The White Earth

by Andrew McGahan

  But William only heard that the League was lost. All those people on the hillside, all the cars and the campground and the games and ‘Waltzing Matilda’ floating into the sky, all the things that had happened before the shooting started — they were gone. Yet the League had seemed so strong, that afternoon, so right.

  ‘Forget about those people.’ The old man was watching him again, carefully. ‘That isn’t why I called you here. There’s something else I’ve been wondering about. Something that happened up there on the hill, something you said.’

  William felt himself go still.

  ‘That night, I saw you sneaking away during the speeches. Where did you get off to?’

  ‘I … I felt sick. I went for a walk.’

  ‘Sick? Sick with what?’

  ‘I don’t know … I just had to leave.’

  But his uncle was leaning forward now. ‘No, Will. When you came back, just before everything went crazy, you told me you’d seen something. Off in the hills. What was it? What did you see?’

  William pressed himself back into the chair. ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Don’t lie to me, boy.’

  ‘Fire. I saw fire.’

  ‘That’s not what you said.’

  William felt a pit opening within him. He couldn’t say something like this out loud, could he? Not in this hot, windy ruin of a room. It had been a madness that night, some sickness that had taken hold of him and made him see things that weren’t there. To say it out loud could only bring the madness back, make it real. But his uncle’s eyes were startling white in their black circles, irresistible.

  ‘A man. I saw a man on fire.’

  ‘Ah …’ William had expected laughter, a scornful dismissal, but instead the old man only nodded, strangely pleased. ‘And you’ve seen him before?’

  ‘No.’ But he could hide none of the truth now.‘Maybe. Once, from a long way away. Before I came here.’

  ‘And who do you think he is?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Your father?’ The eagerness was awful.‘You know your father was burned. Do you think it was him?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘How can you be sure?’

  But William only shook his head, wide-eyed. That was the worst possibility of all, yet he knew it couldn’t be true, knew it with the certainty of old love. His father would never come to him in such a form, would never force his son to see something so terrible.

  His uncle looked away, studied the rumpled bed thoughtfully. ‘You weren’t asleep? You weren’t dreaming?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘We see a lot of things in dreams.’ He glanced back to William. ‘But I believe you. There’s something about you, Will. Something a little touched. It’s your eyes. They aren’t always looking at what’s in front of you.’ He passed his hand before William’s face, and William felt a dizziness as his eyes followed the long bony fingers waving back and forth.‘But we’re blood, you and me. We must be. We share the same ghosts.’

  The old man straightened, and William felt something pass, a shadow lift.

  ‘Your mother though, that’s a different story. She’s no family of mine. Oh, I know — she’s been busy up here. But you and I both know what that’s really about, don’t we?’

  In a daze, William nodded.

  ‘Yes … but I’m not going to hand this place over to her just because she’s fed me a few meals, am I? She’s not the important one, is she?’

  ‘No,’ echoed William.

  ‘Watch her, Will. She’s your enemy. She’d sell this property in an eye-blink, if it was hers to sell. You don’t want that to happen, do you?’

  William shook his head.

  ‘Good. Mrs Griffith now — she’s your enemy too. That’s why she called my daughter. She’s hoping that if Ruth comes home, then maybe I’ll send you away. Why would I need a nephew if I have my daughter back? She isn’t thinking straight, of course. If I had my daughter back, then I wouldn’t need a housekeeper either, would I?’

  The old man was coughing again.

  ‘Don’t forget it, Will. Two women in this House, and neither of them is on your side. And now there’s a third one on her way. The worst of the lot.’

  Abruptly he was standing, levering himself painfully from the chair. He swayed when he was upright, and William rose to support him.

  ‘The bed,’ his uncle instructed breathlessly, resting a hand hard on William’s shoulder. Together they shuffled across the room, and the old man sat down carefully on the edge of the bed. For a time he gazed away to the curtained windows, pondering some thought. The sky out there looked as dark as if a storm was approaching, and yet it was only dust and smoke from far-off fires.

  ‘Tomorrow, I’m told. She’ll be here tomorrow.’ He swung his legs onto the mattress and sank back against the pillows. ‘Who knows. Maybe I’ll ask her about her dreams too…’

  An amazing thought came to William. ‘Have you seen the burning man?’

  His uncle only smiled, closed his eyes.‘Thanks for coming up, Will. You can send your mother to me, when you get downstairs.’

  William almost asked the question again. Because what if it was true? But the old man looked serene now, ready for sleep. William backed away towards the door.

  His uncle lifted a warning finger. ‘Be careful of my daughter, when you meet her. Be careful of what she says to you. Don’t trust her.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘She’ll pretend to be your friend, that’s why.’

  Chapter Thirty

  RUTH MCIVOR NEVER REALLY CAME HOME FROM BOARDING school. Brisbane was too far away for weekend trips, so she returned to her parents’ house only during the longer holidays. And even then, things weren’t the same. The eager girl John remembered was gone, replaced by a reserved young woman, a stranger. She ignored the farm and spent most of her time in her room, buried in books. In one sense that didn’t bother John — she was doing better than ever, academically. But there was a pang, nevertheless, whenever he saw how little interest she had in anything he said or did. Surely she understood he still loved her, and missed her when she was away? Surely she understood that, in the end, it was all for her benefit?

  Perhaps Dudley was the problem. Inevitably, John and Harriet had brought him home to live with them again, reinstalling his camp bed in the office. Of course, they moved him back to his farm when it was time for Ruth’s visits, but she still knew. The smell of rum, of unwashed clothes and hair, lingered in the house even when Dudley wasn’t there. The same smell must have embedded itself in her skin that night, never to be cleaned away or forgotten. But whatever Ruth thought about the situation, she said not a word. Not to her father anyway.

  In 1962, having graduated from school with first-class results, Ruth enrolled at Queensland University to study law. John was impressed. Other girls her age were taking secretarial work or employment in dress shops, or doing nothing at all, simply waiting for a husband to appear and provide. But not his daughter. When it came time to assume her place at Kuran Station, she would have both a rich estate and a professional career. Even so, he felt some disquiet, for it was not as if Ruth sought her parents’ approval: she simply declared her intentions and demanded their financial support. And she visited home even less frequently from that point on. In quieter moments, it struck John that if everything he was doing really was for Ruth’s benefit, then it was odd that he never talked with her about it. But these concerns always passed. She was growing up, that was all, finding her own way. She would come back to him once Kuran Station was secured, and she realised just how much her father could do for her.

  In the meantime, he was busier than ever. In 1958, in partnership with Dudley, he finally purchased a third property. It was the same size as the first two — a square mile selection of black soil on the Kuran Plains — and close enough for him to manage conveniently. Over the next few years his life consisted of little else but work. There were two thousand acres of prime cultivation t
o be ploughed, planted, tended and harvested. He hired men to help, of course, but still, he was hardly ever home, returning mainly to eat or sleep, or to rest his bad leg, which was still prone to give way when he was tired. But it was all paying off. Bumper season followed bumper season, and in 1962 the partnership purchased another three hundred acres, and then, in 1964, yet another three hundred.

  But if the world seemed to be opening up at last for John, then it seemed to Harriet that it was shrinking down ever more tightly. Her daughter was gone. Her husband was a silent, driven man she barely saw. And her other suitor, from far in the past, had become her major care and burden. For it was also in 1964 that Dudley began to sink into what would become his final illness. His lungs were choked with emphysema, and the instability that had afflicted his mind for so long had developed into dementia. He was bewildered by faces he no longer remembered, by places he no longer recognised, and Harriet had to bathe, clothe and feed him. She knew full well that he should be in hospital. Not that there was any hope of a cure — Dudley was dying, and no hospital would change that. What she resented was that he had to die right in front of her, so slowly, in her own house. But John refused as vehemently as always to send him away.

  So Harriet gave up her community work, withdrew into the invalid’s isolation and sat by Dudley’s bed through the long, last days. Her patient slept restlessly, often crying out from unconsciousness, and she stroked his greasy hair gently, her heart torn and bitter. She would strive to remember the young logger she had once known, and to pretend that it was him she was nursing, but all she really saw was the man who had raped her daughter, and the man who had chained her to this sickroom. There were moments, in fact, when she wished she had never met either Dudley or John. Her life might have been so different. But it was all too late now. Dudley finally passed away in early 1966, slipping off in his sleep. He was fifty-two years old. The war had inflicted wounds upon him that were mortal, sure enough, but it had taken him over twenty years to die.

  The funeral was held in Powell. There was only a small crowd, including five middle-aged ex-servicemen from the Eighth Division. John would have liked to ask them about Dudley’s war experiences, but at the wake the veterans gathered in a circle, looking inwards sombrely, and he found himself too ashamed somehow to intrude. An even more disconcerting presence was Dudley’s aunt. She was a hale farming woman in her sixties, and seemed keenly interested to hear about her nephew. John tried to appear helpful, but knew that he sounded guarded and hostile. Nevertheless, when she asked to see Dudley’s farm, he could not refuse. After the wake he drove her out and showed her over the house. It was obvious that it had been empty for some time, and when the aunt, surprised, inquired about Dudley’s last years, John had to admit that he had lived with himself and Harriet.

  So the suspicions were sown. In the following weeks, John heard rumours that the aunt was looking into her nephew’s affairs. And when she did indeed challenge Dudley’s will, he was enraged but not surprised. It only confirmed that he had been right all along. At least with Dudley dead, and his glaring disabilities buried with him, John was confident the situation could be saved. And so it proved. The McIvors won the court case, and were even commended by the magistrate for their solicitude. What they lost was the battle of public opinion, for the dispute made headlines in the Powell newspaper. The aunt’s lawyer had not spared John and his wife, accusing them of manipulating a vulnerable ex-serviceman for their own ends, and of virtually imprisoning him in their house,away from the advice and succour of his family. And despite the verdict, somehow it was this uglier version that the townsfolk came to accept.

  The gossip didn’t much concern John. He had the land, secure in his own name at last, and as fate would have it, the following few years were golden. In 1967 he purchased another twelve hundred acres, bringing his ownership of Kuran Plains land to just on four thousand acres all told. He was now one of the largest grain-growers in the area. He was also one of the most unpopular. This was only partly because of the suspicions about Dudley. John was a demanding employer, paying poorly for long hours. He refused to serve on any grain boards or committees, as was expected of a farmer of his stature. He belonged to no church or club, and gave nothing to charity. Indeed, he was so mean, his neighbours muttered, that despite his riches he still lived in the tiny, dilapidated cottage he had bought in the 1940s. He hadn’t even bothered to install proper plumbing.

  All John knew was that, at long last, Kuran Station was within his sights. So let his neighbours sneer. They would still be digging away at their little blocks long after he was gone. Harriet, however, did not find things so simple. She had hoped that Dudley’s passing would allow her to engage with the world again, but the rumours and innuendo that spread about town, and amongst her neighbours, humiliated her profoundly. It wasn’t just the inference that they had exploited Dudley, or robbed him, or perhaps (who knew?) even hastened his end with neglect and alcohol. What was worse were the old stories that emerged about the three of them, from long ago, before the war. There were whispered speculations — exactly what had happened between the two men and Harriet? Exactly who had been whose lover? Did something scandalous lie at the root of it all?

  In the years following Dudley’s death, she abandoned her old pastimes. Her friends discovered a distance and distrust in her, and gradually they dropped away. John was no support. Her sorrows were an irrelevance to him. He expected nothing from her any more, beyond running the house and cooking his meals. (Not even physical contact — that had ceased, once and for all, the moment Dudley crept into their daughter’s bed.) Indeed, Harriet was becoming the strange, reclusive wife of an even stranger man, her life hidden in his shadow. And looming over both of them was a darkness from the distant past — the name McIvor itself. The memory of John’s father still lived in older minds, and so did the odium that went along with it. This sentiment was resurgent, now that John was becoming a large landowner in his own right. It was too much like history repeating itself.

  In late 1968, after yet another splendid wheat harvest, and with a sense of momentous fulfilment, John began making discreet inquiries about purchasing Kuran Station. The owner was open to discussion. Maybe next year, the agent said, maybe the year after. But he had a warning. John knew, didn’t he, that the old mansion on the property was a wreck? That it was abandoned, in fact, apart from an old caretaker woman, and should probably be demolished? He didn’t expect to live in it, did he? John suppressed his impatience, and said nothing. The House would keep. And a small delay meant nothing when the great goal was so very close, after so many years.

  But then, intruding on his satisfaction and anticipation, the dreams returned. The same burning figure, standing watchful and silent. What was it? Who was it? Oliver Fisher? A phantom, that was all. But John found, even after waking from the nightmares, that a fear still lingered. Often he was compelled to get out of bed and search the house, or to stand on the back verandah and stare into the night, looking for something or someone that might be there. One day, while he was in Brisbane on business, he saw a telescope in the window of a nautical antique shop. Almost without volition, he walked in and bought the instrument. He took it home and set it up on his back verandah. Late at night he would use it to sweep the plains, straining at the eyepiece. And every time he found a light, he waited breathlessly to see if it shimmered and moved and took shape. It was madness, he knew. There was nothing to see out there but the lights of cars and houses. And yet he felt helpless to stop himself.

  Then there was Ruth. She had completed her studies, and was working in Brisbane, and that should have been pleasing. And yet it wasn’t. With every visit home she seemed stranger, her ideas more alien, the distance between father and daughter more unbridgeable. For years John had ignored the warning signs as best he could, trusting that time, and the culmination of his own plans, would set everything right between them. But then in 1969, just as the negotiations for Kuran Station were firming up, Ruth returned
for what would be her last visit.

  She brought a man with her, and announced that he was her husband.

  Chapter Thirty-one

  ON THE DAY OF RUTH’S ARRIVAL, WILLIAM AWOKE LATE TO FIND that the House had ceased to run before the weather. There were no more creaks or groans from the timbers, no shudder in the floorboards — everything seemed hushed. He rose and ventured out onto the porch. A baleful sun glared through smoke that hung motionless over the mountains, and across the plains the haze lay like a flat sheet. Some time during the night, the westerly must have frittered away and died. Now nothing moved anywhere. Heat prickled on William’s neck, and he felt a quiet thrill of dismay. They were becalmed. It was as if the House had passed through the outer gales of some great barren cyclone, and finally reached the eye, a place of deathly stillness.

  In William’s ear, the ache pulsed anew.

  He spent the morning roaming restlessly about the halls. It was so silent that there might have been no one else in the building. His mother was hidden away, sunk in gloom, and his uncle was alone in the white room, brooding privately upon the approach of his daughter. Finally, oppressed by this lonely waiting, William resolved to stand guard upon the porch. It seemed that he at least should be there when Ruth arrived. To greet her and, if indeed she was a threat, to show that he was ready to defend his territory. He donned his captain’s hat, seeking reassurance from the authority of the metal badge. Then he set up a chair, deep in the shade of the verandah, and watched.

  But no one came. Great gleaming black horseflies circled about the garden. The wind had driven them off in previous days, but here in the doldrums they had crawled forth, hungry and clinging. One of them alighted on William’s ear and he batted it away. It kept coming back, crawling about on his lobe as if it wanted to burrow inside the canal. It was disgusting. And it seemed to bring with it the scent of rotting that William remembered from the rally — faintly revolting, but impossible to pinpoint. Time crept by. William sprawled in the chair, staring out at the shimmers of heat on the plains. He felt he was alone in the hot focus of nowhere, a netherworld to which the wind had driven him and then, satisfied with itself, abandoned him. His head sank to his chest.