The White Earth

by Andrew McGahan

  The Kuran Plains were not spared. The wheat shrivelled up, and the black soil cracked open into chasms. Kuran Station suffered too. The wind thrummed and beat about the House, tugging at loose tiles on the roof and rattling the windows. The old building creaked and strained, and William felt that he was adrift in some wrecked behemoth of a ship, caught by storm. But there was no ocean outside, only the scorched hills, where the trees bent and shuddered, and where the last faded tints of grass shrank away to crusts. Inside, hot gusts rummaged through the hallways, layering everything with grit and dust, until the front doors were shut fast despite the heat. Locked away thus, William, his mother and the housekeeper all waited, prisoners in the darkness, sharing the old man’s death-watch.

  For William, there was nothing to do and no one to talk to. He waited vainly for visitors to come and call upon his uncle. He was expecting someone like Terry or Henry or Kevin, but none of them appeared. Only Dr Moffat called, and occasionally the station manager, Mr Drury. Neither had any time for William. The doctor, when he came to check on his patient’s progress, seemed gloomy and preoccupied. And Mr Drury was a dour, middle-aged man whom William had hardly ever seen. Now his news was all bad; the pastures were empty, and the few remaining cattle were surviving on fodder. He made his reports to the old man upstairs, and received his orders, but he spent no other time in the House. Which left William only his mother for company.

  His mother, however, suddenly had other business. One afternoon William heard her arguing with Mrs Griffith about who should be looking after the old man. So far the housekeeper had been doing it, labouring painfully up and down the stairs a dozen times a day. But now his mother was insisting that Mrs Griffith was too old to be climbing about like that. What if she fell? What if the old man needed help quickly? Mrs Griffith was denying that it was any trouble for her at all, but the housekeeper sounded shaken, unsure of herself and, amazingly, William’s mother prevailed. From that moment on, by sheer force, she shouldered the old woman aside and took over the care of the invalid — cooking for him, washing his pyjamas and sheets, and sitting by his bed through the long days.

  William could scarcely believe it. What about his mother’s headaches? What about her eternal fatigue? What about her hours in front of the television, empty-eyed and wrapped in her bathrobe? And it wasn’t that her health was any better than usual — in fact, so many demands only strained her nerves to breaking point. The bottles of pills proliferated, and at the end of each day she would shuffle back to their flat, exhausted and barely aware of William’s presence. But gradually he came to understand. She had said it herself — he no longer had access to his uncle. In his mother’s eyes, that meant he could no longer press his claims for the station. So instead, she had been compelled to take on the role. By caring for the old man, she was trying to secure their place in his heart. And William would just have to look after himself. For the time being, he was of no use or interest to her at all.

  At least he no longer had to fear Mrs Griffith. In fact, the housekeeper’s decline had begun long ago, on the day she caught William upstairs in the red room. He had been rewarded for that, instead of punished, and ever since Mrs Griffith had been sulking over her defeat. Now she was diminished even further. She stopped eating dinner with William and his mother, retreating instead to her own rooms. When she did venture out, she seemed bereft. William spied her at times standing at the bottom of the central staircase, peering up into the darkness where his mother tended his uncle, her expression a black mix of envy, anxiety and dismay. But she never ascended. William found that he could even pity her. Her sole excuse for being in the House was to care for the old man — yet here was John McIvor bedridden, and there was nothing she could do, supplanted by a younger woman.

  But she was no company for William either. Loneliness enveloped him. The winds rattled interminably outside, but inside, all remained depressingly quiet. There was no phone ringing, no radio booming in the office, no typewriter clattering away. But, of course, all that activity had been before the rally, when there had been so much to do. Now it was over. He strove to understand exactly what had happened that night. He could recall the meeting in the ring of stone, and the arguments amongst the crowd. He remembered being alone, far away from them all, hiding in the bush, surrounded by silence. And he remembered the bonfire, and a burning cross, rushing up over the hilltop. But was there something else? Why did the memory of fire feel so disturbing? Not the cross, not the bonfire, but a ghostly memory, dancing out of reach … a shape, standing off in the darkness. A man, flame streaming over his face. But that was impossible. That must have been a dream.

  And yet it had heralded disaster, he was sure of that. The burning man was a warning — but of what? About the way the rally would end, amidst fire? About what had happened to his uncle? The old man had almost died, and William knew that he had been defeated in some deeper way too. It was his rally, his League, his people, and yet they had abandoned him to follow the others — Terry and Henry and Kevin. And most crucially of all, where had those three committee members been when the white-hooded men appeared? William hadn’t seen them anywhere, so the conclusion was inescapable: they were hidden under the robes. Was this what the fiery shape had come to tell William? That the rally would end in betrayal? But no … in his memory that didn’t feel right. There had been no urgency in the way the figure approached through the trees. It had seemed unhurried — profoundly so — and the little gathering on the hill had meant nothing to it at all.

  Had it come to warn of the westerly winds then? There was no doubt that they were a disaster. William only had to listen to their hot breath curling about the House to know that. And he had heard the mutterings of Dr Moffat and Mr Drury, as they shook their heads and spoke of the worst drought in decades. Out west gigantic dust storms were raging, and back east bushfires were ravaging the mountains and forests. And so, William wondered, could it be that he had seen some harbinger of the drought that night, a personification of the sort of heat and fire the desert winds would bring? Did such visions always walk the land before evil days, like dire prophets? But he didn’t think it was that either. The figure had shown itself only to William, so whatever warning it brought was for him alone.

  But what did it mean?

  No answers came, and the weeks passed in a blustery haze of boredom and foreboding. The news from upstairs was that his uncle’s recovery had been slowed by serious complications with his lungs, and William still wasn’t allowed to see him. For nearly two months the convalescence continued. The winds persisted, fitful and fretting, easing away for a day or two, or even longer, but always returning. The sky clouded over with dust and smoke. On the rare occasions that William ventured out into the yard, their hillside seemed to be floating — there was no horizon, the plains below were a blur, the mountains in the east could only be guessed at. Dead grass crunched under his feet, the wind plucked and scraped at his skin, and the sun shone a baleful red, glowing like sunset in the middle of the day.

  And finally it seemed that Mrs Griffith had gone mad. William discovered the old woman one afternoon in his uncle’s office, speaking on the telephone. He had never seen her use the phone before, but now she was bent around the receiver as if it was a cherished treasure, her eyes alight, and she was whispering, too low for William to hear. All the while she shot worried glances to the ceiling. She hung up with elaborate care, then started when she caught sight of William standing in the doorway.

  ‘Get out,’ she spat. ‘This is your uncle’s room.’

  ‘I’ve been in here before.’

  ‘Not alone you haven’t.’ She had hold of his collar now, and dragged him down the hall, glancing always towards the ceiling. ‘The House isn’t yours. Not yet. Oh no.’

  ‘Let me go!’

  They were at the foot of the central stairway. ‘I’ve called her,’ she said, poking his chest with a bony finger. ‘So we’ll just see now, won’t we?’

  She had to be crazy. Bu
t later that night, when William and his mother sat down for dinner, the housekeeper was back, rocking with some secret pleasure at her end of the table. She spoke not a word all through the meal, but when it was finished, and William’s mother was about to take his uncle’s food upstairs, the old woman made a gleeful announcement.

  ‘She’s coming, you know.’

  William’s mother hardly noticed. ‘Who is?’

  ‘I called her today. She gave me the number, years ago.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘Ruth. I called Ruth.’

  And to William’s surprise, his mother faltered, put the plate down.‘You called Ruth?’

  The housekeeper nodded, eyes glittering with vehemence. ‘I told her about the heart attack. And she’s on her way.’

  William couldn’t understand why his mother looked so stricken, or Mrs Griffith so triumphant.

  ‘Who’s Ruth?’ he asked.

  The housekeeper cackled. ‘Doesn’t he know?’

  William’s mother considered him bleakly, her hands still curled around the dinner plate. Then she sank back down into her chair, and began to explain.

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  THE NEXT DAY THE WESTERLY WINDS BLEW ON AS BEFORE, BUT everything else had changed now that William knew John McIvor had a daughter, and that she was on her way. The whole point of William and his mother being at the House was that his uncle had no other family. And yet now there was this woman, conjured up like a malign spirit by the housekeeper — not some distant relation, but the old man’s own flesh and blood. It wasn’t just the fact of her existence that was disturbing, it was that she had been kept so secret. There could be nothing good in a deception of that magnitude.

  As if in response to the news there came a summons — the old man wanted to see his nephew.

  ‘You’re to go up,’ said William’s mother.‘On your own.’

  There had been a defensive slump to her shoulders ever since the housekeeper’s announcement. William recognised it from a hundred previous episodes, and knew what it meant — the world was hemming his mother in, and with it would return the migraines and the frightening spells of withdrawal. He hesitated, wanting to help, if only he knew how.

  ‘Go on,’ she snapped.‘Go and see him. For all the good it will do now.’

  It was nothing like his first visit to the upper floor. Back then the House had been silent and still, wrapped in a cold winter’s day. Now he ascended into a hot, airy space, where gusts of wind moaned and a thousand noises creaked and clanked from the roof above. He paused at the top landing and gazed along the central gallery. In his memory it had been a dank cavern of shadows, but now it was suffused with orange light — the colour of the haze outside, leaking in through the broken windows and doors. Everything was tinder dry and dust swirled in eddies.

  William made his way along the hall. Empty chambers towered on either side. And there, at the end, was the padlocked door of the red room. An image came to him of the telescope, a hunched metal creature, as watchful as a vulture, guarding the remains of the dead explorer and an ancient policeman’s uniform. His uncle’s room of secret treasures. And yet there had been no sign of the greatest secret of all, no picture of a child or lock of her hair. What did that mean? And why had his uncle tested him and lectured him all this time, if in the end there was a daughter who could be called home?

  ‘There you are,’ rasped a familiar voice.

  William stood in the doorway to the white room. He’d expected to find an invalid confined to his bed, but in fact the old man was sitting in an armchair, propped up by pillows, the remains of his lunch spread across a low table at his side. The typewriter sat there too, a sheet of paper in it.

  ‘Well, come in boy, I’m not contagious.’

  He still looked very ill. Dark circles surrounded his eyes, the stubble on his chin stood out from his sunken cheeks, and knobbly hands and feet protruded from the sleeves of his pyjamas. The room was almost as William remembered, except that now the white walls had turned yellow in the dusty light, and the curtains flapped in the hot draughts that whistled through the cracks about the window frames. He took a seat across the table, aware of the old man’s eyes upon him all the while. They were not the stern eyes of the prophet, nor were they the kindly eyes of the grandfather. They were something else again, something sickly and eager. From above came the sound of the tiles on the roof, scraping in the wind. William found himself staring at his uncle’s leg, fascinated by a network of old scars that entwined one ankle, and rose up the shin.

  ‘So how have you been, down there all this time?’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘I told you, didn’t I? A hot summer, I said.’

  ‘I remember.’

  ‘Good. Remember everything I taught you. Especially now.’ The old man smiled, his lips faintly blue. ‘I understand we’re to have a visitor.’

  William nodded, watchful.

  ‘You know who she is?’

  ‘Mum said she’s my cousin, once-removed.’

  ‘Yes … I suppose that’s right. But tell me this — you didn’t know I had a daughter, did you, until now? Your mother — she never said a word?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘No, I bet she didn’t.’

  William only stared accusingly.

  ‘But I didn’t say anything either, did I?’ His uncle’s teeth gleamed.‘That’s what you’re thinking, I can tell. We both of us lied to you, your mother and I.’

  William lowered his eyes.

  ‘Ha!’ But then the old man was coughing, thin and hoarse. ‘Well,’ he sighed at the end of the bout, rubbing at his lips, ‘there are lies and there are lies. The truth is, I haven’t seen my daughter for ten years.’ He waited, gauging William’s reaction. ‘It’s true. I haven’t even spoken to her. This visit wasn’t my idea, you know.’

  ‘It wasn’t?’

  ‘You think I told Mrs Griffith to make that call? No.’

  ‘Then why is she coming?’

  ‘That’s the question, isn’t it?’ The smile emerged again, hungry on the old man’s thin face.‘Maybe Mrs Griffith said I was dying. My daughter would want to see that.’

  ‘But you’re not dying — are you?’

  ‘Me? No!’ The old man tapped his chest weakly.‘I’d be fine if it wasn’t for this pneumonia. But I’m shaking it off. A month or so, I’ll be back on my feet. Then you and me, we’ll get back to normal. There’s still work to be done. Lots of it.’

  William felt a quiet relief. Perhaps then the daughter was no great danger after at all. Maybe nothing had changed. His gaze settled upon the typewriter. Work, his uncle had said, and that could mean only one thing.

  ‘Is it time for the next newsletter?’

  The old man turned cold. ‘There won’t be any more newsletters. I’m through with all that.’

  William blinked in surprise. His voice fell. ‘Is it because of the rally?’

  ‘You tell me. You were there, up on that hill.’

  ‘I … I know that’s when you got sick.’

  ‘It’s got nothing to do with me being sick. You saw what happened.’

  And even though he knew the answer, William couldn’t help but ask.‘Where were Terry and Henry and Kevin? When the men with the cross came? Where did they go?’

  His uncle considered him for a long and silent time. ‘They went their own way,’ he said at last. But then he shook his head. ‘Not even their own way, not really. Kevin and the rest, they’re imitators, and that’s the worst thing to be. They think people overseas know better than we do. They want guns and robes, they think that makes them big. The country could be falling apart, and all those idiots will ever do is dance around in white sheets.’ He saw the unhappy look on William’s face. ‘Don’t worry about them. Good riddance, I say.’

  ‘But what about everything else? What about the laws we were trying to stop?’

  ‘Ah … well, the world hasn’t been asleep these last months, more’s the p
ity. We’ve lost too much time. The legislation is due before the Senate very soon now. Maybe it’ll pass, maybe it won’t. But it’s too late for us to do anything about it.’

  ‘But what will happen to the station?’

  ‘The station?’

  ‘Don’t the new laws mean that people can come here, and you can’t stop them?’

  His uncle nodded in sudden approval. ‘Good, good. You remember. And who is it who’ll come here, whether I like it or not?’

  ‘The Aborigines?’

  ‘Yes, but we don’t hate them, right? We aren’t burning any crosses around here, are we?’

  ‘No,’ said William, confused.

  ‘Good. It’s right that you should be worried. Nothing good will come of those laws.’ But then the energy faded. ‘Still, I thought you understood by now. The fact is, we don’t have all that much to worry about, even if the legislation passes. Native Title won’t touch us. Not on this property. This is a perpetual lease we’re on, Will. As good as freehold any day.’

  ‘But I thought…’

  ‘It was the rest of the country I was fighting for. Out west. The sort of land that some of those fools at the rally will lose. Pastoral leases. Crown land. Well, to hell with them.’

  ‘The League can’t stop it?’

  ‘There is no League any more. Not my League anyway. The others can go by any name they like.’ His uncle had shrunk back into his chair, curled around a knot of bitterness. ‘I don’t know if we could have stopped it anyway. But by Christ, at least we could’ve made a point. At least we could have shown the rest of the country just what’s being threatened here.’