Climbing Fear

by Leisl Leighton

  Reid frowned. ‘I don’t think that’s true. You guys seemed perfect together. I never could figure out why you split up.’

  Steve’s gaze shot to him. ‘He never told you?’

  ‘No. He just said you weren’t right for each other.’

  A sigh shuddered out of Steve and he looked away again, but Reid didn’t miss the bleak expression in his eyes and he suddenly knew.

  ‘You knew, didn’t you? That was why you tried to stop him from climbing that day. The reason why you split up. Why he was so angry with you in that last week.’

  ‘I … It wasn’t …’

  Reid held up his hand. ‘You don’t have to say anything. I get it. You were trying to protect him.’ He grasped Steve’s forearm. ‘I don’t blame you.’

  ‘I do. I blame me.’

  ‘Seems we’re both good at that.’ He sighed. ‘I just can’t understand why he didn’t tell me what was going on, how desperate things had got for him.’ Had he been that much of a bad friend?

  ‘I imagine he thought he was protecting you.’

  ‘Yeah, maybe.’ He stared off into the distance while Steve began to pack away the first aid gear.

  ‘You ready to go?’ Steve stood, held out his hand.

  ‘Yeah. I am.’ He allowed Steve to help him to his feet and tried to smile, hiding the fact his head, knee and shoulder ached like a son-of-a-bitch.

  ‘After we get you checked out at the hospital, we need to talk about the charity climb.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You can’t put it off for much longer. There are things we need to decide on.’

  ‘No, you don’t understand. There isn’t going to be a charity climb.’ He sighed at the look on Steve’s face, knowing he was letting another friend down, but he couldn’t stay here working at the production offices in the Blue Mountains, trying and trying to be something he wasn’t. ‘I can’t do this anymore. I need a break. I need to get myself back together again before I can face another climb or anything else like it. I know this puts you in a difficult position—’

  Steve held up his hand. ‘No. I get it. I thought it was too soon, but you seemed so determined, I didn’t want to get in your way. I think we all need a break.’

  Relief rushed through Reid at Steve’s understanding. Although, if anyone was going to understand, it was Steve. He’d barely talked to anyone for weeks after Luke’s death, hadn’t even made it to the funeral. It was only in the last month or so he’d seemed to rally. It was good to see, and somehow gave him hope that there was a chance for him to do the same. ‘I know I’m leaving you high and dry.’

  ‘No. I’ve had some other opportunities come up which I’d like to pursue and we haven’t gone so far along with the charity climb prep that we can’t change it into something else or postpone it until you feel able.’

  Reid stared at the horizon. ‘I’m not sure if I’m ever going to be ready. I can’t even bring myself to go through the things Luke left for me. He wrote me a letter, you know, left it with his diaries and stuff and I haven’t even opened it.’

  Steve stiffened, a hiss escaping him, as if he’d been punched. Reid swore at himself for being an unthinking git. Reid had so much and Steve had nothing of Luke except for his memories and the photos of them together on his phone.

  ‘If you want something of Luke’s you only have to ask.’

  Steve shrugged. ‘If he wanted me to have something, he would have left it for me.’

  ‘The offer stands.’

  ‘Thanks.’ Steve nodded sharply and patted his shoulder—his good one, thank Christ, because the injured one was pounding with every step. ‘So, what now?’

  Reid sighed. ‘I don’t know. I think I might go home.’ His gran had been calling every day, telling him he should come home, let her take care of him. He’d not wanted to give in to the need for her, for home, for the warm familiarity of CoalCliff Palomino Stud, the beauty of Walhalla, the old gold mining town nestled in the south-east of Victoria’s Alpine region, so he’d held out. But the need to go somewhere nobody was expecting so much from him was suddenly overwhelming.

  ‘I thought you said you’d never go back there to live. That it was way too quiet for you.’

  ‘I was running away from things.’ Namely a girl. Being at CoalCliff reminded him too much of Nat and it had become too painful to be there. But time had passed and things were different now. ‘I think maybe a bit of quiet is exactly what I need.’ Life there had once given him everything he’d needed. Maybe it could again. Maybe this time it could heal the broken things inside him and allow him to find that enthusiastic, life-grabbing side of himself once again.

  Besides, he knew Flynn needed his help at CoalCliff. His uncle was only a few years older than him, being the youngest of a large and vocal brood that had spread across Australia. Flynn had had more than his fair share of burdens to shoulder the last few years and now he was a widower with a young son, he certainly could do with another family member around to help out and give him a bit of a break. At least that’s what Barb, his gran and Flynn’s mum, had said. Flynn would never say anything of the sort.

  And maybe there, he’d find the courage to go through the stuff Luke had left behind, including the letter he’d written to Reid just before that fatal climb.

  A smile twitched on his lips. ‘I’m going home.’ To family, to security, to picturesque CoalCliff Stud. Yes, going home seemed to be the best thing. Some quiet, the peace of simple hard work, no demands on him to be more than a helping hand around the farm. It sounded perfect. The worst thing that could happen to him there was to be smothered by his gran and maybe, hopefully, be bored to such a sleepy state he might finally get through the night without waking up screaming.

  Chapter 2

  Nat stared out the windscreen as they drove along the dirt road through the blue-tinged hills, a sense of peace falling over her. Yes, it was like she remembered in so many ways. Maybe, just maybe, she could finally sleep through a night without waking up screaming. All she had to do was let the magic of this place seep into her and everything was sure to get better.

  She flexed her hands on the wheel and let the window down a little, breathing in the scents of the mountains, enjoying the crunch of the tyres on the dirt road. She rolled her shoulders, trying to move the tension out of them. It was a harder drive coming in this way through the mountains and around Thomson’s Dam, but she wanted Tilly to see the country at its best. They’d done their fair share of flat, uninteresting freeways across from Perth and Tilly wasn’t the only one who was over them. This last part of their ‘starting over holiday’ had certainly been the most enjoyable for them both.

  ‘Why are the tree trunks all black here?’

  Nat glanced over at her daughter as she navigated a tight turn. ‘They had a fire about five years back. It was pretty bad and took out a lot of the bush.’

  ‘But they’re not dead. There’s leaves growing all over them.’

  Nat’s lips quirked into a smile. ‘The bush is pretty tough.’ There was a gap in the trees at that moment and they could glimpse a valley and the rise of more mountains. ‘Some of the trees didn’t make it—like over there—but most of the bush grows back.’

  ‘I love the big tall ferns.’

  ‘Yeah, they’re pretty special, aren’t they? My favourite are all the ghost gums like the one we had outside our home.’

  ‘They look like sunset.’

  ‘They do. We’ll see more of them on the other side of Walhalla.’ The ghost gums grew all across Australia, but there was something particularly special about them here in the Alpine regions of Victoria that she could never explain but always felt down to her soul. Surrounded by the alpine flora, the tree ferns and stringy bark gums, they looked even more beautiful than anywhere else they’d been.

  ‘How much farther?’

  ‘Not long now. Just a few more bends.’

  They were suddenly on paved road, passing the Chinese Gardens and camping grounds, and then
there was Walhalla, population eighteen, nestled in the narrow valley between two mountains. Once a gold rush town, it now survived on its charming old buildings and the mine tours it operated and not much else.

  ‘It’s not very big, Mum.’

  ‘No. But something doesn’t have to be big to be special.’

  ‘Like me.’

  ‘Yeah, like you.’ Nat reached over and tousled Tilly’s hair, chuckling when Tilly brushed her hand away and said, ‘Mum’ in that aggrieved tone only almost nine-year-old girls could master.

  ‘Why’s the road red?’

  Nat couldn’t help but smile—she’d asked Barb that same question when they’d first come here. ‘It’s made that colour to make it look more authentic to the era of the buildings even though it’s a paved road, not dirt like it used to be when the town was built. Do you like it?’

  ‘It’s pretty.’

  ‘Would you like to stop and look around?’

  Tilly shook her head and shifted on the seat, her legs bobbing up and down. ‘Can we just get there?’

  ‘Do you need the toilet?’

  Tilly rolled her eyes. ‘No. I just want to get there.’

  Nat understood. She was nervous too. She’d built up this move to Tilly and in her own head, wanting it so badly to work for both of them, but there was always the chance that she’d made the wrong decision, again, and if it was the wrong decision, she had no idea what to do next. In fact, the thought terrified her.

  Unwilling to let it in, she plastered a smile on her face and kept driving, past the Wally pub, past the steep hillside cemetery and the old Goldfields Train Station that ran steam train rides through the mountains and valleys for tourists, down through the winding road, shaded by the towering trees and ferns all around and the mountains on either side. At the fork, she turned left.

  ‘You’ll be going to school in Rawson that way—’ she pointed to the right, ‘—but CoalCliff is this way. In fact, it’s just over that hill. It sits on a plateau and looks down into that valley. You can see the back pasture going up the side of that rise there.’ She had to swallow hard against the rush of emotion as wonderful memories rushed over her, overriding the painful ones she couldn’t let herself think about. ‘We’re going to have so much fun, I promise. You’re going to love Barb—she was my mum’s best friend and took us in, gave Mum a job, made sure I went to school and kept me out of trouble. I owe her so much. If not for her, I don’t think I would have ever gone to university and studied events management and marketing. Which funnily enough, has ended up bringing me back here.’ It was strange how things happened.

  ‘You’ve told me all this before, Mum.’

  ‘Have I?’

  ‘Yes. When you told me we were leaving home. When we were crossing the Nullarbor. When we passed Adelaide. When we stopped at Port Campbell.’

  ‘Oh.’ She hadn’t realised. ‘I’m just excited, that’s all. Isn’t it beautiful? Although, it’s changed so much.’ The bushfires had done more damage than she’d been prepared for. ‘That used to be pine forests all along there.’ She pointed to the left as they turned into the winding road that led to the gates of CoalCliff Stud. ‘Look, now you can see the buildings.’ They used to be hidden behind dense trees. ‘The central building there is where the family lived, although Barb and Flynn have houses they built and live in now. The restaurant and lounge were in that building as well, and I imagine they still are as it looks the same, but all those buildings over there are new.’ She shook her head. ‘Over there and down into the valley is where we used to take rides.’

  It was hard to believe it was ten years since she’d been here. So much had happened since then. She shook her head. No. She wasn’t going to think about it. She didn’t want to dwell on her mother’s illness or those last months here when she’d made one bad decision after another before her mother died or the years of troubles since. She was here to start over, to wipe the slate clean. Yes, there was no thinking about the past, only the future and the new start they were about to embark on.

  She turned into the winding drive that led up the gentle rise to the heart of CoalCliff. The buildings disappeared for a moment, hidden beyond the peak they were about to drive around. She glanced at Tilly again to see how she was reacting to the beauty of the place. Her daughter was pale, lips tight, fingers gripping the edge of the seat, her chest working like she’d just been running. Hell. Anxious to do a better job of handling her daughter’s anxiety over the move than what her mother had done for her, Nat reached out and put her hand on Tilly’s leg, gave a little squeeze. ‘Tilly, my darling, it’s okay to be nervous. I’m a little nervous too.’

  Tilly’s head jerked as she turned to stare at her mother. ‘You are?’

  ‘Of course. I know this is overwhelming. Change is always hard, but I also know that if you give it a chance, you’ll love it here, and you won’t want to leave. I never really wanted to leave. I don’t know why I haven’t come back before now.’

  ‘Because Daddy wouldn’t let you.’

  Natalia’s jaw clenched tight, but she managed not to wince. ‘Well, we’re here now. That’s what counts.’ She drove past the public car park that sat on the plateau alongside the corrals, stables and barns and drove up to the private car park behind the main building. The pine trees shaded the building as they’d always done, untouched by fire or time. Opening her car door, she breathed in the familiar scents of pine mixed with eucalypt, pristine alpine air, hay and horse. They filled her with warmth. She glanced at Tilly. Her daughter was still gripping the seat, eyes wide as she stared around with a belligerent expression on her face. Crap. Time to try a different tack. Forcing brightness to her voice, she said, ‘Come on, Tilly-sausage. Out of the car. We’ve got to lug the bags ourselves.’

  ‘Mum!’

  She smiled innocently. ‘What is it, Tilly-sausage?’

  ‘Don’t call me Tilly-sausage, okay? I’m almost nine, not four.’

  Nat touched her hair. ‘It’s hard to believe you’re so grown up. Besides, if I admit you’re almost nine, that means I must be ancient—and I don’t like that thought at all.’

  Tilly looked up, a considering expression on her young face. ‘Well, you are old, Mum, but I think you’re still pretty.’

  Nat laughed. ‘Thanks for the vote of confidence. It’s just what I need.’

  ‘Are you being sarcastic?’

  Nat tweaked the cap Tilly had popped on her head. ‘Just a little. Do you mind?’

  Tilly shrugged. ‘No. You’re being funny. I get it. It’s kinda cool.’

  ‘“Kind of”, Tilly, not “kinda”.’

  ‘Jeez, Mum, you sound like Mrs Duncan at school.’

  ‘Well, Mrs Duncan is right to look after your language. You don’t want to end up grunting like a Neanderthal, do you?’ She began to grunt and groan.

  ‘Mum!’ The protest was spoiled when she burst into laughter. ‘You’re silly.’

  Relief rushed through Nat as her daughter’s laughter rang in the air. ‘Is that a problem?’

  ‘No. I’m just not used to it.’

  It was a stab to her heart, the relief rushing away with a whoosh that left her almost breathless. Her daughter didn’t know the real her and it was no-one’s fault but her own. ‘Well get used to it, because there’s going to be a lot of silliness, and a lot of fun from now on. Okay?’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘But first there’s going to be some luggage carrying. Come on, Tilly-saus … sorry.’ She grimaced and shrugged, but Tilly laughed and shook her head at Nat in that mock-adult way almost nine-year-olds were incredibly good at. Nat smiled softly. ‘Come on, Tilly. Pick up a bag—no, just one. We’ll come back and get the rest later. Let’s go find which cabin is going to be our home.’

  Tilly picked up her bag, carried it a few steps and then, with a pout, dropped it on the ground. ‘My bag’s heavy. Can you carry it?’

  Nat breathed in deeply, determined to ignore the ever-changing moods of her daught
er, and the whine that seemed to be a more frequent companion over the last eight months. Since the shooting and Andrew’s suicide, things had been tough. Through her recovery from surgery and the coroner’s inquest, Nat had tried hard to maintain normality for Matilda, but it had been so hard, especially when all she wanted to do was crawl into a corner and shut herself off from everything.

  She couldn’t do that though. Tilly needed her to remain positive and be the role model her own mother never was. So, despite the sore stiffness in her shoulder exacerbated by the long, difficult drive, Nat clamped her mouth shut over the lecture to her daughter about being responsible for her own things, hefted her bag onto her shoulder then held out her hand for Tilly’s. Smiling now because she’d got her own way, Tilly dumped her heavy bag at her mother’s feet and swung the much smaller Wonder Woman backpack onto her shoulder before sauntering ahead.

  Nat grunted as she hoisted Tilly’s bag over her shoulder. ‘What did you pack in here, Tilly?’

  ‘The kitchen sink.’

  ‘Ahh, sass! My little girl really is growing up.’ And as Tilly turned back, mouth open to respond, Nat held up her hand. ‘No more. My heart couldn’t possibly take it.’ Tilly giggled again—such a girlish sound of joy that had been missing for way too long. The magic of CoalCliff and the green hills of Walhalla was already weaving its magic spell on both of them. At least, she hoped it was.

  As they rounded the building and walked towards the office, Nat took time to look around, taking in the changes and the things that were still the same. The old pine trees surrounding the public car park, their needles a soft carpet underfoot, were all still there—the black on the trunks showing signs they’d been touched by the fire—but the old tin shed that used to make do as the cafe and sign-in building, was gone. In its place was a long building of pine logs and slate-grey stone with large windows running down three quarters of its length. To the left beyond the cafe she could see more evidence of change. The old barns beyond the corrals that had housed the tack, saddles, feed and bales of hay were gone. Another corral had been constructed where the first barn had been and beyond it were two new steel and brick structures, longer and bigger than the barns they’d replaced.