by JH Fletcher
Then something happened to make the situation a hundred times more impossible than it had been before. It was a brawl, pure and simple. Over nothing, or perhaps over everything. In 1994, her uncles Steve and Woody were spraying weeds on Steve’s land. Two of his paddocks adjoined Hedley’s property, and afterwards Hedley swore that spray drift had damaged his young wheat.
‘Lunkheads don’t know what they’re doing,’ Hedley said. What’s more, he told the world as much.
Meek and mild wasn’t in it, as far as Steve was concerned, but say he was a dud farmer and watch out. He went to see Hedley about it, taking Woody to back him up. Not the wisest choice; everyone in the district knew that Woody would have sprayed his uncle’s paddocks with arsenic, given half a chance.
Julia apart, they were the first members of Wilf’s family to cross Hedley’s boundary in thirty years, and they were not carrying roses when they came. No blows were thrown, but people said you could have heard the racket halfway to Kapunda: because the trouble had nothing to do with sprays and damaged crops and everything to do with a half century of animosity, with wrongs real and imagined.
In no time they were dragging it all out into the open once again, how Hedley had cheated Wilf out of his inheritance back in the nineteen-forties.
‘Drop-kicks the bloody lot of you,’ Hedley bawled, diplomatic as ever. ‘If you don’t get off my land, I’ll have the police put you off.’
In the end Steve and Woody stormed out, but the damage was done. The next day Hedley got Herb Jones to send Steve a lawyer’s letter, talking about trespass and assault and a possible claim. The insurance company’s assessor visited the property to sort out what was owing. Before you knew it, the fight had spilled over into the rest of the family, with Michael bad-mouthing Garth, who hadn’t even been there, and Danielle slinging off about Julia and how she was screwing Craig down in Adelaide in the hope of getting something out of it.
Now Julia was raging, too. She grabbed Craig. ‘What are you going to do about it?’ The answer was not much; there was nothing anyone could do. But Julia had had the family in chunks and said so. ‘I am sick and tired of all this Romeo and Juliet crap,’ she kept on repeating. ‘Sick and tired.’
And refused to be comforted, until Craig, too, lost his temper and wanted to know if she was blaming him for what had happened.
‘Of course not. But …’
But. It was enough. Harsh words followed. How she was as bad as the rest. How he hadn’t the guts to stand up for her. On and on. They parted bad friends, and it stuck. When they met next, they were stiff and uncomfortable with each other, both looking for a way back, neither able to find it.
And then it was too late. Julia graduated near the top of her year and was offered a post at a big hospital in Melbourne. She thought and thought about what it meant for her future, for their future. She tried to talk to Craig about it, but they were still as prickly as hell, and Craig was unable, or unwilling, to help.
‘If that’s what you want …’ As though he didn’t give a damn, one way or the other.
Julia was not sure it was what she wanted. Had he tried to talk her out of it, she would probably have turned it down, but he didn’t, and so neither did she. If the relationship really were broken, she told herself, there was no point sacrificing any more of her life to it.
She took the post and packed her suitcase. It was unquestionably the right career move, yet the ashes in her heart remained. The night before she left, they went out for a meal together, to prove to each other and themselves that there was no ill feeling. It was like going to a wake; they were trying to turn a funeral into a fun evening, and it didn’t work. Julia would have given anything to undo what had happened but, by then, there was no chance of that.
They exchanged good wishes for the future, parted with a laugh and a smile, walked briskly away from each other. Into silence. She lay awake all night. A hundred times she told herself to phone him, to bare her heart, to plead, to do whatever it took to break through the wall of misunderstanding that had built up between them.
She thought, As soon as it is light, I shall do it.
Then it was morning. The last morning. She remembered how he had not sided with her when she had needed his support; how he had accused her; how, when she had wanted to discuss the future — their future — he had shown no interest. Bare her heart to him? So he could laugh? So he could wound her even more? She did not phone. She loaded her little car, she drove away from her past, from the endless civil war, from Craig. Into a new life.
Julia, busy at the stove cooking her supper, smiled grimly. A new life. It had certainly been that.
She had been in Melbourne two weeks when she used the gym membership her boss had fixed up for her in the gym he himself used. She’d left her car at the hospital, intending to walk back but, when she was ready to leave, the rain was belting down. She asked the lady in reception if she could organise a taxi.
There were easy chairs, magazines on a side table. While she waited she flipped through what appeared to be a showcase of grotesquely over-developed muscle. Yuk. The woman called her from the desk, saying something that Julia didn’t hear. She went out. A car was waiting before the entrance. She climbed in.
‘Bentley Memorial, please …’
Through the side window she watched the rain-drenched streets, turned to look at the meter. Couldn’t find it. Puzzled, she glanced at the driver. Who sensed her gaze and turned to smile briefly at her.
‘Hi …’
‘Who are you?’
‘I was just leaving. The girl in reception asked if I could give you a lift, since she couldn’t find a taxi for you.’
Julia had never felt more embarrassed. ‘I’m so sorry —’
‘Don’t worry about it.’
But she did. The least she could do was offer him a drink to repay his kindness, but he turned her down, claiming a prior engagement. A cheery wave and he was gone, leaving her with an impression of a man perhaps a little older than herself, a pleasant smile in an ugly but not unattractive face, a shock of dark hair falling forward across his forehead.
Pity, she thought. He seemed nice. I wouldn’t mind a friend.
Her memories of Craig were too recent, too painful, for anything else, but a friend, someone to share a laugh with, would have been nice. Ah well. Better luck next time.
Two days later he phoned. She didn’t know who he was. ‘Aidan Anderson?’
‘I gave you a lift from the gym.’
‘Of course.’ She was surprised how pleased she was to hear from him.
‘I wondered if you’d care to have a drink with me?’
Just like that. She did not fall in love with him in the least, but he was nice, he was fun, he was — yes — sexy. Perhaps the absence of love made her less protective of herself than she had been with Craig. With the inevitable consequences.
‘We shouldn’t be doing this.’
‘Shouldn’t we?’
Doing it, anyway. I must have been lonelier than I realised, Julia thought, while she was still capable of thinking anything — which was not for long.
Afterwards she expected to feel guilt, but did not. Craig and the mid-north were another life. Reality, the future, was here, in Melbourne, with Aidan. He was a stockbroker, which sounded very smart.
‘What exactly do you do?’
‘Make money,’ he told her.
For himself as well as others, or so it seemed. Certainly, there never seemed any shortage of it. He wined and dined her most royally; when she could get away they went to places for the weekend. They flew to Hobart, wasted a few dollars in the casino and, through the windows of the revolving restaurant, watched the lights of the city reflected in the shining waters of the Derwent. It was all very romantic and, a month later, they did the same thing in Brisbane. A month after that, he asked her to marry him.
She still did not love him, was not even in love with him, had told herself repeatedly that the relationship existed onl
y because he had caught her with her guard down, because …
My life is out of control, she told herself. It didn’t matter; it was like going on a binge of cakes and chocolate in the middle of a diet. I’ll get back on it soon and everything will come right. Except that her life must still have been out of control. She heard herself say yes and wondered if she’d taken leave of her senses. One problem: after she’d said yes, it was a bit late to say no.
They got married. She did not hear from Craig, who may not have known. She had invited no-one from her old life, as though the marriage were something to hide. Her parents came, her father walked her down the aisle, everything in accordance with tradition, but they had little to say and their expressions were shut, revealing nothing of their thoughts.
Julia stood before the altar, she answered dutifully in the right places without a single hesitation or mistake, she signed the register with a steady hand. She walked down the aisle as Aidan Anderson’s wife, she smiled gaily at Aidan’s friends, at her parents, who continued to doubt.
They had the reception in the grandest of hotels, spent their honeymoon in the mountains. Walked and walked, while Julia ordered herself, most vehemently, to be happy. The nights were nice and if, at three or four or five o’clock in the morning, doubt sometimes returned, she was determined that it would vanish in time. It must; doubt could be permitted no place.
The fact that she was not in love with her husband did not trouble her; in place of love, there was obsession. She was obsessed by the physical being that was Aidan, by the astute mind, the sexual expertise with which he played upon her body. She thought of him constantly, this man whom she did not love. She wanted to be with him all the time, to feel his hand upon her, his breath upon her, his presence to make her whole. Above all, to make her unmindful of the past. She had constructed him for that purpose and now had become the captive of the image she had created. She did not worry what would happen when her obsession with him faded, because she was certain that it never would.
She was right, and she was wrong. Her obsession did not fade; it disappeared. Four months into the marriage, she woke one morning, looked at Aidan sleeping beside her and saw a stranger. Worse; a man without surprises or excitement, someone who between sunset and morning had come to mean nothing.
She thought, What have I done?
She did not think in terms of making the best of things, of giving it a go, of hanging in and hoping things would work out. All that was out of the question; she had made a mistake and must rectify it as quickly as possible.
Her medical training had made her incisive. It was a Saturday and she was off duty. If there could ever be an ideal time for ending a marriage, this was it. She cooked his normal Saturday breakfast, she sat with him while he worked his way through sausage and eggs, she fetched him a cup of coffee. While he was drinking it, she told him her decision.
‘This isn’t going to work. I think we’d better give it away.’
To begin with, he did not believe her; when eventually he did, he was shattered, groping for words. ‘But … But …’
She was patient, but adamant. No buts. No discussion. The only thing was to finish it. Today.
Still he tried to talk. ‘At least give it a bit more time …’
‘I would, if I thought it would make any difference. It won’t. I should never have agreed to marry you. It’s my fault; I’m really sorry. But dragging things out isn’t going to help.’ She was shocked by her own ruthlessness, but remained convinced it was the only thing to do. ‘If you want a lawyer …’
No, he did not want a lawyer. He did not say it, but all he wanted was to creep away and hide in a hole. From which, hopefully, he would emerge cured. It might have troubled her, had she permitted it.
The best thing, she told herself again, the merciful thing. She had no choice.
A few months later, while she was still trying to reassemble the dreams and fag ends of her life, Craig telephoned her. The divorce — uncontested but still stressful, carrying within its arid flood of documents the taint of failure to add to the self-contempt at her own part in the sorry saga — had just been finalised, her sensibilities as ragged as a toothed blade. She misinterpreted the reason for his call.
Just because Aidan is out of the way, Craig needn’t think he can start pestering me again.
She told him so, in as many words, before he could explain. At once and deservedly, she was on the receiving end of his fury.
‘If you had the courtesy to let me say why I’ve phoned you …’
For the moment she remained unrepentant. ‘What is it, then?’
‘Walter. My father. He’s dead.’
‘Oh no.’ Julia was appalled, contrite. ‘Craig, I’m so sorry. How did it happen?’
‘An accident.’
Harvest was nearly finished. The canola and barley had been reaped long ago, most of the wheat was in as well; the only sections remaining were the marginal lands near the summit of the range. Many farmers would not have sown such ground, but Hedley had dragged good crops out of it in the past and intended to do the same again. ‘Even if you have to use a sickle on it,’ he instructed Walter.
In the world of 1998, hand-held implements were for the museum. Walter was out early, manoeuvring the header along slopes that in places approached thirty degrees. It was a tricky business. The massive machine was not designed for cliff-hanging and there were outcrops of rock that would play merry hell with the blades if he tangled with them. At the beginning of one particularly awkward section, Walter climbed down to take a closer look at the ground he was working.
Somehow — no-one knew how — the header, a piece of equipment larger than a battle tank, rolled back on him as he was crossing behind it. As neighbours said, intending to be kind, he couldn’t have known anything about it.
‘Could have scraped him off the ground with a spoon,’ one of the would-be rescuers told a mate in the pub. ‘Wouldn’t read about it.’
Craig, shaken to his boots when he got the news, had done what instinct demanded. He had phoned Julia because she was family and more than family, because he still cared for her and believed, without the slightest shred of evidence, that she cared for him, too.
His belief burdened the telephone wires with an intolerable weight. Julia knew that in time she would come to resent it, if only because she could not avoid it now, with Walter not yet in his grave.
‘I am so sorry,’ she repeated.
‘The funeral’s tomorrow. I don’t suppose there’s any chance …?’
She was genuine in her sorrow, but travelling a thousand kilometres to attend a funeral was out of the question. As she explained, she had commitments at the hospital.
‘I’ll phone Aunt Kath,’ she offered. ‘As soon as I’ve got a moment. Poor thing! How’s she taking it?’
‘Like you’d expect.’ With a grey but stoic face, a knife-blade to the heart that she concealed, resolutely, from everyone.
38
CRAIG
1987–1998
A job in radio was about as far as you could get from the world of farming, and it took Craig Warren a while to find his feet in his new world.
He’d got into it by chance. An outside broadcast team had visited Craig’s high school when he was in Year Twelve. Three pupils of the dozen who had expressed interest were given the chance to do a mock broadcast, a stint in front of the microphone with the headphones on. Craig had discovered he had a knack for it. He had felt at home with the mike, had enjoyed himself enormously. Must have impressed the broadcast team, as well; within a week he had a phone call from Adelaide inviting him to an interview.
It had come at exactly the right moment. The problem of what to do with his life was foremost in his mind, as it was for most kids in 1987. After the Stock Market crash in October, the problem of youth unemployment was beginning to stir even the cobwebs in Canberra. Farming was the only job that really interested Craig but, with big brother Michael ahead of him in the queue,
there was no chance of that.
Radio was a job out of the ordinary that he might even enjoy, and he jumped at it. He was interviewed by a rat-faced woman who prised every thought and belief out of him without raising a sweat and who, despite appearances, must have been favourably impressed by her would-be recruit. She passed him on to a man in a suit, who gave him five minutes in his panelled office and told him that the station would be in touch.
Two days later the woman phoned to say the job was his if he wanted it. In January of 1988 he moved into the tiny Adelaide unit that he and his mother had found before Christmas. He lay awake half the night, devoured by homesickness and nerves; the next morning caught a bus to the studio, made his number with the security desk and went up to the tenth floor. From which he emerged nine hours later, head whirling, eyes as blind as moles.
After that first day things rapidly got better, although there was little evidence of the glamour that he had expected. Deborah Gold, his boss, had a voice like a buzz saw, her tantrum rating was one and a half to the hour, and no-one let him within a mile of a microphone. The actual broadcasters — Ben Clifford, Susan Johncock, Haydon Harris — were like the night sky: glittering, cold, indescribably remote. To talk to them would have felt like holding a conversation with Sirius. Yet, even on the darkest days, Craig knew he had been right to take the job.
Slowly he began to get the hang of things. After he’d been there a year, he became Deborah’s assistant, the buzz-saw voice quieter now. There were occasions when he accompanied the stars to outside broadcasts. Behind the scenes still, but getting there, he told himself. One day …
