Araluen

by Judy Nunn

  ‘And what exactly do you expect me to do about it?’

  ‘Give me money.’ She stared back at him, unashamed. ‘Quite a lot of money.’

  Penelope wondered whether she should feign a fainting attack but she didn't think the girl would be impressed. It would be more effective to slap the brazen little slut hard across the face, she thought, and her palm itched. But of course she controlled herself.

  ‘What does my son have to say about this?’ Franklin asked.

  ‘Oh, Terry's denying it's his, of course.’

  Penelope felt a surge of relief. ‘Well, he's probably right,’ she said. ‘You certainly can't prove it is.’

  ‘Oh, it's his all right,’ the undaunted. ‘He knows it's his. But he's scared. Not of me, not of the kid.’ She turned again to Franklin. ‘It's you he's scared of.’ The girl dropped a touch of her bravado. ‘If it wasn't for you, Mr Ross, your son would admit this kid was his and he'd set me up, look after me. Terry's not mean -he's just scared.’ The girl was being reasonable now, and Franklin recognised it. ‘But it's not fair to shut me out just because he's scared. I'll leave him alone. I don't want to wreck his life.’ She raised her chin and the bravado was back. ‘But it's going to cost money to have this kid and somebody has to fork out, so I thought it might just as well be you.’

  ‘Good heavens, girl.’ Penelope couldn't resist interrupting. ‘If Terry isn't going to acknowledge the child as his own, why on earth should we?’

  The girl barely glanced at her. ‘Because you know I'm right, don't you, Mr Ross?’ The challenge was once again in her eyes but Franklin recognised something else. A sadness. ‘You know your son's as weak as piss.’

  What a pity the girl hadn't come on the scene a little earlier, Franklin thought. She was good daughter-in-law material. If Terry had been forced to marry this one instead of Vonnie the mouse, she might have toughened him up a little. Franklin despaired of Terry. The girl was right. He was as weak as piss.

  ‘How much did you have in mind?’ he asked.

  ‘Franklin!’ Penelope was shocked, but the look he flashed her brooked no argument so she kept quiet.

  ‘I personally think you'd be far wiser the child,’ he continued. ‘I could arrange — ’

  That's really up to me to decide, isn't it?’

  Franklin's eyes warned the girl that she was coming close to overstepping the mark. ‘Whatever your decision,’ he said coldly, ‘there will be only one payment and that is for your silence. We do not recognise bastards in this family.’

  She nodded and Franklin took out his cheque-book. ‘I shall not expect to see you again,’ he said as he wrote out the cheque. ‘Ever.’ She watched as he ripped it from the book. Yes, you're a tough old bugger, she thought. Everything that Terry said you were. He handed it to her. ‘Agreed?’

  She looked at the cheque. Fifty thousand dollars. She'd been hoping she might get ten. ‘Agreed,’ she said.

  ‘I'm sending you to Mandinulla,’ Franklin told Terry that night. ‘You and Veronica and the baby. You'll work on the property for one year and when you return I expect to see a bit of common sense and maturity.’

  Terry stood in front of his father's huge wooden desk in the study feeling like a ten-year-old. Franklin always did that to him. He always made him feel like a child.

  As a child, though, Terry could remember, he'd always been able to get around the old man with his charm and his daredevil ways. Now he received nothing but scorn and contempt from his father, particulary since James’ death. Whenever Franklin spoke of his youngest son it was with respect. ‘A young man of honour and integrity’, Terry had heard him say. Is that what one had to do to win the old man's respect, he wondered, go out and get killed in some bloody stupid war? Jesus Christ, the old bastard had had little enough respect for James before he'd died. He'd paid the boy no attention at all.

  Poor James, Terry often thought, all he ever wanted was his father's respect and he had to die to get it. But then he'd had his mother's love, hadn't he? Terry had always been envious of the love Penelope showered on James. He wondered whether that was why he vied so strongly for his father's affection. Probably. There was a strange sense of competition between Franklin and Penelope. God only knew what they were competing for – power, a hold over each other? – but it was bound to transfer itself to their children.

  Not that it had ever interfered with the relationship between James and Terry. Despite their age difference, they'd been good friends and allies and Terry missed his brother desperately.

  Maybe if he was here now, Terry thought, staring at the wooden desk top, he could help take a bit of the pressure off. The old man sure was mad about something. What could it be? he wondered. And why the hell is he sending me to Mandinulla? Jesus Christ, what am I going to do there? he thought, it's a million miles from anywhere.

  ‘And while you're working on the property,’ Franklin continued, ‘you might work on giving me another grandchild. A legitimate one this time.’

  Oh. Terry finally understood.

  ‘Yes,’ Franklin said. ‘She's been here.’

  ‘Julia.’ Terry was starting to feel a little ill.

  ‘She didn't give her name and I didn't ask. She's been paid off – we won't see her again.’ Franklin leaned back in his chair. ‘I'm warning you, Terry, this is your last chance. You want to be my son? You want to inherit the Ross empire? Then be a man. Stop drinking your life away, and stop bedding every woman you see. For Christ's sake, grow up, boy!’

  At first Mandinulla looked as though it might be the answer. Terry tried hard to adjust to the culture shock. He tried to concentrate on the work involved, and there was plenty of it. The patrol and repair of fencing alone was a continuous job on a station the size of Mandinulla.

  The days took care of themselves as his body tanned and toughened and he came to enjoy the physical labour. But the evenings were interminable. Terry desperately missed his racy Sydney set.

  At least there was alcohol. Mandinulla Station was kept well-stocked. Indeed it was a rare night when Terry didn't go to bed at least halfway inebriated. But it was morose drinking - there was no longer the companionship and the good times he'd so enjoyed in Sydney.

  The odd beer on a hot afternoon was the limit of Never-Never's alcohol consumption. Terry had asked him to dinner several times hoping for a soulmate, but he soon concluded that getting drunk was no fun when the other bloke gazed at you over the rim of a coffee mug for hours.

  As for Vonnie, it was painful to see her bravely attempting to sip at a glass of wine to keep him company when he knew she loathed the very smell of it.

  Baby Michael was a welcome distraction to start with but one couldn't fill in hour after hour of endless evenings playing with a fourteen-month-old-infant. And anyway, Vonnie would quietly whisk Michael off to bed when she saw the alcohol taking over. It wasn't that she was frightened. In the drink, Terry was either loving or maudlin, never violent, but he was clumsy and uncoordinated and not wise company for a baby.

  The weekly excursions to nearby Quilpie or Charleville became inevitable. They were both tough outback towns with tough outback pubs and both were half a day's drive from the homestead.

  Terry would take off at midday on Friday and he wouldn't reappear till Sunday afternoon. Then he would work hard during the week, get drunk – but not hopelessly so – each evening and simply bide his time till next weekend's binge.

  Never-Never recognised that Terry was an alcoholic and at first he felt sorry for the wife. He made a habit of calling on Vonnie during the weekends to see if there was anything he could do for her – until he realised that there wasn't. The woman wasn't lonely at all. She was more than content with her baby and her radio and her books – in fact, she seemed at her happiest left alone. Left alone to live in her own world, somewhere – wherever that was.

  Never-Never transferred his feelings of pity to Terry. Poor, desperate bastard. He wondered if Franklin Ross knew what a hopeless case his son was. Pr
obably not. Although Franklin Ross was a tough, good, honest boss, when it came to personal relationships the man couldn't see the wood for the trees.

  Penelope might know, the exquisite Penelope, although frankly Never-Never also doubted her powers of perception. He had long since become aware of Penelope's self-obsession.

  As a young man, Never-Never had made it a policy not to get involved in other people's problems and he was certainly getting too old now to start changing his ways. It wasn't any of his business and, alcoholic or not, Terry pulled his weight around the place. When Franklin rang for regular reports on his son's progress, Never-Never said, ‘Fine. He's doing fine.’

  Christmas came and went. The cook baked a turkey and a plum pudding and Vonnie made mince pies and they ate their absurdly impractical meal in the evening to escape the worst of the searing heat. They pulled their Christmas bonbons and gave each other presents but, to Terry, the evening was as interminable as any other. He'd hoped they might make a trip to Sydney for the festive season and the New Year but Franklin was unyielding. ‘I said one year and I meant one year, Terry. You're to stay at Mandinulla until next October.’

  Franklin and Penelope were off to spend a fortnight in Acapulco with Sam and Lucy-Mae Crockett and there was no way that Franklin was going to let Terry loose in Sydney with his decadent friends in his absence. ‘Never-Never tells me you're doing well,’ he relented a little. ‘Keep up the good work – only nine months to go.’

  And then it was the 31st of December. New Year's Eve. The thought of New Year's Eve at Mandinulla was more than Terry could bear. At midday he got in the car and headed for Quilpie.

  He pushed open the doors to the main bar, walked straight up to Ginger the barmaid and smiled his most engaging smile. ‘Want to see in the new year with me?’

  ‘Oh, hello, Terry, we haven't seen you for a while.’ Like most women, Ginger found Terry Ross fatally attractive but she was no fool. He was not the sort you allowed yourself to fall in love with. Nevertheless she hadn't been able to resist sleeping with him twice.

  Ginger was a divorcee of about thirty and an unusual kind of woman to find in the outback. She was soft and plumpish, with very fair skin: the worst complexion to weather the heat. She wore loose long-sleeved shirts and huge hats whenever she stepped outside. She was quick to correct people when they assumed that her head of thick coppery hair was how she'd got her name. ‘Oh, no,’ she'd say, ‘my mum was mad about Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. I'm glad I wasn't a boy – isn't Fred an awful name?’

  ‘Gee, give a girl some notice, why don't you?’ she grinned at Terry. ‘Actually the boss is having a party out the back for the regulars starting around nine. He's putting on a few kegs and after that you buy your grog – want to come along?’

  ‘Sure. I guess I qualify as a regular, don't I?’

  Too right you do. See you in a couple of hours.’

  Terry bought a bottle of scotch and booked into the small boarding house over the road which specialised in lodgings for itinerant workers. It was where he usually shacked up for the nights he spent in town when he was too drunk to drive.

  He'd consumed most of the bottle of scotch by the time he arrived at the party and he was already looking a little the worse for wear.

  ‘Take it easy, love, or you'll never make midnight,’ Ginger laughed as she linked her arm in his.

  It was a wild party, the kind one expected of the outback. Predominantly male. Unattached women stuck together to start with, then left early or latched onto a man of their choice so that they wouldn't be fair game later in the evening. Not that doing so solved the problem in every case. The night was hot, the grog was plentiful, the men were lonely and inevitably there was the odd young stud who wanted to fight for some other man's woman.

  Terry was fairly safe with Ginger. She was held in high regard by the men of Quilpie. Besides, if they offended her, she could well have them barred from the pub, Mack the owner being particularly protective of his favourite barmaid.

  There were jealous mutterings from some about the rich young bastard from the city walking in and taking over the hot favourite but it was more or less to be expected anyway. The rich always got the pick of the crop.

  All in all, Terry was accepted by the locals. Many of the townspeople wanted to curry favour with the heir to Mandinulla and Terry Ross was always very free with his money.

  Tonight was no exception. Well before the kegs had run out, Terry was buying spirits for everyone.

  ‘My shout,’ he insisted, trying to sound like a bushie and feeling he was one of them. ‘Crack open another four bottles, Mack.’

  Terry was having the time of his life. And, when midnight came and they sang ‘Auld Lang Syne', everyone in the pub was his best friend. At two o'clock in the morning he could barely walk.

  ‘Come on,’ Ginger said, fed up, slinging an arm over his shoulder. ‘I'm going to put you to bed.’ Ginger had had her fair share of alcohol too and it was making her randy. Damn it, she thought, she should have partnered up with young Scottie as she'd originally intended. Terry was going to be useless. But she could hardly leave him to pass out.

  ‘Bed. Good idea.’ He leered at her.

  They managed to stumble across the street to the boarding house and Ginger fumbled in his pocket for the key.

  ‘Yeah, good idea.’ Terry leered again and started undoing his trousers. ‘Let's do it here in the street. Give the town something to look at.’

  She managed to get him into his bedroom and he slumped onto the bed.

  ‘Shoes off, there's the boy, you'll be all right in the morning.’ Hell, Ginger cursed, how many drunks had she played mother to over the years?

  But something in Terry clicked and he pushed her away. ‘Don't you talk down to me,’ he mumbled, staggering to his feet. ‘I'm not a child.’ He pressed her up against the wall. ‘I’m not a child.’ He took her hand and thrust it inside his open trousers, rubbing it against his flaccid penis. ‘You feel that,’ he said. ‘You feel that. I'm not a child.’

  ‘Oh, cut it out, Terry, for God's sake.’ Ginger was starting to get cross. He was ruining her New Year's Eve and his breath was foul.

  ‘Grab a hold of that baby,’ he slobbered, grinding her hand into his crotch. ‘Grab a hold of that and make it hard.’

  ‘I said cut it out! She wrenched her hand away and struck him as forcefully as she could across the face. For a moment he seemed to come to his senses. He looked at her, a mixture of shock and self-disgust in his eyes.

  ‘I'm sorry, Terry,’ she said, ‘but you asked for it.’

  And then his face crumpled and he bent over and threw up. Copiously. All over the wall. All over the floor.

  ‘Oh, shit,’ Ginger cursed. She tried to dodge out of the way but vomit poured out of him all over her bare legs and into her open sandals. ‘Oh, shit. You pig.’

  Terry dropped to his knees, still vomiting. ‘You filthy pig!’ Ginger yelled and she ran out of the room.

  Surprisingly enough, he didn't pass out. He lost his balance and fell forward into his vomit but he cracked his head against the wall as he did and it shocked him vaguely into his senses. At least enough to be aware of what had happened, enough to be aware of his mortification.

  He had to get out of this room, he told himself, out of town, back to Mandinulla. If he woke up in his own bed he might be able to pretend tonight had never happened. If he woke up in his own vomit it would be the end of him.

  As he dragged himself to his feet, Terry even had the presence of mind to pull out a couple of crumpled twenty dollar notes from his pocket. He threw them on the bed for the landlady who would have to clean up the mess in the morning.

  In the car, his mind started to focus quite clearly as the hot night air rushed through the open windows. The movement of the air gave the impression it was cooler even though it still had to be all of thirty degrees. Perhaps if he drove faster, he thought, it would get cooler still. He pressed down on the accelerator.

>   He drove for hours and as he drove, he thought. What was wrong with his life? Why did his father treat him like a child? Where was Julia? He missed her. Julia was the only one he'd ever cared for. And she'd loved him. But she'd been right. He was as weak as piss. That's what she'd told him.

  Christ, it was hot. Faster. Go faster, he thought, that'll cool you down. And he pressed the accelerator to the floor.

  It was late in the afternoon of New Year's Day, 1968, that the body of Terence George Franklin Ross was discovered in the mangled wreck of his new Ford Mustang barely five miles from Mandinulla. The vehicle had obviously been driven off the road at high speed and had tumbled a hundred yards down the gully to land in the creek below. It was the creek where his mother had taught him to catch yabbies as a child.

  Terry was buried in the Ross mausoleum, the third and last of the children of Franklin and Penelope Ross. As Franklin watched the funeral procession, he saw the disintegration of his dreams. Where was the dynasty he'd planned? An eighteen-month-old grandson alone remained to carry the Franklin Ross name into the future.

  After the grief, however, came the anger. He'd been cheated. But he was damned if he'd give in. His dream would survive. And Franklin swore that he would remain alive and strong and powerful until young Michael Terence Franklin Ross was of an age to inherit his empire.

  BOOK FOUR

  The

  New Generation

  (1977 - 1984)

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Michael

  MICHAEL ROSS WAS AN engaging child. Physically, he was very like his father, with a ready grin and a cheeky charm. But Franklin was heartened to observe that the boy had far more ambition than his father had ever possessed. At ten, Michael had not only a vivid imagination and a spirit of adventure, but he had a fierce desire to achieve. The boy’s a winner, Franklin thought with pride and satisfaction.