Love on Forrest Downs

by Sheryl McCorry

  The card reader met me on the front doorstep of her neat home; the surrounding lawn was lush with tropical colour, while shade was provided by two ancient date palms. Here and there among the greenery were pieces of abstract metal art – all so fitting, I thought. The psychic’s appearance – with her soft mauve outfit offset her shiny dark hair – gave the impression of inner peace.

  She led me into her old-world home of high ceilings and comfy lounges. We sat on opposite sides of a low table and she handed me two packs of tarot cards to shuffle, then asked me which pack I wanted my reading from. I watched closely as she placed each card down in front of me. What do they have to say? I wondered.

  Once all the cards were on the table a feeling of calm came over the room. The reader sat quietly for a moment, while my heart raced, then she raised her head to look at my face and smiled as she began to tell me what the cards meant for me.

  She pointed to the first card and said matter-of-factly, ‘You have a new man in your life. He is genuine, and there are not many such people around.’ I was amazed, as this woman had no previous knowledge of my private life. She continued, ‘You will be more secure when married.’ I thought, That’s probably right, as I’m not the shacking-up type.

  In her soft voice, she told me that I had never thought I would be with another man or that I would find real happiness again. And how right that card was: after my last attempt at marriage I had planned on living life my way, and alone. Then the reader said, ‘There will be the signing of legal papers and then a trip over red dirt in a new vehicle.’ Michael and I had already purchased a new LandCruiser, we would be married the following month and we would purchase a new caravan six months later.

  Next she said, ‘There’s a baby, big and healthy.’ By this point I was bursting with excitement, as Tara was due to give birth the following month. I put all my energy into keeping a poker face, though, because I really wanted to see if the reader had anything more to say about Michael or if there was something I needed to prepare for in our future.

  As she read on, the church card came up. Shocked, I asked her what the card represented, as the last time I had seen it an old friend had died six months later. The tarot reader assured me that it ‘has several meanings’, and in this case ‘it is the death of your last marriage’. Well, I thought, that would really tally up, because it’s dead and long gone.

  Towards the end of my session the reader stopped and pointed to the first card from the beginning of the reading, saying, ‘There is a woman connected to this man in your life.’ I immediately thought she must be talking about Julia, Michael’s ex-wife.

  ‘Be warned,’ the reader continued, ‘this woman is troubled.’

  I felt panicky, thinking about what this meant for my future with Michael – would his past relationship cloud our own? I wondered if I’d be able to handle things if a truly ugly situation arose. But then I reminded myself that I was strong now, plus I loved Michael dearly and there was no way anything could change that. This was just a tarot card and I could take what the reader said as an opportunity to be on guard – not to let it affect my life with Michael.

  Then my card reader asked, ‘Has somebody died recently?’ I looked up at her and thought, How do you know? A very dear friend of Leisha and Nigel’s, who had visited us at the farm only weeks earlier, had died suddenly at a very young age. It had shocked us all.

  My tarot reading had now come to an end. I stood and embraced the reader, then left with my mind still somewhere out there. Why I went I don’t really know – out of curiosity, I suppose.

  *

  I went to Leisha’s home on the banks of the cool Preston River to rest for several hours before our afternoon shopping expedition. We returned to Bunbury in the afternoon with young Cohen in tow – his older brother, Brock, was still at school. Cohen’s advice on planning a wedding had us both splitting our sides with laughter.

  Our first stop was the bridal boutique Leisha had visited earlier. On that visit she’d selected three beautiful gowns; she now wanted to try them on again so that I could give her my opinion on style, cut and colour – although I did remind my girl that at the end of the day the big decision was hers. The boutique was in a Federation-style building with decorated cornices and stunning chandeliers that reflected delicate light against the pastel-coloured walls; the scene was perfectly set for any bride-to-be to model her choice of wedding gowns. You couldn’t help but catch a touch of wedding fever at the sight of so much lace and tulle, crystal and pearls.

  Cohen and I were made comfortable on a couch while Leisha tried on the gowns with the help of an assistant and then paraded them for us. In the end she chose an elegant strapless dress of soft gold, with an exquisite front panel encrusted with crystal and pearls. It was stunning, I thought, and suited her natural honey-gold skin tone perfectly.

  We purchased the gown, leaving it behind to have the hem adjusted, with arrangements for it to be collected a week before the wedding. I could tell that my girl was much happier with this wedding gown than the Lisa Ho dress she had bought on our last visit to Bunbury.

  The following week I visited Robby and Tara on the Shiralee. Leaving Robby to tend to the cattle, Tara and I went shopping in Albany, in search of a cot. I had wanted to purchase an old-style cot for their new baby – one that would be safe for a child and that could be left on the back veranda. I had visions of this little child sitting up in the cot and breathing in the crystal-clean air of the Great Southern, fascinated by the little fairy-wrens and golden honeyeaters that floated around the flowing plants surrounding the back veranda. I pictured her laughing as she absorbed the sights and sounds around her, and us in turn enjoying her laughter.

  CHAPTER 18

  Never a dull moment

  Our lives seemed to be cruising along so well, but for some unknown reason my health was suffering again. For weeks I had been feeling washed out and fatigued. I was so debilitated by my constant aches and pains that it was almost impossible to perform even simple household duties like sweeping the floor. I kept wondering why I was finding it so hard to perform the simple everyday chores that had once been so easy. I worried that I wasn’t much help to Michael.

  I made an appointment to visit my counsellor in Busselton, as I was battling a very real fear of running into Terry, and somehow I needed to overcome this. I also felt that until I did I would never be able to be rid of him completely.

  However, with approximately 180 head of grain-fed cattle sold every week from the farm, there wasn’t time to sit around and feel sorry for myself. So I tried to ignore any pain and help Michael muster or move cattle about the farm.

  On a day in early April, once Michael had filled all the grain feeders in the feedlot, we promptly showered, dressed and headed to Albany, some 160 kilometres south of the farm. Parts were needed for the roller mill that crushes the grain for the cattle mix; also, our stores had to be replenished. But the main reason for our trip was to purchase my wedding band. Michael and I had agreed that it would be far too dangerous for him to wear a wedding band. Considering the manual work he does, his safety had to come first – and a ring could get caught in tools or machinery, particularly when he was mixing feed.

  After much humming and hawing, and with the help of the jeweller, Mark, Michael had decided to have a white-gold band set with diamonds made specially as my wedding band, as it would nicely match my beautiful engagement ring. The ring was now ready to collect, so that’s what we were doing.

  After leaving the jeweller’s we decided on tea and scones in a quaint little cafe with a beautiful view over Princess Royal Harbour. I gazed through the huge plate-glass windows, watching silently as the afternoon sunrays danced across the ripples of the incoming tide. Beyond the harbour, wind turbines rotated gently in the breeze.

  Out of the blue Michael asked, ‘Are you happy with the wedding band?’

  ‘Of course I am – it’s special because you selected and designed it,’ I told him, and I could see he
was pleased with himself.

  Before we left the cafe two lovely older ladies, who had been sitting towards the back, came over to me and said they had read both of my books and asked would I sign them next time I was in town. Of course I would, I said. They made arrangements to leave them at the cafe and on my next trip to Albany I did indeed sign the books and left them with management to be collected by the women. I didn’t know them but was pleased they had read the books – although I did feel a little embarrassed about it all!

  *

  The morning after our trip to Albany, Mitchell’s Livestock Transport delivered cattle that had been bought at the Boyanup cattle sale. It had been a long trip for the road-train driver so we offered him a shower, a feed and a cup of tea, and he was able to leave the farm refreshed. No sooner had the road train left than a grain truck arrived loaded with barley for the feedlot cattle. With the big new auger set up to take the grain from truck to silo, it wasn’t long before the grain truck was empty and on its way too. Then Michael was able to get in and mix another seven tonnes of feed for our feedlot cattle. The cattle were probably wondering, ‘Where in the hell is breakfast this morning?’

  I left Michael at the grain silos and rode to the feedlot to commence my morning ritual of riding through every pen of cattle, checking that all was well. While I was at the feedlot Michael started the tractor that operates the huge mix-all to begin mixing the feed. He has been mixing the feedlot rations for forty years, and it has always run like clockwork, but on this particular morning something went wrong – and it could have cost him his life.

  The mix-all machine is like an enormous seven-tonne Mixmaster with razor-sharp blades. With the forks on the tractor Michael lifted the huge one-tonne square bale of hay above the mix-all, having already cut four of the six strings on it, leaving just enough twine around the bale to keep it intact while lifting it above the machine. He then moved to the opposite side of the machine and climbed a ladder to cut the remaining twine around the hay to release it all into the mixer. As Michael climbed the ladder to check that the hay and grain were mixing in correctly together, he slipped and fell towards the ground, banging the right side of his head, shoulder and hip on something hard on the way down, and falling into blackness.

  Some time later, Michael was woken by our little dogs Jess and Bling whimpering and licking his face all over. He opened his eyes to see two worried little faces. Once Jess and Bling sensed that Michael was okay they worked themselves into a frenzy, barking loudly and jumping all over him – which, Michael says, no doubt helped him to regain consciousness!

  When dear Michael arrived late for morning tea looking dishevelled, with blood on the side of his face and matted in his hair, I knew immediately that something had gone terribly wrong.

  ‘Michael, what happened?’ I asked. He still seemed dazed, but he could tell me what had occurred.

  Unable to persuade him to accompany me to the local doctor, I made a phone call instead; I was told that there was a possibility of concussion, and if he didn’t improve he must see his doctor. The thought of what could have happened if Michael had fallen the other way is still enough to make me feel sick to the pit of my stomach. If he had fallen into the mix-all he would never have survived the huge rotating blades that could cut bales of coarse hay and straw into pieces the size of a matchstick. Of course, there is never a dull moment in farming! And luckily Michael suffered no long-term effects.

  *

  In April the weather pattern round Forrest Downs went from hellishly hot to wild and woolly. Mountainous dark cumulonimbus clouds were already rumbling in the distance. Our stock agents, Orrie and Chats, had come by to weigh and draft out 180 head of cattle to go to the butchers in the coming week, and now they left the farm, heading for town before the storm hit.

  Without much thought for our own safety, Michael and I raced about the feedlot trying our best to complete jobs that had to be done. While Michael emptied the mix-all of its feedlot mix, I scrambled up and down the feeders, fighting the wind to close down lids. Michael didn’t want me to do this job, as the feeders became slippery and quite dangerous when wet, but it had to be done to prevent the loss of our cattle feedlot rations. Plus, as I told Michael, ‘You must learn to share the workload around here.’

  Huge bolts of brilliant lightning began to slash across the sky, putting on a light show that left me fearful and shaken. So shaken, in fact, that I was too afraid to scramble down from the tractor to close the farm gates; we did this for added security in case the cattle stampeded due to the storm. The heavens opened up, the raindrops so huge and heavy that in no time a sheet of water covered the barren flats and the driveway looked more like a dirty creek. Twenty minutes later I was wading through great puddles of water in the orchard, where I checked the rain gauge and found that we’d had over 20 millimetres of rain in that short time.

  The storm moved on, but during the night it returned worse than ever and continued for the rest of the night. By morning we found that our worst fears had become a reality: cattle had busted out of feedlot pens and paddocks, and were now bunched up all over the bloody farm. Even the butchers’ cattle that Orrie and Chats had weighed the morning before, and yarded separately – as they were to be trucked to the abattoirs – were running with the bulls.

  Michael and I were feeling just slightly annoyed. ‘Let’s have another mug of tea,’ I suggested, ‘and take a minute to think about it all. Then we can get the job done.’ We both work a hell of a lot better with a pint or two of tea under our belts.

  Michael left the homestead ahead of me, heading for the stockyards, while I took this opportunity to sit on my ‘throne’ (the loo!). I had just started to browse through my latest antique magazine in the comfort of the loo when I heard Michael racing towards the homestead on his motorbike. Then the bellowing started.

  ‘The truck has arrived early – come quick!’ Michael called. ‘We need to muster the bull paddock to get the butchers’ cattle out.’

  I quickly got myself together and joined Michael. Because we work well together – or perhaps it was just that the stars aligned for us on that particular morning – we were able to draft the abattoir cattle away from the bulls with our motorbikes before we even got the remaining cattle into the stockyards. Once the cattle were yarded we loaded them onto the truck, then the road train left immediately for Bunbury. Not long afterwards, Michael and I headed to Albany for Michael’s back treatment.

  On our way back from Albany that afternoon we were hit with another shocker of a storm. Wild wind was accompanied by violent lightning and furious thunder, and the rain was so heavy that it was nearly impossible to see where we were going. Floodways had become raging rivers, fences were wiped out and the five kilometres of gravel road that led to the farm gate were under water. We eventually arrived home to a power blackout that lasted three long days.

  Our lives were so full with working on the farm and the feedlot that with regret I cancelled an engagement that would have seen me speaking to a large group of VIPs at the Yulara Resort at Uluru. I appreciated being invited to do this and would have loved to participate, because of my childhood in the Territory. However, I have found over the years that I always receive some form of compensation ‘from the universe’ for the little things I miss out on in life. This compensation usually takes the form of simple and unpretentious gifts from nature, such as being woken from sleep in the mornings by the raucous laughter of the kookaburras in the old gum trees by the bedroom window, or enjoying smoko on the back veranda while sharing my biscuit crumbs with the splendid fairy-wrens as they flit around in the native undergrowth. Or simply being warned that a change in the weather is on the way by the harsh, far-reaching screech of the red-tailed black cockatoos as they flock to the dead trees in the paddock beyond the homestead.

  One time I woke from a late-afternoon rest on the lounge-room couch to find the room cloaked in darkness. I moved across to the bay windows, pulled the curtains wide open and found, to my ast
onishment, that the sun had drifted to the west and the southern sky was covered in a blue–black cloak, while the homestead and the surrounding area stood in shadow. I was still standing at the window, wondering what to make of this strange weather change, when out of the darkness blazed a brilliant ray of sunlight that illuminated my favourite wandoo tree, standing tall in the farm’s gravel driveway. The sunshine gave the salmon-pink and grey bark of the tree trunk a magical radiance. And at that very moment hundreds of white cockatoos – spooked by cattle in the stockyards – took to the air, screeching as they filled the space between the wandoo tree and the darkness. It was so beautiful that I wished I was able to paint it!

  I believe that seeing the beauty in my surroundings makes living in isolation so much easier. How true the quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson: ‘For everything you have missed, you have gained something else.’

  CHAPTER 19

  A new arrival

  Back at the Shiralee, Robby and Tara woke early one day in April to commence the ritual of checking cows and heifers that were due to calve. The mature cows weren’t the worry, as they had delivered their own calves in the past – it was the thirty young heifers that were to produce their first calves that were a reason for concern. Tara’s mother, Annette, and stepfather, Stephen, had arrived at the Shiralee the day before to be on hand for the birth of Tara’s first child. She and the heifers were all due to give birth around the same time – in fact, by now Tara was ten days past her own due date.

  The weather that morning was pleasantly cool, and the heifers – bar one – were hanging around the hay that had been fed out to the cattle the night before. The lone heifer had moved into the shelter belt of trees for protection and was showing signs of stress. Realising that she needed a helping hand, Robby went towards her with the intention of pushing her towards the cattle yards, where he could help her calve down.