Stone Country

by Nicole Alexander

  ‘No, I’m not going to do what you want.’

  Morgan Grant placed hands on hips and glanced about the space that served as both kitchen and sitting room.

  ‘It’s far too early to be drinking,’ his wife stated simply, as if in response to a question. She looked at Ross, her eyes tired. ‘You’re a long way from home, son.’

  It wasn’t far enough, it seemed.

  The first of their demanding letters had arrived three months ago. The contents were not what he’d expected. None of this was.

  ‘The understanding was that you would come here to be educated, Ross. That’s what you wanted,’ began his father. ‘You needed toughening up, we all knew that. And when the time was right, you and your brother were to go north to check on my interests. We had no choice but to delay things once war broke out, but now –’

  ‘But now Alastair isn’t here you expect me to forget about everything I want?’ Ross finished.

  The teaspoon clattered.

  His father placed a hand briefly on his wife’s shoulder. ‘Your brother is an utter disgrace. He was in the papers, you know. Honour extinguished was the headline, if you require reminding.’

  ‘So you prefer the fact that he’s most likely dead.’

  ‘Don’t, Ross, please don’t.’ His mother cried quietly into a handkerchief.

  ‘Son, it’s been three years. If Alastair was still alive he would have made contact with us. He would have come home.’

  ‘But we don’t know he’s dead,’ argued Ross.

  ‘Not formally,’ agreed his father. ‘Do you think he’s still alive?’

  Ross didn’t reply. His head told him that Alastair was certainly gone. That was the bitter conclusion he woke to every morning, but until they received some sort of official statement, a document that spelt out the end of hope, Ross still clung to the possibility of his brother being found.

  ‘You have to come back with us,’ his father said.

  ‘I don’t believe this.’ Ross had done his best to atone for his messy beginnings by leaving home, and here he was being asked to uphold the family honour by returning. He should have guessed there would be a final reckoning.

  ‘So you’re telling me that, after all these years, all that talk about wanting to visit Waybell Station, now when you have that opportunity you don’t want to go anymore?’ His father scratched at a broad, craggy forehead.

  ‘Not on the terms offered.’ Alastair had once warned Ross not to underestimate their father. He was a canny man. ‘I’ll not sacrifice myself for the right to manage one of our properties.’

  ‘You should be grateful it’s come to this. That the proposal’s been accepted. You’re stepping into your older brother’s shoes. You will be head of the family one day.’

  ‘I don’t want to step into anyone’s shoes.’ Ross’s horse was in the stables. It wouldn’t take much to be on his way. A bit of flour and salted mutton. His rifle and swag. He wondered what made his parents think that they could make such demands of him, as if they’d always been the proud parents and he the obliging child.

  ‘I understand it’s daunting for you, lad. You’re not like your brother, but things will work out.’

  Wasn’t that just like his father? Approval and criticism in the same breath.

  ‘I didn’t make the offer, Father. So I’m not bound by it.’

  ‘You’d rather be a sheep- or cattle-herder?’ his father spluttered. ‘For that’s what will become of you.’

  ‘But isn’t that what we’ve always been?’ argued Ross. ‘Farmers? Haven’t I heard since I was knee-high that’s how it was for the family back in the Highlands? And now you criticise me for doing what’s in my blood.’

  ‘I want you to start managing, lad. I want you to be giving the orders, not taking them.’ The spittle from his father’s rage reached Ross from across the table. ‘But you must do this one thing first. You’re twenty-six years of age. It’s time to grow up.’

  ‘That’s the thing, Father. I’ve been growing up for a long time. The trouble is that neither of you ever took the time to notice.’

  Were Morgan younger, Ross thought it highly likely that he would have throttled him. His father had been fast when he and Alastair were boys. Quick enough to catch them and give them a thrashing.

  ‘You have gall, speaking to me that way. If it wasn’t for your mother and me –’

  ‘I don’t want to hear you two argue. Scotland has changed,’ interrupted his mother. ‘And were it for the better we’d have never left our kin to be wrenched from hearth and home and stranded here in this place.’

  Father and son looked at her. She was playing with the teaspoon, feeling the concave surface. Ross chose not to remind his mother that it was a good seventy years since any of their line had set foot in Scotland. They were about as far removed in place and time from the old country as they could be.

  ‘All your old friends have done well.’ Walking the length of the small room, his hands clasped behind his back, Morgan Grant set a smile on his face. ‘George is a lawyer, Drummond has shown an interest in public office. A fine lad, Drummond. I can see why you chose him as a friend. A good choice. A very good choice indeed. And his family. Top drawer. They were both wounded. George lost a leg, but he’s doing well.’

  ‘I haven’t spoken to either of them since they joined up,’ replied Ross.

  ‘Well, you must make more of an effort to keep in contact, Ross.’

  ‘Right. Yes. Of course, Father. And what do you think we’re going to talk about? The friends we lost while standing knee-deep in slush in the trenches? I can just see George and me sharing a beer, him with his trouser leg pinned up, and me in my prime, untouched by the war that killed thousands. It was George who christened me a mama’s boy when he learnt I wasn’t going to enlist. Did you know that? And Drummond. Yes, dear old Drummond. He wrote to me when Alastair disappeared. He wanted to know if, considering what had happened to my brother, I really didn’t feel some moral obligation to join up. He was prepared to forgive me for my spineless behaviour if I did what was expected of any decent, able-bodied man. If I didn’t, he doubted he could continue calling me a friend.’

  His father nodded. ‘There’ll be time to mend friendships.’

  ‘And reputation? My honour? What of that, Father?’

  ‘If you’d shown such pluck in 1914 I may well have let you go too. Perhaps –’

  ‘Perhaps what? Perhaps I would have been the one killed and Alastair would have been returned to you?’

  His father looked at him with empty eyes. ‘Once you’re home –’

  ‘I’m not coming home.’

  His mother emitted a tiny ‘Oh’.

  ‘Your friends understand the importance of hard work, of representing their families. But not you. You’d rather walk from your family, as you have always done. You would wither away in the middle of nowhere sooner than doing what’s right. Or do you fancy yourself an adventurer like in all those books you read as a child? A great explorer. The likes of Stuart? Are you going to set off on foot and go westwards to the desert, lad? If so, I can tell you that such aspirations are better left to those who have ability.’

  Ross left the cottage, slamming the door on the way out, and trudged the short distance to the stables where he found Connor. The Scotsman had travelled with the Grants from Adelaide and waited with one eye on the cottage, the other on the deserted road, as if even here in the reddened depths of South Australia there might be an attack. Such was the Highland blood that ran through his marrow.

  Connor stood on his approach, a pipe sticking out from a mat of whiskers.

  ‘It’s not going well, then?’ he asked, the pipe barely moving as he spoke.

  Ross clutched the wooden tethering rail. ‘Did you even try and stop them from coming?’

  ‘Me, try and stop a descendant of a chief of your clan? Your father will always be a laird, like his father, and his father before him.’

  ‘This isn’t Scotland,�
� Ross pointed out.

  Connor tapped out the pipe on the railing. ‘Aye, you’re right. It’s not. But some things still stand firm, Ross. Like duty and loyalty, and let’s not be forgetting,’ he picked at the bowl of the pipe with a pocketknife, ‘it was your father who took me in when I first arrived in South Australia. It’s one thing to be feisty when you’re a lad but I’m forty-five years of age now.’

  ‘It seems to me that half the world is bound to the old man,’ said Ross.

  ‘Anyway,’ continued Connor, ‘it’s not your father who I’d have had the problem stopping.’

  He was right. The arrival of his parents had been made more unnerving by the appearance of Ross’s grandmother along with them. It had taken the efforts of Connor, Ross and his father to help the old widow down from the wagonette. On finding solid ground beneath her feet, Bridget Grant had surveyed the dusty surroundings and commented loudly on having travelled a long way for so very little. While Mrs Toth’s welcoming smile barely altered, Ross knew she would not have appreciated Grams’ pithy condemnation.

  ‘You know why they’re here, don’t you?’ asked Ross.

  ‘I may be an ignorant Highlander but it doesn’t take much between the ears to guess.’ Connor pulled tobacco from a pouch and began filling his pipe. ‘I recognise a perfumed peach when I see one. The poor lass has been in Adelaide for over two years, Ross.’ He struck a match and drew heavily until the tobacco lit. ‘I’m surprised they didn’t drag her out here as well, dangle the girl in front of you. Were we in Scotland I’d warn you to keep clear of the Sassenach; that an English woman and a Scotsman bound together will end up like two thistles in a bag. But she’s a good lass.’ Connor nodded towards the manager’s house where a woman in black stood out against the whitewashed stone walls of the building. ‘It looks like Herself is ready for you.’ He brushed imaginary dirt from Ross’s shirt. ‘Off you go now and don’t upset her.’ Ross raised an eyebrow as Connor clasped his shoulder. ‘Good luck.’

  Halfway across the wind-rippled dirt, Ross met his grandmother’s gaze. She looked older than her eighty years and he suspected there was some truth to the rumour that Bridget Grant had lied about her age on meeting his grandfather, there being no birth certificate to prove otherwise.

  ‘Ross.’

  ‘Grandmother.’ Joining her in the shade of the veranda, he kissed a cool, lined cheek. ‘You’ve had a long journey.’

  She scowled. ‘Your father was determined to be here today.’

  ‘I’m surprised at your coming,’ admitted Ross. He wondered if her presence was his father’s doing or if they were all here at her bidding.

  ‘Aye, and I’m surprised you’ve grown, for the land you’ve planted yourself on looks as dry and arid as me,’ she replied.

  ‘It’s a fine property. The wool is first class.’

  ‘I wonder at that when a place can’t even grow a tree.’ She tapped stumpy fingers on the arm of the rattan chair. ‘And the men are away, Mrs Toth tells me.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘A pity. I was quite prepared to take stock of the younger lads.’ She gave a wink and Ross sat by her side. ‘You like this farming life, eh? The dust and lack of society.’

  ‘I do,’ he confessed.

  ‘Space and air and none of the fiddling pastimes that city life demands. So you dinnae like people then?’

  ‘I like people well enough, Grams,’ Ross replied. ‘It’s what they talk about that doesn’t always interest me.’

  Her grey hair was pulled tightly from its centre part to a thin bun on the nape of her neck. She patted one side, and as she did so a sprinkle of dead skin fell to a shoulder. ‘Wool and weather are also discussed in Adelaide, my lad, by men who know what they are talking about. You might learn something.’ She peered across at him. ‘You were always a fidgety child. Desperate to be outdoors, by yourself.’

  ‘I wonder why, when I’ve been practically chaperoned since I was eight.’ Ross concentrated on the silver haze blurring the horizon.

  ‘Well, there’s something to be said for being a loner. But you don’t fool me. You shun your family, not society. You creep into the bush because you’re more comfortable here. Away from us. Away from your father and mother.’

  ‘And you know why. Anyway, this is my job.’

  ‘I’d not expected you to still be so angry.’ The chair squeaked as she leant back. ‘The gentlemen’s lounges are full of talk of what the pastoralists are up to. Buying and selling, arguing over Goyder’s imaginary line. This property is clearly on the right side, if there is a right side. I can’t imagine a crop surviving here. At least that is what Connor tells me.’

  ‘And what else does he tell you, Grandmother?’ Ross was curious.

  ‘That this will be my first and last trip out of Adelaide. I came for you of course, my boy, but an old woman has to see what all the fuss is about.’ Her mouth puckered as if she’d already passed judgement. ‘I’ve been reading and hearing about this great state and the men who’ve been attempting to open it up for many years. It seems a pity to die and not to have travelled past the boundaries of Adelaide. To never know why so many have been willing to strike out on a horse to try and discover what’s beyond the beyond.’ She turned to Ross. ‘It’s not pretty, you know, what I’ve gleaned from our brief histories. Most die, although there’s plenty of options when it comes to death.’ She counted off on her fingers. ‘Attacked by spear throwers, madness, dead of thirst or lack of food or stupidity, many get lost. Even your Stuart ended up blind and in very poor health. Besides, the place is all desert.’

  ‘Not north it isn’t.’

  Her eyes narrowed. She lifted a finger, waggling it at him. ‘So, you do still want to go there.’

  Ross frowned. ‘Of course I do. Haven’t I sat here and waited like the dutiful son? I’ve complained only once – when war was declared and it was decided that Alastair should go and I would not. I never should have agreed to that. Never.’

  She patted his arm. ‘You were sensible.’

  ‘I was an idiot, Grams.’

  ‘War is for fools. Only generals die in bed.’

  ‘Maybe, but I’ve had to live with the consequences.’ Ross had eventually stopped going into Burra to collect supplies. It was one thing to be considered a shirker for not doing one’s duty when so many were dying, quite another to be branded a coward. Especially when Alastair was mentioned twice in despatches for bravery. Ross carried mended bones as proof of the contempt in which he was held, thanks to those who showed their anger with their fists.

  ‘It will pass. People are quick to forget.’ She placed a finger on his elbow. ‘It’s not even a decade since the north was separated from South Australia. It’s an untamed place, Ross. Uninhabitable, uncivilised. We were all intrigued by the idea of a great central state, but it’s too unwieldy and too distant to control. That’s why we handed it over to the government, washed our hands of it. And now we’re left with a property in this so-called land that I never should have allowed your father to invest in. If you must prove yourself, do it some other way, for if you go north I can’t see you prospering. Few do from what I’ve heard.’

  ‘Thanks, Grams.’

  ‘There’s no point pouting, lad. I could be selfish and tell you that if you go I won’t see you again, but a young man doesn’t want to hear that. Don’t romanticise, Ross. Don’t imagine that you’ll live some grand, adventurous life. You’ve been stuck out here for too long. Do you even have any idea what’s been going on up there?’

  ‘There’s always something going on somewhere, Grams. It’s called civilisation,’ he argued.

  ‘Dinnae be wise with me, Ross. Darwin’s Government House was stormed last year. The Administrator Gilruth and his family were virtually prisoners in their own home and a gunboat was sent to protect them. Why, the rebellion was the nearest thing to a revolution since that uprising at Eureka.’ His grandmother’s look was steady. ‘In running further away you’ll lose yourself. As you have her
e, except this time you’ll be ignoring your family’s need for help. You must see that what you want cannot be done, not at this time.’

  It was all he’d thought about, heading northwards. Seeing firsthand what the pioneers saw. Ross worried about the new, wild country he’d read about in his younger years disappearing. That the taming of the land and the enlightening of its natural inhabitants would be completed. The last great Australian wilderness conquered and fully populated before his arrival there. He’d only delayed so long in the hope of his brother’s return.

  ‘Surely you’ve had enough of this place at least,’ said his grandmother.

  Ross was weary of working with sheep, of feeling the greasy wool between his fingers, of the stench of it on his clothes. At first the property was an escape and then, in lieu of active service, it transformed into Ross’s only contribution to the war effort, the industry partially succeeding in pacifying his guilt. But now when he thought of sheep, Ross only saw the blood on the uniforms that he’d helped create.

  ‘I came on this trip to ensure that you would do your father’s bidding.’ His grandmother folded and refolded her hands in her lap. ‘Ross, you must come home. If you dinnae do what is asked you won’t be welcome on any of your father’s stations in the future.’

  ‘It’s blackmail, then,’ said Ross.

  ‘Call it what you will. The result is all that matters.’

  He’d be alone. Cut off. With no claim on his father’s associates for help. No chance to prove his ability by managing one of the family’s assets. ‘Why is the opportunity to go north conditional on her?’

  ‘Her name is Miss Darcey Thomas, and you know why.’

  Ross moved away to the edge of the veranda, the heat of the sun striking his face like a slap. ‘It’s archaic, ridiculous. I told Father the same. I told him I wouldn’t do it.’

  His grandmother slapped at a fly. ‘Sit down, Ross. I said sit.’

  Ross did as he was told.

  ‘Dinnae think I haven’t given this a great deal of thought. I’ve wondered at the sense of it. Of the point of serving up two young people on a platter to protect the Grant reputation. I myself would prefer you settled down with a good Scots wife. However as Alastair is no longer with us, this falls to you, Ross. There is no one else. You must see the sense in this, lad. You’ll not find a suitable wife out here and your lack of service as well as your brother’s dishonour can’t have endeared you to the fairer sex. In a few years’ time attitudes will have changed, of course. The families snubbing their noses at us now will be wishing they’d paid more attention to Ross Grant once the full extent of the war’s losses strike home. But it will be too late. You will have struck a good match. This is not some small favour that I ask of you. This is simply something that must be done. Alastair asked the Englishwoman to marry him and in good faith she travelled here to us in the hope that he would come home.’