolled up to go out. She was beautiful when we married, Sarah. Fun and vibrant and everything a man could want.’ He swallowed loudly. ‘I took her out to the bush and from day one she was like a plant that could never get enough water. I think she thought we’d live in the main homestead, have staff like my parents, visit Sydney regularly. Worst of all she grew bored; firstly with station life and then with me.’ Ronald glanced at Sarah and then turned back to his wife. Sarah could feel her father’s sadness. It filled the room.

Sarah knew her mother was dead. There was a small gasp, like an intake of collective breath at a cinema when the unexpected appears on the screen, then silence filled the room. She looked at the woman before her, watched her close down like a wilting flower. Sarah was ragged with exhaustion, however she wondered what Sue witnessed at her final crossing and who she would meet once she travelled to the other side. It would be Cameron, Sarah surmised, and his father, Sue’s lover: Reunited in death with the only people that mattered to her.

‘It’s for the best.’ Ronald sounded unconvinced. He wiped at his eyes and blew his nose loudly. Eventually he took his wife’s hand and, kissing it gently, sat beside her on the bed. ‘I’ll wait,’ he said shakily, ‘while you bring the nurse. I don’t want her to be left alone’.

Sarah nodded. There would be no burial for Sue Gordon at Wangallon. Her mother’s wishes were for a cremation and for her ashes to be sprinkled around the rose garden at the crematorium. Even in death she would be apart from the Wangallon Gordons. Sarah kissed her father on the cheek and walked from the room without a final glance at her mother. There was no need to. She had said goodbye years ago. Despite her best intentions tears came to her eyes.

When Hamish did not return by the evening of New Year’s Eve, Claire sent word to discover what had become of him. No one knew. Most of Wangallon’s stockmen were out in the further corners of the property mustering Wangallon’s cattle in readiness for the next drive south. By midday a feeling of nausea had settled in Claire’s stomach. She’d never known her husband to miss a New Year’s Day luncheon. She berated herself for being unable to eat, seethed at Hamish’s selfish, uncaring attitude, and then the vomiting began. She blamed the phantom child for her sickness, and silently willed the brief painful cramps to continue when they stopped. She spent the afternoon lying on her bed, the dull heat layering her body with droplets of moisture. She was thirsty, yet her throat would not take the water she held to her lips. She found herself wishing for Luke, but he did not come. She sent word to Wetherly only to discover he too had vanished. She wished again for Luke and dry-retched at the guilt of it.

Only when darkness stripped her room of light did Claire rise. She thought perhaps a little moistened bread may help, and a sip of sweet madeira. She wondered why Mrs Stackland had not come to check on her needs. As her bare feet padded on the polished floorboards, the object of her thoughts appeared before her. Mrs Stackland carried a tray of food, her puffy white face registering awkwardness.

‘Are you feeling better, Mrs Gordon? I’ve come twice to check on you and you’ve been asleep.’

‘What’s this?’

Mrs Stackland glanced at the tray she carried. ‘He does not wish to be disturbed.’ Both women glanced at the strip of dim light beneath the cedar door of Hamish’s study.’ Mrs Stackland was clearly uncomfortable. ‘He has much business to attend to.’ Her voice softened. ‘You look unwell, Mrs Gordon.’

Claire grasped the tray gently. ‘I will take it to him.’ She smiled gingerly at the older woman. She felt weak from her sickness, yet refused to allow the housekeeper to fulfil Hamish’s request or usurp the consolation of duty. Mrs Stackland looked doubtful, yet released the tray into Claire’s hands. The housekeeper knocked once on the study door, opening it so that Claire could enter, and then closed it behind her.

Claire sat the tray down on the desk. A lone candle gave off a yellowish light that flickered across a desk littered with papers. There was a lump of dirt sitting in the middle of a handkerchief that may once have been white, Hamish’s gold fob watch and an empty cut crystal decanter. The immobile figure of her husband stood vigilant at the window. Beyond him a swathe of stars hung so close that Claire imagined being able to reach out and touch them. ‘Where have you been?’ She lifted the silver food warmer from the dish beneath. Mrs Stackland had prepared jugged wallaby accompanied by fresh damper and black tea. There was the slightest of noises and the sound drew her to the clasping and unclasping of Hamish’s hands behind his back. She cleared her throat. She felt akin to an invader. ‘Hamish?’

‘I asked not to be disturbed,’ he answered tersely. He turned slowly, and Claire caught a shadowy glimpse of his haggard face. The scent of sweat, horses and tobacco wafted across the desk to where she stood; familiar smells grown potent by time, dirt and tiredness.

‘I’ve not seen you these past two days.’ Remembering she still held the silver food warmer, she covered the congealing food. ‘Hamish, I –’

Hamish struck his hand in his fist. ‘That is the dirt from my brother’s grave.’

Claire flinched at his tone and supported herself on the armchair nearest her as he pointed to the filthy handkerchief.

‘Aye, I can feel your examination, Claire. You wonder that I have not mentioned such a keepsake when the closeness of our lives creates a compulsion in you to share, misguided as that may be.’

‘Misguided?’ Claire recalled the innumerable times she’d been unable to draw him away from his ruminations and into conversation, into her world. Had her attempts been considered so trifling? She could feel the sickness seeping into her again, and with it a dulling sensation as if a dense cloud engulfed her.

‘We are so unalike, you and I, yet we coexist. Perhaps it has been the disparity of age between us, perhaps affection.’ His voice faded, sounded unconvinced.

What was he telling her? That he no longer wanted her? While Claire was under no illusion as to the fractured state of their marriage, she was not one to be thrown aside.

He looked at her with the hard stare that would cut through a blanketing dust storm if he so wished. ‘You have grown used to the routine of a respectable husband.’ His words curled with disgust. ‘I tell you now that it is an illusion. It is an illusion that has been carefully cultivated and I myself have tilled the soil. I too wanted respectability, but there are those who will not give it, not to the likes of us at least. And I wonder now at this pandering of ours in the hopes of being accepted by polite society.’

‘Hamish, I don’t –’

‘Lethargy brought on by success has made me forget my reasons for first coming to this new world.’ His filthy forefinger prodded the handkerchief. ‘I did not come here to reach the giddy heights of society, knowing that our acceptance would be determined by the very people who helped destroy Scotland. I will not live by another’s leave and that includes the condescension of those like the Crawfords.’ He gave an exaggerated sigh. ‘I’m sure you were quite a pretty project for Oscar’s wife. I’m sure that she tutted and tweaked with her friends about your less than admirable beginnings and I’ve no doubt they admire your transformation from settler’s wife to Government House invitee. Tell me, Claire, is it not inane to you? It is to me. I have physically and mentally curtailed my nature in order to be accepted by society. Well, I tell you now I will not have it. I have few years left to make a mark on this world I have created and make a mark I will. There are those who will suffer for their treatment. This is a reckoning I will have.’

Claire was staring at him. Despite his disappointing first marriage, Hamish did believe in companionship and Claire was the most resilient and caring of the few women he’d known. Perhaps he’d been too hard on her. Sitting at his desk Hamish considered how to broach the gulf between them. Claire’s coddled life should not cause him to feel resentful when he thought of his own dear mother, especially when Claire’s greatest gift to the Gordon legacy was their son, Angus. Hamish formulated more kindly words and was endeavouring to articulate them when Claire left his study.

Removing the crystal stopper from the brandy decanter Hamish poured himself a good measure of the amber liquid. He drank the fluid down in one gulp, poured another glass and settled himself in his chair. He stabbed at the jugged wallaby with a fork, slurping at the rubbery juices, pausing to lick his fingers. He hoped Lee managed to provide him with a little entertainment later. He was sorely in need of some. Pushing his tea tray aside, he unfurled a yellowing map that showed the Wangallon River as a series of finely pencilled squiggles, a watery boundary between Wangallon and Crawford Corner. Hamish traced the waterway closely. He added a series of small circles where the timber grew too thick to pass and then drew a line that crossed the river from one side to the other. This was the only known point that was shallow enough to cross. They’d been diligent in their reconnaissance, checking the riverbank and surrounding bushland. Boxer believed there had been rains further north earlier in the month, however Hamish witnessed no rise on their return from Crawford Corner. As long as no more rain fell they were assured of safe passage.

Jasperson, McKenzie and Boxer were already in Wangallon Town. From there they would ride north-west to cross the river at Widow’s Nest and continue on until they circumnavigated Crawford Corner. Crawford ran a fine herd of cattle on his far western boundary and it was these animals that Hamish now targeted. Once they managed to get past the boundary riders they would simply drive the mob east. With luck they would be across the river before dawn, before Crawford began berating his unfortunate manservant for his late breakfast. Hamish slammed his fist in his palm, gulped at his brandy in anticipation. He would be waiting with Luke to take delivery of the stolen cattle on the Wangallon side of the river.

With the concentration of a man convinced of the rightness of his task, Hamish took the large almanac down from a library shelf and sat the volume on his desk. He turned the pages, slowly reaching the calendar section that was marked with a silk tasselled bookmark. Beneath the neat squares showing each month’s dates, there was a bordered section showing the phases of the moon. It was this that Hamish referred to constantly, for the illuminated passage of a full moon was the only means for man and beast to travel at night. Jasperson and his team had to reach the far boundary of Crawford Corner on the brightest night of the month. It also meant they had little time to waste. Hamish wasn’t of the disposition to wait another full month before he could seek retribution.

Tomorrow his men would cross the river at Widow’s Nest, by night they would be on Crawford’s property and by the almanac’s reckoning the night would give them safe passage. Besides which, Boxer was with them, assuring the expedition that at the very least they would be able to find their way back home. Hamish closed the almanac and rested a large thick hand on the cover. Now all that was left to do was to send for Luke. He would want the boy ready to move in four days with the mob. Hamish intended incorporating Crawford’s cattle with his own sale mob and no one would be the wiser. With a satisfied belch, he located his pipe and the makings for it and walked out onto the verandah. He was almost ready for a strong cup of tea.

Dawn was still some time away. The scent of grass and smoke from the kitchen hearth mingled in a manner Hamish considered to be quite homely and he walked out across the gravel drive to a stand of box trees. The world had changed, and Crawford was about to learn a lesson or two about the new world he now had the misfortune to inhabit next to Wangallon.

Claire lay on her bed in her chemise. There was a drift of noise seeping through the darkening rooms from the gradually quieting kitchen, the sound of footsteps on the verandah, the shutting of a door. She imagined Mole by an English river, everything so cool and green and fresh, a breeze blowing. She dabbed cologne on her lace handkerchief and patted her wrists and forehead. How she longed for the coolness of a sea breeze, any breeze. Yet finding such relief could only come from a bone-jarring coach ride of many long, tiring days. Something was scrambling on the roof. There was the patter of feet similar to the scattering of leaves. Claire followed the noise with her eyes, imagining the creature stalking backwards and forwards beneath a warp of spinning stars.

The last spasm had left her quite faint. She gazed down over the sloping mounds of her breasts to where the gentle swelling of life she had so rashly hated now lay dormant. It was beyond her as to how the pains could come without a final exiting of her unborn baby.

The unmistakable tap of Mrs Stackland’s knuckles was followed by the woman’s entry into her bedroom. Without waiting for approval she pushed the door wider with her ample hip and sat a tray on the edge of Claire’s bed.

‘You’ll be excusing me, Mrs Gordon, however it’s high time you took a little nourishment. There’s mutton broth, a slice of bread and a glass of madeira.’

Claire glanced at the tray and nodded her thanks.

‘And I’ve brought you some Beecham’s pills. Now I know you’ve been poorly, what with the recent kafuffle, and Mr Beecham is just the thing for whatever ails you. Wind, stomach pain, indigestion, insomnia, vomiting, sickness of the stomach, scurvy, heat flushings, liver complaints, lowness of spirits …’ Mrs Stackland raised a scraggly eyebrow. ‘Well here you are then.’ She tipped two pills from the glass bottle and handed them to Claire, administering water from the glass on the bedside table as if she were a nurse. ‘Now you swallow those. Mark my words, you’ll be feeling better in the morning.’

Claire swallowed, the pills catching at her insides all the way down. What if she wasn’t with child? What if what ailed her was something far more sinister. Good gracious, she had heard the most unfathomable stories; twisted bowels and blocked bowels and growths in stomachs and troublesome appendix that burst when least expected.

‘Are you all right, Mrs Gordon?’ Mrs Stackland asked, her pale eyes narrowing.

Claire fiddled with her wrap, hoping she had not been muttering her concerns aloud. ‘Of course, Mrs Stackland.’

‘You will promise me that you will eat.’ The question hung in the air as the housekeeper waited for her response, which Claire gave dutifully.

Later in the night Claire awoke to the sound of footsteps. Her tray, the food partially eaten and the madeira consumed, was gone. Feeling a little better she opened the bedroom door quietly and glanced up one end of the hallway and then down the other to where a candle flickered. Elongated shapes were shadowed against a wall. One of the maids was tapping lightly on her husband’s door. Claire caught a glimpse of long dark hair and bare feet. There was the squeak of a brass doorknob and the creak of cedar and then the girl disappeared inside. For a moment Claire was unsure what she had witnessed. She stepped backwards into her room and shut the door, her teeth clenching together so hard they grated sideways. Guessing at her husband’s proclivities and witnessing them firsthand was more shocking to her person than Claire could have imagined. While aware that men had certain appetites and, according to Mrs Crawford a devoted family man of Hamish’s stature was a rare occurrence, Claire never dreamt his liaisons to be so rudimentary. She drew her wrap around her shoulders and threw Mrs Aeneas Gunn’s detestable monument to resilience at the bedroom door.

Matt Schipp waited at the rear of Wangallon Homestead. He was leaning against the fence near the back gate, scruffing the dirt with the toe of his boot, his arms crossed. Anthony figured there had been some balls-up with stock, a broken fence perhaps, which had led to different mobs getting mixed up or maybe one of the new bulls had damaged himself. That was all he needed – an expensive bull with a broken pizzle. ‘Problem, Matt?’ Anthony called from the back door, trying to curb the anger in his voice. A sleepless night had done little to restore Anthony’s mood. He was bloody furious with Sarah. None of this was Matt’s fault though, regardless of whether Anthony thought he was overpaid and milking his injury. ‘Come in and have a seat.’ Anthony opened the screen door. He needed a drink of water and a couple of panadol for his hand.

‘No, I’m pretty right. Thanks all the same.’ Matt hovered on the back path. He was rolling a cigarette, his damaged fingers having trouble with the tobacco cupped in his palm.

Matt was a quiet bloke yet he always looked a person straight in the eyes, all the time … except for now. ‘You wanna buy some tailor-mades, Matt,’ Anthony suggested, aware of a growing tension between them. ‘Make it a whole lot easier for you.’

‘Probably. You heard from Sarah?’

Anthony’s eyes flickered with interest. If Sarah had called Matt first … ‘Maybe you better come inside.’

Matt shook his head, looked at him squarely. ‘Toby and his boys will be here to muster up the cattle on Boxer’s Plains in a couple of days. They want to be on the route by the weekend.’

‘Righto. Just make sure they shut the gates behind them as they walk them through. I don’t want those young heifers getting out of their paddock in case one of the bulls gets in with them.’

‘I’ll double-check them myself. I heard about the clearing job.’

Anthony’s mouth hardened into a thick immovable line. ‘That was quick.’

‘Well Bruce was up at the pub last night talking about running out of fuel.’ Matt took a puff of his cigarette, shoved his spare hand in his pocket. ‘We both know that’s a tall one.’

Anthony shrugged and looked blankly at his head stockman. He wasn’t inclined to fill Matt in. He was only staff after all.

Matt grimaced, dropped his cigarette on the path and ground it flat. ‘Anyway, I just wanted to give you a piece of advice, mate.’

Anthony recalled Neville’s words from the day before; something about delusions of grandeur.

‘Just let things lie for a week or so, wait till this inheritance thing is cleared up. The Gordons are a rare breed, mate, and once they have a bee in their bonnet, well –’

‘I think I know the Gordons better than you.’

Matt looked at him with an air of disbelief. ‘It’s nothing personal, but you haven’t been around for as long as I have, Anthony. Geez, some of the stories I’ve heard.’

‘Yeah and in some of them,’ Anthony reminded him, ‘I’ve played a leading role.’

The expression on the older man’s face didn’t vary. ‘Not eighty years ago, not one hundred years ago. You don’t get it, do you? It’s all about the land. It’s only ever been about the land and their control of it. Sarah can’t help it.’ Matt sorted through the words in his brain. ‘It’s genetic.’

‘And you’re the expert?’ At this point all Anthony wanted to do was shut the door on both Matt and Wangallon.

‘You own a share, Anthony. But you’ll never own Wangallon, not the way Sarah does, because the property owns her. It’s in her. Look, I’m trying to help. It’s not my place to take sides.’

‘But you bloody well have, haven’t you?’

Matt looked at him for a long minute. He was starting to get pissed off. ‘If you’re asking me where my allegiance lies, then yes, it is to the Gordons: To Angus Gordon particularly.’

Anthony drew his eyebrows together. ‘He’s dead.’ He watched Matt walk away. He reckoned Neville was probably right about Mrs Kelly. Matt would have been the type of kid you needed to tie a chop bone to his ankle to get a dog to play with him.

Matt walked down the cracked cement path shaking his head as he went. He was annoyed with himself for the way he handled things, but even more surprised at Anthony. He knew Anthony was in an ordinary situation, but if he had a few brains he’d let sleeping dogs lie. Take off for a couple of days until Sarah got things sorted in Sydney. Yeah, that would be the smart thing to do.

Hooking the chain around the back gate, Matt called to Whisky. The dog was camped under the back tyre of his Landcruiser. He stretched and whined before falling in beside Matt like a well-trained foot soldier. ‘Things are starting to get a bit interesting,’ Matt commented to his dog, opening the driver’s side door. Whisky jumped in first.

‘You right?’

The dog positioned himself in the passenger seat, looked briefly at Matt before facing the windscreen.

‘Seems everyone has a bit of attitude today,’ Matt commented as he drove down towards the cattle yards. The new loading ramp had arrived yesterday and not before time. The previous one had seen thousands of head through it and been in need of an upgrade. The timber structure was so old that recently a charging steer managed to crash though one of the railings and one of the forcing gates that could be slid behind beasts to stop them backing up had broken off its hinges. Matt drove past the yards, admiring the shiny new metal. A good loading ramp was vital. It allowed the ease of movement of cattle in and out of the large road trains that transported them to market and also to various parts of the property when the distance to be covered was too far to walk.

Matt scratched his head, wondering what he’d really signed himself up for when he’d accepted this job. It sure wasn’t quite what he’d imagined. Whisky wangled himself across the seat of the Landcruiser, nuzzled in the crook of his arm.

‘Righto, mate. We’re off.’ Despite the situation Matt couldn’t stop a smile edging at the corner of his mouth. In a couple of days Edward Truss was due out to inspect some sale steers and tomorrow Jack and one of the contractors were helping to bring in the lambs. Matt wanted them drafted up and moved to a different oat paddock a good six weeks before they were to be sold. This time round he didn’t need to have a kitchen table conference about the proposed lamb sale or wait down at the yards until the ram buyer finished his cup of tea at the homestead. Reporting to a couple of young ones almost half his age and taking orders from Anthony remained a daily pain in the arse. Things would be a whole heap easier if Sarah was in charge.

It was true he’d had thoughts of easing his way out of the whole shooting match, as his dad used to like calling avoidable disasters, but well, that day on the verandah pretty much sealed him up as neatly as a brown paper parcel and string. The old fella, Angus, had him by the balls to the extent, Matt mused, that he couldn’t even scratch one. All he could do was keep his mouth shut and see what happened next and wait for the payout at the end of the day. He drove slowly back to West Wangallon and was contemplating whether he had time to put a frozen pie in the oven for lunch when he saw he had company.

Tania Weil was sitting on the bonnet of her white sedan. Matt reckoned a good four years must lay between now and the last time he saw her. It was the day he resigned from the spread up north.

‘Last time I saw you, my paperback westerns were scattered across the lawn.’

Tania smiled and slipped off the car bonnet. A spray-on pair of white jeans, black T-shirt and white cap emphasised the weight she’d lost. Even her hair was different. It was still the same dull brown, although the curls and length were gone. Short and straight suited her angular features.

Matt walked towards her, avoiding a kiss by holding out his hand. ‘How did you find me?’

Tania laughed and, ignoring his hand, managed to kiss his weathered cheek. She rubbed at the smudge of beige lipstick with a glossy white thumbnail. ‘Once a month you’re in the rural papers, Matt. Buying or selling stock, hanging with your pretty boss or socialising after a sale.’ Tania glanced around at the breadth of lightly timbered country, then back at West Wangallon Homestead. ‘You certainly managed to fall on your feet.’

‘Didn’t know I hadn’t been standing upright.’