Heartland

by Cathryn Hein

  ‘Why did she need to contact Callie? Seems to me Callie made it pretty plain she never wanted to set foot on Glenmore again. She’s only here now because someone has to clean the place out.’

  ‘Maggie knew how to make her right.’

  Matt shook his head. It was up to Callie to find peace in her own way. Everyone’s demons were different. Going back had worked for him, but that didn’t mean it’d work for her. ‘Only Callie can do that.’

  ‘Don’t be a muppet. Stupid missy wouldn’t know her arse from her elbow these days. Gone all citified like her mother.’

  Matt leaned back with his arms crossed, breathing carefully in an effort to keep his temper in check. ‘You have no idea what it’s like to stand by helpless while someone dies, do you?’

  ‘Maybe not, but I sure as hell know right from wrong. The missy has to stay. I made a promise to Maggie.’

  Matt said nothing. From the hall came the clink of a wonky-wheeled trolley.

  ‘And I’m not the sort of man who breaks his promises.’

  He wasn’t either. Even as a boy, Wal assured Matt he would always have a room and a job at Amberton, and he’d never once reneged, even in the years when stock prices were dismal and the farm was doing it tough.

  ‘All right, so what’s this got to do with me?’

  ‘I want you to keep her there. I can’t bloody do it stuck in here, can I?’

  ‘Right. And how do you propose I go about it? Chain her up?’

  ‘I don’t know. Use your bloody charms. Worked on her sister, didn’t it?’

  Matt jerked forward in shock. ‘What do you know about that?’

  ‘You think I didn’t know?’

  Matt could only stare at his uncle. Of course he assumed Wal didn’t know. No one knew. It was his and Hope’s secret. Their precious, private thing.

  ‘Maggie knew too,’ Wal added smugly. ‘She noticed Hope wandering off just as I noticed you. I told her not to worry. That you were a good lad and wouldn’t touch her.’ The smugness disappeared. ‘But you must have. That’s why she went off the rails like she did.’

  ‘What we did is none of your business, but Hope’s drug taking had nothing to do with me. I hated it. It was because of that we broke up.’ That and the fact she called him a boring country bumpkin who couldn’t see past his great uncle’s farm. Big call considering that by then, thanks to his mother, Matt had already travelled half the world and journeyed to cities a shitload bigger and busier than Melbourne. He might have preferred the country, but at least he’d developed that partiality from experience. Unlike her. Funny how even as a teenager he sensed what he wanted. Took him a while to see that though. Still, here he was, finding his way at last.

  Now it was Wal’s turn to be silent while he worked his mouth and mulled over that piece of information. ‘Doesn’t change the matter though. Still need to get the missy to stay.’

  ‘I’m not doing it.’

  What did Wal take him for? Some sort of gigolo? And the truth was he was afraid. He knew from experience Callie was just the sort of girl he’d fall for. Matt wanted to find new love, live new dreams, not get burned by someone hell-bent on leaving.

  Wal’s voice turned sly. ‘I’ll make it worth your while.’

  Matt shook his head. This was stupid. He needed to get back to the farm. He glanced toward the door, catching the blue swish of a nurse’s skirt as she passed. The wonky trolley began clinking again.

  ‘I need to finish that fence.’ He stood and squeezed Wal’s shoulder. ‘Let me know if you need anything.’

  Releasing Wal, he headed toward the exit, tossing a ‘And be nice to the nurses or they’ll confiscate your bedpan,’ over his shoulder as he went.

  Two strides from the door, Wal called out. ‘You haven’t asked.’

  Rolling his eyes heavenward, Matt debated whether to bite. Wal had an agenda Matt didn’t like and playing games pissed him off. Setting his jaw, he kept walking.

  ‘I don’t have one.’

  He stopped, one hand on the door jamb, and let out a tired breath. ‘One what?’

  ‘Will, you muppet.’

  Matt briefly closed his eyes. He didn’t want to know this. He didn’t want to think about Wal dying. All he wanted was to get back to the farm and lose himself in work. ‘In that case, maybe it’s about time you thought about getting one.’

  ‘I plan to. Soon. Man might even consider leaving all he owns to his nephew.’

  Slowly, he turned around and stared at his uncle, heart thumping, unable to credit this was happening.

  Casting a quick look down the corridor and then across to Arthur, who appeared to be dead to it, Matt strode back to Wal’s bed and leaned in close. ‘Let me read between the lines here. You want me to somehow convince Callie Reynolds to stay on at Glenmore, and in return you’ll leave me Amberton?’

  Wal nodded.

  Matt shook his head in disbelief. ‘Wal?’

  ‘What?’ replied Wal, expression innocent, as if he hadn’t done anything even remotely questionable.

  ‘Are you fucking crazy?’

  Five

  Scrubbing brush and plastic bucket in one hand, Callie stood on the back step inhaling clear, dew-scented air. She inspected Glenmore’s rear yard, breathtakingly bucolic in the sun’s early morning blaze.

  A cracked concrete path led from the back step to a saggy-wired Hills Hoist. Nanna’s beloved liquidamber stood guard over the south-eastern edge of the yard, while the untidy remnants of her vegie garden and Honk’s enclosure bordered the south-west. The home paddock’s fenceline stretched behind those two markers, enclosing a narrow paddock that rolled away to the property’s boundary in a patchwork quilt of pale yellow tussocks and verdant clover.

  The memory of other summer mornings, days even more glorious and promise-filled than this, struck Callie like a punch: images of carefree sisters giggling girlishly as they bolted from bed and rushed outside in their pyjamas – Hope to collect eggs still warm from nesting hens, Callie straight to kiss her horse good morning – while Nanna and Poppy threw ‘slow downs’ and ‘steady ons’ in their granddaughters’ overexcited wake.

  She lowered the bucket and wrapped her arms around her waist, breathing hard. They were just memories. Selling Glenmore didn’t mean she’d lose them. They’d still exist, locked in her mind – retrievable. Yet that didn’t make Callie feel any better, or ease her feelings of betrayal.

  She had to bear in mind the good the Hope Foundation could do with the sale money, how many girls they could educate about the dangers of drugs. Perhaps the money would even save a life, prevent another family from enduring the terrible suffering hers had. What better gift for her parents than a funding boost for the thing they held dearest, their daughter-substitute obsession? After all, her own attempts at being the perfect Hope had proved disastrous. She’d tried, so very hard in the early days, but it was a legacy Callie couldn’t live up to. But she could give them this, her most precious thing, and perhaps by doing so also assuage a little of her own guilt for not saving her sister that night.

  She relaxed her arms and picked up the bucket. No matter how much it hurt, selling the farm was the right thing to do. The sooner she achieved that the better.

  Her back straight and her shoulders squared, Callie strode past the liquidambar, following the much-trodden path to the house paddock. A hank of rotted-through rope dangled from one of the tree’s sturdy branches, swaying lightly. Callie averted her gaze but she couldn’t prevent herself catching its whispered creaks. Telling tales. Recapturing lost images. The way Poppy’s fingers had moved with easy expertise as he knotted the tyre swing in place. The sharpness of his farmer’s crow’s feet as he grinned at his eager, dancing young granddaughters. Their squeals and calls of ‘more, more’ as he patiently pushed them in turn. The way they all laughed as if the world contained nothing but magic.

  Jaw tight, Callie stalked on, leaving the shady whispers behind. She unlatched the home paddock gate, casting an eye ove
r its new resident as she ducked round the edge and hooked the chain back in place. Phantom seemed happy enough, and so he should be on that pasture. Despite an infestation of wild oats, white clover colonised the clear spaces and clumps of cocksfoot shot coarse seedheads to the sky. Good pick for a horse, or so Callie recalled Poppy teaching her.

  Alert for snakes, she made her way toward the water trough with her hand held out, palm down, enjoying the tickle of tall shoots and seeds against her skin. She halted in the compacted dirt at the trough’s edge, dust rising around her ankles. Her nose wrinkled at the patches of algae floating on the trough surface. Brown and green slime clung to the concrete interior and draped superfine tendrils through the water. Lowering the bucket she caught a whiff of the trough’s unhealthy scent, a sharp stagnant smell that made her nose crinkle even further.

  Shame burrowed a hot tunnel down Callie’s back. She sent Phantom a silent apology for not cleaning his water on her return from the hospital. At the time, all she’d cared about was locking the horse up as quickly as possible so she could crawl inside and nurse her distress. It wasn’t until later that she registered surprise Phantom was still on the property. In her rush to follow the ambulance she’d left the main gate open, yet instead of bolting straight back to Amberton, the horse had stayed. Callie discovered Phantom by the machinery shed’s rainwater tank, calmly picking at the tender shoots growing around its leaky tap.

  Tugging the wonky brim of her fishing hat low over her brow, Callie set to work. Horses required a lot of water, especially in the heat, and while she might want to get rid of the animal, Callie would never deliberately let any creature suffer. Not even Honk, although after the painful snap he’d given her thigh when she’d locked him away last night, she wasn’t convinced the rotten goose deserved any kindness.

  She was scrubbing the last patch of slime when Phantom approached. Nostrils flaring, expressive brown eyes filled with curiosity, he nosed the empty trough, before nudging her arm, as though demanding an explanation for its emptiness.

  ‘Well, hello,’ she said, holding out her hand and letting him sniff.

  The delicate hairs on his muzzle grazed her fingers, the tickle shooting an echo of another horse beneath Callie’s skin, causing a fluttery delight. Greeting over, she stroked Phantom’s nose, wincing at his poor warty face. Last night, as she sat at the kitchen table sipping a much-needed glass of wine, she’d used her laptop computer to Google warts on horses. Wal was right. They were harmless, non-contagious to humans, and would drop off in time, but that didn’t stop her feeling acutely sorry for the animal.

  He was a pretty thing otherwise. The type of bay whose coat was so light it appeared almost chestnut, but whose legs, mane and tail were a deep black, as though they’d been carefully dipped in gloss paint. She stroked his neck and shoulder, admiring the colour, the way the ends of his coat curled with sun damage and turned the red hairs rose gold.

  ‘Nearly as bleached as my hair, hey, Phan.’

  Phan. Four letters encapsulating so much loss, so much love, arranged into a word that didn’t belong here. This horse wasn’t Phan. There was only one Ghost Who Neighs and this warty thoroughbred wasn’t him. Her darling horse was gone, likely dead, given the advanced age he’d be. He should be remembered properly, in her heart, not traded for a weak imposter.

  Although she’d tried to dismiss them, Wal’s harsh words still stuck and chafed like burrs. Sixteen years old or not, there was no denying she’d abandoned Phantom. If she’d really loved her darling horse, she wouldn’t have let herself be kept from him. Or Nanna and Poppy, but when Hope began losing the plot all focus went on her, Callie’s pleas for Glenmore ignored. Then when she died . . .

  She wracked her brain for another name, something innocuous, without meaning or memory. ‘I’ll call you Morton,’ she said, swallowing the spikes in her throat and giving the horse a light pat before returning to her task. No matter how enticing, how much his smell and soft nuzzles made her insides swell with longing, she couldn’t afford to get attached.

  Or worse, for him to become attached to her.

  *

  The real estate agent arrived mid-morning, twenty minutes late, which earned him a thick red cross against the desirable attributes list Callie had running in her head. As a young renter and therefore a species that ranked low on the affection count, she’d never been treated with much respect by agents, but this time round she had a valuable property to sell. Any agent who wanted her business would have to earn it.

  He cruised up the drive in the sort of luxury SUV that made her immediately think ‘tosser’. An opinion reinforced when he unfolded his long frame from the car and smiled at her from behind mirrored aviator glasses.

  He wore a well-pressed white cotton shirt open at the neck with the sleeves folded neatly up, cream chinos and highly polished brown dress boots. An expensive-looking burnished stainless steel watch circled his left wrist, matching the broad silver ring on his wedding finger. His hair was too neat for it not to contain some sort of product, and as he approached, she caught the scent of an aftershave possessing too much subtlety and softness to be off the supermarket shelf.

  Though the sunglasses obscured much of his face, something about his mouth and jaw sent a tingle of recognition through Callie. Then he whipped the glasses off, exposing dark-lashed brown eyes.

  ‘Damn,’ she said, waggling a finger at him. ‘I know you.’

  The agent’s grin widened. He spread his arms and cocked his head in a jokey, look-at-me gesture. ‘Well, I am pretty unforgettable.’

  Callie rolled her eyes but his quip still had her smiling. ‘Maybe it’s just your ego I remember.’ She studied him a moment while he regarded her with amusement, then she snapped her fingers as realisation dawned. How dumb of her not to make the connection, but she’d simply opened Nanna’s out-of-date copy of the Yellow Pages and chosen the agency with the biggest ad without giving the name further thought. ‘You’re Wal’s grandson. Tony, isn’t it?’

  ‘Anthony. And very much at your service.’ He bowed slightly, before reaching out to shake her hand, his grip firm and dry despite the heat. ‘How are you, Callie? Pretty good by the looks of things.’ He nodded at her wrist. ‘Nice tatt.’ His grin quickly dissolved as he put the letters together. He dropped her hand, a tinge of colour rising up his neck. ‘Sorry. I didn’t mean to—’

  ‘Don’t worry about it,’ Callie said quickly, before changing the subject. ‘So how are things with you?’

  ‘Can’t complain. I’ve three gorgeous girls in my life plus a new baby boy, a growing business and—’ recovered from his embarrassment he threw her a cheeky wink, ‘—it appears I’m retaining my unforgettable good looks.’

  ‘Three girls, you say?’ Callie shook her head. ‘Now that’s just being greedy.’

  He laughed, bringing appealing lines to the corners of his eyes. Callie vaguely recalled acknowledging Tony Graney as extremely good-looking when she was younger, but that had been the extent of her interest. Back then boys were barely a blip on her radar. They didn’t register much now either, especially married ones, but she was adult enough to appreciate an attractive man when she saw one.

  ‘I’d have more if Deb would let me, but she reckons three’s enough. You remember Deborah Harrison, don’t you?’

  ‘Yeah, I do. Couple of years older than me. Used to ride that mad chestnut. So you and Deb got married?’

  ‘Six years ago now. We have twin girls, Maddy and Flora, and Jarrod’s six months.’ He reached into his back pocket and pulled out his wallet, flipping it open to expose a photo of his family and handing it to Callie. Deb sat on a picnic rug, head thrown back as she avoided the pudgy fingers her son was attempting to jam up her nose. Two doll-like girls, sharing identical cross-legged poses, bookended their mother, grinning so hard at the camera their gums showed.

  ‘Cute. Although if those cheeky grins are any indication, I bet Deb has her hands full with those girls.’ She passed the wallet back.
‘I guess that means she doesn’t have time to ride any more.’

  He shook his head as he tucked his wallet away. ‘She sold her horses when she went to uni and never got back into it. I think she misses it sometimes but it’s too hard with the kids. And once the girls go to school she’ll probably go back to part-time work. Doesn’t have to but she insists it keeps her sane.’ At Callie’s enquiring look he clarified. ‘She’s a nurse. A very good one. Everyone keeps telling me how much they miss her at the hospital.’

  Callie smiled at the pride in his voice, so nice to hear in a husband. ‘You sound really happy.’

  ‘I am. What about you? What have you been up to all this time?’

  ‘Travelling, keeping busy. The usual things.’ Having revealed all she was prepared to Callie nodded toward the paddocks. ‘So where do you want to start?’

  Tony squinted up at the sky. ‘Let’s get the paddocks done first, before it gets too hot. We’ll take my car if you like.’

  ‘Sure. Just mind you don’t run over Honk.’

  ‘Honk?’

  ‘Mad goose with a Napoleon complex.’ At Tony’s raised eyebrows she grinned. ‘Short and very aggressive.’

  ‘I’ll keep watch.’ He gestured toward her ute, a second-hand, late-model metallic bronze Proton Jumbuk that wasn’t the most exciting of vehicles, but which had proved reliable and cheap to run. ‘You’ll be able to buy yourself something a bit better than that with the money you’ll make off this place. Speaking of utes, I see Matt hasn’t bothered to come and pick up Gramps’s yet.’

  ‘He’s probably been too busy.’ Although Callie wondered about that. She hadn’t expected anyone to come on Monday, not after all the drama, and when she visited him on Tuesday, Wal had promised to send Matt around that same afternoon. But now it was Wednesday and the LandCruiser and float still hadn’t moved. Given Matt lived only a few kilometres away, it seemed a bit slack. She’d have to remember to prod Wal about it when she called in to the hospital later.