by Cathryn Hein
The thought made Callie strangely proud, and jealous. It was easy to admire Matt’s fortitude but the natural, untroubled way he slotted in filled her with an unfamiliar yearning for a proper home. Unlike her, he had a place he belonged, whereas Callie belonged nowhere and to no one. Even the one place she held a deep connection with and adored, she wanted to cast off and run from.
Somehow sensing Callie’s scrutiny, Matt looked up and winked, his smile so genuine and appreciative it seemed to illuminate the space between them. Something molten formed inside her, an exciting thing that bubbled and spread like sweet toffee. The sort of feeling that she hadn’t experienced in years. That she’d tried very hard to never resurrect.
Disconcerted, heart thudding, Callie turned away, but not before giving voice to a heartfelt and despair-filled Oh, damn.
Ten
For the umpteenth time Matt berated himself for his stupidity. The longing that had walloped him hard in the chest in the pub the night before was pointless. Callie was selling up and leaving Glenmore and her painful memories behind forever. Time he came to his senses and ceased this stupid fantasising.
Yet as he drove through the gates of Dargate Hospital on Monday morning, Matt sensed it wasn’t going to be that easy. Callie did something to him, aroused feelings he couldn’t stop, made him act in ways he couldn’t help. He wanted her, no question, but she wasn’t the woman for him. His dreams were here. Hers weren’t.
The hospital was noisier today but not with its usual medical industry. The air hummed with the chatter of Australia Day holiday visitors. Hospital sterility was softened by the drift of perfume and soaped bodies, of flowers and fruit, of outdoor life being brought inside. Each slide of the automatic doors dragged in scents of desiccated grass and thirsty trees, and the odd, slightly metallic aroma of super dry air. The heat blasts turned Matt’s mind back to Callie and her worry over fire danger; her grin and the statement that had followed his offer for help.
Attractive, capable man.
Yeah. A bloke could get used to hearing those words.
Matt smiled to himself as he made his way to Wal’s ward, only for his mood to plummet the moment he spied Wal.
‘If you don’t mind me saying,’ he said, pulling up a chair close to the bed, sitting on the seat edge and leaning forward, ‘you look like shit.’
Which wasn’t a lie. Wal possessed the sort of pinched, greasy-grey appearance of a person in deep discomfort.
His uncle threw back a sour look. ‘You taking care of my farm properly?’
‘As best I can.’ Summoning patience, Matt picked Wal’s Stock & Land off the bedside table and began to flick through it as he waited for the ritual to commence. Each day Matt would arrive, sit down, and attempt to respond to Wal’s snapped-out questions about Amberton without losing his temper, until finally the old man turned to the subject he really wanted to discuss.
‘Flystrike?’
‘A couple.’
‘You isolated them?’
Matt flicked over a page. ‘Yep.’
‘Cattle?’
‘Fat, farty, burping machines, as per normal.’
‘Troughs?’
Matt scanned an article warning of field crickets ruining pastures. ‘No problems.’ He turned the paper around and pointed. ‘Is this something we should be worried about?’
‘What?’
‘Crickets. Black crickets eating pastures. Apparently it could be a problem.’
Wal’s mouth flapped open and closed like a steam vent, sending his waxen jowls wobbling. ‘Crickets?’
‘Yes. It says here they’re on the move. Do I need to watch out for them or spray or anything?’
‘Don’t be an idiot. Crickets like cracking soil.’
‘Right, and I take it we don’t have any of those.’
Apparently not, given the filthiness of the look Wal threw him. Matt bowed his head to hide his smile and feigned deep concentration in an editorial about the catastrophic decline in students wishing to study agriculture. Confined to bed, Wal could only simmer with frustration.
A gnarled hand reached out and snatched the top edge of the Stock & Land. ‘Well?’
‘Well what?’
‘Don’t you get smart with me, lad. You know exactly what. The missy.’
‘She’s a who, not a what.’
Newsprint scrunched in Wal’s fist. Despite his unhealthy pallor, strength existed in his clawed grip. Any moment he’d snatch the paper up and start batting Matt around the head. Poor old bugger hated the hospital and detested being confined to bed even more than his painful physio sessions, a state Matt could relate to. He’d hated hospital too; the smell, the noises, and most of all the discomposing sense of helplessness. For an active, independent person, hospital could be hell.
Matt relented. Teasing Wal might be fun, but it wasn’t really fair, no matter how much the cranky-arse deserved it. ‘Yes, I’ve seen her. Last night at the Royal.’
Wal arched eagerly toward him. ‘You took her out for tea?’
‘No. She’s working there. I thought she would have told you.’
‘Missy doesn’t tell me anything,’ Wal muttered, slumping back. ‘Just brings in bloody papers and grapes and talks about all the places she’s been. Like I can’t see what she’s doing.’
‘And what’s that?’
‘Pretending she doesn’t give a tinker’s damn about Glenmore.’
A few days ago Matt might have argued the point, but the haunted way she’d stared across the paddocks the day he’d helped her with the tractor had stuck with him. In the four nights since, during the drifting, contemplative moments of pre-sleep, Matt had rolled that expression around his mind, trying to decipher its meaning. Whether it was a product of Callie’s sorrow for Hope and the loss her family had endured, or for herself and the heartbreak of abandoning a place that had comprised such a significant part of her childhood.
Perhaps more telling was her genuine worry for the property. Plus there was still no sign of Glenmore on Graney Realty’s for sale list. Matt had been checking.
She’d wanted to run. The question was, from what? Her memories or her choice?
‘Maybe she does care,’ Matt said. ‘But it’s still her place. She can do what she likes with it.’
Wal let out a grunt that portrayed exactly what he thought of that statement. ‘You’re meant to be making her stay.’
‘Not a proposal I recall agreeing to, but you’ll be happy to know I’ve invited her around for dinner tomorrow night.’
‘Good.’ Wal nodded, mouth working in excitement at the news. ‘Good.’ His eyes narrowed and Matt could almost see the finely calibrated cogs of his wily mind ticking over. ‘Show her Topanga. Ask if she wouldn’t mind helping with him. Feed her some sob story about how he can’t be left half broken like this. That it might give him problems later or something.’ His lips puttered in and out like soft pistons. ‘And while you’re at it, see if you can’t get her to take one of Dolly’s whelps. Girls go funny over babies. Makes them susceptible.’
‘Susceptible to what?’
Wal’s left eyebrow sank with secretive man-to-man meaning as he tilted his head and bobbed his chin. ‘You know.’
Cottoning on, Matt quickly slapped the paper down. This wasn’t a discussion he wanted to continue and besides, Matt had his own agenda. He pointed to the small LCD television mounted on the ward’s far wall.
‘Have you been watching the weather forecast? Those hot northerlies are drying things off fast. Callie’s worried about Glenmore. I said I’d ask you if there’s anything she needed watch out for.’
‘She can slash those bloody paddocks for starters.’
‘Already onto it. She’d be finished if it weren’t for the fire danger.’
‘Good. Been bothering me, that.’ Wal nodded his approval. ‘Maggie had an old fire trailer. I checked it over for her back in November but you’d better give it another look just in case. Should’ve been replaced years ago but thi
ngs got too tough after Tom died.’
‘Anything else?’
Wal was silent for a while before rattling off a pile of chores that Matt wasn’t convinced were entirely necessary, and sounded suspiciously designed to keep him at Glenmore rather than for fire preparation.
‘I’ll pass it on. Fuck!’ His voice choked as a foul odour suddenly engulfed the room. Matt jerked around to glare at Arthur’s curled-up, blanket-hidden body before turning back to Wal. ‘Does he ever stop?’
Wal regarded his roommate with contempt. ‘No. Always was a filthy bugger. Nurses won’t move him either. Said I shouldn’t be so uncharitable toward a dying man. Dying? I’m the one who’s dying.’ He jerked a finger at Arthur. ‘Of that old bastard’s stink!’
‘You want me to ask for you?’
‘No. No bloody point.’ As though exhausted by his tirade, Wal sagged back onto his pillow, the pinched, afflicted expression returning to his face as he plucked the bed’s pale blue waffle blanket up to his chest.
Matt leaned forward, elbows on his knees, and held his uncle’s gaze. ‘Okay, what’s up?’
‘What do you mean, what’s up?’
‘With you, Wal. I meant what I said when I arrived. You look like shit.’
His great uncle stared sulkily back across the room toward Arthur.
‘Well?’
Wal’s mouth scrunched up even further.
‘Please yourself,’ said Matt, planting his palms on the chair’s arms and half rising. ‘I’ll just ask that young nurse I saw on the way in.’
‘Problem with my waterworks,’ Wal mumbled, still not meeting Matt’s eye.
Matt sat back down. ‘Serious?’
‘Course not. Just a kink or something.’
‘Is it because of your hip? A complication?’
‘I told you, it’s nothing. I’m fine.’
‘Not from the way you’re looking, you’re not.’ Matt stood and gripped Wal’s shoulder as worry tangled his insides. ‘Don’t you go getting sick on me. We’ve still a lot to do together.’
‘Stop your fussing, lad. I’m as strong as an ox.’ But from the gruff texture of his uncle’s voice and the glisten in his eyes, Matt could see Wal appreciated his concern.
He squeezed Wal’s shoulder before letting go. ‘You take it easy.’
‘Can’t do much else, can I?’
‘You know what I mean.’
Matt left, thinking he’d stop at the nurses’ station to double check there wasn’t anything seriously wrong. With a bit of luck the nurse who remembered him from his early days in Dargate would be on duty. Aware Matt was looking out for his uncle, she’d been more forthcoming about Wal’s health than the others, who had the irritating habit of referring him to Tony.
As Matt turned down the corridor toward the main exit he heard giggling, the sort of high-toned joyous bubble of noise little girls make. Seconds later, the space was filled with Tony and his family. Noticing Matt, the indulgent smile Tony was directing at his girls faltered. Sensing a stutter in the happy atmosphere, the remaining Graneys halted, looking from Tony to Matt. Even baby Jarrod turned in his mother’s arms, eyes wide with assimilated anxiety.
Deb threw a worried look at her husband before directing a smile Matt’s way. ‘Matt, how are you?’
‘Great,’ said Matt, continuing toward them as though nothing was amiss. He glanced at Tony and nodded a greeting, before crouching to grin at Maddy and Flora, already gathered like blonde flowers around their mother’s legs. ‘How are the two prettiest girls in Dargate today?’
They looked at each other, communicating in that mysterious, silent way unique to twins, before grinning shyly back at him.
‘You know that puppy of yours is still waiting for you to come and play.’
‘Don’t encourage them, please,’ said Deb, exasperation in her voice. ‘They haven’t stopped nagging.’
‘Really? Good work, girls.’ He gave them a conspiratorial wink. ‘Don’t worry, we’ll soon have her worn down.’
He rose and faced Tony, who regarded him with cool wariness. ‘Wal’s not looking too great.’
‘No. Bladder infection.’
‘Bad?’
‘Just painful at this point. They’re treating him with oral antibiotics but if it gets any worse they’ll put him on intravenous.’
Matt nodded, satisfied and ready to leave them to it, but then he noticed the thick A4-sized yellow envelope in Tony’s fingers, the paper held short end to short end so that it curled into a basket shape.
Wiry tension tightened Matt’s neck. He looked meaningfully at the envelope before slowly lifting his gaze to his cousin’s. ‘Not planning to spring a trick on Wal, are you?’
Tony turned to Deb, speaking quietly as he ruffled baby Jarrod’s hair. ‘You go on. I’ll see you in there.’
She pressed her lips together, jiggling Jarrod, whose mouth was already dissolving into howl-threatening trembles. ‘Please don’t argue. Not here.’
Tony stroked his fingers gently down her cheek, surprising Matt with the gesture’s tender intimacy. ‘It’ll be okay. You go on.’
Matt watched Deb and the girls until they turned the corner, that same thick feeling of envy he’d experienced during their ill-fated family dinner once again lying around his heart.
‘It’s a will,’ said Tony, as Matt turned to regard him once more. ‘He needs one.’
‘He does. I’m not disputing that. But it should be how he wants it, not you.’
Tony sighed and rubbed his hand over his forehead. ‘I realise you have difficulty fathoming this, but I’m trying to do what’s best for the family.’
‘That property’s Wal’s.’
‘A fact I’m very aware of, but you know what he’s like. He could end up leaving it to some charity, just to spite us.’ Tony held up the envelope, still curled like a protective container around his precious greed. ‘At least this is fair.’
‘Fair to you, I’m sure.’
Tony shook his head, his expression incredulous. ‘Why do you think I’m out to scam him?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Matt, cocking his head to one side. ‘Why do you think? Could it be all those potential millions you were so keen to discuss the other night?’
Tony’s expression turned to frigid hostility. He leaned in close, voice dropping to a deadly but clearly articulated whisper. ‘It’s a waste of time talking to you. You’ve never had a proper family so you’ve no idea what it’s like. But I do.’ He stabbed a finger toward his own chest. ‘And I’ll be fucked if I’ll let some screwed-up cousin try to tell me what’s best for it.’ He straightened, jaw rigid, eyes glacial. ‘Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to visit my grandfather.’
Tony stalked away, leaving Matt concreted in place, a furnace scorching across his cheeks. Screwed-up. He’d never thought of himself that way before but maybe Tony was right. Maybe Matt didn’t understand what family really was. And maybe it wasn’t yearning he felt when he watched Tony with Deb, Jarrod and the girls, but the sludge of jealousy. The hankering for what Tony already had. The fear that he might never achieve it himself.
For a long, lonely minute Matt stayed unmoving, then he turned and walked on stiff legs through the hospital exit into the blasting heat of the day.
It wasn’t until Matt spied the welcoming familiarity of Amberton’s burgundy front gates that he regained some sense of composure. Throughout the journey from the hospital, he’d had to take his hands off the steering wheel to wipe them one after the other on his cargo shorts. Even then, and despite the Amarok’s blasting air-conditioning, they’d remained slippery.
Anger, hurt and doubt kept swirling. How could he possibly know anything about family life? Apart from his time with Hope, the most loved Matt had ever felt was with his nanny Antonella and that hadn’t lasted either: the year he turned nine, he’d been shunted off to boarding school, severing the only nurturing bond Matt had ever known. Perhaps something else was severed inside him at the same time
.
Matt glanced toward the drive, tempted to crawl up its safe track and lick his wounds in the solitude of Amberton’s quiet, but he’d promised Callie he’d come round and help. Besides, sulking alone never solved anything.
The forest separating Amberton and Glenmore ended, untangling into open country again. He grimaced at the state of the firebreak running between the scrub’s edge and Callie’s land. Someone should have been in to plough the break, or at least slash. Vegetation had been thick when he’d ridden the motorbike along it the previous week, but still with tinges of green thanks to residual soil moisture from the district’s earlier bout of unseasonal rain. Now, after days of strong heat, the plants were sapped and wilted, forming a dangerous carpet of tinder across the break.
He slowed and turned in the gate, scanning the house and paddocks for Callie. Phantom – Morton, he reminded himself – was grazing near his water trough, black tail swishing lazily. As Matt braked in the yard, the horse looked up, nostrils flaring as he sniffed the air, before deciding the visitor held no interest and dropping his head again.
Matt scrubbed his hands down his shorts before reaching across to grab a Dargate Rural Traders baseball cap from the passenger seat. He tugged it on and threw open the car door. Heat swirled in waves over his skin, instantly drying his sweat. Although it made him feel about sixteen, he gave his armpits a quick surreptitious sniff. Satisfied his deodorant was holding out, he surveyed the paddocks again for Callie but the farm felt deserted, too overheated and wilted to do anything except let the incessant north wind ruffle its shorn pastures.
He trudged toward the house. Callie was probably inside, hiding from the weather, finishing the last of her packing. Making plans for the future, a new life far from here.
