Love on Forrest Downs

by Sheryl McCorry

  Our nice celebrant said, ‘Not just yet, Brock.’

  However, my grandson was not going to be content until he had given his nan to Michael D. He shot back, a little indignantly, ‘But I do give my nan to Michael D!’ And this time Peter was ready to begin to marry us.

  He kept the marriage ritual short and sweet, leaving out all the ‘bulldust’, which was just the way we wanted it. While young Cohen kept track of the wedding band and produced it right on cue, Leisha and Jules witnessed the formalities. In the meantime the caterers had delivered a light spread which, topped off with several cups of tea, would keep us going until 4 p.m., when Leisha and Nigel were to be married.

  There was no champagne or alcoholic drinks – both Michael and I had seen enough of merry and abusive drunks, and didn’t want it around us now, not even to celebrate our own wedding.

  Once the formalities were completed, photographs were taken by the family, and then Jules and Peter left, Peter saying he’d see us again later to marry Leisha and Nigel at the Jamiesons’. The phone rang: it was Robby and Tara with congratulatory messages, wishing they could have been there too.

  Once Michael and I were alone, we changed our clothes so we could wash the dust off the Mercedes, which was to be used to ferry Leisha to her wedding. Helping us to wash the car, Brock asked, ‘Do you feel any different, Nan? I mean, now that you and Michael D are married?’

  ‘Not really, Brock,’ I said. ‘Because I feel loved, happy and content all the time now I’m with Michael. We got married to make a commitment to each other – we’ll be together forever.’

  Both boys chorused, ‘That’s good, Nan.’

  With the Merc washed we had an hour to kill, and we decided to rest. Leisha, who was quite composed, rested as well. There was none of the hysterics or stress sometimes connected to weddings; it was all very peaceful. In no time I felt fresh, rested, and excited to see Leisha dressed in her beautiful wedding gown of the palest gold. She looked really lovely, and even refused my offer of pearl and diamond jewellery to wear on her big day. She didn’t need it – the serenity surrounding her was all she required.

  I got dressed again in my wedding outfit, now doubling as my mother-of-the-bride attire. Michael, Brock and Cohen were smartly suited and ready to roll. Nigel was already at the venue and waiting. So the family piled into the Merc and left immediately for the Jamiesons’ farmhouse.

  After turning into the farm’s tree-lined gravel driveway, Michael followed it around the farmhouse, stopping the car right out front of the limestone steps that led to an elevated green lawn. Not a stone’s throw away from the homestead, the Capel River meandered past, playing a soft melody.

  The boys and I climbed out of the car, leaving Leisha and her new stepdad – who had the honour of giving her away – to make a grand entrance. My girl held tightly to Michael’s arm as he walked her up the steps and over the manicured lawn strewn with fresh rose petals, to Nigel. Sue, Leisha’s maid of honour, and her husband, Brad, who was Nigel’s best man, were waiting with him. Brock and Cohen had run off to investigate the rose gardens; then, remembering their mother’s wedding, they came galloping back to stand close by as the marriage ceremony began.

  As the last of the afternoon sunshine softly faded over the wedding ceremony, the young couple exchanged wedding rings, kissed passionately and were declared husband and wife, which was celebrated with a roar of approval from family and friends. Then the champagne corks popped loudly, crystal glasses clinked and congratulatory hugs and kisses were given to the newlyweds. Photographs were taken, and then it was playtime for my grandsons, who investigated the huge white wedding marquee with its ceiling covered by several hundred helium-filled balloons. What a sight it was!

  Music played, speeches were heard, and a meal was served; guests and family partied all night long. Many of Leisha and Nigel’s friends swagged down in the marquee that night, and they would be there the following morning when the balloons were to be released into the sky – a sign, Leisha says, to her beloved older brother, ‘to wish him a happy birthday, Mum, and tell him that all had gone well that day’.

  Unfortunately, by 8 p.m. on the wedding night my cold had a solid grip on my chest again and I was unable to keep it at bay any longer. Feeling feverish and with my head pounding, I told Michael that I would have to go home. Michael was tired too, so we said our goodbyes and drove slowly home to Forrest Downs as husband and wife.

  Later that night, as I climbed into bed with Michael, I knew that Leisha and I had turned around that date, 24 April, for ourselves. From now on we would remember it as a day of happiness, not sadness. And we needed to do that, because before the weddings I was still mourning that date every year – counting how old Kelly would be and how many years it had been since he’d gone. As any parent who has lost a child will know, there’s not a single day that goes by when you’re not thinking of them. Even though I still have my ups and downs, I don’t think of the awful side of it too much now; I think of the good side. I talk to Kelly and get on with things.

  CHAPTER 21

  A beautiful day

  Michael and I woke early the morning after our wedding to a wonderful beginning for our wedded bliss. The air was cool and crisp, and birds were flitting around the native garden as the sunrise poked its head through the nearby gum trees, shining light and warmth on the homestead walls.

  ‘Good morning, missus,’ were my dear husband’s first words to me that day.

  ‘And a good morning to you, my husband,’ I answered, then I bounced out of bed to make us both a big mug of tea to celebrate our first morning as a real husband and wife. We were happy, despite battling colds.

  As we sat up in bed together sipping on our tea I said to Michael, ‘I think we should call our parents and tell them we’ve tied the knot,’ and Michael agreed. There had been quite a crowd at Leisha and Nigel’s wedding reception and we knew that word of our marriage would soon travel far and wide – we didn’t want anyone else to be the first to tell our parents the good news. So without further delay I made the phone call to my elderly parents.

  When my father answered I said, ‘Michael and I got married yesterday, Dad.’ I went on to explain why we had kept our marriage so quiet and simple. My father became quite emotional, as both my parents loved Michael like a son, and Dad had to hand the phone to Mum so she could pass on their love and congratulations to us both.

  ‘At last you have found someone who is your equal in life,’ Mum told me. ‘Look after each other, love. We love you both.’

  Once Dad regained his composure he said that he and Mum would have loved to have been there for the wedding. This was my fourth marriage, and that figure was not something to boast about – of course, I really would have felt happier if I could have swept some of the others under the rug! But it turned out that this was the only wedding my parents had wanted to be there for, and the first wedding that made them genuinely happy for me. With the others I’m sure they’d simply appeased me, not revealing what they really felt at the time.

  Michael then made the phone call to his mother, Margy. Margy was also very happy for us both and sent her love and best wishes.

  I understood that Michael would dearly have loved to be able to tell his daughter, Carrie, that he had remarried, but due to the difficulties in trying to even talk to her, Michael decided he would tell her at some later date. Much to our distress, she would later receive news of our marriage from an outside source before hearing it from her father. After many attempts to contact Carrie, Michael was eventually able to get through to her on the phone, and he believed that she was happy for us.

  *

  Life on Forrest Downs went on as usual, except the cows were calving down and needed to be watched on and off for any difficulties. A couple of the heifers did end up needing a helping hand with their rather difficult breech births.

  One of them was big, fat and lazy, and I felt she wasn’t putting enough energy into helping herself to calve down. Bloody hell,
girl, please give me a hand, I thought as I tried in vain to pull out her rather heavy calf while she lay on the ground. It was obvious that I would need more than my hands, which were by now covered in slime from the birth, to get the calf out. I got up off the ground and searched the Toyota’s trayback for a piece of rope to tie around the calf’s hooves, knowing I could get a better grip on it that way.

  It crossed my mind that it would be easier if I had a helping hand myself, except Michael was away at the Mount Barker saleyards, and if I didn’t persevere we would not only lose the calf but the heifer too – the knocked-about beast was already on the ground and the job had to be done right there, and quickly, before it was too late. So I stuck my right arm up into the heifer’s womb again, grabbed hold of a hoof, pulled it towards me, tied the rope securely to it and repeated the process with the other hoof. I sat on the ground behind the big heifer, placed my feet against her rear end and pulled the calf for all I was worth.

  I had to dodge several nasty kicks of frustration from the heifer but I would not give up on the calf. Eventually it slipped towards me; I gave another yank on the rope and it landed between my legs. Through sheer exhaustion I burst out laughing, as it wasn’t the most ladylike position to be sitting in!

  Still on the ground and covered in muck, slime and mud, I quickly tore open the birth sac, cleaned the mucus from the little fella’s mouth, untied him and dragged him around in front of the young mother, then let them be. As I drove away I looked in the rear-vision mirror and saw that the heifer was attempting to get up off the ground while checking out her calf, and that made me happy.

  I returned to the homestead to shower and clean up. Later in the day I returned to check on mother and calf and was pleased to see that the calf was suckling, which was a sign that they were both doing well.

  *

  With the weddings over, farm duties called – meaning all paddocks had to be fed hay, and another 160 head of feedlot cattle were waiting to be inoculated and moved along to the feedlot pen. By the time this job was completed, Orrie and Chats had arrived to weigh out 180 head of butchers’ cattle for the coming week. Somewhere in between these jobs the water points were checked and pumps had been cranked over to supply water to the tanks that fed the feedlot cattle.

  It was a blessing that all the paddocks were well watered by the massive dams that Michael had sunk several years earlier; they had never gone dry, he said, not even in a drought year. My only disappointment on the farm run that morning was a deceased stud heifer who had left behind a rather large, and now lonely, calf. The calf was three weeks old and the mother’s death left me wondering what had gone wrong.

  Back at the homestead I found a message waiting from Frances Matthews from the library in Capel, which is roughly halfway between Bunbury and Busselton, saying that the venue for my upcoming speaking event had had to be changed due to the large number of people who had registered their interest. The venue was now to be the community centre. I felt overwhelmed by this news – it was hard to believe that people were still interested in my life in the Kimberley and the many twists and turns it had taken since. I called Leisha to alert her to the change of venue, as Brock and Cohen wanted to be there too, ‘to help Nan sign the books’, they said.

  With Michael by my side, I left Forrest Downs late the following afternoon, called into Boyanup to pick up Leisha and the boys, and continued on to Capel. And I can tell you it is a wonderful feeling to walk into a room full of good, down-to-earth country people who probably live and work on the land like myself. It was also lovely to meet up with Janet Wells, who, with her husband, had managed Meda Station in the Kimberley – they had once been my neighbours on the south side.

  I talked about my life, from the wilderness of Arnhem Land to the outback of the Kimberley, happy to see the interest shown by the many people present and pleased to answer their questions. I was then asked if I’d mind signing books; with my two little assistants giving their nan a helping hand – finding the right page for me to sign – I got stuck into it. It was a lovely evening, and to have the added support of my family and Michael around me only made it better.

  *

  On Mother’s Day 2010 I called Mum to see if she had received the present I had sent up to her a week earlier. Mum loved reading about and studying shipwrecks on the western coast so I had sent up some books on the subject. It worried me that my dear little mum had always had a fascination with the sea when she couldn’t even swim a stroke!

  No sooner had I put the phone down than it rang with Leisha wishing me a happy Mum’s Day and thanking me for giving her a happy childhood and spoiling her. I thought, Isn’t that wonderful, to hear your child’s view on their own childhood? And Michael had presented me with a bottle of my favourite perfume, Chanel Coco, ‘to show I still love you,’ he said.

  I had just made Michael and me a cup of tea when Robby, Tara and beautiful Lilah Marie arrived at the homestead. Robby entered the dining room carrying a rather large blackforest cake for smoko. Of course, I hadn’t forgotten that it was Mum’s Day for both Leisha and Tara as well now. And what a present I was being given: this was my first chance to have a real cuddle of Lilah Marie, as I hadn’t thought it was safe to visit my baby granddaughter while I was sick.

  CHAPTER 22

  Due for a visit

  My parents were due for a visit to Forrest Downs – and not because they were niggling at each other this time. It was more that they needed a break away from home.

  Dad’s heart had caused a few problems of late, and even though surgery could help him, apparently the risk was too great. So Michael and I decided to travel up to Northampton, pick up my parents and drive straight back to Forrest Downs the same day – a round trip of about sixteen hours. This way we wouldn’t lose days in the feedlot, and we also wouldn’t have the worry of my elderly parents travelling alone when Dad wasn’t very well.

  I still learn from and enjoy the stories I hear from my father. On this visit to Forrest Downs, however, he told me about some aspects of his life he had never mentioned before, even though he was now nearly ninety years old. It was a heartbreaking story of betrayal by adults that he had kept buried deep within his soul, and speaking of it still brought tears to his eyes so many years later. Dad hadn’t shared his hurt with anyone until he told me, not even his wife of sixty-five years.

  When my father was just a little boy living in Perth, his parents, Bruce and Lurlyne, divorced. The break-up of the family was when everything began to go wrong for my father.

  As a young man, Dad’s father, Bruce Watson Wallis, had returned from his overseas posting during World War I to work as a night editor for the West Australian newspaper. It was during the long night shifts that Bruce had time on his hands to write long love letters to Lurlyne. After a while, Lurlyne – who was a well-known opera singer around Perth (she had been selected by Dame Nellie Melba to train under her) – accepted Bruce’s proposal and they married. Their union produced several children; Snowy (as Dad was known from a young age) was their only son.

  Dad grew up on the Cottesloe waterfront south of Perth, spending a lot of his time swimming inside the shark net that ran off the jetty, and he often played alone in the nearby sandhills. As a young lad he collected golf balls that overshot the local golf course and was paid tuppence for each ball that was returned to the golfers.

  Dad said that he thought his parents had a reasonably good lifestyle. They were involved in the opera scene, and were always out and about on the town and at shows. They frequently popped up in the social pages of the local newspaper. Lurlyne was in her prime and doing very well as an opera singer. I now understand where Dad’s fondness for certain opera singers comes from, not to mention his good strong singing voice. He said that his mother would teach him to breathe from deep within his belly, and these breathing exercises stood by him later in life when, after a few beers or rums in an outback pub, he was able to belt out a Mario Lanza song in his rich baritone voice. Even today, if he i
s well enough, he’ll belt out a tune around Michael and me, which I love to hear.

  Then Bruce and Lurlyne’s high-flying lifestyle got too much for them; their marriage hit a brick wall and they divorced. In the wash-up Bruce took his son, young Snowy, and Lurlyne took the girls.

  Bruce and Snowy moved into a large two-storey house overlooking the Swan River. Bruce went on to marry a woman who already had a son from a previous marriage; he soon found out that his new bride was either unable to handle another child or didn’t want to. Dad says that he never felt welcome in the house, and always believed he belonged outside. So he felt lost and quite alone from a young age.

  It wasn’t long before Bruce’s new marriage began floundering too, and young Snowy, aged ten, was put into a boys’ home in Perth, believing that his father would collect him within the week. With Snowy out of the way, Bruce moved out of the matrimonial home. He didn’t go back for his son. Dad felt that Bruce must have been a fairly weak, selfish and unfeeling person at that time in his life, though as a girl I knew only kindness from my grandfather.

  Snowy was left behind in the boys’ home, where he was subjected to abuse ‘from bloody hell’, as he told me, dealt out to him by the Catholic priests who ran the home. The home was basically cheap child labour for the Catholic Church. And these children were constantly abused and used by the priests. My father wasn’t the only one who suffered – there was quite a large number of boys living there, from all over the state: white boys, mixed-race boys, and boys sent out from England who were told they had no parents, only to find out otherwise many long years later.

  Snowy and the other boys would be told to spread out in a line across a paddock that was covered in huge tree stumps that had to be dug out with a pick and a jam tin to remove the dirt, so that a fire could be set around and under the stump. This was a common method of clearing stumps from paddocks in those days, although it was usually done by adults, not by half-starved children. Dad said he had to climb down into a cavity under the stump with his pick and jam tin, and scrape the soil away from the roots. On other occasions Snowy and the other boys were told to pick out the bull rushes one by one, while being yelled at, abused and humiliated by the so-called men of God. These were adults who were meant to be instilling Christian values into the children in their charge.