Keepers of the House

by JH Fletcher

  She joined Ogilvies, and Ben, who had taken a job with Aboriginal Affairs, disappeared into the hot interior, sacrificing himself on the altar of insufficient funds. She heard nothing; did not forget him exactly but, with the pressures of her new life, he soon drifted from her mind.

  Ogilvie Schuster stretched her to her limit. She responded eagerly, felt herself grow. Very soon everyone knew she was headed for partnership. She knew it, too, but with mixed feelings, wondering whether that was really what she wanted from life.

  She kept up her political and welfare contacts; at a meeting of the local Labor group met Jack Goodie, down from Canberra to trawl for prospects.

  Must have seen something in her that he liked. A week later, he phoned. It was the opportunity she had been looking for, the chance to prove that she, too, could be strong, as Anneliese had been strong.

  FIFTEEN

  Dominic and Anneliese reached the top of the pass and rested to catch their breath, staring at what lay ahead. From this point the track descended in a series of corkscrew bends until it disappeared into the trees far below. As far as they could see, the ragged landscape rose and fell like the waves of a strong sea, each crest and the valleys between submerged beneath a tide of trees with here and there a slash of water sparkling in the sunlight where a cascade plunged vertically into the depths.

  ‘Getting somewhere at last,’ Dominic exulted. ‘We’ll be home directly.’

  Anneliese looked across the steeply folded hills. She could hear the wind blowing in the tops of the trees and see the waterfalls, but of human presence she could see nothing. The forest overwhelmed her. She and Dominic might have been the first humans to emerge out of the hand of God at the beginning of the world. The thought would have frightened her, had she permitted it.

  ‘Getting somewhere?’ she repeated. ‘And where might that be?’ She spoke defensively, on her guard against this new land, the new life that threatened so alarmingly.

  ‘Not more than an hour now,’ he told her. ‘Most of that downhill.’

  He unstrapped a water bottle from his waist and drank thirstily before passing it to her. She too drank. They had filled the bottle a mile back and the water was cool, with the strong peaty taste of the mountains. He pointed across the valley to a peak on the far side, its rocky head grey against the hard blue of the sky.

  ‘The house is over there. Where we’re going. You can’t see it from here, but we’ll get a better look when we’re further along.’

  ‘It looks a lot more than an hour to me.’

  He winked. ‘More or less.’

  He strode on, whistling, and after a moment she followed him. Like a child, she thought, always saying what he wants to be true, rather than truth itself.

  What am I doing here with this man? she wondered. This is not my place. Increasingly she feared that Dominic, hiding from reality behind a façade of easy lies, was not her man, either.

  She would have to make them so. Africa was gone. This land of forest and emptiness was the only place that remained to her, as Dominic was the only man.

  It is up to you what you make of them. As though the forest itself had spoken to her.

  It was your choice to come here. Your ancestor Colin Walmer went to a new land and created something of value where before had been only wilderness. Now it is your turn.

  The house was not as far as she’d feared, no more than three hours from the pass. The unpainted wooden buildings stood below a high ridge, beside a torrent that roared its way downhill between great rocks. Behind the house, a fenced yard contained horses, fewer than she would have expected for a man who was supposed to deal in horses. The patch of ground on which the house stood was the only level place she had seen since the pass. The house itself hung upon the edge of a precipice so high that from its unglazed windows you would be able to see nothing but air and the forested slopes far beneath.

  ‘There are eagles,’ a voice said behind her, ‘if such things interest you.’

  She turned, startled. She had heard no sound, but a big man now stood not more than two yards behind her. He wore stained breeches and riding boots, a rough jacket with an unmended tear on the pocket. A tall man with a strong neck. Big hands with broken, dirty nails. Black, assessing eyes. A beard, also black but threaded with silver, covered half his chest. His face was the colour of leather and heavily lined. He stood with massive chest thrown out, chin up; a man used to his own way and with no plans to change.

  He stared unsmiling at Dominic. ‘You’re back, then. I always told your mother you would be, one of these days.’

  Dominic gave a cry and flung himself forward into the other’s arms.

  ‘Da!’ he said. ‘Da.’

  His father patted his back, while above Dominic’s shoulder the hard eyes appraised the woman his son had brought home with him.

  ‘And who might this be?’

  She expected Dominic to break away, to introduce her, but he did not. He glanced back at her but his arm remained around his father’s strong body.

  ‘Anneliese, Da. She’s from Africa.’

  ‘Is she, now?’ Firmly, the old man put his son away from him. ‘Let’s be havin’ a look at her, then.’

  He took his time, examining every inch. She guessed he was trying to make her nervous of him. Small chance of that — she had seen too much in her life to be embarrassed by such nonsense now. Unflinchingly, she stared back. They had not exchanged a word yet already she knew that this man would be all over her if he saw an opening and she had no intention of giving him one.

  She saw a smile somewhere at the back of the dark eyes as their gazes clashed. A man who relished a challenge, then, even from a woman; a man confident he could handle her or anyone.

  ‘You’ll know me the next time you see me,’ he said. ‘From Africa, is it?’

  ‘From the Cape.’ She found she was proud to say it.

  ‘I always thought the people of Africa were black.’

  ‘Some are.’

  ‘And what brings a white African to Jack Riordan’s mountain?’

  ‘We killed a man,’ Dominic told him.

  Anneliese saw that Dominic did not notice, or perhaps did not care, how his father looked at her.

  ‘It’s what happens in wars.’ Jack spoke without taking his eyes from her. ‘So you were in it, too?’

  ‘She was, Da. Her children —’

  Jack spoke through his son. ‘I was asking her.’

  ‘Yes,’ she told him steadily, ‘I was in the war.’

  ‘In the actual fighting?’

  ‘There are other ways of waging war.’

  ‘No friend of the English, then?’

  ‘Nor ever shall be. Some wars never end.’

  She read approval in his eyes and knew she had said the right thing.

  ‘Good,’ he said. Suddenly his eyes challenged her no longer. He stuck out his hand as though she, too, were a man. ‘Jack Riordan,’ he said. ‘Welcome.’

  His hand was rough, hard, warm. A man’s hand, signalling the strength not only of fingers, but of mind and will. She continued to feel his touch long after their hands had separated.

  He turned to Dominic. ‘Best get indoors and greet your mother. Let’s hope the shock doesn’t kill her.’

  ‘Dana, too,’ Dominic said. ‘Unless she’s married.’

  Jack Riordan stared at him, an odd expression on his face. ‘I was forgetting you wouldn’t have heard.’

  ‘She is married, then?’

  Anneliese, standing a little to one side, saw that the idea did not please him. He had talked of her often, saying how pretty and full of life she was, how Anneliese would be certain to love her too. A girl like that was bound to be married, and sooner rather than later. It had been three years since Dominic had last seen her, after all.

  Slowly Jack shook his head. ‘Your sister is dead.’

  Dominic gulped, trying without success to close his mouth. ‘What happened?’

  ‘She had a baby, a boy ca
lled Dermot. She died in the having of him.’

  ‘She was married, then.’

  ‘She was not.’

  Dominic’s hands lifted to his face. Whatever he had been expecting, it was not that.

  The old man said, ‘I know fine who the father was, not that it’s any help. I chased him off once, took a shot at him to scare him. Thought we’d seen the last of him, but he was too smart for me.’

  Fury as hot as fire in Dominic’s voice. Through clenched teeth he asked, ‘Where is he?’

  Anneliese knew Dominic would kill him, was astounded that the man was not dead already.

  ‘We’ll not be setting eyes on him again. He knows fine what would happen to him if we did.’

  ‘Who was it?’

  Families, too, could be punished.

  ‘No one any of us knew. A travelling man.’

  A travelling man and Dominic’s sister. And no one to kill because of it.

  ‘When was it?’

  ‘Three years since.’

  Dominic turned on him, viper-swift. ‘I see you’re over it.’

  He stopped in mid-syllable; would have wrenched out his tongue, no doubt, but it was too late for that. The two men stared at each other.

  ‘I’ll pretend I never heard that,’ Jack said, ‘seeing you’re just back. But don’t be putting me to the test another time, you hear?’

  ‘Da … I’m sorry.’

  Forgiveness was not bought so cheaply.

  ‘Get into your Ma.’ Jack’s voice sliced. ‘We’ll be joining you directly.’

  Dominic had been away three years; now Jack scraped his son off his boot like so much dirt. Well, he deserved it.

  After Dominic had gone indoors, Jack Riordan’s eyes returned to Anneliese.

  ‘I am sorry about your daughter,’ she offered.

  ‘We do not speak of her. She shamed us all.’ He turned away. ‘We’ll give Dominic a few minutes with his mother. While we’re waiting, you can have a look at these.’

  He led her into the yard behind the house to see the horses. She followed him, wondering. A daughter dead, the wound of his loss ripped open; now he wanted to show her horses. As though the dead girl had never been, Anneliese thought, a girl betrayed by a man, by life itself. She wondered what had happened to the baby. It would be a cold place for a motherless child, up here on the mountain top with a man of Jack Riordan’s granite to rear him.

  She tried to concentrate on the animals the man was showing her. They were good horses, rough-coated to handle the cold.

  ‘I would have expected more,’ she said.

  He was standing so close she could sense the iron length of his body as he looked down at her. ‘Why should there be more?’

  ‘If you’re a trader in horses, there must be more.’

  He laughed; she saw he was pleased with her. ‘There’s level ground beyond the crest. It’s good grazing away from the trees.’ He eyed her keenly. ‘Like horses, do you?’

  ‘All Boers like horses.’ She looked back at the house. ‘Why build down here if the horses are over the ridge?’

  ‘Out of the wind and snow. In winter the wind can cut you to pieces in these parts.’ He smiled, winking. ‘Out of the way of other things too. The police don’t love us much, but down here they can’t sneak up on us without our knowing.’

  ‘They can check on your horses, though.’

  ‘Check and welcome. We’ve nothing to hide up there. Everything as it should be.’ Again he winked. ‘Any strays we hide in the forest.’

  Anneliese knew that he was paying her a great compliment by trusting her with such information while she was still a stranger.

  She took a chance on his approval. ‘What happened to the baby?’

  He looked at her. She waited for him to say it was none of her business, which would have been the truth. He did not.

  ‘In the house. He’s sleeping now, but you’ll be seeing him directly.’

  ‘Who looks after him?’

  ‘The missus does. A bit of a handful for her, but it can’t be helped. Now you’re here you’ll be able to give her a hand. She should be over the shock of seeing her darling son by now,’ he said, and Anneliese heard the slightest sting of derision in his voice. ‘Best come and meet her for yourself.’

  Following him back to the house, Anneliese thought again how hard this man was. Dominic had told her tales about him, yet she suspected that she had not heard the half of it. It made sense; you had to be hard to survive in a place like this, and Jack Riordan had made himself master of it and of all the people in it.

  He needn’t think he’s going to master me, she thought. He’s not going to treat me like one of his horses. Yet there was pleasure in having the protection of a strong man in this wild place.

  Mrs Riordan was not interested in sharing the baby. She was not interested in welcoming Anneliese in any way at all. She was a small woman with grey hair scraped back and sharp and critical eyes. If she had wept because of her son’s return Anneliese could see no sign of it; tears would not come easily to this woman. Jack Riordan might rule, but his wife was his deputy and not about to share herself or her life with anyone, least of all with a foreign woman as unwelcome as she was uninvited.

  Carmel Riordan compressed her lips, looking Anneliese over. ‘I suppose we must be thankful there’s not a bone in your nose.’

  ‘Bone?’ Anneliese didn’t understand.

  ‘Africa,’ Dominic explained.

  She was indignant at such ignorance. ‘We are civilised people,’ she said. ‘Not savages.’

  ‘Are ye Catholic?’

  Anneliese’s chin challenged her. ‘Not Catholic, either.’

  ‘Not Catholic and not married. I’d say just as well, in the circumstances.’

  But he disapproved passionately, and Anneliese saw that nothing she could say or do would ever put things right between them.

  Another burden, she thought, and the strangeness that was all about her did not help. There were statues of saints everywhere; a picture of a bleeding heart hung on one wall. Perhaps the saints spoke to Mrs Riordan in their pious, china voices, watching everything with their pious, china eyes, but to Anneliese they might have been fetishes in a kraal.

  There was a hint of incense in the house, along with the saints. It might have been the stench of idolatry, the way the two women eyed each other. She told Dominic so that night. ‘She doesn’t like me.’

  They lay on the mattress that had been chucked in the corner the old man had allocated them. There was no covering on walls or floor; the house was as rough as the mountains that surrounded it. The wind whistled between the gaps, and through the thin mattress Anneliese could feel the boards, coarsely hewn from green timber, on which they were lying. The night was full of sounds: the creaking of the house, the high thin crying of the wind, the bellow of the torrent beyond the wall.

  The voices of loneliness.

  ‘She’s got to get used to the idea of you,’ Dominic said.

  ‘I’m not Irish and not Catholic. She’ll never accept me.’

  ‘Give her time.’

  Anneliese knew that it was not a question of time; the gulf between them was too wide ever to be bridged.

  Dominic said, ‘My father took to you well enough.’

  ‘He looked me over like he owned me. Or planned to.’

  She had hesitated to say it, fearing to make Dominic jealous. Instead he laughed. ‘Just his way. Take no notice.’

  Not so easy with Jack’s eyes assessing every inch of flesh beneath her dress, knowing that it was only a matter of time before his hands tried to follow. The fact that Dominic took it so casually made her feel more alone than ever.

  This is their life, she thought, their country. I shall never fit in. I do not understand how I shall survive at all when I am so utterly alone. She could have wept, but would not. If he doesn’t care, she told herself, why should you?

  Yet did; was angry with Dominic for not caring. If he had been a man lik
e his father … She knew already that he was not and never would be.

  ‘You don’t need to be taking any notice of the old man,’ Dominic reassured her. ‘He’s a devil, I know, but a devil who’ll stand beside you in your time of need!’

  Who would demand a price for it, too, she thought. And expect to be paid.

  Already Jack was re-asserting control over his son. Dominic had not been in the house an hour before his accent had begun to pick up his father’s brogue. If it had been only the accent she wouldn’t have cared but it was not. There was something in Dominic’s eyes that had never been there before, that looked at her and said, This is mine.

  It was bad enough when Jack Riordan did it but at least in his case it was how the man was. Dominic was putting on an act, and she was not going to stand for that. If Dominic imagined he could start behaving like his father simply because he was back in the old man’s shadow, he could think again.

  Now he placed his hand on her breast. There was a possessiveness in his touch that displeased her. She was not, never would be, a thing. She moved restively.

  ‘They will hear.’

  ‘They’re asleep.’ His hand continuing to knead her flesh. ‘If they’re not, they’ll be too busy playing their own games. They’ll not be caring what we’re up to.’

  His words conjured a distasteful and incredible picture, of Dominic’s parents lying in bed together, doing the things that people did together. She could imagine Jack very easily, but the mother, that dried up old hag … She didn’t want to think of it.

  As for the sexual act beginning here, she did not want that either. That first time in the cottage at Amsterdam she had done what she had in order to prove to herself that she had succeeded in breaking the chains of her previous life. Since then the act had lost its significance, become no more than a nightly collision of the flesh. Yet she resented it, not because it did not matter but because it did. His touch aroused in her a passion that she seemed helpless to resist, obliterating the rational, separate person she wanted so much to be. She would be the creature of no man, particularly of this man she did not love, yet once his hands were on her she was lost. In the beginning, she had enticed him into joining with her in one great gesture of revenge; now it seemed she would be paying for that act for the rest of her life.