Return to the High Country

by Tony Parsons

  Jane had not received any tertiary education after boarding school so, unlike Anne and Catriona who both had Arts degrees, she did not have a great knowledge of any subject at all. She was an indifferent pianist and did not knit or crochet. Nor was she very proficient in the kitchen, because she had never had to be. Despite her lack of expertise and experience, Jane considered herself a competent judge of many things and because she was Angus Campbell’s wife, she had the ear of a lot of people.

  Her views on many things were forthright: she detested rock and pop music and musicians, and blamed rock music for many of the problems affecting modern youth; she professed utter contempt for abstract art; and she was also a vocal critic of Labor politicians and what she described as sloppy dressing. However, if anyone had ever asked her to speak in any depth about these subjects, the gaps in Jane’s knowledge would have been fatally exposed. Because she was Angus Campbell’s wife, nobody ever did.

  Jane had liked Anne MacLeod from the time she had first come to Merriwa, but she had always adopted an air of superiority towards her. Anne, being Anne, accepted this with an amused tolerance. Kate was less benevolent towards Jane Campbell. ‘For a person with no talent of any kind, Jane Campbell has the most inflated opinion of herself of anyone I have ever met,’ Kate said openly on one occasion.

  Kate’s pronouncement wasn’t precisely correct. Jane did have one characteristic that stuck out a mile; she had class, ingrained class. Jane was a perfect hostess, dressed beautifully and was a great organiser of charity functions. Class had been drummed into her from when she was a small child. Appearance mattered. There had hardly been a jarring note in Jane Campbell’s whole life until her daughter became enamoured of David MacLeod. Jane had dreamed of Catriona making a brilliant marriage and yet all her daughter wanted was David. But when David MacLeod looked at her, Jane was woman enough to understand why Catriona wanted him. Jane also knew that Catriona wasn’t the only girl who wanted David – Susan Cartwright also wanted him, and Jane hoped she would get him because that would solve the problem. When David didn’t reciprocate Susan’s feelings, Susan married Michael Hunter instead.

  It had been pointless trying any longer to dissuade Catriona from marrying David. The Campbells had sent Catriona overseas and to university for three years and it hadn’t made a scrap of difference to the way she felt about him. Jane’s greatest fear was that Catriona would do something silly like becoming pregnant, which would make Jane and Angus the laughing stock of the district and would have a diabolical effect on her son’s romance with Carol Leonard, who had all the right attributes to make her a perfect wife for Stuart.

  ‘No, Anne, childbirth is definitely not the place for a young husband. It is an obnoxious business. All that pushing and screaming. A husband should see his wife all nicely freshened up and in a pretty nightdress.’

  Anne wondered whether Andy would have wanted to be present at David’s birth. She doubted it.

  ‘It is quite different now, Jane,’ Anne said. ‘I understand they give you a needle and there isn’t any screaming. Or very little.’

  ‘No matter, Anne. It isn’t the place for a man. Quite unnecessary.’

  Catriona agreed with her mother. She need not have worried because David told her he didn’t want to be in on the birth. He said it would distress him too much to see her in pain, so Catriona left it at that.

  When Catriona gave birth to a nine-pound boy David was overjoyed. Here was the son who would take over what Andrew MacLeod had begun and passed down. David had haunted the hospital until the news of the birth came to him and then he phoned his mother, Angus and Jane, and Kate. Angus and Jane found him holding Catriona’s hand at her bedside. She seemed very pleased with herself.

  Visitors came from far and wide to the hospital and later to High Peaks where Dougal MacLeod was installed in a nursery room with a nurse. Two people who came infrequently to High Peaks because of their age were Anne’s father and mother, Jack and Mavis Gilmour. Jack had sold his printing company some fifteen years earlier and the couple had retired to live at Coffs Harbour where Jack indulged his passion for fishing and watched his beloved St George rugby league team when they were featured on television. Jack still drove and appeared very sprightly for his age. The couple seemed slightly overwhelmed by the fact that they were great-grandparents. Andy and Jack had got on very well because they were both no-nonsense men not given to airs and graces. David had not seen as much of his grandparents as he would have liked to but he was obviously delighted that they had come to visit his son. Of course, they had come to see Anne and Kate and himself and Catriona but it was the baby that had brought them together, despite the long drive from Coffs Harbour. Jack’s visit was in fact his last to High Peaks as he had a fatal heart attack later that year.

  When Dougal was a little boy there was a birth of a different kind that brought two other visitors to High Peaks. David had bred his great race mare Ajana to a son of Star Kingdom called Star Lover. Not being thoroughbred-minded, Andy and David had previously bred Ajana to stockhorse stallions, and while the mare had produced some lovely offspring Angus had pushed them to pair her with a thoroughbred stallion. The foal – which David had promised Angus could race – was a bay filly, and David and Catriona named her Starana.

  Very shortly after David had bred Ajana to Star Lover, he rang Wilf White at his north-coast home and told him what he had done. The news had a huge effect on old Wilf. When he left Poitrel to live on the coast, it was thought he would not last long. However, under the care of his sister Gertie, Wilf got his weight down and was walking each day, and, despite a couple of scares, he was still battling on. Gertie had tried to persuade him to have heart surgery but he had refused pointblank. ‘No, by gum, Gertie, I won’t. I’ve had my day and if my heart fails, it fails.’

  Now, with no further urging from his sister, he asked her to arrange for him to have the operation. There had to be a reason, she thought. Gertie rang David one night and asked if he could tell her why Wilf had suddenly changed his mind.

  ‘It could be, Gertie, that it was because I told him we had bred Ajana to a Star Kingdom horse,’ he said, and laughed.

  ‘The foxy old devil. I might have known it would be a horse,’ Gertie said.

  But she went ahead and organised Wilf into hospital where he had his operation and, amazingly, came through it quite well. And so it was that when Ajana’s filly foal was about three months old, Wilf, driven by his sister, came back to High Peaks. It was their first visit since Andrew MacLeod’s funeral.

  When told of Wilf’s intended visit David had had a quiet word to Julian Miller. ‘If you’re thinking of doing a camping trip for some sketching I’d suggest that you do it over the next two weeks, Julian. Wilf White is coming back to see us and he’s sure to want to come to Poitrel, his old home. I think it might be best if you’re elsewhere – Wilf wouldn’t understand this partner business. He’ll want to see Jean because he thinks a lot of her and Kate. You follow me?’

  Julian followed, all right. Besides, nobody argued with David MacLeod. It wasn’t only that David owned Poitrel but Julian realised that he and Jean were on a good wicket. It wasn’t any great sacrifice to clear out for a couple of weeks – he had wanted to take a trip, anyway.

  David cushioned his suggestion with a sweetener. ‘How would you feel about painting my mother, Julian?’

  ‘Well, er, I haven’t done any of that sort of thing for a while, David. I’ve concentrated on landscapes,’ Julian said.

  ‘Can you do it or can’t you?’

  ‘I reckon I could if I set my mind to it.’

  ‘I’ll pay you to do it,’ David said.

  ‘No need for that. Letting me stay here with Jean is sufficient payment. Will you arrange it with your mother?’

  ‘Certainly. You can begin when you come back,’ David said.

  He thought his mother would be pleased about the portrait. He hadn’t discussed it with her but it was something that he had had in the back of
his mind for some time. One day she would be gone and he wanted something that would perpetually remind him of her.

  It wasn’t Wilf White’s old red utility that came up the track to High Peaks homestead. Nowadays it was a comfortable sedan with Gertie at the wheel. David had hung about the woolshed and yards doing odd jobs to be on hand for Wilf and Gertie when they arrived.

  It was a leaner Wilf White who got out of the car as Anne came down the steps to join her son. Wilf, leaning on a stick now, was smiling broadly as he took David’s hand. ‘By gum, it’s good to see you again, David,’ the old man said.

  Gertie embraced David in a huge hug and whispered in his ear. ‘Thank you, David.’

  ‘For what, Gertie?’ he asked of the big woman who had once given him piggyback rides. She had been a redhead in those days but was grey now.

  ‘For mating that bloody mare, David! That’s what persuaded him to have the operation. Wilf’s got a fresh lease of life because of the damned foal.’

  ‘Well that’s a by-product I didn’t count on,’ David said, and laughed. ‘We’re very pleased to see you – for whatever reason.’

  ‘Of course we are and Kate will be over later, Wilf,’ Anne added.

  Wilf and Gertie were staying with Anne but first it was afternoon smoko. ‘One small piece of that cream sponge will be enough for Wilf, Anne.’

  ‘By gum, but she’s tough on me, David,’ Wilf said.

  ‘I think Gertie needed to be, Wilf. I saw what you used to eat and if you had kept on like that you wouldn’t be here now. I think you owe a lot to Gertie,’ Anne said.

  ‘That’s right, David. All Wilf does is complain, but he would have been dead if he’d carried on like he was doing. We eat a lot of fish these days and I think it’s doing us a lot of good,’ Gertie said.

  Although Anne pressed Wilf and Gertie to have a rest after smoko that wasn’t what the old chap wanted. It was to be straight down to the mare’s paddock to see Ajana’s foal. David led Ajana up to the fence and Wilf stroked her neck while he inspected her foal.

  ‘By gum, I think she’s a bottler, David,’ Wilf said at last. ‘Too young to tell, you’d probably say, but I like the look of her. Look at the way she moves already. She’ll be a sprinter, mark my words.’

  ‘She’d have to be a sprinter the way she’s bred, wouldn’t she, Wilf?’

  ‘You bet. What I’m saying is that she will be a real sprinter. Look at the way she floats over the ground. That’s how Ajana moved at her age.’

  They could see that the old chap was pretty excited by their foal. Horses had always been his weakness. Everything else could go hang, but the horses had to have the best of everything.

  ‘You should be keeping this filly, David,’ Wilf urged. ‘She’s too good to let go.’

  ‘I promised Angus he could race her for three seasons and I won’t go back on my word, Wilf,’ David said firmly.

  ‘Of course you wouldn’t. Andy’s word was his bond, too. Maybe you could race her in partnership?’ Wilf suggested.

  ‘I’m not a thoroughbred man, Wilf. I’ve promised Cat Ajana’s next foal and she can race her if she wants to,’ David said. ‘Maybe after that we’ll put Ajana out to pasture. She’s done a great job for us. She’s earned her retirement.’

  ‘There’s others who would breed from her a lot longer than that, David.’

  ‘Oh, well, they might too, Wilf. But money isn’t everything. You gave her to me and she means a lot to me. I’ve got good stockhorses from her and I’ve sold a couple for decent money. If this filly is a good one, she’ll be a prospective brood mare.’

  ‘This filly will go places, David. Foals from her will one day be worth gold. Maybe I’ll be gone by then, but you bear in mind what old Wilf tells you.’

  Wilf and Gertie then went to see Catriona and the baby. Catriona held Dougal up for them to inspect.

  ‘My God, he’s Andy all over again,’ Gertie exclaimed.

  Anne nodded. That had been her unspoken thought for months.

  ‘By gum, maybe you’ve got two champions in the making, David,’ Wilf said, and chuckled. ‘And this fellow has been on a decent paddock by the size of him.’

  The little boy looked up at the two unfamiliar faces and then buried his face in his mother’s hair.

  ‘Is he a good child, Catriona?’ Gertie asked.

  ‘Very good, Gertie. Actually, he’s a very quiet fellow. My brother’s boy is just the opposite.’

  The party returned to the High Peaks homestead for Wilf and Gertie to have a rest before dinner. To welcome them back to High Peaks, Anne prepared a meal that she knew Wilf, in particular, would like. She had David bring her a piece of sirloin from one of his feedlot steers and she carved it wafer-thin so that the meat melted in the mouth. It was served with roast potatoes, cauliflower, cabbage and Anne’s special gravy, and was followed by trifle and cream. Gertie sanctioned the main course, but rationed dessert.

  Next morning David would take Wilf and Gertie to Poitrel and then across to meet Lew Hooper. Lew had half-a-dozen mares now. Wilf had advised him to concentrate on quality rather than quantity.

  The following morning Catriona told David that she would like to accompany him when he took Wilf and Gertie to Poitrel and Glen Morrison.

  ‘We could be away all day, Cat,’ David said.

  ‘That’s all right. Lottie is perfectly reliable,’ she replied.

  ‘If that’s what you want, sweetheart,’ he said.

  ‘Wouldn’t you like me to come with you, darling?’

  ‘Sure, I love having you with me. I just thought you might not want to leave Dougal all day,’ David said.

  ‘It won’t harm him a scrap not to have me for a day. I’ve left him before to go shopping,’ Catriona said.

  David had agreed, not without an argument, with Catriona’s suggestion that she pay for a nurse–housekeeper when the baby arrived. Catriona had considerable money invested from her share of Inverlochy. That was the first victory Catriona had won, if it could be called a victory because David was fiercely independent when it came to money.

  Lottie Hann had been recommended to them by a friend of Jane Campbell’s. She was born of a German father and Australian mother and she had married another German who migrated to Australia. Günter Hann had been killed in a car accident and although money had come to Lottie, it was not a great amount so she had taken up looking after children. Lottie, a woman in her early forties, was quite a gifted artist and what spare time she had, she often put into sketching and painting. She had a flat at the back of the house and she looked after herself and helped Catriona in the house. A biggish, well-made woman with blonde hair and blue-grey eyes, Lottie was a perpetually cheerful person and Catriona was very pleased to have her around. She was to stay with David and Catriona for a number of years.

  With Wilf beside David and Catriona beside Gertie, the group left for Poitrel. Both David and Catriona knew it would be a traumatic day for the old chap because he hadn’t been back for so long, and there were still several of Wilf’s old mares running on Poitrel. With David’s hand under his arm Wilf negotiated the steps up to his old homestead. Kate was there to greet him and Jean was standing further back.

  ‘Sister Kate,’ the old chap said, as she took his hand.

  ‘Not any more, Wilf. I’m a manager these days,’ she said.

  ‘What’s David got you doing, Kate?’ Wilf asked.

  ‘Oh, just about everything, Wilf. For starters, I cleaned up the big shed which was in a mess. I’ve set up a central control system that tells us what tools, drenches, fencing material, horseshoes, wool packs and so on we have at any given time. I feed bulls and rams and I can plough a paddock. I also look after bull buyers. And I do a whole lot more than that, but that will give you some idea of my role with the High Peaks Pastoral Company,’ Kate said.

  ‘By gum, but that’s wonderful,’ Wilf said with admiration.

  Kate chuckled. ‘I don’t know about it being wonderful, Wilf. Women ever
ywhere are pulling their weight on the land. There’s women who are doing far more than me. You just don’t hear about them.’

  ‘And there’s Sister Jean. Don’t tell me young David here has you managing a place?’ Wilf asked.

  ‘I look after Poitrel, Wilf. Well, a lot of its animals, anyway. Gertie, how nice to see you again.’

  Presently, they took Wilf to see his horses. The old chap, leaning on his stick, told them the name and breeding of every old mare they showed him. It was a formidable feat of memory.

  ‘We had to put three or four of them down, Wilf. We couldn’t let them go on any longer,’ David told him. ‘Jean feeds them every day. We bred some nice horses from some of your mares. Catriona’s black horse would be one of the best horses we bred. Cat won Champion Hack awards on him. You can see him tomorrow.’

  They then took Wilf and Gertie up to the shearing shed they had erected after they bought Poitrel. These and new yards had been two of the major improvements they had made to the property.

  Kate and Jean laid on a big smoko, but Gertie wouldn’t allow her brother to eat too much. Wilf looked wistfully at the cream sponge as Jean cleared away the plates.

  ‘No, Wilf. It’s no good you looking like that,’ Gertie told him. ‘If I had allowed you to go on eating like you used to, you’d have dropped dead long ago. I have to watch him, Kate. Wilf will sneak stuff away if he can!’

  ‘You can have a lean steak for lunch, Wilf,’ David said, and laughed.

  They were to lunch at Glen Morrison, with Lew Hooper. First stop was the cattle preparation shed where a grinning Shaun Covers was on hand to greet the visitors.