Sunset Ridge

by Nicole Alexander

  ‘You know that letter Miss Waites wrote, Luther? She could have been mistaken.’

  ‘Go and see her, Dave. It’s you she wants.’

  Dave thought back to the machine-gun nest and the revelation that Corally, having written to them all, was actually in love with him. There was no reason not to believe Miss Waites and yet he felt ambivalent where Corally Shaw was concerned. In the pit of his stomach he harboured a kernel of anger towards both her and his former governess – he couldn’t help but wonder how that last day in Flanders may have panned out had it not been for Miss Waites’ admission. Would Thaddeus and Harold have survived, and Luther escaped unscathed, were it not for that moment when those three soldiers, his brothers-in-arms, his blood, had decided to protect him, protect him not only because he was the youngest, but because they all loved Corally Shaw and she loved him?

  ‘I’ll wash up, then.’ Luther dragged his body upright with a wince, and poured water into the ceramic bowl on the washstand. ‘The three of us could have a meal together. What do you think?’ He slopped water on his face and neck, the liquid dribbling over the scars on his back.

  ‘Sure thing.’ Captain Egan’s words rang in Dave’s ears – they all needed something to fight for in an effort to understand the carnage they were a part of. Thaddeus, Luther and Harold had found that something. They had all gone to war and ended up fighting for love – a love that went beyond a spirited young woman on the other side of the world. There was no other way to explain the fierce loyalty to be with one’s battalion, with one’s platoon, with one’s mates, no matter the consequences. Love for fellow man led many to their deaths, yet it could also save.

  It was with Luther’s salvation in mind that Dave walked down the narrow hall and knocked on Corally Shaw’s door while his brother dressed in anticipation. When the door opened Dave caught a glimpse of a well-dressed, beautiful young woman and then Corally was in his arms, sobbing and calling his name. He inhaled the scent of lavender and powder and the cheek against his was plump and soft. With difficulty he untangled her arms. The girl blushed but didn’t move.

  ‘You came home,’ she said, reaching for his hand.

  Dave allowed the soft fingers to rest within his. ‘Luther’s here.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘You should see him,’ Dave suggested, wondering how anything so fresh and clean and beautiful could cause such turmoil among men.

  ‘I can’t. It’s not right. None of it’s right.’

  Dave led her to the narrow bed where they sat, their fingers entwined. ‘I don’t know why you wrote to everyone while we were at war, Corally.’ She hung her head as if ashamed and the anger he harboured shifted a little within him. Dave lifted her chin with a cupped hand. ‘But I want to say thank you. It gave us something to hang onto, something to believe in.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes.’ For a moment he faltered. Dave recalled the night at Madame Chessy’s farmhouse when Corally’s letter nearly went up in flames, yet Dave had kept it, dirty and bloodstained though it was. ‘They all cared for you, Harold and Thaddeus and Luther.’

  ‘And you, Dave? Do you care?’

  Dave couldn’t answer. In truth he didn’t know how he felt. ‘Luther’s here now and he’s in love with you.’ The warmth of her hand slipped away as Corally moved to stare out the window. ‘It’s him you should be with. Hell’s bells, Corally, it was you he was thinking of when he chopped off Snob Evans’s finger.’

  ‘That time is like a distant memory, Dave.’ Placing a hand on the window, she looked down into the street below. ‘I watched you ride in yesterday. I’ve been waiting so long to see you that I thought I would burst with anticipation when I heard you’d returned to Sunset Ridge.’

  ‘You’ve grown up,’ Dave said with appreciation. He knew what it was like to be with a woman. He had accompanied Luther to a brothel in London after they had been released from hospital and although he had not been a willing participant initially, the girl was caring and careful and Dave had gone back a number of times.

  ‘And you,’ Corally replied. ‘Dave –’

  ‘Don’t say it, Corally. Please don’t say anything.’ Maybe it was because Dave knew that she loved him or perhaps he realised what it meant to have such a beauty waiting on the other side of the world, but while Luther dressed at the end of the long hallway Dave drew Corally to his side.

  Corally’s long hair was twisted about his wrist. Dave tugged at it playfully, flicking the strands against her cheek as her slight body melded with his. He traced the whorl of her ear as the late-afternoon sun slanted through the partially drawn curtains onto the end of the bed. It was too late to ride back to Sunset Ridge and he was beyond explaining to Luther why the morning had drifted into the afternoon and he was yet to return, although he figured his brother would guess. There was only the present and the sense of wholeness that seeped through his body. The war had barely entered Dave’s mind since stepping into Corally’s room and he was aware of a sense of freedom, of having moved beyond the chaos of the battlefield to a place where peace reigned. This, he told himself, was what it felt like to be back among people who knew what it was to be human, who knew how to treat each other with respect and love. This was what it meant to be home. He thought of Luther down the hallway and his own good intent. He wanted Luther to have Corally. She should be his, yet he couldn’t move from her side.

  Corally leaned on her elbow, her finger forming a pattern on his sweaty chest. ‘I must tell you what happened while you were away, Dave.’

  He touched the tip of her nose and then stretched and yawned. ‘What?’

  ‘The most scandalous thing. It turned out that Julie Jackson’s grandmother was German. Of course the authorities were onto them straightaway.’

  Dave sat up. ‘They weren’t accused of anything, were they?’

  ‘Well no, not that we ever heard.’ Corally squirmed upwards in the bed, clutching the sheet against her body. ‘But everyone was shocked that they hid their ancestry and then, once it was out, they complained about the way they were being treated.’

  ‘And how were they treated?’ Dave asked, not knowing if he really wanted to hear the answer.

  Corally twisted a corner of the sheet. ‘As you can imagine, no one wanted them around. Here you boys were, fighting the Germans over the seas and we have the likes of them here behaving as if they should be treated like everybody else.’

  Dave took a cigarette from the table and lit it, he didn’t like the direction this conversation was going. ‘Why wouldn’t they be treated like everybody else?’

  ‘Because they were Germans. Anyway, Mr Jackson began disturbing the peace and blaming Mr Cummins for inflaming the situation and then Mr Jackson was found beaten up one afternoon.’

  Dave couldn’t believe what he was hearing. ‘Bloody hell, that’s awful. How’s Julie?’

  ‘Julie? I don’t speak to her.’

  Dave exhaled cigarette smoke. ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because her grandmother was a German.’

  For a moment Dave didn’t think he had heard Corally properly. Stubbing out his cigarette he turned to her. ‘What did you say?’

  ‘Anyway,’ Corally continued, ‘she isn’t anything to anyone anymore. After her father died, Mr Cummins bought their property and the family moved to a shack on the edge of town.’

  ‘But, Corally, you and Julie were best friends.’

  ‘No we weren’t, well, not really. I don’t talk about her anymore,’ Corally replied uncomfortably. ‘No one does. They’re just an embarrassment and, quite frankly, I don’t know why they don’t move on. It’s just like Mrs Dempsey’s son – they’ve got no consideration for people’s sensibilities. You know, Dave, that poor boy lost half his face – blown off, it was – but he’s still howling in pain every night, disturbing the village and keeping most of us awake for all hours. Wouldn’t you thi
nk Mrs Dempsey would pack him off to a home like everyone says? That’s the best place for him. And then there’s that Miss Waites, busybody that she is. Mrs Dempsey and I are quite surprised that she decided to stay in Banyan after turning down your mother’s offer of that nice governess job at Sunset Ridge. It got me to thinking that her fiancé Rodger probably went AWOL because Miss Waites can’t help but stick her nose into everybody’s business. You know, she practically complained to me that none of you boys wrote to her while you were at the war. Well, now I understand why none of you did. Heavens, she even made a fool of herself helping the Jacksons in the main street last year just before Julie’s father was bashed to death. You know, hardly anyone talked to her for a good six months, well apart from Mrs Marchant, but then everyone thought she had gone a bit funny as well having lost her son in the war. Dave, what are you doing? Why are you dressing?’

  Dave pulled on his trousers. ‘What do you think we were all doing over there? What the hell do you think we were fighting for, Corally?’ he yelled. ‘Heaven forbid, you can’t be that narrow-minded.’ Sitting on the end of the bed, he tugged his socks on and laced his shoes. ‘Men died. Men were blown apart in front of me.’ He stood and tucked in his shirt. ‘We were helping people protect their homes and their country; we were helping women and children, farmers and bank clerks, people just like us, from being invaded. And why did we do that? Because we were told it was the right thing to do. Just as those German boys were told that what they doing, what they were fighting for, was right. We were fighting for the right for people to live their lives, for hope and common decency and freedom. Most of all I believe we were fighting to ensure future goodwill towards men.’ Dave’s anger threatened to engulf him. It radiated out through his arms and legs so that his toes and fingers tingled. With a roar of anger, he walked out of the room.

  Banyan, south-west Queensland, Australia

  February 2000

  ‘That’s a pretty fiction,’ Sonia said sharply. ‘You and David Harrow lying together.’

  Corally took a sip of water through a long straw. ‘Think what you like, but Dave was never warm to me again. Luther said he was upset because he believed the Germans were just like the Australian soldiers, poor silly bastards who were sent to kill men on foreign soil. Dave didn’t hate the Germans, although Luther told me he didn’t feel too kindly towards them.’ Corally shrugged. ‘Men are queer beasts sometimes.’ Leaning back, she took a deep breath. ‘However, Luther agreed with Dave regarding your family, Sonia. He thought they were badly treated. The difference was, he didn’t harp on about it. Maybe Luther and Dave were right, but it didn’t seem like that to the residents of Banyan all those years ago. Anyway, in the end I didn’t measure up to Dave’s expectations. It’s as simple as that. I belonged to a world he was beyond comprehending. He wanted to come home and have things unchanged, he wanted the old days back. How he expected everything to be the same on his return, I’ll never know. What I do know is that for all your grandfather’s sense of righteousness regarding the Jackson family, his sense of common decency didn’t figure when it came to his treatment of me. He knew I cared for him, but he was quite happy to lie with me and then pass me on to his brother and make a new life on Sunset Ridge.

  ‘Six months later Luther and I married quietly and moved into this house.’

  ‘Did Luther know,’ Madeleine enquired softly, ‘about you and my grandfather?’

  Corally chuckled. ‘Of course he knew. Your grandfather told him. That was one thing about Dave and Luther − they were real tight when they came back from the war.’

  ‘And he didn’t mind?’ Madeleine asked. ‘I mean, from everything you’ve told us, Luther cared for you.’

  The old woman pondered Madeleine’s question. ‘Luther asked me if I loved your grandfather more than him. I did once . . .’ Her voice trailed off. ‘Anyway, I said it was a mistake, said it would never happen again. Luther believed me, if only because he knew that his brother would never forgive me for the treatment of the Jacksons.’

  She tapped her finger on the hospital trolley. ‘If you ask me, your grandfather was just plain angry at the world, after the war. He needed someone to blame, someone he could direct his anger at. I was that person.’

  ‘So you married Luther?’ Sonia prompted.

  Corally smiled and nodded. ‘He kept his illness from me initially, although I still would have had him, dying or not. A single woman has to consider her position in life, and Luther was a catch. Once a week Dave would ride in from the property, and Luther and he would sit out on the flat, talking and drinking long into the night. It was Luther who told me that Dave purchased a house for the Jacksons. Old G.W. and Lily were probably so pleased to have one son on the property who was not a family disgrace that they agreed with Dave’s decision. Well, if that wasn’t enough to rile the townsfolk, he then offered Julie employment at Sunset Ridge, starting a tradition that’s continued ever since. For years no one said anything but what he did festered like a sore. He should have let bygones be bygones, instead your grandfather made a lot of people feel guilty and he was vocal in his complaint of the Cummins family, telling anyone who would listen that Mr Cummins took advantage of the Jacksons. And of course Luther and I were tarred with the same brush.’

  ‘So, Horatio Cummins’s grudge extends back that far?’ Mad­eleine muttered.

  ‘Yes.’ Corally coughed and blew her nose again on the soggy tissue.

  ‘Gran’s getting tired,’ her granddaughter announced.

  ‘Shush up, girl.’ The old woman waved a finger at Sue-Ellen. ‘What you don’t know is that Dave’s brothers and Harold asked him to look after me. At least that’s what your grandfather told me. I’ll never know if that was the truth or not. Personally I reckon with Luther’s health problems Dave wanted to make sure his brother was well taken care of. Luther couldn’t work and his army pension wasn’t much and by the end of the first year of our marriage I spent more time caring for him than I did working at the general store.’

  Corally fiddled with a stray thread on her blouse. ‘After Luther died your grandfather continued to help me financially until I remarried in 1930. I figure it was his way of thanking me for looking after his brother.’

  ‘Only you could aspire to being an undertaker’s wife,’ Sonia said flatly.

  ‘As opposed to being a bitter old maid? Snob was real good to me.’

  Madeleine waved her hands in the air. ‘Please, please, this is my grandfather you’re talking about.’ She scratched her head. ‘Well, at least I know that George and I were right about the expenses in the station ledgers. Two households, staff . . . no wonder the property went broke and Mum sold his paintings. Is there anything else I should know?’

  Corally snuffled into the tissue. ‘My Snob wasn’t known for his godly ways. He went out to Sunset Ridge and collected your grandfather’s body and took a few things, sort of like keepsakes.’

  ‘Keepsakes, my foot,’ Sonia replied tightly.

  ‘Don’t go judging him. Besides, when Snob told me what he’d done I didn’t let him pawn everything. They’re in that container.’ Corally pointed to the box on the table. ‘There’s a watch and sketches and a miniature painting of Dave’s wife’s favourite horse, among other things. Now, wasn’t that one for the books, when your grandfather upped and married Meredith Bantam’s younger sister, Corinne?’

  Lifting the lid on the box, Madeleine selected a plastic sleeve. The painting appeared to have been torn from a larger work. It was of a young woman and her shoes were missing from the composition. ‘Did you tear this from a bigger painting?’ Madeleine passed the old woman the plastic sleeve. She examined it carefully and then handed it back.

  ‘He never drew a picture of me for me. All I ever got was a drawing of a mangy-looking dog he’d sketched in France. So, when I heard he was painting Miss Waites in her room at the boarding house I wasn’t best pleased. I couldn’t
help it. So, I went into her room one day when she wasn’t there and I ripped myself out of the picture. Fair enough, I thought. Your grandfather never asked if he could put me in it and considering he knew that Miss Waites and I didn’t see eye-to-eye, well he had some hide.’

  ‘So they were good friends then?’ Madeleine said. ‘Grandfather and Miss Waites?’

  ‘Very good friends,’ the old lady conceded. ‘Luther reckoned that Dave took a real liking to Catherine on his return. She asked for those two paintings to be done and offered to pay, but Dave ended up giving them to her as a present. Then, at the end of 1918, Catherine upped and moved to Sydney, leaving behind the two paintings your grandfather did. Actually, she gave them to a friend of hers, a Mrs Marchant.’

  Corally looked knowingly at Madeleine. ‘Catherine wrote to your grandfather once or twice after she left. Dave passed on her news to Luther and he would tell me. Personally I think Catherine left because of your grandfather. She was a good five years or so older than him and I think she found his attentions embarrassing.’ Corally snorted. ‘Can you believe it? Like she had anything better on offer, at least that’s what we thought. Anyway, she fell on her feet, she did − married a widower with a swish house in the northern suburbs. She had a fiancé who went to the war but he did a runner. I don’t know if she ever heard from him again.’

  Madeleine knitted her fingers together. She could feel everyone in the room looking at her, waiting for her to speak. She cleared her throat. ‘I need to ask one more thing of you, Mrs Evans.’ Madeleine hesitated over the formality of the word Mrs, however she wasn’t comfortable calling her anything else. ‘Apart from the paintings of you and Miss Waites that were done in 1918, do you know why my grandfather stopped painting for so long after that?’