by Tony Parsons
One such experience kept recurring in her mind. She and David were mustering on Wallaby Rocks; it was the highest point on Poitrel and just above the big cave where David and his dogs had gained sanctuary when the fire swept over the ridge. It was also not far from where Kate had come off her horse and broken her leg. David pointed out these landmarks to her and then dismounted and began sniffing the breeze that blew gently across the tops.
‘Crikey, I love the bush, Sarah,’ he said. ‘And I love this country best of all. It’s not a patch on Molonga and Wirrewarra but I love it. I love the sweep of it and I love the eagles that fly above. An eagle once took one of my best pups, but an eagle has to live too, Sarah.
‘Dad loved this country because it’s sheep country, pure and simple, and Dad liked sheep. He reckoned sheep were great and that a fellow couldn’t do anything much better than run sheep because it was an honest, straightforward thing to do. Dad would be mightily impressed with what we’re doing with sheep now, Sarah. The wool we’re producing these days is so much better than the wool off the wethers Dad used to run.
‘I used to look at our country through the windows of the school and wish the time away so I could be back in the hills. There’s nothing better in life than to be on a good, sure-footed horse with a good dog running behind and to be off for a muster in the tops.’
Sarah had seen then images of the boy David who had so impressed everyone who knew him. She had leafed through the pages of Anne’s scrapbook with its stories and pictures detailing his father’s successes with dogs and horses and then, David’s achievements – he had been front-page news several times. Even now, a millionaire grazier and bush icon, David was still very much a boy at heart. He struck a chord in her heart because she felt similarly about horses. But where David valued horses for their usefulness, she loved them for their fleetness.
What David had revealed was that he was far more than the strong, pragmatic, determined man everybody perceived him to be. Of course, he was all of those things but at heart he was simply a bush boy who had grown up. David had been given what amounted to a fortune and he had turned it to good account. He had also been given talents and commonsense. And two great parents.
‘I want to show you something, Sarah,’ he beckoned. He led her down off the ridge and along a faint track to the big cave. He took her horse’s reins and tied them to a sapling. ‘Have a look in there, Sarah,’ he said.
She stepped inside the opening and found herself in what amounted to a kind of anteroom to a much bigger cave that was accessible by an opening several feet across. Muted light partly illuminated both caves. Sarah felt hot and cold all at once. If anything was going to happen, it would happen here.
‘This is where I sheltered from the fire. Nap brought a small lot of sheep here and we had them in the front cave. Clancy burnt his feet when he came looking for me. This is where Dad and Cat found me.
‘And this,’ he said, ‘is where Cat and I became engaged. I was able to tell her we could be married because Tim Sparkes left me what amounted to a fortune. A storm was raging outside that day and we just made it to the cave. We had lunch and I boiled the billy. And then we rode home through the glistening hills, everything clean and bright after the storm. Cat’s eyes were shining because she had waited for me for quite some time while I kept her at arm’s length. I told her that if she looked like that Mum would know something had happened. Mum’s always been sharp, Sarah.’
Sarah knew at that moment that David would never reach out to her for anything more. Whatever he felt for her, it wasn’t enough to replace what he felt for Catriona. She knew now that he had brought her to the cave to tell her in his own kind of way that he was spoken for. He may have sensed what she felt for him and used the cave and what it meant to him to illustrate that there could never be anything between them. She knew that David liked her and it was she who had fantasised there might be something more than that.
That night as she lay restless in bed, Sarah thought back over the day she had spent with David and knew that she would experience few more precious moments than had occurred that day. David had opened his heart to her and she had seen a David that few people had ever seen. She knew that men found great difficulty in opening their hearts. It wasn’t the Aussie thing to be seen as soft or sentimental, and possibly only Catriona had seen this side of David. Sarah came to the realisation that she had little choice but to leave Strath Fillan. Leaving was going to be difficult, but telling David that she was leaving would be even worse. She had asked him for a job and he had given her a job. She loved everything about her work, but she couldn’t stay. Her mind and body were in torment and she couldn’t endure it any longer. What on earth would she tell him?
It was while Sarah was contemplating how she could find the strength to leave, knowing she did not have the strength to stay, that Angus Campbell came to see David and Catriona one Sunday with some news. Angus came to High Peaks almost every week now and Catriona called to see him regularly. Stuart and Carol had recently taken him up to David and Catriona’s house at Yeppoon and Angus was looking better now. Losing Jane had been an enormous blow and Angus had become very haggard. He was now coming to terms with his wife’s death, and reconciled to being on his own. His interest in events around him was gradually resurfacing.
‘Roy Missen is selling out,’ Angus said.
David looked across at Catriona, who shivered. David’s eyes had become ice and his expression was steely – she hadn’t seen that look for a long time. David looked that way whenever anything relating to the Missen family was raised.
Angus, not as sensitive to David’s facial expressions as his daughter, ploughed on. ‘The Elders wool rep told me, and he got it from Roy himself. Roy is giving up and going into a nursing home. He’s got something amiss internally,’ Angus said.
‘Poor Roy,’ Catriona murmured.
Roy Missen had owned a substantial property adjoining Inverlochy on one boundary. He had mortgaged the property to secure funds for his sons’ legal expenses after they and a mate, Stanley Masters, had tried to rape Catriona the night of her debut. After some years in prison Bill and Wade had started a fire on Poitrel. While running from a police car they had wrapped their utility around a tree on the Bunnan Road and both boys had been killed. Subsequently, Stanley Masters was knifed and killed in prison.
Roy and Bessie never recovered from the loss of their sons. Bessie went to pieces and became a mite peculiar. She died in her seventies and Roy lived on the old property alone. He sold part of the property to pay off the bank and bred good prime lambs and cattle. Locals thought he would sell and get out but the property was where he and Bessie had been happiest. He couldn’t work out where he had gone wrong with the boys other than to have been too soft with them. Bessie had always thought so much of Bill and Wade that he hadn’t liked to chastise them. If Bill and Wade had had a father like Andy MacLeod maybe things would have been different. Andy would have straightened them out.
‘Are you interested, David?’ Angus asked.
‘Not in the slightest, Angus. I wouldn’t touch the Missen place if its tracks were paved with gold,’ David said vehemently. ‘After what Bill and Wade tried to do to Catriona and what they did to us here, I’m surprised you’d even ask.’
‘Land is land, David. You can never have too much land. Stuart has three children and two, at least, want to stay on the land. It’s not every day you get the chance to buy an adjoining block. Besides, Roy is a decent old chap. He’s never done anything to me. The poor chap has had a tough time of it with those boys and Bessie,’ Angus said.
‘Then buy it, Angus. Even if it wasn’t Roy who owned it, I wouldn’t be interested. If I get another place it will be in New England,’ David said.
‘Why would you want a place up there, David? The country isn’t a patch on what we’ve got here. You live with a drench gun in your hand up there,’ Angus said.
‘I need a place to grow real top fine wool, Angus. I want to be able
to send the pick of my fine-wool sheep up there. There are only a few places you can grow top spinner’s wool and New England is one of them. I don’t need a big property,’ David said.
‘I just wanted to find out if you were interested in the Missen place, David. Now I know you’re not, I can go ahead,’ Angus said.
‘Would Roy have any objection to selling his place to you?’ David asked.
‘I don’t see why he would. There’s not a lot of demand for properties right now the way things are. Roy’s not well and he needs to sell up,’ Angus said.
David shrugged. ‘It’s your business, Angus. If you’re going to buy, now is the time to do it. Wool and beef prices couldn’t be much lower.’
After Angus had left Catriona took her husband’s arm. ‘You’ll never forgive them, will you, darling?’
‘Not as long as I live, Cat. Roy and Bessie were too soft on them but Bill and Wade were no damned good. They were no damned good as boys and they were no damned good as men. They came close to destroying you the night they attacked you and Roger. If I hadn’t followed them, who knows what would have happened? They never showed any remorse, either. Not then and not later, when they set Poitrel ablaze. Roy was all right and he was man enough to come and apologise for his boys and offer to pay for my doctor’s expenses, but I wouldn’t want to own the place that had birthed the Missen boys. Not on your life, Cat.’
She laid her head against his face and he stroked her hair. There was no need for further words.
While Sarah Matheson had been working for him, David had gradually improved the horse facilities on Strath Fillan. There were new yards and last of all, a foaling shed with fluorescent lighting. The old stables had been renovated and the whole complex was now very workable. Having completed all that David now proposed to paint and renovate the Strath Fillan homestead. He shifted Sarah up to the cottage alongside his mother and employed a local painter to give the big homestead a long-overdue rejuvenation. He had some other ideas for the house he wanted to implement before Sarah moved back into it.
Kate had moved into the old High Peaks homestead with Anne when Glen Morrision became too much for her. Anne enjoyed her company, but also welcomed Sarah back to the cottage because, as she said, ‘It does us old fogies a lot of good to have a young person in the house.’ At the end of the day Sarah would have a sherry with Anne and Kate and then join them for dinner. She would help with the washing up and stay to talk for perhaps an hour before retiring to bed ready for her early start at Strath Fillan the following morning.
Because Sarah had always come into the homestead from her cottage by six-thirty and this particular night she didn’t, Anne wondered if perhaps she wasn’t well. She had heard Sarah’s vehicle arrive about half an hour earlier so she knew she was home. Sarah always showered and changed and she never kept them waiting for dinner. When Sarah still hadn’t appeared a quarter of an hour later Kate suggested to her sister that she go and check on the girl.
Anne walked across to the cottage where she found the front door wide open. She paused there because she heard heavy sobbing coming from the bedroom. Anne walked to the bedroom door and looked into the room. Sarah, still in her working clothes, was lying face down on the bed with her face pressed into her pillow. Great sobs were racking her body and she was unaware of Anne standing in the doorway. Anne crossed to the bed and laid a hand on the girl’s back. ‘What is it, Sarah? Is David too hard on you?’ This question was met with a shake of the head and more sobs. Anne now grew alarmed. Surely the unthinkable hadn’t happened and the girl was in trouble?
‘Are you in trouble?’ Sarah shook her head even more vigorously. ‘Thank God,’ Anne breathed. She got up from the bed and went to the bathroom for a face washer. Back in the bedroom she sat at Sarah’s bedside and stroked her hair. ‘It can’t be that terrible, Sarah. Here, wash your face and tell me what’s troubling you.’
Eventually Anne managed to get Sarah to turn over and sit up while she massaged her face with the washer. The girl’s eyes were swollen red from her crying and she was obviously distraught.
‘I have to leave High Peaks,’ Sarah said at last through her tears.
‘You have to leave? Why do you have to leave, Sarah?’ Anne asked gently.
‘I just have to, Mrs Mac,’ Sarah got out with some difficulty through her sobs.
‘I’ll ask you again, Sarah, are you in trouble?’
Sarah shook her head vigorously, ‘No, of course not.’
Anne sighed. ‘If you aren’t in trouble, why do you need to leave us? Are you unhappy here?’ This question brought on another bout of sobbing. ‘How can I help you if you won’t tell me what’s troubling you,’ Anne reasoned.
‘I’m in love with David,’ Sarah sobbed.
‘You’re in love with David. Does he know?’ Anne asked.
‘I don’t know. Perhaps. He did something that suggested he might know but I couldn’t be sure,’ Sarah said in the longest coherent sentence she had uttered for a while.
‘David is more than twice your age and he is very happily married, Sarah,’ Anne said.
‘I know, I know,’ Sarah said passionately. ‘You think I don’t know that? It’s killing me.’
‘What makes you think you love him, Sarah?’
‘He’s in my every waking thought – I can’t seem to focus on anything else. David is so much above every other man I have ever known, Mrs Mac. I don’t think of him as older than me.’
‘And loving him as you say you do, you can’t stay here?’
‘How can I?’ Sarah asked through a sob.
‘How long have you felt this way about David?’ Anne asked.
‘Some months. I’ve fought against it but it’s no use. I love him, and that’s all there is to it. I’m so miserable. David and Catriona have been so good to us for so many years now. If I did anything to spoil what they have going for them, I would never forgive myself. Yet when I see David walking towards me I want to run to him and throw my arms around him, and—’
‘Oh, dear,’ Anne murmured, ‘we have got trouble, haven’t we.’
‘What am I going to say to David? What excuse can I give him for leaving? He’s doing up the house for me and he’s done so much to help me. I know he’s depending on me to manage Strath Fillan and the stud. If I let him down how could he ever employ another woman?’
This brought on another burst of weeping, and Anne had a belated view of what she might have faced had she produced daughters.
‘Ssh. You’ve done enough crying for now, Sarah,’ Anne said. ‘Wash your face and let’s have some dinner. Kate will be over to check on us if we don’t put in an appearance. You aren’t the first woman to love an older, married man, and you certainly won’t be the last. We’ll have a good think about the best way to handle the situation.’
‘You must see that I can’t possibly stay?’ Sarah said.
‘No, you can’t, I agree. We’ll miss you, Sarah. You’ve become very close to us. I know that David is very pleased with you. He told me that you were as good as any man and more conscientious than he would have imagined possible. You could have had a home here for as long as you wanted it, Sarah,’ Anne said.
‘That’s what makes me feel so wretched, Mrs Mac. Up until now I’ve never had any time for boys, and I have to fall in love with a married man! It’s so unfair. I’ll never find a place I love as much as I love Strath Fillan, or a boss like David.’
Later, after Sarah had settled her stomach with a little dinner on top of a small brandy, Anne briefed Kate on the dilemma facing Sarah. Between them, as Sarah listened, the two sisters calmly discussed her predicament. Kate agreed, regretfully, that Sarah couldn’t stay, but finding an excuse for her to leave wasn’t easy, and there was the matter of finding someone reliable to replace her. David could look after Strath Fillan in the short term and he and Moira and Catriona could do the mustering for crutching and shearing, but they would need a full-time person on hand to manage the stud side of things.<
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After a couple of hours neither Anne nor Kate could come up with a decent reason Sarah could use for leaving. What irritated Anne was that any reason Sarah could give would be a lie. A lie, if eventually unearthed by David, wouldn’t sit well with him.
‘The more I think about it, the more I’m convinced you should tell David the truth, Sarah,’ Anne said at last. ‘I really do. David is a very straight-from-the-shoulder man, just as his father was. It might be difficult for you to do that but it would be better than being dishonest. It’s the most legitimate reason for leaving that you could have.’
‘I think Anne’s right, Sarah,’ Kate agreed. ‘You want to leave with respect, and being truthful is the only way to do it.’
‘I don’t think I could ever face David and tell him how I feel,’ Sarah said.
‘He won’t eat you, Sarah. He would probably be flattered that a nice young girl like you should feel that way about him. My guess is that he would give you top marks for telling him the truth,’ Kate said with a smile.
‘I’ll have to think about it,’ Sarah said.
‘Does your mother know how you feel about David?’ Anne asked.
‘No, I’ve managed to hide that from her. Mum and Catriona are very good friends so Mum will understand why I have to leave. She’ll get a shock, but she will understand,’ Sarah said.
Sarah went off to work next morning feeling more and more convinced that Anne was right. She wanted to leave with David’s respect, and he wouldn’t respect her if he discovered that she had lied to him. It took her a week to find the strength to eventually break the news to him. David had come down to Strath Fillan to deliver wool packs to the woolshed and to check on a couple of other matters. Sarah met him at the wool-shed.
‘Have you got a minute, Mr Mac? I need to talk to you,’ she said.
‘Has that ever been a problem, Sarah? Are you feeling okay? You look a bit peaky. When we get shearing out of the way, I want you to take a spell. You and Moira can shoot up to Yeppoon and have a couple of weeks there.’