‘Are you enjoying the farm?’ Giddy asked him.
Julian glanced up at his father and shrugged. ‘It’s OK,’ he said quietly.
Giddy was about to ask Gerald the same question when Margaret entered the room, waving her empty glass.
‘I’ll have another, thank you, Gerald.’
Rosemary groaned inwardly. Her mother was drunk and she was bound to be rude to Giddy again. Rosemary looked at her aunt’s dyed red hair and untidy, slightly eccentric clothes. She was always astounded by the differences between Giddy and Margaret. You couldn’t get two sisters more unlike one another. No wonder they didn’t get on.
Rosemary had always idolised her aunt, even though she rarely saw her. She loved her warmth and humour, and her hair that hung down in a sleek sheet of glossy colour. Rosemary was fascinated by Giddy’s life in her artist’s studio on the Peninsula.
She had once gone to stay with Aunt Giddy when she was about twelve and her mother was sick in hospital. Rosemary remembered her week there so clearly. The house was very different from the sprawling coldness of the Highgrove homestead. It was a tiny cottage, with low, pressed-tin ceilings, warmed with walls of books and scatterings of exotic colourful fabrics on cushions, couches and walls. More colour glowed from Giddy’s paints, and from her canvases that were propped up against every piece of furniture. It was on this stay that she had heard Giddy making love to a young man who had come to learn to paint. Even though Rosemary lingered outside the window to steal a glimpse of the tangle of limbs and rampant thrusting actions of the man’s white backside, it had shocked her so much she had wanted to go home.
‘But, Rose,’ Giddy had said gently, ‘it’s perfectly natural. Hasn’t your mother taught you anything? When you grow older, you’ll understand.’
A hot chocolate and a packet of biscuits later, Rosemary was again happily playing with Giddy’s black tomcat and enjoying the strangeness of her surroundings. By the end of her visit she had come to love the tinkle of the beads that hung in the doorways and the sensual smell of sandalwood and massage oil.
A burst of laughter from Gerald broke Rosemary’s thoughts. He was holding up a pair of socks Giddy had given him. Printed on them was ‘Grumpy old fart’. He’d looked anything but grumpy since Giddy turned up, thought Rosemary. She had that effect on people.
‘Here, Margaret,’ said Giddy, holding out a beautifully wrapped box with seashells stuck to the card. Margaret shook her head and backed away.
‘Terrible headache. Think I need to lie down.’ She walked unsteadily from the room. ‘Come and check on me soon, Gerald. I’ll need more tablets. And some water.’
Later, as they bundled Giddy into her old car, Rosemary again begged her to stay the night. She shook her head.
‘It’s not a good idea,’ she said, lifting her gaze up to Margaret’s bedroom window. Rosemary looked sadly to the gravel at her feet.
‘Hey,’ soothed Giddy, ‘there’s always the phone.’ She reached out through the open window of the car and touched Rosemary’s hand. ‘Promise me you’ll get on with your life?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘You must make your own way in life, Rose. Use this tragedy to help you make your own way.’
Rosemary nodded uncertainly, feeling the anger and confusion over Sam’s death and the frustration caused by her mother flood through her again.
‘Promise me.’ Giddy gripped her hand firmly. ‘You really could fly in life if you made a dash for freedom.’
‘I’ll try,’ Rosemary said. She stepped back from the car. Julian leant through the window to give his aunt a kiss. Then Gerald stepped forward and squeezed Giddy’s hand.
‘Thank you for coming,’ he said, kissing her gently on the cheek. He kept holding her hand even as she started to drive slowly away.
‘Merry Christmas,’ he said softly as he at last let go of her hand.
With her aunt’s words echoing in her mind, Rosemary resolved to stop hiding in the homestead. After Boxing Day she went back to her desk at The Chronicle, feeling like a soldier returned from the front line.
‘You really don’t have to be here, Rose,’ Duncan said, peering at her from behind his cluttered desk. ‘It’s dead as a doornail between Christmas and New Year anyway, and you need to give yourself time to grieve.’
‘No. I’m fine,’ Rosemary said firmly before turning back to her computer.
Duncan shrugged. He had lived in the district long enough to know it was best to keep on the good side of women like Margaret Highgrove Jones. He had been happy to put Margaret’s daughter on staff even though she had no experience. Over the past couple of years it had actually been quite nice having Rosemary around, thought Duncan. She was very pretty, in a virginal kind of way. He wondered if she actually was a virgin? Then he mentally slapped himself. His wife had been gone eight months now and he felt like he was getting desperate. He decided to think lustful thoughts only about Rosemary’s mother. Duncan found Margaret a frightening woman, but he liked to look at her. She always smelt so expensive and looked so perfect, like an ex-model. What was it about his attraction to high-cost older women? he mused this morning. His wife had been the same. Though he’d never been unfaithful to his wife, Duncan loved to flirt. He had always prided himself on looking just like Greg Evans from Perfect Match. But the glory days of Greg Evans had slid by. Now, his wife gone, Duncan had found comfort in food. His stomach strained against his pants and bags hung under his eyes from too many scotch-soaked nights in front of the TV.
Throughout the morning Duncan found his gaze returning to Rosemary. He wondered if she knew the details about Sam’s death. Everyone else in town seemed to know.
Rosemary was shuffling through the packet of photos she had taken at the races. Her eyes came to rest on the photo of Sam and Oakwood. Sam’s face, so handsome. She could still smell the sweat of him and his stockhorse. Tears welled in her eyes. Angrily, she swiped them away with the back of her hand. The vision of Sam had haunted her every day. Sam in the mounting yard after the race, his hand resting on Jillian Rogers’ shoulder. She swivelled her chair around to face Duncan. Her blue eyes stared directly into his.
‘I need to take a longer lunch break today, Duncan. Do you mind?’
The direct way she spoke startled him, and he got the feeling she was telling him rather than asking.
‘By all means,’ Duncan said. ‘You know as well as me there’s bugger all to do.’ Before he had finished speaking, Rosemary had grabbed her handbag and was heading for the back door.
The air was sweltering. Instead of turning on the air-con in the Volvo, Rosemary wound down the window and let the hot wind blow her neat bob around wildly as she took off towards Hamilton. The radio was tuned to ABC talkback, so she turned the dial across hissing static until she found some music. An Alanis Morissette song was playing. Rosemary turned the volume up and let the bass beat through her. The angry lyrics sparked a smouldering fury of her own and she scowled and gritted her teeth as she thought of Sam and Jillian together in Dubbo’s ute. She put her foot down harder on the accelerator and for the first time in her life broke the speed limit.
In the hospital car park Rosemary parked crookedly in front of the sign that read ‘Disabled Only’. Slamming the door, she wondered why they didn’t provide ‘Dysfunctional Only’ car parks for people like her. She marched purposefully into the hospital.
‘Can I help you?’ came the nasal voice of the mousy-haired receptionist.
‘Ah, I’m not sure. I’m wanting to visit a patient. A Mr … Mr Dubbo?’
The receptionist frowned at her. It had been a bad morning.
When Rosemary at last found him, Dubbo was dozing in bed in a private room. His arm was in plaster. It had been attacked by his mates with a felt-tip pen and now featured a cartoon of a Bundy Bear on it. Rosemary shivered when she saw that Dubbo’s legs were up in some sort of steel frame. His face still held traces of bruising and his blond hair was matted. When Rosemary’s clicking foo
tsteps woke him, he could barely meet her eyes.
‘No need to ask how you are,’ she said softly.
‘Been better,’ he said, looking towards the window, even though the blinds were shut.
‘Can I do anything for you?’
‘Why would you want to?’ Dubbo asked bitterly. Then they fell into an awkward silence. Slowly, tears began to spill from Dubbo’s eyes. It was strange to see such a big bloke crying. His voice was still deep and strong as he sobbed, ‘I’m sorry …’ over and over. He still wouldn’t look at her.
Rosemary moved to the other side of the bed so he was forced to meet her eyes.
‘I have to find out what happened,’ she said.
Dubbo shook his head, the tears brimming again. She leant towards him and touched his arm.
‘I need to know.’
‘I don’t remember,’ he said almost angrily. He lifted his plastered arm up to his forehead.
Rosemary persisted. ‘Were you drunk?’
‘No!’
‘Were you mucking around?’
‘I don’t know!’
Rosemary couldn’t help the anger in her voice.
‘Well, why’d it happen? Why is Sam dead?’
Dubbo recoiled.
‘I didn’t do it! I didn’t mean to! It wasn’t my fault!’ Dubbo’s face contorted with pain.
Rosemary knelt down beside his bed. ‘Tell me, please.’
Dubbo winced as his final memory of Sam flashed in his mind. Sam had been naked except for his boots. His pale body glowed in the dark night. He was leaning over the side of the ute into the driver’s-side window, trying to hook Jillian’s bra over Dubbo’s ears while Dubbo, laughing, yelled at him to stop. Dubbo had caught the flash of Jillian’s naked breasts in the mirror as she squealed and tried to drag Sam back into the ute. Then a guidepost was being ripped from the ground by the bull-bar. He could remember the sickening noise of metal ripping as the ute rolled and rolled. Then nothing. In the hospital Dubbo shut his eyes and swallowed down nausea. Rosemary spoke again.
‘He wasn’t in the cab with you, was he?’ she asked quietly.
The muscle in Dubbo’s jaw twitched.
‘He was in the back with Jillian, wasn’t he?’
‘Just leave it! It’s happened, just leave it alone!’
‘They were in the back together, weren’t they? In Sam’s swag.’ Tears began to fill Rosemary’s eyes as she remembered pleading with Sam to take her to a campdraft on the Queensland border just before Christmas. He’d argued that there were no motels and she’d hate sharing his smelly swag in the horse float.
‘It wasn’t my fault,’ Dubbo said again. ‘It was Sam … he … he was dicking about. With Jillian. He … they … distracted me.’
He looked at Rosemary with pity and she could tell Sam had betrayed her like this before. She stood up to leave.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Dubbo. ‘He could be an arsehole. A real arsehole.’
‘I know,’ she said. Then she picked up her handbag and left.
Chapter 5
Rosemary barely remembered the drive back from Hamilton. Images of Sam and Jillian in the swag as Dubbo’s ute hurtled along the gravel road in the darkness swirled in her head. She pictured Sam’s naked, pumping buttocks, and Jillian’s long dark hair spread out on the grotty pillow of Sam’s swag. She imagined Dubbo, distracted, and the big spotlights of the ute picking up the guideposts in front of them. The huge steel bull-bar ripping through the dirt as it hit the ditch, then snapping the wire fence like thread. The spraypainted Bundy Bear on the bonnet crumpling as the ute rolled and rolled down the embankment. Glass shattering, steel buckling, soft human flesh meeting metal. In the darkness, the B&S stickers splattered with blood. The broken, battered limbs of the lovers entwined. In the swag. In Sam’s smelly swag.
Rosemary shook the thoughts from her head. She felt the anger rising again. Only this time it was for herself. For being so bloody pathetic.
‘When are you going to get a life?’ she screamed at her image in the rear-vision mirror, before more tears blurred her vision.
She sped over the bridge and up the main street of Casterton, braking with a screech outside the cluster of shopfronts. Her Volvo beeped at her that the keys were still in the ignition.
‘For God’s sake! Shut up, you stupid bloody car!’ She ripped the keys from the ignition, slammed the door and marched into the River Gum Country Clothing Store.
Rosemary’s mother preferred to buy clothes down the street at Monica’s Fashion, which stocked the latest Country Road and Anthea Crawford. Monica and Margaret often got together to put on Melbourne Cup and Show Society fashion parades. Rosemary was always bullied into modelling and as she marched rather than sashayed past the old biddies in clothes that didn’t suit her, she felt the excruciating sting of their judgemental looks. If people judged books by their covers, Rosemary thought, she was going to change from the outside in, starting with her clothes.
In River Gum she stood before the shelves of Blundstone work boots and large wooden pigeonholes filled with Wrangler, King Gee, Bull Rush and R M Williams jeans. Colourful cowgirl-style shirts and T-shirts hung in racks beside sweet-smelling leather belts. A Tania Kernaghan CD played over the speakers of the shop. The coolness of the air-conditioning and the lilt of Tania’s voice gave Rosemary goosebumps. This was more like it, she thought. She would show her family that she was no longer a wimp. She was going to become the person she’d always longed to be.
Behind the counter the salesgirl, Kelly, was sipping coffee and reading a glossy magazine about the psychic’s prediction of Nicole marrying again. Looking up, Kelly almost choked on her coffee when she saw Rosemary Highgrove-Jones.
‘Hi, um, can I help you?’ Kelly said, wiping coffee from the magazine.
‘Yes,’ said Rosemary. ‘How you going? Um, I think I need some new work clothes. You know, for out on the farm.’
‘You do?’ said Kelly doubtfully, looking at Rosemary’s designer red linen dress.
When Duncan heard the back door open and saw the girl walk in he nearly called out, ‘Sorry! Staff only! You’ll have to come in the front door.’ Even Derek leapt from his basket under Duncan’s desk and danced to the door with his hackles up, barking and baring teeth. But to the mutual surprise of dog and owner, they saw it was Rosemary. She was wearing a blue work shirt, Wrangler jeans and Blundstone boots that were yet to experience a scuff mark. Around her waist was a leather belt with a pouch for a pocketknife stitched to it.
‘Rosemary?’ he said, peering at her. ‘Rose?’
She walked straight up to him.
‘Duncan,’ she said bluntly, ‘I’ve decided I’m not cut out for social pages and women’s interest features any more.’
‘Yes?’ he said cautiously.
‘I’m keen to do market reporting, visit the sale yards in the district. Do some farm pages. It’s what I think I’d be better at.’
‘But Billy O’Rourke’s been supplying the stock sale figures for years! He knows his livestock. Can’t take a photo to save himself, but the blokes around the yards are willing to talk to him. The farmers would have a fit if someone like you showed up in your new boots to write about complex stuff that they rely on … and you know I do the on-farm features. That’s my job.’
‘Couldn’t we go week on, week off?’
‘No! You need to be consistent if you want to follow market and season trends. Rosemary, please, don’t make this difficult for me. You’re perfect for the social pages.’
Rose felt jealousy well up in her. She longed to escape her life. To be like Billy O’Rourke, ex-shearer, stockman, horsebreaker. A man who moved about the farming crowd with ease and always had a kelpie dog at his heels.
‘Just give me a go!’
Duncan shook his head. ‘I can’t.’
‘Please!’
‘Like I said, you’re perfect for the social and home industry pages. I’m sorry.’
‘No, you’re not sorry. You
only gave me this job because of who my mother is. You’re terrified of her! That’s when you’re not dreaming about shagging her. You’re pathetic!’
‘That’s enough, young lady!’ Duncan reeled back from this uncharacteristic outburst. ‘If I didn’t know about the big shock you’ve had recently I’d sack you right here, right now! Take the rest of the afternoon off. I don’t want to see you back here until you’ve calmed down.’ The colour was rising above Duncan’s shirt collar so the skin on his neck marbled red and white. Derek was dancing around barking at them both.
‘Fine,’ Rosemary said with gritted teeth. ‘For the first time in my life, I’m going to the pub.’ She grabbed her handbag, the patent leather making an odd contrast with her work clothes, and turned on her heel.
‘Rosemary! Wait!’
She turned, her cheeks flame red, and almost spat the words at him. ‘What now?’
‘For God’s sake, Rose,’ said Duncan flatly, ‘cut the swing tag off the back of your new boots. You look like a dork.’
Meekly she stood as Duncan stooped with the scissors to cut the label from her boots. He smiled tiredly up at her. ‘Have a drink for me while you’re at it.’
The pub was awash with afternoon sunlight. It seemed to highlight every worn patch and stain in the red and gold swirl carpet and every tear in the old brown wallpaper. But Rosemary didn’t care, she sucked in the smell of stale beer and cigarettes and let the soothing chant of the Sky Channel races lull her tension. She’d always longed to come to the middle pub. She’d heard the people who drank there were the workers of the town. She was a little disappointed to find there wasn’t a shearer in sight. In fact, there was only one other customer. She wanted to share a beer with the shearers and sit and listen to their conversations … like the ones that had drifted up from the workmen’s quarters to her room at night.
She perched on a stool and looked down the bar. She’d imagined a grey-haired, pot-bellied barman with a strawberry for a nose, but the middle pub’s barman was young, tanned and good-looking.
The Stockmen Page 4