Sunset Ridge

by Nicole Alexander

  At the time Lily did not know how true that thought was, for they were yet to receive the news from France.

  ‘Hmm, I best be on my feet come spring, lest I become redundant and that new manager takes over.’

  ‘Never.’ Mr Cambridge was proving to be well worth the money. Married with young children, his only concern was one of education. ‘You know that our former governess is employed at the Banyan Post Office? I was thinking of contacting her and asking Miss Waites if she would consider taking up her old position.’

  Folding the newspaper, G.W. rested it on his lap. ‘You never liked her.’

  ‘I never liked her modernist ideas towards education, nor her loose morals.’

  ‘Did they ever find Rodger?’ G.W. asked.

  ‘No, he seems to have disappeared, into the English countryside, no doubt.’

  ‘He didn’t seem like the type to shirk his duty, not having gone all the way over there.’

  ‘Well, you may be right.’ Lily poured water from the glass pitcher on the table and took a sip. ‘It’s only a rumour. But they were engaged, so if he is eventually declared legally dead it’s possible that Miss Waites could apply to the courts to be a beneficiary of his estate. It appears Rodger’s mother was not without funds, and his only brother was killed in 1916.’

  ‘I doubt she would do such a thing. Still, a moneyed governess.’ G.W. raised an eyebrow.

  Lily giggled. ‘Heaven forbid, society is changing.’ It was good to laugh again. After the shocking end to last year she had truly believed that they would never recover from it. If it were possible to die from grief then surely she had come close to being a candidate. The most miraculous thing about the terrible year of 1917, however, was that G.W. saved her. Despite Mr Taylor’s death and the extent of their marital problems, both had paled into insignificance with the earth-shattering telegram that had arrived from the War Department. That single typed line, we regret to inform you, would haunt Lily for all the days of her life.

  And yet they had endured; mainly because G.W. constantly reminded her of what they still had, of what they could have in the future. Above all she would never forget that moment on Christmas Day when she had sat beside G.W. as he had re-written their sons’ names in the Harrow bible. Forgiveness did exist, but at what cost? Beside her, G.W.’s gaze was directed to the line of trees frilling the horizon. ‘Let’s have a pot of tea, shall we, and a slice of Cook’s treacle cake?’ Lily suggested.

  G.W. inhaled sharply and reached for his walking stick. The newspaper slipped to the ground.

  ‘My dear, whatever is the matter?’ She followed her husband’s gaze out across the paddock. The sky was cloudless, the air so crisp that Lily imagined she could almost count the white cockatoos nestling in a tree down near the stables.

  G.W. limped to the edge of the veranda and then stumbled down the wooden stairs, dragging his useless left foot.

  ‘Wait, G.W., where are you going?’ Lily uncrossed her legs. She had been in the saddle on and off for three hours already and was not in the mood for one of her husband’s impromptu walks about the house paddock. With a distinct lack of enthusiasm she pushed herself out of the chair and leaned against the timber pillar. She looked to the horizon and saw a thin plume of dust silhouetted against the sky. It grew in size until a wagon appeared through the tree line. Bouncing over the rutted track, it barely slowed on entering the house paddock. Lily could hear the creak of the wagon’s wheels and, as it rushed towards them, she lifted a trembling hand to her mouth as the cockatoos near the stable took flight. Then, finally, the unmistakable shape of the driver came into focus.

  G.W. clutched at the back gate. ‘It’s my boys come home to us, Lily. It’s them riding in from the scrub.’

  The wagon came to a screeching halt at the homestead gate, and Lily watched as Dave threw down the reins and jumped to the ground. Her youngest was tanned and fit, tall and older, much older, but he was alive as his letter had promised. G.W. dropped the walking stick and reached for him.

  ‘My boy, my boy, my boy,’ G.W. sobbed as they embraced.

  Overcome, Lily lifted a hand to her youngest son’s cheek. It was then she noticed it. There was no light in his eyes.

  ‘Mother. Father.’ He walked to the rear of the dray and tugged at the canvas cover. ‘I’ve brought Luther home.’

  Lily grasped her husband’s arm. After everything the family had endured over the preceding years, she doubted she could face another calamity. By her side G.W. stiffened. This was the moment they had both lived and breathed for, the return of their sons. ‘What’s wrong with him, Dave?’

  Her youngest rolled his lips together and gave a self-conscious smile. ‘He’s drunk.’

  Banyan, south-west Queensland, Australia

  February 2000

  For a moment Madeleine didn’t believe the two women. Yet here they were corroborating each other. ‘Are you telling me Luther survived the war?’

  The old woman nodded.

  ‘It’s not possible,’ she argued. ‘My mother said Thaddeus was killed on the battlefield on the Western Front and Luther died a few months later in an English hospital from wounds he received in the same attack.’

  The old woman raised a muscle where an eyebrow once would have been. ‘That’s right about Thaddeus. But as for Luther – well, the first bit’s true enough, eh, Sonia?’

  ‘And how would you know?’ Madeleine asked, her voice tight.

  The old woman gave a cackle. ‘Because I married him and cared for him until his death from those same wounds in 1921. My girl, I’m your great-aunt, Corally Shaw.’

  In the heat of the kitchen, with the stench of the bull mouse that could be heard rustling in the papers at her feet, Madeleine could only think of one phrase, the phrase Sonia had used: white trash. She picked up a dusty magazine and fanned her face as she stared blankly at the birdlike creature opposite her. In the background the screen door screeched and the weather-beaten woman from the museum walked in.

  ‘This is Sue-Ellen Evans, Corally’s granddaughter,’ Sonia introduced tersely.

  ‘Didn’t you give us a right shock showing up like you did the other day at the museum? I should have seen the similarities, but I’ve only ever seen pictures of the Harrows, and with you lot never coming into the village, well, how’s a woman to be sure?’ Sue-Ellen shut the kitchen door and switched on the refrigerated airconditioning unit built into the wall. ‘Gran doesn’t like the cool, she ain’t used to it.’

  The refreshing breeze wafted around the room. ‘You were married to my great-uncle?’ Madeleine asked Corally, looking to Sonia for clarification.

  ‘It’s as she says,’ replied Sonia.

  Corally pointed irritably to a plastic container near the Aga. ‘Well, go on, Sue-Ellen, go fetch it for the girl.’

  Sue-Ellen did as she was told, sitting the thick scrapbook from the container on the kitchen table.

  ‘Go on, girl, have a look.’

  Wiping the perspiration from her face, Madeleine opened the book. There, on the inside page, was a charcoal sketch of Luther Harrow.

  ‘Handsome man, wasn’t he? That was the last sketch Dave ever did of a soldier,’ Corally explained. ‘Luther said he drew hundreds during the war. The men wanted them to send home to their loved ones, but of course every time he drew a soldier they were usually killed. Dave took it real hard, as if the drawings were bad luck. Luther said he begged to have his portrait done because he didn’t expect to survive the war.’ Corally sounded wistful. ‘In a way he didn’t.’

  ‘Why didn’t my mother tell me about any of this?’ Madeleine asked.

  Corally lifted her birdlike hands. ‘Jude probably doesn’t know the truth. Luther and me, well, we were an embarrassment to the Harrows – individually and together. Me because I wasn’t good enough and Luther because he wasn’t the returning hero that the family expect
ed. They’d already lost Thaddeus and they couldn’t understand why Luther couldn’t get his act together and live a normal life on his return from the war. Old G.W. never got over how changed Luther was. He died a few years after Luther passed and that proved too much for Lily. They say she only stayed on for your grandfather’s sake. Dave was a changed man as well and he had his own share of problems after the war ended, but they ran the place together until her health got the better of her and she moved to Brisbane.’ Corally blew her nose, then tucked the tissue up the sleeve of her blouse. ‘I think that after so much tragedy your grandfather chose the best bits to pass on to your mother. The Harrows were a real proud family back then – stuck-up you’d call them nowadays. It was pretty obvious that Luther wasn’t right in the head when he came back from the war and when he left Sunset Ridge for good and then took up with me.’

  The old woman rolled her eyes. ‘Well, how shocking,’ she said dramatically. ‘Lily visited Luther a few months before he died, but G.W. stayed away. He was mightily embarrassed by the whole thing. Your grandfather,’ the woman cleared her throat, ‘probably thought it best if everyone thought Luther died over in France.’ She looked blankly at Madeleine. ‘In a way, he did.’

  Madeleine digested this. ‘But what happened to Luther?’

  Corally nestled her hands in her lap. ‘It’s difficult to explain. It’s like Luther left part of his mind over there. Everyone said he drank too much and that was what killed him but I knew it was his nerves – that and the shrapnel they couldn’t remove from his spine. He drank to numb the pain. Except the real pain was in his head. Shell-shock. Every so often Luther would go walkabout and I would find him naked under a tree trying to wash himself clean with dirt. He told me in the weeks before he died that Thaddeus and his mate Harold Lawrence were blown to bits in front of him. They were trying to protect Dave by huddling around him, but in doing so they made themselves a bigger target for the Germans. When they were hit Thaddeus and Harold were splattered all over Luther and Dave.’

  Madeleine felt as if she’d been winded. Sue-Ellen sat cross-legged in front of her grandmother.

  ‘I never knew that.’ Sonia was white.

  ‘Me neither,’ Sue-Ellen said.

  Corally tapped the hospital trolley impatiently. ‘Luther knew he was different when he returned home. It didn’t matter what Dave said, there wasn’t any way he was going to stay out at Sunset Ridge. It was too quiet, he reckoned, and his parents’ attempts to act as if everything was normal only increased his anxiety. He used to imagine the Germans were approaching across a red ridge, readying to clamber over the homestead fence at dawn. During those hallucinations he’d lie in wait on the homestead veranda with a loaded rifle. Eventually Dave realised that his brother would end up shooting someone, so he convinced their parents that Luther needed to leave the property for a while until he settled down. That’s when he moved to the boarding house where I was living. And that’s how Dave got friendly again with Miss Waites.’

  Banyan, south-west Queensland, Australia

  July 1918

  Dave sat on the bed, waiting for the shaking to stop. Sometimes he wished he had agreed with Luther’s improbable suggestion of staying in France. The long, languid summer days at Madame Chessy’s farmhouse returned regularly to remind him of how the world could have been were it not for those who chose to ruin it. Often he would picture those heady days amid the bloody fighting: his oldest brother playing cricket, the lush green of the willows framing Thaddeus as he whacked the cloth ball skywards, Trip and Fall stumbling in pursuit or Luther and Harold bartering goods for the sketches he drew. Most of all he thought of the young French girl, Lisette, and the kiss he had so desperately yearned for and never received.

  In the end Dave did not sketch her, nor had they returned to the farmhouse. He would have liked to visit Madame Chessy once more, to talk with someone older and wiser who understood the magnitude of loss. At the time Dave thought such a conversation, fragmented by Lisette’s translation, may have helped his transition back to his former life. He realised now how simplistic this thought had been. It was only when they were on the troop ship during the long sea voyage home to Australia that Dave was clear-headed enough to understand the enormity of the change within him. The sense of loss he felt at the death of his brother, of his friends, of his innocence, of his very perception of the world weighed on him heavily. To survive he would have to bury his feelings, disguise his night horrors and never talk of what he had witnessed. What sane person would believe what he had seen?

  What Dave hadn’t been able to hide were his fanatical tendencies. In his old room at Sunset Ridge he slept under his bed, his great coat hanging in clear view on the knob of his bedroom door. He would not stand with his back towards a window, nor go near the music room. In the mornings he was compelled to rake the ground circumnavigating the homestead fence. Left undisturbed he would gather the dirt and leaves, sweeping until an arc of tidiness surrounded his home or his father stilled him with a firm hand.

  ‘Throw me a smoke, will you, Dave?’

  Luther was sitting in a chair in the corner of the room, his shirtless torso lathered in sweat. Dave tossed his brother a blanket, concerned he would get a chill now the fit had passed, and then lit two cigarettes and passed one to Luther. ‘I don’t like leaving you here, Luther. I know you’ve made your decision but it just doesn’t seem right.’

  Luther took a drag of the cigarette as the last tremors subsided from his body. When they were in hospital together his brother had not seemed so distressed, in fact Luther had joked and laughed once the operations were finally over and even made a habit of making passes at some of the better-looking English nurses. He had not been considered a model patient, a label that most of the other convalescing Australian soldiers had aspired to.

  ‘I’ll be right. A few months to clear my head is all I need.’

  ‘Sure, Luther, sure,’ Dave agreed. It seemed to Dave that during his recovery Luther managed to contain the demons within, his body focusing on healing the flesh while the horrors witnessed began to erode his mind. If anything, the hallucinations were getting worse. Dave never shared his. In the pit of his stomach Dave doubted if Luther would ever see Sunset Ridge again. It was as his brother explained that fateful night in the trench before they had gone into battle that last time. He didn’t belong at Sunset Ridge and he never would, especially now they knew what lay in store. The doctors advised against further operations. The shrapnel lodged in Luther’s back could not be removed safely and there was every possibility it would gradually make its way into his spine. The outlook was dim.

  ‘There is some advantage to slowly losing your mind, Dave. If I end up not being able to walk I won’t know about it.’ His hand snaked down to rub at the imaginary tomahawk lost in the filth of Flanders.

  ‘That won’t happen,’ Dave said adamantly.

  Luther stubbed the cigarette out on the timber floor. ‘Losing my mind or not being able to walk? Actually, mate, I think they’re both a done deal.’ He ground the cigarette stub with the heel of his boot until the gritty remains were scattered across the boards. ‘I blame that damn dog for saving me. How a mutt could drag a man from the German lines,’ Luther lit another cigarette, ‘it beggars belief.’

  Dave rubbed subconsciously at his shoulder. ‘I remember looking up into those dark eyes and thanking God.’ The war dog had found them at night. Dave recalled reaching for the animal as it snuffled among the remains of Thaddeus and Harold. ‘Take Luther,’ he had whispered as if the dog could understand. ‘Take my brother first,’ he had pleaded. The dog had given him a cautious lick and then, with his great bony head beneath his stomach, had turned Dave onto his back. The pain alone nearly killed him. Then there was only the sound of his body being dragged through dirt, past men who watched their steady progress with unseeing eyes, the great animal’s pants coming heavily with each dogged step. ‘Go back!’ Dave ha
d cried once they reached the lip of the crater, the pain keeping him lucid. ‘Go back for Luther.’ The dog had pushed him into the shell-hole and Dave had tumbled into the dark.

  ‘What will you do, Dave?’

  He shook away the images in his head. ‘Me? I’m going to stay at Sunset Ridge. Father’s past running it.’

  ‘I always knew you’d go back,’ Luther responded.

  ‘I thought of doing other things.’

  Luther nodded. They both knew that Dave would not leave Sunset Ridge again. ‘It will be left to you when the time comes.’

  ‘You could come back and help me,’ Dave suggested. ‘Father’s already asking my opinion, although Mother has some strong ideas regarding livestock improvement. Hell, I’m still getting over how much she’s changed: riding astride in pants, commenting on bloodlines and telling the manager what to do.’

  Luther gave a short laugh. ‘I don’t think she’ll forgive me for what I did to her piano.’

  Dave agreed. Luther had taken to the German-made piano with an axe on the third night back at Sunset Ridge.

  ‘You’ll handle it, Dave.’

  ‘Yeah, sure.’ Dave lit another cigarette. ‘What are you thinking about?’

  ‘She’s here, you know. I saw her,’ Luther said softly.

  ‘Who?’ Dave asked his brother.

  ‘Corally.’

  Dave knew that it was true. The girl was ensconced at the far end of the hallway. Dave had been aware of someone peering at them from behind a partially open door when he had helped Luther move in yesterday and it took little time to discover who the other occupants of the boarding house were.

  ‘Miss Waites is here too,’ Luther told him.

  ‘I know.’ Although Dave would have preferred to blend into the blue haze of the scrub he missed so much in France, the Harrow boys were treated as returning heroes and it mattered little whether they were interested in the local goings on within the village or not, there was always a kind soul willing to share every skirret of information.