A Far Country

by John Fletcher

  Nantariltarra turned and spoke briefly to the other Council members. Some dubious head-shaking but nobody spoke. He looked back at Jason. ‘Go, now. I shall tell you later what you must do.’

  Ian Matlock, tall and yellow-bearded, riding long and easy in the saddle, rode up to his cousin’s house one morning in June, three months after they had first arrived on the peninsula. His daughter Alison, twelve years old and as dark as her father was blond, rode behind him, arms clasped around his waist.

  The cousins saw each other most weeks but this was a special occasion.

  ‘Mary will be along later,’ Ian said, beating dust from his clothes, clumping into the house. The small room felt smaller with the two men crowded into it. ‘She’s still got some baking to finish.’

  Alison had gone looking for Asta; now they both came into the room, making it smaller than ever.

  Ian was on his feet, kissing, hugging, eyes probing, bright with laughter that did not soften the knife slash of his mouth.

  ‘And how is the birthday girl?’

  With a strained mouth in a face grown bony since her bereavement, Asta said, ‘Feeling her age. But I thank you for the good wishes.’ Trying to bring warmth into her face, her words. Failing.

  ‘That’s good.’ The eyes appraising her, possessive as ever.

  ‘Thirty-two is not old,’ Gavin protested, good-natured but bereft, too, the loss of his son a constant ache. Concerned as well for his wife, who showed no sign of recovering from what had happened.

  ‘Not young, either.’

  Ian fidgeted. Life was too short for sorrow over what could not be rectified. He said, ‘Good rains we’ve had, the last few days.’

  It had rained heavily day and night for nearly a week. It was the season for rain but welcome nonetheless.

  ‘We have indeed,’ Gavin said. He fetched a bottle, poured two glasses.

  ‘Still some left, then,’ Ian asked, nodding at the bottle.

  ‘We only touch it when there’s something to celebrate,’ Gavin said.

  Asta laughed without humour. ‘Thirty-two years old. What is there to celebrate in that?’

  Life was passing her by in this little hut in a land without hope or pity. Bitterness would make her old, she knew, but could do nothing about it.

  ‘Come,’ she said to Alison at her side, ‘let us go to the kitchen and get ourselves each a glass of fruit cordial.’

  ‘Bring them back in here,’ Gavin said.

  ‘Oh no.’ Asta wanted to be away, preferring the girl’s company and her own to that of the men. ‘There are things we must do in the kitchen.’ Any excuse would do.

  Gavin insisted. ‘Of course you must come back. It’s your birthday, after all.’

  She saw there was no way out of it. She led Alison to the kitchen, they poured themselves a tiny glass of cordial each. Like the alcohol, when it was gone there would be no more. They returned to the men.

  ‘A happy birthday,’ Ian said, glass raised. ‘Many of them.’

  They drank.

  ‘Thank you,’ Asta said to no-one in particular. ‘Thank you.’

  Happiness, she thought. What is that?

  But she was also determined to make the best of things, hating self-pity to which she feared she was prone.

  ‘How are your sheep?’ she asked for something to say.

  ‘Good,’ Ian acknowledged. ‘The rain will be good for the grazing.’ He looked at his cousin. ‘You expecting the Gallaghers?’

  ‘Hector said he would drop in. He’ll probably bring Blake.’

  Hector Gallagher, a widower, divided his time between both runs as part supervisor, part shepherd, and full-time bully to his son and anyone else he could find to dominate, which excluded, most emphatically, the Matlock men. Was not above trying it on the women either, although with little success as far as Asta was concerned. Sixteen-year-old Blake, blond hair almost white in the sunlight but heart as black as night, looked set to follow his father’s example. Hearing he might arrive, Alison made a face, hating him but knowing better than to say so.

  ‘We are a small group,’ her mother had warned when Alison told her how she despised Blake’s braggart ways. ‘We must learn to live harmoniously with each other.’

  Harmony was Mary Matlock’s grail. Small wonder, with a husband who ruled the roost as Ian did.

  Blake is my cross, Alison thought. She was going through a religious phase but with little help or encouragement from her parents: a father who loudly professed disbelief in anything he could not see, a mother dedicated to the avoidance of conflict.

  ‘Someone for you to play with,’ Asta said but without conviction, knowing more than she would admit.

  That boy needs a strap, she thought. But knew that neither she nor anyone would give it to him. At sixteen Blake was already beyond her reach, beyond the reach of them all.

  ‘Hector was telling me he’s seen natives again,’ Gavin said.

  ‘They’ll stay away from my place if they know what’s good for them,’ Ian said, but with little heat, equal to the challenge of the natives.

  Asta felt uncomfortable, as always with such talk of the natives, who had been here first. But said nothing.

  ‘They’ve been known to steal sheep,’ Gavin warned.

  ‘I’ll shoot a few, they try that.’

  Ian finished his glass, stood and refilled it uninvited. ‘I brought a bottle of my own in the saddlebag,’ he said, in case Gavin might object.

  ‘Help yourself,’ Gavin said, now that Ian already had. ‘Pour one for me, while you’re about it.’

  It was a birthday, after all. Another drink wouldn’t hurt.

  Hector and Blake Gallagher arrived at the same time as Mary Matlock, the Gallaghers on foot, Mary riding the spirited grey filly that was her pride, knowing how to dominate horses in a way she had never learned with humans.

  The three men sat in the room and talked sheep, the two women went to the kitchen. Alison would have preferred to join them but something perverse in her nature prevented her. They thought she should entertain Blake. Very well, entertain him she would, or try to.

  ‘There are kittens,’ she offered, but Blake was too old, too masculine, for kittens. It would have made no difference what she suggested. Blake was contemptuous of Alison and saw no reason to hide it. She was too young; she was female; there was nothing to be done with her. He should have been with the men, a man among men, and the fact that he had been left with this child mortified him. Kittens … Next thing might be dolls. He wanted to be away by himself, looking for mischief. His father would thrash him if he knew but Blake was used to that. Another year, maybe two, he would be beyond his father’s reach, too.

  On the other hand kittens might be just the thing he needed. He smiled at Alison. ‘Let’s see them, then, shall we?’

  His sudden change of manner made her suspicious. ‘Are you interested? Truly?’

  ‘I said so, didn’t I?’

  Alison’s screams brought Asta and Mary running.

  Blake with a kitten clasped in a beefy hand too big and powerful for a boy his age. Face white, voice whispering hoarsely, ‘Quit your screeching!’

  Asta stopped in the doorway to the hay barn. Her attenuated shadow lay across the dirt floor. ‘What is going on in this place?’

  Blake crouched in a far corner, in shadow. His eyes hunted to and fro, caught in the midst of whatever he had been doing. His lip curled back in defiance as he turned to face the light. ‘Nuthin!’

  Mary stood at Asta’s shoulder: shorter, rounder, her face concerned. ‘Alison?’

  ‘He’s killed one already! He said he was going to kill them all!’ Distraught, voice choked with sobs, with shock.

  ‘I never!’ Blake opened his hand. The kitten fell, spread claws like needles raked his bare leg. ‘Ow!’ His foot lashed out but in an eye’s bat the tiny creature had landed, turned and was gone. He inspected two or three drops of blood glistening on his leg. ‘Look what it did!’

  Al
ison was already in her mother’s arms, tears wetting the silky grey skirt. ‘He killed one already! He stamped on it! He said he was going to kill them all!’

  Mary looked around her helplessly, action not her forte, but Asta marched purposely forward, seized Blake by the arm and shook him.

  Big boy or not, he is not spreading his terror in my house. She was surprised how much she disliked the firm white flesh beneath her fingers. ‘So? Explain yourself, Blake.’

  He wrenched his arm free, glaring defiantly at her. ‘I didn’t do nuthin!’

  Muffled sobs. ‘He did …’

  Blake yelled with sudden violence, ‘I didn’t! It was her! She did it!’

  Shaking, Alison pointed into the far corner. Asta looked. A spill of blood. A dead kitten, its head crushed. She turned in outrage. Blake backed off but she went after him, eyes a pale fire.

  He raised his fist. ‘Don’ you touch me!’

  She ignored that. Her rage overwhelmed his defiance. She snatched his arm again, held him firm. ‘How dare you come to my house and murder my animals!’

  ‘I didn’t! I didn’t!’ Screeching, shaking, face red with blood and terror. ‘She did it!’

  Any lie would do, anything.

  ‘Be silent!’ Shake, shake. Willpower generated the strength to drag Blake forcibly across the barn to the dead beast. ‘Pick it up!’

  Horrified eyes glared at her. ‘What?’

  ‘Pick it up,’ she repeated. ‘You kill my animals, you will bury them.’

  Blake stood still, frozen between fear and defiance.

  ‘Now!’

  Her icy will overpowered him. He bent, took up the tiny body. Its fur, matted with blood, smeared his fingers.

  Next, the row of tools hanging from hooks along the wall. The timber smell mingled with rage, fear, death, the sun’s heat, the dust’s placid swirl in the still barn.

  ‘Take down a spade.’

  They went outside. Asta pointed. ‘Dig a hole. There. Bury what you have done.’

  The kitten’s body out of sight, the dirt raked across, Blake wiped his fingers on his breeches, defiance returning. ‘I never done nuthin!’

  ‘You are a liar,’ Asta told him. ‘A liar and a bully.’ She pointed imperiously towards the house. ‘Go. I want nothing more to do with you.’

  Blake ran.

  Asta shouted after him. ‘Put the spade back first.’

  He turned, halfway to the house, free from the influence of her will. He threw the spade on the ground. ‘You wait,’ he shouted at them all, at a world that dared tell him what to do, ‘you just wait.’

  By the time the women reached the house, Alison dragging her smeared face and woeful expression behind them, Blake’s father was standing in the doorway.

  ‘You been speaking to my boy, missus?’ Voice congested, face dark.

  Asta faced him, chin up. ‘I have, Mr Gallagher. And shall do so again, if the need arises. Which I hope it will not.’

  ‘You got something to say, say it to me, not him.’

  His tone threatened her but Asta disregarded it. ‘This is my house, Mr Gallagher. In my house I speak to whom I please. You wish me to speak to you? Very well. This boy of yours is becoming a menace to us all. Teach him to behave, Mr Gallagher, or we shall all live to regret it. You, too.’

  Gallagher set his surly shoulders. ‘What’s he supposed to have done?’

  ‘Supposed nothing, Mr Gallagher. What he has done, actually done, is to kill a cat.’

  Intervals of stained teeth showed through Gallagher’s thick-lipped grin. ‘Kill a cat? Lord love us, missus, he was doin’ you a favour, then. Got to control ’em, see, or they runs out of control.’

  ‘With his boots, Mr Gallagher?’ She swept past him into the house. ‘Teach him to behave, he is welcome in my house. Until then, I am sorry.’

  ‘We came to wish you for your birthday, missus.’ Gallagher’s voice was derisive behind her.

  ‘Good,’ she said without turning her head. ‘Teach Blake to behave like a civilised being, it will be a gift I shall cherish.’

  Later, after all the visitors had gone, Gavin said, ‘Gallagher’s a useful man. I don’t want to fall out with him.’

  ‘Gallagher is an animal.’ Asta was unrepentant. ‘And Blake is worse.’ She turned to him, appealing. ‘Someone has to control him, surely?’

  ‘Are you sure it is our place to do it? Blake is not our child.’

  Asta’s face was white. ‘Our child is dead. We are in this wilderness alone. We have to behave well, all of us.’

  Gavin shrugged. He walked across the room to the cupboard, poured them both a drink, came back to her, handed her the glass. ‘It is a wilderness. You can’t expect people to act civilised in a wilderness.’

  Vigorously she shook her head. ‘It is because it is a wilderness we must behave well. Otherwise how are we to bring civilisation to this place?’

  ‘Is that what we’re supposed to be doing?’ He found it hard to take what had happened as seriously as she did. It was only a cat, after all. ‘And there I was thinking we were trying to raise sheep.’

  Asta ignored that. ‘Of course we are bringing civilisation. Otherwise what is the justification for our being here at all?’

  He strolled across to his chair and dropped into it. He stretched out his legs, crossed his boots and grinned lazily up at her. ‘What justification do we need?’

  ‘This is not our country‚’ she said. ‘There were people here before us. If we bring civilisation, if we make things better here than they were before, good. That is our justification. But if we do not we have no business to be here at all.’

  He shook his head. ‘Blake kills a cat and you think we should all move out?’

  ‘Of course not.’ She came and sat on the arm of his chair, looked down at him with troubled eyes. ‘You know what I mean.’

  He shook his head. ‘No, I do not know what you mean. I am here, so are you, so are we all, and we are staying. That is something I know. Nobody is going to stop me. Not Blake, not the blacks. Nothing.’

  ‘Not me, either?’ she asked softly.

  He avoided the challenge. ‘We are going to do big things here: for you as much as for me.’

  Her wounded eyes regarded him. ‘You and me, yes. And after us, it will all have been for nothing?’

  ‘God willing, no,’ he said. ‘It is not what I want.’

  ‘You want?’ she repeated, crying. ‘You think I want it?’

  ‘All I am saying,’ he said carefully, ‘is that we are here and we shall stay here.’

  ‘By force?’

  He took a deep breath. ‘If needs be. If the blacks try to drive us out, yes.’

  ‘You mean as we are driving them out?’

  He did not know what she wanted from him. A tiny incident, trivial it seemed to him, and now all this. ‘Yes!’

  ‘So force becomes our justification. Is that it?’

  Gently he drew her to him. For a moment she resisted, then yielded. He cradled her, her hair fragrant against his mouth. ‘The strong overcome the weak‚’ he said. ‘It is the way of the world.’

  She shook her head resolutely without looking up. ‘It is a bad way.’

  ‘It is the natural way,’ he corrected her. ‘The strong must prevail.’

  His hand moved over her body, caressing, seeking. She stared at him, eyes swollen with the tears she had shed, yet did not push his hand away. Something was happening; a door, closed since Edward’s death, was slowly opening. All the same, his argument troubled her.

  ‘You are saying that strength is all that matters? That right and wrong have no place? Blake is strong‚’ she said. ‘Bad, I think, bad through and through, but strong, certainly. You are saying that Blake and people like him must prevail?’

  He supposed that was what he meant but had the sense not to say so. ‘All I am saying is that this is our place and I’m not going to leave it.’ Gently, he kissed her forehead. His hand resumed its exploration. ‘As f
or Blake … I think we can safely leave Hector Gallagher to deal with him.’

  ‘That is something we cannot do‚’ she said. ‘Hector Gallagher is as bad as Blake. Worse, if anything. He has made Blake what he is.’

  But Gavin was thinking of other things than Blake Gallagher. He stood and took her hand. ‘Come‚’ he said.

  She went with him gladly. For the first time since Edward’s death she was as eager for him as he, thank God, was for her.

  Afterwards, Gavin sleeping at her side, Asta thought what a strange thing life was. A man and a woman, separate in every way, came together and from their physical union came new life. A personality, a soul, that did not exist before became a being entire in itself, totally separate from the parents who had created it. It was a mystery as great as death.

  What lies before life? she wondered. If there is nothing, why should we assume that death is not the end of everything, too? Out of nothing, into nothing? In which case Edward, her son, was nowhere; gone into the dark. From dark to dark in fourteen years. A creature of flesh and bone, laughter and sorrow, wants, hopes, love. All gone. What is the point of life, Asta asked the sky in anguish, if at the end there is nothing? If we cease utterly to be? Surely there must be more than the memory of ourselves that we leave behind? Because, she thought, if there is not there is no point to anything.

  Yet perhaps things were not as bad as that. Whether there was something after death or not, life still had to be lived. All, in time, would go into the dark but not yet, not yet. Asta’s fingertips traced the line of her lower ribs, the soft fall of her belly. Now, with the return of her feelings for her husband, she felt for the first time since her child’s death that she was indeed coming back to life. Now, perhaps, it might be possible to face the future with something like hope.

  Riding homeward Ian thought, I doubt seriously whether Gavin and Asta will survive.

  He said as much to Mary, trotting at his side.

  She glanced across at him. ‘Why?’

  ‘Because it’s a hard country. We have to be hard ourselves if we’re going to make a go of it. There’s no room for softness.’

  ‘I’ve never thought of Gavin as soft‚’ Mary objected.