Stone Country

by Nicole Alexander

  The poisoning he’d received from Sowden’s sunset rum left a residue of tremors, dizzy spells and stomach cramps that at times made him bend with pain. Ross did his best to keep this illness from the others. He refused to confront Sowden about the concoction’s effect on him and Connor’s hardy demeanour was stiff competition. And, were Maria aware of his suffering, Ross suspected he’d feel twice the weakling. Three weeks passed before he felt fully whole again, although a lingering sensation of unease remained.

  When the rain grew too heavy and the wind forced torrents of water across his bedding Ross strung a tarp over the chicken-wire, which stopped the worst of the storms, although nothing they did could caulk the nail holes in the roof or lessen the myriad gushing waterfalls that invaded every room. Unlike the countryside around Burra, there was no lulling silence when evening came. The rain sounded like buckets of stones being thrown continuously on the tin roof, and the chorus of frogs and other unknown things crowded the air the rest of the time. It was difficult to sleep most nights. The dark air was so thick with moisture that at times Ross believed he was being suffocated by the gathering dreams of his past. The darkness chased him as if he were a child, and he had to stop himself from dwelling on his dead twin and the part he’d been accused of playing in William’s demise.

  Soon after Sowden’s departure, Ross began to be awakened during the night. He sensed from the beginning that the creaking noise of the bunk next to his was Maria returning to sleep by his side. At first, he imagined the girl scared of the night, of the thrash of thunder and the lightning that jagged like a catching thorn. And yet despite this reasoning he welcomed the distraction. In the brief periods of calm that the elements allowed, he lay waiting for her. Ross grew used to the pad of her feet as she passed through the dining room, the metallic flexing of the chicken wire as she groped her way along the sleep-out. The unmistakable hollowing whine the cot made as she sat. He’d assumed Maria only came out of fear but on clear nights she also appeared, and he began to consider that maybe she came for him alone. It more than pleased him, the way she sought him out, knowing that the choice to be with him was made by her, and that it was possible that the messy complications of the Great War might well be unimportant to someone younger like Maria.

  As the weeks dragged on, their shared space made the monotony of the wet season more tolerable. To Ross there was an intimacy to this silent arrangement. In their steady breaths. Their unspoken decision to leave the bunks only feet apart when the sleep-out stretched ten feet on either side. But this closeness was difficult to replicate in daylight, and with each new day Maria was gone before Ross rose. And, with all of them restricted to the house during the ongoing wet, Connor was never far away, making the possibility of spending time alone with Maria difficult. He was tempted to reach for her during the night but worried doing anything that might alter what was developing between them. Ross felt condemned to making do with Maria’s comings and goings.

  When it wasn’t raining Ross and Connor trudged through mud and water, like submariners cutting a path through the sea. The trees stooped under the mass of foliage they now carried and the grasses grew taller by the day. Birds, snakes and fish floated past on blue-green currents, a wash of fluid stretching into a heavy sky. The billabong was gorged by flooding; the escarpment had become a waterfall. They stood on the only square of unflooded land left and shot kangaroos and wallabies for dinner, while on either side the water crept among the timber.

  Ross enjoyed their passage through this other world of swooping flycatchers and kingfishers, of schools of fish swirling by. But they were never quite alone. The Aboriginal camp remained by the billa bong. Sowden sat propped up in a chair at the entrance to one of the wurlies, Annie sheltering him with a red umbrella as the manager followed their daily progress. Two children often waited for the men to appear. They marked time by trailing Ross and Connor, swinging their arms and pointing wildly as they mimicked their actions. Ross heard scraps of English in their talk and became mindful of what he said in their presence.

  Ross chose not to mention Sowden after his departure from the house. If the manager did come up in conversation he promptly changed the subject. Connor was quick to share an idea, particularly reiterating his belief that a truce with Sowden would be more valuable during the wet than the current stand-off between the two camps. Ross held his ground, believing that a lesson needed to be taught about who was in charge, but with that decision it was becoming too easy to exchange heated words with Connor, particularly now as the days dragged. The Scot, as Mick christened Connor on account of his accent and the way he stumbled in and out of his native tongue, was not one for backing down, both about Sowden and on the point of Darcey.

  ‘But you’ll write to her at least,’ said Connor, after a morning spent listing her many positive attributes. A one-way conversation that spoilt a good walk.

  ‘I’ll think on it. I don’t want to give her hope, because there isn’t any. Not for the two of us.’

  ‘Aye, right. You married her, Ross.’

  ‘I didn’t want her,’ said Ross firmly. ‘Aye, but you married her. Truly, Ross. A piece of dirt in exchange for a woman’s life.’

  ‘A woman’s life? I think you’ve been too long without female company, Connor.’

  ‘You’d trade your grandmother if it meant you didnae have to do another’s bidding.’

  The gap between them closed until bare inches separated their noses.

  ‘I might,’ said Ross. ‘I just might.’

  They’d drawn the interest of Sowden and the rest of the camp. The manager gave a friendly wave, and Ross knew with the day so quiet their voices may well have carried clear across the billabong. ‘I don’t want Darcey mentioned again. In front of anyone.’

  ‘You mean in front of the girl,’ said Connor.

  ‘I mean in front of anyone.’

  Mick began visiting at the end of January. Appearing out of the rain to talk briefly about some happening he believed that the occupants of the big house should be made aware of: an old-man crocodile seen on the banks of the billabong, an outbreak of fever that had struck the elderly and weak but was now contained. Ross saw the sharing of these snippets as a pretext to check on what was happening in the whitefella’s house. Invariably Ross was sitting at the table when Mick arrived, finessing the plans he’d drawn up for improvements to the homestead. Ross knew this information would be taken straight back to Sowden and was not backward in describing the alterations he had in mind. Two new rooms and pine floorboards, as well as proper windows with louvres, were met with interest. Mick remained angled towards the doorway during these meetings as if readying for escape, but he stared at the rough sketches and measurements ringed with the marks of plates and pannikins, the steady drip of rainwater smudging diagrams as Ross spoke.

  ‘He’s the better man,’ said Connor one day, after Mick visited to tell them that flying foxes had taken up residence in a section of the stables. The warning was not to eat the bats, for they created such an odour in the body that they were usually only consumed if the mosquitoes were really bad and there was no other option. Even then, a person might rather have the mosquitoes.

  ‘Why, because he assumes we can’t fend for ourselves? He doesn’t wade through the mud out of goodness, Connor. He gets things from us as well,’ said Ross.

  Connor was sitting at the other end of the cluttered table, greasing bridles in between examining his toes for mould. ‘Aye, right. He’s never even accepted a drink of tea.’

  ‘You don’t think Sowden’s interested in the plans for the house?’ said Ross. ‘You don’t think he’s wondering if we’re staying or someone new is coming to replace him?’

  ‘No I dinnae. I reckon the only thing he’s wondering about is whether we’d be stupid enough to kick him off Waybell,’ answered Connor.

  ‘They’re thinking a lot more than that.’ Ross ignored the sharpness in Connor’s tone and concentrated on the map he’d found in the tin trunk. The
plan showed the location of the homestead and yards, and Ross now knew that to the northeast lay country crisscrossed with stone, the beginning of a sandstone plateau from which water must spill outwards to fan over the lowlands, into rivers and billabongs, swamps and floodplains. All these were marked on the manager’s map along with trails showing dry and wet tracks. He followed one dotted line with the stub of a pencil across waterways and through woodlands to the edge of the page, wondering what lay beyond.

  Chapter 22

  ‘Another letter to your father?’ Connor joined Ross at the table. He’d been gone most of the afternoon, promising fish for dinner.

  ‘To my grandmother. How did you fare?’

  ‘Well I’m not sure Herself would be partial to the swamp we’re living in but if a person likes fish, this is the place.’ Connor removed his wet boots and began stuffing them with part of an old shirt to stop them from shrinking. The consequences of the dispute with Sowden included a lack of red meat. They’d nearly eaten out the safety-seeking kangaroos and wallabies that camped on the slight ridge around the house trying to escape the rising moat surrounding them. While there was flour, potatoes and rice, rows of pickled vegetables, beans and a few wormy cabbages and carrots, the salted beef was all gone and the chicken eggs were a treat only if they could be gathered before a snake or bird took them first.

  ‘Where’s the girl? I thought she could make herself useful. Fillet them and fry them in a bit of flour. Aye, they’d be tasty then.’

  ‘You mean Maria,’ corrected Ross. ‘We’re lucky to have her, you know. She always manages to make something edible out of whatever we give her.’

  ‘Well, dinnae get used to her, she doesn’t belong here. Eventually she’ll have to go to Holder. And I’ll tell you another thing, if that girl is supposed to be a domestic she’ll be ruined by the time she leaves here.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ asked Ross.

  ‘Dressing for dinner every night in that frock of hers. Sitting down at the table with us.’

  ‘Are you saying she shouldn’t eat with us?’ asked Ross.

  ‘I’m saying that she’ll be in for a shock when she takes up her new position. Dinnae get me wrong, the girl does her share, but she’s had things easy on Waybell. I’m reckoning that she’ll be eating with the rest of the domestics once she gets to Holder’s Run.’

  Simply knowing Maria was nearby gave Ross some relief from the monotony of waiting for the rain to end. There was a wholeness about her. In the quiet way that she spent each day, cooking, scrubbing, airing bedding, keeping the grass cut low close to the house. There was no perfect ensemble of clothing or neatly styled hair. No challenge of opinion or raised voice. The girl was as distinct in her difference to Darcey as a person could possibly be. How was it that Ross could see what Connor could not? It was Maria who made Waybell civilised. She held their friendship together and kept the night at bay. Ross didn’t want Maria going anywhere. He would have to send word to Marcus Holder when dry weather came and tell him that he’d have to find another maid.

  ‘Listen, Ross, we should go and see Sowden. They’re roasting something at the camp and it sure doesn’t smell like fish or bird.’ Connor placed the boots on the sideboard.

  ‘I’m not going over there to beg for food. We can look after ourselves.’

  ‘He probably took more than his share of supplies when he left,’ said Connor. ‘Dinnae you think we should try and get on with them? Food, for one. If this rain keeps coming they’ll starve us out.’

  ‘Leave them be,’ replied Ross. He turned his attention back to the letter and addressed the envelope to his grandmother. ‘We’re not desperate.’

  Connor returned to the table and sat, drumming his fingers. ‘I dinnae know if I’d last another wet season out here. This weather drives a man to distraction.’

  ‘Have you read all my books yet?’ asked Ross.

  ‘Just parts. The descriptions mostly. Some of the pictures are good,’ replied Connor.

  The illustrations were far easier to digest than the rambling discourses that lay between the pages of Herodotus, although the truncated version of Homer’s Iliad rather appealed to Ross. A battle within a battle. That was the guts of the Trojan War. Agamemnon versus Achilles. The King of Kings set against a warrior. The patriarch opposing the unwieldy son. The book was well-thumbed, clearly a favourite of his brother’s as well. Ross liked that.

  Connor tapped the table for attention. ‘It seems to me the Greeks bicker more than my parents did and that’s impressive. I wonder at your brother wanting to be one of them as a boy. They’re no better than us.’

  ‘Perhaps that’s the whole point,’ argued Ross. ‘They mightn’t be any better than us, but they have moments of greatness.’

  ‘Aye, right. What a load of tripe. If a man’s going to fight he should do it for something worthwhile,’ said Connor.

  ‘Like what?’ Ross wanted to know. ‘What would make you fight?’

  Connor concentrated on the funnels of water shooting off the roof, his voice louder as he strived to be heard above the din of the rain on the corrugated iron. ‘Religion. Home. A woman.’

  Ross sat back in the leather-hide chair. ‘Connor Andrews the romantic.’

  ‘Aye. Had I not been, I would never have left my village in Scotland. And what of your brother? Did Alastair believe the war was being fought for the right reasons?’

  ‘You spent time with him before he sailed,’ said Ross. ‘What do you think?’

  ‘He was a slippery one, Alastair,’ said Connor. ‘He knew when to say the right thing, the expected thing, but as to what was really going on in that head of his, well, I wouldn’t like to fathom what made your brother tick.’

  ‘He was a dreamer,’ said Ross.

  ‘Alastair? A dreamer? If what we heard is true, then I say a dreamer doesn’t wake up one morning and pull a boot on the end of a shattered leg and escape from a hospital in France.’ Connor followed the edge of the table with a thumb, stroking the timber. ‘If they’d cut his leg off, Alastair might have come home. Aye, crippled but he’d have been home. Instead he disappeared. Why? For fear of amputation? Or of mending and having to return to battle? It’s as I said, he was a slippery one, your brother.’

  ‘Are you saying he’s still alive?’ asked Ross.

  ‘No. I’m telling you that he might have been a dreamer once, but in the end he wasn’t afraid to do what was necessary to survive on his terms. I dinnae think any of us realised that about him.’

  ‘I did,’ said Ross. ‘I can’t count the scrapes of his devising that we two got into, nor the times I took the blame for them. There was always an excuse, a reason as to why it was best I take responsibility. I look back now and think how the four years between us made a mighty difference. That if I’d been older, I may not have been so quick to follow him.’

  ‘Aye, but a brother’s love made you stick fast to his side and Alastair took advantage of that.’

  ‘Yes,’ admitted Ross. ‘I suppose he did.’ He tapped the letter thoughtfully on the table.

  Chapter 23

  Out in the shack that passed for a kitchen Maria was kneading dough dotted with currants. Ross sat on an upturned bucket in the corner, a pool of water edging its way beneath the tin wall. He scraped at the dirt with the heel of his boot, enticing the moisture to run along the wall. Maria looked up at him, her expression changing from concentration to one of pleasure, then she returned to her bread-making.

  A cream blouse hung dripping from a line strung across the room, and beside it a flimsy item of clothing blew back and forth in the draughty wind fed by the storm. Anywhere else, this blatant display of a woman’s undergarments would have sent Ross immediately from the room but here the conventions of society seemed of no great concern. What was significant was his desire to reach out and touch the material.

  Ross quickly turned his attention away from the washing. ‘When the rain finally stops and we can order some supplies I’ll get some d
ress fabric for you. You could do with some more clothes.’

  Maria pushed at the hair falling across her sweaty face, a streak of flour smearing white against brown. ‘You don’t have to buy me anything.’

  ‘I know I don’t, but I want to. With the way the weather is, everything rots out here eventually.’

  She moulded the batter into a tin, opened the door to the potbelly stove and placed the mixture inside. ‘I won’t sleep with you.’

  ‘I wasn’t suggesting … I would never …’ Ross stumbled over his words. ‘Is that what you think of me?’

  ‘I see you watching me.’ She squatted near the stove, wrapping the folds of her skirt up into a bunch so that the hem didn’t drag in the dirt, the action accentuating the roundness of her bottom. Ross didn’t look away.

  ‘And you don’t like it?’ he replied.

  ‘That’s not what I said.’

  ‘It’s you who comes to sleep next to me, Maria.’

  She stood abruptly, wiping her hands on a rag tucked into her waistband. ‘No one’s ever offered to do anything for me unless they wanted something in return.’

  ‘I’m not like everyone else.’ Ross walked to the door. The rain was coming in sheets, gouging the mud as it fell. In the past he might have walked away at such an implication. He wondered if he’d misread her, if what he thought was mutual attraction was instead mere friendship. ‘I came to ask if you’d like to stay on and work for me. As cook. I’d pay you and build you your own room. I intend to renovate the homestead as well as improve the property.’

  ‘You’re staying?’ asked Maria, her voice inquisitive.

  ‘Yes.’ Although he’d been ruminating on the future these past weeks, the promise he’d made himself to never return to Adelaide held. It was here at the top of Australia where Ross believed he’d found something he could call his own. A place he could build on and improve. That could give him a sense of purpose, the beginnings of a new life.