Where the River Runs

by Fleur McDonald

  Tom started to laugh, but Aria was still frowning as she said, ‘They fly in the air!’

  ‘You’re right! But they always have to land somewhere.’ He started to explain how flies caused maggots in the wet wool and, if left untreated, would burrow through the skin of the sheep until they died. But then he saw the look on her face and stopped. ‘Yeah, it sounds a bit yucky, doesn’t it? Anyway, we will have to watch them to make sure they stay healthy.’

  Looking around, he tried to think of something to change the subject. His mind was blank. ‘Ah.’ His eyes fell on the thermos he’d made before they’d left the house. ‘How about we have a cup of tea?’

  ‘Yes, please, I’m thirsty,’ Aria said.

  ‘Right, I’ve got a special spot in the creek up here, where we can go and sit. Jump back in the ute, love.’

  Tom went around to the driver’s side and got in, trying to get his bearings. He knew the picnic spot he and Pip used to go to when the kids were little was close by, but he couldn’t quite remember where it was. Again there was that fear. Fear he was going mad or losing his mind. This wasn’t the first time it’d happened.

  That first time, Tom had been droving a mob of sheep back to the paddock after crutching. Somehow he’d forgotten where the gates were in each paddock and had ended up driving them along the fences of the thousand-acre paddock, looking for an opening. When Cal had come to find him, it had been nearly dark and he’d been angry with himself. And embarrassed. But he’d covered up what had happened, telling Cal that the sheep had broken away and it had been hard to mob them all together again, with the terrain being so rocky and rough.

  He was pretty sure Cal hadn’t believed him.

  Then there was the time he’d been driving into Barker to pick up something from RuralCorp. He’d got halfway into town and forgotten what he was going in for. He hadn’t taken a list with him, so he’d had to call Cal on the two-way and ask. That could have been put down to having too much on his mind; after all, he could remember Pip telling him that if she forgot her shopping list when she went into town, she’d never remember to get everything on it. But there’d been something in the look Cal had given him when he’d returned home to Shandona that had made Tom feel as if there were more to the incident than just forgetting what was on the list.

  ‘Papa?’ Aria’s voice broke into his memories.

  ‘Yeah?’ The gumtrees all looked the same to him here. Think, Tom! he told himself.

  ‘Are we going?’

  ‘Sure are.’ He shoved the ute into gear. Somewhere a little voice inside his head told him it wouldn’t matter if he didn’t find the exact spot. Aria wouldn’t know because she’d never been there before.

  Ha! He scoffed at his thought process. That didn’t come into it! He would know. He would know if he wasn’t in the right place and he should know where the old picnic spot was. He wasn’t old or senile. Was he? When he’d looked in the mirror this morning, he’d got a fright at the number of grey hairs that had appeared from nowhere. Avoiding the mirror had become his speciality since Pip had died.

  Driving slowly along the edge of the creek, he looked for any familiar signs. What had been so special about the spot? Dale had liked to play in the old ruins near the edge of the creek and Chelsea had … The memory was just out of his reach. Tom squinted.

  ‘Come on,’ he coaxed himself. ‘Come on.’

  ‘What?’

  Tom glanced over at the little girl in the passenger’s seat. Dark eyes, dark hair … He must have spoken out loud. ‘Pardon,’ he automatically corrected her.

  ‘Papa?’

  ‘Aria.’ He breathed her name and tried to commit it to memory. ‘Aria.’ Somehow the murky haze lifted, and he realised that his granddaughter was looking at him strangely. ‘Well, bugger me dead,’ he said with a smile. ‘Look where I’m driving! Completely in the wrong direction. Now, how about we take a left here …’ He turned the steering wheel and took the ute along a different track. ‘If we wind our way along the edge of the creek for about two miles, I reckon, Aria, we’ll be in the right place.’

  As he drove, again he tried to bat down the fear. Why did these little blanks keep happening? What was wrong with him? Did he have a brain tumour? Didn’t you get headaches with a brain tumour? He hadn’t had any headaches.

  ‘Look, see those white birds high up in the tree?’ He began to tell her a story about the corellas and how one old bird used to fly higher than the others. It was the same story he had told his own kids at bedtime.

  ‘But why?’ she asked, craning her neck to see the birds.

  ‘Well, he thought if he flew higher he would see more. Get more grubs and insects. Birds have very good eyesight, you know. This old bird, he liked his food. And if he was higher than the others he could keep a watch for enemies as well. But there’s a really important lesson in this story, love,’ he told her. ‘Old bird forgot that even though he might see more from a higher spot, it would take him longer to get to the ground and the other birds could reach the grubs and insects before he did. So he grew old and skinny, because all the others were flying lower than he was. But he liked being high and feeling free. Slowly and slowly, he grew weaker and weaker, until finally he couldn’t fly higher anymore. It was then he realised that if he flew at the same height as all the other birds, then he would be able to get to food more easily.’

  Aria didn’t answer, only frowned and looked through the windscreen up at the sky, as if trying to see if there was one higher than the others.

  ‘Sometimes you need to do things the easy way,’ he said. ‘Be the same.’

  ‘Mum says being the same isn’t good.’

  ‘And look where that got her,’ he snapped before he could stop himself. He took a breath and pulled the ute to a halt. ‘Sorry, Aria, love, I didn’t mean that. And, yeah, your mum is right in some ways. Now, look, here we are. See that old ruin over there?’

  Aria nodded.

  ‘Well, that was built by my granddad. He was your great-great-granddad. His name was Baxter. He used it as a shepherd’s hut. Somewhere to sleep and eat when he was out watching the sheep or mustering.’

  ‘It’s falling down.’

  ‘Mmm, it has been for a while. It’s a good place to play. Do you think you could serve me a cup of tea in there?’

  A smile lit up Aria’s face. ‘Yes. I’m a very good tea pourer.’ She opened the ute door and slid out onto the ground, before walking unsteadily across the stony ground. ‘These trees are very tall, Papa!’ she called back to him.

  Tom reached into the back of the ute and grabbed the esky and thermos. ‘How tall do you think they are?’

  Aria stopped and looked up. He smiled as she almost tipped over backwards, trying to see their tops.

  ‘Maybe … as tall as the sky!’

  ‘Nearly, but not quite. Maybe about forty-five to fifty metres, but they live a very long time.’

  ‘How long?’

  ‘Sometimes five hundred years. That’s much longer than you and I.’ He could see her grappling to understand and realised it was a bit hard to explain. ‘Put it this way. These trees were here, looking just like they do now, when my granddad, Baxter, built this cottage.’ He pushed open the wooden door of the tiny two-roomed ruin and checked inside before letting Aria in. The roof had completely gone and some of the walls, which had been built with stones and mud, had started to crumble, but it was still an adventure for Aria.

  He sat himself down on some fallen stones and wiggled to get comfortable, while Aria unpacked the cups.

  ‘Papa?’

  ‘Hmm?’

  ‘It won’t open. Can you help?’ She held the thermos out to him.

  As he looked across at her a bubble of emotion welled in his chest and for some strange reason his eyes felt hot. He, Tom Taylor, didn’t cry! He hadn’t cried when Dale had died, and he hadn’t cried when he had stood alone next to Pip’s grave. How could one small action from a little girl have such an effect on him?

>   ‘Course I can,’ he said gruffly. Twisting the top, he handed it back, then watched Aria pour the tea and set out the food that Chelsea had made yesterday.

  When Tom had come in the previous afternoon, he’d stopped short at the smell permeating the house. For a moment he’d forgotten Pip was dead, because no one else made her beef stew the way she did. Turned out Chelsea had found Pip’s recipe book and they’d had all the ingredients. The red pot Pip had loved had been sitting on the stove bubbling, the way it had when she’d been alive. And on the bench a banana cake had been cooling. Aria had been standing on a stool, mixing the coffee icing to go on top.

  Banana cake had always been his favourite.

  Tom now realised he should’ve thanked Chelsea for cooking, rather than grunting at her as he walked through the kitchen. He hadn’t, however, been able to stop himself from pausing at the stove and lifting the lid. That’s when he’d had to leave the room. All the memories were pushing too close to the surface and he’d been frightened he might lose control.

  ‘Cheers, Papa!’ Aria raised her cup to him and, as he pulled away from his thoughts, he saw she’d eaten a piece of banana cake and still had icing on her lip.

  ‘Cheers, love. Here.’ He fossicked in his pocket and brought out his hankie before gently wiping her mouth.

  She smiled and looked around, and he followed her eyes. The sky was a vivid blue and occasionally a white corella flew into view. There was a very gentle breeze that made the leaves shift just enough to be audible, and the purple of the hills glowed under a brilliant sun.

  ‘This is fun,’ he said.

  ‘This is fun,’ she confirmed.

  ‘Mum, who’s my uncle?’ Aria asked as she was undressing for her bath.

  Chelsea stilled. She wasn’t sure how to answer; she had always promised herself she’d be truthful with Aria, no matter how painful or hard it was. ‘How did you hear about Dale?’ she asked, already knowing the answer. Her father must have said something.

  ‘Papa said you and my uncle liked twirling grass in your fingers.’

  Chelsea smiled at her use of words. She was obviously repeating exactly what Tom had said. ‘We did. Windmill grass it was called. We’d pretend it was the propeller from a plane and see how fast we could whizz it around.’

  Making a noise like a plane, Aria held out her arms like wings. ‘I’m going to visit my uncle. Zoom.’

  ‘I wish you could,’ Chelsea said, feeling her voice catch in her throat. ‘You can’t see him, honey. My brother, or your Uncle Dale, isn’t here anymore.’ She could hear the low hum of her father’s voice on the telephone.

  Aria looked at her quizzically. ‘Where is he?’

  Chelsea squatted down and looked her daughter in the eye while smoothing back her hair from her forehead. ‘He died. When he was very young.’

  ‘Oh.’

  Seeing that Aria was struggling with the concept, she explained, ‘Do you remember how we looked after Tori’s goldfish while she was away? And one morning we found it floating on top of the water? The fish died and we had to bury it, remember?’

  Aria nodded, a frown forming on her forehead. ‘And Tori was sad. She cried.’

  ‘That’s right. Well, that happened to Dale. Not floating on top of the water …’ Chelsea stopped. Trying to explain this was hard. ‘He died in an accident. Papa and Nan didn’t cope with his death very well. It’s hard for them … for Papa—’ she corrected herself—‘to talk about it. It’s probably better not to bring it up with him again.’

  She thought about Dale’s large smile on the night he died. He’d been wearing shorts and a casual shirt, trying to convince her to go to the engagement party with him.

  ‘Carn, sis. You know you want to,’ he said.

  ‘I can’t. I have to practise. If I don’t …’

  ‘I know, I know, if you don’t get it right, you’ll lose your position. Okay, I get it. Well, so be it. I’ll carry on without you.’ His tone had been light and they’d been the last words he’d said to her as he rushed out the door.

  She’d heard him call out his goodbyes to Tom and Pip, then the engine of his ute started.

  He hadn’t come home.

  ‘Would you be sad if I died?’ Aria asked, interrupting her thoughts.

  ‘Oh my God, honey, I couldn’t imagine my life without you in it ever!’ She pulled her daughter close and hugged her tightly. ‘Yes, I would be very sad if that happened, but it’s not going to. Okay? Now …’ Chelsea let her go and, turning her gently around, pushed her towards the bathroom. ‘Come on, your bath is waiting for you. Then, at teatime, I have something very important to talk to you about.’

  Chapter 8

  In the coolness of the sitting room, Chelsea moved quietly so she wouldn’t let her father know what she was doing.

  After her conversation with Aria, she wasn’t sure if she wanted to have another talk about Dale. For a long time, she’d stood in front of the fireplace and gazed at the photo of her brother on the mantelpiece. It was twelve years since he’d died.

  She’d been eighteen and remembered it as if it had happened yesterday. Her mother’s screaming, her father’s dark despair, the heavy blanket of misery that sat over the house for months. In the end it had been her brother’s death and her parents’ inability to cope with life afterwards that had made her leave. Chelsea remembered how she’d chosen to stay home to be with her parents at such a tragic time. She’d ended up missing the musical she’d been practising for, knowing she needed to support them. But slowly, slowly they had dragged her down, and returning to work was the only option. Running away was her way of dealing with her own grief. She left in order to lose herself in music, to not have to think. Chelsea hadn’t wanted to watch her parents disappear into a world of pain and sorrow, and she hadn’t known how to help them either. Music had been the safest option.

  Chelsea ran her hands over the arms of the couch. The dogs barking had been the first sign that something was wrong that night. She’d been seated at the piano, practising for the musical she was playing in, Dusty, which was to open in Sydney that February. It was the first musical she’d ever played in and she didn’t want to muck it up. It was Christmas time, and her few precious days at home had been filled with eating too much and laughing with her family.

  Pinto was long dead, so there was nothing to compete for the piano’s attention, other than her family. And even they weren’t taking up too much of her time. Her mum seemed to be disappointed in her, although why, Chelsea wasn’t sure. She’d made it! Into Dusty the Musical. Wasn’t that what her training had been about?

  Apparently not, according to Pip. A solo career was all that mattered and Chelsea was wasting her time playing in a musical. Chelsea hadn’t agreed. It was a stepping stone to help her get to the solo career she wanted. She remembered the argument she’d had with the conductor before they had broken up for Christmas.

  ‘You need to watch me. I am your leader. You don’t go making up your own riffs and rhythms. The performers are expecting to hear exactly—hear me—exactly what is written on the score. How can they be expected to perform at their best if you give them something they’re not expecting?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ she’d answered. But it was hard. Her fingers always seemed to have a life of their own. Adding in little extras or jazzing up the music in some way. If she wanted to keep her job, then she would have to make sure she played what was on the page. Not what was in her head. So she’d been practising. Slowly and painstakingly. Reading the music and following it perfectly.

  Chelsea had heard the dogs bark and stopped, wondering if there was a fox outside. It had been a full moon, so any animal would have been visible. Then she’d noticed the flash of headlights heading towards the house. She remembered checking her watch and thinking Dale was home early, then continued to practise.

  It had been the knocking that had made her think something was wrong. Dale would never have knocked. Especially if he’d had a couple of beers. He wou
ld’ve closed the front door with a bang and yelled that he was home—even if everyone else was asleep! Her brother had never known how to be quiet.

  At the foreign sound, Chelsea had stopped playing, taken her fingers from the piano keys and sat still, her hands in her lap. She didn’t know why. Twelve years later, she still didn’t understand why she hadn’t run to the door and yanked it open. It had been clear something was wrong.

  The banging had echoed throughout the house and in the end it had been her mother who had got up, wrapped in a thick dressing gown, and opened the door. Her pitiful wail had brought her father running, but Chelsea had stayed sitting at the piano, her hands still folded in her lap.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  She jumped at the sound of her father’s voice. He was standing in the doorway behind her, his arms crossed as if challenging her to tell him exactly what she was thinking.

  ‘Remembering,’ she answered.

  She watched as his eyes flicked over Dale’s photos and came back to rest on her. He stayed silent.

  ‘Why did you tell Aria about Dale?’ she finally asked.

  ‘He came up in conversation.’

  ‘I hadn’t planned on telling her.’

  Her father gave a grunt. ‘What, hide away from his death like everything else?’

  The words hit Chelsea’s heart hard. She wanted to clutch at her chest and at the same time hit out at him. ‘I didn’t hide away,’ she managed to choke out, ready to explain everything that had happened. ‘Maybe I did from Dale’s death, but not from Mum’s!’

  Before she could say anything further, Tom said, ‘What are you doing here, Chelsea?’ his voice low. ‘Why did you bother to come back now? You’ve been gone for so long. Hardly seems worthwhile to turn up now when it’s years after your mother’s death.’

  Chelsea didn’t know how to answer; she’d asked herself the very same question. Instead she swallowed hard and lifted her chin. ‘I wanted to …’ She stopped. What did she want? All the secrets and lies out in the open? All the bitterness to disappear? To have a relationship with her dad? Her heart was screaming yes, but her mind wouldn’t let her tongue work.