‘But –’
‘Don’t you get it? The pressure’s been on me all my life. Now that the truth’s come out about you, that pressure’s been upped tenfold. I don’t want to be the one and only golden boy. Stuff them! Dad will have to rely on you now, whether he likes it or not. You’re the only family he’ll have left for this place. I sure as hell don’t want it. I never have.’
‘But, Jules …’ Rosie put a hand on his sleeve and took a step towards him. He looked beautiful and vulnerable.
‘Don’t, Rose … don’t make it harder.’
‘Where will you go?’
‘Like I said before, I’ve got plans. And I’ve got friends. Blokes I was at school with.’
‘But you can’t leave me!’ Rosie could feel hysteria rising in her voice. ‘Not now.’
‘You don’t need me. You’ll do great things on your own here. It’s time for me to start doing what I dream of. Bugger what Dad says. Or what the community says. I’m not going to be scared any more, Rose … and neither should you. Life’s too short. Sam’s death has convinced me of that.’
Julian hugged her and Rosie felt the warmth of his muscular, angular body against hers. She breathed in his smell. It was so foreign to her, to hold him close like this. Their family rarely hugged.
‘I know you’ll cope, Rosie. And I’ll keep in touch, I promise. You’ll be fine. Trust me.’
She nodded sadly, and pulled him to her for another hug.
And then he was gone. Rosie watched the tail-lights of his ute until they disappeared.
Parking the Pajero in the garage, Rosie noticed the buzz of a shearing machine coming from the shed. She saw a handful of crutched lambs in the yard. Who had Gerald found at such short notice to crutch the lambs, she wondered? Frowning, she walked towards the shearing shed. Inside, at the far end of the long row of stands, Gerald was bent over a merino wether lamb. Sweat dripped from his brow into the wool and his face was pink. A fan positioned behind him was blowing locks into a pile against the catching-pen walls, like flotsam left by a tide. The whole board where Gerald stood beneath the shearing machine was scattered with dags and crutchings and pizzle-stained wool.
‘Dad?’ Rosie grimaced. Should she still call him that? She shut her eyes for a moment at the impossibility of it all.
Gerald glanced up but didn’t stop the machine. He continued to finish the last blow. Then he let the lamb scrabble to its hooves and it scuttled out the chute to join the rest of the crutched and wigged mob. Gerald stretched his lower back and mopped sweat from his face with a towel. Rosie suddenly realised he was also wiping tears away. She wondered how Julian had broken the news that he was leaving. Did they have a roaring fight? Or had Julian just quietly said goodbye? Suddenly she felt sorry for Gerald. Julian had been his security, his future for the farm. And now he was gone.
‘Can I help?’ Gerald didn’t answer her. Instead he pushed through the catching-pen doors and tipped over another lamb, dragging it to the board. Rosie picked up a broom and began to sweep. A twinge of annoyance crossed Gerald’s face.
‘Don’t just sweep it all up into a pile, woman,’ he said impatiently. He put the lamb back in the catching pen and grabbed the broom from her.
‘Look. Anything stained goes into one pile. Heavy dags in another. Wigs and clean crutchings into the butt. Pizzles can go into this butt of stain here.’ Gerald picked up each type of wool as he spoke. Rosie nodded earnestly and concentrated hard on sorting and sweeping. They worked on in silence. Thoughts tumbled in Rosie’s head about Julian leaving and how her mother would react. How Gerald must be struggling under the weight of despair. But she kept on working, gaining speed with her sorting so that soon the board was tidy and she had fallen into an easy rhythm of sorting the wool. She noticed how Gerald groaned and strained with each sheep. She had hardly ever seen him do manual labour and it was clearly wearing him down. When he had at last emptied the catching pen and stretched his back and mopped his brow, he stood up tall and went out to the back pens to gather more sheep to crutch. As she sorted the last of the dags, she could hear him trying in vain to fill the catching pen with the flighty young sheep. Rosie glanced over the pen nervously as her father swore.
‘Damned creatures!’ he said when the wethers again baulked at the gate. ‘Dashed things won’t run,’ he said, flinging a young, confused wether in the direction of the gateway. ‘For God’s sake, Rosemary, get out of the way! They won’t run with you there!’
‘They won’t run whether I’m here or not. So don’t blame me!’
Gerald looked up at her.
‘Well, why don’t you grab one of those expensive dogs?’ he said tiredly. ‘Seeing as your brother took his half-useless dog with him, you’d better find a job for Sam’s.’
When Rosie picked up the broom again she felt elation creep into her soul. Diesel had trotted obediently into the shed behind her heels and when she said ‘Go back’ he had leapt the fence and brought all the sheep to her. When they crammed into the catching pen’s gateway and wouldn’t run, she had clapped and whistled. Diesel had leapt up on to the backs of the sheep and barked. Within minutes the catching pen was full. Calling him onto the board she said ‘Sit, stay’ and he settled down with his paws together on the cool wooden floor, his serious brown eyes watching the lambs as they were dragged across the board. She had hoped her father would say ‘Well done’ but the sight of the full catching pen seemed to make him angry again.
He roughly dragged out another sheep and was about to put the machine into gear when Rosie said, ‘Can you teach me?’
Before he could say no she had moved into position, almost bumping him out of the way. She gripped the front legs of the lamb as it sat upright on the board. She saw a look of disgust cross Gerald’s face. But he was too tired to argue, and too relieved that he was standing upright. He walked away to the experting room, flicked the switch that turned on the fluorescent lights above the board and began to instruct Rosie on how to crutch. Rosie felt the warm handpiece come alive, vibrating in her hands. She was shocked at the heat of it and the life of its own that it seemed to possess. But as she began to push the comb and cutter through the wool, she glanced up at her father.
‘Look, I’m a natural!’
Gerald looked at her sourly before sweeping the dags away.
Chapter 13
For the next few days, Rosie tried to settle into the strange new shape of her family. The three of them tiptoed around each other and skirted away from the problems they carried with them like sacks of stones. The stiff veneer that hid her parents’ pain was now firmly back in place. They barely mentioned the fact Julian had only called once from the city. And even then, Margaret had asked him about the weather. Her mother and father were still not speaking to one another, their marriage as fractured as the cracked dry soil in the dusty paddocks. They used Rosie as their go-between, or left short sharp notes for each other on the kitchen table. Gerald retreated to his office at night and spent hours on the phone. Margaret stole sips of the cooking brandy, and at night tipped pills down her throat to make her sleep.
Rosie set herself up in the quarters. Her mother’s fine linen doona cover looked strange in the rough old quarters, but with the shelves full of books and cupboards full of work clothes borrowed from Julian, the place began to feel like home to Rosie. She stocked the tiny kitchen with packet noodles and tins of spaghetti for those times she felt she couldn’t face her parents. Her body was still adjusting to the hard physical work of the farm, and her mind was still struggling with all the shocks of the past couple of months. During the day Rosie spent her time with Sam’s dogs and horses, and at night she delved into the history books Duncan had given her, trying to blot out her pain. She read of fistfights, and of handsome stockmen who dared each other to jump their horses off the bridge into the Glenelg River for a bet. She read of shepherds murdered by natives, and of natives murdered by shepherds. She read of a settler’s wife who buried all five of her sickly children,
digging the last one up to cut a lock of the baby’s hair before she moved on to another district.
Each night Rosie sifted through long-winded historic accounts, looking for shreds of information about Jack Gleeson. She made notes for her newspaper series before her eyes grew heavy and she at last sleepily reached for the bedside lamp. Listening to the horses snorting and chewing in the stables next door, Rosie would stare into the darkness and imagine how it felt to live in an isolated shepherd’s hut.
DUNROBIN STATION
Jack wrapped the woollen blanket about his shoulders and peered at the pages of the book. Its small print was illuminated by candlelight that flickered in the draught which crept through the gaps in the stringy-bark walls of his hut.
In the text Charles Dickens had written:
I know a shaggy black and white dog who keeps a drover. He is a dog of easy disposition, and too frequently allows this drover to get drunk. On these occasions it is the dog’s custom to sit outside the public-house, keeping an eye on a few sheep and thinking.
Jack sighed. He had been on Dunrobin a month now and was longing for a good dog. Idle was the laughing stock of all the men who worked on Dunrobin. Instead of keeping vigil on the mob at night, he would scratch at Jack’s door and whine to come in and doze by the fire. He slept through the night, so that Jack’s sheep found gaps in the flimsy night-yards and would scatter some distance throughout the unfenced river-flat country. Some would even cross the shining midnight river and would be grazing the banks of Warrock station on the other side at dawn. On such mornings, Jack would swing into the hard cold saddle at sun-up and ride Bailey in a vast circle, picking up the strays and crossing the sheep back over the river. Idle, having slept soundly all night, danced at the excitement of it all and occasionally helped Jack gather a stray from a tricky section in the bush. Jack longed for a well-bred dog. A dog he could trust.
Jack shut his book, blew out the candle and bent to throw a log onto the crackling fire. He stared into the flames, remembering the day he had ridden up the drive to Dunrobin homestead for his interview with Mr Murray. When he had knocked on the back door, Mr Murray himself came to answer, and in the shade of the back verandah he and Jack shook hands. The agreement was made: Jack was now a stockman.
At first he tailed an older man about his duties, getting the lie of the land and an eye for the earmarks and brands of the stock. Dunrobin was licensed by the government to run thirty thousand sheep, but so far only nineteen thousand sheep grazed the unfenced pastures. Jack was put in charge of a mob of his own and instructed to head north along the Casterton-Apsley track, grazing the flock by the Glenelg River which bordered Warrock station. He was given a packhorse laden with food and equipment. Bobby was a flea-bitten grey with feathery hocks and a large ugly head. But he was a good horse, and took care not to scrape the packs when the journey brought them through thick stands of stringy-bark. Jack set out from the homestead for the day’s journey to the shepherd’s hut.
The hut was set amidst some river red gums. Jack savoured the spot. Magpies chortled above him in the treetops, and not far away the river slid silently by. He spent that first afternoon swinging the axe, felling saplings and larger trees. He used them to patch up the rough yards where he would pen the sheep overnight to protect them from wild dog attacks.
Days at the hut slid into weeks. Stockmen would come by and share his camp site. The men talked often of Warrock as a place where good dogs could be found. Jack was determined to go there soon to see for himself. Some Warrock sheep had strayed across the river in his flock, so he would ride out there and put them in George Robertson’s yards. Then he would inquire about the purchase of a good, handy and true dog.
Jack climbed into his swag by the fire and was just dozing off when Idle again scratched and whined at the door.
‘Goodnight to you, Idle,’ Jack said angrily, but he couldn’t help letting some humour creep into his voice. ‘But don’t worry. If what they say about Warrock dogs is true, it won’t be long before you can retire.’
Rosie stirred sleepily beneath the sheet, then kicked it off. She lay dozing, in a white cotton singlet and knickers, her brown limbs sprawled out in the heat. She knew she’d overslept, but her body, tired from drenching sheep and dehorning wethers, refused to wake.
‘Does the sleeping beauty come with the quarters?’ she heard a man’s voice say. The voice was thick with an Irish lilt.
Rosie’s eyes flew open. In the doorway stood the tall silhouette of a young man.
‘Jack?’ she said, rubbing her eyes and thinking she was going mad.
‘Rosemary!’ her mother’s voice came from outside. ‘For goodness’ sake! I thought you were up and gone!’
When Rosie realised that the apparition was no apparition at all, but a real-life man, she hastily pulled up the sheet and, wide-eyed, asked, ‘Mum?’
Margaret stepped past the man into the room.
‘This is my daughter Rosemary.’
‘Rosie,’ retorted Rosie firmly.
‘This is our new stockman. Jim Mahony.’
‘No need for introductions now, Mrs Highgrove-Jones. Shall we let her get dressed first?’ Jim said with a smile in his eyes.
Rosie realised they were the same blue eyes she’d seen in Mr Seymour’s hallway. Jim Mahony was no ghost. He was a modern-day Irishman, wearing jeans and a blue work shirt. The colour of his shirt and his tanned face seemed to make his eyes even bluer. His face moved easily into a smile each time he spoke and his broad shoulders nearly filled the doorway. Rosie couldn’t help noticing his lean hips and stomach, set off by a plaited leather belt, and his R M Williams boots, polished to shining.
Suddenly anger flashed inside her as she realised that a new stockman meant no room for her in the quarters. Her mother had been meddling again.
‘Come on, Mr Mahony. We’ve got time for a cup of tea now. We’ll leave Rosie to get dressed and gather her things so that you can move in.’
‘Well, if it’s no trouble. I don’t want to move anyone out of where they belong.’
‘Oh, not at all! Rose doesn’t belong here. She just sleeps in here when the weather gets too hot, don’t you, dear?’
Margaret ushered Jim out the door and began to make small talk with him across the courtyard. She settled him down on an old squatter’s chair on the glassed-in verandah. She went into the kitchen to make tea for him – in mugs, not cups – and put out a plate of biscuits – packet, not homemade.
Rosie quickly dragged on her Wrangler jeans. Still in her singlet, she hobbled barefoot over the courtyard cobbles and slammed the screen door into the verandah.
‘’Scuse me,’ she said, red-cheeked, as she ran past Jim into the house. He watched her pass, then crossed his ankle over his knee and began to flick through last week’s Weekly Times, wondering what on earth was going on in this family.
In the kitchen Rosie hissed at her mother, ‘Just what do you think you’re doing?’
‘It’s not my fault you weren’t dressed.’
‘No! Not that!’
Margaret poured boiling water into the teapot – the old china one, not the silver. ‘Well, how else would I get my daughter back under the roof where she belongs? And it’s a much-needed surprise for Gerald. Now Julian’s gone, it’s even more important to keep him happy.’
‘Geez, Mum!’ said Rosie, exasperated. ‘We’re doing fine on our own – and besides, nothing would make Gerald happy. He was born grumpy.’
‘Look,’ Margaret said, ‘your father’s on the brink of walking out, I just know it.’
‘Stop being so paranoid,’ spat Rosie. ‘And he’s not my father. Remember?’
Margaret shook her head sadly. Rosie narrowed her eyes.
‘Where’d you find this bloke anyway? Under a shamrock?’
‘Don’t be silly, Rose. I met him when I delivered this week’s meal to Mr Seymour. Their families are somehow connected back in Ireland and Mr Mahony was visiting the Western District with the hope
of finding station work.’
‘Right. What’s he good at – growing spuds?’
‘He’s had more stockwork experience than you, young lady, so I’m not hearing another word about it.’
Margaret turned her back on Rosie and left her in the kitchen. She carried the tray out to the verandah, rearranging her face into a gracious smile as she went. For the sake of her marriage, she was determined to make sure this workman stayed.
Chapter 14
Soft sunlight crept through French doors of the upstairs verandah and began to spread light across the room. Rosie sat up, her hair tangled in a bird’s nest, angry from a sleepless night in her own bed. She felt trapped back in the house. The wooden floorboards were cool on her bare feet as she padded over to the window and peered down to the courtyard. The light in the workmen’s quarters was on, but she couldn’t see Jim. During the night she had tried to imagine him sleeping in what had briefly been her room. She clenched her teeth, furious at the way her mother had pushed her into coming back into the homestead.
Rosie crossed her room and flung open the French doors, stepping onto the verandah in her singlet and knickers. Across the valley, she watched the sun beginning to illuminate the short-grazed pasture. A fine white mist had settled over the bush in the gullies. She breathed in the fresh air and began to plan her day. She would be working with Gerald, helping with the foot-paring. She stretched her arms in the air. Although tired, her body had never felt so good. Small, newly formed muscles bunched up in her arms. She flexed them proudly. She did a few muscle-man poses just for fun. All she needed was some baby oil, she thought. As she did a clean and jerk with her imaginary barbell, a movement caught her eye a few hundred metres from the house. She squinted down from the verandah, beyond the garden. The new stockman was trotting towards her on a chestnut colt, looking up at the house. The colt’s nostrils were wide from exertion and each breath came from its nose in a white mist. As Jim rode up the steep hill towards the iron gates of the house, he waved.
The Stockmen Page 10