by Alan Duff
With misunderstanding of why her father and Anna got on so well, because of her own different temperament and personality, Katie hadn’t really stewed over her sister’s status as favourite. Someone had to be. She had no need for extra parental attention; from young she had fantasised about her mother and father being tragically killed and she going to live with foster parents of a far more liberal outlook in Sydney or Melbourne, where there was action too, not this deadsville. Determined she was going to run away rather than be sent to a Sydney boarding school: to hell with that, she hated those snotty girls, the way Anna’s friends spoke you’d think they were from upper-class England. This was Australia for God’s sake.
Couldn’t stand her mother’s repressed ways, of never but never losing her cool, never shouting nor even raising her voice. Had never seen her mother drunk, not even tiddly. God, she was straight. Katie hardly ever saw her father; he was out in all weathers on the farm, or in his office on the phone or buried in his pedigree books and files, out of town on business. But with rules around the house that felt so unfair, unnecessary and just plain stacked against her, she believed she lived in a household that had it in for her.
Now that Katie was dead.
The idea came after yet another session of sitting vigil in Anna’s bedroom, gagging on the stench even though their mother cleaned the room every day, the smell of a person going downhill, of a body losing weight, maybe rape smelt like that. Found herself wondering what would shake Anna out of it — oh, but of course. Had an idea that might just work, might just start Anna’s healing.
Claire’s own worries set aside to focus again on her elder daughter. Out there in the coming dusk with Anna in front on a farm buggy, in the free, the air still hot and lovely if alive with flies and dust and negative thoughts — and facts — trying to get back in the door. Feeling the child’s rigid reluctance, her protest back there not of voice but of struggle, the physical struggle Claire had to get her on to the damn vehicle and get her the hell out into fresh air instead of festering in her fetid own.
Without her other daughter’s suggestion it would not have happened. Though Claire asked that if Katie had need to watch, she keep herself out of sight, or this meeting might look planned, contrived. ‘Pray it works, my darling, for your sister’s sake.’
Arranged access with Straw, since strictly speaking it was Tulloch’s property. Straw muttered that if Sandy himself happened along and ordered Claire and Anna off the property he would ‘break his fat neck’.
Claire pointing, naming horses, reminded of the sheer exhilaration of being near these magnificent animals. Even the paddock with the tired old specially loved mares on the slow die. And the memorably difficult. You remember Ophalion, how stroppy she got if you approached on her wrong side? No response from Anna and nor did she expect any. Hasn’t Luckdippity aged well? That’s her foal to Rai, the colt at the fence, big sook crying for mummy.
‘We’ll go and see Anna-Katie too.’ Anna-Katie, the indulgent father’s purchase. ‘She’s almost ready to race, darling. She was a good buy, you’ll see. Did you know if you mate …’
Talking. Spill talk she called it, when you wanted to say something so much of such importance that the opposite spilled out. Spibble, a new word she invented right this instant.
An older mare in a paddock with the young fillies, a gelding in with the weanling colts, to have adult leadership, even discipline, in the immature company. Next to them, several paddocks in a row, yearlings in preparation for the sales. She loved this place, what her husband had built — no, not going there. Nor revealing to her elder daughter it was no longer theirs, the entire operation lost and her father with it. Why pour guilt on a girl in this fragile condition?
The prime mover, as some called him, regarded it as his paddock and intruders entered at their own risk. Straw and Millie, the trainer’s assistant, were exceptions, and even Riley knew he risked injury from the imperious stallion, though through sheer willpower he had managed to have a more or less equal relationship with the beast. The jockeys who had ridden Raimona to victory were not exempt from his vicious temper: he had no memory of his riders, just a hostile attitude to all but three people, and Riley on permanent warning never to turn his back. His disdain for man and fellow beast was part of what made him. Raimona. Alone in his kingdom, quietly grazing.
Claire surprised herself by crying out, ‘Look! There he is! Our snorting, foot-stamping, leave-me-the-fuck-alone super-stud!’ When she never swore in front of her children, hardly swore at all.
Wished she could lean right round to see if her daughter responded. Anna moved not. Emaciated thing she was, a mother could feel her bones through her dressing gown. Why? Why?
No, don’t go there. Stay being a mother.
Off she got, buggy idling, to unhitch the gate. ‘Oh, just look at him, Anna.’ At the big horse snorting, pawing the ground, readying to see intruders off his domain.
Drove the buggy through, got off and latched the gate. Could hear the thump of Raimona’s hooves nearing. Not at a gallop, at an assertive walk. His aggressive, territorial whinny. Before hell let loose.
Claire turning in time to see him stop. Sniff. Roll his head. Twist his royal neck. Blow several times — could be a whale exhaling. A wild creature this certainly was, if somewhat tempered by the frequent handling in carrying out his stud duties. Claire had once overhead a stable hand remarking, ‘Big Rai has eighty-grand orgasms, while my once-a-week costs me a grand a month of the missus shopping!’ Too raw by half. But true.
Then came the whinny, an extended sound expressing nothing but pure love. Not dissimilar to a mother’s love. For the same Anna, now as if reduced to the six-year-old who had tamed him. Had Katie figured that her traumatised sister’s mind was not so different from that of the child?
Over he came, at a trot. Seven hundred kilograms of muscle and memory and horse smell and breeding purity of his own. Words not necessary. Hardly even breath.
Come to your soul mate, Rai.
With Rai’s private paddock a distance from the road, Katie had watched the scene unfold through binoculars. The unlikely sight of the quad bike driven by her mother in jeans and a billowy top, and that emaciated form who once was Anna at the front. Winding round the carefully planned pathways, stopping, Mother pointing, Anna not moving, on they went. To stop, eventually, at Raimona’s paddock gate, Mother unlatching it. Well, it was some sight. Even through magnified lens.
On their return Mum was talking quietly; they came into the kitchen, Anna looking quite changed, face flushed as if at some unexpected compliment and she was a shy teenage girl. Still not speaking.
Katie hurried down to Anna’s bedroom, stood waiting for her sister. Anna entered, surprised to see her there — had Katie pleased to at least see a reaction.
‘How’s Rai?’ was all Katie could say.
Anna just inclined her head. Wanted to speak, Katie was sure.
Well, a supposed immature kid sister had something else. She pushed ‘play’ on the stereo. Then came Elgar’s Cello Concerto. And a musician’s changing face. The first time it had hinted of a smile in months. Katie finding it difficult to contain hers. Beautiful notes filled the room. Watching her drowning sister swimming from the deep to air, sweet normal loving family air.
Chapter forty-one
The letters that came. From all over Australia, from Perth, some tiny outback community in the far north, Canberra, Melbourne, Adelaide, Brisbane and small towns everywhere, a small sack arrived every delivery day. So much mail Claire could but send back standardised replies, with thanks from the Chadwick family, and even then needed the help of her three closest friends to handle it.
The vast majority of messages expressed goodwill and genuine concern and outrage. A few spoke of what should be done to the attackers, from capital punishment or torture to chemical castration. At least one teddy arrived a day, used by our late daughter or in much loved condition or else a brand new one in a gift box covered in kisses
and usually from a teenage girl or a young woman same age as Anna. Poignant letters from other rape victims talking directly to Anna as if an old friend; a mother could but leave these on Anna’s desk and hope she might read them. Most made you weep, as well as realise rape and sexual abuse were a common problem in this the fabled Lucky Country.
Inevitable too there would be cranks writing, most pathetic, weird, some making no sense talking of signs and riddles; there were even those anonymous ones expressing glee that the Chadwick family now know what it’s like to suffer, you filthy rich selfish bastards who didn’t give one damn about anyone else and now you have reaped what you have sown. Most of this type claimed God Himself was behind their suffering, as justification for the venomous outpouring. Incredible that fellow human beings should expressly wish Anna a slow and painful non-recovery.
Some were gross beyond belief. Why don’t you ask if your daughter enjoyed it? If her rapist was hung like a mule, don’t be surprised to find her back in the park very soon! One wrote, My mate who did it said she was so hungry for it he had to give her one up the — Into the waste basket with that. They wished Aids upon Anna, every sexual disease, spoke of witnesses hearing her screams of orgasm. The common theme of money-envy ran through almost all. So did the rampant stallion theme, including stated certainty Anna had committed bestiality.
Sue, Karen and Marilyn came daily to take over the kitchen and help with opening the mail, a noisy, cheerful trio who turned even the correspondence of madmen and unhinged women into a laugh. Claire appreciated why, and sometimes found amusement herself. But harder when the slings and arrows were directed at your daughter — a perfect stranger to them — and your husband had abandoned you in the midst of this for another woman.
Soon as Katie came home from school each day she went straight to see Anna. She was talking, just a few sentences, but Katie wasn’t pushing it. Anna seemed to have chosen her sister as her confidante: little snippets of her experience leaked out. Starting, just a little, to get her appetite back, with requests for a particular food, and she was taking care of her personal hygiene.
One day Anna asked her mother to call Maddy and say hi. She asked Claire how she herself was and had it been tough? ‘Yes, but worth it to hear you speaking again, my darling.’ Claire in tears and of joy for once. The miracle had started.
Anna began visiting Rai every evening, preferring Katie to come with her. Claire thought her youngest was starting to enjoy their prime stallion’s company, and she saw no hostility from him toward Katie. With Anna putting weight back on, it seemed the healing process only needed time and the return of her father. But not once did Anna ask after Riley: she must have been told by Katie he had gone. Claire unable to get herself to officially inform Anna. Bad enough telling Katie, who had surprised with her hurt and shock. Blind, unthinking man he was to her. Blind to what he has lost. Unless, Claire thinking more and more, it was Riley himself who was lost, found out by the incident as having some personality or emotional flaw. Well, with Anna on the mend, Claire knew she was getting stronger too. Long may it last.
Despite her feelings, Claire wanted to let Riley know his daughter was okay. Fighting against thinking about him, the woman he was with, what he — they — would be doing. Thought of them laughing together hurt so much, made her feel dull and humourless. Oh, to hell with him. The man who was always on about everything in this life having to be earned or it was worthless — did that include a marriage? And what about his inheritance plan for the girls, since there was no way she was engaging a lawyer to fight for one single dollar of settlement? Rather go back to a simple life, rent a small house, get a job. Damn you, Riley Chadwick. Damn you, rapists, to hell ten times worse.
Sitting on the central Persian rug surrounded by letters opened and unopened, Marilyn asked rather casually, ‘You’re going him for half of everything?’
‘No,’ she answered matter-of-factly. She drew a modest salary off the business just as Riley did. It went into a bank account: she shopped on credit cards and withdrew a bit of cash from time to time, hardly ever going to town except to do the once-a-week grocery shopping in Musswellbrook, every five weeks visit the hairdresser. Come to think of it, how was a salary continuing to be paid into her account if Sandy had taken over the business? Perhaps it had been discontinued and she was getting by on accumulated funds? She had never bothered about money except in her inherited frugality. Just as she had grave concerns for her daughters inheriting millions. What if it proved a poisoned chalice? It did happen, she had read about it.
‘You hear about these separated couples fighting tooth and nail over who gets what, I find it obscene.’ Claire saying it wasn’t up for further discussion. The short letter she had just read from a ‘grandmother of nineteen, and each one is a precious jewel. Sending my love and my nineteen’s love to your daughter and your family.’ Humans, at their best.
Chapter forty-two
‘If you weren’t a sheila you’d be lying in a heap on the floor. Why the fuck did you do such a thing?’
He was seriously mad. At Lu for what she’d just told him, though he showed scary satisfaction at the jungle justice the boys had inflicted on Uncle Rick, and of course great concern for what she’d been through. Even had tears in his eyes. Dried though when she told of the Chadwick woman.
For hour after hour Rocky paced the apartment living room, or stood at the window just staring, and every time she went to speak he raised his hand to say no. Not interested.
Took her chance when his back was turned fully and said, ‘Guess I won’t be working for you no more?’
He didn’t turn around for some time. And then the face he presented was more like a headmaster she’d once had.
‘Lulu?’ he said.
Yeah, that’s me, call me double-Lu all you like, I love it.
‘After what you’ve told me … I reckon you’re … You’re not well, Lu.’
Ridiculously her mind took up on the second Lu being dropped.
Still, she said, ‘Guess I’m not.’ Thought about it a moment. While he lit a cigarette. ‘You mean sick, don’t ya?’ Yeah, guess he did. Genuine pain in his good man’s eyes, sure. But agreeing nonetheless.
Well. ‘Guess that’s it, then?’
He shot her a frown. ‘For what?’
‘Everything. Your plans. Stuff. You know.’ The night lights out there like they were rising up at a woman, coming to engulf her. Swallow the sick girl whole.
Her cell went off, text received. She got it out and looked at sender ID. Nice timing, Kev.
Guess what he was missing? Not who — what. Sitting hr in my ofis hangin out 4 yr sweet puss cal me qik. K.
As if she wanted him, the creep, the fuckin’ hypocrite, a cop and working on, if he only knew it, her case —as if she wanted him sexually. Or within a million kilometres. Call it whatever you like, say your lies about how beautiful I am, how you are falling for me. You are a rapist. You only warned my uncle off to have me to yourself.
Next Rocky’s standing behind her — how did he get there?
‘That Jay or Bron or fuckin’ Deano?’ he growled over her shoulder.
She turned the phone away. ‘No. And if it was I’d tell them to fuck off. You didn’t let me finish. I planned it, against the Chadwick chick, sure. But, I never said to go ahead and do what they did. Why would I?’
Why would I? Why would I? Why? Why?
Next he’d snatched the phone off her. Now how did she explain this yet-to-be confessed story? I’m dead meat. Finito. And all those times of thinking about ending it, Lu-honey? Well, the time is here. At last.
‘Who’s K?’
She blew out air. ‘Whew. Now that’s another story I was about to tell you.’
Trembling he was. Probably about to hit her. Couldn’t blame him. What a fuck-up of a life story. Uncle Rick was right: I was born to lead men on. Doesn’t just happen by itself. Brought it all on myself. Kill me, Rock. End me.
‘You promise the truth and I�
�ll hear you out.’ Rocky held up the phone. ‘Mean to say, this is up close and intimate wouldn’t you say? I mean he knows more about you than I do.’
‘Not like you think it is, Rock.’
‘We’ll see, eh?’ He gestured she sit down in the single armchair, swung the sofa round to face her. His features hardened at her long sigh. This better be good.
Chapter forty-three
Words not enough to express what they felt, Jay and Bron, on moving into their apartment. Just grins and sweet disbelief as they went slowly from room to room, a mansion to their eyes of 49, call it 50 square metres of carpeted living, tiled kitchen and bathroom.
Furnished as part of the rent package, beyond anything of first-hand experience to compare. Their dusty work clothes soon felt a violation of this spring-cleaned place, and they looked at each other, glanced at the bathroom door — who’d be first in the shower? Fighting back childish giggling, like they’d won second prize in Lotto. But they’d earned it. From having jobs laying reinforcing steel on a big building site. Work was hard, money excellent — habit of work took some getting used to, but. Over nine hundred a week in the hand soon built up the savings in their first-ever bank accounts. Needed to as they had to pay two weeks’ rent as bond and two weeks in advance of the $550 weekly rental, plus a week for the letting agent.
Both over to the big lounge window with a fifth-floor view of suburbia, ten-thousand tiled roofs and streets set out like giant, swollen punctuation marks, cars and people like different-sized insects going hither and thither. And in here walls painted matt-finish cream, kitchen gleaming with stainless-steel appliances and a bench that looked exactly like stone, but when you got up close and touched it, couldn’t be.