The Drifter

by Anthea Hodgson

  About the Book

  Cate Christie is a party girl, unable to commit to anything, until she is involved in a tragic accident that changes everything. To escape her guilt and her parents' bitter disapproval, Cate leaves Perth for her aunt Ida's isolated farm in country Western Australia.

  Henry is a drifter, a young swagman-like character who wanders onto the Christie family property and takes up residence in a disused shed. With secrets of his own, the last thing he wants is to get tangled up in Cate and Ida's lives.

  Against their own better judgement, the fates of Cate and Henry and Ida inexorably intertwine and they learn to face the realities of life, death and letting go.

  A witty, charming and moving debut rural romance about what makes a good death and, more importantly, what makes a good life.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgements

  For my dear dad, Colin – who

  I take with me every day

  ‘Being alive isn’t the breathing part,

  dear – that’s too easy. It’s being here.

  With you.’

  CHAPTER 1

  When Cate Christie had left the city, she had known it wasn’t going to be for good. And when she drove her tiny car through the vast, open paddocks of wheat and sheep, she knew that she wasn’t going to stay. That this was just temporary. And she knew that, no matter the distance between her and the bright, shining lights of the city, Brigit was still dead, and that she was going to be dead forever.

  Cate didn’t belong in the country and neither did Brigit. It was dusty and dying; the old season had finished, and the new one had yet to begin. This was a barren time: the pasture was gone, the stubble from the last crop was trampled into the ground, and the galahs were shrieking about the heat from the trees. Cate found the farm held few childhood memories for her as she pulled up to the old house, which seemed to have slumped into the garden. She turned off the ignition and felt the stillness push in through the car windows. She sat for a moment, gazing about at the house, at the yellowing plants, listening to the sound of corrugated iron scratching against the side of the empty mudbrick house her great-grandfather had built long ago.

  She sighed, let her hand pause reluctantly on the car door handle, then yanked it open and got out. She grabbed the box of groceries she’d picked up at the co-op in town, headed down the path to the front door, and knocked.

  There was nothing at first, then came the sound of movement and shuffling. She waited quietly, hoping her great-aunt would see what everyone saw: a girl who was full of life and fun, not the brittle, faded creature she had become since the funeral.

  Cate moved impatiently from foot to foot in the vanishing day, and thought she could hear a radio playing, then, eventually her great-aunt’s voice singing out, ‘Just a minute!’

  She sounded older than Cate remembered. Of course she did. Cate hadn’t seen her in a few years; it had become difficult for Ida to get to Perth, and it had been way too hard for Cate to go bush. Until now.

  The door opened and Cate smiled bravely. Ida looked momentarily confused, her short white hair pushed back hastily from her face. She was a small woman, plump and practical. She was wearing a washed-out blue house dress, which looked like it had seen better years. Her eyes were a faded grey, and the skin around them was fragile and loose. She glanced over Cate’s shoulder as if there would be someone there, holding up a clue as to who she was.

  ‘Aunty Ida. It’s me, Cate,’ she explained through her teeth. ‘Derek’s girl,’ she added, for clarity. ‘Remember I said I was coming to stay for a while?’

  Ida looked blank.

  ‘And you said that sounded nice?’

  Ida nodded slowly, as if she was willing to believe anything. ‘Oh! How nice! I must’ve gotten my dates mixed up, that’s all!’ She gestured into the house. ‘Sorry it’s such a mess, dear. I’ve been a bit ill these last few days and I haven’t . . .’ She drifted off into silence for a moment and busied herself shutting the door against the warm air, which was trying to find its way into the lounge. ‘Come in, dear.’

  Cate followed her through the dark house to the kitchen, where she dropped her box on the dining table and kissed her aunt, who seemed to be warming to the situation by the moment. ‘Sure is warm out here,’ she said.

  Ida nodded. ‘Oh, yes. We’ve had our share of scorchers, that’s for sure. I keep the place closed most of the time to keep out the heat, then open the doors at night to let in the cool air.’ She glanced about. ‘I’m afraid it doesn’t leave me with enough energy to tidy the house,’ she said apologetically. ‘I’m sorry you’ve found me in such a muddle.’

  Cate waved her hand. ‘Don’t worry about that. You should see my place – shocking! Clothes everywhere, old cups of coffee, makeup. It’s –’ she hesitated – ‘a real dump.’

  ‘Well. Tea?’ her great-aunt asked, moving towards the kettle.

  ‘Ah, no. I don’t really do tea. Never saw the point.’ She grabbed a glass and surreptitiously gave it a good rinse under the tap. ‘A glass of water will do me. But you sit down. I’ll get you a cup and we’ll have a catch-up.’

  Her aunt looked pleased. It was never too hot for tea.

  The house was a mess. As she finally made her way to a spare room, Cate tried to keep from gazing about in panic. There were news­papers piled up from years ago, and it looked like masses of them had never been read. There were layers of dust across everything, and endless pieces of detritus cluttering the rooms and the long central hallway. The windows were grey with dirt, and piles of junk she presumed belonged to her dead Uncle Jack still stood like monoliths in the laundry and spare room. Her aunt bustled behind her.

  ‘Here it is, dear,’ she announced. ‘We’ll get some of the clutter out and you’ll be very comfortable, I can promise you that.’

  ‘It looks perfect, Aunty Ida,’ Cate said. ‘It won’t take a sec to straighten out a bit of space.’ She dumped her bag on the old bed and turned. ‘Then I can give you a hand sorting out the rest of the house. It’ll be fun,’ she added hopefully.

  Ida looked somewhat taken aback. ‘Oh. I wouldn’t want to put you out, dear. I’m very happy with everything just as it is. Don’t bother mucking about with my bits and pieces. I know where everything is.’

  Cate nodded. ‘Of course you do . . . but I’m kind of at a loose end and I guess I’m looking for something to do. Would you mind if I had a look through all your lovely things with you? I find old stuff fascinating,’ she assured her.

  She didn’t really. She found much more pleasure in new, glittering things, like perfume bottles, shiny fingernails and the sparkles in champagne when the cork was popped and the party was set free. But whatever it took. Something had changed a month ago, and the bitterness wouldn’t seem to leave her, as if her life was a poorly trained
lapdog, and now it kept nipping at her face and crapping on her carpets. She’d had to leave, for a while, to breathe, to pretend she had some kind of control over her life, and that she wasn’t a bad person. That she wasn’t the worst person.

  After her aunt had gone, she delved into her bag for her clothes and piled them onto the dusty dressing table. A couple of old Avon bottles fell over and clattered together for a moment. She picked them up and inspected them, then opened the top drawer, in case she could shove them inside. She couldn’t. The top drawer was where old toiletries went to die. She leaned down and peered at the labels. Most of the stuff she saw wasn’t even being produced anymore, and it had a stale lavender scent that was making her gag. She tried the second drawer, pushed aside a pile of kangaroo-themed table napkins and squashed her stuff into the remaining space. As she stared blankly at her designer T-shirts, skinny jeans and lingerie she decided it really didn’t look like it would fit in, and she knew exactly how it felt.

  The end of the day was welcome, bringing with it relief and melancholy. Cate wandered outside to hear the galahs down in the bush shrieking in the warm air, and to watch a line of sheep heading to the dam, kicking up small tufts of dust under their sharp hooves.

  When the sun was gone and the light slowly turned grey, Cate saw the lights go on in the kitchen and heard her aunt open the doors to the evening air. Something touched her leg and she jumped. Glancing down, she saw the smiling face of a border collie looking up at her expectantly.

  ‘Hello, Mac,’ she whispered, dropping to her knees. ‘Of course I remember you. Where have you been on a hot day like this?’

  He seemed to glance over to the machinery shed, or at the tumbling-­down mudbrick house. She guessed there was a deep, cool ditch dug there for an old dog to doze away the heat. He was probably in and out of the dam all day. She rubbed his fur, and together they walked to the lights of home and out of the darkened sky.

  Cate whipped up a couple of very respectable omelettes for dinner.

  ‘Dinner’s nearly ready, Aunty Ida,’ she announced.

  Her aunt smiled. ‘Smells delicious, dear. Shall we watch the news?’

  Cate nodded. ‘Sure.’

  They settled in the lounge room together. Her omelette was pretty good, Cate had to admit to herself. She’d had a roommate once who’d worked in a popular café, and he’d shown her how to cook eggs. She had treated many hangovers with his egg recipes ever since.

  As she gazed about the room, she could still see plenty of reminders of her great-uncle Jack. She recognised his chair still sitting in the corner, and his golf clubs behind the door. The bookshelf was filled with books on the Second World War and animal husbandry, and she could see the battered banjo he had played for her on the back step when she was a child. She glanced back at her aunt, watching the news peacefully, surrounded by the years of clutter. Her eyesight must have been failing now, because she squinted occasionally at the screen and eyed the floor with distrust as she stood to head to the kitchen to make tea.

  ‘Tea, Aunty Ida?’ Cate asked, leaping to her feet.

  Ida paused. ‘Yes please, dear. How kind of you to offer.’ She slipped back down into her chair, and Cate collected their plates and headed for the kitchen.

  Her bed was awful. Really awful, and she’d passed out in some fairly uncomfortable places in her time. She pulled off the sheets and slept on the mattress cover, with the window and the curtain open to catch any breath of air. After midnight she heard her aunt shuffling down the corridor to the toilet, then to the kitchen. The kettle went on, and the radio. She lay still and willed herself to fall asleep again. It didn’t happen. There was a quiz on the ABC. A truckie from Wagga Wagga was doing rather well. Cate found herself answering questions: Maundy Thursday. Bob Hawke. Independence Day. A Room with a View. She groaned and shoved her head under the pillow.

  In the stillness, her mind had time to go visiting, and Brigit was there, opening the door, holding a cocktail she had just invented.

  Hey, Cate, check this out! It’s got persimmons in it! Persimmons and three different types of alcohol! Cate, come on! It’s only midnight. Don’t be a bore – let’s get a drink at The Apple Grove!

  Her laugh was there still, in Cate’s ears, like a tiny echo. Cate rolled over. Brigit was gone. And Cate hadn’t come all this way to find her; she had come to leave her behind. She was going to sort herself out, somehow, to make sense of it all.

  She rolled again in the stale bed as the radio was switched off, the final question unanswered. Her great-aunt shuffled down the corridor to rest at last, and a small light flickered to life over in the abandoned mudbrick house.

  CHAPTER 2

  The sun rose before five and it seemed to surprise the chooks, who made happy quizzical noises outside her window, ruffling their feathers and squawking calmly at each other as they woke. Cate yawned loudly, a number of times, to teach herself a lesson for not getting any sleep the night before. She indulged in a fantasy where there would be a hot coffee waiting for her in the kitchen, and she sat up, shoving her feet to the gritty floor and making her way down the cool corridor.

  ‘Morning, dear,’ her aunt greeted her. ‘Tea?’

  She shook her head. ‘No thanks, Aunty Ida. Sleep well?’

  Ida smiled. ‘Oh, I don’t sleep so well now. I’m old, dear,’ she replied. ‘I was up a little bit – I hope I didn’t wake you.’

  ‘Not at all. It takes a lot to wake me,’ Cate assured her.

  Ida looked relieved. ‘Oh, good. There’s a lovely bush stone-­curlew who likes to sing to me late at night. Very mournful sound. I’ve only noticed him since Jack’s been gone. Sometimes I like to come out here later at night to see if he’s about. Have another cuppa, that sort of thing.’

  Cate nodded. She dropped two slices of toast into the toaster. Her aunt pulled an old jar of Vegemite out of the cupboard.

  ‘I was wondering if you saw my ghost last night, but obviously you sleep like a log, so you wouldn’t notice anything unusual.’

  That got her attention. ‘Huh? Ghost?’ Internally, Cate slumped in her chair and flopped her forehead onto the kitchen table. Bloody hell. Aunty Ida was getting super batty. This was going to be really weird, and she was going to regret coming out here for some bullshit atonement. She had enough ghosts of her own.

  ‘Oh, yes, I sometimes think I hear him at night, moving around over at the sheds, whistling to Mac, tinkering about. I believe he even fixed the chookyard gate a few weeks ago.’

  ‘Really?’ She bit into her toast. ‘Sounds intriguing.’ A strong coffee would be so good now – right now.

  Ida started buttering her toast. ‘He’s a good ghost though. I never feel worried when I hear him.’

  ‘That’s nice,’ she muttered. ‘If he’s a nice ghost . . .’

  She gazed at her toast and wondered how long she would be staying. This really wasn’t her, but here she was, eating Vegemite, because she had followed a silly impulse to help an old relative she knew little about, to prove to herself she could do something worthwhile. She took another bite and bet herself it wasn’t true.

  After breakfast, she headed back to her room to try to carve out some space for her stay. The stale air struck her again as she opened the door. Warm air flowed in through the window, followed by a cloud of dust that streamed into the room and hung, suspended. She placed a large cardboard box on the floor and studied her surroundings. Just pop a few things in this box if they’re in the way, dear, Ida had said. She sighed. It was going to take more than one box. There was a pile of random sewing paraphernalia which had been left years ago, no doubt with the expectation that Ida would return soon and finish the project. It wasn’t going to happen now, Cate reasoned, and knelt down to grab old fabrics, elastics, cottons and patterns. Ida had once been a keen seamstress. Cate remembered her colourful kindy dress like it was yesterday and the joy she had felt twirling around the playground in pink, purple and gold. Her mother had grown sick of washing it and mend
ing it quickly for her so that she could stick it straight back on to impress her next audience. She had long since stopped wishing for another dress from Ida’s machine, and Ida’s eyesight hadn’t allowed her to sew for years. Yet the old Janome was still on the floor attached to its pedal, waiting to work. She piled in everything that would fit in the box and took note of what she could move off the floor and out of the wardrobe.

  She found a few more boxes on the verandah and loaded them up as well, then she filled a bucket with hot water and disinfectant and began scrubbing every surface. Now it smelled like she was sleeping in a hospital, and she would have to leave the window open all day until the fake pine smell went away.

  ‘Aunty Ida,’ she said very carefully, later in the day. ‘I really meant what I said yesterday – is it okay if I help you do a little sorting out?’ She smiled hopefully.

  Ida glanced about her; perhaps she had long suspected she was losing control of the stuff.

  ‘I don’t know, dear – surely you’ve got better things to do than box up Uncle Jack’s old collections?’

  Cate slowly shook her head. She didn’t. ‘I’d really like to help you. Maybe we could clear out a few things and then see how you feel in a couple of days? I’ll only get rid of the things you don’t want anymore,’ she promised.

  Ida wavered only for a moment. ‘Thank you, dear. Some of the bits and pieces have been hanging over me somewhat – I think it probably is time for a clean-out.’

  Cate grinned and gave her a quick hug. She had a purpose.

  It turned out a couple of the mystery boxes in her room held receipts dating back years. Cate figured it would be an easy place to start. She took a box and a garbage bag out to the shady end of the verandah and opened it up. The first docket was from 2004 for the purchase of a vacuum cleaner. She threw it out. The next was from a trip to the dentist the following year. She kept checking and disposing of the receipts while her mind wandered back to Perth.