Heartland

by Cathryn Hein

  The livestock were all fat, happy and, in the case of the cattle and horses, glossy coated. As far as Matt knew, things had never been any different on Amberton. Matt’s aunts had always joked that Wal wasn’t much of a husband, but animal husbandry? Now that was a different matter.

  Which was why Wal’s treatment of poor wart-infested Phantom remained so unfathomable. As Matt turned past the front house paddock and spied the horse standing forlorn and lonely near the gate, he vowed to broach the subject again. Wal would probably give him short shrift as he had every other time Matt brought Phantom up, but Matt wasn’t about to let that stop him trying.

  Like dreams, some things just couldn’t be let go.

  ‘So what’s the story with Phantom?’ Matt asked his uncle early that evening as he drove along Thiedeke Road toward Dargate. Tony had invited them to join him and his family for dinner at Dargate’s Commercial Hotel. Wal had tried to pike out, citing tiredness and an early start the next day, but Matt had convinced him to go. It’d do them both good to get out for a night and Matt wanted to connect with his cousin.

  Wal’s arms tightened across his chest, eyes held straight ahead, lips tight, sealing in any reply. His whiskered chin jutted as his mouth sank inward. In a show of sulks, the old man hadn’t shaved although he’d at least shown enough consideration to shower, which was something.

  Matt flicked him an amused glance. The old boy hardly needed to speak anyway. His body language said it all: bugger off and mind your own business. Perhaps he should. Amberton and its animals belonged to Wal, not him. He was just a worker.

  A worker with a conscience.

  ‘Is it because he was Maggie’s?’ He looked back at Wal, checking his face for anguish. Maggie was Wal’s near neighbour who’d passed away only a few days before Matt’s arrival five weeks earlier. The two had been close. Perhaps close enough to have been more than friends. ‘You wouldn’t be the first person to take your grief out on an animal, you know.’

  ‘Don’t be a bloody muppet.’

  ‘Then what?’

  ‘None of your business.’

  Irritated by his uncle’s recalcitrance, Matt’s fists tightened around the wheel. If Wal thought for one second his snappy tone would thwart his great nephew, he had another think coming.

  ‘I have to look at him every day. That makes it my business. The horse is left covered in warts and ignored while every other animal on the place is cosseted like a baby, and I want to know why.’

  A good twenty seconds’ silence passed before Wal relented, though his response was a begrudgingly muttered, barely audible, ‘I’m waiting.’

  ‘For what?’

  ‘You’ll see soon enough.’ He waved a finger toward the road. ‘Now shut up and drive.’

  Matt’s jaw felt like Wal’s looked – rigid with anger. He considered pushing harder but decided to let it drop. He may have lost this battle but the war wasn’t over. Other tactics remained. He just needed to think them through.

  Besides, if he was right and Wal’s behaviour toward the horse was because of grief, then Matt understood all too well. Grief was an emotion capable of turning good men cold with loss. It could make them behave in ways they didn’t mean. Warp their appreciation of what mattered. Matt ought to know. He’d seen it enough.

  They finished the journey in silence. As expected on a Sunday night, Dargate’s streets were quiet. A few people strolled about, making the most of the cooler evening and extended southern twilight, but the pub carpark sported only a couple of cars and a single motorbike.

  Matt parked next to Tony’s silver BMW, easily recognisable by its custom GRANEY numberplate. He grinned at the sour expression on Wal’s face as he clocked the sleek SUV. Wal had made an identical face when he’d seen Matt’s Amarok. According to his uncle, LandCruisers had built this country, which may have been true, but that didn’t mean other makes couldn’t continue the job.

  ‘Things must be good in the property game,’ Matt remarked as he unclipped his seatbelt.

  Wal’s only response was to grunt. Given the vanity plate, Matt considered that strangely apt. His cousin had changed since they were boys, and not necessarily for the better. These days he went by his full name, Anthony – as if changing your name made any difference to the man you were. He lived in an architect-designed house on a huge block surrounded by landscaped gardens, which overlooked town from a rise commonly referred to by Dargate locals as ‘Snob Hill’. Even his real estate office was ostentatious – a modern, rendered brick building close to the centre of town, painted in the Graney Realty colours of blue and gold.

  Tony dressed in expensive-looking men’s clothes, wore designer sunglasses, conducted business via iPad and kept his dark hair slicked back like a twenties gangster. Even his speech had changed, from lazy rural broadness to a deep but clipped, slightly snotty-sounding articulation. Matt used to like his cousin but he had a suspicious feeling Tony had grown into a bit of a wanker.

  Dinner progressed easily enough, with conversation ranging from the weather, to the local cricket competition, to the much-debated need for a pedestrian crossing in Dargate’s main street. Determined to charm Tony’s twin girls, Maddy and Flora, Matt parked himself opposite them. The four-year-olds were doll-like miniatures of their mother, Debbie – snub nosed, cupid mouthed and with unruly manes of strawberry blonde curls surrounding their cheeky-cute faces.

  On first meeting they’d scuttled away from him, eyes not leaving his face as they whispered urgently to one another from behind cupped palms. Though disappointed, Matt couldn’t blame them. His scar gave him a dangerous air, no matter how he tried to soften it with grins and twinkling green gazes. The doctors had done their best but the deep cicatrice extending from the left corner of his eye to his chin before curving back along his jawline toward his ear remained an ugly reminder of how close he’d come to death. In time it would fade, become less confronting, or so they’d promised, but Matt knew that was a long way off. In the interim, he had to rely on his personality to gain the little girls’ trust.

  He smiled at them. ‘Has Gramps promised you one of Dolly’s puppies yet?’

  Maddy and Flora shook their head in unison, before darting blue eyes to their mother.

  Deb cast him a weary look. ‘Don’t encourage them, please. They already have Canute.’

  ‘Another dog wouldn’t make much difference and Canute would appreciate a bit of canine company. And the pups are seriously cute. There’s one that has one ear standing straight up while the other flops straight down.’ He raised his hands to his head, demonstrating with his fingers before tilting his head to the side and panting. The girls began to grin.

  Head shaking, Deb turned away, distracted by baby Jarrod banging his plastic spoon on his high chair tray. Removing the spoon from his pudgy grip, she chucked him under the chin. In return, the baby blew a happy spit bubble that made his mother glow with love.

  A pang of envy hit Matt’s chest. The same envy he’d experienced when he visited his old nanny, Antonella, in London after the bombing and found her joyously clucking over her ever-expanding family like a broody mother hen. Until then, he’d used the army as his substitute family, just as he’d done with his old boarding school and, to a lesser extent, Amberton. Yet in those few days, she’d done what no one else had ever managed and shown him what family was really about, what really mattered in life. A life he was now determined to claim for himself, as Tony had.

  Matt tamped the feeling down. No point wallowing. His time would come.

  Recovered, he tuned in to his cousin’s conversation with Wal.

  ‘It makes sense,’ said Tony, leaning closer to his grandfather. ‘Dargate has never had a period of prosperity like it. And that offshore drilling isn’t going to last forever. Prices will come down. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.’

  ‘No.’

  Catching Wal’s tone, Matt eyed him. Wal’s face wore the same stubbornly shuttered look as in the car, when Matt had brought up
the subject of Phantom.

  ‘Gramps, I’m not talking a few hundred thousand here. The Baxters paid over three and a half thousand dollars an acre for their block.’ At the mention of the Baxters, Wal’s chin jutted even further but Tony carried on. ‘You wouldn’t even have to organise anything. Graney’s would take care of all the subdivision work. And we’d market it. Not that we’d have to do a lot of that. We have buyers clamouring for acreage and Amberton’s closer to town than anything we or the other agents currently have on their books. Three and a half thousand dollars an acre, Gramps. Work it out. You’re sitting on a gold mine.’

  Wal lasered his rheumy eyes at Tony. ‘You deaf, son? I said no.’

  Tony placed his hand on his grandfather’s shoulder and smiled kindly. Perhaps he thought the gesture and expression sympathetic, but for Matt the only thing it conveyed was condescension. Anger on Wal’s behalf sharpened his senses.

  ‘I know you love the place, Gramps, but you have to face facts. You’re getting on. There’ll come a time soon when you won’t be able to manage the farm. Mum and Dad have never had any interest in it and farming isn’t something I’m keen on either. And you’ve worked hard all your life. You deserve a break. Isn’t it about time you retired, enjoyed yourself, instead of working yourself into the ground?’

  With a savage jerk, Wal shrugged off Tony’s hand and thrust back his chair. Lifting himself upright, eyes flashing with fury, he pointed a finger at his grandson. ‘If you think for one second I’m going to let you split up my land and sell it to a bunch of blow-ins like the Baxters you’ve got another think coming. As for locking me away in a nursing home, you can stick that idea fair up your arse. The only way I’m leaving Amberton is in a coffin. You hear? A coffin!’

  Tony stood, his own anger leaking through his caring facade. ‘You’re being stupid.’

  ‘Stupid?’ Wal’s chest heaved as he sucked in breaths.

  Matt glanced at the girls. Their eyes were like discs. Sensing tension, Jarrod broke into a wail. His flustered mother tried to soothe him but the baby only screamed louder.

  ‘Please, Anthony,’ she pleaded, glancing at the other tables. Though only two other couples were present in the dining room, all four faces were turned their way. ‘Not here.’

  Her entreaty worked, at least on her husband. Alerted to the stares, Tony sat down quickly. ‘I’m sorry, Gramps. I didn’t mean that. Of course you’re not stupid. I’m just worried about you, that’s all. We all are.’ He gestured to Wal’s seat. ‘Sit down. We’ll talk about it.’

  ‘Nothing to talk about. Conversation’s over.’ Wal nodded at Matt, who caught a hint of wetness in his eyes. Whatever his tough exterior, Tony had hurt him badly. ‘I’ll see you at the car.’

  Wal walked out, leaving the table quiet behind him. Even Jarrod ceased his wails.

  Tony ran his hand over his hair. ‘Stubborn old fool. He’s eighty-two. He should be in a nursing home.’

  Placing his cutlery together, Matt shook his head. ‘That’s as good as putting a bullet in his head. He’s doing all right. A bloke who can still break in a horse at eighty-two can’t be too frail. Besides, I’m there to help out now.’

  ‘Yes.’ Though fleeting, Matt caught a narrowing in Tony’s expression. ‘So you are.’

  ‘Don’t even think it.’

  ‘Who says I was thinking anything?’

  ‘Your face does.’ Matt dug out his wallet. ‘Think what you like but I can tell you right now I’m not after Amberton. I’m just there to pick Wal’s brains until I find a place of my own.’

  Tony thought on that for a moment before turning his body toward Matt and laying an arm across the back of his chair. ‘Then maybe we can help one another.’

  Movements deliberate, Matt picked three twenties from his wallet and placed them under the salt shaker. It was more than enough to cover their meals but he didn’t have any change and didn’t want to go to the bar to fetch any. Tony had made a show of paying for their meals at the counter, whipping out a gold credit card before Matt could hand over any cash. Matt hadn’t minded then – if Tony thought it proved something, he could go to town – but he minded now. A lot.

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘Don’t be so hasty. You ever heard of a finder’s fee?’

  ‘Forget it, Tony.’

  ‘Anthony. And I won’t. This is too big an opportunity.’ Tony’s face moderated into the same false sincerity he’d used on Wal. He leaned even closer and held Matt’s gaze. ‘Look, I was serious when I said I was worried about Wal. So are Mum and Dad, but they can’t keep an eye on him now they’ve moved to Noosa. They’re relying on me and I have every intention of being a good grandson and looking after Wal’s best interests.’

  Though his meal was unfinished and his beer only half drunk, Matt slid his chair back, dislodging Tony’s arm. The greedy, selfish atmosphere was making him sick. And he needed to escape before he did something dumb, like punch his cousin square in the mouth.

  ‘A good grandson? You’re trying to sell Wal’s home from beneath him. That place – the horses, the livestock, the land and forest – keep him alive. Sell it and you’ll kill him. So don’t talk to me about being a good grandson. You don’t even come close to the definition.’

  Though Matt had more he wanted to say, he stopped. The girls didn’t need to hear what he really thought of their father, and Deb was upset enough. ‘I’d better chase up Wal. Thanks for dinner. I’ll see you round.’

  With a quick nod to Debbie and the girls, he copied Wal and stalked out.

  As Matt stepped out into the summer night and spied Wal pacing furiously across the carpark like a demented gnome, his anger suddenly vanished. He shook his head in disbelief as his mouth quirked into a wry smile. So much for playing happy families. Between him and Wal they couldn’t even make it through dinner.

  Yet for some weird reason he didn’t mind. The old boy might be a cantankerous fool but he mattered. Besides, the soldier in Matt liked a good fight. And if tonight was anything to go by, this one might prove to be a beauty.

  Three

  Callie parked her ute in the crushed limestone bay at the front of Glenmore’s worn weatherboard house and leaned back against the seat, breathing shallowly. After too many years and 2600-plus kilometres she’d finally made it back. Even with all those hours of open road rationalising, of making plans, of telling herself this was her path to freedom, the shock of seeing Glenmore, of knowing there’d be no Nanna, no Poppy, no dogs to bark a welcome, no fat Phantom whickering his delight on seeing his mistress, left her shaky and anguished, but mostly unsure if she could endure what needed to be done.

  In her shorts pocket sat the keys she’d picked up from Nanna’s solicitor in Dargate. She didn’t like the feel of them. Keys spoke of distrust when Glenmore had always been a place she and Hope felt safe and loved. A place where the door always stood open, like the hearts held within.

  She threw a look at the single-storey house and almost choked at its forlorn loneliness. Once, in the happy past, it welcomed visitors with two polished window eyes set in identical wings extending either side of an inviting, flowerpot-dotted and swept porch. Now the porch was scattered with dried grass, twigs and leaves, the windows opaque with grime. The timber-clad walls still appeared solid but the white paint was flaking, and the green gutters and sills sagged as though weighed by silent tears.

  Memories drifted through. Times when the Reynolds family would roll up at Glenmore – herself, Hope, their mum, Jacqueline, and dad, Michael – and even if Nanna was in town and Poppy out working the paddocks, the house would always be open and welcoming. Being family, and immune from formality, they’d use the back door. Mum, a born-and-bred city girl, would shake her head and tut-tut, sending Dad in to check things out before allowing Callie and Hope to set a foot inside. He’d laugh at his wife’s city ways, reminding her that no one locked their house out here, but that never stopped Mum fretting.

  Callie released a long breath. Th
oughts of her family wouldn’t help; she needed to focus. And the ute was becoming stifling.

  Biting sun stung her shoulders and bare legs as she made her way around the side of the house, the fingers of her left hand tracing the wall’s crackled paint. From the stand of stringybarks to the right, where the clover-infested buffalo lawn gave way to a small paddock before merging into state forest, came the rusted screech of a black cockatoo. Callie swung her head, hoping to spot the bird, a local subspecies that had been under threat for years, but all she caught was the sway of trees and heat shimmer.

  Another bird sounded, but she didn’t recognise the call. The lessons Poppy taught had long faded, lost along with so much else.

  More memories. Glenmore pulsed with them. Hope turning cartwheels on the lawn. Little girl tea parties that Nanna dutifully supplied scones for. Hope patiently plaiting Callie’s constantly unruly hair in readiness for pony club. Her sister tanned, fit and stunning in cut-off jeans and a bikini top, vibrant with youth and dawning sexuality.

  Callie halted for a breath, dropping her hand from the wall and rubbing her arm as though cold, reminding herself again that this was only temporary. A few days of sorting and cleaning, a couple of trips to the dump and charity shop, and she’d be off Glenmore and driving north, leaving her painful past behind forever.

  The cockatoo screeched again, and this time she spotted it soaring above the treeline, the underside of its tail flashing scarlet. For some reason, the sight made her smile. She could do this. Hope would want her to move on, and for her own heart, Callie needed it. Fortified, she continued walking round the corner of the house, concentration on the cockatoo’s flight.

  A streak of fast-moving white exploded in the bottom corner of her vision, followed by a loud, vicious hiss and an orange flash darting lightning fast toward her. Pain burst across her unprotected knee. Yelping and clutching her stinging leg, Callie hopped backward, only to smack her heel into the edge of a raised brick path. The impact sent her windmilling, the pressure popping the stopper from the toe-piece of her thong. She had just enough time to register that her attacker wasn’t a snake but an outraged goose before the bird flapped its great wings and lunged again, beak snapping like a rubbery rat trap. Off balance, Callie tumbled flat on her back, the air knocking from her lungs in a great whoosh.