by Cameron Nunn
“Far be it from me to contradict your ma. My mother said all Englishmen were self-important, arrogant arses. Present company excluded, of course.”
I could feel myself burning up with what I weren’t sure were embarrassment or anger or both. I wanted to say something clever back but could think of naught. I looked across at Cain who had a smile spread from ear to ear. He knew he’d won and were enjoying himself. “Marvellous insight mothers have, don’t you think?”
“Okay, you made your point. But I meant what I said about getting ahead. I’ll do it, Cain. You wait and see.”
Cain were a strange one even for an Irishman. He were different to the others. For a start, he were old, perhaps older than Amos. The others looked up to him like a father, though he weren’t like no father I’d known. He’d a gentleness about him that life had failed to crush despite what’d been done to him. He’d been part of an uprising in Ireland. For that he’d come out as a lifer. What shakes a man so hard he takes up a gun, or a hoe, or whatever else he has, for the sake of a dream? Even Mr O’Neill, for all his hardness, never raised his voice at Cain. The man were a bundle of contradictions. I’d find that out in time. I remember one evening, not long after I’d first arrived, Cain had wandered off by himself, smoking his pale clay pipe and staring up at the stars.
“What are you thinking about, Cain?” I asked one night when we’d walked back from one of the runs.
“Did you know the stars here are different to the ones back home? Everything is so topsy-turvy. I used to wonder whether my children would be looking up at the sky at the same time and would see the same star.”
“Maybe it just looks different from this side of the world.” But I knew that weren’t true.
Cain took his pipe out and nodded thoughtfully. “Aye, maybe it does.”
“How come you always sit by yourself after supper?” I ventured.
“Do I?” Cain asked as though it were the first time he’d considered what were apparent to me from the first day. “A man needs some time to think. Old men do a lot of thinking. I were wondering how my life would’ve been different if I were still sitting at home in Ireland surrounded by so many grandchildren that no man alive could count them.”
I smiled.
“You must think about your ma sometimes,” he said.
I shook my head. I doubted she’d think about me much either. “I think more about my brother, George. I wonder what will happen to him. I wonder if I’ll ever see him again or if he’ll remember me if I do.”
Cain nodded thoughtfully, the soft glow of the moon lighting his wrinkled face with lines what told stories of the past. His eyes were lost in the memories of his own family thousands of miles away in Ireland. “A man has to have a place to belong to and a place that is a part of him,” he muttered softly to the stars.
It were still early morning when we reached the run the next day. There were near a thousand sheep. Far too many for the size of the clearing, Cain told me on the first day we’d walked along. They’d clear more land in the winter, but they’d need to move half of the sheep to the south run. That’d be my job as soon as Cain could tell Mr O’Neill I were ready.
“Looking after sheep ain’t as easy as you might want to think. Even for a lad who knows so much about the Irish,” Cain instructed like he were talking to a simpleton. “There are things you’ve got to be looking out for. If you’re not careful, you can come out one morning and find fifty of the buggers dead. And just remember, each sheep is worth ten shillings to Mr Harrison. You’re worth the cost of a trip to Sydney and a set of slops, naught more. If you start turning up dead sheep all over the place Mr O’Neill will have your guts for garters, to be sure. Just remember that the sheep are worth far more ’n your hide, and you’ll know your place here.”
I t must have been some time before Will shook his mind back. He’d sat staring at the suitcase and the rusting past that was piled up. In the back of his mind he worried that Gran would come and ask him what he was doing and then it’d be awkward.
The door grated against the verandah boards as he pushed it open. Nelson was still waiting patiently outside. She lifted her head off her paws expectantly. There was laughter coming from the kitchen and Will immediately recognised the sound of his sister.
Gran and Rosie were cooking something that clearly involved too much flour. Rosie’s face and clothing bore a fine white film. Dad would go spare if she saw the mess they were making.
“We’re making afternoon tea,” Rosie said brightly as he came in.
“What is it?”
“A bit of this and a bit of that,” Gran said cryptically.
“Do you need a hand?”
“Goodness. I’m sure you’ll be much happier outside. I’ve never met a man who was any help in the kitchen.”
Rosie clapped her hands together and sent a burst of flour back into her face. For a second she looked shocked but then Gran started laughing and she reached for the flour a second time.
A part of Will wanted to join in, to push aside the way that he was feeling but instead he just stood there and Gran, with a sweeping of her hands, began to usher him out of the kitchen. “See if you can find Pa. I’m sure he could use a hand. Goodness knows what he’s up to at the moment.”
It was quiet outside except for the distant cawing and answering of crows and the panting of Nelson as she danced around Will. He couldn’t ever remember such stillness. He stood for a moment and tried to take in his surroundings. Everything about the place made him feel uncomfortable. There was a rising feeling of panic that kept bubbling to the surface; a need to escape, to run as far away as possible. To run and never come back. Will sighed, trying to release the tension.
The farm was dry; bone dry, ready to snap. Will looked across the front paddock, near where the road had crossed the cattle grate. There was another house, perhaps a little bigger than Gran and Pa’s house, sitting on the top of a stubbled hill. It was as dilapidated as his grandparents’ house. He might have thought it an abandoned wreck if the chimney hadn’t been giving off fine wisps of smoke.
Nelson jumped on ahead around the back of Gran’s house and Will followed. In the distance, a row of tall cliffs seemed to emerge out of the bush and stretch into the distance in both directions. As the afternoon sun caught the rock it flashed streaks of gold and brown and red. What seemed like a sheer rock wall was pocked with caves and indents that millions of years of wind and water had eroded. In one part, four grey knuckles of rock stood higher and a thick finger pushed up above it all. Will considered it for a moment. There was something awkwardly familiar about it. He’d seen it in pictures that his dad had taken or something.
About fifty metres away from the back of Gran’s house was the first of two enormous sheds. The larger had no walls and was held up by silver tree trunks. Tractors and farm machinery were rusting away in a silent grave. There was a broad dirt path that crunched under Will’s feet as he walked towards the second building. Someone had made an attempt at painting the corrugated iron in what might have once been white, but had given up halfway. Rust drizzled like tears from places where it had been nailed to the timber frame. Like the house, the whole building was covered with dust and time.
At the second shed the huge double door was ajar and Nelson ran ahead, slipping into the building. Will hovered in the doorway. There was a shaft of light that sliced into the darkness from louvred window openings on the far side but everything was still. Will stood there a few moments trying to get his eyes to adjust to the gloom, his shadow forming a long silhouette in the light. There was a low murmuring coming from the far end of the shed. Will stepped inside. Hunched over a workbench, light cutting across his back like lashes, was a man. At his feet sat Nelson, quietly looking up.
Will stepped in cautiously. Nelson beat her tail against the ground but made no move to get up and come to him. He didn’t want to startle his grandfather so he took a few more steps in and waited. When the old man didn’t turn around, he went
a little further and cleared his throat.
Pa turned around slowly as if the action took a great deal of energy. “What are you doing here?” His face was hidden in shadow.
“Gran drove us here.” He paused, hoping that Pa would say something, but his grandfather only stared at him blankly so Will added, “Gran said you might want a hand.”
Even in the darkness of the shed, Will was shocked at how old Pa looked. Gran was old, but Pa was stretched out longer than memory. He peered at Will without recognition. There was an awkwardness in the silence. “Gran said you might want a hand,” Will repeated.
Pa shrugged and gave a frustrated snort before returning to whatever he’d been working on. “See if your mother needs some help in the kitchen.”
It appeared that the conversation was over. As he walked out he wondered why Pa thought Mum would be here. Perhaps Gran hadn’t told him what had happened.
Outside in the glare, the uneasiness descended upon Will again. There was something uncomfortable about this place. Something was wrong. It was like walking into a room to do something but not being able to remember what it was, only a sense that it was important, or a word on the tip of your tongue but always, painfully out of reach.
In the kitchen Gran and Rosie were cleaning up. When Will told Gran about Pa she said, “He was told you were coming. He just forgets things now and then. But don’t you worry. He could do with a young pair of hands, even if he doesn’t know it yet.”
Will wasn’t convinced but nodded, dumbly.
When they’d finished cleaning up, Gran handed Will an old frypan and tin spoon and told him to call Pa. When he looked dumbfounded, Gran took them off him and said to watch. She walked out on to the verandah and began banging the spoon loudly against the pan. “Afternoon tea,” she shouted. “Now you keep banging this until you see him coming. If you stop he’ll swear you never called him.”
Will banged the frypan, calling as loudly as he could without sounding rude. He felt like he was calling a dog and sure enough Nelson came bounding from around the shed. Then came Pa. In the sunlight he appeared even older. What little hair he had left was brushed across in fine vacant wisps. His clothes hung loosely like they had been borrowed from someone much bigger.
Will returned to the kitchen before Pa reached the house. Rosie and Gran were serving up the scones. “And we’ve baked an apple crumble from Gran and Pa’s own apples, for dinner tonight,” Rosie said. Just for a second, Rosie’s enthusiasm lifted him. “Gran said —”
She was mid-sentence when the back door swung open and everyone turned around.
“Hello, Pa,” she said sweetly.
It was clear the old man had been completely taken by surprise. For an uncomfortably long time he stood there in the doorway, trying to work out who these people were. “I forgot you were coming,” he mumbled eventually, as he wiped his hands down faded overalls.
“Nonsense. Dot came down this morning and told you I was bringing Will and Rosie back with me. And Will’s been out at the shed. He tells me you sent him away.”
“Hmmph,” Pa eyed them suspiciously as though their arrival was part of an elaborate trick.
“What were you up to in the shed anyway?”
“The tensioning gripple keeps slipping,” the old man said as he sat down.
“I don’t know why you don’t just ask me to buy a new one. Goodness knows you’ve been complaining about it long enough.”
Pa grunted something that Will didn’t understand.
Plates were passed around.
“Nelson’s made a new friend,” Gran said brightly.
Pa said nothing.
“Bounded up to young Will like they were old mates.”
Pa stopped chewing his scone and looked at Will suspiciously. “Useless dog. She wasn’t anywhere I could find her this morning.”
More silence.
“I thought you could take Will out with you this afternoon. Show him around.”
Another grunt.
Gran talked on, regardless. Every now and then Pa paused and looked around the table again, but he made no attempt to speak directly to either Will or Rosie.
Eventually, he got up and began to move towards the back door.
“Well, what about Will?” Gran asked firmly.
Pa turned around and looked at the children. “Oh, I don’t know.” He scratched his head rather violently. “Tell him to do something.”
Something? What was that supposed to mean? The back screen banged with the force of the spring that pulled it, snapping the conversation with a loud finality.
“What’s wrong with Pa?” Rosie asked as soon as it seemed safe.
Gran was already getting up and bustling things into the sink. “He’s just getting old like the rest of us. He probably forgot that you were coming and he’s too proud to admit it. He’ll be different tomorrow.”
But Will wasn’t convinced.
That night Will lay awake. The kerosene lantern flickered shadows of half-felt fears up and down the wall. He didn’t want to turn it off. Even though Gran had shown him how to relight it, he didn’t trust being able to do it in darkness. The old iron bed groaned with weight and lonely memories. Nelson was scratching at the door to be let in.
Will thought about his mum in hospital and prayed that she’d get better. He thought about Joy and her blood-red fingernails. He thought about the stone knuckle and the finger pointing upwards. At some point he fell asleep. Next thing he knew he was in a fire that was burning the bush around him. Trees were exploding in the heat and he was running. He was running but the fire was coming faster. He had to find the place. He was searching but couldn’t find it. Everything looked the same and nothing looked the same. He could hear the fire howling like wind through the treetops, breaking and tearing and smashing as it went. He had to find the place, but it wasn’t there.
And then he was awake. The lantern had gone out. In the dark the room seemed even more absurd than in the light and it took him some moments to work out where he was. The dream had seemed so real, and he had to reassure himself that it wasn’t.
He was just about to doze off when he heard Pa shout, “You bastard, Jack, I swear I’ll kill you.” He lay there restlessly, his mind wide awake. The night was cold and alien and he was a part of its black isolation.
When Will got up for breakfast, Pa was already out.
“Goodness knows where,” his gran had said as she pushed some magazines across the table to clear a place for Will.
Rosie was already at the table eating toast.
An old box and a tin filled with pencils slid off the other end of the table as Gran pushed. “Oh, bother!” she exclaimed. “I’ve been onto your grandfather to put those things away for weeks.”
“Who’s Jack?” Rosie asked as Gran brought her tea to the table.
“Jack who?”
“The man Pa was shouting at last night. He woke me up,” Rosie said as she chewed on her toast.
Gran sighed loudly. “Sometimes even grown-ups get nightmares.”
“I sometimes get nightmares,” Rosie said.
Gran smiled softly and gave Rosie a hug. “I wouldn’t mention any of this to Pa. He’ll get embarrassed if he thinks he’s woken you up. Just our secret, eh?” She smiled at them both and returned to the sink. “I want you to go out and see if Pa needs a hand this morning, Will,”
“But he said he didn’t, yesterday.”
Will didn’t want to sound like he didn’t want to help. He’d offered to help his dad in the shop nearly every day in the holidays, but his dad had told him he was more trouble than he was worth, so he’d stopped asking. That’s when his dad had started calling him lazy.
“He doesn’t know what he wants. He thinks he can still do everything, but he could really use a younger pair of hands. Goodness knows there are enough things falling apart around here for a thousand pairs of young hands. Go and tell him you’re not budging until he gives you a job to do.”
Outside
the air was cold. Morning frost clung to the grass, making the fields sparkle. In any other place it might have looked beautiful. Here, it was just cold and miserable and lonely. Will wondered how cold it’d get in his verandah room if his mum didn’t get better soon. Did it snow here, or did that only happen in the mountains? He stood staring at the wall of stone in the distance. He wondered if it were possible to climb it, and how far you could see beyond them.
Will sighed heavily. He might as well get it over and done with. Steamy breath puffed before him as he kicked small bits of white stone and dust ahead.
The shed door was only open a crack, and Will wondered if his pa was even in there. He slowly pushed the door open. Pa was sitting at the same bench as yesterday. He was turning something over and over in his hands.
“Pa,” Will said when he was nearly beside him.
The old man started as though Will had suddenly appeared out of nowhere. He stood up so quickly that the stool on which he’d been sitting toppled over. Pa quickly covered whatever he’d been examining with an old cloth.
“Are you trying to spy on me?” he demanded.
The accusation landed like a slap in the face. “Gran sent me to see if you needed a hand with anything.”
“Did she? And you’re to run back and tell her what I’m doing?”
“I . . . I don’t know what you mean.”
“Bah!” Pa spat out. “I know what you’re up to. I know what you’re thinking.” He wagged an accusing finger at Will and then lurched towards him, grabbing hold of his jumper. Pa pulled him over into the slanted light and brought his face so close that Will could see each deeply etched fold and crease of his hard, brown skin.
“You’re not Robert,” Pa said. And then, so softly that it was barely audible, “You’re not Robert, are you?”
Will could smell the sour tobacco on Pa’s breath. “Pa, it’s me, Will. Dad’s not here. He’s in Sydney.”