Dear Banjo

by Sasha Wasley

  She may not have had much dating experience but she knew a loaded question when she heard one. Quentin had occasionally been awkwardly flirty in the past and she’d shut him down every time. He’d never come this close to verbalising his feelings before.

  ‘There’s no one I’m especially close to in the city,’ she said, looking at her hands. ‘I’ll miss the team but I can visit when I’m in Perth. I’ll be back once or twice a year.’

  It was harsh but clear. Quentin didn’t speak or move for a moment and then scraped his chair in his hurry to stand.

  ‘Well, I must be holding you up. Have a safe trip and I hope farming life is everything you’ve anticipated.’

  His wishes could not have been less sincere. Willow followed him to the door where he shot her a hurt look and departed. She shut the door behind him and shook her head. Wow. She was relieved all over again that she was leaving.

  Somehow she managed to pack up the entire apartment overnight. On the way to the airport the next morning, Willow got the taxi driver to drop in at Tanya’s place. Her friend was still in her pyjamas when Willow gave her the keys to her apartment and a couple of hundred dollars. Tanya tried to refuse the money but Willow pushed it into her hand.

  ‘No, Tan, I’ve booked professional cleaners and I need you to pay them for me. Keep whatever’s left over as a thanks. And could you possibly go in and get rid of the boxes I’ve left behind? You can have anything from them or just donate it all to charity. And then if you could just drop the keys off to the real estate agent, I’ll be grateful forever.’

  Tanya nodded and her eyes went a little glassy. ‘You’re really going, aren’t you? For good, I mean.’

  ‘Yeah. Going home at last. I can’t believe I stayed in the city this long.’

  Tears spilled down Tanya’s cheeks. ‘I’m going to miss you.’

  ‘Oh, Tan. You should come visit.’ Willow hugged her. ‘I’ll stay in touch.’

  ‘It’s not the same,’ Tanya sobbed.

  ‘I’ll call you in a couple of days, okay?’

  Tanya nodded and gave her another tearful hug before letting Willow leave.

  Jeez, Willow thought as she ran back to the taxi. Shows of emotion had never been her thing. Okay, she was moving a couple of thousand kilometres away, and she’d miss seeing Tanya at work, but surely it wasn’t worth crying over.

  A memory of her sessions with a psychologist surfaced. Willow, you tend to hold people at arm’s length. Why don’t you try letting people in a little more? Willow snapped her attention back to the present, logging into the power company’s website on her phone to cancel her account.

  She checked in for her flight and paid an exorbitant amount for her excess baggage before watching it glide away on the conveyer belt – the sum total of her adult life in two large suitcases. No, she remembered, 3700 square kilometres, 6500 head of cattle, a groundbreaking, humane, organic beef operation. That would be the sum total of her adult life.

  She settled into her seat and thanked the heavens she’d been placed next to a young fly-in-fly-out type, probably contracted to the Herne River catchment project. He was already plugged into his tablet and watching a show involving zombies, so she wouldn’t have to talk to anyone during the flight. She wanted to write a to-do list. As soon as they were in the air she reached into her bag for a notepad and her hand met something unfamiliar. Not her notepad.

  Tom’s letters.

  Willow considered them, her heart rate bumping up all over again. Wouldn’t it almost be an invasion of Tom’s privacy to read them now, so long after he’d intended her to? Maybe those sleeping dogs should just be left to lie?

  Yes, she would bin them all – drop them into the roving rubbish bag the next time the steward came around.

  But she would be living next door to the Forrests again once she got home. By now, Tom would soon be taking over Quintilla, just as she was about to do with Paterson Downs. Their families were as close as ever. She’d need to resume some kind of relationship with Tom Forrest, no matter how difficult the initial patching up phase would be.

  Maybe she could use this three-hour flight from Perth to Mount Clair to read all of Tom’s letters at last. She hadn’t even given the poor guy a chance after looking at the first couple. She’d been so absorbed in her own pain; grappling with the panic she felt every time she thought about what he’d done. Perhaps there had been an apology in one of those letters – an apology she should have acknowledged by now. A retraction of that awful moment when he’d said those words . . .

  Tom’s handwriting was scrawled across the front of the topmost envelope – always familiar, no matter how long it had been. Willow took a shaky breath. Seven-thirty in the morning was a little early for a stiff drink, so she requested a coffee and pulled out the first two letters; the ones she’d opened and read ten years earlier.

  QUINTILLA HOMESTEAD

  HERNE RIVER ROAD

  MOUNT CLAIR EAST

  WILLOW PATERSON

  C/O PATERSON DOWNS

  HERNE RIVER ROAD

  MOUNT CLAIR EAST

  January 16

  Dear Banjo,

  Happy New Year.

  I guess you’re settled in at the student hall by now. You sure went early. The other kids who got in aren’t leaving until February. I don’t know where you’re staying so I asked Beth to send this on to you.

  You might have heard I’m probably not going to take up my offer of a place at uni. I’m thinking I’ll defer my course – for now, anyway. Dad’s not fazed. He won’t have to hire extra help this way, not to mention the savings on the tuition fees. Mum’s not overly happy but I keep telling her it’s only for the year. She asks a lot of questions.

  Not really sure what else to say to you, Banjo. It’s weird without you. Whenever I’m on the quad I turn towards Patersons before I remember you’re not there any more. I keep thinking I’ll see you at the eastern gate, sitting on Rusty, ready for a fenceline race. You knew I’d always beat you but you’d have a go anyway.

  So, yep. Really weird. You’ve always just been there. I guess it doesn’t quite compute yet. Take care of yourself in the big city, okay?

  Tom

  P.S. We should probably try to sort this mess out.

  QUINTILLA HOMESTEAD

  HERNE RIVER ROAD

  MOUNT CLAIR EAST

  WILLOW PATERSON

  ST BRIDGET’S RESIDENTIAL HALL

  UNIVERSITY OF PERTH

  February 11

  Dear Banjo,

  I was hoping you’d write back. Not ready to talk yet, huh? Okay, I’ll do the talking while I wait.

  Beth gave me your postal address. St Bridget’s? You living with nuns or what? How’s student life? I keep having regrets about putting uni off, thinking maybe it was a bad call. I’ll be a year behind you now. Maybe that could work in my favour –I can come crawling to you for assignment help. Still, I don’t like to let you win any race with me, whether it’s the quad bikes or the Bachelor of Science in Applied Biodynamics and Sustainable Agriculture.

  Gotta admit it, Banjo, I’m missing you. Three hours on the bus together every day to school and back. Another three or four hours in classes together, since our timetables were always practically identical. Then a couple of hours after school racing the quads or the horses, or just standing at the eastern gate arguing or talking shit. Making plans for when we co-manage Quintilla and Patersons. I put it at roughly nine hours a day we’ve been hanging around together, since the end of year ten when Nicola left school and I got promoted to bus seat-buddy. Nine hours a day, ten five-day weeks in a school term, four terms a year. What’s that, Banjo?

  I know you always whipped me in maths but even I can work it out. 1800 hours a year. And I haven’t included the weekends or school holidays when we hung out, or the neighbourly barbecues, or all the hours spent text messaging at night, or the treks to the hollow boab to leave stuff for each other.

  The reality’s probably closer to 2500 or even 30
00 hours a year we spent together.

  Can you really blame me for starting to think about you the ‘wrong’ way? Give me a break, won’t you? Call or write back. Come on, don’t let this crap drag on any longer.

  Tom

  Bloody hell. Willow hadn’t anticipated that rereading Tom’s letters would stir up this much discomfort. Her cheeks burned for him – and for her own behaviour. To have shunned him for so long, it was unforgivable. She should have given him the opportunity to put it all to rest. What would he be like nowadays? She imagined an adult Tom Forrest, probably still full of humour and kindness, just as he always had been, but more mature. Less hormone-driven. Willow permitted herself a wry smile. If only she’d had more maturity; if only they both had. She could see the situation from ten years ago so much more clearly now – the confused Tom and the angry Willow, still so messed up by the loss of her mother at fourteen.

  She ripped open all of the unread letters in succession and queued them up to get through them as quickly as possible. It was a grim, embarrassing task but it had to be done. And then she would put it all behind her.

  March 3

  Dear Banjo,

  Okay, I gave it three weeks. One for the letter to reach Perth, another for you to reply, and the last for it to reach Mount Clair.

  I’m guessing you’re still not talking to me.

  You’re a tough nut to crack when you’re angry. I’ll never forget that time you got super pissed at me. You know, The Matrix Reloaded night? Aunty Jen had been to Bali and picked up some rip-off DVDs and we’d decided to watch Matrix together. Movie and pizza night. You brought all your animal-free ingredients including that revolting soy-based cardboard masquerading as cheese that you’d discovered. And I sneaked some normal cheese onto your pizza while you weren’t looking and you were raving about how awesome your pizza tasted and you even made me try some so I’d know how much the soy cheese had improved. And I agreed and then once we’d finished I laughed so hard I nearly puked. When I told you what I’d done I thought you’d see the funny side but instead you accused me of not taking you seriously and stormed out. Remember? You jumped on Rusty and rode home in the dark. Damn, I felt so bad when I realised you weren’t coming back. I wanted to go after you but Mum wouldn’t let me. She phoned your dad to check you made it home all right and told me I needed to apologise.

  So I did. Text messages, radio calls, phone calls and even letters in the hollow boab. But grudgy Banjo took a week before she’d even acknowledge I existed again. I guess it took a week to get the evil dairy out of your system, huh?

  Remember how I came around to yours the next weekend and you were watching a Monsanto documentary. I sat down to watch with you and called Monsanto ‘Lucifer’s Pet Project’ and you kind of half-smiled and I knew we were okay. But you still got your revenge. ‘Snack?’ you offered and I said yes so you went and got us a big plate of crackers – with cardboard soy cheese. And I ate it! I forced down maybe six pieces of that dried out spongey crap just to show you I was genuinely sorry.

  So yep, you sure can hold a grudge. I still haven’t watched The Matrix Reloaded, you know.

  Banjo, it’s been two months, two days and seven hours since we spoke. It’s tough to go from 3000 hours a year down to zero. Can we try to sort this out?

  Tom

  March 29

  Dear Banjo,

  I’m impressed. Late March and still no reply. You must have started classes by now.

  You’re off-the-charts angry, huh?

  Okay, you’re mad at me for what I did. I get that. You don’t want to be more than friends. Fine, I understand. I don’t like it but I understand. What I don’t get is the scale of your anger. It’s like I did something horrific. Is that fair? What planet do you live on to think a straight guy with 20/20 vision might be able to hang out with you for 3000-odd hours a year and not get feelings for you? Have you looked in the mirror in the past five years? Because that’s about how long ago I noticed how beautiful you are.

  You said I broke my promise. Is that why you’re so angry? Yeah, I did break my promise – a promise I made when we were fifteen, for Chris sake. You made sure no one was around and took me out to the feed shed – and let me tell you, that got me pretty excited. I sure didn’t expect you to stick me with a needle and declare we were going to make a pact not to screw up our friendship.

  Fun fact: it took me a year to realise what that even meant. I thought not screwing up the friendship meant, like, not blabbing each other’s secrets or forgetting each other’s birthdays. It wasn’t until Nicola went out with Briggsy for about a week and then they had that big bust up that caused a rift in our circle of friends . . . and then you said to me, ‘See? That’s why we had to make the pact.’ THAT was when I realised the pact meant we weren’t allowed to fall in love.

  Fun fact #2: You were way too late. I’d been in love with you since we were thirteen. Maybe even longer, but that was when I knew it. And as much as you thought you could control our future by getting me to promise something I didn’t even understand, there’s just no coming back from being in love with someone for that much of your life.

  Could we talk about this? I’m starting to feel like our correspondence is kind of one-sided.

  Tom

  April 18

  Dear Banjo,

  How’s uni life? Mum says you came home for Easter break.

  Thanks for dropping in to Quintilla say hello.

  Oh, that’s right. You didn’t.

  Okay, I’ll plead and grovel a bit longer but you should know my humility’s a non-renewable resource. And I can’t keep spilling it out onto the surface of the Banjo ocean because it’ll end up suffocating cute little baby penguins.

  Know what I did yesterday? I went to the hollow boab. I rode King all the way out there. (Halfway between our houses, my arse. It’s at least half a click closer to Paterson Downs.) It suddenly occurred to me that there could be something in there from you – you know, what with your recent visit to Mount Clair, and not making contact with me while you were here. I thought maybe you wanted to talk but couldn’t find the words so you might have used our traditional postal system.

  I was kind of shocked to discover it was empty. Not particularly rational of me, but that’s the power of wishful thinking.

  Banjo, please don’t shut me out. I know you always need a little time when you’re upset but it’s been nearly four months. Your simmer-down time doesn’t normally drag on longer than a week or two. You’ve never shut me out like this. Even when your mum died.

  I remember how you wouldn’t let me come see you until the funeral. I never understood that. It actually kinda hurt. All I wanted to do was tell you how sorry I was and check if there was anything I could do to help. Even, you know, take Tuffie out for a ride or help with your farm jobs or whatever. And then after the funeral when everyone was on the patio getting pissed,I noticed you were missing. I found you in your bedroom with the door locked so I got a butter knife and used it to bust in. You tried to hide your face from me. You didn’t want me to see you crying, I guess. But I made you look at me and then we sat on your bed and cried together. Shit. It ripped me apart to see you so broken. And I felt so close to you. It was like the pain in your heart was coming right through into mine.

  Fun fact: you’re the only person, apart from my parents, who’s seen me cry since I was about three years old.

  Don’t turn your back on our friendship. You. Have. Made. Your. Point.

  Tom

  May 26

  Dear Banjo,

  No text. No call. No letter. Just stony silence.

  Nice.

  Your dad and Free came round for a barbecue the other day. Barry was bragging on about you and Beth, and Mum kept looking at me sideways. She’s still not happy with me. Your dad asked me outright if I’d be going to uni next year. That was uncomfortable. I said yes and he made some comment about it being a shame I’d be out of step with you but at least there’d be someone there to ma
ke sure his Willow was eating right. He still worries about your iron levels, huh?

  Hey, remember that local newspaper article about you when you demonstrated outside Calhoun’s Abattoir after you found out how they process? Front page headline: ‘Cattle Station Vegan Stages Protest’. Holy shit, my dad laughed so hard when he saw that. That pissed me off, now I think about it. Yeah, all right, I like teasing you about being a cattle station vegan but I don’t like anyone else doing it.

  The more this year drags on, the more bummed I am that I didn’t go to uni. It was a bad call. Free yapped in my ear about her latest school art project at that barbecue, while I sat there staring at my steak, thinking about you and me working so hard to get into the same course, and how we’d planned to sign up to all our classes together so we’d have the same timetable, and how we would save up and visit Blair Canyon Ranch in Colorado on a working holiday when we’d finished our degrees, and learn everything they could teach us.

  I thought back to the day we got our letters from the tertiary board. You were all pale and terrified and I was like, ‘What the hell are you worried about?’ You looked up at me with your big eyes and tried to tell me how bad you’d freaked out in exams and you’d probably flunked at least four of them. You, who’d never scored anything less than a seventy-five in any test or exam, ever. I wanted to laugh at you but I also wanted to hug you because you looked so scared. I tried to grab your envelope but you stopped me and said, ‘Tom, wait. What if one of us doesn’t get in?’

  I don’t know if you took any of it in but my heart went out to you and I said something like, ‘Banjo, if anyone doesn’t get in it will be me, but if that happens, I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’ll work my arse off for another year, apply to the Bachelor of Science course again, and see you at uni next year.’

  You said, ‘But then we won’t be studying together.’ I didn’t like that idea but I knew the likelihood was low. Turned out the likelihood was higher than I thought.