Anchor Point

by Alice Robinson

  Laura ached to be told that she was doing the right thing. She couldn’t stop herself from outlining all the good work she planned to do with Luc.

  Bruce did not criticise, but nor did he praise. His disapproval came through his terseness. ‘Love, you’re an adult. Do what you think’s best.’

  Neither of them mentioned the idea that she could just return to the farm, though Bruce would be missing her help. The responsibility to herself, her future, weighed heavily in a way that lack of choice had never done. She was like the chooks they had bought cheap when the Bindara battery farm closed down. It took months for the birds to stop cowering in corners, perturbed by their freedom. All that space.

  ‘I’ll be back to help with lambing,’ Laura said earnestly. ‘Organised three weeks off, come give you a hand. Vik’ll be home then too, yeah?’

  Bruce grunted, like he could take her or leave her. ‘Bring your fella,’ he said. ‘Better meet this bloke. Cost me the best worker I’ve ever had!’ He chuckled violently. ‘And the cheapest!’

  It had been Luc’s idea to head down to Kyree for the weekend by train, since he wouldn’t be able to take time off to help with lambing. Too much to do, he said. He sat with bare feet spread, the crotch of his baggy shorts webbed between knees, reclined against the seat in a way that suggested innate power. Laura ran a hand over the cord of his bicep, recalling the feel of Posey’s flanks, the coiled strength in her muscle. The smell of the animal’s coat was there in Laura’s nostrils then, sweat and grass. Years had dulled the pain of losing Posey, but Laura remembered the way it had felt on the day and after – a sudden, searing shock.

  She didn’t much like thinking about herself as a child: that serious, sad little adult, stooped with stress. It made her uncomfortable to remember herself that way, ashamed somehow, as though if she had only tried harder she could have been different, better, easier for her mother to love. In a funny way, remembering her childhood hurt almost as much as the original loss of Posey.

  ‘Be nice when we get there, okay?’ she said to Luc. ‘Dad’s just, you know, a farmer.’

  She made a face as she spoke the word, hating herself. Luc turned the page of his book, absent-mindedly stroking her knee. He smiled without looking up. ‘It’s cool. Don’t worry. Everyone’s Mum loves me.’ Laura flinched, but Luc took her hand. ‘Your dad will too.’

  She responded quickly, rubbing his skin with her thumb. She meant for it to be tender, but felt she was polishing away a blemish. He’s probably right, she told herself, burying her misgivings and training her mind to the present, the physical fact of Luc: the heat of his shoulder, pressure of his thigh. The carriage was almost empty. Light was falling over the outer suburbs beyond the train, turning the sky pink. She settled back into her seat, feeling the almost imperceptible shift in the weather, the gradual slackening of rain as they headed south.

  Laura wanted to go on travelling beside Luc forever. The exciting new life she had made for herself lay somewhere behind her on the tracks; her old life, all those memories, lay in front. Or was it the other way around? Regardless, Laura was aware that in that exact second, with Luc’s hand beneath hers, she was wholly, blissfully content. Trapped on the train between destinations, there were no demands, no responsibilities. She wanted time to stop so that she might remain suspended in that perfect space. But every second took them closer to Kyree. Laura imagined the train from above, snaking across land. Her moment of happiness receding. Already passed.

  In Kyree they stood shivering on the platform, waiting for Bruce. Laura had remembered the cold of the open country in winter, but abstractly, the way a negative recalls a photograph of a key moment in time. The physical slap of the air on her skin was another thing altogether, and it was only autumn. Dawn was breaking, and so the town, the hills, were softened in sepia light. Before they disembarked, Luc had pulled on a pair of old sneakers, a small concession to the weather, though he wore them without socks. It was the first time Laura had seen him in shoes.

  ‘You got a coat?’ she said, eyeing his thin flannel shirt. It hadn’t occurred to her that he might need to be told what to pack. Luc shrugged, hugging himself. He had a camera around his neck like a tourist, just a little ironic. Laura felt a twinge, her uncertainty, which she ignored. He could borrow an old coat from Bruce if he got cold.

  ‘This is it?’ Luc said hesitantly. ‘Where you grew up?’

  Laura nodded. Her sense of wellbeing was gone with the grit-eyed ache of having arrived without sleep. She jiggled on the spot to keep warm and calm her nerves. ‘Yeah, out of town a ways.’

  Luc’s eyebrows shot up. He glanced around, disbelieving. She could see what he was thinking. ‘So we’re, like, in the town now?’ he said. ‘This is it?’

  Laura was saved by Bruce’s arrival. He pulled into the car park, spraying gravel. Though he waved, he remained sitting in the cab with the radio blaring. Weather report, price of wool. Laura understood. Whole day out on the farm, no time to read, it wasn’t worth missing crucial information for the sake of hellos.

  But it was a very different welcome to the one Luc’s parents might have given: rigorous embraces and chatter, offerings of food. Luc stood gaping, his fist opening and closing like it couldn’t quite believe there was nothing there to shake. Impervious, Bruce waited in silence, staring straight ahead. He seemed more severe to Laura for her time away. It made her feel tender.

  She understood how her father must appear to Luc: stiff, uncompromising, grim. But that wasn’t really him. She wanted to take Luc aside and explain the way Bruce had put them to bed, carefully tucking the sheets in tight; all the lambs grown into sheep from bottle-feeding through the night; the money he had given her when she went away, part of the bond on the flat they’d just leased. She hadn’t prepared Luc at all. She should have sat him down and told him everything: Posey, the old ute, Kath’s disappearance, school lunches and unpaid bills, fencing in summer, felling trees. Joseph. The way the shearing shed smelled in summer – shit and lanolin. Luc didn’t know, as Laura did, how readily sheep die when they sense their time has come. Could he ever?

  She clocked the set of Bruce’s jaw as he listened to the footy scores recounted, head cocked, patiently allowing them time. There was nothing for it. Laura gave Luc’s arm a comforting squeeze, hefting their bags into the tray. He bristled as he stood by superfluously, awkward in a way she hadn’t known he could be. She was grateful for the weak smile he gave, helping her up to sit beside Bruce.

  ‘Love,’ Bruce said, accepting Laura’s kiss. ‘Get here okay?’

  ‘’Course,’ Laura said.

  Bruce nodded. ‘Good to, you know. Good to have you home.’

  They looked away to spare embarrassment. Then Luc was pressed in beside her, folding himself into the cab and pulling the door shut against his long leg. Squashed between the two men, trying to keep her knees away from the gearstick, Laura made introductions. They shook awkwardly across her body. Bruce kept the radio on.

  ‘G’day,’ he said, quickly flicking his eyes back to the road.

  ‘Pleased to meet you, sir.’ Laura caught Luc’s eye. ‘Mr Malloy. I mean, Bruce.’

  Bruce’s lip twitched. Laura dried her palms on her jeans. She pressed her knee meaningfully into her father’s leg. He looked at her sidelong, accelerating onto the highway.

  ‘Glad you’re here,’ he managed, finally. ‘Mate, we can always use another pair of hands.’

  Through town, Bruce talked quietly about the work done since she’d left: his new water tank; the winter garden, sown; a roo hit at speed one night. Laura held Luc’s hand on her knee self-consciously, asking over-bright questions. Part of her was in overdrive, her emotional barometer going berserk trying to keep tabs on the way the two men were feeling, earnestly trying to ensure that each was included in the conversation, though Bruce droned of things interesting to Laura alone, and Luc said nothing at all.

  But another, deeper part of her was occupied with the world beyond the windshie
ld. Laura drank the place in. Each sign and tree and post they passed was known to her, matched to some small memory. There was the corner where she used to meet Joseph, halfway between the bus stop and his place. The church – Kath’s service – and church hall, where they watched the bad primary school nativity at Christmas. There was the spot on the highway where the school bus broke down and Laura helped the driver fix it. Where some kid threw Vik’s lunch out the window, that irreplaceable parcel, and Laura had to share her sandwich or watch her sister go hungry. The spot that Laura reached, having decided once to run away, only to turn wearily back again, fearing she’d left the empty kettle cooking on the stove.

  They passed the postboxes. Laura briefly shut her eyes.

  After time away in Sydney, disoriented daily, assailed by newness, the wave of emotion she felt at the familiarity of the place caught her off guard. It wasn’t that a lot of it had changed since she’d been gone, just that she recognised so acutely each small element that had.

  When they arrived at the front gate, Luc volunteered to jump out. Pressed together in the cab, Bruce and Laura watched through the windscreen as he jogged over to work the chain around the post. Cold wind made his shirt whip and billow. Laura felt her father’s bulk beside her, watching, as Luc fumbled with the chain. Their separation hadn’t changed things; so many years working closely together, she could still read him like the weather.

  He doesn’t have to like Luc, she told herself bravely. Does he?

  Finally the gate swung open. Bruce drove through. Laura caught Luc’s pink cheeks as he held the gate back, waiting. Bruce watched in the rear-view mirror to ensure the gate was latched correctly. Laura pretended not to notice. She understood. An open gate was a crime. When Luc rejoined them in the cab, he was shivering.

  Laura’s throat tightened as they approached the yard. The sun was fully up now, bathing the valley in pale light. Somehow the house looked smaller, though she’d been away only months. Bruce pulled up by the front steps to let them out – his idea of generosity, not making them walk back from the shed.

  ‘Thanks, Dad,’ Laura called with their bags in hand, giving the door of the ute a thump.

  She was suddenly shy of the tall man beside her, seemingly beamed in from another planet.

  When the ute was out of sight, Luc put an arm around her waist, nuzzling her neck. ‘Gonna give me the tour?’ he said, breathing hotly in her ear.

  Laura smiled, taking his hand, but her stomach lurched. Their house was just a cottage. Years of DIY renovations, Bruce’s careful repairs after the fire, had kept it sound, but Laura saw how shabby it really was. She took in the hook, handmade from fencing wire, to keep the screen door shut; the mismatched weatherboards and flytraps made from plastic drink bottles, strung up around the scrap-lumber porch.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said, feeling her face contort. ‘It’s an old place.’

  ‘Don’t apologise,’ Luc said, smiling. But she could feel his nervous energy. They went up the front steps together, into the house.

  Laura knew without asking that Bruce wouldn’t want her to share a room with Luc, so she made her old bed up for him, and one for herself on the couch. He helped spread the sheets. The intimate act of folding and plumping, preparing places for their unclothed bodies to lie without touching, thickened the silence between them. Though Laura already knew by heart his freckles and moles, she found herself squirming. She was relieved when, yawning, Luc said he needed a lie-down before lunch. ‘I feel bad,’ he added. ‘Taking your bed.’

  Her eyes were still dry with exhaustion, but she assured him that she was fine and kissed him at the bedroom door, firmly pulling it shut between them. She hurried away down the hall. Without a guest to entertain, even Luc, she felt blissfully unburdened. Her lungs inflated: the first real breath she had been able to draw since the train hissed into the station.

  She took in the signs of Bruce’s bachelorhood. The evidence was unremarkable, but Laura felt each small change keenly. Weekly scrubbed lino had grown grey, grimy, sticky with lint. The jarred goods, jams and mustards, once ordered carefully in the pantry, had been moved to the kitchen bench. Ease of access, she supposed – it was the kind of change Bruce would consider an improvement. One pot, one frypan, a plate, knife and fork lay drying on the sink. Laura checked the cupboards, confirming that the rest of the utensils remained precisely where she had left them.

  She resolved to cook a roast – something other than the omelette or lamb chop or steamed garden vegetables she imagined Bruce living on. She rifled for ingredients, aware that whatever she did while she was there was only temporary; any changes would eventually be undone, after she was gone. She no longer lived there. Pulling an apron from the drawer where she had placed it, washed and ironed, Laura wondered if home was the place you lived in, or returned to.

  ‘Settled in okay?’ Bruce said, coming inside wearing his slippers.

  Laura nodded slowly. ‘Luc’s asleep. Rough night on the train.’ When Bruce pulled out a chair and fell into it, Laura expressed her surprise that he was not outside, attending to the unending list of jobs. ‘No need to keep me company,’ she said quickly. ‘Just thought I’d get lunch started before I give you a hand ’round the place?’

  ‘S’alright, love. You must be tired. No rush.’ He folded his hands in his lap, leaning back. ‘Got some young blokes, mates of Donald’s, helping me out. We’re doing okay.’

  With her hands in the sink, Laura worked caked dirt from potatoes, turning the water brown. It should be me, she thought. The idea of other people, strangers, completing tasks that were her responsibility made her scrub harder. The potato skins wore away in places, exposing white flesh. At the same time, the relief that it was those men and not her burned like whisky in her throat. She couldn’t say if she was happy that she’d soon be back again to help, or terrified to leave.

  Bruce watched her, quietly appraising. ‘Seems a nice bloke, Lor,’ he said finally. ‘Good to you?’

  Laura nodded. Gratitude gushed. ‘You’ll like him, Dad,’ she said, beaming. ‘You give him a chance.’ She went on despite herself, outlining again Luc’s many qualities, repeating the things she had said on the phone; and again Bruce listened, allowing her to speak but giving nothing back. Laura had the sudden, urgent impulse to ask about Kath, about why Bruce had ever married her. But their brief openness across the table had passed. He pushed back his chair, replaced his hat.

  A mother would know what to ask about Luc, Laura thought furiously, turning away, hating herself. Though not mine.

  For years she had fended off self-pity. It made her angry to find that she still longed for a mother, even fleetingly. The idea was a double betrayal: to her old man, and to herself.

  Lunch went well enough, though Laura couldn’t stop yawning, having cooked and cleaned and helped Bruce move the sheep before serving. Her father seemed keen to hear of her work at the nursery, asking questions about Luc’s parents, Gino and Mariangela; he was gratified to learn that they weren’t the fancy city slickers he’d imagined, but small-town people, like himself.

  Luc had come to the table dressed in one of Bruce’s old jumpers, too short in the arm, his hair mussed, eyes violet with broken sleep. He had never looked more beautiful to Laura than he did then, sitting in her kitchen, forking up food. She couldn’t stop smiling at the unlikeliness of these two men, passing potatoes between them.

  Vik phoned as they were finishing the meal, giddy with the excitement of finding them all there at once. Bruce spoke to her a minute before passing the phone to Laura, who then passed it to Luc. It was good to hear Vik’s voice. She sounded happy, though Laura couldn’t guarantee that it wasn’t her own happiness colouring the conversation. Watching Luc, who had not met Vik in person, chat away to her sister as though they were old friends, made Laura feel full to bursting.

  Then Vik said she would put Michael on the phone. Laura laid down the greasy oven dish, wiping her hands on her apron. He had been away, taking workshops in Eu
rope.

  ‘See?’ Vik whispered, before passing the phone. ‘He’s real!’

  Laura spoke uncertainly. ‘Hello?’

  ‘Laura? Heard so much about you.’

  ‘And you,’ she murmured, shocked by the accent. It wasn’t the same, but just close enough to stop her heart like a jolt from a fence. She groped for a chair and sat down. She didn’t want to think about the broken parts in Vik, making her want a man with just that history.

  Luc looked across the table, concerned, but Laura waved him away. He turned hesitantly, hopefully, to Bruce, and asked, ‘How’s this weather?’

  ‘Your trip go well?’ Laura managed to ask Michael.

  ‘Oh, fine,’ he said. ‘You know, bad weather, bad food. There’s no place like home!’

  They spoke a little while. Laura tried to laugh at Michael’s jokes, as lame as Vik had promised. But he was a polite man, reserved but warm, softly spoken. Not at all the kind of person Laura had imagined for her brilliant sister. The unexpectedness of him somehow endeared him to Laura.

  Michael would come to the farm at Christmas, he explained, and meet Bruce then. Laura wondered how that would go, but said nothing. In the meantime, he often travelled to Sydney; his clients appreciated the personal care he took, shipping their objects down for repair himself. He already had a number of appointments booked for coming months: a chipped Chinese vase, a Wedgwood set. He would bring Vik. ‘We’ll stay for the weekend,’ he said. Laura could hear the smile in his voice. ‘I know a great little wine bar near the water. I’d love to take you two.’