Currawong Creek
Page 8
It was a rough road to Merriang. The landscape grew wilder and hilly. A pair of eagles spiralled high in the sky, causing her to slow down and crane her neck for a better view. The scattering of gum trees lining their way turned, at times, into light patches of forest: Myall, Cyprus and Wilga. She slowed right down to negotiate a deep floodway, one of dozens that crossed the road. Clare was thankful that Jack and Samson slept through it. She wanted time to herself, time to think about seeing her grandfather again. How would he look, she wondered, after all this time? Her memory was of a lean, tanned man with smiling eyes. An old man. He’d only been fifty-five. She didn’t have a clue what he might look like at seventy. It frightened her to think of him as aged and frail.
Soon the Bunya Mountains loomed in the windscreen. They rose abruptly from the surrounding flood plain, dominating the landscape. Someone stirred in the back seat. Clare glanced behind to see Jack yawning, eyes still sleepy. She pulled the car well off the road, and let the pair of them loose. Samson bounded about in circles and Jack chased him, or sometimes vice versa. A simple game, but one of which they never seemed to tire. Clare smiled. It suited her well enough. All she had to do was sit on a tree stump and watch. It really was astounding how good Samson was with Jack. The dog seemed to have in mind an invisible safety zone, outside of which the boy was not allowed to stray. If he tried, Samson lured him back with engaging moves, bowing low on his forelegs, tail raised and wagging – an irresistible invitation to play. Sometimes he used his body to physically shepherd Jack home.
Clare extracted her phone from her pocket. Two thirty. They’d be there by three. It was perfect timing. Jack was usually on his best behaviour just after a sleep. Though Jack’s golden time, for what it was worth, wouldn’t last long. They’d better get a move on. With Samson’s help, she bundled Jack back in the car. She tried calling Grandad again, but had to leave a message. Oh well. She’d see him in person, soon enough. Her foot was heavy on the throttle, as they flew through the little town of Merriang. Past the general store, the pub, the post office. Not far now.
The road to her grandfather’s place was officially and inexplicably named Railway Station Road. Inexplicably, because the nearest railway was eighty kilometres away. Grandad had removed the sign long ago, together with one labelling the road a scenic route. The last thing I need are a bunch of bloody tourists taking pictures, he’d said. Grandad replaced the old sign with his own, renaming the road to Currawong Clydesdale Way. And that’s how it had stayed. On a few occasions, shire council workers had reinstalled the correct sign, but it had received short shrift. And now, all these years later, it was still Clydesdale Way that she turned the car into.
The road aimed them straight at Bunya’s peaks. The view of them left her mouth dry and her body breathless. Clare shrugged off the irrational, mounting fear that she wouldn’t be able to find Currawong, that she might not recognise the driveway. That she’d have to turn around and go home. She had no idea why this thought unsettled her so. It had been such a long time. She had every excuse, sixteen years of excuses. But to miss the turnoff would be like saying her childhood hadn’t mattered, like saying the happy times weren’t worth remembering. Only the dreadful days after Mum left.
Clare shivered. She hadn’t expected the visit to affect her this deeply. It was turning a self-possessed, professional woman into someone she didn’t recognise and wasn’t sure she liked. Of course she’d know the turnoff. What could have possibly changed, way out here?
Chapter 9
Sure enough, twin bunya pines still grew either side of the gateway. Clare was sick with anticipation. Jack began to yell. ‘Almost there,’ she said. Samson whined at the sound of her voice, a voice strained, and thick with emotion. The Sunshine gates were closed. The same Currawong Creek sign still hung on the rail, with the same weathered image of a draft horse etched into its timbers. Beside it however, hung two new signs. One read Merriang Veterinary Surgery. That was different – and a disagreeable reminder that time hadn’t stood still.
The second sign, however, was much more troubling. A yellow triangle proclaimed Warning Notice in bold red letters. It went on to say All Common Law Rights to Enter are Expressly Withdrawn. Admittance by Invitation Only to all Persons and Entities. Otherwise Trespass Applies. The last bit was the most disturbing of all HCA 1991 171 CLR 635 F.C. 91/004. Clare frowned. Why on earth would Grandad be citing a Full Bench decision of the High Court on his gatepost? It was bizarre.
Clare opened the gates and drove in, drinking in the view. Framed by the dramatic backdrop of the Bunya Mountains, the old farmhouse still looked like something from a pioneer movie. Things may have grown a little more dilapidated. The fences more sagging, the road more rutted than she remembered. But this was, without doubt, the cherished holiday home of her childhood. There was Grandma’s garden . . . and the cart shed . . . and the training paddock, its driving course still marked out with rusty four-gallon drums. Jack spotted a pair of Clydesdales dozing in the yards beside the shed. He squealed and banged on the car window. More horses grazed beyond the yards, on the green pine-sprinkled slopes that rose towards the mountains. Here was something Clare hadn’t remembered – Currawong’s breathtaking beauty.
A little choke caught in Clare’s throat, as an aristocratic pair of Dalmatians trotted down the drive to meet them. Pongo and Perdita? No, of course not. The playmates of her youth would be long gone. It wasn’t them. But Clare was delighted by that sweet, foolish notion. ‘Shut up, Samson.’ He was barking in her ear, his attention fixed on a row of three ugly demountable rooms, perched in a paddock to the left. They looked like they’d accidentally fallen off a truck and someone would be back for them in a minute. Impermanent. A roughly graded square of gravel lay out the front. A battered jeep was parked there. A homemade sign, with a lonely looking crow sitting on top, rather grandly pronounced this to be the Merriang Veterinary Clinic Client Car Park.
It would be nicer to walk up to the house – let the dogs all get to know each other on the way. Clare parked beside the jeep under the shade of a Coolabah tree, a tree she remembered climbing with Ryan when it wasn’t so tall. Compared to her weedy car-park specimen back in Brisbane, this Coolabah was in robust good health. Tall and spreading, its shimmering canopy fragrant with the scent of eucalyptus. She climbed from the car and stretched muscles grown stiff from the long drive. A Clydesdale in an adjoining paddock raised its head from the fresh grass and nickered to her. Then it plodded across to hang its massive neck over the fence for a pat. Clare walked over and gingerly stroked its broad, white blaze. She hadn’t touched a horse since that last day at the farm, all those years ago. Clare pressed her face to its nose. She’d read that people loved or hated certain smells, not because of aroma alone but because of the context in which they’d first encountered them. She was sure she loved the old-fashioned scent of lavender because it reminded her of Grandma’s garden. Clare breathed in the horse’s familiar, comforting smell and knew she’d come home.
Samson was barking louder now.
‘Sorry,’ Clare called. ‘I’m coming.’ She turned around. Jack’s little hand was waving out the window. The Dalmatians were standing by the car, noses raised, curiously sniffing the air. They looked friendly enough. It was the other dog that bothered her. A big blue heeler, crouched between her and the car. Where the hell had it come from? She made eye contact with the dog, and a rumbling growl rose in its throat. Samson stopped barking and the Dalmatians turned around, as if to watch the show. The dog dropped down on its belly, like a lion about to launch an attack. ‘Good boy,’ she said, trying to smile. ‘Good dog.’ Did its hackles rise, or was it her imagination?
Clare didn’t like heelers. One had bitten her last year, launching itself from the darkness one night when she was walking with Adam. It had ripped through jeans, through skin, through muscle and left her lame for weeks. That dog looked like this one. According to Helga, some dogs perceived eye contact as a challenge. Clare wrenched her gaze away a
nd waited a moment. When she looked back at the dog, it commando-crawled closer, and growled louder. Clare screamed. A small scream, true – not much more than a squeal, but it was enough to set the dog off. It rushed at her, barking wildly, tail lashing from side to side.
Clare climbed the tree. She didn’t quite know how she did it. One minute she was standing on the ground, rigid with fear. Next minute she was astride a broad branch, peering down like a possum, with the heeler leaping and snapping below. There was no risk of falling. She was wrapped around that trunk so tight it was like she was welded on. Getting down, on the other hand, might present some problems.
Clare let go with one hand, and explored a pocket for her phone. As she withdrew it, a bull ant crawled over her fingers. She screamed again, a proper scream this time, flung her arm out, propelling the ant and her brand new iPhone into mid-air. She groaned, watched it spin in the sunlight, then plummet to the ground. She tried to judge where it landed. There, near that stick. Its sparkly case, studded with tiny Swarovski crystals, glinted in the light. Thank goodness for that case. A present from Adam. Hand-stitched, Tuscan leather, with a waterproof, polycarbonate core, designed for extreme impact protection. His taste for high-end goods had certainly paid off this time.
The heeler stopped its insane barking, turned around . . . sniffed the ground. Clare held her breath. Maybe it was leaving? No, it seemed instead to be searching for something, scratching around in the leaf litter. A horrible thought struck her. Please no. Please not her phone. Then he had it. Damn Adam! Damn his glittery leather case, which had turned her new iPhone into a highly visible chew toy. The dog picked it up and trotted back to the base of the tree. He lay down, tail wagging. ‘Drop it,’ yelled Clare. ‘Drop it, you stupid dog.’ Then a sickening crunching sound. The heeler dropped the phone, and redoubled his efforts to snatch her from her perch. The Dalmatians trotted to the base of the tree. They joined in the chorus, and Samson too, all barking at the top of their lungs. Clare looked hopefully at the modest little clinic. If anybody was inside, they were bound to hear the racket. ‘Help,’ she shouted. ‘Help . . . help.’
A man’s head appeared out of a small window. ‘Red,’ he yelled, barely making himself heard above the commotion. ‘Get here.’ The heeler spun around and galloped off towards the office, its feet raising tiny plumes of dust. Clare took a gulp of air and, in so doing, almost lost her balance. The Dalmatians kept on barking, but their hearts didn’t seem to be in it any more. She could hear Jack yelling, and see his hand waving out the partly open window like a pale, fluttering bird. Any minute now the man would come out. What would she say? She must look pretty silly, sitting halfway up a tree. No, she mustn’t think like that. The heeler belonged to the person in the building, that much was obvious. He’d left a vicious dog at large . . . let it rush a visitor. When the other heeler had bitten her, she’d been unable to identify the dog or its owner. This time would be different. This time, the owner would have to take responsibility for his negligence.
Where was he, anyway? Why hadn’t he come straight out? The Dalmatians gave up and trotted back up the drive to the house. Not much chance of Grandad hearing her. He’d been a bit deaf even when she was a child. Clare looked down at the ground and tried to assess just how high up she really was. How the hell had she climbed so far? Must be four metres at least. She’d break a leg or worse if she tried to climb down. There was nothing for it but to wait for the idiot in the office. Would he have a ladder? He’d need a ladder to get her down. Probably not much call for one in a vet clinic. He’d have to go up to the house and borrow one. The sting of impending tears pricked the back of her eyes, her nose. Clare sniffed them back. This was not how she’d wanted to meet Grandad.
Clare waited and waited. She had no way of telling the time, but she could feel she’d been up there a while. Every now and then a loud thud came from the demountable. Or an occasional shout. What the hell was happening in there? Jack had settled into a harsh singsong wail. He rocked in rhythm with his own cries, slamming his seat back and forth. Thank god the car was in the shade. He wouldn’t be too hot. Would he?
Clare had promised Taylor to keep Jack safe. Taylor didn’t know about the promise, of course, but that didn’t matter. Clare had made it just the same, and she always kept her promises. It was a habit she’d cultivated, to differentiate herself from her mother. Her mother’s promises were like autumn leaves – bright and beautiful in the beginning, but they faded to nothing in the end. Just a rotting mess to be trodden underfoot or swept away. Clare’s promises weren’t like that. Or were they? She’d hauled Jack out to the middle of nowhere and left him stranded in a car. That wasn’t keeping him safe.
Beads of sweat formed on Clare’s forehead. She wiped them away with the back of her hand and squinted into the blinding sunshine. No more yelling or barking came from the car now. It was disturbingly quiet. Each second seemed to take an hour. To play a waiting game in this heat was to play a very dangerous game indeed. Clare manoeuvred herself into a new position. A precarious position, but she might be able to reach the next branch with her foot. She looked down again. Not so much of a branch, really. More of a twig. It was curious how the branches she’d scaled in panic on her way up looked far too flimsy to bear her load on the way down.
Clare took a deep breath. Hugging the trunk, she lowered her body, extended her right leg and fumbled for a foothold. Clare wasn’t much of a physical risk-taker. She’d made some brilliant gambles in court and they’d paid off. But they were always carefully calculated. And they didn’t pose actual risk to life or limb. And Clare didn’t like heights either. She didn’t bungy jump or parachute or hang glide. The older she grew, the more cautious she’d become. But the urgency of Jack’s need outweighed her fear. Her foot found purchase and she gingerly lowered her weight onto the branch below. So far so good. The bough felt sturdy enough underfoot.
Clare found herself standing a metre closer to the ground than before. She sized up the next branch with more confidence and steeled herself to step off, to make that leap of faith. It was then she felt the tickle on her wrist. A spider the size of a saucer crawled onto her forearm. Clare willed herself to hang on regardless, but it was no use. Her reflexes weren’t listening to her brain, and suddenly she was hurtling towards the ground. She closed her eyes.
She landed hard. The momentum of the fall slammed her head forward into a stump. It hurt. All the wind was knocked out of her. She fought for air, fought against the suffocating horror of empty lungs. Blood ran from her nose and lip. Clare could taste it on her tongue. When she could breathe again, she struggled to her feet and stumbled to the car. She wrenched open the doors and stood panting and apologising to Jack and Samson. For once, the dog didn’t erupt from the car in an explosion of energy. He just looked at her with those deep brown eyes, his velvet brow wrinkled in concern. Jack too, was uncharacteristically quiet, large-eyed and staring. Heat exhaustion perhaps?
Then Clare caught her reflection in the car window. Her blood-smeared face. Her tangled hair and intense, wild eyes. So that was it. They were scared of her. Clare tried to smile, but it hurt her face. She smoothed her hair into some sort of order, combed out leaves and twigs with her fingers. A small spider abseiled from her forehead to her nose on a thread of silk. She cast it away with a flick of her fingers. Jack opened his eyes a little wider. Was she shaking? Clare steadied herself, though her legs felt like straw and tried the smile again. ‘It’s all right,’ she said. ‘I’m here now.’ It seemed to work. Samson’s ears relaxed and Jack gave a familiar protest yell. The dog’s huge tongue swept over the boy’s face and he burst into laughter. Good, they were okay.
Clare wasn’t so sure about herself. Her ankle ached. She’d skinned her hands and knees. She had a fat lip. Was her nose broken? She pinched it gently and wiggled it a little, but she couldn’t tell. The last time she’d felt this sore was after falling off a bolting Smudge in this very paddock. For some reason, the thought cheered her up.
Clare stalked towards the clinic, Jack and Sampson romping along after her. She spread her arms in a protective gesture designed to keep them behind her, and took hold of Samson’s trailing lead. The heeler was still around somewhere, and the thought scared the hell out of her. Only the strength of her outrage made her bold enough to open the door. An urgent voice sang out. ‘Quick, get in here – and close the door after you.’ Just as she suspected. The heeler must be outside somewhere, ready to attack. She grabbed Jack by the hand and pushed inside, slamming the door behind her.
An extraordinary sight confronted her. Waiting room chairs lay scattered and upturned. Shelves stood dragged away from walls, their contents spilled to the floor. No wonder the man hadn’t come to her aid. He was struggling in the corner, wrestling with a snake – a python, to judge by its enormous size. The creature’s length was wrapped around his body. ‘Grab its tail,’ he yelled. ‘Grab its tail!’
Was he mad? Clare stood statue still, trying to make sense of the scene. But before she could manage it, Jack had darted forward and wrapped both hands around the snake’s twitching tail.
‘That’s right,’ said the man, who Clare guessed was the vet. ‘Now hang on while I get his front.’ He dived for the reptile’s head, which had escaped his hold and was snaking out towards the window ledge. Its purple tongue flicked in and out, tasting the air. Samson started barking. Clare tied him to a cupboard and wished she could do the same to Jack.