‘I’d like to see Connor Andrews. Can you arrange that? You should be able to get word to him at the Hotel Victoria,’ said Ross. ‘I’m leaving here today.’
Mr Maitland promised to do so.
Ross pointed to the crutches and waited as the lawyer fetched them. He stood awkwardly, crushed bones trying to arrange themselves into once-strong lines. His emaciated legs bowed. They’d told him it might be weeks before he walked. Ross couldn’t wait that long. Nor could he stand being cooped up surrounded by people and noise. He’d spent four months in hospital. With effort, he wedged each crutch into an armpit and staggered forward. One leg laboured harder than the other and Ross managed a shambling walk like a hobbled horse. The pain was excruciating, like a red-hot poker fresh from a fire, running in a line from ankle to hip.
The lawyer blocked the exit. ‘I must advise you, Mr Grant, it is quite ludicrous to take that property over the Adelaide estate. The doctors say that you’ll never regain the full use of your legs. That you won’t ride a horse again. And these two impediments are on top of serious health concerns that may well shorten your life. I would be doing you an injustice if I didn’t ask you to reconsider.’
‘You’ll be doing yourself more of an injustice if you don’t let me pass,’ said Ross, shuffling through the door.
Chapter 52
Ross wanted a boarding house somewhere out of the way, near the sea, and the widow Mrs Guild, who’d lost two sons in the war, was eager for someone to care for. She set up a little table on the back veranda and Connor dragged a sagging cot next to the wall so that Ross had only a few steps to walk. He used a pot under the bed when nature beckoned, saving the continual struggle to the outhouse, and spent the long hours dragging his body the short distance to the end of the veranda and back. He rarely entered the house. It smelt of unwashed pillowcases and inside were sporting pennants and ribbons, photographs of serious young men in slouch hats, of troopship carriers, palm trees and one of a dead crocodile, the hunter leaning on his rifle. The living room contained the remnants of a long-gone family. It reminded Ross of what was lost to him and he wasn’t prepared for that.
At dusk he ate, looking out across unkempt grass to the water, the brawny currents layering the surface in different shades. Mrs Guild, doing mending for a well-to-do family, sewed close by, making sure he consumed what she gave him and ensuring no food was wasted. Her skin was crosshatched with age and she was cranky most of the time, pecking away at life like an old boiler hen. Ross thought they made a fine pair, taking turns to grunt at each other, always quick to complain. Although come evening a truce was forged, as if they both understood the difficulties of having made it through another day, and it was then that Mrs Guild spoke and Ross could do nothing but listen.
‘You might be better somewhere else,’ she told him a month into his stay. ‘My place is out of the way and I’m past talking to folk.’
‘I’m fine,’ answered Ross.
She sorted through the basket of clothes on the floor, selecting a shirt. ‘How long will you be staying?’
‘Until I can walk better.’
‘Is that ever going to happen?’ she asked.
‘I hope so.’
‘Well, if it doesn’t you can remain here, I suppose.’ She held the needle to candlelight and threaded a length of white cotton through it. ‘That’d be all right but eventually you’re going to have to move inside. This isn’t a swagman’s camp. If I leave you out here long enough, next thing I know you’ll be bedding down in my garden and lighting yourself a fire. And I can’t have that. What would folk think?’
‘As if you’d care. Besides, the only neighbours you’ve got are bats and birds.’
‘Not the point, is it,’ she sniffed. ‘You may have my eldest’s room.’
‘I won’t move inside,’ Ross told her firmly.
‘Charles never came back. Like you, he was. Tight-lipped and fernickety, wouldn’t take a helping hand from nobody. That’s how he died, they told me. Kept on fighting after he’d been shot instead of going to one of those field hospitals. Bloody-minded like his father. Anyone would’ve thought he had the world on his shoulders. My Ben, he did come home. They shot him in the chest. Sent him back all stitched neat and tidy but then they had to open him up again. And every time they cut him, something else would come out of there. A bit of shirt, a piece of his tunic. Bits of shrapnel. We used to joke. I’d say, “Ben, you didn’t need to bring your mother back any souvenirs.” And he’d say, “Mother, you said you wanted something from France. That’s all I’ve got left now.” Those things his chest spat out. Ben got the doctor to put them in a glass jar.’ She cut the thread with her teeth, folding the shirt she’d been working on. ‘Connor said you’ve got family here. Why don’t you want to see them?’
‘I haven’t got anything to say,’ replied Ross.
‘Well, if you’re not careful you’re going to end up like me, taking in strangers to make up for the family you lost. You might be paying me to be here but I’m taking your money so I’ve got someone to talk to. You understand what I’m saying.’
A little later she made tea, sitting the pot on the table near his elbow. Next came a plate of biscuits, the kind made with rolled oats. Mrs Guild classed them as one of her specialties and called them Anzac biscuits. Ross wasn’t going to argue.
‘That keep you going?’ she asked. ‘I hear you. Up half the night, stumbling around, knocking into things. Can’t they give you anything for the pain?’
‘No.’ Ross bit into the tack-hard mixture.
‘A bit of training to knock off those rough edges and you’d be quite a catch. Nothing a person likes to hear more than a please and a thank you. The name’s Mrs Guild, by the way, if you’ve forgotten. I expect you to use it. It makes you feel appreciated. Manners and all.’ She placed a kerosene lantern on the table and lit the wick. ‘If you’re not willing to forgive your family for something they’ve done, then that doesn’t make you any better than them.’
‘How do you know it’s them who need the forgiveness?’ asked Ross.
‘Forgive yourself, then.’ Mrs Guild plumped the pillow on the narrow cot and straightened the coverlet. ‘I see you day after day staring at the ocean. I did the same, waiting for my boys to come home. Nothing out there but fish and crocs and the sea-slug chewers. If you need to, say twenty Hail Marys and half a dozen Our Fathers. Add a few more bruises to those damaged knees of yours.’
‘I haven’t been to church in a long time,’ admitted Ross. There were few insects gathering around the lamp with the seabreeze but as Ross turned down the light, a mosquito hit the hot glass and flew away. ‘Anyway, I’m Scottish.’
‘A press-button, eh? Hmm. It’s finding a beginning that’s the challenge. Now, those relations you have up here. Are they close family?’
‘Reasonably.’ Eventually Mrs Guild would discover that Darcey lived on the other side of the city and then he imagined his ear would be tugged long and hard.
‘Connor came this morning as he does every week. I said you were sleeping. He’s complaining that I’m keeping you all to myself but we both know you’re capable of doing that by yourself. You don’t need me to keep people away, it’s a talent for a person to be able to do that. I know cantankerous and you’ve got it in spades.’
His and Connor’s past loomed like a wedge between them, and for Ross there was enough to think on without pretending friendship. ‘Sometimes I don’t think you like me at all, Mrs Guild.’
‘These are for you.’ She handed him a pair of spectacles. ‘My husband couldn’t read the newspaper without them, and I’m figuring by the way you peer at the pages you have the same difficulty.’
‘Thank you.’
‘That’s better.’ She picked up his plate, prodding at the morsels of roast beef that were left. ‘I like having you here but I don’t like the reason that brought you.’
Ross patted his thigh, feeling the wasted muscle. ‘They’ll mend in time.’
&nbs
p; ‘Stupid boy. I’m not talking about your legs. You’re sore on the world. And there’s nothing sorrier than a person who feels sorry for himself.’
Chapter 53
Ross leant on the crutch, catching his breath. The air was salt-filled and blustery. It blew from the incoming storm, shreds of lightning turning the sky mauve as waves gathered in lines of two and threes to rush at the shore. Fine drops of rain sprayed across the headland. Ross wondered if the squall would be strong enough to wash him clean.
‘Dinnae you think you should wait a wee bit longer? Are you sure you want to do this?’ Connor stood with the horse, an old mare the colour of roasted walnut with a greying muzzle and tolerant eyes.
‘I still think of young Hart. Carrying him into the cave,’ said Ross. ‘It was right before we reached Oenpelli.’
Connor paid attention to each step Ross took. ‘Who was Hart?’
Ross handed Connor a crutch, then placed one hand on the mare’s mane and another on the saddle. He wished Nugget were there. It was the worst of his legs that needed to be lifted high enough to reach the stirrup iron and he wondered if his body was capable of the effort. ‘A friend. Hart was a friend.’ He kept forgetting, about who knew about which bits of his life. During the sleeplessness of night Ross recalled events and locations, mixing up people and places so that reality was skewed by more than absentmindedness.
‘I dinnae think this is a good idea, Ross.’ Connor held tight to the horse’s bridle. ‘We can get hold of a motor car or a dray instead. The doctor said your hips and pelvis couldn’t handle the strain. No need to bust yourself getting there.’
‘Just give me a hand.’
Connor interlaced his fingers, forming a cup for Ross’s boot. He said on the count of three he would lift, and Ross cringed with the ache of unused muscles as he threw his right leg over the saddle. He gritted his teeth, then grabbed at each leg beneath the knee, levering them up so that finally his feet rested in the stirrups.
‘Are you all right, Ross? By the saints, you look like you’ll pass out.’
Ross lifted a hand to show he’d heard.
‘Can you stick her?’ asked Connor. ‘There’s no shame in admitting you cannae, mate. A walk around the yard is one thing but riding to the other side of town is asking a bit of yourself.’
His legs refused to press firmly to the warmth of the animal and Ross found it difficult to stay square in the saddle. He thought of the humiliation if he fell, of needing the Scotsman’s strength to get up from the ground.
‘I could rope you on, just to be sure,’ offered Connor. ‘A neat little slipknot you can loosen when you get there. Aye, that would be the trick.’
‘Maybe you should go back to the wharf,’ replied Ross.
‘You asked me here, remember?’ Stuffing a knob-headed walking stick into a rifle holster, Connor detained him. ‘I still think I should go with you. How are you going to get off, or get back on for that matter?’
‘I mightn’t do either. I might just turn around and ride home.’
‘No you won’t,’ said Connor. ‘You’ve been thinking on this for some time. If you dinnae do it now then you probably won’t ever do it.’
‘Is that so,’ said Ross.
‘Aye. As sure as I know that you’d drag yourself along the road before you let Darcey see how you really are.’
Ross wished that Hart was still alive. He wouldn’t have minded the boy accompanying him part of the way. There was no use explaining to Connor his preference. That the boy’s simple need for friendship made him a better companion than Connor ever was, or that Ross deserved. The boy wanted nothing more than company and direction, and expected little in return, relying on blind faith and Ross to get him through his troubles. But with Connor, Ross couldn’t hide. He was too close to everything that had once filled Ross’s life and that had always been the problem.
‘The papers have to be signed,’ replied Ross. ‘I could ask Darcey to come here but I’d never hear the end of it from Mrs Guild.’
The widow stood on the rear veranda holding a glass jar up to the light. Ross knew she examined the fragments taken from her dead son, and that when she finally went inside the house she would pat at her eyes as she sat the container on the windowsill. He held his hand up in acknowledgement and she gave a reproachful nod that signified her disagreement with what he was about to attempt.
‘She’s an old cracker, but she’s kept you alive, and you’re looking better,’ said Connor. Together they rode away from the house. ‘Always is a better view from atop a good piece of horse-flesh.’
Ross didn’t reply. He was too busy concentrating on breathing through the pain. At the end of the street they parted company, and Ross continued on alone.
Chapter 54
Darcey’s house was at the end of the street, so close to the bush that the timber was shuddering about it in the wind. There were palm trees and potted shrubs at the front and a paling fence so white Ross was sure he could smell the fresh paint. It was showering but the storm had headed east. Plumes of blue-grey cloud hugged the coast and he thought of the open country that lay outside the gridded streets of Darwin, so dangerously seductive. The mare had kept to a steady gait. Ross yearned to break into a gallop, to head south to the cover of the scrub but his body was rigid with discomfort and there was no returning to where he came from. That shadowy outer place that inhabited him as much as he inhabited it.
Ross wondered at the height of the house and then looked with dismay at the steps leading to the front door. The dwelling was perched on stilts ten feet above the ground, the garden gate closed. He thought of Connor laughing at him, wounding his pride. Ross leant down, judging how far he could reach before his body rebelled or gravity pulled him over. The latch lifted and he entered the garden. There was little point in trying to dismount properly, as he knew his legs wouldn’t bear the weight, so he lifted each foot from their stirrup, flung a leg over the mare’s back and fell to the ground.
The thud of the earth juddered through his bones and he lay still, panting like a dog from the shock of the fall. He breathed through the effort of rising, hoisting his body by relying on the horse and tree for support. Eventually he managed to tie the mare to a whip-thin branch and had the knob of the walking stick planted in his palm. At the foot of the steps he stopped. He’d already undergone a beating, but the final trouncing was yet to come for he doubted he could climb the stairs.
As he contemplated whether he was capable of attempting the steps, Darcey appeared from his left at the corner of the house.
‘Ross?’ she said. She wore a white sundress, the brownness of her limbs evidence of time spent outdoors. ‘I wondered what time you’d arrive. Come this way.’
Instead of up the stairs, she led him between the posts supporting the house to where a table laden with tea things sat waiting. He followed her with difficulty, the walking cane catching on the uneven ground, his legs tackling movement as if they had anchors attached. An easel sat in a corner and a stack of painted canvases leant to one side. Ross noticed a hammock strung between trees in the garden and wished he could collapse into it.
‘It’s good to see you.’ She poured cordial into tall glasses and added water as Ross eased himself carefully into a cushioned seat. ‘I didn’t know you could ride. I thought Connor would bring you.’
‘No need for that.’ He doubted Darcey usually entertained there beneath the house but he was grateful to be on ground level and glad to be stationary. She looked well. A hint of red coloured her cheeks and her hair had grown since they last spoke at the hospital. Ross tried to remember what it meant to be in the company of a lady. A woman similar in age to his. There was a folder full of papers in front of her bound by a twist of string, suggesting that his wife was straight to business.
‘I’m glad you’re better. Connor tells me that Mrs Guild is looking after you extremely well.’
‘Yes, she’s a good woman. Darcey –’
‘Please,’ she interrupte
d. ‘Let me go first. I knew nothing of your father’s intentions when he was alive. I just want you to know I’ve told Mr Maitland that I would prefer it if you were the main beneficiary and that I only require a small yearly income. He tells me that he can do nothing without your consent and that you were quite adamant when you met, but I don’t want all your money, Ross. Truly, I don’t.’
When she finally paused there was a brightness to her. Ross couldn’t tell if it was false or whether Darcey was pleased at having been able to speak her mind. Now it was his turn, and in his current state there was no riding off in a hurry if what he’d dwelt on proved to be incorrect. The risks he’d taken over the previous years seemed nothing now that he was compelled to speak the truth.
‘When we last spoke, Darcey, you said that you stayed all these years because of the last night we shared at Waybell.’ She shifted a little, her fingers twisting in her lap. ‘You said,’ continued Ross, ‘on that particular night, it didn’t feel as if there was an obligation between us anymore.’
Darcey lowered her chin. ‘That’s true.’
Ross sipped at the cordial, feeling the rush of sugar course through his body. It was strange being sober. ‘Could I have some more of that?’
‘Yes, of course.’ She rose and began to manoeuvre glasses and bottle, making a fuss of removing and replacing the cork and the doily covering the water jug.
He waited as Darcey mixed the beverage, noticing the slightness of her wrists. Ross still couldn’t reconcile how they’d ended up in bed together. It was so businesslike. The discussion. The bartering of one need for another. Until that last night, when he’d overthrown Maria, the first woman whom he’d loved, for Darcey, the woman he’d been compelled to marry.
‘You were right.’ Ross took a long drink and exhaled. ‘There wasn’t an obligation. I wanted to be there as well.’ He leant on both the cane and tabletop to stand, and moved to where sunlight slanted across the dirt floor. He thought it would be better to speak in movement, as discomfort and awkwardness sharpened his thoughts. It also gave them space, distance to hide how they felt now that he’d finally sorted truth from fantasy and been honest with her.
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