Dear Banjo

by Sasha Wasley

  ‘Knowing your dad, I’m not sure he’d fully embrace it even if you explained it in the simplest terms.’

  ‘It’s probably equal measures him and me,’ she said with a half-smile. ‘I’ve never missed Mum so badly. She was a good translator between me and Dad.’

  ‘She had your dad’s measure, all right,’ Tom agreed. ‘There was nothing she couldn’t make him agree to.’

  ‘She didn’t take advantage, though. She only pushed when it was important.’ Willow paused. ‘This is important. She would’ve gone in to bat for me.’

  ‘You’re really feeling it at the moment, aren’t you?’

  ‘Feeling what?’

  ‘Her loss.’

  No tears. No more tears. She nodded, not trusting her voice, and in the hasty glance she threw his way, she saw his face creased in sympathy.

  ‘No point wishing for her now,’ she said when her voice was steady enough to speak. ‘I’m luckier than plenty of others. I’ve got my dad, my sisters, my health.’ She flashed him a wobbly grin. ‘My cows.’

  ‘If there’s one thing we’ve both got, it’s cows.’

  They lapsed into silence. Maybe they should talk about what had happened on Thursday. She didn’t want to go there but surely that would be the mature thing to do. And she really didn’t want him unhappy and wishing for something she couldn’t provide.

  ‘About Thursday,’ he said, reading her thoughts. ‘Can I explain?’

  ‘No need,’ she said, half hoping they could leave it at that.

  ‘Yeah, I need to.’ He looked at her face with those bright-blue eyes of his until she couldn’t bear it any more and transferred her gaze to the concrete floor. ‘I don’t like to make you uncomfortable but I think it’s better to get it out in the open.’

  ‘Tom, I —’

  He kept going like she hadn’t spoken. ‘I’m worried about you. What you told me about your anxiety attacks.’ She froze, a sick sensation rising from the pit of her stomach. Why the hell had she gone and told him about that? ‘You said you never finished your homework. The homework your counsellor gave you. Reaching out to the people you shut out. I was thinking, maybe now would be a good time to do your homework? I’m here. I want to listen. I want to know what you went through.’

  Willow felt like her throat had seized. She risked a look at Tom and it was worse than she could have dreamed: his eyes were exactly like the day he’d broken into her bedroom after her mother’s funeral and found her crying on her own. Holy crap. Fourteen years on from her mother’s death and Tom had that expression of shared pain in his eyes and it was like her heart was cracking open. She’d heard of something called a sucking chest wound. She imagined that this was what it felt like – a cavernous black hole where her heart should be, stopping her from getting enough air. She stood up, gripping the tractor’s grab bar to steady herself. Tom jumped to his feet and took her arm.

  ‘Don’t,’ he said. ‘Don’t shut me out again, Banjo, please.’

  Instinct urged her to run away but she fought it. He was right. She sagged back onto the tractor step.

  ‘You want me to talk about what I went through?’

  He nodded, relieved, and sat beside her.

  ‘I don’t know how to explain.’ Willow was weirdly numb. ‘You were there. You saw it all.’

  ‘What did you say to Beth, then?’ he asked. ‘You said you reconnected with her.’

  ‘I don’t know. We just talked about how it felt.’

  ‘Can’t we do that?’

  She frowned. ‘That doesn’t make sense. It wasn’t your mum.’

  ‘No, but there’s more to it than that, right? There’s other stuff that went on for us. Maybe if we can talk about how it felt, we can move on.’

  He was leaning close to her again as he spoke, smelling good, feeling warm. What the hell? She was disgusted with her own weakness. No wonder the guy had claimed mixed signals.

  ‘How we felt when . . .’ she said.

  ‘When we graduated high school and the shit hit the fan.’

  She groaned. ‘Tom, what’s the point? It was horrible for both of us. We’ve grown up since then. Why don’t we just agree to move on?’

  He gave her another of those long stares. ‘Okay. I can do that. When we’ve talked about how it felt. Like I said, we’re both stuck. On different things. If we talk it through, maybe that will unstick us?’

  He looked so hopeful. Willow’s defences crumbled. ‘I’m not stuck,’ she said. ‘I just want a friendship. It’s very simple.’

  ‘That’s fine. But let’s talk about it – about the day we got our acceptances from uni, the letters I sent that you didn’t open.’

  That sucking chest wound threatened again and she scrambled to her feet. ‘There’s no point talking about it. It is what it is. You said you’re my friend for good. That’s all that matters to me.’

  ‘I think we have to talk through it. I want a real friendship. Not something based on half-truths and superficialities.’

  ‘I thought this was real.’

  ‘It’s real but we’ve got unresolved issues, don’t you think?’

  She knew in her heart he was right but her words wouldn’t come.

  Tom sighed. ‘Not ready to let anything change?’ She remained silent and he lifted his hands in a gesture of defeat. ‘Fine. I’ll keep waiting. I’m good at that.’

  ‘What are you talking about? Waiting for what?’

  ‘Waiting for you to stop being scared.’

  She stared. ‘Scared of what?’

  ‘I’m not too sure myself. But you’re definitely scared of something.’

  ‘Why would you think that?’

  ‘Because you are anxious. You shake, you get tongue-tied, you won’t meet my eye sometimes. You continually hide and push me away.’ He sighed again. ‘You’re like the best friend behind the glass wall.’

  Was she like that? ‘I’m more open with you than anyone else,’ she said, trying not to sound defensive.

  He brightened. ‘That’s a start, I guess.’

  ‘I’m not sure exactly what you want from me, Tom.’

  ‘Remember when we were about thirteen, that day we were on the bus home from school and the bus was empty except for us for the last half-hour – Carl Weston must have been sick or something – and you confronted me because you’d heard I’d been smoking behind the bike sheds?’

  Willow thought hard. ‘Vaguely . . .’

  ‘You pleaded with me to stop. You were worried I’d get caught but also that I’d take it up for real and end up sick. You’d done your research and quoted some statistics at me about cancer and emphysema and I just laughed it off because I was thirteen and invincible. And then finally you punched me hard in the shoulder and grabbed my face and stared me down. You said, You have to stop, Tom Forrest, because I would miss you for the rest of my life if you died. That – that wasn’t Banjo behind the glass wall. That was you being real and open with me.’

  ‘You want me to punch you more? I can probably stretch to that.’

  He smiled, but only just. ‘If that’s what it takes.’

  In her narrow little bed that night, Willow’s mind drifted back to the day of her mother’s funeral. She thought she was safe from prying eyes that afternoon; that everyone was busy outside at the wake, telling fond stories of Robin Paterson. They were all getting drunk and letting go now the worst was over: the diagnosis, that awful period of hospitalisation, the rapid decline and the funeral. At seventeen, Beth was so much more grown-up than Willow, almost part of the adult crowd. She sure was treated like an adult that day – welcomed into some kind of unspoken fellowship of Mount Clair women as they all hugged and wiped tears and prepared food in the kitchen. And Free was so little, only eleven. She was passed around the adults and cuddled, allowed to have a tantrum over some random thing, and showered with gifts that might distract her. Willow vividly recalled the games and toys Free had been given. She wished a jigsaw puzzle or a collectable teddy bear c
ould have been enough to give her some comfort.

  So she locked herself in her room and cried the worst cry of her life. It was like she’d utterly lost control of herself. Sobs racked her body so hard she might as well have been thrown around, dumped and battered by rough waves in the ocean. Her lungs heaved and her heart felt like it might explode. Even her skin hurt, as though all the pain of the past three months since her mother’s diagnosis was finally coming out, pushing out through each pore. Like sweating concrete. She’d locked the door but suddenly it started rattling. Someone was banging on the other side. Then it went quiet.

  ‘Banjo.’

  Tom. No, he couldn’t see her like this. She held still, praying he’d go away, trying to breathe through the stupid, sodden sandbags that her lungs had become.

  ‘I know you’re in there.’

  Willow didn’t answer. A huge sob threatened so she shoved a pillow over her face to muffle it.

  ‘Let me in.’

  More banging.

  Piss off, Tom Forrest.

  For a moment, she thought her angry voodoo had worked. But then she heard something like a scratching on the handle and seconds later the door opened and he slipped inside, holding a butter knife. The bastard had picked her lock. She flew to her feet and tried to push him out but he wouldn’t budge. Even at fourteen he’d been strong. She gave up trying and slammed the door shut again. She wanted to scream at him to leave her alone but couldn’t formulate any words. Instead, she dropped back onto her bed and turned towards the headboard so he couldn’t see her face. She pulled her knees up to her chest and tried to hold the sobs inside. The mattress sank behind her as he sat down.

  ‘You okay, Banjo?’

  No, she wasn’t okay, goddamnit. How could anyone be okay in her situation? Her body betrayed her, a sob escaping. He touched her shoulder and she lashed out like a wildcat, wanting to hurt someone, something, the world – wanting to unleash all her fury. She tried to hit Tom, thrashing and slapping at his face. He caught both her wrists and held them in a firm grip while she heaved aching, hysterical sobs. Then he pulled her into a hug, wrapping his long arms around her, holding her tight. It took a long time for her to stop fighting him – it was only the sound of Tom crying that stopped her struggle in the end. She lifted her swollen eyes to his, saw his tears pouring and lost her will to fight. She went limp and he dragged her closer, weeping with her.

  Somehow, when he broke down, it had helped. He hadn’t lost his mother, but he was crying as though he had. It took her years to realise he’d been crying for her, aching with her, feeling her pain.

  Whenever things felt difficult Willow’s instinct was to clam up and go it alone – and it had been that way for as long as she could remember. Maybe that was what he was talking about today. She thought over the past few months since she’d been back in Mount Clair. She was definitely hiding things from her father, but she had a reason for that. Tom had broken down her defences a little – she would reluctantly explain her problems if he prodded enough. She let Beth in more than most. She’d told Beth the truth about the pact and the bust up between her and Tom. As for Free, even when her younger sister had hugged her while she cried in the office, Willow hadn’t opened up. She hadn’t even allowed herself to keep crying.

  These were the people she should be able to trust, and yet she only dared tell them anything when she was pushed – really pushed – to share.

  Her psychologist, Jessica, had said she was afraid of vulnerability. That the hurt of her mother’s loss had left her scared to open up to the risk of that sort of pain again. But risk inevitably accompanied any kind of deep, real relationship. Jessica wanted her to try to open herself up to people more. She’d suggested Willow attempt a reconciliation with Tom, that she talk to Beth and Free, and express her feelings to her father. She’d even encouraged her to deepen her friendship with Tanya, who, now she thought about it, was probably her only real friend in Perth. Willow recalled Tanya’s tears on the day she’d handed over her apartment keys. She’d wondered at the time why Tanya had fussed like that. All of a sudden, Jessica’s words smacked her in the face with their accuracy: ‘You protect yourself from loss by holding people at arm’s length.’

  Shit, Jessica was right. And Tom was right, too. Willow had thought she’d worked on this part of herself but now she realised she still had a hell of a way to go. She couldn’t even cry in front of her own sister. She hadn’t bothered to reply to many of Tanya’s regular messages since she’d left Perth. And yet Tanya had been the closest thing she’d had to a friend for at least the past three years. Look at her – in her glass palace, not letting anyone in because they might vanish and it would hurt. Because they might do something beyond her control and that would be scary.

  Would she ever be able to do normal relationships? Was she too messed up already? Maybe there was something seriously wrong with her. But Jessica had never hinted at that. She’d seemed to think that Willow had made good progress during their handful of sessions.

  And Tom? Willow had never admitted the hidden stash of unopened letters to Jessica. She saw it now with more understanding than ever before, that fear of being vulnerable clear in her mind. She’d known or feared what was in those letters: an opportunity to make up with Tom, to try to get past the enormous upheaval in their friendship. As devastating as it was to have lost Tom’s friendship, the idea of reading the letters – that had been terrifying. It was easier to shove down the pain and pretend none of it ever happened. To avoid all contact. So she had hidden those letters in her bedside cabinet, where they slowly ate away at her soul until they formed a hole.

  And Willow suspected that hole was still there now.

  ‘Vern,’ Willow called. ‘Can I have a word?’

  She checked for Hegney and her father as Vern approached. Nowhere in sight, for once.

  ‘What’s up, boss?’

  ‘This is just between you and me, okay? I heard some talk the other day about a Patersons employee who’s not around any more. I think his name was Dave?’

  Vern scratched his chin. ‘Can’t think of a Dave. Wasn’t Dave Cousins, was it? No, he never worked here, come to think of it. You didn’t get a last name?’

  ‘No. I searched the system and couldn’t find any Daves, Davys or Davids.’

  Vern shook his head. ‘I can’t think of anyone either, sorry, boss.’

  ‘Let me know if anything comes to you, okay?’

  ‘Shall do.’

  Willow went back into the office. Maybe Tom’s staff had been talking about another station’s employee and Tom’d got the wrong end of the stick.

  She returned to her bookwork and when she looked at her mailbox, there was a reply from Tanya. Willow had emailed after the emotionally rocky weekend, apologising for her poor communication and telling Tanya she missed her and would love to catch up next time she was in Perth.

  Hi Willow,

  Your email made me cry! You’re so sweet. I’ve missed you too and I’ve got an awesome idea. It’s a public holiday next weekend and I have some frequent-flyer points sitting there. How about I come visit you on your farm?! I’d love to see the place and you, of course. If it’s not convenient I could stay in town instead of on the station itself.

  Love, Tanya

  Willow thought about it. She was so busy right now and she could do without the disruption over the long weekend – but, then, this was what she always did. She always had some excuse to put people off. She should consider herself lucky Tanya wanted to come and see her.

  Before she could change her mind, Willow sent an acceptance that was as effusive as she could manage without feeling like a phony. When she told Free and her father about it, they both seemed shocked that she had a friend coming to stay. Jeez, I even have a reputation for being Nelly No-mates.

  That day, Willow had a stock-handling training session to run with the station staff. Sure enough, Barry turned up, too. He sat at the back with Hegney, who every so often laughed at something
she said. That tended to set the stockmen off. The whole time, her father said nothing to shut Hegney up. In fact, once or twice he even laughed at Hegney’s muttered comments.

  Jessica’s words came back to her. Tell your dad how you feel. But that was before her father had had a heart attack. Still, she could gently explain how unpleasant it had been, couldn’t she? She could explain how demoralising it was to have your assistant manager heckling you from the back of your training session, with your father sitting right next to him. All afternoon, she readied herself for the conversation until she felt so nervous she almost changed her mind about it.

  ‘Dad,’ she said over the chickpea curry she’d made – lean beefsteak portion on the side for her father. ‘I’m getting the vibe that Hegney doesn’t have much respect for the way I do things. I’m worried it will influence the staff’s attitudes. Could you please discourage him when he pokes fun at things I say and do?’

  Barry was surprised but Free jumped in. ‘What did he do?’

  ‘He was borderline jeering at me during my training session today.’

  Free was so outraged she froze, fork in the air. ‘What the hell? How dare he?’

  ‘It wasn’t that bad,’ Barry said. ‘It was just in fun, sweetheart. Nothing serious.’

  ‘It undermines me,’ Willow said.

  Free nodded her golden head. ‘That’s right.’ She glared down at her meal, stabbing at a chickpea. ‘Hegney can’t go around picking on Willow.’

  ‘He’s not picking on her, for Chrissake, Free.’ He scowled. ‘Have a sense of humour, both of you.’

  Willow opened her mouth to argue but at the same moment her father rubbed his balding head in a gesture of tiredness. Instead, she gave Free a quick eyeroll to show her it wasn’t worth pursuing. It was pointless anyway. He didn’t get it. Open-hearted Barry Paterson wouldn’t see the subtleties of Hegney’s methods. She would have to deal with it herself.

  All week Hegney took veiled swipes at Willow’s methods. It was everything from a wisecrack about scientists who knew nothing about farming, to letting a couple of young stockmen use the bull-buggy to knock a breakaway bullock to the ground. When questioned, the stockmen claimed that Hegney had said they could use it. Hegney denied it. He declared it must have been a miscommunication. She started to wish she’d sacked him when she discovered the payroll problem, before he managed to get her father onside.