The Road Home

by Palmer, Fiona

  Lara took three deep breaths and watched him drive off. She just wished that she could know what the problem was, and fix it. That they could be close friends, like he was with Noah. Maybe that was it – maybe he didn’t want her here in Noah’s place?

  On her second attempt with the tyre she got it on the trailer, grabbed a few tools she’d probably need and headed back to empty out the auger.

  A pile of grain on the ground later she finally got it running. The kangaroos would get a feast tonight. Lara had lost a couple of hours and was covered in dirt, and now it was stinking hot. She was also bleeding from a knock to her finger and the blood had somehow ended up on her singlet and shorts.

  ‘Lunch might be late today, fellas,’ she said to the dogs, who were lying by the ute. The auger churned grain up and into the feeder trailer. This time she made sure to empty it before turning it off.

  As she drove along the track down the side of the paddock towards the sheep, she was just starting to think she could rescue the rest of the day when the sandy gully approached and the ute wheels began to spin before coming to a stop. Damn it! She’d had no trouble going through here before. Then she remembered that she usually did this paddock last, when the feeder was nearly empty. Today she was doing it the other way around and now knew why Noah did it with a lighter load. She tried to move the ute but the wheels just spun through the sand.

  Eventually she realised that she needed to put it into four-wheel drive. She looked down at the lever and wondered how to operate it. After rooting through the glove box for the owner’s manual, she managed to switch to four-wheel drive and tried again. But it still wouldn’t pull out. The wheels had dug themselves in.

  She buried her face in her hands and tried to think. Should she dig the tyres out? Put planks under them?

  Outside, large, bare paddocks taunted her. It was time to take a walk.

  The dogs chaperoned her all the way back to the shed like guards. Dippa’s head hung low as he struggled with the distance and the heat against his black coat, while Roy still had some bounce in his lean body. It took nearly an hour through the flies and heat and the whole time she couldn’t shake the fear of failure. Lara didn’t waste any time getting the tractor and a chain to tow the ute out. She’d only need to drag it forward a few metres.

  By the time she’d towed the ute out of the sand, taken the tractor back to the shed and walked back to the ute, it was well into the afternoon. The only thing that kept her going was the dogs’ company. They were with her every step of the way.

  When she finally got all the sheep fed, she drove straight back to the shed, unhitched the feeder and headed home. The shower was calling her, so she stripped off her singlet and shorts and was about to turn on the taps when the phone rang.

  ‘Bloody hell. Give a girl a break,’ she said to herself. She picked up the phone. ‘Hello,’ she almost barked.

  ‘Hi, Lara. It’s Trish here. How are you going?’

  ‘Oh, Trish, hello. I’m fine, thanks. How are you?’ She sucked in a breath, trying to conceal the fact that she was anything but fine. Lara was sure Trish didn’t want a blow-by-blow description of just how much her day had sucked.

  ‘Great, love. I’m just calling to invite you over for afternoon tea on Friday. Say about three o’clock? Think you can spare a few minutes for tea and scones?’

  ‘Thanks, Trish. That sounds lovely,’ Lara replied. Maybe she could talk to Trish and let out all her frustrations. Then Jack’s disapproval of her taking time off from the farm flashed through her mind. But another woman’s company sounded like the best remedy at the moment. ‘I’ll be there at three,’ she said.

  ‘Wonderful. I’ll see you then. Bye.’

  ‘See you later.’ Lara hung up and went back to bathroom.

  The hot water was heaven on her sore muscles but hell on her burnt shoulders. She’d forgotten about sunscreen while walking for the tractor. It truly had been a day from hell and she’d barely made it out the other side. How was she going to cope when the real farming stuff happened, like seeding and harvest? This was nothing yet.

  The enormity of it all rained down on her like an avalanche. She slid down the wall of the shower into the bottom of the bath as her tears mingled with the water. Then the tears turned into big, gasping sobs. She was usually so in control, always on top of things … but now it felt like she was scarcely keeping her head above the waterline. Scrunching the face washer in her hands, she wiped her face before circling her arms around her legs and resting her head on her knees. The water fell over her. How could she go from being so sure of herself to feeling so useless?

  After spending far too long in the shower sobbing, which she knew meant more water-carting for her later, she finally turned off the taps and dried herself and the last of her tears. Her head was pounding; she was probably already dehydrated. She put on her nightie and headed to the kitchen, starving but in no mood to cook her dinner.

  When she opened the fridge, there in the middle was a large casserole dish with a note stuck to the outside. Lara lifted it out and read the flowery writing.

  Got to keep up your strength. Love, Marge x

  ‘Oh, Marge! You’re a lifesaver.’ She almost started crying all over again, this time with relief.

  Maybe she’d make it yet, she thought. Her mind drifted to Trent – ‘I’m here if you need’ – and back to Marge. No, she was not alone, even if she often felt like she was. And she was going to be the best bloody farmer she could be. If that meant crying every night from sheer exhaustion and frustration, so be it.

  After her shower and a good feed, Lara felt rejuvenated enough to sit and tackle some book work. She’d already made a start on it, but some nights she got distracted and spent time researching farm things – things she was too afraid to ask Trent or the locals in case she looked incompetent. With seeding coming up, she was reading up on anything related to it – the different techniques, optimum timing before or after rain, suitable fertilisers and chemicals. But tonight was book night. It would be one less thing on her mind to do.

  Lara was through her second cup of coffee when she came across a sum of money she couldn’t account for. She noted it down on a scrap of paper, along with the date and amount. Another coffee later, she’d scratched down two more figures that she couldn’t account for.

  When Noah said he was bad at book work, he’d certainly been right. Most of the figures were entered correctly, but he’d neglected to enter what some of the amounts withdrawn from the account were for. They must have been for fuel or something, Lara mused, as they were quite large sums.

  By midnight her back was aching from the hard wooden chair, her neck was killing her, and her eyes had started to blur, so she declared it a night. Before shutting down her computer, she emailed the amounts unaccounted for to Noah and asked him to see whether he could remember what each one was for. She needed to make sure that she could budget from the money Noah had got from harvest. From that money came all the expenses for the rest of the year; it had to last so she could get her fertiliser and chemical orders right. She didn’t want to have to sell any sheep at this point to bring in extra money. After living off a week-by-week wage, this was going to be a tricky thing to get used to.

  Standing up, Lara stretched her back, took her cup to the sink and turned off all the lights. Outside, the moon cast enough of a glow to illuminate the trees moving in the breeze and the washing she’d forgotten to take off the line. Just one more job that would have to wait till tomorrow.

  19

  JACK shuffled the Farm Weekly magazines and Countryman newspapers into neat piles before putting them back on the small coffee table. He pulled out the vacuum cleaner from the spare room and gave the carpet in the lounge a quick once-over. The great thing about living on his own was that there was not much cleaning up to do. The little place he stayed in was a compact, two-bedroom donger with its own kitchen and laundry. It suited him just fine. His last girlfriend … not so much.

 
Jack touched the photo of Bec and her kids that was stuck on his fridge. He couldn’t wait to see his sister again. He needed someone to talk to and she had a way of reading him so that he didn’t actually have to spell out the uncomfortable stuff. He wondered what she’d think of Lara.

  The clock on the wall chimed out. Realising he was running late, he headed straight for the door, grabbing his hat and sunnies from the small hall table. His boss, Jerry, never fussed, as Jack put in plenty of overtime in the late hours of the day to get certain jobs finished. That’s what he liked about Jerry. He was a fair boss and they had a great system of give and take.

  He spent most of the morning welding up a new trailer they’d been building. Jerry had gone to visit his sons and watch their awards day at the Ag school. By the afternoon, Jack had moved on to carting a load of water and emptying it out into a small hole they’d dug in the back paddock, as Jerry’s place didn’t have a tank or a dam. They lost a lot of water to evaporation but the sheep needed what little feed was left in this paddock, and that meant water too.

  He’d just parked the truck up in the shed when his phone rang, bang on three o’clock. It was Eric, a farmer from up the road.

  ‘Hey, Jacko, just chasing a belt for my old Mazda. Jerry wouldn’t have a spare one I could pinch until I can get a replacement sent out from town?’

  Jack searched through the collection of belts, checking the sizes. Jerry had two Mazda utes, so Eric knew he had half a chance.

  ‘Yep, sure have, mate. I’m done here so I’ll bring it over and help you fit it if ya like.’ Eric didn’t know much about motors and gladly took up the offer. Jack threw the belt in his ute. Jimbo had already jumped on the back, sensing a journey.

  On his way to Eric’s farm, Jack drove past the gateway for Erindale and felt his stomach tie in knots. It made him think of his family’s farm back in the south of New Zealand, which always made him angry. Angry at the loss. Angry at his dreams being destroyed. Angry at how his life turned out, at being the unlucky one – again. He’d loved that place and always imagined running it with his father and brother. He knew every square inch of the lush green hills and knew it was where his heart longed to be. But his heart had been shattered at the ripe age of eighteen. He could remember his dad’s exact words: ‘Son, the farm can’t sustain all of us. You’ll have to find something else.’ Something else? There was nothing else he wanted. His dad had already rung around, finding somewhere to ship him off to. Jack had had two choices: work for a farmer up in the hills, which meant lots of travel, or move into town, as the local shop was hiring. A bloody shop! He’d never felt so let down in his life. His dad had let him believe that he would have a life on the farm, only to send him packing when he’d finished school. Maybe if he’d been warned from the beginning, he would have coped. But when his dad had known how much Jack had loved that place … it was like a knife in the back. It was years ago now, but he still couldn’t forget it.

  He turned down another gravel road and, two minutes later, saw a car off the side of the road, under a large gum tree. As always, Jack broke out in a sweat as terror invaded his body. Damn my weak stomach, he thought as he tried to control the fear coursing through him. He hated what the sight of a bent vehicle did to him, hated the nightmares that followed, and hated that no matter how many times he faced his fear, it never abated. As his pulse thumped painfully in his neck alongside the sickening lump in his throat, he recognised Lara’s Holden. Oh, shit. Noah! This couldn’t happen to his mate again.

  As he got closer, he realised she hadn’t crashed at all. She’d just parked under the tree. The relief was almost instant and he felt the shock leave his chest. He pulled up behind her and couldn’t see Lara in the car. Was she taking a bushwalk? There was nothing but gravel road, a few roadside trees and bushes and then bare paddocks beyond. Something wasn’t adding up. Maybe she’d run out of fuel.

  Jack told Jimbo to stay as he headed to the driver’s-side door. Lara was slumped over the steering wheel. He started to think the worst. He opened her door and saw her body shaking, heard her painful sobs.

  ‘Lara?’ He squatted down and gently put his hand on her shoulder. He could see two wet spots on her denim skirt where her tears had fallen. ‘Are you okay?’ This only caused her to cry even more. Jack watched as grief poured out of her. He brushed his hand over her hair to her back where he began to rub, hoping to soothe her pain. Her hand gripped the steering wheel; it was dry, burnt, callused and had sores across a few knuckles. Not the silky one he’d shaken months ago. He wanted to know what was wrong, but she was in no fit state to talk. He spotted a tissue box up near the back window and stood up to grab it, but felt her hand grasp his. She gripped him tightly.

  ‘I’m not leaving; I’m just going to get you some tissues.’ Carefully he pulled his hand out. ‘Here.’ He helped her to lean back against the seat and handed her the tissues. Tears streaked Lara’s face and the drops clung to the bottom of her jaw and chin. Her eyes were red and swollen. She wiped her face with the tissues.

  Lara inhaled deeply before looking out the window. Tears streaked down her cheeks again before she could utter a word. Jack glanced through the window, wondering what she’d seen that could cause so much agony. All he saw was a gravel road. And then his eyes fixed on the railway crossing. His belly sank like a concrete boot.

  ‘Ah, shit.’ Ahead of Lara was the site of her parents’ accident. Of their death. ‘Oh, Lara. Have you not been back here?’

  She looked at him with such grief that it brought back his own memories of the crash.

  He and Noah had been up early to start seeding. They’d snuck out of the house at five as David and Angela had gone to a party the night before and they hadn’t wanted to wake them. They’d been by the shed, fuelling up the tanker to take to the paddock, when sirens screamed past. Wondering if they could help, they jumped in the ute and followed the dust trail. Jack remembered the adrenaline of horror when he’d seen fragments scattered along the railway line: a door here, metal scraps there, a wheel further out. A train sat stationary on the tracks, some of its grain wagons still intact, others derailed and trickling grain, with twisted metal wedged underneath in places. Debris spread for a hundred metres. They stopped behind the rescue vehicles and ambulance where they saw Wally, the local Elders Insurance man. He was leaning against his ute, his face pale. When he saw Jack and Noah, he turned white.

  Jack and Noah got out of the car, eager to help, but Jack could tell by the wreckage that there wasn’t going to be a good outcome. Both of them had been trying to see whose vehicle it was but all they could gather was that it was a four-wheel drive, judging by the chunky tyre that lay close by. That could be anyone in the district.

  Wally said something to one of the ambulance officers, Terry, and they headed towards Jack and Noah. Jack was about to ask who it was when Wally opened his arms and stopped them from going any further.

  ‘Wally?’ Noah’s voice squeaked out. ‘Who is it?’

  Wally’s bottom lip began to tremble as the old man gripped Noah’s arms and shook his head. ‘Come and sit down, son,’ he urged tenderly.

  He led Noah to the side of the road. Jack followed blindly.

  ‘No survivors?’ Noah said. Fear had crept into his voice.

  Wally tried to make him sit on the side of the gravel road but Noah resisted. Jack could see Noah’s frustration and felt his own burning inside. When Wally and Terry shared a look, Jack suddenly twigged that things were about to get much worse.

  ‘I’m so sorry, Noah. I don’t know how to tell you.’ Wally looked like he was about to lose it, so Terry held Noah’s arm as he broke the news.

  ‘It’s Dave and Angela. It’s your parents, Noah. I’m so sorry.’ Wally’s voice cracked.

  Noah laughed, shocking them. ‘No. It can’t be. They’re still at home, sleeping off the party …’ The colour began to drain from Noah’s face.

  Tears welled in Terry’s eyes. ‘It looks like they’d been coming home from
the party early this morning and didn’t see the train crossing. I’m real sorry, Noah.’

  Jack felt ill. They’d just assumed Dave and Angela had been asleep in bed, safe. Noah gazed towards the crash site in the early morning light and tried to push past Wally and Terry, but they held him tight.

  ‘You don’t want to see them like that, Noah. It won’t do you any good.’ Wally held Noah’s right arm and shoulder as his voice grew strong, determined. That’s when Jack noticed sheets of some sort draped over bits of metal, covering things he didn’t want to think about.

  ‘Just let us get them out and you can see them later,’ Terry said. ‘Just not like this, okay?’

  Jack remembered feeling completely detached, as if he’d been watching a movie. None of it had felt real. But when Noah had fallen to the ground, he’d stepped out of his own shock to hold tight to his friend.

  ‘It can’t be,’ Noah said over and over, his eyes searching Wally and Terry’s faces just in case it was a terrible joke.

  Wally disappeared and came back a minute later with a number plate. Noah snatched it, his fingers tracing the letters and numbers as his tears streamed down his tense jaw. Jack had never felt such sorrow – the agony, the emptiness. He sat in the gravel dust, holding Noah as he wept for his mum and dad, while the rescue crews worked nearby.

  Jack blinked away his own memories of the hideous moment and realised Lara was watching him. To some degree, he thought he knew how she was feeling.

  ‘It’s okay.’ He didn’t know what else to say.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Lara finally managed. ‘I was on my way to Trish’s for afternoon tea.’ It was barely a whisper. She stared ahead at the empty gravel road. It looked like a normal railway crossing with signs on either side and large chunks of blue metal beside the line. ‘It’s hard to believe they died here. There’s no indication … no flowers or crosses …’

  Jack waited, giving her time.