by John Marsden
‘Don’t worry, it’s been broken since I got my first dummy. Dad was always going to fix it.’
‘I’ll have a look at it after.’
He took the last of the peanut cookies from the jar on the table and ate it slowly, a nibble at a time. I watched him, thinking, ‘Another trace of my mother gone. There won’t be any more peanut cookies.’
Fi said to Homer, ‘Ellie’s thinking the guys who did this might have been after her family in particular. Or her. Targeting people who did the most damage during the war.’
‘It’s possible,’ Homer said, straight away.
I suddenly had the feeling they’d had this conversation already, out of my hearing. Maybe at the funeral. Maybe by phone. ‘What you think?’ I asked Homer.
‘General Finley thinks most of them just target places at random, looking for stuff to steal.’
‘Oh! General Finley! He sent the nicest flowers.’
General Finley was the New Zealand officer who organised some of our ‘guerilla’ stuff during the war. He was pretty important in the Army. I thought of him as a friend, even though we hadn’t spent a lot of time together.
‘Huh,’ Fi said. ‘You remember his flowers, but you don’t even remember me being there.’
Homer said: ‘Well, according to General Finley, there’s been a pattern of killings, groups coming across the border in search of whatever they can find. And he reckons the media only report about a quarter of the cases.’
‘So the rumours were true. I knew I should have listened to them.’ I gazed at Homer, trying to process all this information. ‘You’ve been talking to the General?’
‘Only by phone. But we’ve had a couple of long conversations. Plus his son’s here.’
‘His son? Here in Wirrawee? You’re kidding!’
‘He is in Wirrawee at the moment. But he’s been living in Stratton, and going to school there. His mother lives in Stratton — she’s Australian, but she and the General are divorced.’
‘How old is he?’
‘About our age. I’ve been talking to him too. Good bloke. Got a bit of common sense. You could take him fox-shooting and be pretty certain you wouldn’t get a bullet up your bum.’
Coming from Homer, this was high praise.
‘So why aren’t they doing anything about these raids? How come soldiers can just come over the border any time they want and kill anyone they want?’
Homer tapped a fork on the edge of the table and gazed out the window, frowning. ‘I suppose it comes down to politics in the long run,’ he said. ‘These guys who killed your parents and Mrs Mac. You just called them soldiers, and we all know they are soldiers, everyone knows that, but how do you prove it? They don’t wear uniforms, they don’t carry any papers ID’ing them as military, and every time there’s one of these raids their government says they’re very sorry but they can’t be responsible for criminal elements who take the law into their own hands. I mean, they say all the right things. They even say they’ll track them down and bring them to justice but funnily enough they never seem able to do it.’
He leaned back on the chair. I thought that at any moment we’d have another one broken. ‘Ellie, I don’t know how you’re going to feel about this, but the truth is that it’s too dangerous to let you stay here anymore. We think you should sell the place and move into town. Somewhere safe. General Finley thinks so too.’
Trust Homer to choose words that were bound to stir me up and get the opposite result to the one he wanted. He did that every time. I blamed his Greekishness. He had to be the boss. Well, stuff that for a joke. I had to be the boss.
‘ Let me stay here!’ I exploded. ‘Since when do you decide whether you’re going to let me stay here or not?’
He pushed the chair back about a metre. Gavin retreated towards the pantry. Fi stayed where she was but she kept her head down.
‘That’s the trouble with you, Homer, you think everything on this goddamn planet should be under your control. That no-one should eat breathe sleep or shit unless it’s with your permission. You know how long my family’s been here? You know what we’ve been through to keep this place? Homer, my family’s eaten dirt and dug dams with their bare hands to keep it going. You think I’m going to walk out on it now, after my parents died to defend it? I tell you what, Homer, I’m not quitting. I’m here to stay.’
‘Go Ellie!’ Gavin yelled.
I looked at him in astonishment. How could he have lip-read all of that?
‘Have you got the slightest idea what we’re talking about?’ I asked him.
‘Sure,’ he replied straight away. ‘Homer wants you to quit the farm and you’re saying “No way”.’
I shook my head. I never could work out how Gavin understood so much of what was going on, but he had his ways. Maybe he had an aerial on his head, buried in his thick mop of hair.
‘What do you think we should do?’ I asked him.
Since my parents got killed, no-one had mentioned the problem of Gavin. I hadn’t thought much about it myself. There’d been no time for that. Everything was still too fresh, too raw, too recent. Was I going to be left to look after him myself? In this new world, even that was possible. There were so many orphans, so many homeless kids. If there was a scale that gave a ‘one’ to kids living in dumpsters and a ‘ten’ to the Brady Bunch, Gavin still rated a three or a four with just me to take care of him, no parents of his own, and my mum and dad, his foster-parents, killed in a massacre.
‘Stay here,’ he said promptly.
‘But it’s dangerous,’ I said.
‘Life’s dangerous,’ he said, with a funny little shrug of his shoulders.
It was a breath-stopping moment. I realised how much I underestimated Gavin sometimes. It was too easy to forget that this boy, with nothing but the strength of his personality, had not only survived many months of the war in the ruins of Stratton but had held together a group of other feral kids under his leadership. He was something special.
‘Well,’ I said to Homer and Fi, ‘you heard him.’
Fi looked distressed, Homer grumpy. They both began talking at once, in urgent voices. ‘Ellie, you’ve got to listen to reason — ’ Homer started saying. ‘Ellie, you might want to think about this a bit longer — ’ Fi said.
For the first time since the death of my parents I felt real strength. ‘No,’ I said. ‘I’m staying right here. I don’t care what I do. If I have to fight I’ll fight. Don’t you understand? You two, of all people?’ I felt like I didn’t need to shout anymore. I was certain now. ‘Homer, Fi, my roots go as deep into this earth as any old redgum. That creek down there is my life’s blood. These paddocks, I know them like I know my own skin. I can take you to the jumper ant nest in Nellie’s, I can show you where the lichen on the southern side of the fenceposts is red and the eastern side is yellow. You know that gully over there beyond the shearing shed? Those willows in it are the ones my grandfather planted to stop the soil erosion. I know where the pink fingers flower and the coral-peas, and the sundews, and I know how to make them catch crumbs of bread.’
‘The flowers?’ Fi said, looking startled, but I wasn’t going to let her interrupt me. I could hear that I was talking wildly but I couldn’t shut up.
‘I know the kind of moo a calf makes when it’s got bracken poisoning. I know the cow whose udder looks good but whose milk is poor. I know the way Romneys graze differently to Polwarths. I can tell you how many bags of seed potatoes you need to the acre. Dammit, I can castrate lambs with my teeth.’
Gavin jumped away fast, holding his hands to his crotch. We all laughed then. Once again I had no idea how he followed such a long speech. Lip-reading is seriously hard! But he sure had understood that last sentence.
At least he’d broken the mood. We started talking more sensibly. And I began to realise just how serious the problems were. Fi spelt it out. ‘Look,’ she said, ‘I don’t know anything about farming. But if I’ve got it right, you’re planning to keep going w
ith school, keep running the property on your own, and somehow keep yourself and Gavin safe from guerillas who might come roaming through the countryside. And as if all that’s not enough, you’ve got to try to cope with the death of your parents and Mrs Mac. It’s a pretty tough order, Ellie. I mean, I can stay a while, like I said, because we’ve only got a week of term left, and then two weeks holidays, but after that my parents’ll probably want me back. And I don’t know how much use I’m going to be to you anyway. I can hardly tell the difference between a cow and a sheep.’
‘You’d soon find out if you tried to castrate a calf with your teeth,’ I said.
CHAPTER 4
I wandered lonely as a cloud along the escarpment overlooking the house. I’d wanted to bury my parents up here, but the priest said it would break twenty-seven different laws and then some. So now they were in the old cemetery behind St Matthew’s. I thought of their cold damaged bodies lying in that cold ground and shuddered. I’d been there a few times and put flowers on the grave and done all that stuff. I’d hoped I’d have some mystical experience when I was there, feel their spirits, hear them talking to me, get a bit of advice about the price I should ask for the twenty steers, or at least get a sense of peace, whatever, but so far I’d been sadly disappointed. I didn’t feel anything. Just devastated and depressed, and I could feel that anywhere. Didn’t need to go to the cemetery for it.
Gavin hated going there. The first time he’d come as far as the gate and the other times he wouldn’t even get out of the car.
I wondered how long it would take Gavin to realise that I’d snuck out the back door and come up this hill. He was more than ever my little shadow these days. I understood why. I was his last link to security, his last hope of a relatively normal life. I understood that but it didn’t necessarily make it easier to bear. A lot of the time it didn’t bother me, but sometimes it was just too much, too relentless, too suffocating, every sentence starting with the words ‘I want’, and I’d turn on him and, snap, ‘Leave me alone! Give me a break! Go find something else to do.’
Then sooner or later — usually sooner — I’d be racked by guilt and start imagining Gavin scarred for life and how it was all my fault. Sometimes even that wasn’t enough to send me looking for him to make it up to him though. And I think he was pretty scarred anyway.
I sat on a rock with my arms around my knees and gazed at the farm. I could see Fi’s window, with the curtain drawn. She’d still be in bed. Talk about slack. She’d never make a farmer, even if she did eventually learn the difference between a sheep and a cow.
I was actually up on the escarpment because I was trying to come to terms with the idea that I wouldn’t be a farmer for long myself. Yesterday I’d had an interview with Mr Sayle. He was a lawyer in Wirrawee. I didn’t know him very well. Fi’s mother used to do our legal work but when she moved to the city Dad had to find someone new, and he chose Mr Sayle.
I’d had a message asking me to see him, so off I’d gone, like a good Ellie. I left Gavin in the Wirrawee Library, which to his disgust was so crowded that they’d closed the waiting list for the computers, and I’d gone into Mr Sayle’s office, across the road.
My first shock was to find that his receptionist was Mrs Samuels, who used to deliver the mail to our place and various other farms. More importantly, she was the one who’d recognised me in a prison camp during the war. As a result she had caused me huge problems. I’d been in Camp 23 under a false name, knowing that if the guards found out my true identity, I’d be tied to the front of a missile launcher while enemy soldiers queued up to press the ‘Fire’ button.
Mrs Samuels hadn’t meant any harm but she’d nearly cost me my life, by accidentally yelling out my real name. Since the war she’d been embarrassed every time she saw me so our conversations tended to be short and sweet. It was the same with this one.
‘Hi, Mrs Samuels.’
‘Oh, Ellie! Hi. Hi. Lovely to see you. Mr Sayle won’t be long.’
Red-faced she went back to her desk, hunching over a knitting pattern book like it was the Dead Sea Scrolls.
‘OK, thanks.’
I was relieved to be able to sit down and pick up a very old Bulletin magazine, from before the war, and start reading that.
Mr Sayle didn’t look like a solicitor, more like a bulldozer driver. He was big, filling the doorway, and dressed in clothes that could have been made by King Gee, even if he did wear a tie. He was balding, with a few strands of hair carefully plastered across the big bald area. He didn’t even look at me.
‘Mrs Samuels, call the Council, will you, and see what’s happening about the planning application. You’re Ellie. Come in, Ellie.’
I was glad he’d told me who I was. It’s always a relief to know who you are.
Three minutes after I’d started the conversation with him the door opened a few centimetres and Gavin slipped in. That’s what I mean about having a shadow.
Mr Sayle just ignored him and within the next few minutes I pretty much forgot he was there. Mr Sayle seemed like a nice enough guy, but he didn’t muck around. First he explained that he was the executor for my parents’ estate, then he explained what that meant, and then he told me that under my parents’ wills I was the sole heir.
Then he told me I was bankrupt. Broke. No money. He wasn’t quite that tactless, but he was blunt.
‘Ellie, I’ve been through the books, and talked to the bank, and I’m afraid your financial position is very poor indeed. Beyond recovery, I have to say. As you know, a lot of savings were lost during the war, and the government is still negotiating to get some of that money back, but I think it would be unrealistic to put much faith in that. So once the war finished, your father had to start from a position of virtually no funds, and in the meantime he entered into a number of financial obligations that assumed there would be a long-term improvement in his situation.’
Gavin yawned and stretched and pressed against me. Mr Sayle riffled through the papers in his folder.
‘Those obligations included a loan from the bank, to establish a poultry business. That loan was secured by a mortgage on the property. Then there was a second loan, secured by mortgaging various goods and chattels, to purchase cattle, and as well as those commitments to the bank, he entered into three leases totalling a thousand dollars a week with parties whom I gather had been granted pieces of land from your original property.’
He glanced at me from over the top of his reading glasses. ‘Yeah, that’s right,’ I said, feeling a little dizzy. I hadn’t realised the rents Dad agreed to pay those people were so high. No wonder he’d seemed stressed. No wonder he was always complaining about money. ‘What’s a mortgage?’ I asked. I’d heard the word often enough but I’d never bothered to find out what it meant.
‘It means that if you can’t pay back a loan, you hand over some property instead,’ he said. ‘In your case the agreement was that the farm, the part of it you still own, would be given to the bank if the money could not be repaid.’
My head seemed to ring as though I had concussion. I sat there gaping at him. ‘You’re saying I might lose the land and the house?’ I asked. ‘Everything?’
‘I’m saying you will lose it, yes. That’s exactly what I’m saying.’
He glanced at me again and when I didn’t reply he kept talking from his notes.
‘Now, I gather the principal assets consist of the land with improvements, including the main house, machinery shed, shearing shed and various other outbuildings, three motor vehicles, two tractors, an ATV, three motorbikes, one in poor condition, approximately sixty head of cattle, and sundry other livestock, tools, and equipment. As well, there’s just under eight thousand dollars in various bank accounts, and a small portfolio of shares, which at this stage do not have much value, as a result of the war. We can’t factor them into the equation but they may eventually prove to be worth something again.’
He looked up, and waited for me to speak.
‘What’s he
saying?’ Gavin asked me. He was kneeling on the coffee table, virtually in my lap now, looking intently into my face. He’d sensed the tension in me, and at the same time he’d obviously decided Mr Sayle was too much of a challenge to lip-read. If he wanted to keep up to the mark he’d have to rely on me.
‘He’s saying we’ve got no money,’ I said bitterly. ‘He’s saying we’re going to lose the farm and everything. That we’ll have to find somewhere else to live.’
‘Believe me, Ellie,’ Mr Sayle said, ‘I am very unhappy about this. I’ve looked at the figures from every direction, and thought and thought about how we can achieve a better result. But there’s nothing else for it, I’m afraid. And you won’t be left with nothing, not by any means. Land is in great demand, although unfortunately there’s not much money around to pay for it.’
‘So how much money would I get?’ I asked, forcing the words out.
Gavin gave an angry sob and shook me by the shoulders when I said it.
‘Well, the valuer has given me a rough estimate and he thinks the property should fetch around four hundred and fifty thousand dollars. The various vehicles and equipment, probably eighty to a hundred thousand dollars. The cattle, a hundred and eighty thousand.’
It sounded like a lot to me. But it was hard to concentrate, with Gavin clutching me and gazing up into my face, trying to pick up every word I said.
‘So, say seven hundred and twenty thousand when we add in the money in the bank accounts. Out of that have to come various expenses associated with the winding up of the estate, including the funerals and my costs, the repayments to the bank, the costs and penalties involved with the premature termination of the leases, the costs of advertising and selling the property and chattels. So after all that there should still be about a hundred and sixty thousand which will come to you.’
He beamed at me. ‘Not a bad outcome really.’
‘That’s easy for you to say.’
He wiped the smile off his face immediately. It was like a screensaver disappearing.