by Tony Parsons
With time, Rod and Emily had two daughters, Dianne and Sarah. Everything seemed to be going well for the family. They had plenty of money and the girls were booked into a Sydney boarding school from a young age, where they were when David and Catriona had their row about the schooling of their own children.
Catriona and Emily had maintained a friendly relationship from their triumphant days in the show ring. Emily had bought a couple of bulls from David. She had many times looked wistfully at Ajana and Starana because, despite her exceptional knowledge of equine matters, Emily was not having much success in the thoroughbred business. This did not matter greatly while Rod’s business was thriving. The cattle more or less paid for the property’s expenses and the thoroughbreds were a hobby she loved.
Then things started to go wrong for the Mathesons. First of all a snake killed Emily’s prized stallion and shortly afterwards she lost two good mares. But the worst was yet to come. Unbeknown to Emily, Rod had lost a great deal of money – more money, in fact, than he possessed. Rod Matheson had been an inveterate gambler for most of his life, but up until now he had always been lucky. He had managed to hide this fact from Emily though he had had to prevaricate when she suggested they buy a stallion to replace the horse they had lost. ‘We’ll have a good look around, darling,’ he said.
When the police came and told Emily that her husband had been found dead in his car, Emily could not believe it. She very soon had to because, apart from the property, still in her name, a few of her own mares and a small truck, she lost everything they owned together. Emily had very little money of her own and so the two girls had to be taken out of boarding school, the fees now being out of the question. Dianne and Sarah were instead enrolled in the local high school in Scone.
Catriona had heard all of this from Emily herself, and had invited the older woman to come and visit her. Thus it was that a day or two after ‘the row’, Emily phoned and said she and the girls would like to come to High Peaks.
David was genuinely sorry to hear of Emily’s misfortune because he liked her as a person, and respected her as a horsewoman. David had a lot of time for the people he described as ‘professionals’ in their fields and he considered Emily to be a real professional. And Emily just loved horses.
By the time Emily came to High Peaks she had put her grief behind her and had accepted what had happened. She knew she had to make the best of things. The two little girls, one blonde and one brunette, were pretty young misses but still a little bewildered by what had happened to their father and their life. One moment they had been at boarding school and the next they were hauled out and brought back home. Of greater magnitude was the fact that they had lost their father. It was not easy to come to terms with a shock of that dimension.
Catriona was especially concerned by what had happened to Emily and her girls because of her own belief in the superiority of a boarding-school education. To lose such an education half-way through would have to be traumatic in the extreme. The scenario the Mathesons faced assumed even greater intensity for Catriona because of the current difference of opinion on this very matter between herself and David.
Catriona had asked David if there was any way they could help Emily and her two girls. ‘I don’t know, Cat. I’m thinking about it,’ he said, lost in thought.
David and Catriona had travelled to Sydney for Rod Matheson’s funeral and Catriona had visited Emily and talked to her on the phone, but this was the family’s first visit to High Peaks since Rod’s suicide. When the Mathesons arrived at High Peaks Catriona and Emily embraced, and Catriona hugged Dianne and Sarah in turn. David received a kiss from all three. Emily Matheson admired and respected David MacLeod – in fact there was no man Emily respected more than David. The two girls were a little in awe of him because he was so big and because they had heard he owned so many places. By comparison their own property seemed minuscule. Of course, when they had had money, the size of the property hadn’t mattered because Daddy had a successful business in Sydney. Mummy could breed her horses and cattle and it didn’t matter whether they made money or not because Daddy had an endless supply of money. Not that they discussed money with their mother; having money was simply an accepted part of their life.
Over afternoon tea Catriona and Emily discussed several topics while David talked to Dianne and Sarah. He could see that they were still in shock and it was difficult to know how to handle them.
After they had eaten a little he took them outside and down to where he kept his working horses. Ajana and her daughter, Starana, were in an adjoining paddock and he called them up and gave them oats from a bucket, so the girls could pat the majestic mares.
Presently, Catriona and Emily joined them. Emily looked wistfully at the two mares. ‘I could do with an Ajana or Starana right now,’ she said. ‘It would make all the difference in the world. If I could produce one big winner that could be all I need.’
‘Well now, Ajana’s days are nearly over and Starana won’t breed, Emily. I’ve had several tests done and short of spending a small fortune for perhaps no result, there wasn’t much more I could do. I wasn’t interested in thoroughbreds at that stage but we’re going to stand Starana’s brother, Western Star, up on Strath Fillan and maybe try and breed a few thoroughbreds. After what Starana and her sister did Catriona is all fired up,’ David said.
‘If you’re not doing anything with Starana would you sell her to me, David?’ Emily asked.
‘What on earth for, Emily? The mare isn’t a breeder,’ David exclaimed.
‘Maybe something could be done, and right now I need a miracle, David.’
David looked at Emily, then at her two little girls and finally at Catriona. ‘I won’t sell her to you, Emily. You can take the mare but when she is old I want you to bring her back here because I want to bury her alongside her mother,’ David said gruffly.
‘Oh, David, that is sweet of you. I can assure you that Starana will be very well looked after, won’t she, girls?’
The girls hardly knew how to answer. It seemed that David had just given their mother a mare that had won races. They knew that because their mother talked racehorses all the time. Daddy had been mad on racehorses and had talked about breeding top horses to win the Golden Slipper and even the Melbourne Cup. But so far their horses had only won country races.
‘You can put her in one of our floats and take her away with you, Emily. Someone can go over and pick up the float,’ David said. ‘I’ll leave you with Catriona as I have to scoot over to Glen Morrison.’
Catriona watched her husband walk away from them. She was very touched by what he had just done. But, she reflected, David was always likely to come up with something unexpected.
‘That was a very sweet thing you did for Emily,’ Catriona said, when he came into the house that evening.
‘Was it? The mare won’t breed so Emily won’t do any good with her,’ he said.
‘That’s not the point, David, and I think you know it. Emily and the girls are down on their luck right now and they need a helping hand or two. Horses are Emily’s life. They always have been. She’ll devote all her energies into trying to get Starana in foal and that will take her mind off what has happened,’ Catriona said.
‘I reckoned on that,’ David said.
David’s benevolence towards Emily provoked a far different reaction from Dougal. He had always had a soft spot for Starana and asked his father several times to give him the horse, but each time David had refused. The last time he had been fairly short with his son.
‘Why can’t you give her to me for my own horse?’ Dougal asked.
‘What for? To look at? She’s not a good-footed mare in the hills and there are horses here that would leave her for dead,’ David said, frustrated with his eldest child.
‘She won races, Dad. Grandpa Angus said her sire is by an old Star Kingdom horse,’ Dougal persisted.
‘I know all about that, Dougal. I spent money on her and we could spend a heap more and not ge
t her in foal. It’s not as if we don’t have Ajana mares. We do.’
‘But not by a thoroughbred sire,’ Dougal said.
‘You can have a bigger horse any old time and one that won’t let you down in the hills but not Starana,’ David said flatly.
When Dougal saw Starana being loaded onto the single horse float, he could not believe his eyes. As Emily’s utility and the float disappeared down the road he ran to his mother. ‘Where are they taking Starana?’ he asked anxiously.
‘Your father has given her to Mrs Matheson, Dougal. The Mathesons are very down right now after the tragedy of Rod Matheson’s death. It was a very sweet thing to do. They needed a lift,’ Catriona said.
‘Dad gave them Starana? How could he? He wouldn’t let me have her and now he’s given her to a stranger! The only thing I’ve asked of him and he wouldn’t let me have her. He knew how much she meant to me – Starana was my friend,’ Dougal said, his eyes filling with tears.
‘The Mathesons are hardly strangers, Dougal. Emily is one of my oldest friends. Starana won’t go in foal. You have to be careful of shy breeders,’ Catriona said, trying to calm Dougal down.
‘We don’t know that she’s a shy breeder, Mum. Dad could have spent more money on her. He could afford it. Starana was the only horse I really liked. Dad could have let me have her.’
‘Starana is going to a very good home, Dougal. She’ll be rugged and fed. I know how well Emily looks after her horses. I used to ride against her. And the two girls are horse-mad too. Emily had to bring them home from boarding school because she can no longer afford to keep them there. You’ll be away at school and Dianne and Sarah will be home,’ Catriona tried to reason with him.
But Dougal was inconsolable. The loss of Starana was a defining moment in the boy’s life because from that day he knew what he was going to be: a vet. He was going to be a top vet, so good that people would come from all over the country to ask him about horse problems. Moreover, he was going to be a vet because that would mean he could do exactly as he liked and not have to do what his father wanted. When he was a top vet he would be able to solve horse problems such as Starana’s inability to have a foal.
Dougal thought about this new-found resolution as he lay in bed, devastated and angry. He was to go back to school the next day and he resolved that he would do everything possible to get himself to vet school. There was another boy at school who had told him that he wanted to be a vet and Dougal decided he would talk more to this boy. He would show his father that he didn’t need him or his land to make a living – he would do it by his own efforts, and be the maker of his own success.
Meanwhile, Catriona was still ill at ease because David was, for the very first time in their married life, noticeably cool towards her. She couldn’t say that he was sulking – David never sulked – because of her insistence that all three children attend boarding school. She had heard via Kate that David was at a loss to understand how a mother could put children’s attendance at boarding school over the desirability of having them remain at home. Because he was now a wealthy man, David considered that his children didn’t need the benefit of a boarding-school education and whatever advantages that did or didn’t bring. He simply wanted his children to stay at home. David thought that Catriona’s point of view was based on latent snobby values continually reinforced by her parents. Angus and Jane considered it unthinkable that the children not attend boarding school; it was a fait accompli and therefore not a matter for discussion. Catriona knew that it was up to her to break the ice. She had to do something to bring David back to her. David was her life.
Once a week Catriona went over to Inverlochy to have lunch with her parents and to visit Stuart and Carol. She usually went on her own because David was always too busy for long lunches. He would go for dinner, but daylight hours were too valuable.
Jane Campbell was now reading more books than had been her practice in the past. The smart young married set could all talk about art and books and Jane had been feeling a bit peeved because she couldn’t contribute. Even her knowledge of art was only elementary, and the young women who had been to university knew far more than she did. So Jane now had a very presentable library of both fiction and non-fiction, and now and then Catriona would borrow a book or two. On this occasion she went to her mother’s shelves and began looking idly at the titles on the spines. One title caught her eye, and she drew it from the shelf. It was a book devoted to love and marriage, by an author called Stopes, and the inscription inside told her that it had been a present to her mother from her grandmother. There were a few words scribbled above Grandmother Ellen’s name: I hope this helps, Jane. Catriona put the book between two others and slipped them into her bag. It was probably too old-fashioned for today’s climate, but might make interesting reading.
Catriona read the book through without David’s knowledge. He was still remarkably cool towards her – civil, but cool. There was still no lovemaking. David would collapse into bed and fall asleep almost immediately. Of course, he rose at dawn and never stopped, and he was an older man these days, but that had not stopped him from being a loving man before their argument.
A couple of days later when David announced he would be in for lunch and to make a phonecall to Victoria, Catriona knew what she had to do. Before she put on the lunch she spent longer than usual freshening up. She put on a pretty checked shirt and oyster-grey denim jeans she knew David particularly liked and set about preparing lunch.
David enjoyed steak and salad when he had lunch at home so she gave him the best piece of meat she could find and cooked it the way he liked it, just a wee bit rare. It was obvious to her that he enjoyed it. He made his phonecall straight after the meal, so Catriona knew she had to act quickly before he left. It was time to tell if what she had read in her mother’s book actually worked.
When David gulped down the last of his tea he took his cup and plate to the sink and then turned to leave. Catriona was standing in the doorway, unbuttoning her shirt. She dropped the shirt at her feet, unhooked her bra, and tossed it to the floor. Her sandals were kicked to one side and the jeans came down leaving Catriona attired in only her knickers. She slipped out of her knickers and stood facing her husband with nothing on at all. Even in her middle age, Catriona had an inviting figure preserved by exercise and a lifetime of being outdoors.
‘Cat, what do you think you’re doing? Mum or Kate could walk in any moment – you know what they’re like’ David said, flustered.
Catriona didn’t answer but simply held out her hand. David had been looking for a way to end the rift between them and now she had shown him. To refuse her now would drive them further apart. And it was very difficult for a man to refuse his wife when she took her clothes off in the middle of the day.
He walked towards her and bent to pick up her clothes. If his mother or Kate walked in, what would they think?
‘Leave them, David,’ Catriona said, beckoning him with her eyes as she took his hand. ‘I need you.’
There, she had said it. She needed him.
David looked at her and smiled. It was the first time he had smiled at her for days.
She led him into their bedroom and began unbuttoning his shirt. Any coolness David felt towards her melted away – for good.
When Catriona took the books back to Inverlochy Jane asked her if she had enjoyed them. ‘Oh, very much so, Mother. Very interesting.’
Stopes might be considered very old hat but she had solved Catriona’s problem. The solution had been so very simple but the execution of her advice had to be done right. Catriona felt she had done it exactly right.
Chapter Eight
Emily Matheson was in unfamiliar territory. Never before had she had to worry about money because her father and then her husband had ladled it out with sufficient generosity to provide Emily with a very comfortable lifestyle. Financial security had been one of the major factors in Emily’s decision to marry Rod Matheson in the first place. Rod had money, and his
ambitions included breeding a Melbourne Cup winner.
Emily’s family, who had been on the land for generations, had been far from happy about their daughter’s proposal to marry the Sydney money man. Rod Matheson was more than twenty years her senior to begin with, and Emily could have married any one of several younger men from good grazier families. But not one of those younger men had Rod Matheson’s money, nor his ambition to build a great thoroughbred stud that would produce classic winners, all of which was most appealing to Emily. What Rod Matheson got in Emily was a good-looking younger woman who was a very good horsewoman and able to look after Rod’s horses while he took care of his business interests in Sydney. Their union was an arrangement that suited them both for an array of reasons.
What Emily didn’t know about her husband was that he was an inveterate gambler. Rod Matheson gambled on shares and property and also, of course, on the horses. He was a big-time punter and he could afford to be when everything was going his way. But when things started to go wrong, Rod’s judgement also went awry. One of his last desperate acts was to take money from a joint account he had set up for Emily and himself and bet the lot on a horse he had been told was a sure thing. When this ‘sure thing’ was beaten into fourth place, Rod Matheson knew that he was finished.
When Emily assessed her available funds she discovered that the joint account she shared with her husband held only $500. Over $50 000 had been withdrawn just prior to Rod’s suicide. This was a huge blow because apart from this money there was only a little over $6000 in the main account used to pay bills relating to the property. The funeral expenses still had to be paid, there was an account owing to the vet and the shire rates were due. Apart from these funds there was $5000 in each of the girls’ accounts. Rod had set up these accounts after a big win on the track. The only other money Emily could lay her hands on was about $1000 in cash, which Rod had posted to her the week he died. A brief note that accompanied the money stated that the cash might come in handy. There was no other explanation for its delivery.
