Riverstone Ridge

by Mandy Magro

  Pulling up beneath the shade of the open carport, Logan felt beyond his years as he climbed from the driver’s seat. Vance was right, the endless hours he’d been putting in at the station had taken their toll, but it was all he had. One heavy footfall after the other, he avoided looking towards what his late wife had called her Bougainvillea Castle, the massive cluster of prickly vines full of colourful blooms cascading from the big old gum tree. The beautiful plant only offered him poignant memories he didn’t want to remember right now. Beside the front steps, the miniature roses he’d planted with Violet were flourishing. He used to pick them and put them in Jessica’s favourite vase upon the entrance table, but time had stripped him of the necessity to bring pieces of his two special girls into his everyday life. Besides, it was just too painful, and he didn’t need to add to the heartache he already carried around.

  Loyal as ever, Digger rose from his blanket, stretched, and then hobbled over to him. ‘Hey, buddy, good to see you.’ His heart warming at the sight of his Jack Russell cross with Lord-only-knew-what rescue pooch, Logan offered his doggy mate of the past eleven years a good ruffle behind the ears before straightening and kicking off his boots. ‘You ready for some dinner, old mate?’

  Digger tap danced beside him, his little tail going like the clappers. Past his years of chasing the chooks and venturing far and wide, being in Logan’s company, a visit from one of his neighbouring doggy mates, or the mere mention of food were the only things that really got Digger overeager these days. Besides that, he was happy to laze about, either on the verandah, the front lawn, or at the foot of Logan’s bed, with the odd wander down to the creek to cool off in the hotter months, which was now, even though it was still only the end of October – officially spring in Far North Queensland. With his extra-long hours at the station, Logan had recently thought about getting Digger a mate for some company, but then Digger wouldn’t have taken kindly to a pup nipping at his heels or gobbling up his food. Like Logan, Digger had learnt to become a bit of a loner after the accident that had stolen their two girls away.

  Stepping into the seclusion that was his home, Logan waited for Digger to follow him in, and then let the flyscreen door slap behind them, the spring creaking as if begging for a good dose of WD40. He’d get round to it tomorrow. Maybe. He had six long weeks to damn well get round to it. The very thought made him groan. For god’s sake, what was he meant to do to pass the time?

  Pulling up a chair at the four-seater dining table, which now only had two seats because he couldn’t stand sitting here staring at the places his wife and daughter used to be, should be, he sat down, dropped his face into his hands and sighed. Unless someone had suffered an immeasurable loss, they really couldn’t understand the emptiness, in his house, in his bed, in his heart. And it was absolute rubbish that time healed; he’d just come to deal with the heartache as best as he could, as time kept on callously ticking on by.

  Were things ever going to get any easier?

  As much as he’d been keen to wave his parents off on their caravanning trip around Australia, Logan sometimes wished they still lived here. It was always nice to see them every Christmas and Easter, even though his mother would make enough food to feed an army and then expect him to eat it until it was coming out his ears, and his father would drink all his wine and leave his dirty socks lying around everywhere. Combined with the snippy comments, eye rolling and mumbled grievances of a couple that had been married for the majority of their lives, but were still deeply in love, they were always a welcome distraction from his reclusive lifestyle. Because if he wasn’t at work, he was home, if he wasn’t at home, he was at work – sad, really. He truly needed to find a way to have some sort of a life.

  Jessica would want him to.

  Standing, he flicked the telly on for some noise, and then made an effort to stop the hungry grumbles of his stomach. He washed his hands at the kitchen sink and wiped them on the tea towel Bea had crocheted to hang from the doorknob. Then, grabbing a microwave dinner from the freezer – Chilli con Carne; a hearty man’s meal, it read – he chucked it in what he referred to as the ‘tucker buggerer’, punched in five minutes and ten seconds, just like the instructions said, and pressed ‘start’. Then he went in search of a glass of icy cold sauvignon blanc – no, he’d change it up and have a glass of red with his dinner. Wandering back outside, he leant against the banister and took a gratifying sip as he stared out over his paddocks, towards where she would soon be. Never would he have believed she’d ever be back here.

  CHAPTER

  4

  Brisbane

  ‘Are you sure you want to go alone?’ Nate’s concerned voice carried down the phone line. ‘I honestly don’t mind asking for some time off work.’

  ‘Thanks, but I’ll be fine, really.’ Nina hoped she sounded convincing. The last thing she wanted was Nate tagging along. This was something she had to do, by herself, for herself.

  ‘Okay, but I’m not happy about you going through all of this on your own.’

  ‘I’ve got Bea’s brother there, so I’m not really going to be on my own.’ But thinking about it, Nina couldn’t help but wonder if she’d catch sight of Logan Steele, and she pondered what he looked like, after all this time.

  ‘You know what I mean, Nina.’

  ‘As much as I appreciate you wanting to be here for me, please stop fussing – I’ve got this covered.’ Nina’s tone was a little icy, but after a night of barely any sleep, and the emotions and nerves twirling inside her, she couldn’t help it.

  ‘Okay,’ was Nate’s short, sharp reply.

  ‘I’ve got to get going, Nate. I’ll catch you when I get back.’

  ‘If that’s not a hint to leave you be for a while, I don’t know what is.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Nate, this is just how I operate when I’m stressed; please don’t take it personally.’ She didn’t have the headspace right now to cope with his stuff as well as her own. ‘I’ll let you know when I’m back and will fill you in, promise.’

  ‘Righto, I’ll give you space. Drive safe, won’t you.’

  ‘Yup, will do.’

  ‘Bye, Nina.’

  ‘Bye, Nate.’ Nina shoved her phone into her back pocket. Her eyes hurt from all the crying, and yet, the tears were still rolling down her cheeks. She’d given up wiping them away hours ago.

  Huntingvale, Riverstone Ridge, and the secret she’d left behind – it was almost time to face it, but without Bea beside her, to guide her and love her through it, Nina was beyond terrified. Even though, in reality, she knew William was telling her the absolute truth when he called with the news yesterday, she could not, would not, accept Bea was gone. She knew she needed to see it with her own eyes. It was going to take being back there, seeing the homestead void of Bea’s warmth and love, and holding her urn full of ashes to believe it and allow it to really sink in. And as scared as she was of having to do so, of going back there, maybe this was a good thing, a way to make her gain some sort of closure. Was the plan to lure her back? Nina gently shook her head – Bea knew her all too well.

  Leaning on the railing of her tiny balcony with steaming coffee in hand, she stared out at the city skyline, obscured by hazy smog. It was the dawning of yet another day in the big smoke, and somehow, she felt as if she were cheating Bea by waking up to it. Twenty-three floors below, car doors slammed, voices and laughter drifted up from the street, sirens carried with the scent of newly laid bitumen on the mild breeze. As irritating as the constant din could sometimes be, it was these distractions that had allowed her to deny the past that lingered in the recesses of her mind.

  Another wave of panic rose as she thought about heading away from all that she had known since choosing to turn her back on her country life. With its busy streets, constant hum, and endless skyscrapers, the city certainly had a familiar heartbeat, but not one like the country she’d grown up in – Huntingvale had a heartbeat of its own, one that was slower, more rhythmic, and much more revitalising with e
very breath. Brisbane was like a person running a marathon, in, out, fast, frantic; whereas Riverstone Ridge’s heartbeat was one of the earth – slow, deep, resounding, encompassing. Even now, she missed the long dirt roads, the gentleness of a country day dawning, and the smell of horses and cattle drifting upon a blossomy mango and lychee breeze. If only she were going back to visit Bea, as she had promised herself that one day she would find the courage to do, instead of going back to say her last goodbye.

  Drawing in a deep breath, Nina wandered back inside, double-checked everything was turned off and that windows were shut and locked, before taking steps towards the front door with her handbag tossed over her shoulder, her wheel-along suitcase in one hand, and a very irritated cat in the travel cage she’d bought him yesterday in the other. It had been a feat to get Tom to submit to being confined in a box, despite the fact she’d chosen one with as much ventilation as possible, but he eventually gave in, after much enticement on her behalf, and a little shove before quickly locking the little gate behind him.

  As she stepped into the lift, Tom meowed, low and forebodingly, the entire way down. ‘I know you don’t like it in there, buddy, but you’ll just have to handle it.’ Wandering over to her Jeep, she placed the cat cage onto the passenger seat and belted it in. Then, placing one foot in front of the other, she went to the driver’s door, hopped in, revved her car to life, and made her way out of the basement car park and towards Far North Queensland before she lost all her nerve.

  * * *

  A truckie grinned as he whooshed past. Nina offered him a smile. Feeling a bit like a dickhead with Tom hooked onto the end of a lead, she breathed a sigh of relief and silently cheered when he finally did his business at the side of the road. It had taken all of twenty minutes, and she was dying to go herself. Getting him settled back into his cage, she shut the passenger door and made a mad dash. Making sure there was no traffic coming from either way, she squatted down behind a bush and relieved herself. But out of practice with the workings of a bush loo, and worried something was going to bite her on her bare arse, she peed fast and furious, cursing when she got a little on her toes. Standing, she hitched her jeans back up and half hopped back to the car. Grabbing the last of her water, she poured it over her foot and diamanté-donned thong, while grumbling under her breath.

  A total of twenty-eight hours and seventeen hundred kilometres later (after stopping for the night at a roadside hotel that she had snuck Tom into, only to catch him trying to sneak back out of it, twice!), Nina was almost at her destination. Riverstone Ridge – the place that gave life to the past she’d tried so hard to forget. She steeled herself against the memories from so long ago as the nerves that had been dancing in her belly the entire way went crazy. She desperately tried to convince herself she hadn’t made the biggest mistake of her life agreeing to come back here for a month. Tried to remind herself this was for Bea, and nobody else. But being so close, could she go on pretending it never happened? Could she ignore the pull on her heart? Either way, it was too late to turn around now. She’d just have to suck it up and deal with it. In a way, it was high time she did, one way or another. Bea had always said she would get her back here one day. It just tore Nina to pieces that it was under such horrid circumstances.

  Wiping beads of sweat from her brow, she wriggled in her seat as more trickled between her breasts and down her back. A thirty-eight-degree day – that’s what the radio announcer had said they were forecasting – and from the feel of it, he was spot on. A heat-haze mirage lingering up ahead, the Jeep’s air-conditioning clanked and groaned in stiff competition with the scorching summer’s day. Tapping the vents as if that would miraculously fix it, she made a mental note to take it to an auto-electrician – maybe it needed re-gassing. There was no way she was going to survive a month of driving around in this heat if the aircon conked out on her.

  With the streets of a city now far behind her, the scene out her windscreen was ever changing. Small towns interrupted the far-reaching bushlands – blink and she’d almost miss them. And the landscape was so lush and green – an endless swathe of unspoiled countryside. Unlike down south, where the seasons were more prominent, here there was the baking-hot summer or the surging wet season, where the lands would spring back to life almost overnight. Huntingvale was just far enough away from the coast to be resistant to overdevelopment, yet close enough that with an hour’s drive she could dip her toes in the ocean. Here, they taught children to shoot and fish and drive young – it was just the way of life. She smiled softly, her heart aching, as she recalled sitting in Bea’s lap as her aunty taught her how to manoeuvre a steering wheel and, when old enough to reach the pedals, a phone book had been necessary for her to see over the dash of Bea’s old LandCruiser, with her aunty commandeering the passenger seat – and, at times, the stubborn gearstick. Nina had known every bend in the bumpy dirt tracks that had snaked around the paddocks of Riverstone Ridge, and had known every face, every stray dog or cat, that called the small township home.

  Chewing a wad of gum that had all but lost its flavour ages ago, she found herself drawn from her thoughts and lost in the sweeping views once more. There was so much to admire in such an all-encompassing landscape. Fields and paddocks seemed to go on forever. Horses swished flies away with their tails. Cattle meandered beneath the shade of towering native trees. Sugarcane swayed in the breeze, the pink flowing tips reminiscent of fairy floss. Smoke coiled up in the far-flung distance with the rich, sweet toffee scent of the sugar mill she loved – it was the smell of home. Winding her window down, she breathed it in as she brushed wisps of hair from her face – she hadn’t realised just how much she’d missed it. And then there were the mango, papaya, avocado and lychee trees, rows and rows of them, their limbs heaving with rich plump fruit. With Christmas a little under two months away, the harvest season was upon them.

  As the kilometres passed, flickers of memories ran through her mind’s eye like an old movie, sepia and coloured, happy and sad, beautiful and troubling. She thought of all the friends and loved ones she’d left behind in quick succession, all but Bea forcefully pushed to the corners of her mind and heart over the years. Now, each and every one of them was at the forefront, vying for her attention. Maybe she should have tried to get in touch with Cassie, her best mate from high school, to let her know she was coming, but then again, after cutting all communication with her, Cassie probably wouldn’t want to have anything to do with her anyway.

  The welcome sign for Huntingvale Township fast approached, and she steeled herself for the inevitable rush of emotions. There was a flutter of panic in her throat as her heart took off in a frenzied gallop, and the tremble in her hands only subsided when she gripped the steering wheel tighter. Like a bomb detonating, her stomach pitched and rolled as her fight-or-flight instincts kicked in full force. She almost turned right around, but then, to her surprise, as she spotted the familiar stockfeed shed and the scent of the sugar mill grew stronger, her chest did this weird little sigh, as if easing, and she felt as if she could draw in her first decent breath in years. Shocked, and also relieved, she blinked, shook her head, and laughed a little at her initial panic as she relaxed and settled back into the drive.

  The widespread farmhouses and paddocks quickly began to huddle closer and closer together until quaint suburban homes – most with well-tended yards, picket fences that led to garden paths, and shaded patios or verandahs – lined the street. Two kids on bikes pedalled past on the footpath, an eager dog racing behind them. A child played tetherball in one of the front yards with a man Nina presumed was his father – the pair of them giving the ball that hung from the metal pole on a long string a good wallop. A group of middle-aged women powerwalked up the small rise, arms swaying and mouths chattering. Life, at a cruisy country pace, without one sighting of a head hung to stare at the screen of a mobile phone or iPad – now that was something rare and wonderful compared to Nina’s usual city sphere.

  Then, just as rapidly, the r
esidences disappeared altogether as she hit the main part of town. As she passed the CWA hall – Bea’s second home and the place of many happy family days – Nina recalled memories of when she’d staggered along in a three-legged race, precariously balanced an egg on a spoon as she’d risen to the challenge of who could be the last to drop and smash it, or bounded in a hessian bag towards the finishing line amongst rowdy cheering and laughter, just to win a toffee-apple. She’d always thrown herself in, a hundred and ten percent, and win or lose, always finished with a huge smile on her face.

  The first of the three pubs came into view. It was a grand old building with white lace railings skating the wide verandah upstairs, beneath which tables spilled onto the footpath, filled with the lunch crowd. A group of Akubra-clad ringers stood out the front, icy beers in hand, their laughter and chatter enticing. Other than a lick of paint, it all looked exactly the same as Nina remembered. A couple of motorbikes were wedged in between dusty four-wheel drives and a buckskin horse was hitched to a post beneath the shade of the big old jacaranda tree, its head hung low and its back leg resting as if it were about to pirouette.

  Nina couldn’t help but smile – the difference between city and country was overwhelmingly evident, and incredibly likeable. It was just after midday and the main hub was a hive of activity – shaded by wide-brimmed hats, stiff-backed and wide-gaited farmers were a dime a dozen; a group of pram-wielding mothers swatted flies from their faces as they wandered up the street; others, dressed in singlets, shorts and thongs, went about their business – all at a pace a little slower, their body language less tense than the urbanites she’d grown used to. A haberdashery, butcher’s, bakery and dress shop were soon followed by the fish-and-chip shop she’d spent many a weekend hanging out at, and the post office, which had been revived with a more modern facelift, crouched beside the cottage-style police station.