Sunset Ridge

by Nicole Alexander

  ‘Look at this stuff.’ Madeleine blew dust from a 1920s Bulletin magazine.

  ‘Don’t touch that.’

  The croaky voice belonged to an old woman slumped in a cane chair in the corner of the kitchen. Madeleine was startled and embarrassed not to have noticed the woman among the clutter, and could only stare at the tiny birdlike creature. The woman’s white hair was gathered into a wispy bun atop her head and she was dressed in a cream blouse and long dark skirt. Her feet were propped up on a low stool and within her reach a hospital trolley held water, bananas and a portable radio. Madeleine could not see the woman’s face; her chin rested on a bony chest that rose up and down as if the next breath would be her last.

  Clearing magazines and books from two plastic garden chairs, Sonia gestured for Madeleine to sit. The room was stiflingly hot, and the stink emanating from under the table suggested that a bull mouse had taken up residence and was making the most of the messy conditions. Sonia remained silent, her gaze drifting across the kitchen. It was as if she were weighing up the past in a room that was lost in it.

  ‘It’s been a long time,’ Sonia said finally, loudly, leaning forward.

  The woman didn’t acknowledge either of her visitors.

  ‘I’ve brought someone to visit.’ The housekeeper paused and looked at Madeleine as if deciding whether she should proceed. ‘It’s Madeleine, David’s granddaughter.’

  The old woman lifted a hand to clutch a tissue to her chest.

  Madeleine held her breath for a moment. ‘Did you know my grandfather?’ she asked.

  The silence stretched through the suffocating room. Mad­eleine, thinking that either the woman had not heard or she had fallen asleep, turned to Sonia, who merely lifted a finger for patience. Very slowly the old woman raised her chin. Creased by soft lines, the aged face retained evidence of high cheekbones, a wide forehead and the symmetrical features of a great beauty. Yet it was the woman’s eyes that struck Madeleine. Although the irises were filmy and ringed in grey, they were the most extraordinary coloured eyes she had ever seen.

  ‘So, you’re David’s girl.’

  ‘Granddaughter,’ Madeleine corrected.

  ‘And you brought her,’ she said to Sonia. ‘I’m astounded that you would put a foot inside my house.’

  Sonia shrugged. ‘So am I.’

  The older woman gave a tired laugh. ‘As visitors are a novelty, I had an excuse when it came to agreeing to your visit. What’s yours?’

  Sonia shifted her chair closer. ‘Madeleine wants to hold an exhibition of her grandfather’s work. She’s looking for anything that he drew or painted before the landscapes. Do you have anything?’

  ‘Why would I?’

  ‘I don’t know. I’m just asking. Frankly, I didn’t know who else to speak to.’

  ‘Got a friendship going between the two of you, have you? Well, isn’t that nice? Everyone needs friends.’ The old woman peered at Madeleine. ‘You look a little like your grandfather. The same nose, similar eyes. I suppose you have his Good Samaritan tendencies as well.’

  ‘You make that sound as if it’s a bad thing,’ Madeleine answered.

  ‘Depends,’ the woman replied.

  Sonia sighed impatiently. ‘You don’t owe David Harrow anything, I know that – what with your boy keeping an eye out over at Sunset Ridge all these years.’

  The old woman laughed. ‘Ross? I don’t know what he’s told you lot, but he didn’t start poking around there on account of anything he thinks David Harrow did for me. No, sir,’ she said, pointing at Madeleine. ‘My boy saw your mother in Banyan in the 1940s, and he was smitten. Thought she was the bee’s knees. He used to go out to Sunset Ridge and nose around in the hopes of running into her. He never did. Later she went away to a fancy school and when she did come back she was married.’ She sniffed. ‘She could have done a lot better for herself, your mother,’ she said to Madeleine. ‘Anyway, Ross has always been a bit of a loner.’

  Madeleine opened her mouth to respond, but Sonia quickly interjected.

  ‘Do you have any works belonging to David Harrow? Can you help us?’

  ‘Help a Jackson?’ The older woman sounded amused. ‘Why should I? Your family blamed me for what happened all those years ago and you kept blaming me. And I did nothing.’

  Sonia nodded. ‘That’s right, you did nothing. And you should have done something. You were her best friend.’

  ‘Well, isn’t it just like a Jackson to point the bone at the nearest target? If you have complaints, Sonia, bring them up with Cummins’s descendants instead of picking on an old woman,’ she puffed.

  ‘The difference is,’ Sonia snapped, ‘you should have known better. ’

  ‘And your family should have stopped acting the martyrs decades ago. You never had any proof against Cummins, all you had was a second-hand story passed down from Julie Jackson, but you were all so damn furious you took your anger out on me.’

  ‘And you spent the next few decades making derogatory remarks about my family to whoever would listen.’

  The old woman sighed. ‘No offence, Madeleine, but I can’t see the point of dredging up the past, unlike some people.’

  Considering the old woman’s appearance and age, Madeleine was rather taken aback by her energy and clear-mindedness.

  ‘Yes or no,’ Sonia said brusquely. ‘Do you have anything that could be of use to Madeleine?’

  The old woman blew out a puff of air. ‘Why should I help?’

  ‘Because in the end this is for David Harrow, the artist.’

  The older woman coughed. ‘He was good with those drawings of his.’

  Sonia leaned back in the plastic chair. ‘So, you will help?’

  Although the old woman turned her head slowly towards Madeleine, she spoke to Sonia. ‘You better tell her, then. You better tell David’s girl all of it.’

  The room went silent. Madeleine heard Sonia swallow.

  The old woman leaned forward. ‘Tell it all and tell it true, and let it all be done.’

  Flanders, Belgium

  September 1917

  The mail arrived and then a ration of rum was passed out to the men. Luther slid down over the trench parapet in the darkness, startling everyone.

  ‘For God’s sake, where have you been?’ Dave asked. ‘The sergeant has gone off his bean.’

  Luther grinned, upending the contents of a sack onto a table made from two munitions crates. Two lugers, a loaf of bread and a round of cheese lay on the timber. ‘Courtesy of Fritz who was having a nap when I stuck my head over. A little tap to the head with a length of timber and it was goodnight nurse.’ He divvied up the food.

  ‘You shouldn’t go out there by yourself, Luther,’ Dave cautioned.

  Luther ignored him. ‘Where’s Harold?’

  ‘Still lecturing his new number two, Piper,’ Dave answered, his mouth now bulging with bread and cheese. ‘Thaddeus is with Captain Egan.’

  ‘Jeez, Piper will have a busted eardrum.’ Luther broke off a piece of cheese, sniffing the pale round appreciatively. ‘I see they’ve brought out the rum.’ Chewing thoughtfully, he lowered his voice. ‘You know, I’ve got this feeling, Dave, that by the morning –’

  ‘Don’t say it, don’t you dare tell me that you’ve had a premonition.’ Dave watched his brother light a cigarette, making sure he used the third lit match for luck. Each of them had a talisman or ritual prior to an engagement. For some it was the sight of a photograph of loved ones, for others a few lines penned from home. Many prayed, their belief weighed against reality. Others turned inwards, silently withdrawing but always remembering what they had left behind.

  Luther gave a crooked smile as if placating a child. ‘Draw us a picture, Dave, take me home.’ The cigarette dangled from his fingers as he squatted in the dirt of the trench.

  ‘I can’t. I just c
an’t do that anymore.’ Overhead the sky gave off a phosphorescent glow.

  Luther sighed. ‘You shouldn’t have left your drawings at the farmhouse. Fat lot of good they are there.’

  Dave tried to recall Sunset Ridge, the scent of the pre-dawn dew, the whirl of red dust in the house paddock and the smell of rain after drought. Yet all this and more he had forgotten. All the pure memories distilled and mixed within his artist’s palette were now distorted, cracked like an aged oil painting. He knew that beauty still existed, but it lay hidden in another world, an old world, out of reach. Dave wanted that world back, yearned for it, but in his heart he knew the impossibility of it ever being the same, even if he did return home.

  ‘I think about Sunset Ridge, you know,’ Luther began. ‘Probably not the way you do, Dave, because to be honest I was never that attached to the place. At least not the way you are. I know you love it. I see that in your sketches.’ He smiled his crooked smile. ‘Not that I’ll ever think sketching is a good thing for a man, but you see something in the property that I never have: beauty. That’s a gift, Dave. The ability to create something out of nothing, well, to me that’s a gift. As for Thaddeus, he’s always known Sunset Ridge will be his one day, so he can’t imagine any other life, and I understand that too. But it’s different for me.’ Luther paused as if trying to find the right words. ‘I never really felt I belonged there, and it’s not the homestead or the land itself or even Mother and Father that I think about when I say that. It’s just that in comparison to what I can do here . . . Well, I’m needed here, I fit in here, my life means something here. I guess I’d like to be remembered for that, which is why I would like you to sketch me.’

  Luther’s request scared Dave more than his premonition. ‘Don’t ask me that.’

  ‘I know what’s coming, little brother.’

  ‘You can’t be sure. Plenty of men have premonitions and nothing comes of it.’ Even as he spoke, the words sounded false. Surely Luther didn’t really want to assign him this dreaded task. Surely he couldn’t be that selfish. Dave thought of the numerous likenesses crafted over the previous months and the few soldiers he had drawn who still survived. ‘Don’t ask me, Luther, please.’

  Luther sat on one of the upturned munitions crates, his slouch hat at a rakish angle. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever asked you for anything.’

  ‘No,’ Dave agreed, ‘you haven’t.’

  ‘Then now isn’t the time for arguments.’

  Dave didn’t move.

  ‘Come on, Dave,’ Luther coaxed, ‘we both know you’ll draw me eventually, and I sure would like it done before this next push. Besides, I need something to remind Corally of how handsome I am.’ Cracking his knuckles, Luther settled back on the munitions crate.

  Slowly something dwindled away inside Dave. It was as if the essence of him were being chipped at the edges by an unseen force. He needed to be strong, he needed to fulfil Luther’s wish, but doing it would probably kill both of them, one physically, the other spiritually, if what Dave thought would happen did in fact come to pass.

  ‘Dave?’

  Luther was waiting.

  An image came to him of Miss Waites leaning over his shoulder. How long ago was it that a childish crush led Dave to run away from home? Sometimes it felt like days, at others years. That night outside the governess quarters he had felt so desperately abandoned and it had taken months for his sadness to ease. With time he had come to understand why he had been so enamoured with his old governess. Catherine Waites had filled a void untouched by his family. She had made him whole, she had believed in him and in his craft. It didn’t matter that his father had burned the art magazines she had ordered and he had never read, or that a few coloured plates in school learners and a basic introduction to drawing were the limits of his formal training. If Luther was made for war, then Dave was born to capture it.

  ‘Dave, come on.’

  Reaching for the sketchpad, Dave began to draw. The charcoal flowed effortlessly across the page, contouring a young face grown old by savage experience.

  The artillery barrage began as the last few crinkle lines appeared at the edges of Luther’s eyes. Dave wiped at the drops of moisture on the page as the great noise of the Allied bombardment began. Initialling the sketch, he inspected it critically, wanting it to be perfect. Luther’s legs were outstretched, his uniform awry and in one hand a pannikin held his rum ration. Luther stared out from the page, defiant yet happy, and Dave knew he had succeeded in capturing the very essence of his brother. He saw in Luther’s expression the reason for this relaxed state: the war had become Luther’s life’s work, he was damn good at it and, most staggeringly, he was unafraid.

  On examining the work, Luther handed it back to Dave for safekeeping. ‘Thanks, little brother.’ They shook hands, and then embraced. ‘If it happens, if my time comes, live a good life for both of us.’ Luther freed himself from Dave’s grasp and together they hunkered down by the trench wall.

  Dave closed his mind to a world gone mad, swearing never to draw another person. Luther was the last. His brave brother was now immortalised and the honour of having rendered such a man in charcoal would remain with him for the rest of his life. From beneath the rim of his helmet Dave’s restricted vision centred on the opposite trench wall as dirt ran down it. The vibrations stung both mind and body and his ears began to ring. In an hour or so Captain Egan would give the order to stand-to and then they would hop the bags and walk behind the creeping artillery barrage to some forward objective measured in men’s lives.

  As the earth crumbled above and around them, Harold and Thaddeus appeared. They sat close together talking, their faces becoming increasingly animated as the conversation progressed. Eventually Harold retrieved a letter from his uniform and, with great hesitancy, handed it to Thaddeus. Dave watched as his older brother read the contents and then re-read it. Very slowly Thaddeus folded the letter and handed it back to Harold, then both men turned their attention to Dave.

  ‘What?’ Dave yelled. The noise of the guns carried the word away. Thaddeus shook his head disbelievingly and slumped back against the trench wall. Harold merely continued to stare at Dave.

  ‘What’s going on?’ Dave yelled in Luther’s ear.

  ‘Looks like a reconciliation,’ he shouted back. ‘About bloody time. Corally must have written and told Harold the engagement’s off.’ Luther punched Dave in the arm. ‘You make sure she gets that sketch, won’t you?’ He didn’t wait for a reply. ‘If the worst happens, if I don’t make it, those two will be arguing about Corally all over again. Although if Thaddeus makes lieutenant, Mother will make sure he marries a grazier’s daughter.’ Luther threw a clod of dirt at Harold and Thaddeus. ‘Friends at last?’ he yelled at them.

  Thaddeus didn’t answer. Harold moved on further down the line.

  ‘Fix bayonets.’ Captain Egan blew the whistle.

  The men clambered over the sandbags rimming the trench and ran out into no-man’s land. The pre-dawn sky was alight with the glow of shells and flares as the guns crept steadily forwards, the men following in the wake of the barrage. Although the natural tendency was to group together, the men spread out as they advanced, their pace steady, reliable. Great chunks of earth were shot high up into the air, the dirt falling down upon them as they forged ahead. Dave smelled the tang of smoke and the acrid scent of cordite, and then the putrid stench of the dead assaulted his nostrils. He walked between his two brothers, comforted by their presence, knowing that Harold and Piper were close by. Ahead, splinters of light illuminated a land pitted with craters and depressions as the guns repeatedly decimated and then reformed an ancient countryside. A stretch of barbed wire came into view. At the partially destroyed fence the men crossed where they could, others snipped at the wire, making holes through which their companions could move. Dave shook free the entangling wire, as men fell around him and once on the other side increased his pa
ce in time with his brothers.

  Another whistle sounded and Luther charged ahead; more were drawn into his wake. The barrage had ceased and wild yells sounded along the line as the men swarmed forward towards the heavily shelled enemy trench. The remaining Germans were quick to regroup in the wake of the attack and they trained a machine gun on the Australians. Luther dived forward, avoiding the deadly spray of bullets, and lobbed a grenade into their midst. Then he was on his feet again, sprinting towards the machine-gun nest, a rifle in one hand, the tomahawk in the other. Within seconds he shot the gunner, threw his tomahawk, hitting a German in the neck, and then turned the German machine gun back on the enemy trench.

  ‘Luther!’ Thaddeus yelled at his brother.

  Some of the enemy scattered like rats into the bowels of the earth or over the top of their trench; others turned and fired. Thaddeus and Luther jumped down into the enemy trench and fought back-to-back, stabbing and slashing with bayonet and tomahawk. Above them Harold had seized another machine-gun nest and was training the Lewis gun on attacking Germans approaching from the support trench. His body shook under the vibrations as machine and man became one, the barrel growing red-hot. A German bullet hit Piper between the eyes, another struck Harold’s shoulder. He gritted against the pain and roared.

  Firing off a bullet that found its mark in a German’s stomach, Dave yelled to Luther, ‘Harold needs help!’ Behind him another German rushed the bend in the trench. Luther knocked Dave sideways and, wrestling the soldier, decapitated the assailant with a saw-bayonet. Then he was running again, shooting oncoming Germans with a captured pistol.