Stella remained quite still, feeling the truth of her marriage begin to emerge.
‘We sat on this very veranda and he told me that he believed that you were the one,’ said Brandon.
Believed. It was not an absolute. There was no certainty in it. If anything, the word invoked fairytales, conveniently ignoring the messy reality of what might transpire after the prince had captured his bride. Stella hadn’t realised that her fingers were digging into the cane of the chair until a splinter lodged itself in a nail bed and she jerked her hand free, blaming the hurt for the gathering tears.
‘Don’t be angry with him. It’s difficult for a man to quantify love. We can’t add up columns where it’s concerned and always come to a satisfying conclusion. And I wasn’t so insensitive as to not consider his intended bride, so I asked him a simple question,’ said Brandon.
‘Which was?’ Stella tried to stifle her sniffing.
‘Could he imagine himself with any other woman.’
‘And could he?’ she asked.
‘He said no, and I had to be satisfied with that.’
‘But you weren’t,’ said Stella.
The dog walked towards Brandon, resting his muzzle on his master’s knee. ‘Can a person ever be sure of another’s motives? Joe had a mighty desire to better himself and prove his capability and he needed a wife to achieve his dream of becoming a landholder. Of course, I’m just an old man with too much time on my hands so I may well be wrong, but I think his priorities were a little skewed.’
‘You weren’t wrong,’ said Stella.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Brandon.
‘So am I.’
There it was. An answer to what she’d long been searching to understand. It was not her fault that their relationship had deteriorated. More than a partner, a lover, a helper, or even a woman to ward off the nothingness he’d brought them to, he’d needed a wife because it was the only way he’d get the property.
‘I gifted Joe my half share of Kirooma and then paid the deposit on the Handalays’ portion, ensuring the banks would lend him the money to buy them out. It’s because of me that you went to live on the fringes of the Strzelecki Desert, and I’m sorry for that.’
‘You did it for Joe.’
‘Yes,’ Brandon said tentatively, ‘and also to spite Harry for his treatment of his little brother. But if I’m honest, I did it for myself. I already had one albatross: this farm. I refused to be stuck with another sitting empty in the desert.’
Stella got up slowly and walked out into the garden. The lawn was soft underfoot. The night air filled with the chirping of crickets. The dog brushed against her leg and she absently patted the animal.
‘You’re angry with me, no doubt, as well as Joe,’ said Brandon from the veranda. ‘Well, I’m angry with him as well. He was a good man, but I would have been better off mothballing Kirooma for another eight years than handing it over to him. For all his talk and plans, the reports he sent me, the boy had no idea about business. I’ll never get my deposit back and neither one of us will ever have anything to show for our investment in that property.’
Stella thought of all the things Brandon had shared with her. His love for Joe. The early years in the Valley. The bitterness between family. She’d grown to care for this old man, even defending him to Harry. And yet, in the end, it was because he’d been desperate to rid himself of a piece of real estate that she’d lost seven years of her life to the desert. Perhaps Brandon Ryan was not quite the wounded party he presented.
Stella walked back to the car in the dark and leant on the bonnet. A slim crescent moon drifted overhead as she slid down the side of the vehicle to sit in the dirt. She cried until she grew bleary-eyed. She felt used by Brandon and Joe, and was also angry with herself. She hadn’t needed an old man to tell her what she’d understood for years. Joe had never loved her. And yet that simple fact distressed her terribly. She was ashamed about an ending she’d orchestrated, and tormented by what could have been, who she had become and by what Joe had driven her to do. Except that she wasn’t solely to blame. Not anymore. It may have been unintentional, however it occurred to her that if anyone had caused Joe’s death, it was Brandon.
She opened the back door of the station wagon and retrieved the cage. Watson scattered seed as he scrambled from the perch to the floor, fluffing his feathers in annoyance. Stella set the enclosure on the ground and opened the cage door, then she returned to the vehicle, started it and reversed. For a few seconds, the cockatoo was spotlighted, still inside the cage, then she drove away.
As she drove, Stella thought of Watson with his proud sulphur crest, the new world he was about to set foot into and what he might make of his changed circumstances when there was no one to feed or water him. That was the problem with freedom. No matter the century, it came at a cost.
Chapter 56
Kirooma Station, 1949
Stella shone the torch on the motorbike. The light flickered across the handlebars, the ripped leather seat, the crate that held water and fuel.
Earlier that afternoon, she’d been sitting cross-legged in the dirt talking to Watson in his cage near the back gate when she saw Joe fill the jerry can with petrol. He stood at the bowser, pushing and pulling the hand-pump until the container was full and then he lugged the can back towards the house and the parked motorbike.
That’s how she knew he was leaving.
It was six months since her return from hospital. So many weeks spreading out like the ceaseless sand dunes. Hours spent waiting for Joe to depart. Since her return to Kirooma, he had limited his adventures to overnight affairs. Brief trips to check watering points and to muster sheep, dragging the job out over several days as he moved mobs steadily from one paddock to another, ensuring he was home most nights, until eventually they reached the yards. These short expeditions left him thudding through the homestead or yelling at the dog. Like her, he was desperate to be free.
The wait to see how long Joe would last before the need to go bush struck him had begun to test them both. Each day was the same. Tea, breakfast, morning tea, lunch, afternoon tea, dinner. And sherry in the library on Friday nights. Her husband fetched her at each appointed time like a lamb on the bottle, prepared their meals and made her sit across the table and listen to his endless chatter. Which she did. Quietly. Unaccustomed to continual speech, his words cluttered her. They filled up the spaces of the building they now both inhabited, scaring away the whispers of the past, making her reach more frequently than she should have for the pills the doctor had prescribed. Eventually Joe would leave her alone and head off to potter in one of the sheds, reclassify his fossicking collection or ride about the homestead on the motorbike. He raced the bike around the house, loop after loop. Red dust flying. Engine screeching. The dog giving chase and barking in pursuit. Stella wasn’t sure which of them was madder.
She did however know what was behind his absurdly intense concern. Not her health, but that she might still pack her bags and leave. Their circle of acquaintances was now bigger. There were doctors and nurses, tea-ladies and a particular Catholic priest, all of whom represented yet more reasons to keep their marriage intact. He’d already lost face with the bank and he wasn’t going to be humiliated by an uncontrollable wife. He hid the keys for the station wagon and the work truck.
Patience and femininity became her weapons. The first she was well practised in, the second only required the unpacking of the softness that once overshadowed all other aspects of her personality. And now she was being rewarded.
It was pitch-black and the torch was shining on the motorbike, which was packed and ready for his next adventure. Stella lay the light on the ground. She lifted the full container of petrol from the crate on the rear of the bike and replaced it with one of the empty jerry cans near the garage. Then she filled the can with the precious water from the bottle next to it so that the liquid was undrinkable, and the bike remained weighted down by its load. Finally she placed an empty water bottle in the
crate. She shone the torch on her handiwork, the light catching the dog’s eyes in the dark as he padded towards her.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said to the animal. She flicked off the torch and returned to the house.
Stella woke at daylight, feeling the tightness of the sheet across her toes. She kicked at the covering and then swung her legs over the side of the bed. There was a jug of water sitting next to a glass on the dressing table and she went to it and upended the lukewarm contents of the vessel on top of her head. The water splashed over her head and shoulders, running in streams along her naked body before landing with a splatter on the floorboards, bedsheets and her discarded nightgown. She brushed wet strands of hair from her face and walked out onto the veranda. The red dust clung to the dribbles of water on her feet. She looked at them, absently lifting her soles from the dirt. Then at the wedding band on her finger.
‘I brought you some tea and toast.’ Joe set a tray down on the bed. ‘What are you doing out there? You’ve nothing on.’ He came to her side, draping the nightgown about her shoulders. ‘You’re wet. How did all this water get on the floor?’
She allowed Joe to lead her back indoors. He drew the nightdress over her head. Then he made her sit. ‘Did you sleep last night? Have you been taking your tablets?’ he said.
‘I’ve only just woken up,’ she told him.
‘Oh,’ he said, as if that explained everything. ‘Here, I made you some tea.’ He passed her the cup.
‘When are you going?’ she asked him.
He was immediately wary. ‘I’m not going anywhere.’
‘Joe,’ she said playfully, ‘I’m feeling better and I do sleep during the day. I’m worried that you haven’t been out to check on the sheep more thoroughly. Don’t we start shearing soon?’
He leant against the dressing table. Curling grey hairs were visible above the vee of his blue shirt. ‘Yes, but I need to know that you’ll be okay. The doctor said you weren’t to be left alone.’
She reached for his arm, stroking it. There had been little contact between them since the day he removed her from the hospital. Joe appeared to be deciding whether to reciprocate, then patted her, briefly.
‘I was pretty worried about you,’ he admitted.
‘It takes a while to get over some things.’
‘We’ve had a bit of a rough trot,’ he said.
‘We have,’ she agreed. ‘And I do appreciate the effort that you’ve made to stay with me the last few months.’ She saw it then, the breaking down of the barrier he’d constructed long ago. It was almost as if she were breaching his stony walls, removing blocks of granite until the prize revealed itself. Joe was pleased by her gratitude, delighted by her recognition of what had been a difficult six months for him.
Stella drank the tea. ‘Just how I like it. Black and strong. You should go, Joe. I’ll feel bad if you stay any longer.’
‘Really? Well, if you’re sure. I might be gone at least a week. It’s a hike out to the north-west of the run,’ he told her.
‘I’ll walk you out,’ she offered.
Perhaps she was being a little too amenable, for Joe halted in the doorway. ‘You haven’t done that for years.’
‘Haven’t I?’ She made a fuss of scrunching her brow and sounding vague. She could feel how torn her husband was. He was desperate to leave and yet still unsure of doing so. But it was too much for him. He had to go.
‘Come on,’ said Joe.
Together they walked through the homestead as the sun rose.
‘It’s a beautiful morning. An egg-yolk dawn,’ he said. In the kitchen he placed a loaf of bread and a chunk of salted meat in his lunchbox container and tucked his notebook under his arm. ‘Well, I’m off.’
She rinsed her cup in the sink, conscious of not appearing too eager.
‘Stella?’ Joe called from the back door where he was pulling on his boots.
‘Coming.’
Together they walked down the back path and through the gate to where the motorbike was parked.
‘You’ll take care of yourself while I’m gone?’ said Joe.
Stella nodded. Her mouth was dry.
‘I do care for you,’ he told her.
Joe tied rope around the lunchbox to secure the lid and then wired it to the crate on the rear of the bike. Next he patted the jerry can and checked the water bottle was secure before throwing his leg over the motorbike. He straddled the machine and then turned to wink at her.
‘See you, Stella.’ He struck the bike’s starter with his boot.
‘See you,’ she replied.
The bike’s engine sputtered as it started. Joe gave a long whistle and the dog jumped up onto his thighs. He waved absently as the animal rested its head on his shoulder, watching her as they rode away. Stella closed the gate on the reddening horizon.
In the weeks to come, when the authorities had been and gone, and she had played the grieving widow, she would note down the location they found his body and write about his heroic end in the desert, in much the way he had described the death of his beloved ram, KR10. It would be a final grand entry in Joe’s leather-bound volume, one worthy of a man who lived for the land and nothing else. He would have liked that. Stella was sure of it.
Author’s Note
The Cedar Tree is a work of fiction, however historical fact lies at the heart of the narrative. The Big Scrub, located between Byron Bay, Ballina and Lismore in northern New South Wales, once covered 75,000 hectares prior to European settlement. By 1900 less than one per cent of it remained. It was once the largest expanse of lowland subtropical rainforest in Australia, containing a prized possession: cedar. The term ‘red gold’ was coined because of its value, which at the time made it equal in many eyes to those seeking actual gold, but far more attainable for hardened timber-cutters and merchants who were only too willing to fill the demand for the timber, which was sought after by the likes of furniture-makers, and ship- and housebuilders. Cedar-getters were true pioneers, venturing far into the unknown, often exploring country before the arrival of farmers. Unfortunately, their endeavours came at a huge environmental cost.
The Marquis de Rays was a French nobleman who attempted to start a colony on an island now referred to as New Ireland near Papua New Guinea. Three hundred and forty Italian colonists from Veneto, Italy set sail for this colony from Barcelona in 1880. One hundred and twenty-three died en route before the survivors were rescued from Noumea by Australian authorities. Some of these immigrants formed a community at New Italy on the Richmond River near Woodburn in 1882. The settlement is now deserted.
Edith O’Gorman, the ‘escaped nun’ mentioned in The Cedar Tree, was a real person. A woman of Irish birth, she emigrated to America and joined the Sisters of Charity in 1862. In 1868, O’Gorman escaped from this convent, and in 1871 she wrote Trials and Persecutions of Miss Edith O’Gorman, which described the cruelty she endured. To fit in with the novel’s timeline, I have placed O’Gorman’s anti-Catholic lecture tour in Australia in 1867. It actually took place between 1886 and 1887. Her life was threatened many times and riots occurred between Catholics and Protestants, including in Lismore, New South Wales. This further stirred the animosities that already existed between the Green and the Orange in some parts of Australia at that time.
The 1861 Robertson Lands Act (also known as the Crown Lands Acts 1861) changed the lives of many. Vast areas of grazing lands previously under the control of pastoralists were offered for sale, thereby addressing the imbalance of land ownership. New settlers flooded into rural areas ready to stake their claim. Attempts by selectors, whether honest settlers or speculators, to obtain land led to open conflict with pastoralists.
I would like to thank the following organisations: Ballina Naval and Maritime Museum; the Mid-Richmond Historical Society and Museum at Coraki, which provided access to early pastoral lease maps of the Richmond Valley as well as pioneer settler accounts; and the Richmond River Historical Society, Lismore, for their guidance. My thanks als
o to Christine Porter, who is not only a gifted artist, but a great Lismore tour guide.
Kirooma Station is fictitious. I especially wish to thank the generosity of Mark and Jenny Lacey and family, who kindly took me into their home, allowing me to explore the extraordinary environment of the Strzelecki Desert as well as immerse myself in the history of their property through access to journals and other material.
Thank you to everyone at Penguin Random House, especially my publisher, Beverley Cousins, whose guidance is invaluable, Emily Cook, Genevieve Buzo and my agent, Tara Wynne at Curtis Brown. To my family – hugs. Readers, booksellers and libraries – thank you. The Cedar Tree is my tenth novel. I would not have made it this far without everyone’s support.
I am indebted to many works and recommend a selection for further reading: A New History of the Irish in Australia by Elizabeth Malcolm and Dianne Hall; Irish Women in Colonial Australia by Trevor McClaughlin (editor); The Oxford History of Ireland by R. F. Foster (editor); Turmoil – Tragedy to Triumph: The story of New Italy by Anne-Gabrielle Thompson; They Were Expeditioners: The chronicle of Northern Italian farmers – pioneer settlers of New Italy with documentation of the Marquis de Ray’s four expeditions to New Ireland between 1879 and 1881 by Rosemary Harrigan; Red Cedar in Australia by John A. McPhee (editor); Red Gold: The tree that built a nation by John Vader; Red Cedar, Our Heritage: A personal account of the lives and times of the men and women who worked in the red cedar industry by Alex S. Gaddes; Men and a River: Richmond River District 1828–1895 by Louise Tiffany Daley; Squatters on the Richmond: Runs, owners and boundaries, from settlement to dissolution 1840–1900 by W. J. Olley; Australia’s Outback Heritage: Frontier country (vol. 1) by Sheena Coupe (general editor); Fence People: Yarns from the dingo fence by Dinah Percival and Candida Westney; Regolith and Landscape Evolution of Far Western NSW by S. M. Hill.
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