Heart of the Valley

by Cathryn Hein

  She sniffed, feeling pathetic but comforted. ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Yeah. I’m the Chiang-man. The best, remember?’

  She laughed and he let her go. Sniffing, she wiped his jumper where she’d left tiny teardrops. ‘Yeah, you’re the best.’

  ‘Just not the best for you.’ From inside the float came the rattle of restless horses. Placing warm hands on her shoulders, he twirled her around and pushed her toward the truck cabin. ‘Time for you to get going.’ He stood by the door while she organised herself, no mischievous glint in his brown eyes, just sorrow. When the diesel engine cranked to life he rested his fingers on the window edge. ‘Drive carefully, and if you need me, call. I only have a few things to sort out here and I’ll be on the road behind you.’

  She covered his hand with hers. ‘We’ll talk later in the week, okay?’

  He smiled and winked, almost back to normal. ‘You can bet on it.’

  But his humour was a facade. As she manoeuvred onto the exit road, she checked the side mirror. Andrew stood watching her, hands thrust into pockets, shoulders slumped. A washed-out replica of the vibrant man she knew and loved. Hollowness lodged in her heart and stayed.

  Every kilometre she covered on the three-hour journey home seemed paved with guilt. It hung in her chest and anchored her bones, gritted her eyes and sweated her palms. By the time she reached the turnoff to Pitcorthie, eight kilometres from Kingston Downs, she felt shredded with exhaustion.

  But home approached, and soon she’d be free to wallow in its comfort. No matter what went on in her life, she could always rely on Kingston Downs to make her happy. Home, her boys and the constancy of the Hunter Valley’s magnificent landscape. A girl didn’t need much more.

  She smiled to herself. It’d be all right. They’d make it all right. Relaxed for the first time since she left the showgrounds, she glanced down for the radio volume knob, hoping for some cheery music, before returning her focus to the road.

  The stray bullock burst into her vision like a creature from a nightmare. It stood in the middle of the road, dumb face turned toward her headlights, thick grey body as huge and unmoving as a granite boulder.

  She didn’t have time to think. She simply acted. She hauled on the wheel, jerking it to the left, her foot slamming the brake. Too late, the truck’s headlights illuminated the concrete culvert and deep dips of the dry creek. Tyres locked, she pulled the opposite way but momentum hurtled her forward. The left tyre hit the concrete and exploded. The front listed, skidding the truck over the edge. Panicking, she yanked the wheel, released the brake and stomped on the accelerator, but the truck only kept tipping, forced forward by speed and the weight of the trailer behind. A terrifying screech pierced her ears.

  ‘No. No. No!’

  But she’d lost control of the vehicle. The wheel spun crazily in her hand, wrenching muscles. The truck pitched, crashing into the deep drain and dragging the trailer with it. Airbags exploded around Brooke’s head and side, trapping her in place.

  Somewhere in the darkness, an animal began to scream.

  Two

  The thick Sydney traffic moved like a trail of brightly coloured slumberous beetles in the weak July sun. Brooke clenched her fists around the steering wheel in frustration, and resigned herself to peak-hour hell. How stupid to think she could cut across town at this hour of the morning and sneak in a quick hello at Kingston Lodge before her father and eldest brother Angus disappeared to barrier trials at Warwick Farm. Now she was too late to catch them and would instead arrive early at her parents’ Bondi Junction house, and while she adored her mother, lately things had been tense between them. She let out a ragged breath. Who was she kidding? Since the accident things had been tense with all her family, and were getting worse.

  As the exit to Anzac Parade neared, she contemplated heading to Randwick and the stables anyway, but quickly dismissed the idea. She’d only run into Mark, and she’d had enough of her brother’s smug inquiries. One more comment about her ‘little problem’ and she’d be likely to thump him. Mark wasn’t her favourite at the best of times – they’d never been close, not even as children – but she borderline hated him at the moment. A feeling Brooke suspected was quite mutual. Although why he should hold her failing so against her she couldn’t fathom.

  She couldn’t drive the float any more. Not since the accident. She hadn’t told anyone, not even Andrew or Chloe, about the nightmares, of her hands covered in Oddy’s blood, his rasped cries of agony shattering her insides like smashing crystal. Even four months after the accident she still heard him. That noise like no other. Of pain, of panic. Then worse, the gradual quietening as his blood flooded the side of the gooseneck, soaking her clothes, staining her skin forever like a dark-scarlet tattoo.

  No one knew the extent of her distress and she wasn’t about to reveal it. Certainly not to her family and definitely not to that shrink Mark suggested Brooke visit last time they’d spoken. She’d make it through this on her own. All she needed was time, the sanctuary of Kingston Downs, and her horses.

  She slid off the eastern distributor and wove her way through the streets, finally reversing her dark-blue Land Cruiser into a parking space only a few houses away from her parents’ terrace. Theirs was a modest house – two storeys and a converted attic, with a tiny courtyard. A small home for three energetic children to grow up in, but they’d always regarded the stables and the farm as their playgrounds. Bondi Junction was where they ate, slept and were forced to do homework, and by the time Brooke reached her teens, she barely considered it home. That title belonged to Kingston Downs, where, in the days before her pop’s arthritis forced Brooke’s grandparents to warmer climes, they had farmed and coddled the yard’s spelling racehorses and embraced her delightedly against their warm hearts.

  Her mother answered her knock, wafting a perfume of turpentine, and for once looking less than immaculate in a paint-splotched T-shirt and jeans, her glossy dark brunette hair caught up in a loosening knot. She wore no makeup, and her skin radiated good health and a rigorous beauty regime. For a woman who’d turned fifty less than a year ago, she had the appearance of one much younger, with only a few fine lines around her mouth and eyes betraying the progress of time. Her soft brown eyes, so like Brooke’s, widened before she broke into a delighted smile.

  ‘Brookie!’ Slender arms wrapped around Brooke as her mother squeezed her tight and planted a firm kiss on her cheek. ‘You’re early. I wasn’t expecting you for another hour at least.’ Ariel released her to look at her properly, tut-tutting and shaking her head in mock dismay as she took in Brooke’s clothes – a too-loose pair of jeans with mud around the cuffs, grubby boots, a horsehair-covered wind-cheater, and hair tied up even more messily than her mother’s.

  ‘I had hopes of beating the traffic and calling in to the yard to catch Dad.’

  Her mother’s perfect eyebrows shot up. ‘At peak hour?’

  Brooke shrugged and gave a wry look. ‘Sod made me late.’ Not to mention furious. The rotten horse had thrown one of his temper tantrums while being led to his day paddock and had escaped to the farthest reaches of Kingston Downs where he’d pranced about in the early-morning darkness, nose haughtily in the air, refusing to be caught. Brooke was so angry with him it took a good hour of the three-and-a-half-hour trip to Sydney and a full playing of her favourite band’s latest album for her to calm down.

  ‘Ahh,’ replied her mother, understanding. She stood aside to let Brooke inside. ‘Still no improvement?’

  ‘He’s getting better. Today was just a bad day.’

  Ariel touched Brooke’s shoulder as she deposited her overnight bag on the polished timber floor. ‘And you?’

  Brooke kept her expression carefully neutral. ‘Fine.’

  ‘Are you —’

  ‘I’m fine, Mum. Honest.’

  Brooke forced herself to act bright, although the urge to walk straight back out the door was huge. Her mother, like everyone else, was only being kind, although
it was this overwhelming kindness causing the rattiness between them. Brooke hated it. The weakness it implied made her teeth grind.

  Needing calm, she surreptitiously pressed the middle finger of her right hand into the crease of her left inner wrist and counted to three as she rubbed. She’d learned the anxiety treatment technique from an acupressure site on the internet and found it sometimes helped.

  ‘So what are you working on?’

  Ariel shook her head, as protective as always about what the family referred to as ‘Mum’s little hobby’. ‘Nothing important.’

  ‘Come on. Show me.’ Brooke nudged her playfully. ‘Go on. You know you want to.’

  Ariel released an exasperated sigh. ‘Oh, all right.’ She held up a finger. ‘But you’re not to laugh.’

  Brooke slapped two hands over her heart. ‘I promise I won’t.’

  She followed her mother into the kitchen, past walls covered lovingly in photographs of family and horses. The Kingstons at the races, at the stables and the farm. The three children as babies, crawling on grandparents, horses and dogs. Brooke’s father, Christopher, with his first Group One winner and the horse that made his name, Gallant Raider. Brooke aged seven on her hairy black pony Rascal, grin bursting across her face as a show judge wrapped a blue ribbon around the pony’s chubby neck.

  Noticing a new picture, she paused to inspect it. The candid image caught them all in the courtyard at Kingston Lodge. Brooke stood with her eldest brother, Angus, both slender, leggy, brown-haired and brown-eyed like their mother. His hand was on her hair, ruffling it even messier as she tried to tickle his stomach. Beside them, but slightly apart, amused but not laughing as they were, stood her other brother, Mark, dressed as he almost invariably was in a suit, tie perfectly knotted, hair cut brutally short to disguise his natural wayward curls. Their parents were also laughing, but not at Brooke and Angus. Their eyes were focused on each other, soft with adoration.

  ‘Who took this?’ she called out to her mother, who’d walked on. ‘I don’t remember it.’

  Ariel returned to her side. ‘Dennis,’ she said, referring to their farrier. ‘It was back in March, before your —’ She halted and cast Brooke a sympathetic look, ‘accident’ hanging unsaid and gallows-like between them. ‘When you came down for your father’s birthday. Dennis had bought a new camera and was testing it out, and snapped this. We thought he was only photographing the horses but apparently he was madly snapping away at everything. It’s good, isn’t it?’

  Brooke nodded, her pleasure in the photograph ruined. The inference that they’d been happy then, as opposed to now, post-accident, made her insides feel like lead.

  Sensing her anguish, her mother touched her hand. ‘Come on. Let’s inspect my latest creation. But remember, no laughing.’

  Sucking in a breath, once more feigning brightness, she nodded and continued her journey to the rear of the house, past the kitchen and open dining area, immaculate and tastefully decorated. Her mother favoured natural tones and textures. The walls were off-white, the furniture pale timber, the kitchen appliances burnished stainless steel. Colour came from strategically placed vases and knick-knacks – a delicate bronze figurine in the centre of the dining table, a red and gold Murano glass serving platter bought on a holiday to Venice, a glossy-leaved potted ficus in the corner, and a pair of Ariel’s landscapes on the far dining-room wall. The effect was modern, light and, despite the pale tones, warm.

  Brooke stepped through a set of stained-timber French doors and onto the covered deck that comprised half the terrace’s tiny backyard. A canvas the size of three A4 sheets balanced on a timber easel, washed by light streaming through the deck’s strip of Laserlite roofing. Nearby stood a timber and scrolled-iron stool and matching table, upon which a large wooden box lay open. Tubes of paint in various stages of use were clustered inside, while the lid held a rag and a palette knife. Brooke sniffed appreciatively, conjuring a long-forgotten scent of childhood. A time when her mother was less involved in the yard and had more leisure to indulge her hobby.

  As Ariel hovered, Brooke stood in front of the easel and studied the painting, a frown on her face as she contemplated the thick brushstrokes and built-up paint. She took a step back, the frown fading as she saw what her mother had done. A colourful crowd, restless and excited, stood impatiently on the lawn at Royal Rand-wick. The people were indistinct, without faces and with abstract bodies, but their tension radiated from the canvas, almost melting the cleverly slathered layers of paint. She could sense the crane of their necks, the tight clutch of their race books, their excited chatter. In front, cantering past, were several glossy brown slicks of horses, daubs of colour crouched on their backs. It was the most alive painting Brooke had ever seen. A condensation of drama. Thoroughbred racing made real in art.

  She turned to her mother in amazement. ‘It’s incredible.’

  ‘You like it?’

  ‘Like it?’ Brooke shook her head. ‘You don’t like paintings like this, Mum. You fall in love with them.’ She stared back at the scene, mesmerised. ‘It makes me feel like I’m there, on race day. I can almost hear the crowd.’

  She looked up. A bright pink flush of pleasure rose up Ariel’s neck and cheeks. Her mother’s lips were forced together as though holding in a sob, and her normally dewy milk-chocolate eyes appeared dewier than ever.

  Her mother took a shaky breath. ‘Thank you. That’s quite the nicest thing you could say.’

  ‘I could say it because it’s true.’ Brooke stared back at the painting, still astonished it came from her mother’s hand. ‘You’ve never done anything like this before. You used to always paint landscapes. Gum trees and things.’

  ‘I’m trying something different,’ said Ariel as she began packing up her paints. ‘I was feeling a bit jaded and an artist friend suggested I do something more animated. As I don’t know anything more animated than the races, that’s what I thought I’d try.’ She nodded at the canvas. ‘This is the sixth in the series.’

  ‘Can I see the others?’

  ‘Maybe later.’ Paints organised, she closed the lid of the box and held it out to Brooke. ‘Here, you take this and I’ll bring the rest. It’s time we made ourselves glamorous. I’ve a big day planned. Lots of lovely girlie indulgences.’

  Brooke wanted to groan at the thought of what she’d have to endure but her mother’s mood was too buoyant to spoil, and Ariel was right. A day indulging in silly girlie things and pampering might be just what she needed.

  But by lunchtime, Brooke wondered how she’d ever countenanced such a thought. Three solid hours at the hairdresser’s was too much for anyone, especially when the hairdresser made such a point of criticising Chloe’s work. As far as Brooke was concerned, Chloe was the best hairdresser there was, and no purse-lipped, nose-pierced scissor-wielder would ever convince her otherwise. Lucky they’d served glasses of champagne or she’d never have made it through the ordeal. Now she sat in one of the most exclusive restaurants in Sydney, with a postcard view of the glittering harbour, wishing she could scrape her newly manicured fingernails down her newly made-up face before setting to destroy her oh-so-perfect new chin-length bob. She felt like a fraud and more than a little freaky, no matter how many times her mother beamed at her and told her how gorgeous she looked.

  As for lunch, the food was proving impossible to enjoy because it seemed each time she put a fork to her mouth another besuited businessman stopped by their table to chat to Ariel and wallow in her charm, all under the pretence of asking about their horses. Brooke wondered why her mother didn’t tell the lot of them to bugger off and ring the yard instead. She would have.

  ‘I don’t know how you do it,’ Brooke grumbled as an admittedly good-looking, silver-haired banker type said goodbye, a giddy smile on his face. Ariel had not only rattled off the names and performances of the owner’s horses, but remembered his wife and child’s names too. The entire conversation achieved with perfect grace, as though nothing pleased her more than to
chat with such a delightful man.

  Ariel dabbed at her mouth with her napkin even though she’d barely touched her meal. ‘It’s my job.’

  ‘You do it well.’ And Brooke meant it. Her mother was an expert at placating even the most obnoxious of owners.

  Ariel eyed her. ‘You could too, you know.’

  ‘It’s not me, Mum. I don’t have the patience or the skill. Give me a difficult horse any day, but an owner?’ She feigned a shudder. ‘No thanks. Besides, I’m happy on the farm.’

  ‘But are you, Brookie? Are you really?’

  At her use of ‘Brookie’, an alarm clanged in Brooke’s head. That was twice she’d used it – first on her arrival at the terrace and now. Her family only ever used that nickname when bad news was on the horizon. Dropping her hands under the table, she shifted her finger to her inner wrist and pressed.

  One, two, three.

  ‘You all need to stop worrying. I’m fine.’

  And she was. Mostly.

  For a long, uncomfortable moment her mother focused sharp eyes on her daughter. Though Brooke tried to remain nonchalant, anxiety buzzed her insides. But then Ariel smiled tightly, picked up her cutlery and began pushing food around her plate, leaving Brooke to observe her anxiously, wondering what she suspected.

  God knew how much of herself Brooke had exposed. Too much if the ‘Brookie’ was anything to go by.

  Returning her hands to the table, Brooke placed her own cutlery carefully together and pressed at her mouth with the napkin, using the linen curtain to set her face to inscrutability. She dropped it by her plate and leaned forward, determined to act normal. To prove how well she was coping.

  ‘So what have you planned for us this afternoon?’

  Ariel gave up pushing food around, set her cutlery down and edged her plate away. ‘It’s a surprise.’

  Brooke’s mask slipped a little. Any more pampering and she’d scream. ‘What sort of surprise?’

  Ariel patted her hand. ‘A nice one. Do you want dessert or coffee?’