‘No thanks,’ said Ross. ‘I’ll wait until the crowd leaves.’
Alastair took a cigarette from a silver case. He offered one to Ross, who refused, and then lit his and took a long inhalation. ‘I chose the motorcar, if you’re wondering.’
‘Really? Why?’ asked Ross.
‘I can’t exactly use a property. At least, not right now and the thing is, Ross, it’s all going to be ours in the future anyway. A motorcar is far more useful. Especially at university. The girls will love it.’
‘I suppose they will,’ replied Ross. He wasn’t surprised by his brother’s choice, but he knew what he would have selected.
‘How are things at Gleneagle?’
‘Fine. University?’ asked Ross.
‘Swell.’ Alastair took another puff of the cigarette and flicked the ash from the end. ‘Has Father asked you about further study? You’d enjoy university.’
‘Gleneagle suits me fine.’
‘You’re happy being there?’
‘For the moment, yes. If I stick it out until I’m twenty-one, Father’s agreed to let us both go north to Waybell Station,’ said Ross.
Alastair stubbed out the cigarette. ‘It’s years since we talked about Waybell. You still want to go up there?’
‘Of course. We can follow the overland telegraph straight up to Darwin, spend a week or so exploring and then catch the train south part of the way. It’s a few days horse ride from there.’ Ross studied his brother’s expression. ‘You don’t look very keen.’
‘It’s a long way,’ said Alastair.
‘You do still want to go, don’t you?’
‘I hadn’t thought of it,’ admitted Alastair. ‘That’s four years away and Father’s already said that after university I’ll have to do a stint with an accountancy firm. Get some hands-on experience for the family business. He’s making me take bookkeeping as an extra subject.’
Ross rather suspected their father’s requirements of Alastair would become weightier. ‘Waybell is perfect then, Alastair. What better way to escape a dingy office.’
His brother tapped the bench’s wooden slats thoughtfully.
‘If you don’t come, I doubt Father will let me go, either,’ Ross persisted. ‘You know what he’s like. He’ll send me to another property instead. Anyway, we decided years ago we’d visit the Territory.’
Alastair flipped the lid of the cigarette case open and closed. ‘It’s not really on the agenda now, Ross. I mean, I know you rambled on as a child about seeing Australia, following in the footsteps of the great explorers and all that, but Waybell is so remote.’
‘Exactly. Imagine having the opportunity to live up there.’
‘Yes. Imagine,’ replied Alastair.
‘You can’t spend your life reading Greek stories and courting women, Alastair.’
‘Oh, I see. So now the little brother is giving me life instruction?’ They locked eyes for a few seconds and then Alastair laughed.
‘You owe me,’ said Ross.
His brother lit another cigarette, the smoke curling upwards. ‘You always were too quick to listen to me. I was just a boy as well, you know.’
‘Older than me.’
‘Oh no, I’ll not take the blame for our father’s harshness,’ replied Alastair.
‘So it was my fault, the asylum? And whose idea was it to raid the kitchen? It seems to me I was the scapegoat for your adventures on more than one occasion.’ Ross wondered if today would mark a turning point. If Alastair would finally admit his childhood mistakes and say sorry. ‘You owe me,’ he repeated.
Alastair considered the ultimatum. ‘I’m not saying yes because of what happened.’ He took a few more puffs of the cigarette and then tapped the end on the edge of the bench. Embers and unsmoked tobacco fell from the tip.
‘Will you come with me or not?’
‘Fine, I’ll come,’ said Alastair.
They clasped hands and shook.
Ross grinned. ‘When I turn twenty-one. That’s when we’ll leave. The day after. Not a moment later.’
‘I hope I don’t regret this.’ Alastair stood, looking back to the house in the direction of the celebration going on in his absence. ‘I need a drink. This will be the last of the partying for a week or so. We’ve got the athletics carnival on soon and I’m expected to at the very least place in the mile.’
‘It must be strenuous, university life,’ said Ross.
Alastair pointed a finger. ‘You had your chance, Ross. And now I’m off to pursue a young lady.’
‘Which one?’
‘Emily Prior. Large hat, white gown, blue belt.’
Ross wished Alastair luck as requested, and when his brother left he thought of Emily Prior with her curled hair and sashed waist and wished that he didn’t know about the law of probability. Even with some random variables, probabilities and axioms thrown in that might skew the results – Drummond and his friends, parental interference and other enticing women – the outcome was inevitable. Alastair would get what he wanted.
Chapter 5
Gleneagle Station, South Australia, 1919
Ross removed the wrench from his saddlebag and gave the barely moving pump-rod a mighty whack. The rod shuddered, as a metallic ring vibrated up the shaft towards the windmill. With a reluctant groan the rod began to rise and fall at an increasing pace, driving the piston. Overhead, the sails rotated and water spurted into the trough. Sheep began to gather, taking tentative steps towards the watering point. Ross threw the wrench against the side of the windmill and sat in the dirt under the moving shadow of the windmill’s sails.
Alastair had gone to war and he was still missing, three years on.
The reports were confusing. Ross’s childhood friend Drummond said that he’d been blown up somewhere on the Somme, in a battle where the armies of Britain and France had bled to death. The other version, the one that carried more weight, came from Alastair’s commanding officer. His correspondence confirmed that Alastair had indeed been wounded and was not expected to survive. But eventually word came that he’d been classified as a deserter, having fled the hospital as soon as he was able to walk. No one had heard or seen anything of Lieutenant Alastair Grant since September 1916.
There were times when Ross believed that, had he been allowed to join up, Alastair would never have disappeared. They would have watched out for each other, as brothers should. However when war broke out, their father refused to place both boys in the hands of the British. As he told the family at dinner one night, he had his own legacy to be thinking of and trusting the English never came easily to Morgan Grant. At first, Ross questioned why he’d not been chosen, the expendable younger son, but he’d assumed his father thought he’d make a botch of going to war while Alastair would make a fine officer.
The series of telegrams received by Ross’s parents following Alastair’s wounding until his disappearance had been abbreviated for him into a single page written in his father’s hand. Ross burnt it on receipt. It was bad enough knowing the contents without driving himself mad by trying to decipher more from this final account. It was also impossible to believe the various stories of Alastair’s wounding and vanishing. None of it made sense.
The last letter his brother wrote to him in early 1916 briefly mentioned a girl he’d met in London. He called her a fine filly, the sort their parents would like. The war was referred to only in vague terms, and he warned Ross not to take it on at any rate. There were descriptions of Westminster Abbey and a sketch of an Australian digger with bulging pockets and rakish slouch hat, however Alastair was more interested in other things.
Agitated that he wasn’t stationed in Mesopotamia, despite the British army having surrendered to the Turks at Kut, he filled the remaining pages with a lengthy explanation of the region located between the Tigris and Euphrates river system, excited at being so close to the fabled city of Babylon. The placenames had leapt from the paper and the envy Ross tried to keep buried rose anew. He couldn’t help it. Ala
stair was living the life of adventure Ross had aspired to.
In the weeks following Alastair’s disappearance, Ross’s father had remained quietly confident that their eldest would be found. That some military bungle lay at the centre of it all and that his commanding officer would in the future be obliged to apologise for ever having the temerity to call their boy an absconder. But too much time had passed and Ross, who’d hoped for the impossible, that Alastair was still alive, perhaps suffering amnesia, his identity lost, was forced to admit that his brother was almost certainly never coming home.
He pictured Alastair the last time they were together. They were lying on the lawn in Adelaide staring at the stars, their stomachs filled with Christmas food. Alastair was smoking, endlessly smoking, flicking the used butts into the hot night air. There was a hip flask of whisky lying between them, another empty one somewhere in the wilted flowers.
‘I don’t want to miss it,’ he said. ‘Not that I have much choice. But I want to go.’ He turned towards the house. ‘Not for them,’ he admitted, ‘for me.’
‘Are you scared?’ asked Ross.
Alastair considered the question, lighting another cigarette from the one almost finished. ‘I don’t know what to fear, Ross. I know people are dying over there. But it’s all numbers to me. Words in a newspaper ironed every morning so we don’t get print on our hands. Besides, our boys are in Egypt having a fine old time. Imagine standing where Napoleon used the Sphinx as target practice. Having a splash in the Nile.’ He lifted a finger to the half-moon, moving his thumb back and forth as he made the crescent shape appear and disappear. ‘There’s always the possibility that King Constantine of Greece might change his mind and join the Allies. He can’t stay neutral forever. And if that happened, we might be sent there.’
‘You and your myths,’ said Ross.
Alastair turned on his side. ‘I can’t help it. They’ve always interested me. Those stories go so far back no one can remember the beginnings of them. We only study the scraps. A morsel that has fallen from the table, like Homer.’
‘Well, if that morsel fell on my foot it would probably break it,’ answered Ross.
Alastair threw a cigarette into the night, the embers glowing. They’d not seen much of each other in the four years since Alastair’s twenty-first birthday celebrations. His brother, having elected to travel to Sydney after completing his studies, with the ruse of preferring to work in a well-known accountancy firm in that city, had followed a girl there. Emily Prior. The relationship ended when the young lady began to hint at marriage. Alastair had come home only to be confronted with war.
That Christmas Day Ross had been aware of the fragility of the time left before Alastair sailed for the Australian Imperial Force training camp at Salisbury Plain in England. A feeling of anticipation moved with his brother and it remained unstated that few things would be the same in the future, even when Alastair did finally return. Alastair the dreamer, the romantic, the unrealistic Don Quixote of the family, the boy who fought imaginary monsters, never saw the world for what it was and yet he was about to be thrown into it.
‘I wish I was going with you,’ said Ross.
‘So do I. You’ll be missed,’ said Alastair.
‘I still think about my twin. How different things might have been if he’d lived,’ said Ross.
‘Children die all the time. They still do,’ said Alastair. ‘Anyway it was a long time ago. Do me a favour, Ross. Try and get on with Mother and Father while I’m away, they do care about you.’
‘When the war’s over we’ll still go north to Waybell Station,’ Ross insisted.
‘The point of owning a property in the wilds that barely turns a profit defeats me. But as you’ve had your mind set on it since we were boys I guess I have little choice,’ answered Alastair.
‘So it’s agreed?’ said Ross.
‘Sure. We’ll go north. When I get back,’ replied Alastair.
‘Keep your head down, brother. Keep your mind on the job.’ It was the thing Ross feared most: losing him when they were now old enough to push aside the mistakes of youth. To forgive.
Closing his mind to that long-ago Christmas, Ross knuckled tears from his eyes, and let out an almighty scream. The sheep scattered, bolting away along veiny tracks that eased into the earth. Finally the air stilled. He wiped the dirt on his trousers and slipped the wrench back inside the saddlebag. The horse gave a gentle whinny as Ross swung a leg over the saddle, his boot finding the metal stirrup.
‘Come on,’ he said. Drawing on the reins, he directed the mare back towards the homestead. A sense of finality had struck him over the previous days. As if a phase of his life was about to conclude, and with it would disappear all possibility of his brother ever returning. It couldn’t be expected after all this time. Ross had to let go of the possibility. Had to throw away the boyish plans they’d made. He had to move on.
Chapter 6
Ross anchored his boots in the soil as he was buffeted by the wind. The grit from the westerly stung his face and neck as he stared at tufts of grey-green woody shrubs spreading out from the road across treeless plains. Had the mail announcing his parents’ arrival been one day later Ross would have already left to go mustering with the other men. Alastair once told him that timing and opportunity often fortuitously conspired to arrive together. But not today.
Mrs Toth joined Ross where he waited near the road that forked towards the homestead and outbuildings. The dwellings stood in the centre of the property. Stone structures dropped like garden pavers in an area not larger than a quarter mile. And stretching beyond, red dirt and the crooked stubs of saltbush, relieved only by the odd outcrop of rock, a glimpse of hills and an undulation of countryside.
The manager’s wife was anxious at the arrival of Ross’s father. There’d been much fussing over accommodation and more than a passing interest in the reason for the visit. Three times the woman mentioned that Ross would be glad of his father’s coming. Ross’s mouth dried at the thought. Mrs Toth was not a busybody, she was a caring woman whose lack of children seemed to have made her more attuned to everyone’s needs. She wasn’t caught up by responsibility, curtailed by belief or hobbled by disappointment. She simply existed in her own right and she smiled a lot. Ross liked that about her the most.
A sweep of dust against blue sky marked the snaking progress of the travellers. Mrs Toth, dressed for the occasion in a pale blouse and skirt that showed off dusty lace-up boots, looked up at him enquiringly. The question was the same. The woman hoped all was well. Ross replied that everything was fine.
‘And your mother, you haven’t seen her for a long time?’ she asked carefully, a hand clamped to a hat as the wind strengthened.
Ross thought of Mary Grant with her strawberry-blonde hair and hazel eyes. A children’s picture book character who demanded love. Ross liked to think that they had both tried their best, but the reality was very different. She was lost to him at birth. Apart from his father’s yearly visits to the property, Christmas 1914 was the last time he’d been with all the family. Months after that holiday, Alastair had left for the war.
‘I remember the day you arrived here, Ross. You were so tall with that curly dark hair of yours. Tall and proud. My husband thought you haughty and aloof, coming from the family that you do, but I saw through all that. You were always cautious, never one to jump in or speak out of turn but you were also thoughtful. Carrying things for me if you were about. Always stopping for a chat. It was a pleasure to have you around in those early years before the war. Before everything turned inside out and your brother disappeared.’
Ross gave a quizzical smile. ‘And now I’m not so pleasant to have around?’
‘You’ve changed. We all have, I suppose. But you’ve become too quiet, Ross. The other men, well, I expect that of them. Years of being alone in a lonely place does that to a person. But you’re a young man. You should be out enjoying yourself when you can. What happened to that nice girl in Burra you were s
een with a few times, Mrs Watson’s daughter?’
‘That was years ago. Anyway, there was nothing to it. We were only friends.’
The travellers were growing closer.
‘Mr Toth and I know the hard time you’ve had, Ross. People can be cruel. Sometimes it takes more strength to stay behind and bear the insults than to lift up a gun and follow orders. Remember that, for things will get better now the war’s over.’
He took a step away, concentrating on the road. Mrs Toth patted Ross’s arm and returned to the low-slung homestead where a house-girl swept the dirt floor of the veranda. He was grateful that her husband’s departure with the men that morning coincided with the arrival of these uninvited guests. He imagined the Toths suspected another family tragedy, the sort of event that warranted a journey of over 125 miles from Adelaide. To some extent, it was.
The wagon grew steadily in size as Ross waited in the harsh afternoon light. The rest of the men were long gone, riding twenty miles westwards in search of sheep. By dusk they would be camped beneath a rocky outcrop amidst clumps of saltbush and bluegrass. Stars emerging overhead, the red plains cooling as they unrolled swags and waited for the quart pot to boil. And here he was, anticipating, readying for an argument. In some ways it was amazing they hadn’t come for him sooner. Alastair had been the hinge upon which the rest of the family swung.
‘Are you going to say anything?’ demanded his father, slapping a hand on his thigh.
Ross had expected his father to be tired from the journey north. Having refused to take the coach service to Burra for fear the last of the influenza epidemic might strike were they to mix too freely with the public, they’d travelled with few rests. Not that the journey caused him any undue hardship; he’d been talking for a good half-hour.
‘No.’ Ross turned from the window. He felt as if sacred ground had been violated.
His father’s tone grew impatient. ‘No, you’re not going to answer me or …’
Ross looked to where his mother sat. She was toying with a teaspoon, which rattled on the dainty saucer. Her fair hair was now grey. He’d been surprised at her coming too.
Stone Country Page 4