He strode to the driver’s door and, as he folded himself in behind the wheel, she noticed the wateriness in his eyes, the bare grief in his expression.
‘I’ll come with you,’ she said, rushing forward as he backed down the drive.
But he shook his head, lips firm, and then he was gone.
She sat for hours on the doorstep waiting for his return, terrified he might have shot himself along with the dog. He wouldn’t do that, would he? He wouldn’t leave her?
Dark came with no sign of Doug. Daphne sat through the usual TV programs oblivious to the motions on the screen. At ten o’clock she went to bed and lay there stiff with tension, listening for the sound of the car. Finally she heard the familiar rumble of the car in the street, the sound of the garage door opening and closing. Doug glided into the house, quiet on his feet. He undressed in the bathroom—she heard running water, the toilet flushing. Then he came out and slipped into bed beside her. Said nothing.
‘Where have you been?’ she asked.
At first there was no answer, then his voice scraped out, hard and harsh. ‘Took the dog bush. Put a bullet in its head. Dug a hole and buried it.’
Daphne reached for his hand. ‘It was the right thing. Best for the dog.’
For a while he left his hand in hers, then he tugged it slowly away and shuffled over on his side, his back to her. She felt the vibration of sobs shaking his body, pulled herself in close to him, wrapped an arm around him and hugged him tight.
She knew he was crying for much more than the dog.
‘Why did it have to happen?’ Daphne asks Abby now. ‘Why did we have to leave our land?’ It’s a rhetorical question—she’s not looking for answers. ‘Nobody comes here. It’s empty. Just you and me and the crows. They closed it for the public and none of them want it. What was the use of that?’
Daphne is wavering on the cliff-edge of tears. She’s touched and surprised when Abby takes her hand and strokes it gently. The girl seems to understand. Daphne gathers the shreds of her self-control and pats Abby’s arm. ‘You have work to do, dear. You should go and do it. I’ll stay here in the car. Maybe take a nap.’
She watches Abby bundle out of the car, grabbing a pack from the back of the vehicle then heading off up the valley. In the distance, kangaroos are a scatter of brown humps, resting and grazing. Abby turns and waves once then she is gone, becoming smaller and less visible among the shifting tussocks and the rolling landscape.
When she is out of sight, Daphne pushes open the car door and climbs stiffly out. She takes off slowly in a different direction. There is somewhere she wants to go.
17
Daphne walks slowly up the valley. Her hips and knees protest and she’s a little light-headed and a weird thumping sound is echoing in her head. But it isn’t far—if she can just find the spot where the track used to turn off into the trees. There’s a special place she wants to visit, a hidden clearing in the bush where parts of her soul are buried.
As she treads along the margins of the valley where the forest reaches down to merge with the grass, kangaroos reclining among the patchy scrub push up onto their feet and watch her pass. She takes the shortest route, as best she can recall it, but she doesn’t want to walk too close to any of those big old bucks.
She remembers one of her father’s stockmen being mauled by a kangaroo. He was on foot and too close to a big bachelor male. He had his dog with him, a skinny mongrel of an animal that always went in too hard when it was working the stock. The stupid mutt attacked the kangaroo, and there was a dreadful howling ruckus that was heard all the way down the valley. The stockman grabbed a stick and tried to break them apart, but the kangaroo sat back on its tail and slashed out at him with a hind toe. It tore a hole in his stomach, right through the skin and into his abdomen. His screams were so loud they echoed from the crags. Later Daphne watched her mother stitch the gaping wound with a needle and thread. Then her father drove the stockman in to hospital. Her mother’s repair job hadn’t been ideal, but it had probably saved the man’s life.
Poking around at the edge of the bush, Daphne finds the boulder which she now remembers used to mark the track into the scrub. This is what she is looking for. The trail is no longer distinct—it’s more like an animal-path—but Daphne knows this is the way. Shielding her face with her arms, she pushes through a snarl of undergrowth. Crimson rosellas startle from a tree, chipping and chiming as they burst into flight. Twigs catch on her skin leaving scratches and blood spots.
In a short distance the bushes give way to a cleared area of overgrown grass and a series of crumbling white headstones lined up in two short rows. These graves mark the tragedy of her family’s past. Here lie the remains of her brother who was crushed by the horse. Her mother and father rest here too; her father interred with all Daphne’s unanswered questions. Four stones cover stillborn babies that her mother buried. Little Gordon too.
Daphne sits on a rock and regards this sad altar to lost human life. She thinks of her mother: a melancholy, defeated woman. It was no wonder she was like that after losing four babies—Daphne doesn’t even know if they were given names. When she was little, her mother often brought her here to lay small posies of bush flowers at the feet of the headstones. She remembers her mother’s tears and long face, the rush of panic she felt seeing her mother so unhinged. At the homestead her mother was always sturdily in control, a stoic hard-working woman who trudged through her daily tasks without complaint. Here in the tucked-away bush cemetery, Daphne saw another side of her mother—the raw, emotional part where life had scoured deep gorges of grief.
She is suddenly heavy with her own wash of grief. She glances to Gordon’s headstone. Poor little fellow. So young. His life cut too short. She closes her eyes against the pale light and she can see him running on his skinny little legs around the homestead, beating the air with a stick. He is practising riding his imaginary horse. He’s six and Doug has said he can soon learn to ride. He’s a thin little boy, dark-haired like Doug, and he has Doug’s pointed nose and sharp face, the same gentle smile.
He’s a good helper, little Gordon. Since baby Pam was born, Doug has instilled in him a sense of responsibility. When Doug is away working up the valley, Gordon is the man about the place. He must do jobs to assist his mother and be quiet so as not to disturb the baby. Gordon’s promotion makes him feel big and important. It won’t be long before he will be able to ride up the valley with his father. Daphne refrains from reminding him that soon he will need to begin his schooling too.
It is a warm day, the first real taste of summer for the year. Daphne has been busy all morning, boiling water in the copper and scrubbing the dirty clothes on the washboard, passing them through the hand-cranked wringer. She is hanging the washing on the line beneath the eaves; the clothes will dry quickly in this heat. Thankfully Pam is sleeping so Daphne can complete the task uninterrupted. After this she will skin the two rabbits Doug trapped last night and set them cooking on the stove. Hopefully she will be done before the baby wakes for a feed.
The valley is at its best after a good wet spring. It is green with waving grasses, and fat black cattle spread out grazing along its length. This year they should get a good price at market. Doug has bought in an Angus bull with good bloodlines and he is happy with the new progeny. The young steers from the first drop are thickset and nuggetty. They have deep chests and straight backs, and with this excellent mountain feed they will be in prime condition when they are sold. Doug has decided to keep the heifers to boost his breeding herd. They are strong types, and it means he can get rid of some older cows that are getting long in the tooth and finding the subalpine winters hard.
Spring is Daphne’s favourite season in the valley. She loves autumn too, with its spare blue skies, but spring is a time for growth and abundance. Everything is productive: the birds, the cattle, the grass, the gum trees sprouting fresh red leaves from their swaying tops. Usually this is when she manages to get out riding too. Before the childr
en were born, she used to help run the cattle up to the High Country to the summer grazing grounds. She doesn’t mind hard work, can turn her hand to fencing, making yards, marking and branding cattle.
She loves being a mother too, but often she is lonely. Doug is out most days, gone till sundown with a water bottle and a packed lunch, a dog or two at his heels. Daphne’s days are centred round domestics: cooking, washing, cleaning, fetching wood, feeding the baby, keeping an eye on Gordon. In this hot weather, the bush on the steep sides of the valley is dense with cicadas and the air seems to pulse with sound. Daphne feels small and solitary, stranded at the homestead, a speck in the grand scale of the landscape. Four days a week, just after lunch, she turns on the wireless to listen to Blue Hills. It only runs for fifteen minutes, but it breaks up the day, and during that time she feels she is among friends. It is reassuring to know that the author of the series, Gwen Meredith, is sitting in a cottage a few valleys away, writing about the lives of mountain people just like her, characters that might be based on people she knows of. But when the program is over, loneliness descends once more. She watches the days march through, longs for Doug’s return, craves his adult company instead of the shrill demands of her small boy. She knows Doug will come home when the late orange light pinks the granite tors on the ridge and the cool fragrant aroma of alpine evening hangs over the valley.
As she hangs the washing, clinching it to the wire with wooden pegs, she hears Gordon singing down at the woodheap. He has been down there most of the morning, making a fort from chunks of wood. She sent him to fetch wood for the fire, but he’s been distracted by some game that has made itself up in his head. He’s so imaginative, brimming with wild stories of bushrangers and bank robberies—Doug has been filling him up with raw material at night, telling bed-time tales to put him to sleep.
It’s such a relief for Daphne that Doug helps in the evenings. Most men come home from a day out on the property and slump into a chair, eat and then sleep. But Doug is a sensitive and caring man, a kind lover, and as patient as the day is long. He’s wonderful with Gordon. After a quick wash in the trough at the end of the day, discarding his shirt by the door, Doug usually takes the small boy on his lap and lets him snuggle into the depths of his beard and hairy chest. There is laughter, chuckling, whispers and squeals. Weary from the demands of being a mother and housewife, Daphne likes to sit in the rocking chair to watch them, a wide smile stretching her cheeks. At night when the babies are asleep, she likes to lie in bed with her husband, her chin on his shoulder, his beard soft against her cheek. She spoons herself around his taut muscular frame, waits for his touch. He is gentleness combined with buried ferocity and passion—in his chest beats a keen love of the mountains, and of her.
She pegs the last shirt and pauses a moment to watch its tails flap in the breeze. It’s late morning and the wind is already rising. She should call Gordon in for some morning tea. Using her hand as a shield against the sun, she peers down towards the yards and the woodheap. Gordon is down there somewhere, hidden by the mounds of rough-chopped wood. She hears banging—he must be bashing something with a stick. Then there is silence. She calls out to him, fresh bread waiting, a cup of water on the table.
For a while she sees no movement down there and wonders if she will have to go and fetch him. Then Gordon emerges toting an armful of wood. Smiling, she watches him. But he’s slow and something isn’t right. She feels the smile fade from the corners of her mouth. Gordon is staggering and swaying. He can’t seem to set his feet straight. His pieces of wood topple from his arms, and he bends over. At first Daphne is unsure what he’s doing then she realises he is vomiting. She sees him take a few disoriented steps and then he wavers and slumps to the ground.
Heart in her mouth, she leaps from the veranda and runs to him. The white eye of the sun stares down at her. The air beats with the rhythmic thrum of cicadas.
She reaches him and rolls him over. He is pale and drooling, floppy and unaware. ‘Gordon.’ She hoicks him up. ‘What’s wrong? What happened?’ His head lolls.
She scoops him into her arms and hurries back to the homestead. Her mind is buzzing with the cicadas. She props him in a chair, waves air in his face, wipes his mouth. ‘Gordon,’ she is saying. ‘Gordon, what’s wrong? Speak to me.’
The alarm in her voice wakes the baby, she hears Pam snuffling and gurgling. It has been at least four hours since the last feed and soon Pam will start asking for it. Daphne tries to think, but her heart is heaving. Gordon needs help, but it’s a long way into town. Down at the woodheap he must have found a snake. It must have struck him. She doesn’t know what else it could be.
She pulls his arms and legs straight, runs her hands down them looking for a mark. Nothing. If he could speak he could tell her where the snake got him, but he’s flaccid and absent. If she doesn’t do something, he’s going to die.
The baby starts croaking, escalating quickly to a wail. Daphne looks around for the keys. She will have to put Gordon in the truck and drive him into town. She has to get him to the hospital.
Breathing fast, she gathers her little boy up again and runs to the shed. She has to put him on the ground while she opens the doors. He is so limp it terrifies her. She lays him on the back seat, pauses to watch his chest rise and fall, then she gallops back to get the baby.
In the crib, Pam is screw-faced and screaming, her tiny fists bunched with infantile rage. Daphne feels air scraping in her throat as she wrenches Pam out and races to the shed, the baby jerking in her arms.
She hurls herself in behind the wheel, wedges the baby on the seat and cranks the key in the ignition, pumps the accelerator. The engine roars noisily, echoing in the shed. Daphne grinds the truck into reverse and trundles it out of the shadows. The baby shrieks. Light slings in through the window as she swings the truck onto the track. The white eye of the sun is still watching her.
She feels her breaths coming in gasps, something pounding in her head, fear clenching in her throat. Pam’s screams are a knife in her chest. She sees the baby rock and lurch on the seat as they jolt through a dip. From the back seat there is nothing. She flings a backward glance to check on Gordon, sees his pale face and grey lips. His chest is moving with slow shallow breaths. He is still and slack.
She bounces the truck along the track, stabbing through the gears, revving the engine till it seems the pistons must pop through the bonnet. The old vehicle sways as she swings it onto the road, urging it through dappled shade, the engine growling.
Pam’s screams are at a peak: she is roaring now, her entire little body tight with the force of it. Daphne’s mind pings and suddenly she is strangely floaty, surreally absent, fenced off from it all. She can’t drive any faster. The truck won’t do it, no matter how her foot grinds the accelerator to the floor. She can’t stop to feed the baby, hasn’t time. She can’t look back again. All she can do is to keep driving. To drive through Pam’s racket; to drive beyond the road and into the sky where the fierce eye of the sun looks on.
It takes over an hour to drive to the hospital. By then the baby is still, asleep from exhaustion. Gordon is still too. He is motionless.
Daphne knows he is gone. He left her sometime along the way, his tiny slip of a soul wafting out through the window and dissipating into air. She can’t say exactly when it happened, but she felt him leaving her, the feather touch of something light and buoyant, the last whisper of his breath escaping.
At the hospital she trudges inside, hefting heavy feet that don’t belong to her anymore. She collapses, weeping, onto the chequered linoleum floor. A nurse points her finger to two men who exit through the doors. One of them comes back with something long and narrow wrapped in a sheet, Gordon’s feet bobbing just below the hem. The other brings in a dazed baby: Pam blinks at the light, just waking.
Sitting on the rock in the hidden cemetery, Daphne lets her tears run loose. She has cried an ocean for Gordon, and still there are more tears to cry. One lifetime is not enough to recover fr
om such a loss.
Eventually she stands and stretches the kinks out of her reluctant legs and back. She walks to the edge of the clearing, to a wattle tree with silvery-grey leaves. Reaching, she snaps off a sprig, clutches it in her arthritic fingers and returns to one of the white gravestones, Gordon’s resting place. Tears run afresh as she bends to place the wattle on the stone.
Straightening, she looks around, the grief slowly settling back inside her. This is her family’s cemetery, but there’s still one grave that isn’t here. Her husband, Doug. She can’t visit him to say goodbye. There is nowhere she can go to release the burden of her sadness for him. His death was different—a sky burial of sorts.
She turns and walks away without looking back.
18
Cameron is reclining on his bed, arms folded behind his head, the lean length of him spread casually across his doona, when he proposes a trip to Melbourne. It’s late afternoon on a Sunday and they have just made love in a crazed rush, not even bothering to pull back the covers.
Abby has been feeling more confident since her discussion with Daphne; she feels so comfortable with the old lady, and the talk comes easily, just as it used to with her Gran. After a decade of swimming through life’s turbulent currents without guidance, she finds Daphne’s friendship reassuring. It’s good to have someone to talk to, someone she feels she can trust. She trusts Cameron too, of course, but there are some discussions she can’t have with him—like how to manage their relationship. She’s been hoping that maybe she can find a way to be with him. If she steps back in terms of how much time they spend together, perhaps she can steady herself.
But now, with this Melbourne trip of Cameron’s hanging in the air, her optimism crumbles. She tries to force a smile while fighting a drowning sensation.
‘I found some cheap flights for next weekend,’ he says. ‘It’ll be fun. We can go to dinner. Meet up with a few of my mates. Visit Mum and Dad’s.’
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