‘Down for second. Back and up for third.’
She followed his moves, concentrating hard.
‘And reverse?’ Neville asked.
Rosie showed him the action for reverse and he clapped her on the back, smiling and laughing.
‘You got it, girl. And what about your car? How do I get about with that?’
‘D for drive. And when you don’t put your seatbelt on, ignore it when it bloody beeps at you. Simple as that,’ she said and then she started laughing. Rosie Jones now had a Ford ute to put her dogs on!
‘Simple as that!’ she said again. After she had bought Neville a beer and a lemonade for herself, she turned to him and asked, ‘Hey, you don’t know anything about the good old days and what it was like to be a stockman way back when … we’re talking mid-1800s?’
‘I might be an old bastard,’ slurred Neville, ‘but I’m not that old!’
‘I didn’t mean that. It’s just I’m trying to find out about this Irish stockman. A guy called Jack Gleeson.’
Neville set his beer down and smiled.
When Rosie left the pub she was feeling a whole lot better. James and Amanda had worked wonders. Not by serving her alcohol this time, but by providing a good old cup of tea and a chat. Rosie squinted into the sun and smiled. She was going to follow her dreams … now that James Dean and Amanda had helped her discover what they were.
Instead of getting into her father’s ute, which she had parked in the main street, Rosie walked around the side of the pub to the gravel car park. Her mother’s old Volvo was still sitting where she had parked it yesterday. The car stuck out at an odd angle next to the stack of empty beer kegs and looked as if it was sulking from being abandoned the night before. She patted its square boot. ‘Sorry for leaving you behind last night, but I have to say – so long, good riddance and goodbye.’
In the palm of her hand she tossed a set of keys. The bronze nametag attached to them was engraved with the name ‘Neville’. She made her way towards a clunky looking old XF Ford Falcon ute. She ran her fingers along its dinted side and then unlocked the door. She slid onto the crimson vinyl bench seat and proudly sat behind the wheel, breathing in the smell. With the vinyl heating in the sun, she was sure the ute still smelt of the seventies, the heady era in which it was made. Slipping the keys into the loose ignition switch, she turned the key to the charge position. She smiled when she found the vehicle, unlike her Volvo, didn’t smugly beep at her because she hadn’t clicked her seatbelt on. She pushed the sloppy clutch in, tugged a bit on the column-shift gearstick and turned the key over. The Ford ute grumbled to life with a throaty growl.
‘Awesome,’ Rosie said, and she drove off down the main street, out towards Highgrove station.
Chapter 8
The sun was glowing red in the sky when Rosie drove over the garden grid to the front of the house in her ‘new’ ute. The Falcon rolled to a halt outside the grand homestead and then let fly with a bang and a blue puff of smoke as Rosie switched off the engine. Her elation seemed to die with it. She breathed in deeply before she got out. As she entered the house, a feeling of dread settled in her.
Outside the kitchen door, Rosie hesitated. She could hear her parents’ voices hissing within. They were barely able to restrain the angry words flying from their lips.
‘How could you?’ Margaret said through gritted teeth. Her father mumbled something back. Rosie stepped closer and put an ear to the door.
‘You promised never to say anything to her.’
‘You started this!’
‘That’s not how I remember it,’ Margaret said icily.
‘Forget who’s to blame. She has to know the truth sooner or later.’
‘She’s already had one big shock with Sam!’
Rosie could stand it no longer. She pushed the door open and saw her parents standing at the sink, her mother looking ridiculous in a floral apron and her father with his glasses sliding down the bridge of his nose. Their faces were ablaze with anger.
‘The truth about what?’ Rosie said.
They started, and turned to her with worried looks. Margaret untied the apron and slipped it over her head. Gerald pushed his glasses back along his nose.
‘I’ve tried to accept it,’ he said, shaking his head and walking to the door. ‘But it’s gone on too long. I’m sorry, Rose.’ He cast Rosie a glance she couldn’t read. ‘This is between you and your mother now. I can’t be part of it any more.’
‘Don’t you walk out again!’ Margaret yelled. ‘Come back here and face this!’
‘Face what, Margaret?’ said Gerald from the doorway. ‘It’s not my place to tell her. It’s your mess. You created it. You sort it out!’
Margaret was shaking. ‘Please, please! You have to help me tell her! This is about all of us, not just you!’
Tears rolled down her cheeks and she clutched a teatowel so tightly that her knuckles were white.
‘I’ve put my life on hold long enough for you. No more, Margaret. You hear me? No more!’
Rosie, completely bewildered, watched her father walk away. She turned back to her mother.
‘Mum? What the hell’s going on?’ Margaret just shook her head and cried even harder.
‘Mum?’ Rosie urged with fear in her voice. Just then Julian walked into the kitchen.
‘Nice outfit,’ he said, taking in Rosie’s teddy bear T-shirt and track-suit pants, teamed with the Blundstones. But the friendly mockery in his voice dropped away when he saw his mother.
‘Are you okay, Mum?’
All Margaret could do was shake her head.
‘Mum’s got something to say to me, Julian,’ Rosie said, ‘and she’s going to say it now!’ A quiver had crept into Rosie’s voice as she took a step forward, grabbed her mother by the shoulders and looked her straight in the eye.
‘I’m sorry,’ Margaret sobbed, ‘I’m sorry. It was a mistake. It was all a mistake. I didn’t mean to.’
‘For God’s sake, Mum, just tell me!’
‘Gerald isn’t your real father,’ Margaret blurted out.
Rosie blinked. An image of the dusty stud record books that lined the shelves in the office flashed before her eyes. They contained the Highgrove station bloodlines. Her grandfather had laid them out before her and let her trace her small finger along the bloodlines of the bulls and rams. Then he had done the same with an old family album. She had traced the lineage of her family all the way from her forebears in Scotland to the spot where her finger had come to rest on her own name. Rosemary Margaret Highgrove-Jones … daughter of Gerald and Margaret.
Suddenly she felt adrift on a huge sea. The line that had connected her to a sturdy proud ship was cut, and she was drifting. Lost. She swallowed away her nausea. Grappling to control her rush of thoughts, Rosie felt one question surfacing in her confusion. Who, then? Who is my father? She was frozen. She couldn’t move and was unaware of Julian’s hand on her shoulder. She was only aware of her mother’s red-rimmed eyes that were spilling over with tears. Rosie stared at her, and swallowed hard.
‘So, who is my father?’
‘I don’t know,’ Margaret sobbed.
‘You don’t know?’ Rosie asked incredulously.
Margaret shook her head and scrunched her eyes tight shut. ‘It meant nothing. Nothing! It was an accident. I can’t talk about this, Rosemary. I can’t deal with it now.’
‘But, Mum!’
‘I’m sorry. I can’t deal with this now! I have to find Gerald!’
Margaret fled from the room. Stunned, Rosie looked at Julian. There was pity and panic on his face. He reached out to hug her, but she pushed him away.
‘No!’ she said. ‘Leave me alone!’ She had to get out of the house.
Her head still pounding, Rosie shut the heavy oak door of the stables behind her and caught her breath. Under the stable lights the animals’ coats gleamed. The dogs sniffed at her legs as she squatted down amongst them.
‘Hello,’ she said, tears brimmin
g as she ran her fingers along their lean backs. ‘I’ll clean out your stable, then I’ll find you something to eat. We can go for a run in the morning.’
The dogs pricked their ears and looked up to the door, wagging their tails.
‘Not now,’ she said to them sadly. ‘You’ll have to wait.’ Their tails stopped wagging at the word ‘wait’.
Emotion welled up in her. Sam had trained his dogs to perfection. She wished he were here now to tell her what to do. She felt another stab of anguish as she realised Sam wouldn’t have taken her mother’s news lightly. She swallowed back tears and fought the fear inside her. She had to be strong.
To distract herself, she turned her attention to Sam’s animals. They needed her. She felt her heart beating fast. She’d have to get in with the horses to feed them now and it terrified her. They weren’t like the shaggy ponies she’d played around with at pony club. She looked at the large horses in the stalls. If only someone was here to help her, but her father had sacked the last workman this month. It was after her mother had declared that he couldn’t bring ‘strange women from town’ back to the property.
Huh, thought Rosie now, her mother was a fine one to talk. Rosie recalled how the workman had looked at Margaret, standing tall, elegant and proud before him. She looked every bit the grazier’s wife and was doing her best to make him feel every bit the worker. But this bloke had met women like her before and took pleasure in telling her that what he did with strange women in his own time was his business. Then he’d added, with a sly smile, ‘I reckon you’re just jealous, Mrs H-J. Not getting enough from the old man, are ya?’
After that Gerald had little room to move, and so another workman had packed his things and driven off Highgrove for the last time.
Rosie walked to the cluster of feed bins at the end of the stable. She lifted the heavy lids and peered in, wondering which grain was what and which chaff was which.
‘Just get on with it, Rosie,’ she told herself angrily, then screeched and dropped the lid as a mouse scuttled over her hand. Rosie took a deep breath to calm herself and stooped into the bins. At the sound of grain being scooped into feed buckets, the horses whickered eagerly.
‘Coming! I’m coming.’
She lugged the buckets to the stalls and entered Oakwood’s first. He craned his neck to sniff at the black plastic tub and threw his head up and down as if to say, ‘Hurry up!’ Rosie gave him his food and reached out to stroke his long, smooth neck. She could feel her own heartbeat settle as she watched him chew contentedly on his chaff. There was nothing to be frightened of with Oakwood, she realised. He was a gentle creature who just got revved up on race days, as any horse would.
In the next stable, Rosie stroked the golden chestnut mare as she ate. She ran her hands slowly over the mare’s swollen belly, hoping to feel the movement of the foal inside her. The mare ignored her, chewing stolidly, until Rosie touched a place on the top of her tail. Then the mare leant into the pressure of her hand, so Rosie began to scratch her harder. She remembered how Julian’s pony Trixie had liked to have her face rubbed. Rosie scratched the mare’s rump for a while, trying to remember her name. Sam had talked about her at tennis, his new brood mare from the Hunter Valley. Her name? Rosie tried to summon up the image of Sam’s sexy mouth speaking the name. Sally? No. Sassy? Yes, that was it. She was certain.
‘Sassy,’ she said aloud, then she began to cry. She stood for a long while, her arms looped about the mare’s neck as images of Gerald flew through her head. The times when he had yelled at her. Ignored her. Looked at her in disdain. It was all falling into place.
Rosie went outside and looked across the yard to the homestead. She could see the light on at one end of the house. Gerald would be in the sitting room, reading the newspaper and dozing in front of the TV. Trying to pretend nothing had happened. Her mother would be holding in the tears and taking her wrath out on a vase or stainless-steel pot, cleaning furiously. Julian would be in his bedroom with his earphones on, listening to Radio National or reading. Rosie looked up to the second storey of the house. Her bedroom light was on. But there was no girl at the window, looking down on the courtyard. The window seat was empty and the girl had gone.
In the workmen’s quarters, Rosie lay exhausted on an old striped mattress. The night was warm, but still she curled her legs up to her chest and hugged herself. She looked around the room. It was a good place to be, despite being dusty and empty of anyone’s things. It smelt musky, like the smell of men. Real men, who worked hard in dirt and dust. Men who would sweat and eat mutton chops and wipe their mouths with their sleeves, who’d swig on enamel mugs, swilling sugar and tea leaves around in the bottom.
Rosie had always watched the stockmen with intense fascination, longing for their freedom. She wanted to work hard all day long outside. To be grubby and grimy and dog-tired. To satisfy herself with a big hearty meal, washed down with beer. To come in sun-tired after a day of fencing, or droving or rouseabouting, to shower sore muscles and be satisfied that the day was done. She wanted a life like that. She wanted to be one of them.
Outside the door of the quarters she heard one of the horses snort and shuffle about. Then there was a knock on the door.
‘Rose?’ Julian put his head around the door.
She curled up in a ball.
‘Go away.’
‘Are you all right?’
Rosie didn’t answer. Julian came in and sat on the edge of the bed. ‘Dad asked me to come and find you. To make sure you’re okay.’
Fury bubbled up in her. He wasn’t her dad. Why hadn’t her mother come? As if reading her mind, Julian continued.
‘Mum’s taken some tablets. To help her sleep. You know how worked up she gets.’
Rosie buried her face under the pillow.
‘Come on, Rose,’ pleaded Julian, ‘come inside now. Please?’ He pulled her arm, but she tugged it away from him.
‘No! There’s no way I’m going back in there.’
‘Look, if it makes you feel any better, it’s shocked the hell out of me too. I don’t want to be in the house with those two either.’
‘But you’re Dad’s golden boy. Even more so now,’ Rosie said, sitting up.
‘Rosie, if only you knew,’ Julian said tiredly. ‘The number of times I’ve felt like punching his head in, or telling Mum to stick it. I don’t know why I’ve stayed and put up with their crap for so long. And now with this bit of news, that Mum was unfaithful to Dad and you … well, everything feels so weird.’ He fell silent, then added quietly, ‘I’m sorry they’ve hurt you so much.’
Rosie began to cry again and Julian pulled her to him. He held her as her mother’s news sank in with full force.
Some time later, Rosie wiped her eyes and looked up at Julian.
‘Will you help me run away?’ she asked.
‘Course I will. Where to? Anywhere. You name it.’
‘To the farm. To here. I want to live here now.’
‘Come on then,’ Julian said, dragging her up from the bed. They crept inside, stepping carefully over the creaking floorboards. She and Julian threw her belongings into a backpack, gathered up towels and bedding, and crept back down the stairs with the box of books from Duncan in their arms.
The old kettle rumbled in the corner of the quarters while Julian rinsed out chipped enamel mugs. Rosie plumped the pillows on the bed and sat her clock on the bedside table.
‘There you go,’ said Julian, handing her a steaming cup of sugary tea. ‘There’s a dash of something stronger in there too. Pinched it from Mum’s grog cabinet. She won’t miss it.’
‘Thanks,’ Rosie said, taking the cup and sitting down at the kitchen table.
‘You all right now?’ Julian asked.
‘Sure, I’ll be fine. What about you?’
‘I’m fine. The more I think about it, the more it explains … you know … how uptight they always are. I thought it was just marriage. But something’s been wrong for a long time between them.’
>
‘Are you going back in?’ Rosie asked. ‘Or do you want to bunk down here on a swag or something?’
Julian shook his head.
‘I’m OK. I have plans of my own. You’ll see one day.’
Rosie smiled. ‘Well then, I’ll see you for work tomorrow.’
‘You bet,’ Julian said. ‘You could head out on Oakwood and check the stock for me. That’d be a real help.’ Then he smiled at her kindly before going out into the night.
The thought of riding Oakwood filled Rosie with fear. She tucked it down inside herself, along with the shock of finding out Gerald wasn’t her real father. Instead she reached for Duncan’s box of history books.
At the old kitchen table in the men’s quarters, carved with the names of workmen from days gone by, Rosie settled down to read. She was trying hard to lose herself in the history contained in those pages. Better by far to explore other people’s lives, than to face her own right now.
ALBERT’S STABLES, CODRINGTON, 1861
The brush glided over Bailey’s coat while Jack Gleeson spoke softly to her in the dawn light. He let her sniff at the saddle and blanket before he placed them on her back. When he lifted the flap of the saddle and let the stirrups down he felt a sadness for Albert. There was a well-worn groove where the buckle had rested, the leathers kept in one spot for years. Jack flicked the reins over the mare’s head and stepped up easily into the saddle. It felt strange, like he was putting on another man’s worn old shoes, but Jack knew that, with time, Albert’s saddle would come to fit him like a glove.
Bailey stood patiently as he got off to tie his pannikin to the saddle. Then he added the bags of sugar, tea and flour. His strong fingers fiddled with the smaller buckles of the saddlebags stuffed with his belongings. He strapped his coat on the front of the saddle and firmly tied Albert’s old swag at the back. The colt stood by his mother, his ears flickering with curiosity. He stretched out his black nose and sniffed at the saddle and then began to nibble and tug on the flour bag.
‘Get out of that, you cheeky mite,’ Jack said, slowly reaching out a hand. The colt snorted but stood still as Jack ran his hands down his glossy bay neck and scratched him on his wither. ‘You eat my tucker and you’ll be in strife.’
The Stockmen Page 7