Furious, Edwina shoved back against the timber. ‘If I were a man I’d hit you,’ she spat.
‘But you’re not a man, sister. You’re a woman.’ Aiden slammed the door in her face.
Chapter Twenty-nine
A weedy patch of light flickered, fattening and then fading before rising to fullness again. Hamilton watched the irregular shapes as they weaved and bobbed, crossing a surface of long pale lengths defined by joins. It could be a figure. Maybe it was. All angular limbs and bulbous head. A shape-shifter of strange proportions, unrecognisable except in worrying dreams. That’s what this was, Hamilton decided. A dream.
The air was cool, laced with smoke. Was he still in the dirt? Where he’d fallen. Face down. Strange, but now the ground felt softer as if it had opened up, cradling or, more worryingly, eager to accept the offering. How he’d come to be lying in the dirt was a loss to him. The road ahead was clear after the drover’s mob packed the earth hard on the way to the waterhole and, in the grimy atmosphere created by their leaving, Hamilton recalled squinting into the confluence.
The track led homeward, away from a hoard of difficulties towards an unknown ending. But it was still a home. Of sorts.
Four winds. That’s what he remembered. The four winds from a yellowing map once hanging in his parents’ home.
Puffed cheeks. Old eyes.
East wind, west wind, north wind, south wind.
Four faces blowing out wind from their mouths.
And his mother explaining that they were leaving their fine house for something smaller. A house in the woods that they could afford. And no, Father wasn’t coming. He’d gone back to his family and their estate. Where there was money.
Before he fell. After the drover. That’s the remembering needed. There was a conversation. Someone speaking. Harsh words spoken at the crossroads with a man.
Hamilton felt the man’s hate, recognised his own.
There were no rifles. There wasn’t time. One of them punched first.
It wasn’t him.
Then the pain came. A terrible headache. Worse than could be imagined. The weakness struck him on the left side of the body and the countryside began to close in, tapering, dulling. His thighs loosened their grip on the mare’s warm body. The ground rose up and it seemed to Hamilton that he met the hardness of the earth too soon, mid-air.
The mare nuzzled an ear, nudged at a shoulder.
The man was gone. Bits of soil collected in his nostrils. With each breath the grains accumulated. The land shrank to a narrow pinprick.
The Green Man stepped out of the dense foliage to squat by his side. Hamilton craned his neck, his body useless. His mother said the Green Man wouldn’t harm him. That his leafy face carved in trees and on churches was a happy sign. Hamilton didn’t believe her. He would pull himself up and confront this creature with his grassy features, but instead, Hamilton felt himself slip away.
And now there was only the incessant smoke and the warming breeze. And a gentleness beneath him, a cushioning for old bones.
Light. Hamilton fixed on that point. Straining. Remembering. The pale background was boards. Tongue and grooved. Rough. Hand-hewn.
Found then. Someone had found him. For surely he’d been lost.
Smoke billowed. It streamed over his body and he watched the cloud grow in size as it moved from his feet towards his head. There was a noise accompanying this strangeness. A mumble of words, ancient, longing. A song, if it could be called such. The smoke moved, wafted. Hands held the smoke and the face above it was streaked with whiteness.
He knew this person.
Davidson. His Green Man had followed him from England.
Chapter Thirty
Edwina woke at daylight, a damp circle of saliva on the pillow. Rubbing at salty eyes she struggled upright, re-buttoned the waistcoat, straightening her skirt – yesterday’s clothes. In the faint glow of dawn she could see that the room was a mess. The lion cub and Jed, restricted to the four walls, were a disastrous twosome to have left contained. They’d mangled wallaby hides, teethed on the linen, and swung on the netting hanging around the bed, ripping the material.
The stuffy room held the sour stench of urine and poo, while every surface bore the messy trail of animal investigation. The pitcher on the washstand lay on its side and the bowl was empty. One of the creatures at least had drunk. Chunks of hard bread had satiated the little monsters last night but the cub could not be contained again. He’d slipped past her, through the door into a night undeserving of bright sparkling stars.
The lion cub would survive she hoped, far away from here, and with the thought of its leaving, she briefly closed her eyes. She was sorry for the young lion, and worried at the danger it could pose as it grew older, but she wanted it gone. Everything changed on the cub’s arrival and since then some things were now irretrievable, such as her mother’s tree, a father’s regard, a certain innocence of life. A daughter’s expectation. Edwina poked tentatively at yellow-green skin as she applied Han Lee’s balm. Her face appeared a little better. She wondered what Will was doing. Where he was. Had he walked into her room at this very moment Edwina would have found it extremely difficult not to rush into his arms. But he wasn’t here. She dabbed at watery eyes. Now wasn’t the time to feel sorry for herself.
Tidying the room was a stinking task. Edwina did it quickly. Scooping up poo and rubbing at stained timber. Setting items straight. Folding and tucking. Throwing the refuse in the dirt outside. Contrition was not one of her attributes, especially now, standing on the back verandah staring through the orchard to the place she’d visited every morning for years. There was a gap there now. An empty space. A hollow.
Edwina pinched at her wrist. The pain was good. Clarifying. There was anger but what she felt more keenly this morning was tiredness. There was a desire to fold. To simply give way to those who thought themselves better, believed they knew better. It would be uncomplicated, to be accepting. Like her mother. To wilt away gradually. To disappear. Except for one thing. The shame Edwina felt was for her family. For a way of thinking. For a dictated life. It didn’t have to be this way. She at least could do better. Be stronger.
Outside her father’s bedroom door she met Aiden. An inverted horseshoe was nailed to the wall. She recognised it as Mrs Ryan’s.
‘He’s awake. I made tea.’ Aiden’s words were sharp.
‘How is he?’
‘He’s sitting up, yes. But he’s not speaking.’ Grudgingly, Aiden stepped aside.
Inside, the room was gloomy. Weak light streaked the floor where it sneaked through the shuttered window. A lamp on the dresser struggled, its fuel almost spent. Beside the lantern sat a number of candles, the wax melted and pooled in a series of solid creamy puddles on the dark wood. The huddled form of their father was propped up with pillows. The scent of smoke was pungent. It was almost as if someone was burning off indoors. There were a sundry other smells, each fighting for dominance – thick sweat, something sickly-sweet and vomit.
‘Heavens, are you trying to suffocate him?’ she complained, holding a hand to her nose. She opened the shutters and the day streamed in through the orchard. Among the trees the collies waited, upright, silent, the dogs watching the window of their master’s bedroom. Edwina stepped back from such absolute loyalty as Aiden wiped up vomit from the floor. A metal dish filled with ash sat in the middle of the room. ‘What is that for?’ she queried.
Aiden didn’t answer. Davidson held a cup to their father’s lips, a hand supporting his shoulder. In the initial darkness, Edwina hadn’t noticed the aboriginal. He was shirt-less, scars crazed his chest, the dark of his face streaked with a grey-white substance that looked like powder. Their father slurped noisily from the vessel, a sag of skin drifting downwards. Edwina turned to her brother.
‘Men’s business,’ he said in answer to her widening eyes.
‘The blacks’ ways are not ours, Aiden,’ she cautioned, wiping her hands nervously along the seams of her waistcoat. She
daren’t look at the stockman. At his nakedness. In the warm room his skin glistened. There were notches etched into a forearm. Five thick welts. As if he were keeping count – but of what?
‘Can it hurt?’ her brother replied. ‘Could you do better?’ He sat the sick-cloth on the dresser. Beside it was a large brown leather book with the words Domestic Medical Practice written on the cover. Edwina flicked the pages until she reached p for palsy.
‘I’ve read it. They don’t know what they’re talking about,’ said Aiden.
The words under symptoms and complications seemed to lift off the page. ‘Facial paralysis? Brain damage?’ Edwina looked into her father’s bottomless eyes. Somewhere within was the man they knew. So many thoughts welled up, so much unhappiness. ‘We’ll never know what happened, will we?’ she finally asked, controlling her fears.
‘I think we have a fair idea.’ Aiden handed her a newspaper that was sitting on the end of the bed. ‘I found this in his saddlebag along with his papers.’
Edwina read the headline, her stomach collapsing.
‘Makes for interesting reading, doesn’t it?’
There it was in inky print. The lion cub. The girl dressed as a man. The local daughter accused of bringing the wanton ways of the city to Wywanna. The drinking of liquor in public. Smoking. And something far more damaging – a reference to an unstable mind. Who could have said such a thing … ‘Aiden, I –’
‘It’s dated yesterday,’ her brother continued, ‘so I think we can safely assume what caused Father’s attack.’
‘But –’
‘I’m not interested. I’m not interested in anything you have to say anymore. If I was the head of this household I would throw you out. Give you the money you so desperately crave so you could leave here and make your own place in the world.’ His gaze dropped to her feet and he glared at Edwina as he travelled the length of her. In that singular moment she was reminded of their father. ‘You are surely the most ungrateful daughter a person could ever have the misfortune of knowing.’ He looked as if he’d eaten something rotten. ‘You have embarrassed this family no end. You’ve given our father a dreadful blow.’
‘You’re upset, Aiden. I am too, but there is no excuse for you speaking to me in that manner.’
‘Leave.’
‘But you must let me explain what happened. It wasn’t my fault. It was Will Kew, it was –’
‘Don’t you understand? It doesn’t matter what happened, Edwina.’ He snatched the paper from her. ‘This is what the district thinks.’
‘I’ll speak to you when you have your senses about you,’ Edwina countered, her voice wavering. ‘I’ll go and see Mrs Ryan and –’
‘She’s gone,’ Aiden told her. ‘The old woman left in a flurry of complaints, talking about Davidson being allowed in the homestead and Father striking you. She said she’d had enough. A mighty fall from the Lord’s grace, that’s how she put it, as if Father’s illness was of his own making. I’m pleased she’s gone. I never liked her anyway. It’s amazing none of us were poisoned the state she kept that kitchen in.’
Across the room Davidson sat silently. It was impossible to know what he thought about any of this. Were the stockman not a mute he may well have spoken as her brother did, but Davidson’s allegiance remained with his employer and Edwina guessed that the rest of them could be damned such was his interest in the siblings before him.
‘You will have to take her place. Do your share. Father needs soup. And don’t whine about it, Edwina.’
‘And the doctor?’
‘There is no point sending for him. There are no broken bones. What ails Father is beyond medicine. Davidson and I will get him up and about in a couple of hours. A walk will help. Fresh air.’
Edwina doubted this.
‘But,’ Aiden lifted a finger, a sharp nail poking harshly at her chest so that she felt the spike of both word and action, ‘I want you to stay away from him.’
‘So you will be both son and nursemaid?’ declared Edwina, pushing aside his hand. ‘What a pretty picture. You don’t have to try that hard, Aiden; you are his favourite after all. And as you said, all this,’ she lifted her arms, the gesture encompassing the room, the house and their land, ‘will be yours one day. Maybe,’ her tongue was slick with spittle, ‘sooner than you think.’
‘I think you should leave,’ replied her brother.
‘Davidson,’ said Edwina, ‘we appreciate you staying with Father; however, I need you to go and see Han Lee and –’
‘I spoke to him yesterday,’ interrupted Aiden.
‘And did you show him the way to the Carbeen paddock and tell him where we wanted his team to start?’ asked Edwina.
‘No,’ he admitted.
‘They need to know. Davidson, could I ask you to do that please?’
The stockman rose from his seat and with a final glance at his employer walked out the door. Edwina followed.
Chapter Thirty-one
Edwina fed the wood stove until the kitchen hut emitted torrid waves of heat, the blast of hot air eventually sending Jed to seek a cooler place to rest. There were recipe books somewhere belonging to her mother and she scrounged for them until the mouse-eaten relics were found under a large tin of castor oil. Dirt-rooted vegetables sat in a basket on the freshly scrubbed table. Edwina chopped carrots and potatoes and then, after consulting the recipe books, selected ingredients from the canisters, jars and bottles stored on the shelves, until chicken soup simmered and two slightly burnt fowls appeared from the oven. Aiden came to the kitchen three times to check her progress and on the last occasion, with the food prepared, the pots scrubbed clean and the entire kitchen disinfected with lysol, she told her young brother to serve up what he and their father needed when required, tidy up after himself and ensure the cooled, leftover fare went into the food safe when he was finished.
There would be no setting of the table, Edwina informed him. No laundered napkins rolled into individual silver rings and no sister playing slave to a younger brother. Aiden parted with a bowl of soup and a chicken leg, obviously prepared by his lack of argument to concede that if he wanted to eat he would only do so her way.
Edwina rushed through the remaining kitchen duties with one thought. And that notion eventually led her back across the short patch of dirt into the house and to the rarefied confines of their father’s study.
Closing the door with a wince as the knob squeaked, she rested her shoulders against it. It wasn’t the first time she’d been here. But it was the first alone. Edwina almost expected the screech of the rattan-backed swivel chair, the impatient questioning of a man disturbed. In its place were tracings of cobwebs in corners, the grind of boot-carried soil underfoot and a soft-falling dust forming a leaden patina. It fell to Edwina to sweep and brush the office thrice weekly and she did so with the timely reliability of the grandfather clock in the dining room, never speaking unless spoken to. Now, with the room stark in its emptiness, she was struck by its coldness without the presence of its usual inhabitant. Then again, perhaps the chill had always been there. Edwina thought of her father, of the man he was, of the father he could have been, and began to weep.
It took time for composure to return. She wiped at puffy eyes, trying to recall the last time she’d cried so hard – perhaps when her mother died – but today things were different. The room was sparsely furnished like most of the homestead, but the quality of the velvet curtains, the thick rug and the two leather-backed chairs that fronted the locally made desk with its red-seated swivel chair were handsome pieces that in Edwina’s mind were quite wasted. Aiden would like the room. He would be lost if the worst happened, but he would enjoy what the saddest of circumstances would bring. Until he mismanaged what was left of their father’s legacy.
Her father’s saddlebag rested on one of the seats. Placed there by Aiden, she presumed, after the retrieval of the newspaper. There was nothing that could be done about that now. Only the present and the future could be changed, a
nd then only through action. Sitting in her father’s seat, Edwina ran her palms along the edge of the desk, across the timber with its three equally spaced paperweights, writing paper and short stack of envelopes. The sun angled directly onto the leather chairs. The morning light revealed tiny lines where the leather hide was crazed and cracked by years of heat and she wondered at the spoiling of the barely used objects, at the waste of decorating a room for clients who never called.
The desk drawers were what she’d come for and Edwina opened them, removing the contents and reading the papers as quickly as possible. Her mind fixed on the letters and bills, absorbing what she could while listening for the most minuscule of noises in the house. Twice she glanced at the door and twice lung-locked air was released. Her father couldn’t reprimand. Not at the moment. Maybe not ever again.
It was the ledger she searched for. The ledger that would reveal how much money was at their disposal. What their debts were. Aiden, absorbed by concern for their father and anger at her, was forgetting the one thing that Edwina had not – their financial situation now that the breadwinner was indisposed. Oh, she knew they’d survive. The Chinamen could be put off and they could easily live off their vegetables and wild game if needed, and there was plenty of flour in store. It was her father’s second life that piqued her curiosity and Edwina wanted to know, demanded to know, exactly how much their father was worth. And she wanted to know now, before Aiden. For with their father’s injury, Aiden would expect to take his place at the head of the household.
‘If I was the head of this household.’ They were Aiden’s very words and with their father’s illness he was already the head, by default, by chance of birth. But it was a position granted by cultural norm, by expectation, not by ability, recommendation or reason. No matter that Edwina was older and more suited to the task. The reality was that her brother wasn’t capable of running the property. It wasn’t his fault but he was a dreamer like his father, without the mitigating ability of fulfilling the role of money-lender. And he was already treating her poorly. As if she were worthless. Edwina was furious, with both of them, brother and father. Aiden was barely capable of adding a row of figures and with their father’s illness, the land and any monies saved were the only certainty they had. She couldn’t depend on her brother, for anything. Not now.
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