Sunset Ridge

by Nicole Alexander

‘Exactly. Time to get it back, I think.’ Antoine called Roland. The dog ceased rolling in the grass and bounded towards the brothers. ‘Roland could stay with Mama as well,’ Antoine suggested. ‘He proved with the fox that he would protect her.’

  ‘Yes, I think he would,’ Francois agreed.

  As they neared the farmhouse Francois gave his customary whistle. Roland ran ahead, springing up the grassy embankment and across the ridge, a flash of muted colours in the midday heat. The farmhouse door opened and the boys watched as the familiar outline of their mother moved to stand in the doorway. Light from the fire glowed softly from within the kitchen as she leaned to greet the dog. Then she was standing again, hands on hips, watching their approach, waiting as always.

  Antoine firmed his jaw and met his mother’s watchful eyes. ‘It is decided then?’ he said softly to his brother, although his gaze never left his mother.

  ‘Yes, it is decided,’ Francois agreed slowly. He suddenly appeared pale and drawn.

  As they neared, their mother saw their faces. Her arms dropped to her sides.

  Sunset Ridge, south-west Queensland, Australia

  August 1916

  ‘My dear, why aren’t you up?’ His mother’s hand was cool against his brow. ‘Why, you’re burning.’ She searched beneath the bed covers for his wounded hand, and then with a cry she raced from the room. Dave was conscious of her footsteps falling away like a coin down a well and then there was only silence, a great emptiness that stretched and moulded itself like a blanket. The bedroom wavered as if it had taken on the rippling surface of the river. Pictures merged into the timber walls to slip through joins, a wooden chair seemed to fracture and then reassemble and the ceiling appeared to be only an inch from his nose. At times it seemed as if the world were cracking while he waited in the midst of the unfolding disaster.

  A thick haze surrounded Dave and he no longer knew where he was or if he were alive or dead. Muffled sobs punctuated long stretches of unearthly silence, to be replaced by a stream of hushed, indecipherable conversation. One of his brothers drifted above him. He was conscious of light and shade, of movement. At times he believed that his mother sat by his side; at others it was Miss Waites, with her wisps of hair and wide-eyed concern. Images wafted: water being squeezed into a basin, a weight on his chest, the click-clack of footsteps.

  At one stage a long hallway beckoned, and at the end through an open door a marvellous rainbow settled above the red dirt of the property. He was about to step outside when a firm arm steered him away. He tried to fight them off, whoever they were, but he did not have the strength. Then the coughing began.

  When the hallway beckoned again it shimmered with light. His hands travelled gently across the walls of the narrow tunnel. There were figures ahead. ‘Wait, please wait.’ The words stretched over his tongue but made no sound. Something stirred him, trying to gain his attention. The shaking grew in intensity until in annoyance Dave tried unsuccessfully to brush whatever it was away.

  ‘The fever’s broken.’

  ‘Thank heavens.’

  His shadow-eyed mother and a young man in black towered above him. Dave blinked at the light streaming through the window. He could smell lavender water, and something pungent. The stranger removed the weight from his chest and placed a stethoscope against his skin. The cold of the metal caused Dave’s drowsy eyes to re-open.

  ‘Can you hear me, David?’

  Dave wanted to answer but the words lay buried in river sand. He imagined digging up the moist soil and searching for the voice he had lost. Instead, a long, racking cough left him exhausted.

  ‘It will take some time, I’m afraid, to regain his strength. There may also be some initial confusion when he wakes up. The delirium was particularly bad, an effect of the high fever and that cough . . . a most unfortunate coincidence to develop pneumonia. I’ll re-dress his hand, Mrs Harrow, and return in a couple of days.’

  The man was stippled in sunlight as he unwound a white bandage and dropped the material in a basin. ‘It was a severe infection, and David was lucky that it didn’t develop into acute sepsis. Your lad here was very fortunate, very fortunate indeed.’

  Ointment was smoothed across Dave’s palm and then a fresh bandage applied. He grew dizzy watching the white material as it was wound firmly around his hand.

  ‘I suggest at least another week’s bed rest, and do try to get some nourishment into him. He’s skin and bone. Broth and bread for the next couple of days, Mrs Harrow: a small amount every two hours at first until his strength begins to return.’

  ‘Of course, whatever you think.’

  ‘And tomorrow another four mustard plasters applied for no more than thirty minutes throughout the day. And ensure that the powdered mustard is combined with only flour and egg white, no water. I shall leave some flannel cloth for the dressing.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  The snap of the doctor’s bag and a swish of his mother’s skirt signalled their exit.

  Dave woke disorientated. A deep blackness engulfed the space surrounding the narrow bed. He blinked, trying to clear the strange visions infiltrating his brain, aware of his mind growing clearer, his thoughts becoming whole. A dream of Miss Waites pressing her lips to his brow was mixed with strange shapes. With wakefulness came a sudden clarity, as if a bucket of cold water had been tossed over his head. Dragging aching legs from beneath the covers, his numb feet hit the cold boards of the floor and he stood unsteadily. The room tilted and then slowly resettled itself as he took a tentative step, his arms outstretched for guidance. Through the window above the rumpled bed a weave of stars circled the black sky. He stared at them until they began to move, forwards and backwards, side to side. There was a great void between and around them and he reached out his hand as if he could push through the willowy darkness to see what lay on the other side. The pull of muscles startled him and he leaned against the roll-top desk for support while searching for a sketchpad and a stick of charcoal. Then, on a whim, he pulled the bedclothes free from the foot of the bed and moved a pillow to the timber foot-board. Light-headed, he crawled into bed as his breathing grew even.

  The star-filled sky dominated the window. He lay awake watching the glittering dots until the first smudge of light filtered across the sky. He wondered what the day would bring. His mother would visit first, followed by Cook and at some stage his two brothers, but what of her? He lay quietly, remembering the feel of those lips on his forehead as streaks of smoky reds and pinks appeared beneath a washed-out blue sky.

  The blank square of the sketchpad sat untouched on the bed. Dave lifted the charcoal and drew a square, then a circle. He flipped the page to start afresh, his mind a whirr of images. A cloud came next and then the sky at dawn, except that it looked like a series of squiggly lines. He flipped the page again: a stick figure, a dog, a sheep with a cloud for a body. Another blank page confronted him. These everyday images stifled him. He dozed, his thoughts returning to his night visions. An image appeared behind his eyes: a chair, fractured, skew-whiff, as if someone had pulled it apart and then reassembled it in a series of boxes and squares. It was a chair but not a chair. Lifting the charcoal to blank paper, he drew.

  Dave felt like a sissy placed in the middle of the veranda, especially because he was sure that Cook and his mother were holding a competition to see who could check on him the most. Hens pecked their way slowly across the front yard. A handful of poddy lambs frolicked in the tufted grass. Occasionally lamb and chicken would cross paths, and flapping wings and affronted bleats would break the silence that stretched out across the house paddock. The sky was a glazed blue, the stables a shimmering concoction of timber and iron. Dave stared at the hazy structure until it merged with the frill of trees bordering the paddock, then he retrieved the sketchpad from under the blanket and began to draw a chicken.

  ‘What’ve you got there, then?’ Cook set two warm biscuits and a gla
ss of milk by his elbow. ‘A chicken?’ She twisted her neck. ‘I never seen a hen what looked like that.’ Tucking the blanket tightly around him, she compared the hen on the paper with the real thing ten yards from the veranda.

  The charcoal hen’s body was comprised of many different-sized squares, some of which had been obliterated by blobs of crumbled charcoal. ‘I guess you’re right, but it’s not meant to be in proportion. I wanted it to –’ He considered sharing some of his strange night visions but thought better of it. ‘To be different.’

  ‘I always knew that Miss Waites was a bit off in the . . .’ Cook tapped her head. ‘Teaching you boys rubbish like that. Argh, a woman that demands sheep’s stomach can’t be of normal thinking. You know what I mean? Stomach, she tells me; sheep’s stomach stuffed. I’ve told her on more than one occasion that we ain’t poor Scots in this household, no-sir-ee. We’re edumacated people and we eat accordingly.’

  Dave flipped the sketchbook closed and bit into a biscuit.

  ‘That’s right. You eat that up. Of course, I can be forgiving a person’s differences on account of the fact that her countrymen are fighting in the Great War as well.’

  After Cook left, Dave considered what a strangely built woman she was. Thin-waisted and wide-hipped, she had stocky legs beneath a black skirt while her torso was thick and long. It was as if she had been stuck at the waist and then pulled beyond stretching point. Dave thought of the chair and the hen – what if he drew a woman like that? What if he drew Cook?

  A scatter of leaves tinkled the corrugated-iron roof as Miss Waites stepped smartly onto the veranda. She wore a long brown skirt and a cream bodice with puffed sleeves and covered buttons that ran from the waist to her neck. ‘David, how ar ye? Oh, you’re drawing. May I see?’ The governess flipped between the pages of the chair, hen and Cook. ‘Och! That’s guid.’

  ‘Really?’ A residue of black dust from the charcoal was smeared across Cook’s image. David had relegated her to a one-dimensional figure of sparse, curving lines; a saucepan was the only truly recognisable feature. ‘I don’t think Father would like them. Mother might.’

  At the mention of his mother, Miss Waites looked away for just a second. There was the slightest drop of her chin, before her attention returned to the sketchbook. ‘Artists are experimenting in many different ways these days. Would ye like me to find ye some books on the subject?’

  ‘You mean there are other people doing things like this?’

  ‘Yes. There is an artist in Paris who is quite well known.’ Her teeth chewed softly on her bottom lip. ‘Oh, his name eludes me at the moment, however he is quite modern in style. I recall seeing a reproduction of a nude woman he drew and . . . oh, but you’re blushing. Artists quite often draw the male and female form in an effort to understand anatomy, David. It is not lewd in any way, I assure ye, despite what the less educated and the prudish would have us believe.’ She patted his hand. ‘Where was I? Yes, the drawing of the woman. It is a sketch yet quite absolute in expressive force. Everything in the drawing is flat, like the canvas it was created on. There is no depth to the work yet it is strangely compelling. This is what I see in your work, David. Instead of reproducing visible reality, ye have altered it.’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘Well, look at your chair. It’s a chair, but it’s not a chair. It is as if we are looking at it from multiple viewpoints. Ye have reassembled it and created something totally different, yet your drawing is a recognisable object. I really dinna understand enough on the subject, but this work seems quite unique to me.’ Her fingers drifted across the angular black lines. ‘I will write away and order some of the latest art journals for ye. In the meantime, to keep the tip of your charcoal pointed and to stop it from crumbling, ye must rotate it constantly.’ She picked up the piece of charcoal and pressed it against a corner of the page. ‘Ye see?’

  ‘Yes.’ Dave was drawn to the care lines at the corner of the young woman’s eyes. As he took the charcoal from her hand, their skin touched. Air caught in the back of his throat.

  The moment was ruined by the arrival of Rodger. The station hand was at the back gate, a stockwhip looped across his shoulder. ‘I heard that you’d been crook. How are you feeling?’

  Dave took back the sketchpad, flipping it shut. ‘Better, thanks.’ If his father were at home, Rodger wouldn’t dare to come anywhere near the homestead. Fraternising was strictly forbidden between the domestics and those employed beyond the back gate.

  ‘What tomfoolery is going on out here?’ Cook appeared as Rodger walked down the path. ‘Get away, you young buck. You know the rules.’

  Rodger turned smartly and hurdled the garden fence.

  ‘He only came to see how David was recovering from his illness,’ the governess replied tightly as Rodger waved his hat from the safety of the chicken coop.

  ‘Shouldn’t you be in the schoolroom?’ A saucepan stuck out at a right angle from where Cook’s hand rested knuckle-in on her hip.

  ‘Shouldn’t ye be in the kitchen?’ Miss Waites replied.

  ‘What on earth is going on?’ Lily Harrow asked from the front door; their maid, Henrietta, stood on tiptoe to peer from behind. ‘I could hear you at the other end of the house.’

  ‘Rodger came to visit David,’ Miss Waites explained, ‘and Cook took exception.’

  ‘Well, there are rules for a reason.’ Lily gave the governess a cursory glance. ‘You should be in the schoolroom.’

  ‘Yes,’ the governess agreed, stepping from the veranda, ‘I should.’

  Three weeks later Dave was unsure how he came to be standing in the sitting room at nine o’clock at night in his pyjamas and dressing gown. Usually he and his brothers were in bed by this hour regardless of whether or not they were tired. He rubbed his right foot against his left ankle as his mother continued with her cross-stitch. The needle poked in and out of the material, a yellow flower emerging in the dim light of the kerosene lamp. Feet away, his father leaned over the round table in the centre of the room. Dave could barely see the thick centre table leg and the root-like scrolling foot. Usually the table was crowded with framed pictures of unknown relatives, a selection of leather-bound books and whatever bush foliage his mother could find and arrange in a vase. Tonight, however, the table was covered with papers. For a number of minutes the only sounds in the room were the flipping of turning pages and the fire crackling in the hearth. Finally his father straightened and twisted on his heels.

  ‘Well, I’m glad you brought this to my attention, Lily.’

  ‘It was only the magazines I was concerned about.’ There was an edge to his mother’s voice and, although she smiled kindly at Dave, he knew something was wrong. G.W. was rocking on his heels, one sun-browned hand grasping at a jacket lapel, the other tapping at his leg.

  ‘Cook drew my attention to them,’ Lily continued. ‘She was present when Miss Waites opened the mail and Cook was a little upset by some of the content.’

  Dave’s stomach grew queasy. What had he done wrong? He knew nothing about magazines and he had hardly seen his father since the illness. In fact, the last few weeks had been spent either on the veranda, in his room or, more recently, under the instruction of Miss Waites once he returned to the schoolhouse.

  His father glanced impatiently at his fob watch. ‘The tardiness of this household appears to be catching. Must everyone insist on being late?’

  A knock sounded on the door and the governess entered. G.W. beckoned her to the table and pointed at the material strewn across its polished surface.

  ‘Guid evening. Oh, David’s work.’ Miss Waites sounded relieved as she joined G.W., the light from the fire glowing between them.

  ‘Mrs Harrow tells me that it was you that encouraged my son to pursue this.’ He waved his hand vaguely above the contents of the table, which included Dave’s sketchbook.

  Miss Waites nodded. ‘Drawing? Yes, it w
as.’

  ‘And you believe this to be an appropriate occupation for David?’ The fire popped and fizzed. G.W. stamped out the errant ember.

  ‘David began sketching while he was convalescing,’ the governess explained. ‘I felt it important that he recommence some form of learning as soon as possible and that such a gentle preoccupation could hardly do any harm. Ye were aware of this, Mrs Harrow,’ Miss Waites said in a pointed manner.

  ‘I think you forget yourself, Miss Waites,’ Lily replied, gesturing to David and patting the seat by her side.

  Without understanding why, Dave felt like a traitor as he sank down in the flowery material. His father resumed the examination of the table’s contents, leaving Miss Waites floundering like one of Harold’s fish.

  ‘David is very gifted,’ Miss Waites began. ‘In fact his drawings are very guid and quite beyond anything I’ve seen, especially in a student so young. I took the liberty of ordering some of the latest information on –’

  ‘This?’ G.W. waved a magazine in the air. ‘This pink-covered absurdity titled Blast?’

  ‘That is the first issue printed last year in London by followers of the Modernist movement.’ Miss Waites’s exasperation showed itself in a curtness of tone.

  ‘The what?’

  ‘The avant-garde, Mr Harrow. It is a new way of thinking for a new century.’ Miss Waites looked to the couch for assistance. ‘Traditional forms of art are being revised, reinvigorated if ye like, and that is what David is achieving through his sketches. He is experimenting with form and –’

  ‘And what type of art is this?’ Another magazine was waved in the air. Dave caught the words ‘form’ and ‘feeling’ typed in bold print across the front.

  ‘It is an introduction to –’

  ‘It is an introduction to nudity!’ G.W. yelled.

  Dave’s cheeks pinked up at the word. Next to him his mother began to fidget with reels of coloured cotton.