Billabong Bend

by Jennifer Scoullar

  ‘What’s going on here?’ asked Ric.

  ‘Poppi’s hatching me some baby swans. He found an abandoned nest and rescued the eggs.’

  Ric shot his father a sharp look and then peered into the cupboard. Nine or ten large pale eggs nestled together in the rack. Large, yes, but he’d seen plenty of swan eggs as a boy and these ones weren’t large enough. And they were off-white instead of speckled greenish-grey. He thought of the beautiful black and white birds hanging by their neck in the coolroom.

  ‘When will they hatch, Poppi?’

  ‘Any day now,’ said Max. ‘I’ve candled those eggs and they’ve all got fine big chicks in them, lively as you could want.’ He selected an egg and held it to the girl’s ear.

  An astonished smile split her face. ‘I can hear it, I can hear it chirping.’ Sophie put her lips to the alabaster shell. ‘It’s all right,’ she whispered, ‘Mummy’s here.’ Sophie held the egg out to Ric, who took it gently and listened. He could hear it too, the softest peeping.

  ‘In a few days I’ll have my own baby swans,’ she said. ‘I can’t believe it!’ She threw her arms around her grandfather.

  Ric returned the egg to the rack with the others. Max misted them all with a spray bottle before closing the door. Sophie dragged an old chair over in front of the incubator. ‘I’m going to stay here until they hatch.’

  Ric smiled. ‘What, no telly?’

  Sophie frowned at him, crinkling her brow and looking as stern as she could. ‘I’ve got more important things to do than watch television. I’m going to be a mother. Poppi, could you build the swans a house outside my window?’

  ‘Course I could,’ said Max. ‘And a little pond too. Do you think they’d like a pond?’

  ‘That would be perfect,’ she said, after a moment’s thought. ‘My swans would love a little pond.’

  ‘Coming in for some breakfast?’ Ric asked her. ‘I’ll make you whatever you like.’

  ‘I said, I’m staying here.’

  ‘Fine, suit yourself.’ Ric turned and headed for the house, slowly, to ensure that Max caught up with him. ‘I looked in the coolroom,’ he said in a low voice. ‘Those aren’t swan eggs, are they? What the hell are those birds?’

  ‘Don’t know,’ said Max. ‘Never seen anything like them.’

  When they reached the porch, Ric turned to his father. ‘What did you have to go and shoot them for? Who shoots nesting birds?’

  ‘I didn’t realise. I only found the eggs afterwards.’ A sheen of sweat showed on his forehead. ‘At least some good’s come of it. Look how happy Sophia is.’

  ‘It’s Sophie,’ said Ric. ‘And she wouldn’t be happy if she knew the eggs were orphaned, not abandoned. If she knew you’d shot the parents.’

  ‘Now don’t you go telling her about that. Sophia’s got a sweet streak, the sort of kindness your mother had.’ Max frowned and examined his boots. ‘I was mean sometimes, back when you were a kid. I made mistakes. Don’t want to make them again.’

  ‘Then why in hell’s name did you go and shoot those birds in the first place?’

  ‘What am I supposed to do?’ Max looked genuinely puzzled. ‘Sophia won’t let me eat the chickens. She’s gone and named them all.’

  ‘There’s a goddamn butcher in Drover’s Flat,’ said Ric. ‘Go and buy chickens there, like a normal person.’

  ‘It sticks in my craw to pay out good money for meat some other fella killed, when I can get it for free.’

  ‘Well then, go shoot the shit out of the wetlands,’ said Ric. ‘But don’t expect me to hide it from Sophie.’

  Max gave him a searching look. ‘That Moore girl, Nina. Bet she’s behind this.’

  ‘Maybe she is,’ said Ric. ‘Or maybe it’s Sophie, or what Mum would say, or the plain fact that it’s illegal to go shooting at Billabong. Or maybe it’s that we’ve never seen birds like that before and they could be something rare, something special. Or that they had the right to go ahead and hatch those eggs themselves, after they went to all the trouble of mating up and laying them. Take your pick.’

  His father looked stricken and took a step back.

  ‘Hiding the truth won’t work.’ Ric’s voice was raised and angry. ‘Not if you keep on making the same mistakes. You need to stop making them, Dad. Don’t pretend to stop it. Just flat-out stop it.’

  Max seemed to shrink, and his broad square face caved in a little. He took off his hat, something he rarely did during the day, and twisted it in his hands. It was suddenly hard to recognise this wretched-looking man as his father. Ric was breathing fast, almost panting. He looked around to make sure Sophie wasn’t in earshot.

  ‘You know what I see when I look at Sophia?’ asked Max. ‘I see your mother all over again, her gentleness, her softness, the parts of her I went and hurt the most. If you tell that little girl what her Poppi did, if I see that disappointment on her face, same as I did on your mama’s? Well, I couldn’t bear it.’ He dragged his fingers through his hair with a jerky hand. ‘I was hard on your mother. Hard on all of you . . . too hard.’

  It was an astonishing admission, one Ric had never imagined he’d hear. ‘Promise me,’ said Ric, his voice fierce. ‘Give me your oath that you won’t go to Billabong, not even for rabbits. Swear to me that you won’t even go fishing over there.’

  For the briefest moment, Max’s face flared with anger. Then he lowered his eyes. ‘All right,’ he said, ‘I’ll stay away.’

  Ric nodded. ‘I’ll hold you to that.’ And he would, for Sophie – for Nina. He’d sink Dad’s old punt if he had to, shotguns and all. But an unpleasant, nagging voice told him he was fooling himself. The promise he’d extracted from his father wasn’t just about Sophie, or Nina, or protecting Billabong Bend. Part of it was about him. A big part. He’d enjoyed calling the shots for once, with the unbending, all-powerful father of his youth.

  Max looked so miserable that a wave of sympathy washed away any triumph Ric felt. ‘Have you had breakfast?’ he asked. ‘No? Come on. I’ll do us bacon and eggs.’

  Max brightened. ‘You’re on. I put a fresh piece of bacon in the fridge just yesterday.’

  ‘I know,’ said Ric. ‘And I know where it came from too.’

  Max laughed and clapped him on the back, leaving his hand there until they reached the house. It was the first time his father had done that since Ric was sixteen years old. It felt good.

  Max sank into a kitchen chair and rubbed his palms together. ‘Have you considered my offer?’ he asked. ‘Will you stay, work with me here at Donnalee?’

  Ric grabbed half a dozen eggs from the basket on the lime-washed kitchen dresser. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I’ll stay, even if it’s just to keep an eye on you.’

  ‘Grazie a Dio!’ Max threw up his hands, voice cracking with emotion. ‘We’ll have a good life. You, me and Sophia, eh? A happy life.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah, don’t overdo it.’ He didn’t remind Max that Sophie would be gone in two weeks. Dad would miss her. Ric looked out the window to the laundry, to where his daughter sat hunched before the incubator. She was a strange one, all right. Stubborn too. More trouble than a cat at a dog show. But when he tried to imagine life at Donnalee without her, he failed. With a shock he realised just how much he’d miss her himself.

  ‘I’m getting old, Ricardo.’ Max had a faraway look in his eye. ‘Things happen to people and, well . . . you need some sort of a stake here at Donnalee. It’ll be all yours one day.’

  ‘Cut it out, Dad,’ said Ric. ‘You’ll probably outlast me.’

  Max got up, disappeared down the hall, and returned a few minutes later with a form and a pen. ‘Power of attorney, to show I’m serious.’ He pushed the paper across the table. ‘Sign it. You can act for me in financial matters, learn the business side of things.’

  ‘What, so you can go fishing all day?’ said Ric, sliding bacon from the pan to his father’s plate. His flippant words could not disguise the unexpected pride he felt.

  Max helped himself to t
oast. ‘That’s right.’ He nodded in satisfaction as Ric picked up the pen. ‘So I can go fishing.’

  CHAPTER 11

  Lockie strode towards them along the half-finished fence line, hair turned to bronze by the strong light. Occasionally he tested the wire’s tension with an expert flick of his finger. He looked good, fitter than ever, and since his promotion to station manager, there was a newfound authority in his bearing.

  Her father acknowledged Lockie with a nod, then stared down at the shallow soupy water. ‘I remember,’ he said, ‘before the dam up at Hopeton. Before the droughts and the carp and the irrigators . . . well, you could see the bottom of the river. Like glass, the water was. You could see the yabbies and the dragons chasing after them. You could see the catfish building nests, guarding little pebble rings on the riverbed.’

  ‘Catfish have been gone for years,’ said Nina.

  ‘You couldn’t see them in that muck, even if they were there,’ he said. ‘Breaks your heart to see the Bunyip sink so low. Was a time she flowed clear through the wetlands and into the Barwon, on to the Darling and down the Murray to the sea. Just look at her now.’ He spat in the dust. ‘Get any drier, and she’ll stop flowing altogether.’

  For a while they all stood silent on the bank. What was there to add? Dad had said it all. Lockie rolled a cigarette. ‘We won’t get anything done, moping around like this.’

  It was true enough, and they got back to work. Lockie and Dad rammed pickets, dug holes and set posts, while Nina strung wire. She stopped to watch her father working. The move to town hadn’t made him soft like he’d said it would. He was still lean as the fence post he was tamping in. But it had made him happier. The worry once etched into his face had faded and been replaced with smile lines.

  Lockie was observing her. ‘Bludger,’ he said with a smile.

  Dad looked up at Lockie, who was leaning on his shovel. ‘Reckon that’s the pot calling the kettle black.’

  Nina tightened the ratchet on the strainer, watching the grips walk up the wire like magic until it was taut as a bowstring. She liked fencing. It was a hard job, but there was something immensely satisfying, almost therapeutic, about the process of connecting things together. Every fence was different, and at the end of the day you had something substantial and useful to show for your effort. It wasn’t like feeding hay or watering trees or washing dishes. It didn’t need doing all over again tomorrow. A well-built fence stood day in, day out, as an enduring monument to a good day’s work.

  And today the job seemed easy, thanks to the extra hands on deck. Lockie had jackarooed at Red Gums way back when, and fitted in like one of the family. She’d missed working together like this, him crooning his country songs and Dad cracking jokes. Everything seemed much more manageable than when she was on her own. She barely noticed the sweat or the heat or the flies, and by the time Mum arrived in the afternoon with an esky full of lunch and cold drinks, they’d finished the stretch right down to the old bridge.

  Nina sat in the shade, back against a gum tree, while Mum doled out sandwiches. She was a tall woman, grown thick at the waist, solid but not fat. The colours of her sleeveless floral dress brightened up the grey-green riverbank, just like Mum’s presence always brightened up any occasion. Dad took a folding chair from the ute and set it up beside Nina. Mum thanked him and settled into it. She brushed back a wisp of steel-grey hair that had escaped from the rough bun beneath her wide straw hat. On impulse Nina stood up and gave her a hug. Mum was the heart of the family, and that position bestowed on her a kind of dignity and quiet beauty that Nina loved. Jinx, who also adored Mum, trotted over to lay his head in her lap.

  ‘How are things at Drover’s, Mum?’

  ‘Store’s doing a roaring trade. We can’t truck in enough feed to fill our deliveries.’

  ‘That’s good,’ said Nina.

  ‘You’d think so, wouldn’t you?’ Her mother smiled. ‘Trouble is, half the customers can’t afford to pay their accounts. And you can guess how your father takes their hard-luck stories. Straight to his heart, that’s how.’ Nina placed a hand on her mother’s shoulder. Dad could hold a grudge, but he could also be generous to a fault, and she loved him for it. Mum placed her own hand over Nina’s. ‘Don’t worry, darling. We’re doing fine compared to a lot of people.’

  Dad and Lockie leaned against trees, downing mugs of chilled lemon tea. ‘How are things out your way, Lockie?’ asked Mum.

  ‘Same as everywhere,’ he said. ‘Paddocks darn near dried up and blown away. Lowest yields for twenty years and most of that downgraded to feed wheat. Now we’re destocking like crazy, in spite of rock-bottom prices.’

  ‘That’s a shame,’ said Mum. ‘How are your folks?’

  ‘Good thanks, Ellen,’ said Lockie. ‘Went up to see them for Christmas. Asked Nina along but she wouldn’t come at it.’

  ‘Oh, Nina, why not? It would have been lovely for the two of you.’

  Nina stayed silent. She’d asked Lockie to spend Christmas at Red Gums too. He’d declined, but that apparently didn’t rate a mention. Why was she always the one meant to go to him? Why didn’t it work the other way around? Today was the first time he’d been to Red Gums for weeks.

  ‘I’ve an idea,’ said Mum. ‘Why not go back with Lockie for a few days? We could look after things, couldn’t we, Jim?’

  Dad nodded, Lockie looked hopeful and Nina squirmed. She didn’t want to go back with Lockie. She wanted to experiment with the pecans’ irrigation flows, spend a whole day riding the boundaries, head back to Billabong in search of painted snipe. And then there was Sophie. She’d promised the girl a riding lesson. ‘Sorry.’ She hated to be put on the spot like this. ‘I’ll be flat out this week.’ Lockie’s face fell. ‘Perhaps you could stay a bit longer?’

  ‘Nah, I’m training a couple of young blokes,’ he said. ‘Gotta be there.’

  Nina sighed. Of course he had to be there. Just like she had to be here.

  ‘You can’t expect Lockie to drop everything,’ said Mum. ‘Sometimes compromise is called for.’

  ‘Except I’m the one doing all the compromising,’ said Nina. ‘Why is Lockie’s job more important than mine?’ Mum harrumphed softly and Lockie looked dark. Nina wiped the sweat from her forehead with the back of her work glove and drank the last of her tea. It had long been a sore point between Lockie and her, particularly since he’d asked her to move in with him. It wasn’t like she hadn’t been tempted sometimes. All the moments sitting alone on the verandah as darkness fell. When she woke by herself in the morning after a restless night. But how could she run Red Gums properly if she didn’t live here?

  ‘I meant to tell you, Nina,’ said Mum. ‘Eva Langley’s had some sort of a fall.’

  ‘Eva?’ Nina sat forward. ‘Is she all right?’

  ‘Nothing broken, thank goodness. Just a bit shaken. Margie said she was admitted to the hospital overnight for observation, but she’s back at the home now.’

  ‘I need to see her.’ Nina stood up. ‘Would you mind if I flew up this afternoon?’

  ‘If it’s okay with Dad.’

  ‘Go on,’ said her father. ‘Me and Lockie have got this covered, right, Lockie?’

  ‘Reckon so.’ Lockie looked down at his big flat hands for a moment. Blood seeped from a wire cut, and his nails were ragged and broken. ‘I’ll drive Nina back to the house if you want.’

  ‘Would you, Lockie?’ Mum fanned her rosy face with her hat. ‘I fancy just sitting in the shade for a bit. There’s a hint of a breeze down here by the river.’

  ‘Righto.’ Lockie climbed into his truck. ‘Got your stuff?’

  Nina hopped in beside him. ‘Don’t have any stuff,’ she said. ‘I travel light.’

  Jinx jumped up at the cabin door, scratching and barking. Dad took hold of his collar. ‘Why don’t you stay with Kate tonight?’ he said. ‘Don’t like the idea of you flying back when you’re tired.’

  Nina leaned out the window and kissed him. ‘Thanks, Dad. I�
�ll see how I feel. Don’t forget to feed Jinx. And could you give the horses some hay?’

  They waved goodbye and took off, dust pluming behind them. Lockie spun the wheel to avoid a deep corrugation. ‘Seems like forever since I’ve seen you,’ he said. Nina looked out the window, thinking, Whose fault is that? ‘And now you go haring off to Moree without me.’

  ‘I’d hardly call visiting an old lady in a nursing home haring off.’

  ‘Nah, of course not. Sorry, it’s just that I’ve missed you.’

  ‘And I’ve missed you. If only we weren’t both so busy all the time.’

  ‘How long you been running this place on your own now?’ asked Lockie.

  ‘Five years.’

  ‘That long?’ Lockie moved his grip on the wheel, flexing the sinews of his forearms. ‘It’s been a while since I had a good look round. You’ve worked miracles, you know that? Jim managed well enough, but you’ve really made the land sing. That stretch by the river, for instance. And those orchards? Going gangbusters, despite the drought, despite the Bunyip being over-allocated to buggery.’

  She shot him a pleased smile. Lockie was a shrewd and experienced farmer, well respected throughout the district, someone who didn’t pull any punches. He didn’t often hand out praise like this, and it meant a lot.

  ‘It’s going to be tough in the future to survive out here,’ said Nina. ‘The climate’s changing, and we’ve got to change with it. Better ways with water, different crops like my pecans, different livestock even.’ Her words tumbled out in an enthusiastic rush. ‘Carbon farming, putting native trees back on cleared land. There are big grants now for restoring riverbanks. They actually give you money.’ She stopped to catch her breath. ‘Problem is, people are still looking in the rear-view mirror.’