Brumby's Run

by Jennifer Scoullar

  MICHAEL JOSEPH

  an imprint of

  PENGUIN BOOKS

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Acknowledgements

  Brumby’s Run

  Jennifer Scoullar lives with her family on a small rural property in West Gippsland. Her house is on a hilltop, overlooking valleys of messmate and mountain ash. She grew up on the books of Elyne Mitchell, and all her life she’s ridden and bred horses, in particular Australian stock horses.

  jenniferscoullar.com

  To those who help the brumbies. To those who rescue, train and rehome them. To those who campaign to improve their management in the wild. To those who work to raise their profile as part of our heritage, and also as wonderful riding and companion horses.

  Thank you.

  Prologue

  ‘Choose, Mrs Kelly,’ says the doctor. ‘The adoptive couple are here to collect the child.’ He leans in close and lowers his voice. ‘They’re concerned there’s a problem.’

  Well, isn’t there? If this didn’t count as a problem, then nothing ever would. Mary smiles at her sleeping twins. How to decide? There is no way, it’s Sophie’s choice. She could play eeny, meeny, miny, mo with the doctor? Or rock-paper-scissors? He wins and Charlene might go. She wins, perhaps Samantha? The doctor puts on a sympathetic expression. ‘Of course, if you’ve changed your mind …’

  ‘No,’ says Mary, with hoarse haste. ‘I haven’t.’ It was going to be difficult enough raising a single baby. She plucks one, then the other, of her dark-haired daughters from their shared crib, and cradles them in her arms. She inspects their faces. All the clichés make sense to her now. They do have button noses, and rosebud mouths that purse now and then in sleep. They are utterly perfect and she can’t choose. She can’t even tell them apart.

  ‘Mrs Kelly.’ Mrs Kelly. Why is he calling her that? There is no Mr Kelly. A sop to his own sense of propriety, perhaps? ‘If you need more time, perhaps the couple can come back.’

  No, that would prolong the agony. She just requires some sort of a sign, some indication of what to do next. The left-hand twin parts her lips in a delicate yawn. The room grows airless. With infinite care, Mary raises the baby that lies in the crook of her other arm, her right arm, and offers her to the doctor.

  ‘Are you sure?’ he asks.

  Of course she isn’t sure. There is no certainty any more, and there never will be again. The world is a senseless place, filled with random acts of cruelty and prejudice, but she nods anyway. As he receives the right-hand baby from her, she yawns too. A misgiving, cold as death, stalls Mary’s heart. The doctor checks the infant’s wristband. She wills time to stretch. She counts the seconds it takes for him to cross the floor, to reach the door, to vanish with her baby. She consciously commits each detail of the scene to memory. Mary looks down at the single sleeping baby in her arms. Is it Charlene or Samantha? What if she’s given away the wrong child?

  Chapter One

  ‘I’ll rub him down myself,’ said Sam.

  Brodie gave her a lascivious look. ‘Sure you don’t want a hand?’ He chewed on a piece of straw. It dangled limp from the corner of his fat lips.

  She slammed the stable door in his face, startling Pharaoh. Brodie mooched off. Sam hung up the hay net, stuffed it full of the horse’s favourite lucerne, and kept some hay aside to make a wisp. Her deft fingers twisted the leafy stalks into a long, thin rope. Then she gathered the top end into two loops and wound the remaining string back through, to form a solid pad of hay. ‘Ready, Pharaoh?’ The big chestnut lent his body towards hers. ‘One, two three …’ She began to strap his neck with long, regular slaps. The tempo increased as she found her rhythm. Pharaoh tensed and relaxed, tensed and relaxed, in time with Sam’s movements, and she slipped into a kind of meditative trance. The horse was not the only one to benefit from such an isometric workout. By the time she’d worked her way along his back and buttocks on both sides, girl and gelding were spent.

  Sam sighed in satisfaction. Summer was just a week away, and life was good. Her eighteenth birthday and the endless exams of Year Twelve were behind her now. The future stretched invitingly ahead – a future where her mother wasn’t in charge of every aspect of her life. Since Dad had taken up his overseas posting a couple of years ago, it had been just her and Mum, rattling around in their big old house together, getting on each other’s nerves. A white Christmas and a month with her grandparents in France was just what the doctor ordered. Fingers crossed Dad could talk Mum into going back to Dubai with him. The prospect of coming home alone was too perfect to contemplate. She’d be able to spend each spare minute with Pharaoh, preparing for the summer dressage trials. And maybe, without Mum interfering all the time, she might even find herself a social life.

  ‘Samantha?’ Her mother peered over the stable door. Whatever was she doing here?

  ‘Just a minute.’ Sam hid the wisp so Pharaoh wouldn’t eat it, and went out into the stable yard. Her mother’s always-pale complexion had turned ivory, and her eyes were red, like she’d been crying. But that was impossible. She never cried. ‘What’s wrong, Faith?’

  ‘I wish you wouldn’t call me that. It’s not natural.’

  Sam was ready with a smart remark, then thought better of it. Her mother seemed genuinely distressed.

  ‘Get cleaned up, Samantha. We need to talk.’

  ‘You can’t talk to me when I’m dirty?’

  Faith heaved a great sigh. ‘Don’t be difficult, darling. Get changed and meet me at the car. We’ll do lunch.’

  Sam was starting to worry. She was already halfway through her mushroom risotto, and Faith had barely said a word. Her salad lay untouched. Sam reached across and stole a cherry tomato and an olive from her mother’s plate.

  ‘Mum? You said we needed to talk.’

  Faith gave a tremulous sigh and met Sam’s gaze. ‘We do. There’s no easy way to say it, so I’ll just say it.’ A dramatic pause. ‘You mustn’t hate me, Samantha.’ What on earth was she on about? ‘Promise me?’

  Sam wanted to argue the absurdity of making a blind promise, but her mother’s expression silenced her. ‘I promise.’

  Faith’s clasped hands trembled, just a touch, where they lay on the white linen table-cloth. ‘Samantha.’ A deep breath. ‘Your father and I adopted you as a newborn.’ Odd shivers fluttered like moths across Faith’s shapely neck. ‘We couldn’t have children, you see.’ Her eyes lost focus for a moment and she corrected herself. ‘I couldn
’t have children.’

  It felt like all the blood had drained from her head and formed a sickening pool in her stomach. Sam’s chest grew tight. Why was her mother saying this? Was she sick? Delusional? Sam had known for a long time that something was wrong. She’d found pills in Faith’s upstairs bathroom and looked them up on the internet. Antidepressants. But this? It didn’t make any sense. ‘I’m sorry for calling you Faith,’ Sam said, struggling to understand her mother’s words. ‘Instead of Mum. Some girls at school were doing it with their mothers. I suppose they thought it sounded more grown-up, or something.’ Sam gave an encouraging smile. ‘Of course you’re my mother.’

  A brief ripple of relief flitted across Faith’s face. She reached for Sam’s hand with icy fingers. ‘Thank you, darling.’ Her voice was taut. ‘You’re right, I am your mother, in every real sense of the word. Your birth certificate says so, doesn’t it?’ She paused, and tears tracked down her pale cheeks. ‘But I didn’t actually give birth to you, I’m afraid.’

  Sam withdrew her hand and placed it in her lap. She examined her mother’s face. There was no trace of artifice. She tried the adoption hypothesis on for size, dared to examine it. Plenty of times as a teenager, she’d imagined she didn’t belong to her parents, had even hoped that she didn’t. But that was just wishful thinking. Wasn’t it?

  ‘What do you mean? Where did I come from, then?’

  Faith took a very deep breath. ‘Your birth mother lived in a small country town in the north-east of the state. Currajong. She was unmarried, Samantha, and of little means. She relinquished you as an act of self-sacrifice, to provide you with a better life.’ Faith fanned herself with the menu. Beads of sweat appeared on her flawless forehead. ‘She was just a girl … only seventeen.’

  Faith fixed Sam with cool green eyes. Sam had always envied her mother those startling green eyes. Her own were the same dark brown as her father’s. Tea arrived, and Faith poured herself a cup, her hand steadier now. ‘This is extraordinarily difficult, darling. You have no idea.’

  Sam gasped for air. Faith had always skirted around the story of Sam’s birth, protesting that it was something she didn’t like to talk about. ‘I can’t explain it. Quite an out-of-body experience. It felt like somebody else was giving birth to you.’ There was a lack of physical resemblance between them. It had always bothered Sam, but she’d put it down to taking after her father in a big way. Faith was petite and fair. Sam was tall and leggy, with the slender strength of a natural athlete. Her sable hair always threatened to escape its tie and fall in unruly waves around her shoulders – quite a contrast to Faith’s neat blond bob. These differences seemed suddenly imbued with a dreadful significance. Sam fought against a rising suspicion that her mother was telling the truth. ‘I had a right to know all this a long time ago,’ she said in a faltering voice.

  ‘Please, Samantha. I’m telling you now, aren’t I?’

  The ground shifted beneath Sam’s feet and a million questions raced through her brain. ‘I need to know everything,’ she said. ‘Times, dates, places … people. I can’t promise I won’t be angry. I deserve to be, if I want to be.’ Sam heard the high panic in her voice. ‘Who am I?’

  Faith looked around uneasily. ‘Darling, you’re making a scene.’

  So that’s why Faith had brought her to this popular restaurant for lunch. There’d be less chance of any histrionics. It was like a public dumping. ‘I want to go home,’ said Sam. ‘To talk. But first, answer me this. Why are telling me now? Why is it suddenly the right time?’

  Faith looked unsure again. She clung to the edge of the table, like it might somehow anchor her to safety. Several times she opened her mouth to speak, then wavered. ‘There’s more,’ she said at last. ‘You are … you’re a twin.’

  A twin? Now this was plainly ridiculous. They were back in the territory of delusion. Sam wondered if she was asleep, and began to run through the techniques she used to wake herself from conscious dreaming.

  ‘Apparently,’ continued Faith, ‘your sister is very ill and wants to see you. Her mother – your birth mother – contacted me.’ She spoke too fast, as if the words were loathsome, or poisonous, and she wanted to spit them out before they killed her. ‘You don’t have to do this, Samantha. We don’t even know these people.’

  The sharp sting of impending tears stabbed Sam’s eyes, her nose, her throat. It was like she was seeing her mother for the first time. ‘And whose fault is that?’ She grabbed her bag from under the table and ran out the door.

  Chapter Two

  The most important meeting of her life, and she was running late. Faith had offered to come along, but Sam had sensed her reluctance. In the end she’d gone off in a cab by herself, under a gloomy sky. It was probably for the best. This was something she needed to do alone. The car swished through the rainy streets. Sam stared out the window, stomach knotted tight in anticipation. She was about to meet a sister she’d known about for less than twenty-four hours.

  The hospital was enormous and confusing, a rabbit warren of corridors and lifts and doorways. Preoccupied people rushed this way and that, everybody certain of where they were going – everybody except her. A fat woman pushed a teenage girl towards her in a wheelchair. Could that be her mother? Her sister? She turned to watch them pass, and cannoned into an orderly. ‘Lost?’ he asked. Sam nodded, and he steered her to a reception area.

  When she gave her name, the receptionist reached for the phone. ‘Samantha Carmichael here to see you.’ She gave Sam a warm smile. ‘He’ll be down in just a moment.’ Who would be down? Sam stood, ill at ease, wondering what to do. An escape out the front doors was at the top of her list of favoured options.

  A tall Asian man in a suit emerged from a nearby lift and looked in her direction. He beamed when he caught sight of her, and hurried over. Sam stood awkwardly and took a few tentative steps towards him. ‘Samantha Carmichael.’

  He grasped her extended hand and shook it energetically. ‘No need for introductions, Miss Carmichael. I know exactly who you are.’ His smile was kind. ‘I’m Professor Andrew Sung, head of the acute myeloid leukaemia program and the diagnostic molecular haematology laboratory. If you’ll please come with me.’

  Sam followed him back into the lift, up to the tenth floor, and into a large room. It was some sort of lounge, with sofas and low tables and a flat-screen television on the wall. A loud gasp came from the corner, from a woman standing near a coffee machine.

  Sam turned and knew she was looking at her birth mother. She blushed with shame to think that she’d wondered about the person pushing the wheelchair. Did she think she wouldn’t know her own flesh and blood? Sam had never seen anybody who looked so much like her before. It hurt more than she could have imagined.

  Professor Sung took the woman by the hand and led her over to Sam. ‘Samantha Carmichael, this is Mary Kelly, your birth mother.’

  ‘Hello.’ It was all Sam could manage, a shy hello. Mary Kelly was an attractive woman, with a high forehead and even features. Sam had calculated her age from the scant information supplied by Faith. Mary looked much older than her thirty-five years, looked at least as old as Faith, and Faith was almost fifty. Mary’s hair, russet and wavy, was already streaked with grey. Her eyes were set in dark rings, and fine, vertical wrinkles pinched her lips. The impression was one of tarnished beauty. Her eyes, though, were Sam’s own, and at the moment they were very wide indeed.

  ‘Samantha,’ said Mary. The word sounded like a prayer on her lips. ‘You’re so very lovely … and so very kind to come.’

  Mary looked at Professor Sung, and Sam saw something pass between them. He gave Mary a tight-lipped nod. ‘There’s a good chance, yes,’ he said.

  ‘A good chance?’ said Mary. ‘There’s more than a good chance. I couldn’t tell them apart when they were born, and I doubt if I could now, except for Charlie being so skinny and all.’

  Sam pricked up her ears. Her sister’s name was Charlie. Sam seized onto this new piece of i
nformation, as if her life depended on it. Charlie. That was a boy’s name. It must be short for something. Charlotte, perhaps. She explored the word, tried to conjure up an image based on the name.

  ‘This is too perfect,’ whispered Mary. A great smile transformed her face. It shed its shadows and creases, its worry and care. And it was suddenly clear that she had once been a great beauty.

  Sam tore her gaze away from this stranger who was her mother. ‘A good chance of what?’ she asked.

  ‘We mustn’t put the cart before the horse,’ said Professor Sung. ‘This is a lot for Samantha to take in. However, since time is of the essence … Would you like to meet your sister?’

  ‘I should bring her something,’ said Sam, in a sudden panic. ‘At least some flowers.’

  The professor shook his head. ‘Your sister has a suppressed immune system. She can’t have flowers, or fruit. Nothing like that.’

  Time was of the essence, the doctor had said. How sick was her sister? Was Charlie going to die, before she even got to meet her? Mary and the doctor were talking to each other in mutters.

  ‘Is my sister okay?’ said Sam in a sudden panic. ‘What’s wrong with her?’

  Mary burst into tears and Professor Sung placed a hand on the woman’s shoulder, but she kept on crying. ‘Samantha?’ He gestured towards the door. ‘If you wouldn’t mind?’ Sam trailed out of the room after him, leaving Mary behind.

  Professor Sung led her to an adjacent waiting room and indicated for her to sit down. He pulled a chair over and sat facing her. His expression was kind, concerned. ‘I’m a haematological oncologist, which means I’m a doctor with special training in the diagnosis and treatment of blood diseases, especially blood-cell cancers.’

  ‘Is that what my sister has? Cancer?’

  He nodded. ‘Yes. It’s something called CML – chronic myeloid leukaemia.’ There was a practised pause in his spiel. Leukaemia. That was bad. Sam’s friend’s little sister had died from leukaemia. Sam felt a sudden shiver down her spine.