The Grass Castle

by Karen Viggers

  ‘Same thing, minus the ceremony and the wedding rings.’

  ‘. . . as well as the divorce and legal wrangles,’ he added. ‘Thank Christ for that.’

  The valley narrowed as they walked and soon they were traversing Abby’s favourite section, dotted with straggly clumps of dwarf eucalypts with trunks streaked olive-brown and gangly branches dripping bark. Beyond the grassy flats, the taller forest reached up-slope to bony ridges and great domes of grey rock. They passed a pile of boulders and the burnt remains of an old hut, then they were among the kangaroos, grey-brown lumps that merged with the landscape.

  Cameron didn’t see them at first, which made Abby smile—city people often brought their urban blindness with them when they visited the valley. He’d walked to within fifty metres of a large mob before he finally noticed them. By then the kangaroos were upright, alert and watching. The big males were sitting on bunched haunches, ogling warily, while mothers with flighty young were already moving away, ears swivelling.

  ‘Will you look at that?’ Cameron’s voice rang in the quiet, and the big old bucks spun and bounded off. In moments the valley had cleared, distant crashes marking the passage of some of the mob as they disappeared uphill into the trees. ‘What did I do?’ he asked, turning off his recorder.

  ‘They don’t know you,’ Abby said.

  ‘How can you study them if they bolt like that?’

  ‘They habituate. They don’t take much notice when it’s just me.’

  He looked down at her. ‘Maybe it’s my aftershave,’ he said, sniffing at his collar.

  ‘That’s possible.’

  ‘Don’t you like it?’ A smile hovered about his lips.

  ‘I think I’m with the kangaroos,’ she said. ‘It’s a bit sweet.’

  He switched the recorder on again, and they followed the stragglers up the valley, pausing every now and then to look at a few kangaroos half-hidden among the trees. They came across one of Abby’s radio-collared animals and she described how the government vet had come to help her fit the collars, armed with his dart rifle and sedatives. It had taken five mornings to capture sixteen animals, an even mix of males and females.

  There was a lull in conversation when Abby thought the interview might almost be finished, then Cameron looked at her and his lips tweaked. ‘What do you think about kangaroo culling?’ he asked.

  Abby hesitated a moment before answering. Quentin had warned her about this. He’d said it was likely to come up. ‘I don’t want this to be an article on culling,’ she said slowly.

  Cameron grinned knowingly. ‘It won’t be.’

  ‘So I can speak off the record?’

  ‘If that’s the way you want it.’

  ‘Yes please.’ Quentin had said she should request this if the discussion wandered onto controversial ground—if this was to be a soft-touch kangaroo story, they didn’t need to address emotive issues like culling. Abby noticed Cameron regarding her with heightened interest, but he’d turned off his recorder so she felt a little more comfortable.

  ‘I gather this is a touchy subject for you,’ he said.

  ‘Not really. But it’s a sensitive topic, isn’t it? It upsets people.’

  ‘So what’s the solution? Surely it can’t be that hard to sort out.’

  Abby almost smiled. Quentin had coached her on this too. He’d said journalists always wanted simple answers to complex problems. As a country girl, she used to think managing kangaroos ought to be straightforward, but now she’s studied ecology for a few years, she knows it isn’t. ‘It’s complicated,’ she said. ‘Kangaroos are efficient breeders, and we humans have opened up grazing land and removed predators, so there’s nothing to control them anymore. There can be so many of them they damage the environment, and that affects other species.’

  ‘So we have to shoot them? Is that what you’re saying?’

  Abby paused again. She didn’t like shooting. She hated guns. But in the absence of a suitable alternative what else was there? ‘There isn’t any other way yet,’ she said. ‘There are labs working on kangaroo contraception, but that’s years off. Shooting has its problems too. It’s a practical short-term solution, but it’s never-ending. Once you start, you have to keep doing it because the kangaroos keep breeding.’

  Cameron laughed. ‘The confused biologist!’

  ‘Not confused,’ she said, ‘but definitely challenged.’

  In a grove of twisted snow gums, Cameron paused to yank one of the springy branches, pulling off a sprig of leathery leaves which he attempted to tuck behind her ear. She ducked away, laughing, embarrassed, then jerked to a halt as a large old-man kangaroo appeared from nowhere, rearing on its hind legs, and jolting towards them in short sharp hops, snorting loudly.

  ‘Move!’ she yelled, thrusting hard against Cameron and shoving him backwards.

  He caught her urgency and leapt back while she reversed slowly, hands raised, palms open. As she put cautious distance between them, the buck subsided to a wary crouch, still watching them. He was a big lone male with sharp hooked claws and forearm muscles like a gym junkie. Abby’s heart battered and a hot adrenalin sweat tingled on her skin. She faced the kangaroo till he lowered his head to snatch a mouthful of grass, strong jaws grinding.

  ‘What was that about?’ Cameron asked, shakiness deepening his voice.

  ‘We got too close,’ Abby said. ‘They don’t like anyone inside their personal space.’

  ‘Tell me about it.’ Cameron was flushed and stepping lightly now, surprisingly agile despite his height.

  Abby relaxed a little. ‘You look ready to run.’

  ‘You bet,’ he said.

  Looking up, Abby noticed that clouds had snuffed the sun and late afternoon light was leaning creamy and soft across the valley. A freshening wind was rolling among the trees and ravens cawed overhead, flapping up-valley. The old-man kangaroo was distant and harmless now, uninterested in them, a bulky grey hummock only half-visible among the trees. But he had altered the mood of the day.

  Cameron glanced at his watch. ‘Perhaps we should head back,’ he said.

  By the time they stepped onto the tarmac in the car park, Cameron’s recorder was buttoned away and an awkward distance had reasserted itself between them. They were strangers again. They’d met for a purpose which had now been achieved and the interview was over. Abby watched as he slung his shoulder bag onto the front seat of the WRX then politely reached out his hand.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘That was great. I wasn’t too keen on coming. But it was good.’

  She shook his hand, feeling something like sunshine in his grip, and suddenly she didn’t want to let go. ‘Look,’ she said, diving on submerged courage. ‘You don’t have to leave immediately unless you’re in a hurry. There’s an old hut further down the valley that you might like to look at. It’s historic, an old slab building.’

  Cameron seemed to hesitate and Abby’s brave moment faded.

  ‘I suppose you need to write this up,’ she said, assuming his silence meant no. ‘I noticed you looking at your watch.’

  Cameron laughed. ‘The watch is a habit. Part of being a slave to time. The life of a journalist. But actually I’m not in a rush to get back. I’ve already done my columns for tomorrow, and I’m going to write your interview as a feature, so no pressing deadlines. I wouldn’t mind seeing the hut . . . might give me some ammunition for another story.’

  ‘It’ll be nice to get out of this wind,’ Abby said. ‘But it’s a bit of a walk. Do you have a warmer coat?’

  Cameron shook his head.

  ‘I have a blanket you could toss round your shoulders,’ Abby suggested.

  ‘That’ll be fine.’

  She opened the back of her work truck to fetch the blanket then she turned to Cameron as another idea occurred to her. ‘Are you hungry?’ she asked. ‘I was planning on staying back tonight to check my radio-collared kangaroos, so I brought along a roast chicken and a few bread rolls for supper. I’m happy to share
.’

  Cameron smiled. ‘Sounds great. And I have a bottle of wine in the car. Left over from dinner last night with some workmates. Do you have anything we can drink from?’

  ‘A couple of thermos lids,’ Abby said. ‘They’re not quite wine glasses . . .’

  ‘But they’ll do,’ Cameron said.

  Abby shoved everything in a backpack, gave Cameron the blanket, and they set off, weaving their way among the wind-whipped tussock grass.

  2

  The old slab hut, huddled on the valley floor, was Abby’s hideaway where she often took shelter in bad weather. It was a wonderful old building, oozing history, and laden with fragments of the forgotten lives and faded voices of the families who had settled the region.

  Usually she closed herself behind the latched wooden door and listened to the hollow moan of air scooping around the walls. The outside world seemed to dissolve and she became a presence among ghosts. Sometimes, as she sat cross-legged on the battered wooden floor, she thought she could almost hear snatches of conversation swirling in the stone fireplace and mumbling under the eaves. Beneath the peeling wallpaper that lined the hut were sheets of yellowed newsprint from another era. She pictured shadow-people snuggling against the colder wetter weather of those times. She thought of snow in winter. The smell of burning wood, sodden timber, woollen clothes drying on nails. The snort of a horse in the yards.

  On calmer days, she sat outside on the grass, boiling water to make tea, and she imagined men in dirty trousers working the land, felling and ringbarking trees. There wouldn’t have been fences, and cattle would have roamed the valley and slopes, crashing through undergrowth, stripping bark from trees with their muscular tongues. She liked to think of the settlers, and she wished she knew more of their history, how they had changed the land, inadvertently paving the way for the mobs of kangaroos she was now studying.

  But today she was distracted by Cameron’s presence. She was excited to have another human being sharing her valley, someone who seemed interested in her and her kangaroos. On the rattly boards of the veranda she dug into her backpack, pulling out the roast chicken, the crispy bread rolls and Cameron’s bottle of wine.

  He watched her lay out the food on plastic plates. ‘Do you do this often?’ he laughed. ‘Seems I’m in the wrong job.’

  She gave him a withering look and ferreted the thermos cups from her pack, plonking them unceremoniously on the deck. ‘Only the best for this scientist,’ she said. Then she held up the wine. ‘It has a cork,’ she said, dismayed. ‘And I don’t have a corkscrew. I thought corks went out with the ark.’

  ‘I have one.’ Cameron jingled his car keys at her, displaying a sheathed silver corkscrew. ‘Sign of a true wino,’ he said. ‘Always prepared.’ He detached the corkscrew and handed it to her.

  She made a mess of the cork, embarrassing herself, until Cameron reached over with a casual arm and took the bottle from her. With fingers long and fine as a pianist’s, he eased out the broken cork remnants and poured generous portions of wine into the thermos lids, passing one to her. ‘It’s a pity to drink out of plastic, but hey,’ he bumped his cup against hers, ‘who am I to complain?’

  She drank, flushed with a strange jittery sense of anticipation, while the mountains watched on.

  They sat on the porch, looking across the valley towards the shadowy ridge. ‘Peaceful here, isn’t it?’ he said. ‘I didn’t know all this was so close to the city.’

  Abby loved the emptiness, the ravens cruising overhead. ‘Hardly anyone comes here,’ she said, ‘just a few bushwalkers; sometimes some rock climbers up on the ridge. Mostly I have the place to myself.’

  ‘You don’t get lonely?’

  ‘No. I have things to do. Work’s busy. It’s not all about picnics and wine.’

  There was a short silence during which they both sipped from their cups and reached for food; then, just as Abby was beginning to feel awkward, Cameron broke the quiet. ‘Is your family from round here?’ he asked.

  This shift in topic wasn’t quite what Abby desired, but she had to go with it. ‘They’re in Victoria. Mansfield.’

  ‘Hey, I love Mansfield,’ he said, smiling enthusiastically. ‘We used to ski Mount Buller in my teens. Was it a good place to grow up?’

  ‘It’s a typical country town,’ she said. ‘It has a nice feel to it, and it is beautiful country: the mountains and the bush, the rivers. But it’s a small place—people living in each other’s pockets.’

  He laughed: a musical tone that floated under the eaves. ‘Isn’t that what you call community?’

  She thought of her father living on the farm with his pushy, possessive new wife. ‘Being nosey is the same wherever you are. And it’s not my definition of community.’

  ‘Canberra then?’ His eyebrows lifted slightly. ‘Is that your idea of community?’

  She couldn’t suppress a grin. ‘Maybe if you’re a politician or a journalist.’

  He smiled. ‘Why did you come here?’ he asked. ‘Why not Sydney or Melbourne?’

  ‘I was offered a scholarship here.’

  ‘Not too far from home for you?’

  ‘I’m twenty-three,’ she said. ‘Old enough to fly the coop. And home’s not what it used to be. Mum died when I was thirteen. Dad has a new wife.’

  ‘Tough losing your mum,’ Cameron said.

  ‘Yes,’ she said, and shivered. ‘How about you?’

  She was hoping he wouldn’t notice her discomfort when it came to talking about herself. He picked up a bread roll and started gnawing on it, and she was relieved when he took hold of the conversation and carried on.

  ‘I’m from Melbourne,’ he said between mouthfuls. ‘Inner-suburban city boy. Man of neon lights, cappuccinos and nightclubs.’ He stopped chewing to scoff at himself. ‘Private-school educated, of course.’

  ‘I went to Mansfield High,’ she said. ‘No other options.’

  He took a morsel of chicken and popped it in his mouth. ‘My parents are wealthy, so it’s all about options. Theirs, not mine. A government school would have been fine for me, but my parents wouldn’t have it. They wanted to stamp the renegade leftie out of me. So it was Melbourne Grammar then Melbourne University. They’re barristers, both of them. They wanted me to tread the same track they did. Journalism is all I ever wanted to do. But they slotted me into law. It didn’t last, of course. I hated it. I was going to drop out of uni altogether, and they couldn’t cope with a bum for a son, so they agreed on a compromise, a shift into literature. It was terribly humiliating for them—a son with a classic career-less Arts degree, but at least it was at the right univerity, and they supposed it might lead to something. Soon as I finished, I took the first cadetship I could sign up for. The Herald Sun. Not exactly my political line, but it was runs on the board. You need those before you can get ahead. I was born a journalist. I just had to make my parents believe it.’

  ‘And they believe it now?’

  He tore another bread roll into pieces which he arranged in a circle on his plate. ‘I don’t have much to do with them. I’m a disappointment. When I go to Melbourne I mostly stay with friends. It’s easier that way. My parents are busy. I take them out to dinner or the opera. Then I’ve done my duty and I can do my own thing. I catch up with my journo mates, and we drink and tell stories and talk politics. It’s fun. Journalism suits me—despite what my family thinks.’ He laughed derisively. ‘I can tell you this much: my family isn’t normal.’

  Abby held his gaze. ‘There’s no such thing as a normal family,’ she said quietly.

  ‘Hell no,’ he agreed. ‘But I bet mine’s less normal than yours.’

  She said nothing. He couldn’t compete on abnormal, but she let it go.

  He reached for the bottle again. ‘What about the rest of your family?’

  ‘I have a brother, Matt.’

  ‘What does he do?’

  ‘He skis, works on a vineyard and shoots kangaroos with his mates.’

  Cameron chuckled. �
��Your brother shoots kangaroos and you study them. Ironic, isn’t it?’

  ‘Life’s ironic,’ she said.

  They finished the wine, and chatted into the darkness, talking about politics, music, films and books. Cameron was easy company, talkative without being overbearing, up-to-date on everything. Abby supposed this was part of his job, to be able to talk to people, to make them feel comfortable.

  As the chill night air sank from the ridges, she became aware of the inadequacy of his clothing, and when she saw him shiver, despite the blanket, she knew it was time to call it a day.

  They made their way back to the cars by the light of her head torch. In the car park he lingered, watching her toss things into the back of her four-wheel drive. She thought perhaps he wanted to say something, that maybe the valley had worked its way under his skin like a splinter of wood picked up from the veranda of the old hut. It was possible he liked it here, that he might ask to see her again. For a moment she felt a flutter of excitement. What if he reached out and touched her? But he held his distance then thanked her and said goodbye. She masked her disappointment as he slotted into his car and took off down the road.

  And now he is standing over the kangaroo he hit driving too fast in his sports car. ‘Will it be all right?’ he asks hopefully.

  Abby is thrown by the expectation in his voice. He wants the kangaroo to be fixed so it can hop away into the night, but she can’t protect him from the truth. ‘No,’ she says slowly.

  His stare is disbelief. ‘Why not?’

  ‘Legs are broken.’

  ‘Broken legs can mend.’

  ‘Not the hind legs of a kangaroo. A joey in the pouch perhaps. But not an adult.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ he says. ‘We should call a vet.’

  She shakes her head. ‘Nobody will come. Not at this time of night. They’ll tell you to shoot her.’

  ‘So what will you do?’

  He hands over responsibility just like that, and now it is her problem. She steadies herself before speaking, draws a ragged breath. ‘The most humane thing is to put her down.’