‘They missed you,’ Ross told her. ‘You stayed after I left. That means a fair bit to them, I’d say. I don’t think many women would have done that, Darcey. Live in such an isolated place without a man’s protection.’
Darcey removed her hat and set it on the table. ‘Oh, Ross. This place is full of men and women and children. And anyway, Connor was here at that stage. He only left when I did.’
‘But still, you know what I mean,’ he persevered.
Eustace and Parker called out to say they had Darcey’s belongings and they entered the house, sitting the travelling trunk in the dining room.
‘Only two more to go,’ said Eustace cheerily. ‘You must have gutted that house of yours, Missus.’
‘Not quite.’ Darcey smiled. ‘I left the icebox.’
‘Now that’s one thing worth staying in Darwin for,’ said Eustace, as he and Parker departed.
Ross opened the bedroom door and walked inside. He wasn’t expecting the large wardrobe and matching dressing table, or the floral bedcover.
‘They came from Pine Creek,’ explained Darcey. ‘Connor and I made a trip of it. We stayed at the hotel for a few nights after the furniture arrived. I hope you don’t mind.’
It was just as Sowden had said. Life went on. Changes were made. People moved into spaces previously inhabited by others, erasing old memories and creating new ones. On the wall hung a patchwork, although it looked incomplete. It started square-cornered at the top, the cubes of material falling to a zigzag, like a flight of stairs.
Darcey examined the wall hanging. Insects had made a feast of it. There were various sized holes and dark spots blotted the material. ‘Oh well, I’ll have to make another. The room’s so plain and that wall so bare. It always felt to me as if there was something missing.’
‘You should take this room,’ said Ross, unwilling to think of the time when he was young and whole and Maria had offered herself to him. ‘You’ve made it yours.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes.’
Leaving Darcey to unpack, Ross moved through the house. The rooms were slightly changed. There were new pieces of furniture and a few of the original items. At the threshold to Maria’s room, he stopped. The space held a bed, wardrobe and washstand, the few items she’d left behind long since removed. Maria was gone. Exorcised from the homestead by the years, through their recent meeting and because another woman had managed to supplant her through patience and mercy. It would have been better if all contact with Maria could have been ended that day at Myilly Point, but there was a child now. His son.
Chapter 58
A dreadful howling punched the air. Ross woke with a start, momentarily forgetting where he was, though six months had passed since his return. As he lay in the dark listening, a choir of wailing rose, increasing in volume. He rolled onto his side and sat upright. Darcey knocked on the bedroom door, pushing it open so that it hit the wall with a thud.
‘What’s happened?’ asked Ross.
‘I don’t know.’ The kerosene lamp shone on his naked body and Darcey half-turned in modesty before changing her mind and gathering the clothes strewn about the floor. She passed each item to him, staring at the scars on his body. Ross did up buttons on his shirt and the fly of his trousers, concealing the marks from the years of wandering. Snakebite, knifings, burns, lancewood welts and ruined hips and legs – a map of events linked by anger and alcohol, many of which he couldn’t even recall.
Finding his boots, Darcey knelt at Ross’s feet, her features composed and unquestioning.
‘Thank you,’ said Ross, leaning on her shoulder as he tugged each boot on.
‘Do you want your walking stick? It’s very dark outside. The moon hasn’t risen yet.’
‘No.’ He’d been trying not to rely on it as much, which was testing him.
‘The noise is coming from the camp,’ said Darcey.
Ross heaved his body from the bed and got to his feet. ‘Get a pistol and stay in your room.’
‘But, Ross.’
‘Do as you’re told, Darcey. Please.’
‘Be careful.’ She stepped aside to let him pass.
Ross stumbled downstairs and into the night. He met Eustace and Parker along the way, bleary-eyed and worried, the click of cartridges and the sliding of bolts accompanying their steps as they slowed to keep pace with him.
Dogs skirted their heels as they passed the billabong, the light from a campfire guiding their direction. Most of the commotion was centred outside Sowden’s wurley and it was here that Ross went, pushing through the gathered people to the empty rattan chair near the entrance to the hut.
A piercing wail sounded. A woman’s voice.
‘You go inside, Boss,’ said Eustace, sounding nervous. ‘See what’s what.’
Once indoors, Ross could see that the wurley had been enlarged and that there was another room partitioned off with hessian from the main bit of the hut. The interior was lit by a single lamp and as the cry repeated itself, Ross realised what had occurred. He was far from prepared to face this particular death and he delayed going further into Sowden’s space. A table held foodstuffs, books and a leather-bound diary, while clothes spilt from the top of a forty-four-gallon drum. Having until very recently given no consideration to Sowden’s reduced circumstances after he’d left the homestead over a decade ago, being confronted with the manager’s personal belongings made Ross feel deeply ashamed.
The adjoining section of the hut was supported by a tree, branches sloping from bark to earth. It was here Ross found Annie. The woman was kneeling, bending back and forth from the waist, wailing. It was dreadful to see the way she bashed at her chest, grasping at Sowden, who lay on his back, eyes open, his spindly legs white and bare.
Sowden’s skin still held heat. Ross closed the man’s eyes and whispered his sympathies. Annie swished at him like a fly.
‘I’m sorry, Annie.’
‘Are you?’ She rose from the ground. ‘You never liked my man. He was good. Very good. Better than you. He looked after all of us.’
‘I know he did,’ replied Ross. Annie was contorted by grief. A different woman. Broken.
‘He looked after this place,’ continued Annie, the whites of her eyes red. ‘Mick and the others, we all did, and what did you do? Treat us badly. Walk away. All those years. Bill never said anything when you left. Except that you’d gone walkabout and that we should respect that. And when we heard Connor found you, my Bill was glad. I said, why be glad? He doesn’t care. And he said to me, because when a man’s lost he should be found.’ She ran an arm across a snotty nose and hiccupped, waiting for Ross to refute her claims. ‘He always thought the best of a person. You never did,’ she spat.
‘You’re probably right,’ replied Ross.
‘Then when we heard about you in the hospital, Bill was worried because he knew what it was like not to have legs.’
‘I’m sorry. I’m very sorry,’ said Ross. ‘I have no excuses for the way I’ve lived my life.’
He went back to the adjoining room and stood there as Annie’s grief welled up once more. The floor was covered with layers of cowhide, and pages ripped from newspapers lay in one corner. Curious, Ross gathered up the clippings and carried them to the lantern. They were all about his family. The Grants of Adelaide and the sole surviving son gone missing. The articles noted suspected sightings of Ross, his father’s obituary and the beginnings of Connor’s search, which was widely condemned as foolhardy and a waste of time. A lengthy interview with Mr Dyer of the Oenpelli Mission, who hailed Ross for trying to save young Don Hart’s life, completed the collection. Ross held the papers, and glanced through the brief record. The bones of a family nearly all gone. With care, he replaced the clippings where he’d found them.
Outside near the fire, Eustace and Parker were talking to Mick.
‘Sorry business,’ Mick commented.
‘Yes,’ answered Ross. ‘Very sorry. How do you want to bury him?’
�
��Old Bill was more blackfella than white.’
‘Well, if you need anything,’ answered Ross. He took Mick aside. ‘You’re in charge now.’
‘Yes, Boss,’ the stockman replied.
‘There’ll be no new manager coming to take Sowden’s place. We both know you were running this property long before I arrived. Having the title of manager only makes it official.’
‘Better you stay on too, Boss. Better for everyone.’
‘We’ll see,’ said Ross.
Darcey sat at the dining room table, waiting for Ross’s return. There was a pot of tea on the table and two mugs. A kerosene lamp provided the only light. Ross joined her and explained about Sowden’s death. ‘It could have been a heart attack. I don’t know.’
‘I’m sorry he’s gone. He’ll be missed. Here, have some tea.’ She poured for them.
Ross stared at the black liquid. Darcey added sugar to his cup.
‘Annie mentioned he’d not been well. I think he was waiting for you to come back, Ross.’
‘What for? I’m of no use on the property. I can’t even read the station ledgers without my glasses.’
‘To see you one last time. Annie said there were things that needed to be said,’ Darcey explained.
‘More on my part than his. I accused him of mismanagement a long time ago and I was wrong. I never found any proof. I should have told him that. I should have apologised. As it is, we’ve barely talked since my return. So whatever he wanted to say he thought better of.’ He took a sip of the tea. ‘Anyway, Annie pretty much summed things up,’ he said grimly.
‘Don’t be so hard on yourself.’
‘Wouldn’t you be?’
‘Ross, not everyone holds their resentments as close to their heart as you do. Remember the day we arrived on the property? Bill talked about time and making the most of it.’
‘Yes,’ said Ross.
‘Well then, he had plenty to say. Lost days. I remember that phrase distinctly. That speech was for you, Ross. No one else,’ she said. ‘Besides, if you needed to apologise to Bill for the past, then consider this: for a wrong to be righted properly he also had to forgive you. I’m not saying he had, but I do believe that after everything that’s happened he came to understand you a little better, perhaps he even saw similarities. The both of you have led hard lives.’
The tea was dark and hot. Steam rose from its surface. Ross had seen Sowden laid out on the hut’s floor, Annie crying beside him. How people presented themselves and who they really were didn’t always match. Or maybe it was his perception that was lacking. He’d wronged the man who grew cold in the hut by the billabong, and making amends was now an impossibility. He could only hope that Darcey was right. That in the end he and Sowden had reached a silent understanding. He’d seen a glimmer of that the day of his return to Waybell.
Few mistakes of his doing could be repaired. He glanced across at Darcey. Not settling for her pity could. ‘I appreciate everything you’ve done for me, Darcey, but this isn’t much of a life for a woman.’
Darcey took a sip of tea. ‘Caring for children, mending cuts and broken bones, helping to birth babies. Painting and walking in my spare time. The only thing that’s changed in my life is location, Ross, and you. You’ve changed a lot.’
‘So you don’t miss Darwin?’ he asked. They shared a quiet existence. She with her ministrations and he with his daily rides, only coming together at mealtimes to talk of Waybell and life there.
‘Yes, I do,’ she replied.
Ross slurped at the tea and Darcey patted his arm. He shrugged off her attentions but nonetheless placed the mug down and straightened his shoulders. She was still trying to re-educate him, to draw out the dormant characteristics of the culture he’d been born into as if she were a potter and he the clay. A part of Ross refused to be recast into that previous state, for too much ignorance came with his earlier existence.
‘I know what your letter said, Ross. No promises. It was the same for me. I followed you here for the reasons I gave in my note. Duty lay at the heart of my decision and that obligation was centred on my love for Waybell and its people. Your difficulties were secondary.’
‘I see,’ said Ross. ‘You’re not offended, I hope?’
‘If I was, I wouldn’t have a right to be.’
‘Exactly.’ She smiled. ‘I feel a greater sense of need here, or perhaps I feel more needed. But I don’t know if living together is a possibility for us, at least in any ongoing capacity.’
‘So the company you’re keeping is making you reconsider your obligation to stay?’ said Ross.
Her face was unreadable. ‘It’s been over six months since our return and now I find myself thinking about other things. What life would be like if I went back to Darwin. If we divorced.’
‘You want a divorce?’ repeated Ross. The scratchy letter composed at Mrs Guild’s house had been remarkably stupid. Extricating Darcey from his life had once been his primary objective. They’d bartered divorce for a child. He’d lost Maria because of their marriage. And now, these many years later, Darcey was offering what had then been unattainable: the freedom to do what he wished with who he wanted.
‘Well, it’s worth considering,’ she explained.
‘You’d remarry?’
Darcey twisted the knob on the kerosene lantern, the light flickering up and down. ‘I’m not sure. I rather like my independence. The idea of travelling.’
He was to lose Darcey as well, then. Ross thought of mounting an argument, of reminding his wife of her contractual obligations. He had the right of a husband, but the knowledge that Darcey retained some rights too stopped Ross from speaking immediately. She was a spurned woman, one who was wealthy and intelligent enough to reach the reasonable assumption that a man such as he, useless and ageing, was of no value to someone like her. Pity only extended so far. Ross refused to degrade himself further by asking her to stay. What was the point of explaining that it wasn’t for reasons of loneliness or selfishness but the simple acknowledgement that he’d come to recognise her many fine qualities, and that those qualities were more attractive than beauty or youth. He should tell her. Ross knew that. Leaving so much unsaid would burn what was left of his body. And if Darcey did leave, what then?
‘Ross? What’s the matter?’ asked Darcey.
There was one overwhelming reality. He wanted Darcey in the way that a man wanted a woman. As a husband desired his wife. It was years since he’d been with a white woman. The last white girl Ross remembered was the daughter of a station owner out west, and as she was keen and he desperate he’d made a feast of her at every opportunity. Taking her on the sand near a bore head, against the side of the house. Ross left the job when the girl became more than relief to him. He had nothing to offer her.
‘Tell me what you want, Ross?’ Darcey waited, patient, watchful.
He wanted nothing and everything. He wanted items he couldn’t have, like Alastair and the full use of his legs, and to get a decade back that he’d wasted through stupidity. The ability to run and rope and gallop without pain. The time to sit with his son and to talk to Sowden and Hart. To write to his grandmother one last time. There were so many entries on this list that they were impossible to count.
‘Ross?’ Darcey spoke up.
‘What?’ he asked.
‘Talk to me.’
‘Do you want me to ask you to stay, Darcey? You need my permission? Fine. I want you to stay. I never would have sent that damn letter if I didn’t,’ he admitted. He scraped back the chair. It was time to leave.
‘Why? Why do you want me to stay?’ asked Darcey. ‘Tell me.’
‘Because I can’t manage. Because I’m useless. Some mornings it takes all my willpower to move. To even feel like getting out of bed. My body aches continuously and if there was drink about I’d be onto it. I’d be gone. Maybe even already dead. I’m an alcoholic, Darcey, and although I haven’t touched a drop for months I still think about drinking nearly every day. The taste
of it. How it made me feel. Numb. It’s the deadness of it I crave. What comes from that single swallow. God, I can’t even talk about grog without breaking into a sweat.’
‘Yes, but why do you want me to stay?’ she asked again.
‘I’ve just told you,’ said Ross. ‘No you haven’t,’ she argued. ‘If you are that feeble, perhaps you should return to Darwin. I’m sure we could arrange for a paid companion or nurse.’
‘No,’ he said loudly.
‘Then what do you want?’
‘You, damn it. I care about you. But it’s one thing to care and another to have the ability to do something about it. I doubt I’d even be able to take you to bed.’
Darcey’s eyes widened.
He looked away from her to the tongue and groove boards, the enamelware on the sideboard and a vase of wild flowers.
‘I always knew you weren’t quite the bastard you made yourself out to be,’ she said.
Chapter 59
With the mustering season having already begun, the homestead and camp was quiet. Only women, children, old men and the infirm remained, along with a bereft Annie, who every morning placed Sowden’s chair in the sun, hoisting the umbrella like a flag before withdrawing inside her hut. Ross wandered outdoors, considering the recently arrived mail. The letters were few, and the ones that came from the South were from managers and accountants providing updates on the running of the Grant empire on behalf of his wife. Darcey grew wealthier by the month. Only one message remained unread, and on the edge of the drying billabong he reached for the telegram, reading the brief lines from the family solicitor. His mother was dead. Buried already by the date of the wire. Leaden eyes and reclusive habits, that was all he recalled of her. Not much else.
The Adelaide house was to be closed. The gardens tended to in Darcey’s absence. One day the property would be sold but for now Ross hoped that his wife would retain the residence. He wasn’t quite ready to relinquish what was left of his childhood. At the water’s edge, children poked at a turtle, snatching it up before it disappeared into the muddy hole. They held the hard-shelled creature aloft for inspection and ran towards one of the cooking fires, where their mothers waited.
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