Looking into her familiar mossy-green eyes, the eyes of the man he had once loved so deeply, and pretending that he was acting in her best interests had been the hardest thing he had ever done. And now she would come to his office at three this afternoon and give away her birthright.
Harrison turned on his side and breathed slowly and deeply to ward off a rising tide of despair. The roots of this nightmare went so far back – further back than even he and Jim. My god, was it really more than thirty years now since he’d taken the job with Gordon White in Newcastle?
Gordon was red-faced and ginger-grey-haired, a former mayor of the city and everybody’s mate, always pressing hands and clapping shoulders in the pub. Who could have guessed what lay underneath the hail-fellow-well-met exterior? The deal had been enticing. Harrison would do the heavy lifting at the firm for five years, freeing Gordon for his planned run for state pre-selection. When he became the local candidate, Harrison would take over the firm. And even if he wasn’t successful, Gordon promised, he would retire and hand over the reins.
The time in Newcastle had been fun. There were long hours burning the midnight oil in the office, but plenty of play as well and he had become a fixture on the city’s small but thriving gay scene.
After a few months, however, it had become clear that all was not well with the paperwork that came across his desk each day. Trust funds, inheritances – wherever Gordon had access to money, he’d taken a chunk off the top and fudged the figures to hide it.
Harrison sat up and rubbed his gritty eyes. There was no use trying to get back to sleep with these memories tumbling around in his mind. How naive he’d been not to report Gordon as soon as he knew. God knows, he’d tried talking the old man into stopping or even repaying the money. But he had been dismissed with a laugh and an assurance that he had a lot to learn about how the profession was practised in the real world.
Then, the inevitable happened. It was Gordon’s main rival for pre-selection who finally blew the whistle. Before he’d realised what was happening, the office was crawling with Fraud Squad detectives.
Seeing Gordon sent to gaol had been a blow, but not as bad as when his own Practising Certificate was suspended indefinitely.
Jim had been the main reason he’d taken the risk of setting up practice in Wandalla. They had met just after the Newcastle business, when Harrison was aimlessly travelling, trying to come to terms with what had happened and find a new direction in life. There had been no solicitor in Wandalla for two years, Jim had argued, a mischievous smile playing on his face. People weren’t going to be too nosy about registrations and certificates – what did they know, anyway?
In the end, the lure of being near Jim had been too much and he had set up his practice for all the world as though he were entitled to do so. At first, seeing new clients made him flinch, but soon the business became second nature and he almost forgot the truth.
It was after Jim had married and left for Sydney that Hilary had somehow found out. Just how she had tracked the story down he didn’t know, but he would never be able to forget the look of cold triumph on her face as she had placed the old clipping from The Newcastle Herald on the desk in front of him.
How many times had she pulled on those puppet strings over the years? Harrison asked himself as he shuffled wearily into his slippers and headed for the bathroom. It had grown worse when she had somehow found out the truth about his relationship with Jim. The revelation, combined with Jim’s disappearance around the same time, had tipped her over the edge. She’d always been neurotic but that was the point when she started to become the ruthless, vengeful harridan she was now. The Hilary who had made it her personal mission to destroy any happiness he might have and who was obsessed with creating Durham anew.
Harrison leaned on the sink and looked in the mirror. The circles under his eyes were pale green, like a half-healed bruise.
In Hilary’s overheated mind, Deborah and Heath’s marriage would bring Kurrabar and Paramour together. But she needed The Springs, with the ruins of Durham House, to complete her vision. That’s when it started getting really ugly. Poor old Russell.
Harrison turned on the cold tap of the shower as far as it would go and stood under the jet shivering, unsure whether he was trying to wake up or to punish himself.
Water. Water was at the bottom of Hilary’s deception. When Russell refused to sell, Hilary struck back. About six months before his death, she had come marching into the office, straight past Suzie’s desk, and told him what she had done. She and Lobby had been out to The Springs the night before and had plugged the bore up with concrete, leaving Russell without the means to keep what was left of his herd. Now, Hilary had told him, it was his job to falsify surveyors’ findings to prove that the bore had dried up naturally.
And he had done it.
Harrison put his hand over his eyes and willed the tears not to fall. It had been easy to keep up the deception with Nina by phone. But then he had met her. He sobbed quietly, exhausted. How had he become this person?
There was nothing else for it. If it weren’t for the worsening weather, he would drive to The Springs immediately. He must phone Nina now.
Hilary pulled up outside Harrison’s house. It stood in a row of terraces facing the river in the old part of town. She glanced with contempt at the bright flowers in a window box, setting the house apart from its neighbours. Gays were so predictable. The blooms were battered by the gritty wind.
After leaving the police station, she’d been annoyed to find Harrison’s office closed and no sign of that wretched Suzie. But then she thought that if he’d gone home for the day, then the settlement must have gone through. She must be the new owner of The Springs.
Hilary smiled as she pressed the doorbell, remembering the look on Barry Kemp’s face when she’d shown him that the car was still registered in Phillip’s name. He was only too eager to take down another Abo.
Harrison opened the door, his mobile phone clamped to his ear.
‘Thank you, my dear. Again, I’m sorry. I’ll be out there as soon as this weather improves,’ he was saying. He glanced at Hilary for a second, a strange expression on his face. She frowned and gestured for him to finish.
‘I must go now. I have a very particular visitor,’ Harrison concluded before hanging up with a flourish.
‘Well, Hilary, what a delight. Do come in,’ he said, making an exaggerated bow and directing her to the living room.
She breezed past him, noting with satisfaction that the deeds for The Springs lay on the dining table. Hilary seated herself on the couch.
‘We have a lot to do, so take this down,’ she commanded. ‘First, I want you to prepare an affidavit for Phillip saying he only loaned that car to Matty O’Sullivan and it was never intended as a gift. Make it legal-sounding and complicated. Phillip might sign it without checking if I give it to him after he’s had a couple of cognacs.’
Hilary glanced up. Harrison still leaned against the mantelpiece with an irritating smile on his face.
‘Didn’t you hear me? Why aren’t you taking notes?’ she snapped. Honestly, he could at least try to look professional.
Harrison’s expression didn’t change. ‘No.’ He spoke the word clearly and loudly, as if he’d never used it before.
‘What d’ya mean, no?’ Hilary felt her temper rising. ‘Get cracking or you know what’ll happen.’
‘Nothing will happen, Hilary,’ Harrison replied, folding his arms. ‘That was Nina on the phone. Clever girl. She discovered the truth about the bore without any help from me. And now she knows about my past as well. She knows you’ve blackmailed me all these years. And she won’t be handing over The Springs. Ever.’
Hilary felt panic prickle her scalp.
‘But you could be arrested. I’ll have you arrested …’
‘Have us arrested, you mean,’ Harrison continued calmly. ‘Because if I go down, you can bet your sweet arse you’ll go with me.’
She rose, fighting t
o breathe.
‘I really don’t give a damn what you do anymore, Hilary. But I know exactly what I’m going to do. First, I’m retiring. I’m taking down my shingle and never practising again. Second, I’m moving in with Terence and to hell with what anyone else thinks about it. I’m not going to live a half-life any longer. And, finally, I am never going to have anything to do with you for the rest of my life. From now on I can’t see you, I can’t hear you and, frankly, if you were on fire I wouldn’t piss on you to put out the flames.’
Hilary stood, stunned. Everything was falling apart like a nightmare, her plans for the future dissolving in her hands. First Deborah, now this. All she’d worked for since she was a young girl, years of planning, her dream of Durham House slipping away.
‘Please, Harrison …’ She fought to keep her voice under control. ‘For the sake of our friendship, everything that we meant to each other when we were younger.’
Harrison bent forward, his body convulsing. At first she thought he was sobbing but then he caught his breath, threw his head back and laughed.
Seeing her chance, she darted into the dining room, grabbed the deeds to The Springs and charged out. The accusations over the bore – well, Lobby would back her up on that. The main thing was that damned girl. If she didn’t transfer today she’d live to regret it.
Despite the wind assaulting her as she wrenched open her car door, Hilary could still hear the whoop of Harrison’s laugh from inside. She slammed it and roared off towards The Springs.
CHAPTER 21
As if keen to show how sorry he was, Lobby proved to be the most helpful when it came to the bore. He knew exactly where to dig.
Nina joined Moira and Heath perched on the old concrete tank watching Lobby chip away into the dry earth next to them. The hard ground gave little away each time his mattock scraped into the shallow depression.
Nina slowly returned her phone to her pocket, her mind still on the call.
‘Who was that?’ asked Moira. ‘Thought you couldn’t get coverage out here.’
‘Lucky spot. It was Harrison.’
‘All good, love?’ said Moira, curious.
‘All good,’ Nina assured her. Nothing could surprise her anymore. It couldn’t have been easy for him to come clean like that. But Nina didn’t have the headspace for more about Hilary, Harrison and their conspiracies right now.
She massaged her hands that were still aching from her puny attempts to help Lobby. Ten minutes of hacking had been as much as she could manage. She sat and stared at Lobby, conscious of Heath sitting so close. But she was unable to keep her eyes from Lobby’s efforts.
Ben gave occasional instructions but after half an hour, he slumped in his chair and grew quiet.
It took a good hour or so in the rising wind until half a metre of rusty pipe was exposed. Lobby dripped with sweat despite the dry heat. ‘Listen.’ He tapped the pipe with a spanner. It made a thunk. ‘That’s where the concrete is,’ he told Nina. He tapped his way down the pipe until they heard a hollow ring. He turned to Nina and smiled. ‘All we got to do now is cut the bloody thing,’ he said, panting.
‘Not long now, love,’ whispered Moira, and patted Nina’s hand.
‘Wait,’ Nina said, trying to sound light-hearted. ‘I’ll get the beer and food left from yesterday. We can either celebrate if it works or toast The Springs anyway if it doesn’t.’
‘Great. Could do with a coldie,’ said Lobby, wiping the dust from his eyes with his sleeve.
‘Ugh,’ groaned Ben. ‘Might pass on a beer after last night.’
Nina felt her heart pound. So much was at stake. Don’t get your hopes up, she told herself. She looked at Moira, Heath, Ben; their faces eager, excited. They seem to want this as much as I do, she thought. She couldn’t bear it if they were all disappointed.
Her hands shook as she got the stubbies and soft drinks from the fridge. ‘Don’t count on it, don’t count on it,’ she whispered to herself.
Outside again, she could taste the dirt in the air as she carried the drinks out to the bore. Lobby’s shirt billowed in the dry gusts.
‘Heath, I’m going to cut it as low as I can. You clamp it with this pipe head as soon as we get a water flow,’ he yelled over the wind.
‘Whatever you reckon, Lobs,’ said Heath.
The group stood watching as Lobby began cutting the pipe with a hacksaw. It was hot, hard work. Each thrust of his shoulder seemed to take forever.
Back and forth, back and forth. The hacksaw made a horrible grating noise on the pipe. Nina sipped her beer, gritting her teeth against the sound. Metal on metal – an endless hypnotic rhythm.
‘Geez, Lobs,’ Ben winced. ‘It sounds like you’re torturing a cat. I should go home and get our angle grinder.’
‘Leave it, Ben,’ Heath said. ‘Do you want another break, mate?’ he called to Lobby.
‘Nah, should be through by midnight, boys,’ he answered dryly. Lobby stood and stretched before he bent down again.
All eyes focused on the movement of the little hacksaw.
Screech, screech … screech, screech … Nina fanned herself with her hat. I can’t stand much more of this, she thought.
Then suddenly it was quiet.
‘What’s happening, Lobs?’ called Ben.
‘Someone give us a hand.’
Heath held the top of the pipe while Lobby cut through the last few millimetres and then he laid the severed section on the ground.
Lobby peered into the pipe.
‘Can you see anything?’ It was Moira.
‘Nothing. I mean, not sure,’ said Lobby, puzzled.
‘Bloody hell, Lobs,’ said Ben. ‘Is there a chance?’
Still nothing. They all stood looking at the jagged cut on the rusty pipe.
‘Don’t worry,’ said Nina, walking towards Lobby. ‘You tried. We all tried. I guess it just wasn’t to be.’ Her tone was light but she felt like she’d been hit.
‘Wait!’ It was Heath. ‘Lobs, look.’ He pointed to the pipe.
It was a small bubble. Then a drop of liquid. Then two. A trickle.
‘You bloody beauty,’ cried Moira.
The others stood transfixed as the flow grew stronger. Suddenly it was gushing into the air. The heavy drops of water raised puffs of dust as they drummed the parched earth, turning grey to black.
‘Thar she blows and doesn’t she stink!’ yelled Moira, who held her nose as she danced with excitement in the mist the wind blew her way.
The water had a long-forgotten, sulphuric smell but Nina couldn’t care less. ‘Oh my god,’ she yelled, clutching Moira’s arm. ‘I can’t believe it. I just can’t believe it.’
‘It’s real. It’s all real. Lobs, you bloody star,’ said Heath. He held up his hat, filled it with water and put it down on Nina’s head. The water turned to muddy rivulets as it ran down her face and body.
Nina wasn’t sure who grabbed who, but soon she and Heath were waltzing around under the rain of rusty water, laughing uncontrollably.
‘You’ve got enough here to swim in,’ Heath shouted.
Nina nodded. The sight of the water and being in Heath’s arms had rendered her speechless.
Ben was soaked as well and splattered in mud. ‘Jesus, I might get bogged,’ he laughed.
‘You’re all mad,’ called Moira from a safe distance. ‘They say the wind does that to you.’
‘Cut snakes, the lot of ’em,’ said Lobby, beaming as he swigged his beer.
‘Hilary will be spewing,’ yelled Ben. ‘Who’s gonna tell her?’
‘I will,’ said Heath and Nina together, laughing as they twirled again.
‘Jeez,’ said Ben. ‘Hate to be Matty or Deb right now. Hilary’s that crazy, she’s dangerous.’
‘Dangerous?’ said Nina.
‘Nope, just mad I reckon,’ said Heath.
‘Don’t you worry about her. She’ll get over it. Eventually,’ said Moira with a grin. ‘God, you lot look a sight.’
Nina lo
oked down. Her shirt and shorts and bare legs were caked with mud. She noticed how Heath’s shirt clung to his broad chest.
‘Speaking of sights,’ said Ben, pointing skyward. ‘Check it out.’
Heath and Nina turned and looked beyond the gushing spout across the paddocks. Trees were being bent double in the wind, leaves and grit swirled in the hot air.
‘Christ, this wind’s come up fast. Looks like a storm,’ said Heath.
‘Yep, hate to spoil the party but I think we’d better cap the pipe for now. Can you fix it, Lobs?’ yelled Ben.
‘Jeez, one minute you want me to turn it on, next you want me to turn it off – on, off,’ muttered Lobby, annoyed at being separated from his beer.
‘Here, I’ll help,’ laughed Heath.
‘Cripes,’ said Moira, wiping the dust from her eyes. ‘I need to get along. Nina, love, I’m so happy for you.’
‘Oh Moira,’ said Nina. ‘Thank you so much. For everything. I’d hug you but –’
‘Don’t you dare,’ laughed Moira, feigning horror at the mud-splattered figure.
‘I’d better head back too and make sure the stock are okay and we’re battened down,’ called Ben over the gusting wind.
‘I guess I should, I –’ started Heath, his happy face clouding with confusion.
‘Nah, listen to your little brother for a change,’ said Ben. ‘Kurrabar is fine. I’ll head back there and give it the once over. Best you help Nina make sure everything’s secure here.’
Nina helped Moira to the car; the older woman’s dress billowed around her. Heath helped Lobby stack the tools back in the stables.
‘Hop in, Lobs,’ called Ben.
‘I’ll head over later,’ Heath yelled to Ben as Nina waved from the circle of mud, shielding her eyes against the flying grit.
Nina heard the screen door bang shut. She turned and they were together. Alone.
‘Storm looks bad,’ she said softly. She was suddenly all too aware of her clinging wet shirt and her muddy shorts.
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