by Jane Carter
‘Who is?’
‘Diana. And at last we are beginning to talk, at least about the kids. Rosie and I used to talk all the time about Philly and what she was up to. Today Diana told me that Saskia was having a hard time settling in to school this year. The fashionable group, you know, the one they all want to be part of, is ignoring her. Poor little mite.’
‘Why doesn’t she just leave them alone? Go off and do her own thing.’
‘Oh, you don’t understand, girls can be so bitchy.’
Tom grunted.
Her girls had experienced enough of it. ‘Why do we all want what we can’t have? I wouldn’t be surprised if Diana wanted to come back here. I wish she would. And Rosie,’ she sighed and turned off the light, ‘I’m not sure what she wants anymore. Which is strange, as we’ve always been on the same page. Whereas I’ve felt Diana got on better with your mum. But all the same, I think she inherited that artistic talent from my side of the family.’
‘More than likely. There’s precious little of it on the Crawford side.’
‘Does Milo remind you of your father? Little things … he’s so serious.
‘I guess he does. Taught him today we have crows not ravens in Australia.’
‘Did you see some crows?’ Stella winced at what that implied.
‘They had a ewe down in the west paddock, picked out her eyes. Milo has to learn it’s not all soft and woolly looking after sheep. The old ewes are a bit weak; I might have to increase their feed. I think a fox is nosing around. I saw one the other day.’
‘Was Milo okay?’ she asked softly. There were some grisly lessons to be learnt on a farm.
‘Yes, he’ll do.’
Tom’s breathing was soon steady and regular. Stella couldn’t sleep though. Her daughters were so different. They’d always wanted different things from life. Never having had a sister, she was sometimes at a loss to explain the ups and downs her daughters went through in their relationship. Bottom line though, she thought they’d always be there for each other. Well, she hoped so anyway.
Women nowadays had so many choices. Her mother-in-law had had no choice at all. She’d worked so hard, and she just seemed to pick up and do what had to be done. But all the same, Frank and Peg seemed to have had a great social life, from all accounts. There was time for going to church, and the races, and the dances every weekend. Of course, there was no television in those days.
She and Tom had been more isolated, although the cars were faster and the roads better. They had telly, of course, but the drink driving laws had had an impact, living thirty minutes out of town. You could hardly get a taxi to get you home. So that had put paid to drinking out. If only one of you drank it wasn’t nearly as much fun. And there weren’t so many community things, like dances, to go to any more.
All this talk of women’s liberation was a farce in the country. Stella had always felt totally liberated, along with most of the wives she knew, while this younger generation were suddenly pressured to go out to work, and raise a family, and continue doing all the things on the farm.
So now they had to be superwomen. Have a job and help on the farm. Raise the kids, run, run, run. Drop them off, pick them up. Halleluiah, it made her tired even thinking of it. She yawned.
Tom had lost his temper again today. He had such a short fuse lately. Diana had been egging them on to get the internet, but the whole computer business, let alone the internet, was a world they knew nothing about. Diana had said that lots of farmers used computers. But not Tom. He was so stubborn.
‘I don’t need a computer, I have a pen and a piece of paper when I wish to send a letter and I have a telephone when I wish to communicate in person. I do not need a computer. I cannot see how I would be better off with one.’
‘You could get weather reports and market reports,’ Diana had suggested, and Tom had just raised one eyebrow—didn’t he get them already ad nauseam on the radio and the TV? And that was that. Diana had rolled her eyes and walked out of the room. Tom had gone on and on about people living above their means, and how they should be satisfied with less. He got so worked up these days.
They never closed the curtains at night. It was very dark outside. Lots of stars. Stella loved moonshine with all the silvery light and shadows in the garden. There was no moon tonight though. Tom always liked to get up at the crack of dawn and it was beautiful watching the light creep over the sky, turning it from grey to pale pink, and then that delicate eggshell blue. Listening to the birds calling to each other. Lying in bed with the drumming of the rain on the tin roof was another of her favourite things. Unfortunately that was more of a dim memory these days.
She sighed and looked around the familiar room. She loved their bedroom, they’d painted it pale grey a couple of years ago, and she’d found some beautiful, washed-out grey silk for curtains that billowed and made a rustle if there was a breeze. The windows were always open, winter and summer—admittedly only a crack in the winter. The familiar noises of the night outside soothed her and she closed her eyes, thinking she must find the costumes she’d made for the girls. They should be in her chest if she remembered rightly. And she did have to talk to Diana about Peg. She’d hurt her leg and she had to remind her to buy Peg some support stockings. That could all be done tomorrow.
Sunday was Mother’s Day. Her day for remembering Cody. Over the years it had just happened that she’d take the day for herself. Wrap the memories of Cody around her. Take them out, give them a shake before putting them away for another year. She’d walk up to the headstone on the top of Mog’s Hill and sit there and talk to Cody. Tom and Rosie left her to do what she wanted. They’d usually go and spend time with Peg. With Diana and the children in the house, it would be different. Maybe it wasn’t fair to be thinking about Cody when Diana needed a show of love from her children, when they needed to concentrate on the living. She could always do it another day, couldn’t she?
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Diana walked in to her grandmother’s house at around four.
‘Granny!’ she called, after letting herself in with her key.
Peg was watching the television. ‘Diana! How lovely to see you. How are you darling?’ She raised her soft powdery cheek for a kiss.
‘Fine, just fine. How are you? How’s your leg?’
She’d knocked a big piece of paper-like skin from her leg a couple of days before. The local health nurse had been coming every morning to keep an eye on it.
‘My leg is doing very nicely. Doesn’t hurt at all.’
‘Good.’ Or at least she hoped that was good. Maybe if it was numb that was a bad thing. It was so hard to judge if something was healing or not when you couldn’t get a reasonable report from the patient. Yesterday, she hadn’t even remembered what she’d done to her leg.
‘I went to Rosie’s last night for dinner,’ said Diana.
‘Did you have a nice dinner?’
‘Mmm. Delicious food cooked by Mal. Did you know he liked cooking? Lots of homegrown veggies. We talked for hours.’
Diana pulled up a chair to face her grandmother, and sat and took her hands in her own. ‘Do you remember Charlie, Granny, my husband Charlie?’
‘Of course, dear. The Englishman.’
This was suddenly so important. Diana really wanted someone to remember Charlie, not the way Rosie remembered him.
Please remember.
‘No, really, do you? I have to talk to someone. He came here with me, to see you. Actually, you came to the airport to meet us. Charlie wasn’t all that tall, more medium size, blond hair, straight-ish, kept falling in his eyes, such beautiful blue eyes. Sienna’s got his eyes.’ Diana searched her grandmother’s face.
‘Of course I do, I think he’s charming. Very like Frank, you know. They had that twinkle. I remember when I met Frank, he simply took my breath away.’ She chuckled. ‘Not that I let on to him any such thing.’
‘Really, you remember? I want someone to remember him … Rosie was saying she didn’t
like him very much, but he wasn’t like that—arrogant or stuck up. He wasn’t. I can’t bear that no one here knew him, loved him as I did. He was so funny, Granny, he was such a free spirit and he loved me so much. And I don’t think I can bear it any more. It’s not fair, it’s just not fair.’
‘Sometimes we have to accept God’s will, dear, even though we can’t make any sense of it.’
Diana knelt at her knee, put her face in her lap and cried again for the second time in twenty-four hours, Peg tsking and patting her head gently. Then the words, the thoughts she’d refused to think let alone utter, came tumbling out.
‘What if it wasn’t God’s will, though? I feel so wretchedly guilty. I think it was all my fault, if only …’
‘Hello, hello,’ came a deep voice from the doorway. Diana looked up, startled.
An equally startled man stood at the open sitting room door. ‘Sorry, the back door was open so I just came on in. You must be Diana, I’ve been shown your picture often enough. Will Talbot. I’m Peg’s doctor.’
As he came closer, Diana scrambled to her feet. On her knees he’d appeared very tall.
‘Hello, Peg, just thought I’d have a look at that leg. Is that all right?’ He turned to Diana. ‘You’re here for a visit? How long?’ Kneeling at Peg’s feet, he pulled the white stocking slowly down her leg.
‘I, er …’
‘Diana was just telling me about her Charlie,’ said Peg. ‘Did you meet her Charlie, Will?’
‘No, no, I didn’t. When did he come out?’
Diana realised she was going to have to answer. She took a deep, shaky breath. ‘Ten years ago. He only came out the once.’
A white handkerchief appeared in front of her face and she took it. She sat, blew her nose loudly, and straightened her shoulders, hands clasping the edge of the chair. ‘Thank you, Dr Talbot.’
‘Please, Will.’ He looked over and smiled.
Diana did like the sound of his voice. And the look on his face was serious and concerned. But she had no desire to meet his eyes full on. She stared at the television.
‘He was a lovely man, you know, her Charlie. An Englishman.’ Peg said.
‘How did you meet him?’ he asked, as he carefully unwound the bandage.
‘He used to come to the pub where I worked, in London. He’d sit at the bar there for hours, just talking. Eventually he said I’d have to take full responsibility for him becoming an alcoholic if I didn’t go out with him. As a line it was pretty weak, but it worked.’ Diana drew a shuddering breath.
‘What does he do?’
‘He’s, um … he was an artist. Painted landscapes.’
‘So, modern, traditional … what?’
‘A bit in between. He loved crayon, it was so quick he used to say. But he did a bit of oil as well. He was always trying something new.’
‘Did he sell them?’
‘Oh yes, they were very good. There was a gallery in Hackney that used to take his stuff.’ She paused. ‘He died in a car accident.’ Diana almost choked on the words.
‘That must have been a terrible shock.’
‘Dreadful. I can’t describe how dreadful. Someone is there and then suddenly they’re not. I can’t quite accept that he’s gone for good, forever. I feel he’s going to walk back in, or at least ring me any minute and say “Hey, sorry I’m late”. I think I’m going a bit crazy.’
If she concentrated very hard on the television she could hold it together. She was blabbing to a perfect stranger. He must think she was crazy too. No ifs about it.
Will Talbot didn’t look up or stop his inspection of the nasty-looking wound on her grandmother’s leg. ‘That sounds perfectly natural to me. Acceptance is probably the first step you have to take, and the hardest.’ He pointed to the two plates on the bookshelf. ‘Are they yours?’
‘Yes.’ Diana shrugged. ‘Very early Diana.’
‘They’re good though.’
Peg must have tired of being left out of the conversation. ‘William, there’s another thing I want to take up with you.’
‘I think the leg’s improving,’ he said. ‘It’s not getting worse anyway, Peg. Hmm, Peg leg.’
‘That’s enough.’ Peg was not to be diverted. ‘Now, I want to get my driving license renewed. It’s run out and I need a doctor’s certificate. All you have to do is fill it out and sign something.’
Horrified, Diana looked at Will but he just calmly and gently rolled up the support stocking. ‘Now you know I can’t do that, Peg. Your license ran out a year or so ago, didn’t it?’
‘Goodness, has it been as long as that? I’m sure I was driving just recently. I was, wasn’t I, Diana?’
‘I don’t know. I wasn’t here, Granny.’ Coward! Diana knew perfectly well her license had run out well over a year ago. That had filtered through, mostly from Peg herself, who had been incensed. Only now did Diana feel a prick of guilt as she remembered she’d taken her side at the time. What had she been thinking? Her grandmother shouldn’t be driving.
‘Surely it’s better to let someone else drive you, Granny. Rosie’s in town every day.’
‘It’s not the same as driving yourself. I’ve had my license since I was twenty. I remember the policeman gave it to me on the understanding I would never try reverse.’
Will Talbot burst out laughing. ‘I hadn’t heard that one before, Peg!’
‘You gave your car to Phillipa, remember? She’s taken it to university,’ Diana said.
‘I’d forgotten. Are you sure, Diana?’
‘Well, Peg,’ said Will, ‘the last thing you want is a car right now. The price of petrol is sky high.’
‘Oh, I suppose you’re right. I’m a very good driver, though.’ Peg didn’t sound convinced.
‘Of course you are, I’ve driven with you.’ Will smiled and stood. ‘I’m off now, back to the hospital. I think the leg is mending nicely.’
‘If that’s the case, could you give me a lift, Will?’
‘Yes, of course.’
Once they were in the car, Diana turned to Will. ‘I just don’t know where I am with Peg. It’s as though she has an on and off switch. It’s very confusing. Will she get worse?’
‘I can’t help you there. Everyone goes at their own speed. I know she is a remarkable woman and it must be very hard for you.’
‘Thank you Will, for listening to me talk about Charlie. I seem to be all over the place. One minute I feel like ranting, the next I’m in tears and then I want to kill him. And then I remember he’s already dead. It’s all so bloody difficult.’
‘This is all part of the grieving process. Its early days, you know, very normal. If you feel you need an ear or a handkerchief, give me a ring.’
‘Three months I’ve been living in a fog. People would say just to live from day to day. Getting through ten minutes was more like it.’ Diana looked at the handkerchief crushed in her hand. ‘Oh I forgot. I’ll wash it and send it back with Rosie. Thanks so much.’
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
The dogs were barking.
It was the middle of the night. Dogs shouldn’t bark in the middle of the night. Diana heard the sheep then, baaing, calling to each other, and then she heard her father walking down the hall, past her bedroom door.
She got out of bed, pulled her socks on over her bare feet and a jacket over her pyjamas, covered Saskia and left the room. Tom was standing at the hall stand.
‘What is it?’ she whispered.
‘A dog on the loose, maybe a fox.’ He picked up his old .22 rifle, gathered a handful of brass bullets from the drawer and put them in his pocket. It was an old rifle with a long gleaming barrel and a polished wood stock; it had belonged to his father. It used to reside above the hall stand but Diana hadn’t seen it since she’d been home, though the wooden pegs that had supported it were still there.
‘Can I come?’ She struggled into her boots at the back door.
‘Sure. Can’t sleep?’ He handed her a big halogen spotlight.
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br /> ‘Not really.’ Diana turned it on and off. ‘Impressive. Now this is a light.’ She grabbed a beanie and they went through the kitchen, and outside.
Her father hopped in the back of the ute while Diana got in the driver’s seat and put the light carefully on the seat beside her. Before her there were myriads of stars in the black velvet void. The slip of a moon she’d seen the other night must have been the wane; there was no moon now. It was still. Cold too. She shivered in her jacket, pulling it up round her neck. She had to leave the window down to hear her father’s instructions.
‘Go through into the creek paddock.’ Tom pointed.
At the gate Diana stopped and her father got out and opened it. She waited for him to hop in the back. He tapped on the roof when he was ready to go.
She saw the sheep first, mobbed and quiet, in the headlights. She stopped the car and leant out the window with the spotlight, scanning it slowly over the sheep, their eyes gleaming like yellow jewels in the light. She picked out the two red eyes slightly over to the left and held the light steady.
The shot was almost instantaneous. A sharp crack in the night. The sheep didn’t move. Wise under the circumstances. People who didn’t think sheep were clever should think again.
‘Did you get him?’ Diana asked.
There was a grunt from her father as he swung himself over the side of the ute. She watched him walk over the short grass, toe something on the ground and then pick up the carcass and carry it to the ute, where he threw it into the back.
‘Move over.’
She shuffled over to the passenger side. ‘Was it a fox?’
‘Yep, a bitch if I’m not mistaken.’
‘Good shot. You haven’t lost your touch.’
Her father smiled. ‘Not bad for an old fella. Dogs are the problem these days. Fellow down near the border lost thirty sheep in one night recently.’
‘Dingoes?’
‘No, not entirely—we’ve got a new breed these days. People go out with pig dogs to hunt dingoes and pigs, lose their dogs or leave them behind, and they’ve bred up into something quite menacing. They’d attack a grown man, no trouble.’