Winter

by John Marsden

  Also by John Marsden

  So Much to Tell You

  The Journey

  The Great Gatenby

  Staying Alive in Year 5

  Out of Time

  Letters from the Inside

  Take My Word for It

  Looking for Trouble

  Tomorrow . . . (Ed.)

  Cool School

  Creep Street

  Checkers

  For Weddings and a Funeral (Ed.)

  This I Believe (Ed.)

  Dear Miffy

  Prayer for the 21st Century

  Everything I Know About Writing

  Secret Men’s Business

  The Rabbits

  Norton’s Hut

  Marsden on Marsden

  Winter

  The Tomorrow Series

  Tomorrow, When the War Began

  The Dead of the Night

  The Third Day, the Frost

  Darkness, Be My Friend

  Burning for Revenge

  The Night is for Hunting

  The Other Side of Dawn

  WINTER

  JOHN MARSDEN

  Pan Macmillan Australia

  John Marsden’s website can be visited at: http://www.macmillan.com.au/pma/marsden

  First published 2000 in Macmillan by Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Limited St Martins Tower,

  31 Market Street, Sydney

  Copyright © Graywood Crest Pty Ltd 2000

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.

  National Library of Australia

  cataloguing-in-publication data:

  Marsden, John, 1950–.

  Winter.

  ISBN: 978-1-74334-613-6

  1. Winter – Fiction. I. Title.

  A823.3

  Typeset in 12.5/14.5 pt Sabon by Post Pre-press Group Printed in Australia by Griffin Press

  The characters and events in this book are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  These electronic editions published in 2000 by Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Ltd

  1 Market Street, Sydney 2000

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  All rights reserved. This publication (or any part of it) may not be reproduced or transmitted, copied, stored, distributed or otherwise made available by any person or entity (including Google, Amazon or similar organisations), in any form (electronic, digital, optical, mechanical) or by any means (photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise) without prior written permission from the publisher.

  EPUB format 978-1-74334-613-6

  Winter

  John Marsden

  Macmillan Digital Australia www.macmillandigital.com.au

  Visit www.panmacmillan.com.au to read more about all our books and to buy both print and ebooks online. You will also find features, author interviews and news of any author events.

  To Callie Stephen, wishing you many happy endings

  CONTENTS

  ALSO BY JOHN MARSDEN

  TITLE PAGE

  COPYRIGHT

  DEDICATION

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER ONE

  I came home when I was sixteen.

  Ralph picked me up at the station.

  It was a high step into the Range Rover. It looked like Ralph had cleaned out the front by chucking all his stuff over the seat. It was a mess back there, a jumble of jackets and tools and wire, a chain saw and an oil drum.

  At first I thought Ralph was the same as he’d been in Canberra, but as we passed the 80k sign on our way out of Christie, I started to realise he was nervous.

  Nervous of me, I mean.

  For one thing he was talking too much. The more people talk at me, the more silent I get. Maybe that’s one reason I make some people nervous. They don’t know what I’m thinking when I go quiet.

  What would the Robinsons have told Ralph about me? I could guess some of it. ‘Wilful. Headstrong. Won’t take no for an answer. Wants her own way all the time.’

  Knowing them, they’d probably have gone further. ‘Never thinks of others. Spoiled and selfish. I know it’s not a nice thing to say, but . . . ’

  I sighed and leaned back, closing my eyes. How come you can’t escape people’s voices, even when you’ve left them for good? I thought I’d got rid of the Robinsons, but there they were again, in my ears. The trouble was, this time they were coming at me from the inside instead of the outside. It was worse.

  We left the flat country, the paddocks of nothing, the barbed-wire fences running like stitches on bare skin. Gradually we started winding up into the hills. The turn-off to Warriewood was on a sharp bend. We swung right, onto the dirt, and drove down less than a kilometre to the front gate.

  I so wanted this moment to be profound. I wanted to stand at the gate and drink it all in, gazing at the stone pillars and the spaces for the coach lamps, at the long drive lined with rhododendrons and hydrangeas. I wanted to see what had been just wisps in my mind, and bring the vague dreams and memories back to life.

  Ralph didn’t hesitate though; he turned into the driveway with one easy swing of the steering wheel. We passed the homestead and the barn and the little yellow cottage where Grandma used to live, and went on up to the manager’s house. It all happened so quickly that we were there before I had time to notice anything.

  Sylvia came out of the house, wiping her hands on a tea towel. ‘Well, well, well,’ she said. ‘Here you are, back again. After all this time. I wouldn’t have known you. I would have walked past you in the street.’

  Sylvia was trying to be cosy and friendly but lukewarm was the best she could do. Ralph was softer than Sylvia.

  ‘Come in,’ she said. ‘I’ve put the kettle on. But I don’t know, are you a tea or coffee drinker? Or would you rather have cordial? I have to keep cordial in the house for Ralph. He’s got such a sweet tooth.’

  At their front door I stopped. I suddenly felt that if I went in there I’d never come out again. Not literally of course. I mean, they weren’t going to murder me. But if I started off going straight into their house, their territory, I’d be trapped. I felt I had to start strongly, more strongly than this.

  I didn’t feel strong. The train trip had taken nine hours, with the change at Exley, and I hadn’t slept for more than a couple of minutes. But I called up all the energy I could find. I felt my fists clench.

  ‘No thanks. I want to go and look at the homestead first.’

  ‘Oh you don’t want to do that. Not after such a long journey. There’ll be time to explore later.’

  She was already turning to go inside the house, assuming I was following. From behind me Ralph added: ‘A cup of tea’s what you want.’

  I felt the pressure. It was like a tractor pushing from behind, and a tow truck pulling from in front.

  ‘No,’ I said. I spat it out. Not only my fists were clenched now, but my teeth as well. ‘
No. I’m going to look at the homestead.’

  They both stopped, like I’d sworn at them. Sylvia couldn’t meet my eyes. I’d acted in such a bad-mannered bad-tempered way that they were embarrassed for me. My face was hot.

  ‘Well,’ Sylvia said. ‘Of course, if that’s what you want.’

  She looked over my head at Ralph and a message seemed to flicker between them.

  ‘I’ll go with you,’ Ralph said from behind.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘I want to go on my own.’

  I knew the strength had ebbed out of my voice. My words sounded weak, even to me.

  ‘I’ll have to come,’ Ralph said. ‘The keys are hidden by the woodshed. You’ll need me to show you where they are.’

  He’d won the first set, but at least I’d got it to a tiebreaker. In spite of that I felt like a little child as I followed him meekly down the hill. It was nearly six o’clock, and not much daylight left. We crossed a stone bridge over a small dam. Above me was a wisteria, just bare brown branches now. To my right a blackberry snaked along the bridge, looking for another patch of soft accommodating soil where it could put down roots. To the left the water was black with mud or decayed leaves, I wasn’t sure which. A single white Muscovy duck sat on a log, looking at me with friendly interest. I hoped it was friendly anyway. I felt like nothing here could be taken on trust.

  We turned right and walked down the slope, under the avenue of elms to the homestead. Although no-one had painted it in a long time, the white was strong enough to stand out. Apart from the white walls and green roof, it was just like the photograph, the one that had sat on my dressing table all these years.

  But with Ralph right beside me I couldn’t feel anything. No, that’s not true, I felt a lot. But I couldn’t show a hint of it to him, and because I couldn’t trust myself to hide it I couldn’t let myself feel it. I set my mouth in a hard line and waited as he scrabbled among the firewood before pulling out a bunch of old keys.

  ‘Here we go,’ he said.

  Because Ralph had been so friendly at the station, I didn’t say what I wanted to: ‘Get out. I have to do this on my own.’ The best I could manage was ‘I’ll be OK on my own’, but he ignored that. I’m not sure if he heard it even.

  I felt a little sick as we approached the house. The main door into the homestead is kind of the back door, because it gives the easiest access to the woodboxes and the laundry, the sheds and the paddocks. The official front door opens onto a nice wide verandah but it’s a steep walk up the hill to get to it. There’s a white gravel path and a set of steps if you’re coming that way.

  We stepped onto the back verandah. There were pools of water all the way along and I nearly put my foot through a rotting floorboard. Ralph was sorting through the keys and didn’t seem to notice.

  ‘How long since anyone lived here?’ I asked him.

  He gave me a startled glance. ‘No-one since you,’ he said.

  He seemed so surprised I didn’t know that. I was angry I didn’t know it, didn’t know nearly enough. That’s the trouble with stuff that happens when you’re little. People assume you know it but most of the time you don’t.

  I was glad no-one had lived here though. I didn’t want it desecrated. Better to have it fall down than that.

  And falling down seemed like quite a possibility. As Ralph fumbled to find a key that would fit the lock, I had time to look around. It was no wonder there were pools of water along the verandah, because half the weatherboards above me were sagging, and strands of ivy were growing through a few. The paint on the wall had blistered and peeled away. I felt cold. I pushed my hands up my jumper and hunched my shoulders, trying to stop whatever warmth was in me from leaving my body.

  Ralph got the door open and went in.

  I guess I was in the mood to be aggravated, and nothing that day aggravated me as much as Ralph going in ahead of me. My house, my home, and Ralph went first.

  Maybe it was good in one way, because it gave me the courage and determination to do what I wanted to do.

  I followed him in, still hugging myself.

  It didn’t smell too bad, that was one good thing. It was musty but I’d been preparing myself for worse, so I didn’t mind it much. The carpet looked OK, and the place seemed dry.

  Ralph was standing in the middle of the first room, looking at me to see how I’d react. I made my face even stonier, and ignored him. The room was narrow but ran the width of the house. It had no furniture.

  ‘This was the sunroom,’ Ralph said. ‘Your father added this back section. They used it as a breakfast room, I think.’

  I nodded. I had only a vague memory of it.

  I walked past Ralph and on into the next room. This was the kitchen, and as soon as I came through the door I got a rush of images so fast that they spilled over each other. It was like a train wreck in my mind. I stood there, confused. I wanted to grab at each memory so as not to lose it, but I was worried that as I grabbed at one the next would rush past and be gone. I felt like the monkey with his paw in the jar, so greedy to seize a handful of peanuts that he can’t get his arm out, and is caught by the hunters who’ve left the jar as a trap. In my handful of memories was the whooshing noise of a fire in the chimney, and a smell of popcorn, and my mother—or someone—making me fairy bread with a face of chocolate bits. I remembered getting in trouble for trying to eat a firelighter, and burning myself when I tipped over a coffee mug, and watching a mouse writhing in a trap and feeling distressed to see it.

  Flavours, smells, colours, cold food and hot food, meals and snacks and drinks . . . my mind wasn’t so much like a handful of memories as a smorgasbord. I hardly noticed that the kitchen, like the sunroom, was bare and empty. There was a fuel stove, and a gas range, but nothing else.

  I walked from room to room, Ralph tagging behind. The sitting room and dining room jogged nothing in my memory, but when we got to the bedrooms something started to happen. In the main one I had a vivid image of a big old bed—oak, I think—and a lot of big heavy furniture that all matched. And a soft soft eiderdown with a cover of purple flowers.

  I turned to Ralph. ‘What’s happened to the furniture?’

  He looked uncomfortable. ‘Oh, well … you know how it is, it gradually went, piece by piece. Borer, for instance. Then, water got through the roof in a few places, wrecked some bits.’

  I didn’t say anything, just went on into the small bedroom in the right-hand corner of the homestead. I knew where I was now. The light-blue walls still had the feeling of a spring sky, even if they were faded and worn. My bed had been in the middle, with a view of the palm tree out the front window and the hedge with little red flowers to the right. There’d been a chest of drawers in the corner between the two windows, and against the wall a wardrobe that backed onto the corridor. My teddies and dolls and soft toys had lived on top of the chest of drawers—the dolls that didn’t fit into the bed, anyway.

  I glanced at the wall behind me, the corner beside the door. My heart gave a little jump, like it had sneezed. In a plain old gold frame was a picture of a dark hill and crescent moon, viewed as if through an open window. Under the picture was a poem that I knew by heart.

  Sweet be thy sleep, my guest,

  Peace come to thee, and rest,

  Throughout all the quiet night,

  And with the morning light,

  Awake thee and rise refreshed.

  Funny, as the words echoed through my mind it was not my own voice I was hearing. Someone was reading the words to me. Who? I wondered. It was a woman’s voice, soft and calm. My mother’s? That I didn’t know. And I would never know.

  We went through the front door and stood on the verandah. Away to the west the sun was dropping like a rock. A fiery volcanic rock.

  Ralph cleared his throat. ‘Well, time we were getting back,’ he said in a low voice.

  Suddenly I knew I could never sleep in their house, the way they’d arranged. Astonished at the words I heard coming from my mouth, I said: �
��I’m going to sleep here tonight.’

  CHAPTER TWO

  Tea with Ralph and Sylvia was sulky and unpleasant. I felt sorry for Sylvia in one way, because she’d gone to a lot of trouble to make a special meal. Pumpkin and chilli soup, lamb cutlets on rice, with a potato and turnip mixture in a baking dish. The potato and turnip didn’t really seem to go with the lamb and rice, but what would I know? I’m no food expert.

  I got through most of my soup because, face it, no matter how bad you feel you can usually pour soup down your throat. Plus I quite like stuff with chilli. I ate the rice and about two mouthfuls of lamb. I mean, I’m not a full-on vegetarian, but I don’t eat much meat, and only then if I’m in the mood. I hate turnips.

  I might have got away with just that little amount, but Sylvia produced a raspberry cheese-cake, and I knew my stomach would revolt if I tried to shove that down. So I said no, as politely as I could, and Sylvia pushed back her chair, threw down her spoon, and stormed into the kitchen.

  I sat there feeling awful. My face was as hot as a fuel stove, and I knew my bottom lip had the shakes, and if I tried to say anything the tears quivering in my eyes would break free and run down my cheeks.

  I couldn’t take any more. The argument when I said I wanted to sleep in the homestead had taken too much out of me.

  When you’re a teenager, if you want something badly enough and you’re prepared to go to any lengths to get it, you can pretty much always win. I’d learned that with the Robinsons, and I’d learned it at school. The tantrums I’d chucked with the Robinsons were full-on. Like, Hell’s Angels meets the Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras. Like, a Rugby League Grand Final. I was embarrassed when I thought about them. Ashamed even. But in the end I got what I wanted. I was back here. Back home. On my own. And I was out of school.