‘Ti-Christophe would love it. He might feel apprehensive about the spiders and snakes.’
‘No, he wouldn’t, there was nothing could make him flinch. He knew he’d be ganged up on when, you know … He knew it would be two against one. But he went.’
There was a long silence, very long, while a violent movie replayed itself behind their closed eyes.
‘I will never forgive myself,’ Ti-Loup said. ‘I watched it happen. I did nothing.’
‘Can you stop punishing yourself?’
‘That’s what I’m trying to do on Christopher Farm. You could help if you stayed here. Don’t you want to?’
‘Yes,’ Cap admitted. ‘But I can’t give up my whole world for a farm. I fell in love with other things too, especially paintings, especially fine cabinetry, especially anything made in France before 1800.’
‘I blame my mother for that. You crossed over.’
‘Not as thoroughly as you did. Me, I want to keep a foot in both worlds. But you … Look at you. You sleep in a loft and you’re a butcher.’
‘I’m a local joke as a butcher because this is supposed to be dairy land, it’s been dairy for the last hundred years. Brendan O’Sullivan grew up on this very dairy farm and his father went broke and killed himself. The bank took over the farm and Brendan had to work in the pub. He worked hard and he owns the pub now, and his offsider, his son Sean, helps me out two days a week. See that shack on the slope above the house? Built in 1900 by Brendan’s grandfather. That’s where I lived for the first ten years. Couldn’t knock it down.’
Cap smiled. ‘It looks like the gardener’s cottage.’ She felt as though she were falling backwards through time and space, the countess in blue silk watching her from the grand staircase in the chateau. So you like beautiful things … ‘You keep a foot in both worlds too,’ she said. ‘This house, especially the veranda … Louis XIV’s cabinet-makers couldn’t have done it better.’ She kneeled to stroke the highly polished veranda floor. ‘This is so beautiful.’
‘Queensland silky oak. The posts are Queensland red cedar.’
‘When did you learn to do this?’
‘Bartered beef cuts for lessons from local craftsmen.’
‘Your woodwork would bring tears of pleasure to your mother’s eyes.’
‘See all the trees along the river? And on the other side of it? I planted them. We’re bringing the rainforest back. Sustainable rainforest farming is what we call it. Let me show you.’ He led her along the rainforest trails, the dogs mad with delight and constantly chasing scrub turkeys. There was an understorey of ferns and small palms, but the crowns of the tallest trees were almost touching overhead. ‘Another ten years,’ Ti-Loup said, ‘and the canopy will be restored. There’ll be a thick green ceiling up there. And then I’ll be making my own rain.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘A rainforest’s a living greenhouse. The rain’s convectional. In summer, it holds its own moisture. Humid air rises, can’t escape through the canopy, condenses, falls as rain in the late afternoon and evening. Repeats the cycle more or less every day in the hot wet season.’
Cap tried to remember the timid boy in the blue dress, afraid of making his mother sad. Then he became Ti-Loup who wanted to be a butcher. Then he became Vanderbilt and a Dryden snob, and then he became McVie who died in combat in Vietnam. And now he had become a cross between an Australian version of Ti-Christophe and the kind of artisan whose work his mother used to collect for the chateau.
‘I plan to build my herd up to twenty-five but no higher,’ he said. ‘It’s called natural farming. Natural pasture, ethical farming, humane slaughtering, permaculture – lots of different terms, but basically they all mean the same thing. Small is beautiful. No mass transport, no brutal road trains with cattle crammed in like sardines, no feed lots alongside abattoirs to cage the animals and fatten them up for slaughter, no force-feeding to cause kidney stress and pain. My little herd is grass-fed. They roam free in my paddocks. It’s a farming revolution and I’m part of it. I love what I’m doing.’
Cap paced up and down the veranda. She even passed close to the huntsman spider, who was definitely watching her, and she barely flinched. She was debating what she should say next. The words felt cobwebby. She said as neutrally as possible: ‘I love what I’m doing too, Ti-Loup. I love working for Sotheby’s.’
‘They have a branch in Sydney,’ he said. ‘Couldn’t you transfer from New York?’
‘They have a small office, I think, but that’s all. They sponsor occasional auctions. They send someone out from London. Or from New York.’
‘Couldn’t that someone be you? Couldn’t you work for them in Sydney and spend weekends on Christopher Farm?’
‘I don’t know. Maybe it’s possible. I could inquire. But it’s not just Sotheby’s. There’s something else I do and I can only do it if I’m travelling for a global auction house. It’s more or less what my parents did. I think of it as working for the Resistance.’
‘Rescuing people, you mean? From where?’
‘From wherever people need to be rescued.’
‘But where are you doing this? How? Where are you travelling?’
‘The Middle East most often, these days. Former Soviet countries. Sometimes Africa. Asia. I get evidence out when I can. I arrange escape routes if I can.’
‘What kind of escape routes?’
‘Safe houses. Local escorts. The kind that got the Goldbergs out of France.’
‘That’s dangerous. It’s suicidal.’
‘Not as dangerous or suicidal as enlisting for Vietnam.’
‘Aren’t you afraid?’
‘All the time. This isn’t something I do every day, you understand. Or even every month. Maybe every two or three months. Rest of the time, I’m just doing regular appraisals.’
‘Are you watched when you’re … you know?’
‘I’m probably watched. I’ve been detained. I’m always nervous at points of entry and exit, but I got into Brisbane with no hassle. When I showed my passport, the guy said, No worries, mate, and I couldn’t help laughing. Why did he call me mate?’
‘Because she’ll be right, mate, that’s the rule in Australia. That’s why I’m staying here. I was scared my whole life until I thought I was drowning. I thought I had drowned and I had to find my son because I knew he was there too, in the place where drowned people go. And then I was pulled out of the ocean and now nothing can ever scare me again. I’ve already been to the worst places anyone can go. There’s nothing left to be frightened of.’
Cap thought about this. ‘There are, actually, worse things,’ she said. ‘People can be broken in such ways that they can never be put back together again. I’ve seen photographs. That’s why I can’t stop doing what I’m doing. I owe my parents.’
‘Like I felt I owed my life to McVie. You said it was stupid and you were right.’
‘It’s not the same. You were throwing away one more life. I’m saving lives. Well, sometimes, anyway. Occasionally. Putting one very small thing in the balances against everything else. It’s like trying to empty the ocean with a teaspoon, I know that.’
‘Let’s take a run with the dogs,’ Ti-Loup said.
They found the small herd in the lower paddock beside the creek. The dogs went crazy. ‘I’ve rented a bull for two weeks,’ Ti-Loup explained. ‘You can see he’s sniffing up Dido. We’d better get out of here and leave them to it. Hey, boys!’ he called to the dogs.
‘How did you learn to do all this?’ Cap asked.
‘Trial and error. By making a fool of myself more times than any idiot should. Worked my way from Darwin to here on cattle stations. Spent years doing that. Saved enough to buy my own cattle. Learned the best breeds for this climate, learned which breeds are tick-resistant and which aren’t. Best breed for here are Aussie-bred Brahmans. Next best are French Charolais. There’s enough Loire Valley chauvinism in me to own three French steers.’
‘Father JG would be
impressed with your diligence.’
Ti-Loup laughed. ‘Somehow I doubt that. But he’d be pleased with my library, which is many times bigger than my herd. It’s in storage crates at the pub at present, but I’m planning to add a library to the house. I still have my Cicero – well, not my original copy, naturally, which never even got to Vietnam, but I buy mail-order books through the Dayboro post office. I still read Cicero. And Augustine.’
‘We are so weird, Ti-Loup. Do you realise that? We are so not normal.’
‘We’ve never been normal. So let’s start a new kind of abnormal. Couldn’t you combine Sotheby’s and working for the New Resistance with living on a small cattle farm?’
‘Couldn’t you run a small cattle farm in New York State?’
‘Actually, no. I’d be trapped in Vanderbilt air. The whole of New York State and New England is toxic with it. I wouldn’t be able to breathe. And it wouldn’t just be the family, it would be the name.’
‘You could legally change your name.’
‘I could, but that’s too easy to trace. Some gossip columnist would do a search of legal records on Vanderbilt and find out I’d changed my name to whatever and track me down and I’d have cameras on my doorstep. Besides, I don’t even have a starting point anymore. I don’t have sufficient ID to get a copy of my own birth certificate – not that I’d want to. I don’t have a passport. I don’t have a bank account. I don’t have a driver’s licence.’
‘How can you drive your truck without a licence?’
‘Farm country. Nobody checks stuff like that out here. I don’t have a telephone. I live so far off the beaten track that anyone who finds me is lost. I live by barter and cash. I don’t have any form of ID whatsoever.’
‘What about the title to Christopher Farm? That must be a legal document.’
‘The title is actually in Brendan’s name. Suits both of us.’
‘What about your two sets of dog tags? You promised the McVies you’d bring both sets back.’
‘They were radioactive to the village that kept me alive. If the VC found the tags, everyone would’ve been torched. I don’t know what they did with them, but believe me, all trace of the existence of Vanderbilt has been wiped out. I’m someone else now.’
‘McVie’s mother sends me a card every year. She prays for McVie’s soul and she prays that you will be found. There was a thanksgiving mass at St Patrick’s. Your mother arranged it. In gratitude to the Virgin for keeping you alive.’
Ti-Loup threw sticks for his dogs to retrieve, a game that kept him occupied for ten minutes. Without looking at Cap, he asked when the mass had been held.
‘Twenty years ago, almost. When your mother got that letter from Georgia. There was a ripple in the press at the time but it soon fizzled out. No one would remember it now.’
‘Is my mother all right?’
‘She wasn’t. For a long time, she wasn’t. She nearly went under, but after that letter came she was fine. Until your father died. Her situation’s been precarious again since that, but I think I’ve got things straightened out with the help of a lawyer.’
‘It was such a lead weight being the one who made her sad. There was nothing I could do to shift it. Nothing. It crushed the life out of me.’
‘I know. But it wasn’t you who made her sad.’
‘Yes it was. What happened when she found out I worked for a butcher? I was promptly shipped out of France.’
‘It wasn’t you. It was because she knew the village and the whole Vanderbilt family would mock her. And mock you. She couldn’t bear it. But it was more than that, much more than that. She suddenly saw the Monsards for what they were. She knew none of us was safe from them. She was afraid they would kill you, kill us, kill Papa, because of what you knew.’
‘Not much they could do to any of us now.’
‘I hope you’re right. You’re probably right. But what does it cost you to let your mother know you are alive?’
‘More than I can afford. Because she won’t leave it there. She’ll try to find me. She’ll want to visit. She’ll wreck my life.’
‘She won’t. She’s much too afraid of being hurt.’
‘You think you know her but you don’t. I know what her fantasies are. Son of countess returns to chateau. Not Son of countess is cowboy and farmhand and butcher. You think she wants that as an entry in Dictionnaire de la noblesse?’ The dogs came bounding up from the pasture and threw themselves at Cap. ‘Want some cattle-farm training?’ Ti-Loup asked.
‘Is this an apprenticeship test? Or abrupt change of dangerous subject?’
‘This paddock’s for the cows the bull’s not interested in at present. I have to inspect them for ticks. Constant battle. They’ve had their annual shots, but this is rainforest country and that means ticks. The Brahmans are bred tick-resistant, but my Charolais are always at risk. Here’s what we’re looking for.’ He pulled tight a section of the soft moleskin hide of a steer, behind one ear. ‘See?’ He pointed to a glossy dark blister about the size of a pea. ‘She’s already engorged, this tick. Tick fever’s a problem. And here’s the other danger spot.’ He felt between the steer’s hind legs, high up, close to the tail. ‘Another one, dammit.’ He pulled from the pocket of his overalls a small bottle filled with kerosene and a pair of tweezers. He extracted both ticks. He dropped them into the fluid and screwed the cap on. ‘Tick two off the list,’ he said.
After dark, Ti-Loup and Cap dragged a mattress out onto the veranda and lay there looking up at the Southern Cross. ‘I don’t have a telephone,’ Ti-Loup said, ‘but I do have a good sound system. Let’s listen to Bach.’
A light breeze rustled the gum trees. One of the horses whinnied and the dogs pricked their ears and made soft sounds then subsided again until the music filled the house and the veranda and the pasture. ‘Cello Suite No. 1,’ Ti-Loup said. ‘Look at the dogs.’ Bluey and Bligh nestled themselves into the mattress and draped themselves across Ti-Loup’s legs. They appeared utterly relaxed and contented. ‘For cattle dogs,’ Ti-Loup said, ‘they have very sophisticated tastes.’
‘I don’t know how I can leave,’ Cap said.
‘So don’t leave.’
‘What did you mean,’ Ti-Loup asked over breakfast on the veranda, ‘when you said my mother’s situation is precarious?’
‘Your father left her no money to live on, not even enough to pay the utilities or the condominium fee.’
‘She’ll get everything that would have gone to me.’
‘No, she won’t. The terms of your father’s will won’t allow it. She can stay in the penthouse for as long as she lives but she has no income at all so the family lawyers are trying to have her evicted. If you don’t show up to claim your inheritance then everything goes to your cousin, but he’s dead, so everything will go to Celise. I don’t see how that can stand up legally since she remarried, but she kept the Vanderbilt name and she can afford the best legal team money can buy and she’s very determined.’
‘Who’d Celise marry this time around?’
‘She married Lucifer. Can you believe it?’
‘Hah. I can. They deserve each other.’
‘I’ve hired a lawyer to keep the jackals at bay and I’m privately paying your mother’s bills, but I’ve made sure she doesn’t know that. The lawyer tells her he’s worked things out.’
‘Cap, Cap!’ Ti-Loup was so distressed that he knocked over the pot of hot coffee. ‘I can’t let you do that. You mustn’t do that. My mother has other resources. She has the chateau.’
‘It’s a ruin. After Papa died there was no one to manage it. She’s trying to sell it.’
‘She has the paintings and antiques. She has jewellery.’
‘She’s been selling them.’
‘There has to be something that can be done.’
‘There is. You could have a legal document drawn up. You would have to produce proof of your identity and proof that you are alive. You would have to claim your inheritance and then sign i
t over to your mother.’
‘I have to think about that,’ Ti-Loup said. ‘I have to walk when I’m thinking. Boys!’ The dogs leaped off the veranda and followed him across the pasture and into the thick stand of trees along the river. Cap heard the dogs giving little yaps of pleasure as they ran. They were gone for three hours.
‘I can’t do it,’ Ti-Loup said. They were lying on the mattress in the loft, looking up through the skylight at the stars. ‘I know it sounds simple but I can’t. Once the lawyers know I’m alive and where I am, the press will know, and I’ll have the world crawling all over Christopher Farm. It’s unthinkable.’
‘It will be horrible for a month or so and then the press will lose interest. No one will remember.’
‘That’s longer than I could handle. I might as well start wearing a blue dress. You know the gutter press would track down that pathetic little blue boy and blast photographs from every front page. There’s no sewer they won’t crawl into.’
‘Would anyone in Dayboro care?’
Ti-Loup stared at her. ‘I’d care. I’ve escaped. But you want to sic my past onto me again. It’s like a succubus.’
‘It’s okay,’ Cap said. ‘It’s okay. Let’s drop this. The lawyer and I can manage things. I’ll make sure your mother is okay. And I’ll ask Sotheby’s for a transfer to Sydney.’
‘Will they announce that?’
‘I can ask them not to. Currently travelling on private appraisals, is what they’ll say. But I can’t lie to Simon or your mother about where I’ll be. I couldn’t do that.’
‘If you tell them you’ve found me, I can promise you I won’t be here when you get back.’
Cap felt her heart lurch. She clung to Ti-Loup so fiercely that her fingernails drew beads of blood on his arms. ‘You’re trying to do what you always do,’ she accused. ‘You’re going to vanish again. But I won’t let you.’
The Claimant Page 48
