That afternoon, late clouds gathered on the horizon. The unexpected rain kept Ross indoors and he wrote to his son in the study next to his wife’s room, noting that the painting of the billabong waterlilies had been hung opposite the desk. It seemed to him that the lives of two women were now commemorated on the walls of his home. Maria, infused into the timber through the heat of their lovemaking, and Darcey’s far more substantial contribution made bright and tantalisingly real by her continued presence.
His son had not yet been told of his true parentage but when that day came, something extensive was needed to explain how the business of living had gone so awry for Ross. He’d begun collating pages from scattered memories until a sort of log took form. The chapters of his life divided and depicted by the variegated colours of the earth and its formations. Weathered patterning on a rock face. Grassy plateaus. Rugged hills. The lifelessness of pale sand. The red soil of the plains. It became a difficult obsession, committing to paper his existence, for there were things Ross had forgotten or never wanted to reveal, choices made that were so poor he didn’t recognise the man who toiled across the page. It was an inadequate chronicle for a father to write for his son, made worse by the absence of time. Having been informed by the doctor in Darwin of his limited mortality, each dawn sky underscored what he’d squandered and the dearth of fine days and rainy ones that lay ahead. Sowden’s lost days were now etched into Ross’s mind.
Outside, Darcey walked past the window. He’d been avoiding her since the night of Sowden’s passing. He’d tried to fill the hours with riding and stumbling about outdoors, his inadequate body a barrier to what he yearned for the most: the liberty to return to where he’d come from. The wild lands, where questions and answers were wiped clean by the simple struggle to survive. But there was no chance of dodging the embarrassment he’d felt at her making him admit his need for her.
Darcey entered the room. ‘Ross?’
He closed the journal and stood up, as a gentleman should in a lady’s presence. ‘Yes?’
‘Was there any news?’ asked Darcey. ‘In the mail?’
‘Letters from the solicitor and … and my mother died.’ Darcey positioned herself on the edge of Sowden’s battered tin trunk and Ross resumed his position.
‘I’m sorry.’ Darcey appeared troubled.
‘Difficult, is it? Giving condolences to someone who barely recalls the deceased and doesn’t really care,’ replied Ross.
‘Come now. She was your mother. Even if you feel nothing today, you will tomorrow.’
He questioned if that was possible. At young Hart’s passing, he’d held his hand during his last breaths and hoped it had been of some comfort to the boy. It was for him. Ross wondered if anyone had done the same for his mother. ‘Anyway, they’re all gone now. Every one of them.’
‘Except Connor. He mightn’t be family but he cares,’ said Darcey. ‘Are you ever going to ask him to return?’
‘We’ve had too many disagreements,’ replied Ross.
‘So he told me.’
‘I’m sure his version made for interesting listening.’
‘It did. I know about the child. Your son. I assume that’s who you’re writing to so regularly?’
Ross stared at her. After a while he got up and limped about the room, then he sat down again. Darcey hadn’t moved.
‘Have you known for a long time?’ he finally asked.
‘Within a few months of moving to Darwin after you disappeared. Mrs Reece informed Connor of Maria’s pregnancy and when the child was born he thought I’d find out eventually, Darwin being such a small place.’
Learning that Connor had known of the baby’s existence from the beginning stunned him into momentary silence. He was furious.
‘You didn’t know that, Ross?’
‘No.’
‘Connor was trying to protect you. That’s all he’s ever aimed to do.’
‘But if I’d known –’
‘What? You wouldn’t have gone walkabout?’
‘I don’t know,’ he answered truthfully.
‘She was already married by the time you arrived in Darwin,’ said Darcey, as if reminding him that there was nothing he could have done.
‘My life is my own. It always was, Darcey, and it always will be. It’s not for anyone to interfere in.’
‘We all know that now, Ross.’
He assumed Darcey would be angry. Being a father was fresh and new to Ross but it was ancient news for his jilted wife. Still, he rather thought she’d take the opportunity to condemn or complain. Any woman deserved that retaliatory jab.
‘I wished it had been me. My child. I blamed myself for not falling pregnant and then I blamed you,’ confessed Darcey, twisting the ring on her wedding finger. ‘That’s silly, isn’t it, because it wasn’t for the want of trying.’
Neither of them spoke. The original wedding band had been too large. The one she now wore fitted snugly and she twirled it constantly like it was a string of worry beads.
‘I’ve heard Maria has a number of children. She’s been blessed,’ said Darcey.
‘Yes, she has.’
‘Have you come to an arrangement with her regarding your son?’
‘You’re very calm about all this,’ he remarked.
‘I’ve had time to grow accustomed to the situation.’
‘You’re fortunate,’ said Ross. ‘Maria’s preference is for me to remain invisible, but as he’s the only Grant heir, that’s impossible. I intend to tell Hugh about me next year.’
‘You don’t think that’s a little young?’ suggested Darcey.
‘No, I don’t,’ said Ross.
‘And the properties and money your father left me? It is yours by right and so it must go to Hugh eventually, but only after I’ve finished with it. Let’s just agree to that without debate.’ She paused and then asked, ‘And what about Maria? She’s happily married, I hear?’
‘It’s over, Darcey,’ said Ross firmly.
Her expression revealed little. ‘And to think I only disturbed you to enquire about the mail,’ she said, still fiddling with the ring. ‘I’m sorry about the other night, provoking you the way I did.’
‘You wanted answers,’ said Ross.
Darcey ran a thumb over a palm, the nail tracing the lines in her flesh. ‘Yes, I did. I also needed –’
‘To make me experience how I made you feel all those years ago, unwanted?’ asked Ross.
She laughed quite loudly. ‘Heavens, no. I was angry with you for a long time, Ross. You treated me poorly and humiliated me but I learned to accept my part in our relationship. I was naïve to believe that a forced union could ever work. No, I simply wanted the truth as to why I was here.’
‘I see.’
‘You’ve always been one of the most difficult people to speak with.’
‘It’s a talent,’ said Ross flippantly. Darcey’s tone suggested that a more serious conversation was taking form and he worried, lest she draw out some other fault or desire within him, for he knew there were many.
‘You’ve been very quiet since that night.’
‘I’ve been busy.’
‘Oh Ross,’ she said, smiling. ‘There’s no shame in being honest. Haven’t we put each other through enough? Let’s not complicate things any further.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Let me put it plainly,’ said Darcey. ‘I don’t love you.’
‘You’ve made that quite clear.’ There were any number of accusations he could withstand but not more of this.
‘Wait.’ Darcey gestured for him to sit still. She rubbed her hands together and then along the length of her skirt from thigh to knee. ‘You’ve changed.’
‘As have you,’ replied Ross.
‘I never renounced society and embarked on extinction. But I want you to know what I see in the person before me. Most of the less-than-attractive parts of you are gone. What’s left is better, finer.’
‘Apart from being a crip
ple and unfit for society.’
‘You’ll never make a gentleman but then when we first met you were hardly the drawing-room type. I like this Ross Grant a lot better than the old.’
‘You do?’
‘Yes.’
Ross set his attention on the woman before him. There’d never been much order to his life once the short pants of childhood had been tossed aside. His was a rootless existence comprised of harshness and obsession. Yet here was the wife he’d forsaken telling him he was a better man. He had wronged her and even then she offered what he’d been incapable of giving, to anyone, especially his own family: tolerance and understanding. He was stunned by the scale of her compassion. It was so different to what he believed Darcey thought of him that he dropped his head, concentrating on the warped timber at his feet. He was like a ghost in a shell. Unworthy.
‘Ross?’ said Darcey.
Was it possible for a man such as him, who’d fallen so low, to finally make peace with everything that had gone before? Was he capable of the same kind of mercy? And if he was – if he could forgive the family who had wronged him – would he too be able to move on?
She was kneeling before him, a hand on his knee. ‘There are five great tragedies in life, Ross. Ignorance, foolishness, poverty, a life without purpose, a life without God. You have lived through all of that needlessly, appallingly, and you almost killed yourself in the process. Think about that. About how you came to such a sorry place when you had family who loved you. Perhaps not in the way you wanted or believed was right, but there was love for you. People cared. They still do. Think about what you have. What you can do tomorrow and the day after. What lies ahead.’
‘I made a mess of everything,’ he replied quietly. ‘Maria, my family, even Sowden. But especially you, Darcey.’
‘We all live in the margins of other people’s tragedies. You in Alastair’s. Me in the middle of two extraordinary brothers.’
‘I’m sorry. For everything. Sorry for leaving you all those years ago.’
‘I know,’ said Darcey. ‘I know you are.’
‘I don’t want you to go,’ he said, taking her hand. ‘And I don’t want to leave.’
‘But you don’t love me,’ answered Ross.
She leant forward and kissed his cheek. ‘No, but there is always the hope of love growing, Ross, and fool that I am, I do care.’
Chapter 60
1937
Hugh held firm in the saddle as the horse bucked around the yards, an arm held high in the air as if he was one of the American cowboys he so admired. At seventeen, he was tall and lean, with features that leant more towards the Grant blood-line, although the almond shape to his eyes and black hair was unmistakable. Ross observed his son as the boy drew blood from the spurs he wore until the horse finally threw him. Hugh landed heavily, rolling across the dirt in a clearly practised manner and then jumped up in disgust, Mick coo-eeing at the failed attempt to tame the gelding.
‘Well, you should have seen that coming. What did you expect, riding him with the spurs like that?’ commented Ross as Hugh dusted earth from his clothes.
The boy slipped through the railings so that he was on the same side as his father. ‘Didn’t you kill a horse hunting buffalo?’
‘It was an accident,’ countered Ross.
‘That’s not how you wrote it in that story you gave me to read.’
‘It wasn’t a story. It all happened. And ease off on the spurs a bit. You’ll only scare him. You should know better.’
Hugh brushed dirt from his shirt. ‘My horse, my methods.’
‘I gave you the damn horse and this is my place. I don’t have to leave any of it to you,’ said Ross.
‘So you keep telling me.’ The boy walked to the stables.
Ross slammed his palm on the railing. If he’d known how damn difficult being a father was, he may not have taken the role on. Hugh itched for an argument nearly every day, to the extent that Ross was beginning to question why the boy even bothered to visit the property. He speculated it was only for the inheritance. It certainly didn’t appear to be for the love of being Ross Grant’s son.
‘Young fella’s pretty angry,’ observed Mick, resting the gelding’s saddle on the top railing.
‘Yes, he is.’
‘He’ll be all right.’
‘I hope so, Mick.’
‘Sure he will be. First he’s got to get to know you better, and you him. That’ll take some doing. Best though if you don’t go at each other like black snakes, eh?’ Mick lifted the saddle and headed for the tack room.
Ross limped back to the house. Sitting on the top step of the veranda, he pulled out his pocketknife and found the sharpening stone he kept on the landing. It was only proper that, after everything that had occurred, Hugh’s loyalty would lie with Maria. It had been his mother who’d broken the news of his parentage and while Ross chose not to think the worst, occasionally he blamed Maria for the boy’s hostile attitude towards him. Although he reasoned that tensions in the Myilly Point household might well add to Hugh’s angst and confusion, Hugh’s manner towards him certainly wasn’t due to the love of his stepfather. Hugh’s relationship with Edward Carment had not improved over the years, according to the brief letters he received from Maria providing updates about their son. A situation made worse with the revelation that Ross was his birth father and not the long-deceased Marcus Holder. Ross had no idea how the outing of their affair had affected Maria’s marriage, but assumed the ramifications would be significant. Maria’s union of convenience had been based on a lie. Years ago, these unpleasant facts would have found their way into the reading public’s hands, however even the papers weren’t interested in revisiting the sordid details of the past. For once, Ross was old news.
‘There’s going to be a war, you know.’ Hugh was standing in front of him, a stockwhip curled around a shoulder. ‘It’s in the paper. Nanking has surrendered to Japan. They reckon the empire’s killing thousands of Chinese.’
‘That’s not our war,’ said Ross.
‘No, it’s mine,’ countered Hugh.
It was the first time the boy had made reference to his mixed blood.
‘It’s between the Empire of Japan and China,’ Ross told his son. The boy stared at him almost dismissively. ‘So you want to fight? For the Chinese. As a mercenary?’
‘Maybe.’ Hugh fingered the plaited hide he was carrying. ‘I’ve talked to a few of the old men who came back from France. They’ve told me not to go. You’ll say the same, I suppose?’
‘I might, except that I didn’t fight in the Great War, so it’s not for me to say. You have to make your own decision.’
‘Really?’ Hugh toed at the ground with a boot and then squatted in front of Ross. ‘All those notes about your life that you gave me. I didn’t believe most of it, apart from the bit about you deserting my mother and what you said about the war. About how not going made you feel like an outsider.’
‘This is a different war, Hugh. There’s only two countries involved and Australia isn’t one of them.’
‘And that makes it less important?’ argued Hugh.
‘Of course not. But your Uncle Alastair fought for Australia. You’d be fighting for a place you’ve never seen with people you don’t know and a language you can’t speak.’
‘I don’t think of you as my father, you know,’ Hugh said suddenly.
‘And I’m not speaking to you as if I am. I’m just saying how it is,’ said Ross.
They eyed each other off, Hugh’s anger showing in the way he pursed his lips. ‘You feel more like a distant relative,’ he said, his tone insolent.
‘That’s something, I suppose,’ Ross answered calmly.
He expected Hugh to stomp away, instead he unfurled the whip, flicking it across the ground as if trying to prolong the conversation.
‘I never got on with my father, either,’ Ross told him. ‘He was a complicated man.’
‘Bossy?’ asked Hugh.
�
�Yes. I guess you reckon I’m the same, which wouldn’t be an unfair assumption. I’ve often wondered if the reason he and I didn’t have a great father–son relationship was because we were too alike.’
The boy stopped playing with the whip. It was obvious that he was considering Ross’s words. ‘Why did you leave my mother?’
‘You know why, Hugh. You’ve read what happened from my point of view and heard your mother’s side as well.’
‘It was wrong. Everything was wrong.’
‘Everything went wrong. Yes. I agree with that. And I’m sorry for what happened. If I could change things I would.’
‘But you can’t,’ challenged Hugh. ‘No, I can’t.’
‘I’m leaving tomorrow.’
‘Tomorrow? But you’re meant to be here for at least another week.’
‘I don’t want to be stuck here over the wet season, and if I go now I can ride out with Eustace and Parker.’
He considered forcing the boy to stay on, however such an action wouldn’t help their relationship. ‘Go then, if you want to.’ He couldn’t hide the disappointment from his voice.
Hugh lingered for a few more moments before walking away.
Ross stretched out his legs, the familiar ache lessening as tendons and bones eased into the different position. He hated the lead-up to the wet season. The humidity woke every part of his skeleton, making portions that functioned reasonably well in the dry brittle and painful during the tedious months of rain. He was like a wristwatch that couldn’t be repaired, gradually slowing until one day it eventually stopped.
Darcey, knowing how he suffered, suggested that he head to Adelaide for a few months and this year he was almost willing to see something of the South and the changes he’d read about, however the idea of sitting on a train or horse, even a ship, for long periods tormented him. Ross still couldn’t manage more than three to four hours in the saddle and after years of preferring a swag, these days by dark he looked for a bed. It bit at him, the inability to ride across the land he owned, and the very notion of leaving only to return to the property worse than ever crippled him more than his shattered body. He wasn’t yet fifty years of age, but his youth was long gone and returning to Adelaide seemed pointless at this stage.
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