The White Earth

by Andrew McGahan

  It was a full six months before Elizabeth returned, and strangely she came alone. John’s father was immediately summoned to meet with her. Daniel, sensing that the fate of the station would be discussed, took John with him. She was waiting for them behind the desk in the office. She seemed older, much older than John remembered. She was only eighteen, after all. But he saw now a tall girl with a serious face and unreadable eyes, sitting straight in her chair, and she wasn’t really a girl anymore. She was — and this was the first time John had properly considered it — the owner of Kuran Station. There was no grandfather to direct her, no father to hinder her, Elizabeth was all on her own.

  It should have been at this moment that she reached out to John and his father for support — John had imagined exactly how it would happen — but instead her greeting was cool. Daniel, however, seemed unconcerned. He poured himself a drink, made himself comfortable in a chair by the empty fireplace, and got straight down to business. He’d sent Elizabeth plenty of reports, she knew the situation and how much there was to be done, so here was what he thought…

  Elizabeth cut him off. She had an announcement to make.

  She was selling the station.

  It was a simple statement, but in that instant John felt the whole fantasy of his life shudder and sway.

  Daniel’s first reaction was complete disbelief. What on earth was she talking about? No one was going to be selling anything. But Elizabeth only shook her head and explained it all patiently. Her lawyers had been in talks with representatives of the state government and a deal had been brokered. She had agreed to surrender most of the pastoral lease, and as compensation the government had agreed to grant her a perpetual lease on the House and fifteen thousand acres surrounding it. Once the legalities were finalised, she would sell that land and return to live in Brisbane.

  That was when the anger came, that was when Daniel loomed out of his chair. Who the hell did she think she was? He had worked for her family for almost thirty years, he and he alone had kept Kuran alive. Sell the station? It was impossible! But watching Elizabeth, John could see that she was unimpressed and unafraid — the determination never left her eyes. How could he have been so wrong about her? How had he ever imagined that she would need him or agree to place herself under his care? His face burned with humiliation, and still he said nothing.

  Elizabeth produced a sheaf of documents. It was all there, the signed contracts and lease documents. The thing was settled. She had returned only to inform the staff of her decision and collect some personal items. The furniture would be sent for later. Daniel was shaking his head, refusing to hear, refusing to credit that any member of the White family could defy him. Did she really expect him to cooperate with all this? To divide up the station and disperse its assets, to throw away his life’s work? No, Elizabeth replied. It was no longer any business of his at all. As of this minute she was terminating his employment.

  At that, a cataclysmic fury seemed to boil behind Daniel’s face …but Elizabeth only stared back at him, a smooth-skinned teenage girl, waiting with the imperturbable certainty of youth. And something broke in the station manager. The girl had fired him. It was her right to do so. It was inconceivable that she would have the nerve to do so. But she had. All the strength in him drained away, useless. And even through his shock, John understood that he was witnessing something acutely personal. Elizabeth hated his father. Why, he didn’t know, but he could see in her the same repugnance for Daniel McIvor that he had seen in so many other eyes, only naked and magnified. She said, You were only ever an employee, Mr McIvor. And for the first time in the interview her gaze flickered over John as he sat by stupidly, and he saw that her contempt embraced him as well. Your son was only ever an employee. I think you might have forgotten that.

  It was finished, all in a matter of minutes. John had spoken not one word of protest as his inheritance was ripped away from him. In the last moments he could only stare at Elizabeth, and out of his shame there flamed a terrible admiration for her. Then his father had hold of his arm, and was dragging him backwards through the office door.

  Chapter Seven

  WILLIAM WAS ROUSED FROM SLEEP BY A HAND ON HIS SHOULDER and a voice whispering his name. He opened his eyes drowsily. A figure was hunched over the bed, a face leaning down close to his. Was it a dream? And then he came fully awake, rearing back against the pillow.

  ‘Quiet,’ his uncle hissed.

  William stared in amazement. The old man was right there — a bony, angular face, glowing weirdly in the beam of a flashlight. His hair was dishevelled and he was clad in wrinkled pyjamas underneath an old bathrobe. He looked like a prophet, come in from the desert.

  ‘Get up. Quickly.’

  The figure withdrew. William obediently climbed out of bed, and searched around for his shoes. It was cold, and a deep silence reigned over the House. The old man waited by the door, a shadow behind the torch.

  ‘Outside,’ he said, and led the way.

  His mind fogged, William stumbled through hallways that were inky black. Finally they came to the front doors, which were wide open to the night. His uncle switched off the torch. William paused on the doorstep, for all the clouds had blown away and the sky was stunningly clear, the stars blazing. But his uncle had already limped on ahead, following a path through the garden, his robe flapping in the darkness. William hurried after him carefully. They circled the pool, its broken floor lost in shadow. Then they were on the decking that jutted out from the garden walls, where the hill dropped away below them. South and west stretched the plains, a silky grey sheet, as featureless as an ocean. Powell was no more than a sprinkle of pinpricks on the horizon, mirroring the stars. A faint breeze slid across the hill, the air was freezing, and the entire world was asleep.

  ‘Watch,’ his uncle instructed.

  The old man was gazing at the sky, standing stiff and unmoving, his face a pale blur. William was wide awake now. He studied the stars. And suddenly, as he stared up, a greenish fire streaked across the sky and was gone.

  There was another streak, and perhaps a minute later, another. To William they seemed both close and infinitely far away. Shooting stars. He had seen them before, of course, but never so many at once, nor at such a lonely hour. Was this what his uncle did at night, watch the sky? He wondered if he should speak, to express amazement or thanks. But the old man appeared to have forgotten he was there, so William stood waiting, his head craned back as the ghostly scintillations came and went.

  ‘I saw one hit the ground once.’

  The words caught William unaware. His uncle’s face was still set to the heavens.

  ‘It was out there on the plains, years ago, when I was a boy. It came down about a mile from our camp, a big flash and a clap of thunder. When we looked for it the next day all we found was a ring of dirt, like a ripple in a pond, and a little hole at the centre. No matter how long we dug, we couldn’t find anything. The black soil had swallowed it up. It’s deep, the soil out there. Forty feet, sixty feet, eighty. No one knows for sure. There’s bedrock underneath it somewhere, but in my time I’ve seen whole houses sink down into the earth and vanish without a trace. They might still be there even now, resting on the bottom, if you knew where to look.’

  It was a rich, dry voice, rolling in the darkness. William waited, disturbed and uncertain. The old man sniffed at the air.

  ‘There are strange things in the world. Another day, we were camped out there during a storm, and in all the rain and wind something huge passed by. The horses went mad and the tents were blown away. Afterwards we followed a track through the grass, where the earth had been scoured bare a hundred yards wide. We followed it for miles, this way and that, and then suddenly there was nothing — it had lifted itself back into the clouds. The soil had been gouged away a foot deep, and polished so that it almost shone. That storm had signed its name in the ground.’

  There was another streak overhead, and for an instant William glimpsed his uncle’s face, ting
ed with luminous green, narrow and severe, with dark holes for eyes.

  ‘You live long enough in one place, there’s nothing you won’t have seen.’ The old man tilted his head southwards, a shadow against the stars. ‘I even saw the smoke, the day your father died.’

  William swallowed, his mouth dry.

  ‘What about you, Will? What have you seen?’

  William didn’t know what to say. What had he seen? He thought back to his life on his parents’ farm … but there had only been small things. Little dust devils, dancing across paddocks. Icicles hanging from gutters on the roof, on deep winter mornings. Flights of crows, trailing after the tractor to pick at the freshly turned earth. But he divined that his uncle wanted something more. Something to match a night of shooting stars, or a tornado.

  ‘No wonders?’ the old man inquired, looking down William now, his voice alert and testing. ‘No floods or droughts? No swarms of locusts or plagues of mice in the wheat?’

  William shook his head, and in the sky a meteor flared and sputtered out.

  His uncle nodded towards the eastern horizon, where shadows humped, a wall against the plains.‘Have you been to the mountains?’

  ‘Yes,’ William whispered.

  ‘I was told a story once, by an old man. He said he was one of the first to climb those hills. It was all forest then, thick and dark, and he hunted an animal up there that he had never seen before. He didn’t give it a name, but he said that when it bellowed in the night, the other creatures, the birds and the insects, would all go quiet. It left footprints by the creeks, and slept in caves under the cliffs. One night he cornered it in a gully, and it almost crushed him as it fought its way out. Huge and shaggy and wet, he said it was, with a stink like old mud. And a great head with wild, white eyes. He never saw it again. He thought maybe it died, when the loggers came and cut down most of the forest. I was one of those loggers, as it happens. And once I saw some enormous prints, by a creek, like an elephant had stomped past. And I saw marks in the sand of a cave, like something big had rolled there. And I heard something one night, crashing through the undergrowth, and I could smell mud even though there was no mud anywhere near.’

  The shadowed face studied William once more.

  ‘Did you ever wander off into forest? Did you ever see the terrible bunyip?’

  Again, William could only shake his head. And even though he knew there were no such things as bunyips, he heard no humour in his uncle’s question, only that hard edge, examining. William felt cold. The old man turned towards the brow of the hill upon which the House rode. A tangle of trees waited at the top amidst the silvery grass, tall gums with white skin and pleading arms.

  ‘You won’t find any monsters down here in the foothills,’ he said.‘But I’ve seen packs of wild dogs around here, and the bodies of sheep and cattle, torn apart. Sometimes they used to come down to the House on clear nights like this, howling at the moon like wolves, always one big dog in the lead and the others slinking behind. It was a horrible sound they made, and sad too. We shot as many we could. And then there were feral cats, big and mean, squealing in the night, just like the sound of a baby crying. People who didn’t know better nearly went mad searching out in the bush for abandoned children. But there were never very many people in these hills. There was no gold to find here, no timber to cut. Just scrub and grass.’

  He paused, drew in a breath of the cold air.

  ‘I’ll tell you something. Maybe a dozen people have owned this property before me. The land has been cleared and grazed for almost one hundred and fifty years. There have been cattle and sheep here, dogs and cats and foxes and hares and a hundred other creatures that don’t belong. Foreign weeds too, lantana and blackberry and worse. You’d think there would be nothing left of what used to be here before they came. But I’ve walked this property from one end to the other, year after year. And there are still places where I don’t think a foot has ever set down apart from my own. Places where nothing has changed. But you need the eyes for it. You have to be able to see. Not everyone can.’

  William looked away from the hill. Out on the southern horizon a light had detached itself from the small galaxy that was Powell, and was moving north, a vehicle driving along the Lansdowne road. It was still many miles away, but such was the clarity of the night William could see the two headlights, and a fringe of smaller yellow lights above them. A truck headed who knew where, its driver hunched hollow-eyed over the wheel. William thought of his bedroom back at his old home, and the sound of trucks passing by on the road late at night, like thunder in his dreams.

  ‘How long have you been here now?’ his uncle asked.

  ‘Ten days.’

  ‘Long enough. Forget about your little farm. Tell me what you’ve seen here.’

  William searched for an answer. He was failing the examination, whatever it was. And he could feel sleep stealing over him again, sullen and irresistible.‘The House,’ he said.

  ‘Ah.’ The old man turned and faced the building — the broken-back roof slumped against the sky, the ivy-covered walls black in the starlight.‘Mrs Griffith tells me you’re not impressed.’

  William could hear the taint of mockery.

  ‘She’s lived here all her life, you know. Ever since she was a little girl, no older than you are now. She was a maid here once. Owners and managers have come and gone, but not her, she always stayed. In the end, in fact, she was the only one left. For a long time she had this place all to herself. So she’s not fond of intruders. She doesn’t even like me. She was furious when I moved in. I’m sure she’s sworn to outlive me, just so she’ll be alone here again.’

  Suddenly he crouched down at William’s side.

  ‘But you now…She’ll be worried about you. She can’t outlive a boy.’ The white face hovered close for a moment, a cryptic blur.‘What do you think?’

  William shivered. He didn’t even understand the question. Above him, the meteors had died and the faintest hint of dawn was paling the east. From far off he could hear the drone of an engine. It was the truck, plunging on into the night. It was the most desolate, lonely sound imaginable.

  ‘Time will tell, I suppose.’ The eagerness in the old man’s voice had faded. He climbed stiffly to his feet. ‘I’ve kept you long enough. You should go back to bed.’

  Instantly, sleep came sweeping over William. He followed his uncle numbly, back around the pool and through the garden, to the doorway yawning black to swallow them. Inside it felt airless, almost warm, and the smell of age and rot assailed William’s nostrils. Then his uncle’s voice came, disembodied in the dark.

  ‘Don’t waste what time you have here, Will. You’re no use to me if you just hide away in the House.’

  The torch was switched on, dazzling, and thrust into William’s hand. His uncle limped up the stairs, the sway of his robe casting great winged shadows ahead of him. On the landing, the little door in the partition was wide open. His uncle bent to go through, then paused, glanced back down.

  ‘Explore. See what there is to see out there. But remember, you’re not to go beyond this door. There’s nothing up here for you.’

  The old man pulled the door shut behind him, and for a moment William heard his slow footsteps climbing higher. Then they receded, and William was left to grope his way back to his bedroom.

  Chapter Eight

  NEXT MORNING IT WAS HARD TO BELIEVE THAT THERE HAD EVER been stars in the heavens, let alone streaks of fire. William gazed out from the front porch and the sky was a crisp blue, the winter sun shining brightly. Had he really stood with the old man, over there by the pool, and talked in the darkness? It all seemed so different now. But there was one thing he remembered clearly. His uncle had told him not to hide away in the House. And it was true, the time had come to venture further afield. The fine weather demanded it, and the whole station was waiting.

  He said nothing to his mother. There was no need. Now that the unpacking was finally complete, she spent most of her af
ternoons on the couch, watching the shadowy TV screen or sleeping, and he was under instruction not to bother her. She wouldn’t even notice he was gone. At least she seemed less irritable, ever since the doctor’s visit. He waited until she had settled down after lunch,then slipped quietly into the hallways. On the way he caught a glimpse of Mrs Griffith gliding through a doorway ahead of him, silent and shrouded in black, and for an instant the night of stars rushed back. But then William was through the front doors and out into the day.

  He turned left from the porch, crossed the garden and came to the eastern wall. The stonework had tumbled outwards in several places, and he climbed over into the grass beyond. Pausing there, he looked up at the knot of gum trees on the hilltop. They would be his first target. He began striding upwards, although the grass was deeper than it looked, brown and brittle tussocks that came up to his waist. He thought of snakes suddenly. And what about the cattle? He couldn’t see any, but what if there were bulls in these paddocks? Would they charge at him? He pushed on towards the trees. But when he reached them, he saw that what he’d thought was the top of the hill was actually only a subsidiary rise. Beyond it was another broad grassy crest.

  Looking back, William realised he was already quite high. The House was below him now, and he could see right across its swayback roof. It was an ugly perspective. Some of the chimneys had collapsed, littering bricks across the slate tiles, and in places the tiles themselves were missing, patched over with sheets of tin held down by rocks. Under this tattered brim, the House looked squat and fat. But he could also see more of the lower hill from here. At its foot wound the line of a creek, and clustered beside the creek was a motley collection of sheds and silos and stockyards — the working heart of the station. A tractor was parked out in the sun, a man in overalls half immersed in its engine. The distant sound of something being hammered wafted up from below.