Dust of the Land

by J. H. Fletcher

  For drinks… You name it.

  Wealth created its own obligations; funeral or not, Garth would never have wanted anyone to go away hungry. Nor did they.

  After the majority had gone, Bella went for a walk. Greatest and oldest of living things, the trees gathered close about her. Had worship come naturally to her, Bella would have worshipped now. As it was she followed the avenues of silence, the shadows of the forest. She was one with its presence, its breathing and unspeaking knowledge.

  She would hold on to this moment. There would be difficulties ahead, times of frustration and even fear, but this memory would sustain her.

  She would not forget.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  Billy Gould phoned the next day. Bella hesitated but eventually took the call.

  ‘I thought I might drop by for a chat,’ he said.

  ‘Chat about what, Billy?’

  ‘This and that.’

  ‘And there I was, thinking you were phoning to offer condolences. You did know that Garth has died?’

  ‘It was in the paper,’ Billy said. ‘When can I come by?’

  She thought she might as well get it over with.

  ‘Tomorrow morning. Eight forty-five.’

  ‘A bit early for me,’ Billy said.

  ‘Eight forty-five,’ Bella said. ‘I’ll give you quarter of an hour. Don’t be late.’

  It was too much to hope for; it was almost five to nine when Deborah showed him in. Bella looked at her watch. ‘You have five minutes,’ she said.

  ‘You want to live a little,’ Billy told her. ‘That way you’ll live longer.’ He took a chair in front of Bella’s desk. He pulled out a pack of Marlboroughs and put one in his mouth.

  ‘No smoking,’ Bella said.

  Billy thought about it but eventually put the cigarette back in the packet. ‘Well, aren’t you the tough one,’ he said.

  ‘Do you have anything to ask me or not?’

  ‘When is the will being read?’

  ‘Why would you want to know that?’

  ‘Last time I saw him, Garth said he’d taken care of me in his will. So I was wondering what he left me.’

  ‘I can answer you in one word,’ Bella said. ‘Nothing.’

  He glared at her indignantly. ‘That can’t be right.’

  ‘Deborah will give you my lawyer’s address. You can speak to him about it.’

  ‘Damn right I will.’

  ‘Now, if there’s nothing else…’

  ‘Hang on… He promised me a job, too.’

  ‘Strange he never mentioned it to me,’ Bella said.

  He smiled at her, a member of the exclusive male club to which she would never belong. ‘A chat between mates, that’s the way things get done in this world. Or didn’t you know?’

  ‘Perhaps. Nevertheless I am afraid we have no vacancies at this time.’

  ‘That’d be right. Well, lady, let me tell you this –’

  Bella picked up the phone. ‘Mr Gould is just leaving. Ask Jake to come and escort him out.’

  ‘Hang on a minute…’

  Bella put down the phone. ‘You are not mentioned in the will and there is no job. What part of that sentence don’t you understand?’

  He was on his feet, fists clenched. For a moment she thought he really might go for her, but she stared him down. ‘What else could I expect?’ he sneered. ‘A harlot and now a thief. I’ll be telling the world about you. I wonder whether your banker mates will be so keen to help you when they know about that?’

  After he had left, slamming the door furiously behind him, Bella sat and thought for a while.

  Garth’s will had been simple enough. He had left Billy nothing. Apart from a few small cash bequests, he had left five per cent of his shares in the mine to his friend Owen Freeth – for a lifelong friendship manfully endured – and the remainder of his estate to Bella.

  If Billy fancied his chances of getting anything out of her, he had another think coming. She picked up her private phone. Thanks to her remarkable memory, she did not need to check the enquiry agent’s number.

  ‘Gayle, good morning. There is an asbestos mine at Van Damm Siding owned by a man called Billy Gould. Some of the workers at the mine are supposedly suffering from health problems. I want you to do something for me.’

  She spelt out what she wanted. When she was finished, she put down the phone. Her mouth was tight, her expression implacable.

  Harlot and thief. Did Billy Gould really think he could say such things without a comeback?

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  There were a million things to do and it was two months before she headed north to Miranda Downs. For the first time she flew herself because one of the things she had done in that time was get her pilot’s licence.

  It was her first visit since Garth’s death yet, seeing the familiar buildings, the waters of the creek shining in the evening sun, it was hard to believe she had been away. Any minute, surely, her husband would emerge to greet her. She couldn’t help herself. She looked expectantly at the workshop, but its door remained closed: the world had truly changed. The logic of her new life meant she would be spending more time down south than here, yet this was still home, the one place where she could be the self she had been and not the super-efficient tycoon she was in the process of becoming.

  For months now there had been mornings when she had looked in the mirror and seen a stranger.

  Daughter of an English earl; hostess in a Townsville brothel; Garth Tucker’s wife and lover; the Akubra-hatted woman mustering cattle, her body caked with dust and sweat; the mother of two wonderful children; now the businesswoman, owner of vast reserves of iron ore and a growing number of other businesses… How many more metamorphoses could there be? How many more people were hiding inside her skin?

  The buildings were peaceful in the fading light. Two small children playing near the creek were called home by their mother. A horse whinnied from the paddock and fell silent. All was still beneath the gentle pressure of the growing dusk.

  I must be sure I come back here often, Bella told herself. To remind myself what is of value in this life and the person I really am. Because, beneath all the manifestations of Bella Tucker, she knew there remained one being with whom she could truly identify: the woman who had been wedded not only to Garth Tucker but the land. That was the source of the various images of herself that the world had seen over the years.

  Now, surrounded by the familiar sights and sounds among which she had spent so much of her life, the full sense of her loss struck home and it was a cruel and bitter thing.

  With an attempt at briskness, she told herself she had not come here to be sorry for herself but for two important reasons. She would deal with them first thing in the morning but now another matter took precedence. She was tired after the long journey and the mixed emotions of coming home churned in her mind and heart, but there were obligations that must not be ignored.

  She had brought fresh vegies with her, loaves of bread and a five-kilo tin of apricot jam. Also half a dozen chooks, already dressed, and three circles of linked sausages. Red meat she had not brought; there was never any shortage of beef on a cattle station.

  She was setting out the supplies on the kitchen table when Maisie, Mary and the rest of the women turned up at the door. They talked quietly as they worked but Garth’s name was not spoken, because that was the tradition.

  They set up the barbecues in the yard outside the kitchen door, piling dry wood in the trays and letting it burn into hot coals. Soon the smell of grilling meat was sending signals to the rest of the camp. Within minutes everyone had gathered. With the stars burning overhead, they sat on the ground and ate together.

  Afterwards there was a repetition of the ceremony Bella remembered from the time of Colin’s death, the men and women coming one after the other to farewell the man who many had known for most of their lives. Yet this time it was different, because to them Garth Tucker had been Miranda Downs, and in los
ing him they had lost something of themselves.

  Here, too, death was not something to be hidden under a stone, as it was in white communities, but was as much a part of living as Garth himself had been, so after they had eaten, the men sat around and, without naming him, talked of a man whose exploits had already become legend. The endless war with O’Malley of Limerick Downs and the triumphs all had shared whenever they had successfully filched some of the Irishman’s cattle. The time of the crocodile, when he had plunged fully clothed into the creek, risking his life to rescue a small child who might otherwise have been taken. So many stories, most of which Bella knew, others not. Slowly the tales became entwined with others from Aboriginal legend: Sun-Woman and Moon-Man, Purupriki and the flying foxes, Wuluwait the boatman of the dead. And all the time, while the stories unwound in the night air, Bella watched the firelight casting orange and red shadows on the faces of the listeners, heard the falsetto call of a distant mopoke and knew that this would be the place to which she would return at life’s end, just as what remained of her husband’s earthly being would finally be laid to rest there the next day.

  Eventually all went off to bed. The quietly clicking coals had died to the faintest glimmer; even the smell of the meat had been absorbed by the moist and spicy scent of the bush, and Bella went into her empty house, lay upon her empty bed and waited to fall asleep. She remembered her first night at Ripon Grange and how as a six-year-old child she had lain in the darkness, rigid with fear, waiting wide-eyed for unknown creatures to devour her.

  She had thought she might feel something of the same tonight, her present peopled by memories of her past life with Garth, but the simple ceremony and the stories of the people who were also her friends had calmed her mind, bringing a measure of peace that she had not felt since Garth’s death.

  Bella slept, and did not dream.

  First thing the next morning she went through the books with Tommy. Everything was in order and she told him she was appointing him manager to run Miranda Downs for her.

  Next, she spoke to Maisie. Once again, she was careful not to use Garth’s name.

  ‘I have brought the ashes with me,’ she said. ‘I shall bury them at the place that he loved. It would be his wish that his friends should be there to witness this but if it is against custom he would not wish it.’

  Maisie said, ‘Sometimes what you say is true. There is fear that the spirit of the dead one will attach itself to the living. But we have talked about this. This man was not of our kinship system nor was he Aboriginal. We therefore believe his spirit will not trouble those who watch. If it is your wish, we shall gladly attend the burying.’

  Bella had been planning to ride up to the lookout but now, after Maisie’s words, she walked instead, carrying the urn and the little trowel with which to dig, and all the camp walked behind her.

  Up through the trees, the light first green and soft, then bright and dazzling as they came out into the sunlight and saw the bare ridge extending ahead of them with the turquoise sky beyond.

  When they came to the place Bella knelt and dug the hole while the people stood in a circle about her.

  ‘Be careful not to strike a rock,’ old Maisie said, and Bella was.

  Finally the hole was deep enough. She took the urn and lowered it into the hole and filled it in with soil from the pile she had dug. And so it ended. Bella stood. Far below the trees dreamt in the sunlight.

  I had thought his life was over, she thought, but I was wrong. He is here still, in the sunlight and the trees, and the bush flowing like the tide until it comes at last to the sea. The land will hold him in its memory as it will hold me, when that day comes. An end and a beginning.

  She turned to the people. ‘Let us go down.’

  That evening old Maisie came to see her at the house. ‘You are going away.’

  ‘Tomorrow. But part of me will remain and I shall come back.’

  ‘That is good. Because this is your place, as it is for the man who died.’

  They sat together, unspeaking, for a long time. Without ever saying so, Bella knew that Maisie had been one of Garth’s women in the long ago but that did not matter. They were two women united by memory, and each comforted the other.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  Bella flew south.

  She made a refuelling stop in Geraldton, keeping a watchful eye on the petrol bowser until the aircraft’s tanks were brimming, then went into the airport office and phoned ahead.

  ‘Deborah… It’s Bella. How’s it going?’

  ‘Mr Bathurst’s office phoned yesterday. They say they need a meeting with you as soon as you get back. It sounds urgent.’

  ‘I’m sure it does. Tell them four o’clock next Thursday afternoon, if they would care to drop by then.’

  ‘I think they are expecting you to go to them, Mrs Tucker.’

  ‘They want a meeting, they can come to us.’

  ‘I’ll let them know.’

  ‘Anything else?’

  ‘Gayle Hastings says she has the information you wanted.’

  ‘Tell her I’ll see her first thing tomorrow morning.’

  ‘One more thing. We’ve had a registered letter from a firm of solicitors called Hoblyn, Smith.’

  ‘I’ve never heard of them,’ Bella said. ‘What do they want?’

  ‘You want me to open it?’

  ‘You know a better way of finding out?’

  A pause; a rustle of paper. Deborah said: ‘It’s to do with Billy Gould…’

  That wretched man, Bella thought. ‘Leave it on my desk,’ she said. ‘I’ll look at it when I get in tomorrow.’

  BradMin’s treasurer Amos Bellamy was affronted. ‘She expects us to go to her? Who does she think she is?’

  ‘Take no notice. A woman on her own, with no hubby to hold her hand? She’ll be lost,’ Pete Bathurst said, grinning like a wolf. ‘We’ll get her royalty down by fifty per cent, no sweat.’

  Two things Bella particularly liked about Gayle Hastings: she was always on the ball and never kept her waiting.

  ‘Tell me what you’ve got,’ Bella said.

  Gayle told her.

  ‘And they said they’d testify?’

  ‘Like a shot, once they knew you were covering their legal costs.’

  ‘Give me a spare copy of your report for Owen Freeth. I’ll tell him what I want him to do.’

  Bella had decided that the meeting with BradMin should take place not in her office but the adjoining boardroom. At four o’clock on Thursday afternoon – the hour she had stipulated – she studied the smiling faces of the three men as they were ushered into the room and took their places along one side of the long rectangular table that three years before Bella had had made from selected jarrah timber. They were BradMin’s CEO Pete Bathurst, the company’s legal counsel, Sinclair Smythe, and treasurer Amos Bellamy. Pete Bathurst was the one to worry about; the others would follow wherever he led. On her side of the table Bella was flanked by Owen Freeth, here to handle any legal problems, and financial director Martin Dexter. She waited while Deborah gave each man a folder containing the documents they were here to discuss.

  It gave her an odd feeling to watch these men. They were all successful, experienced and ruthless and she knew without question that behind the pleasant smiles they had come here with one purpose only: to devour her as quickly and completely as they could. No doubt they thought that an inexperienced widow, recently bereaved, would be easy pickings.

  When they had left Africa she had been full of confidence but then Garth had been beside her. Now she was alone, would it be a different story? That was something she was about to find out. She had sought advice from no one. Single-handed, she had made up her mind how she was going to conduct the meeting.

  She remembered the first time she had been up on a horse. She had been seven years old and the ground had looked an awfully long way down. Now Bella did what she had done then. She took a deep breath, refusing to accept even the possibility of
failure, and…

  Got on with the job.

  Deborah went out, shutting the door quietly behind her. Bella looked around the table. She gave them all a weak, tremulous smile. She said: ‘I should like to thank you for breaking into your busy schedules to come here to discuss the decisions that we must take following my husband’s death. I really appreciate it.’

  ‘We were all real sorry to hear the news about Garth,’ Pete said.

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Good man. Really. I liked him a lot.’

  Pete putting on the sincere act was more than Bella could stomach. ‘My husband’s death has created a new situation,’ she told them. ‘Among other things, we have to review the agreement regarding the Carlisle Mine.’

  Sinclair Smythe had a thin neck and looked like a gander. Now he seized his chance. He had brought his own papers, which he now proceeded to spread on the table in front of him.

  ‘Indeed we must. Clause 11, sub-clause 3 (b), of the agreement specifically states that the terms have to be renegotiated in the event of the death of any of the parties. Which in turn means –’

  ‘She knows what it means, Sinclair.’

  Like Bella, Pete Bathurst had no patience with the reverence that overcame so many lawyers when they started talking about sub-clauses.

  ‘We’re here to discuss the rate of royalty,’ said Amos Bellamy.

  ‘Hey, straight for the jugular!’ Pete said. He twinkled at Bella across the table. ‘Trust the bean counters, right?’

  Bella contrived a worried look. ‘What do you have in mind?’

  ‘I went to bat for you,’ Pete said kindly. ‘I know how tough things are for you at the moment. But my board feels…’ He shook his head as sorrow overwhelmed him. He turned to his treasurer. ‘Tell her, Amos.’