Dust of the Land

by J. H. Fletcher

  He shook his head; he had never heard of it, either. It made the news even more terrible, that Colin should have died in a place of which neither of them had heard.

  ‘It’ll hit Garth hard,’ Syd said. ‘Tell him I’m sorry, eh.’

  After he had gone she took the empty teacup into the house and put it in the sink. The house seemed twice as empty as a quarter of an hour ago. She walked into Colin’s room, looked at the few books, a photograph of his mother on the shelf. A piece of pink crystal. A penknife and other odds and ends: not much to show for twenty-five years of life.

  And now someone or something had killed him. In Lae. A place of which she had never heard.

  How do I tell his father? she thought. How do I comfort him?

  Garth came home three days later. It had been hard going but they had brought in three hundred head and he was in good spirits. Until he saw her expression.

  ‘What is it, Duchess?’

  Silently she held out the open telegram. He took in what it was and she saw the blood leave his face.

  He read it and let it drop to the floor. For a minute he stood in silence, shoulders hunched, staring at nothing, then turned abruptly and went out of the house. Bella almost went after him but at the last moment did not. She was there for him, would give him whatever comfort she could, but until he turned to her… She had come to love him, she believed, which made it doubly hard to do nothing, but this was something Garth must deal with himself.

  She watched him through the window. He walked like a blind man, groping, then disappeared into the shed where they kept their spare harness. Blue, his heeler-cross and the only dog truly personal to him, came around the corner of the shed and went in after him. She wondered how dogs could sense these things but hoped with all her heart that the animal would be able to provide the man with some measure of comfort.

  Garth stayed in the shed for the rest of the day and all that night. Bella was beginning to wonder whether she should go to him, after all, when he emerged and came back to the house. He was calm but the news had aged him and for the first time Bella saw what he would look like when he was truly old.

  He looked at her silently. She did not speak but went and put her arms around him. He did not reject her, neither did he respond. He stood. Presently he said:

  ‘I think we might squeeze in one more muster before the Wet.’

  ‘May I come with you?’

  ‘I was hoping you would.’

  ‘The man who died…’ In accordance with custom, Maisie did not speak Colin’s name. ‘You got a shirt you can let us have?’

  Bella looked at her: wrinkled, black and old.

  ‘Why do you want it?’

  ‘You’ll see.’

  That night the Miranda Downs people came to pay their respects. The whole camp, men, women and children, sat in a half-circle on the ground in front of the house. Bella watched through the window as they placed the shirt on the ground and lay on it, one by one, before returning to their circle.

  ‘What are they doing?’

  ‘Custom,’ Garth told her. ‘If he had died here they would lie on the body, showing they wished they could bring it back to life.’ He sighed. ‘I had better get out there.’

  ‘Should I come, too?’

  ‘You stay here.’

  She obeyed because of the gravity of the ceremony and the fear that she might inadvertently damage it in some way. She knew that much knowledge of their beliefs and customs would always be denied her because she was a woman, or outside the kinship system, but insofar as it was possible she was resolved that this would be last time she would be shut out from whatever it was permitted for her to see.

  Garth went out and sat with them as they buried the shirt in the dirt. Afterwards they placed the cut branches of trees in a circle around the spot, to signify that Colin had died as a warrior. A little later, without sound or ceremony, they went away.

  Respect had been paid.

  Two days later they rode out. Everyone in the district knew about Colin; even O’Malley had ridden over to pay his respects. Garth barely spoke. To begin with the team took their lead from him and for the first two days were uncharacteristically quiet, hardly a word between the lot of them. The dogs foraged as always; the cattle were as full of fire. Dust clouds, gold-glinting in the spring sunlight, rolled across them as they wrestled recalcitrant bulls to the ground, branding irons were heated and thrust home in an acrid stink of burnt hair and hide, and the ground shook with the thunder of stampeding hooves, yet for those first days the muster had more the feeling of a wake than a round-up.

  That is what it is, Bella thought: the affirmation of the life and future of Miranda Downs, which Colin would have inherited. Now Colin was gone yet the land, with its dust and droughts, violent downpours and floods, its times of coolness and breathless heat, was eternal, as life was eternal. That was what this unscheduled muster was about: the reaffirmation of life in the face of tragedy, the refusal, always, to admit defeat. And she knew that slowly, as perhaps Garth had foreseen, the land would reassert its power. The sense of loss would never disappear but now the first shock was past it became easier to bear and, by the time they returned to the station, things – at least on the surface – were more or less back to normal.

  ‘And we gave ourselves another two hundred and fifty head,’ Garth said. ‘A bonus!’

  It wasn’t much, perhaps, but a start. And in the awakening of new hope Bella did something she had not dared do for the eight days of the muster: she went to her husband, put her arms around him as she had when he had first received the news, and kissed him.

  He had been smiling as he watched Blue roll in the dust to celebrate his return home. Now his smile faded and he kissed her in return. ‘Dear Bella. You are a true wonder to me. I dunno where I’d be without you.’

  ‘I love you,’ she said.

  Her smile was radiant, because it was true. She had married him out of desire and a need for security, knowing no other way to guarantee her future in this place she had come to love. They had been married almost four years, and they had been good years. He had satisfied her physically; she had been able to put her stamp on the house and perhaps the property; she had become able to think of it truly as her home: but Garth – this belligerent, piratical man of furies and unexpected tenderness – had remained her friend and partner, a companion of whom she had been fond, but no more. Now she realised that the tragedy had changed that, that what had been expedient had become sincere, that artifice had become reality, that in sharing her husband’s suffering she had discovered a new depth to their relationship, a truth and beauty whose existence she had never before suspected, containing in its heart a promise of fulfilment beyond anything she had imagined.

  Two weeks later Miranda Downs had an unexpected visitor.

  Billy Gould was one of the first outsiders to use the new road. He did not come into the house but stood and talked to Garth for ten minutes before heading out again.

  Garth came indoors and threw himself down in an easy chair.

  The homestead was vastly different from what it had been when Bella had first arrived. The concrete floor had been covered with pine planking, stripped and pegged to fit snugly around the walls and then polished. In one of the sheds she had discovered a side table that had belonged to Garth’s father and that she suspected might be a real antique: even Chippendale, perhaps, like much of the furniture at Ripon Grange. This table, glossy with polish, now had pride of place against the wall facing the entrance. There were curtains in the windows and pictures on the walls. Much remained to be done but it was now at least half-civilised. As Bella said, the fact that they lived in the bush did not mean they had to live in a tip.

  Garth never said much but didn’t object, either, which Bella knew was probably as close to approval as she would get.

  Now she looked at him. ‘What did he want?’

  ‘You should have come out to speak to him,’ Garth said. ‘He’s close to being f
amily, after all.’

  ‘I was busy.’

  Billy Gould was certainly not family but an enemy who without provocation had tried to destroy her marriage.

  ‘He came to say how sorry he was to hear the news about Colin,’ Garth said.

  ‘He drove all this way to tell you that?’

  ‘He said he knew we hadn’t always seen eye to eye in the past. He said he was sorry for it.’

  ‘He tried to ruin our marriage.’

  ‘Forgive and forget,’ Garth said. ‘What’s the point in having enemies?’

  Bella was not in the business of forgiving or forgetting.

  ‘Hold your friends close but your enemies closer,’ she quoted. ‘He came for a reason.’

  ‘Because of Colin’s death.’

  ‘Another reason.’

  Billy Gould, she told herself, was a man to watch.

  There were times when Garth fell silent, and once she surprised him sitting quietly on the bed in what had been Colin’s room.

  ‘You all right?’

  ‘I’m fine,’ he told her, although his expression told a different story.

  On the whole, though, he came to terms with it pretty well. It hit Bella, too: harder than she would have expected. Colin had never been a mate but his death had left her diminished, all the same. She felt such sorrow for a young life cruelly extinguished – for Garth – even for herself. No man is an island… How true that old saying was.

  She walked around the horse paddock, up and down the landing strip, but found no consolation. War, she thought. How can men be so foolish?

  It was in those dark days that she found a friend.

  Old Maisie, who had asked her for one of Colin’s shirts, had been born in the Pilbara, as had her ancestors for thousands of years. She was illiterate and her eyes contained all the sorrow and wisdom of the world. She said little but held Bella in her skinny arms until Bella’s sense of futility and loss turned slowly to acceptance.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  It was August 1944 and Bella was reading the paper when Garth came into the house.

  ‘Anything interesting?’

  ‘Mostly stuff about the war.’

  ‘Spare me.’

  These days the war news was uniformly good but by now everyone was sick of the endless bloodshed, wanted only to hear that it was over at last.

  ‘There is one interesting item, though. It says Doug Galloway is closing his meatworks.’

  Garth scratched his chin; they had dealt with Galloway’s, strategically located on the Wyndham waterfront, for years. ‘I don’t like the sound of that. If it closes, the Wyndham works will have a monopoly. That’ll push down prices, for sure. Does it say why they’re closing?’

  ‘He’s seventy next month and has no one to leave it to.’

  Because Doug’s son Angus had been another victim of the war.

  ‘What’ll happen to his workers?’ Bella wondered.

  ‘They’ll have to make the best of it, like us,’ Garth said. ‘Could be a good little business for the right bloke, though.’

  Bella watched through the window where Winifred, the tame wallaby that the year before she had rescued from her dead mother’s pouch, was playing a violent game of pounce with Mitch. ‘I sometimes wonder how those two don’t kill each other,’ she said.

  ‘Talking of Wyndham,’ Garth said, ‘I’ve a list of things I need for the workshop, next time you go in.’

  ‘I’ll go tomorrow,’ Bella said. ‘I need to buy stuff for the kitchen, anyway.’

  Restricted by rationing, she did what shopping she could; restricted by supply shortages, she bought Garth’s appliances for him; she went to see the accountant who handled their tax assessments; and she paid her regular monthly visit to the bank. Finally, after one more visit, she drove home.

  Garth was hammering away in the workshop. She did not want to disturb him so waited until he had come in and washed the muck off his hands before she sat him down at the kitchen table with a cup of tea and a large envelope full of papers.

  He looked at the envelope, then at her. ‘What you got there?’

  ‘Galloway’s accounts for the last three years.’

  ‘Galloway’s accounts… What are you up to, Duchess?’

  ‘I’ve spoken to the accountant and the bank manager,’ she said. ‘I’ve been to see Doug Galloway at the meatworks.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘It occurred to me,’ she said, smiling sweetly at her lord and master, ‘that you might want to put in an offer for Galloway’s business. Only if you think it’s a good idea, of course.’

  ‘I don’t know anything about running a meatworks. Neither do you.’

  ‘Doug’s foreman has been with him twenty years. He knows everything there is to know about it. Most of the others are longtime workers, as well.’

  ‘Doug Galloway’s a tough old bastard,’ Garth said. ‘He’ll want an arm and a leg for that plant.’

  ‘I know what he wants,’ Bella said.

  Garth stared. ‘You mean he told you?’

  ‘Of course he didn’t tell me.’

  ‘Then how can you possibly know –?’

  ‘He’s an old man, alone in the world. His wife’s dead; his son’s dead. He wants out. He’s put out a few feelers, the accountant says, but no one’s interested, the market being what it is.’

  ‘So why should we get involved?’

  ‘Because once this war is over meat prices will go through the roof. Everywhere people are starving, Garth! And we can afford it, which the majority can’t.’

  ‘We can afford it, you say?’ Garth smiled ironically. ‘How did you work that out?’

  ‘Own the works, we get our beef processed for nothing. That’s a massive saving, right there.’

  Garth was willing to listen, which was more than he would have done once, but Bella knew she still had to cosy up to him if she wanted him to agree.

  ‘When you first mentioned it, I thought it was a brilliant idea,’ she said. ‘So, as I was going to town anyway, I thought I might as well poke around, see what I could find out. It’s your plan,’ she said earnestly. ‘I wouldn’t dream of interfering, but I thought it wouldn’t hurt to make some enquiries.’ She gave him an anxious look. ‘I hope that was all right?’

  ‘My plan? Where did you get that idea?’

  ‘Oh yes, Garth, it was definitely your plan. I remember you saying what a good business it would be, for the right bloke.’

  He went to interrupt but she put her finger to his lips.

  ‘Your very words, Garth! A good business for the right bloke. I would never have thought of it, but when you said that, I thought how right you were –’

  ‘Spare me your nonsense,’ Garth said. ‘It never entered my head and you know it.’

  ‘But now that it has,’ Bella said, ‘what do you think about it?’

  ‘I think we should forget all about it and stick to what we know.’

  Such a demure smile! ‘Whatever you say, dear,’ Bella said.

  That night, as they lay side by side in bed, Bella flopped on to her side, then back again. She sighed.

  ‘Are you restless?’ Garth asked.

  ‘I was just thinking…’

  ‘Thinking what?’

  ‘What you would consider a fair price for the meatworks.’

  It was Garth’s turn to sigh. ‘I haven’t given it a thought, girl.’

  ‘Because, if someone else bought it, might we not end up having to pay more to have our animals slaughtered? Instead of getting them done for nothing?’

  ‘I also think it might be a good idea to sleep on it,’ Garth said.

  ‘You’re right,’ she said, smiling in the darkness. ‘As always.’

  Having set the hook, Bella slept.

  The next day, with the early morning sun puddling the ground outside the window, she found Garth studying the copies of Galloway’s balance sheets on the kitchen table. She said nothing but busied herself getting breakfast
with Mary, the young Aboriginal woman who gave her a hand about the house.

  ‘You say he definitely wants to sell up?’ Garth said, chewing on his morning steak.

  ‘I only know what it said in the paper. Plus what he told me, of course.’

  ‘But you think –’

  ‘He wants out? Yes, Garth, I do.’

  ‘If it was your decision, what would you offer him?’

  She was shocked. ‘It’s not my decision. It’s yours.’

  ‘I said if. Theoretically speaking?’

  ‘I’d pay him a lump sum for the buildings and equipment – not much, mind – and a lifetime annuity, based on last year’s results.’

  ‘Last year’s figures are way down.’

  ‘I know,’ Bella said.

  Half-frown, half-smile, as he studied her across the breakfast table. Bella nibbled a piece of toast.

  ‘I’m beginning to think I’ve underestimated you, all these years,’ Garth said.

  She agreed with him but knew better than say so. ‘I’ll be happy to give you moral support, but I think you should do the negotiations. Don’t you agree?’

  Garth looked uncertain: an unfamiliar look, for Garth.

  ‘Perhaps you’re right –’

  ‘What I could do,’ she said quickly, ‘is draw his fire, so to speak. If I talk to him first, we’ve always got a let-out, haven’t we? Because naturally I’ll need your okay on any agreement. He’ll expect that.’

  ‘Naturally it has to be my decision,’ he agreed. ‘But he’s not going to give it to us, is he? What do we use for money?

  ‘There’s my inheritance,’ Bella said.

  They talked first to the bank manager, then to Anderson the accountant. The plan had then been to go together to beard old Doug Galloway in his lair at the meatworks he had run for forty-seven years, but at the last minute Garth remembered a meeting he positively had to have with Mike Rogers the vet.

  ‘An hour?’ he said.

  ‘Should be ample. Then you can say yea or nay.’

  Bella walked into Galloway’s office.

  He gave her a keen-eyed look from beneath sandy eyebrows. ‘Your husband no’ with you?’

  ‘I’m so sorry. It was a last-minute thing, but he had to speak to the vet about something. He’ll be along later.’