A Changing Land (25 page)

The corridor leading to her mother's room was long and beige. There were photographs of the Queensland coast between each white doorway and at the end was a soft pink couch currently providing comfort to two young children, who, although having been left with books and soft toys, sat staring straight ahead. Sarah checked the numbers above each door, mentally counting down both the number of rooms left and the months that divided their last reunion. Leaving her luggage at the door, she knocked once before entering.

‘Sarah, it's good to see you.' Sarah glanced towards the hospital bed as her father bustled her in, sitting her in one of two comfy armchairs. He looked reasonably well, although tired. His bulky frame was only just beginning to stoop and he filled the room with the unmistakeable genetics of a Gordon male: tenacious, craggily handsome in the later stages of his life with an aura that made people stare on passing. Newspapers were scattered on the wide window ledge and table next to her mother's bed. Sue Gordon
sat upright, a cream bed jacket about her shoulders and a vacant stare boring into the blank wall opposite. Immediately Sarah questioned her presence. She could have waited at her father's apartment or gone for a walk along the beach or invested in some retail therapy; although with everything occurring at the moment, shopping didn't hold any interest for her.

‘She's comfortable,' her father stated. ‘Of course she doesn't know where she is, or who I am.' He cleared his throat. ‘I'm sure the reading helps. You know, otherwise she just lies there, in silence.'

Sarah settled herself in the armchair. ‘You read aloud to her?'

‘Of course, mainly the news, although sometimes I skip to the entertainment page. She always did love the cinema when she lived in Sydney.'

‘Dad,' Sarah touched his arm gently, ‘you do recall two years ago the doctors said that her mind had basically shut down, so why –'

‘Why bother?' Ronald snapped. He began tidying the papers, heaping them into a neat pile at his feet. ‘Maybe it makes me feel better.'

There was a bald patch, round and smooth on the crown of his head. The brown of the skin contrasted sharply with the grey-streaked brown hair, yet he still looked younger than his wife. Sarah looked across the small space to where her mother lay. Her father was wasting his life through some strange aberration of guilt. It wasn't as if he'd been driving a car that led to her mother's condition, nor could her mother claim a morally unblemished record.

‘Jim Macken has arrived in Australia. He wants to meet you and is claiming his inheritance.' Having planned on a more subtle revelation, Sarah found herself delivering the news like a corner shop spruiker.

Ronald rearranged the pile of papers. ‘So you didn't come to visit your mother?'

‘Dad, you know we never had a normal relationship when I was young. There's no point pretending now.'

He walked over to Sue and tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear.

‘You did hear what I said, Dad?'

‘The doctor gives her a week. She's stopped eating and, well, I can't see the point of putting her on a drip.' He turned to her. ‘Can you? Anyway some of her organs are beginning to shut down, something to do with all the medication she's been on over the years. Did you know that she used to down painkillers with her martinis, like they were a side plate of olives? Well, anyway, she doesn't exactly rate for the transplant list.' He pulled the bed jacket a little more snugly about Sue's shoulders. ‘She hasn't spoken to me for over a year, although the night nurses say that sometimes she's quite lucid.'

‘I'm sorry, Dad.'

‘Well, you two never did get on.'

Sarah's eyes widened. ‘That's unfair. I have had to live with the repercussions of your extra-marital affairs: both yours and Mum's. Both of you playing favourites with Cameron was one thing, but being relegated to the role of second-class citizen, being the recipient of all Mum's angst, was truly unfair. You're my father, you should have supported me.'

Her father's shoulders slumped just a little. ‘I tried to, but no one gave me a manual, Sarah. After Cameron's death, I'd had enough. I'd battled your grandfather all my life, married a woman with a weak mind and tried to see you safe from harm's way with a new life in Sydney. I've failed in nearly everything I've done, including you. You never should have gone back to Wangallon, Sarah. The property should have been sold.'

‘Well now it might have to be,' Sarah replied.

Ronald turned slowly from his wife and looked from Sarah to the window. His face was unreadable. Then gradually, as if his emotions were rising upwards to fill a blank canvas, his features tightened, reddened and then settled. ‘What is he like?'

‘Stubborn and selfish – all he wants is his share, in cash. He feels no attachment to the property, doesn't appreciate what has gone into its creation and was angry when he didn't get the welcoming party he believed he deserved.'

Ronald looked directly at her. ‘He's been to Wangallon?'

‘Been and gone.'

‘I'm sorry. You shouldn't have been left with that mess.'

It took some time for Sarah to explain to her father all that had occurred over the last week. Occasionally the furrow between his eyes deepened to a thick crevice, yet he never interrupted her. For once in her life Sarah had her father's attention. Then the nurse arrived on rounds and there was a checking of Sue's pulse, blood pressure and temperature.

‘No change,' the nurse said brightly, tucking the sheets in and adjusting pillows. She nodded in their direction, her gaze resting on Sarah a touch longer than necessary, before leaving the room.

‘Your mother hasn't had many visitors since she was moved into this ward. She's more comfortable here though, I think. The nurses are very caring.'

‘What do you think we should do, Dad?'

‘Well, I'm not surprised Frank Michaels advised to sell. But …'

Sarah perched forward in her chair. At last someone was prepared to fight.

‘Better to sell another parcel.' Ronald scratched above his ear where his hair was thinning.

‘What?'

‘We should off-load twenty or thirty thousand acres on the eastern boundary. It's less productive than other parts of Wangallon.'

Sarah sat back, deflated. She'd almost believed her father would provide her with a solution.

‘As for Anthony, well quite frankly I'd let him go ahead with a development if the costings work out, but not on Boxer's Plains, Sarah, that's good grazing country. It would be a real waste to
plough it up; besides, Dad always wanted it left as is. It
should
be left as is.'

Sarah's eyebrows crinkled together. Was she reading more into this than needed? It seemed as if both her father and Frank Michaels were overly protective of Boxer's Plains. ‘We're not farmers.'

‘Maybe we should be,' Ronald suggested. ‘Read the rural papers, Sarah. There's money to be made in grain. It's a burgeoning commodity and the world needs to be fed.' Ronald patted her arm. ‘If you and Anthony are going to marry, you're really going to have to let him manage Wangallon. You can't have two people trying to lead, not when you're in a relationship. Don't look at me like that, Sarah. You don't have to make everything harder than it is, you know. The development sounds like a good idea so go see the bank and find out what they're willing to lend and choose another block to do it on. But first things first. Jim Macken has to be paid out as per your grandfather's terms. He's entitled to his share. I'd suggest selling the black wattle block on the eastern boundary.'

Everyone – Anthony, her father and the solicitor – all of them had the same point of view. Maybe she was being stupid fighting the inevitable. Maybe she should let Jim have his inheritance. Then she could go home to Anthony and Wangallon. ‘And what about Jim? He wants to meet you.'

Ronald looked down at her and for a split second Sarah glimpsed the unmistakeable hardness of Angus Gordon. ‘I have no intention of ever meeting Jim Macken. To me he exists on paper only and it's best,' he looked directly at Sue, ‘that he stays there.'

McKenzie pulled tightly on Lauren's long hair until her throat stretched out, making her breathless. She could feel her cheeks flush an apple red and she shook her hair free, squinting at the pain. McKenzie gave one final, tumultuous shove and slumped across her sweaty body.

‘Get off. You're heavy.' She stuck her raggedy nails fiercely into his arse until he rolled obediently to one side, watching with amusement as she untangled her hair from around his wrist. Lauren wiped at the drops of sweat running down her forehead and fluffed her hair, which was plastered flat.

‘You're a plain-featured girl.' He pinched at her nipple, his calloused hands rasping her skin.

‘You're ugly,' she retaliated.

He lifted his hand and poked at her soft wet belly, ruffled the brown heart of her before swinging his legs over the side of the lumpy mattress.

He pulled coins from the pocket of his trousers hanging on the end of the bed and added one more than the usual. ‘What's your
game then?' Lauren asked as he sat the small pile between them on the dirty rumpled sheets.

‘Your voice reminds me of a stray cat I once slaughtered for food.'

‘It's nice to be appreciated.' She picked up the coins and deposited them on the rickety bedside table. Struggling upwards, Lauren pulled the sheet up to her waist. Her breasts spread to two soft peaks. ‘Have you got the makings?'

McKenzie tossed her his tobacco and papers. Shreds of tobacco tumbled onto the whiteness of her chest. She dabbed at them with her finger, popping the bits into her mouth.

‘There was a girl once.'

‘Where?'

‘From where I came from.'

‘And where's that?'

‘Somewhere you ain't been. Anyway this girl, she followed me about like horse dung stuck to a shoe. She came to my hut, wanting it, and I gave it to her.'

Lauren chewed suspiciously on the tobacco. She wasn't one for conversing about other people's problems. Served no purpose for her.

‘Her neck went back like yours did just then. There was this thin line of blue that ran down her neck and I took hold of it and didn't let go.'

Lauren spat the chewed filaments of tobacco onto the floor, her eyes agog. ‘You killed her.'

McKenzie hunched his shoulders. ‘She'd been wanting it. So I gave it to her.'

Lauren laughed. He was just the type of boy who'd pretend something like that just to make him tougher. He dressed slowly and then splashed water on his face from the bowl on the washstand until his shirt was wet through. Taking a drag of the cigarette, Lauren plucked a stray piece of tobacco from her tongue and flicked it into the air.
This McKenzie was a strange one to want her services in the middle of the afternoon. Even with the curtains drawn tight against the heat, one could not escape the thickness of the air. It was an unholy time for fornication. She stepped into her chemise, sweat dripping down her like a washer woman. That was her mother's occupation and it struck her as funny that on a day such as this they would both be suffering. ‘What's it like then, being there on that great property.'

‘Good. You want to come and see it?'

‘Why?' Lauren asked guardedly. Luke Gordon had sent her scurrying out the door whereas this one was giving her an invitation.

‘I'll be getting my own hut out there.'

Lauren knew that meant he wanted someone to cook and clean for him. ‘Not much interested.'

‘I'm planning to be overseer or head stockman and I figured you'd like that.'

Lauren hunched her shoulders and leant against the walls of the hotel room. She inspected her broken fingernails and took another drag of her cigarette, before dropping the butt in a glass of water on the bedside table. ‘You sick of paying for me?'

‘There's money in it for you.' He counted out more coins and sat the pile on the edge of the washstand. ‘You need a home. I could give it to you.'

Lauren wet her lips. ‘At Wangallon? Why?'

Because he had Hamish Gordon's eye and was about to embark on an adventure that would make him indispensable in the future. ‘Respectability.' Curled within that one word was Jasperson. Having lost count of the number of times he'd spewed up a day's food after lying with him, he was ready to rid himself of the man. Besides which he needed the other stockmen on side, not laughing at him behind his back. He was no man's whore. It had all seemed easily attainable until Wetherly's arrival. His coming freed Andrew Duff for the role of overseer once Jasperson was out
of the way and would bring Mungo back to the head stockman position if needed. There was more than a man too many for his liking. Two of them would have to go.

Lauren looked at him. ‘I'm not a whore, you know.'

‘What's that meant to mean?'

‘That I'm not just for the asking.'

He grinned. ‘Well I've asked four times and you've bedded me.'

Lauren pulled on her skirt, did up her blouse. ‘Come back soon and we'll see.' She slid the coin from the bed into the palm of her hand and, slipping on her shoes, she left the room.

The wife of a boundary rider, Lauren thought as she walked downstairs. That would be all the boy was offering: Overseer, blah. Still, it was the first offer she'd had. On the landing Lauren looked over the bannister to make sure no one she knew was in the bar, and then she ran lightly across the floor and out the back. The yard was crowded with Mr Morelli's hens, and the remains of his vegetable garden were a wilted testament to summer and the limited novelty of bucketing water from the hotel's well. At the splintered gate, Lauren checked the coins in her hand before lifting the latch and running down the side street to her house.

Mrs Grant was in the backyard, leaning over a fire, stirring a blackened cast iron pot bubbling with water and something grey in colour that Lauren imagined had once been white. The baby, her youngest brother, was lying on the grass balling his eyes out, her sister Annie playing in a patch of mud from used wash water. Mrs Grant was a big woman with thinning blonde hair beneath which were round bloody scabs; some dried, some freshly picked and bleeding. She looked up from the copper and grunted towards a balled-up mess of wet clothes, steam rising from the pile into the hot air. Lauren dropped the bundle into another pot of cold water and swished them
about with a wooden paddle before proceeding to pull sheets, long johns, petticoats and towels from the tangled mess to throw over the paling fence to dry. Some of the wet things looked clean, others smelled liked boiled rats. Lauren turned her nose up at the stench. No wonder the clothes usually dried and aired for two days.

‘Well?' Mrs Grant said in a husky voice grown deep with steam and heat. ‘You missed your sister Susanna. She's gone and got herself with child. Of course the father wants nothing to do with her, called her a slavering whore or some such.' Mrs Grant wiped her dripping nose with the back of her hand. ‘Don't blame him.'

The baby was screaming. Lauren digested her sister's shocking news as the baby digested the thick mud his two-year-old sister was shoving down his throat and up his nose. ‘Mary, Jesus and Joseph, Annie, but you're a terror.' Lauren, glad to be distracted, rushed to the screeching, mud-covered blob on the ground. ‘Mother?' she screamed.

‘Dump him in the bucket,' Mrs Grant offered helpfully without looking up from the steaming boiler.

Lauren found the three-parts-filled cast iron bucket sitting under the gum tree. She lifted the now silent baby and dunked him three times by the ankles up and down. He came out purple and crying, which clearly was better than muddy and quiet, for Mrs Grant gave a perfunctory look over her shoulder and nodded. With the subdued, spluttering baby on her hip, Annie sulking in readiness for her mother's sharp backhand, Lauren decided good news was required if she were to have a peaceful night.

‘I've an offer of marriage, Mother.'

Mrs Grant dropped the great wooden stirring paddle and, wiping her hands on her apron, trundled across the withered grass. ‘Who is 'e?'

‘A stockman from Wangallon Station, name of McKenzie.'

Mrs Grant rubbed her red peeling hands together. ‘Scottish? Well, the Scots are not bad, you know. Good workers. Serious
minded, especially if he be a Presbyterian. Gawd, now there are a mob of churchgoers. And Wangallon, eh? Them Gordons have money. I've seen that Jasperson here at the store buying up like he was the King of England himself. You're not with child? Not that it matters if you're to be married.'

‘No and I've not given him an answer … yet.'

‘What? Are you daft? An offer of marriage from a man who's not a drunkard, a thief or an old man is as scarce as feathered frogs.'

Lauren placed her hand on her mother's muscled shoulder. ‘I've said nothing for I'm hoping for a better offer.'

Mrs Grant took Lauren's face in her hand and squeezed her cheeks until her lips popped out an inch from her face. ‘Who?'

Lauren shook herself free, prodding her bruised cheeks. ‘Another from Wangallon.'

Mrs Grant laughed. A great belly laugh that set the baby to crying. ‘What have you been up to, my clever girl?' From a pile of folded laundry she pulled out a white blouse detailed with fine pintucking. ‘Here.' She tossed the garment across to Lauren before retrieving a bottle-green skirt. ‘Here, the Peters can't pay this week. Want to work it off with eggs and butter. Eggs and butter? What do I want with the likes of eggs and butter when I can have condensed milk and a joint of beef.'

Lauren grinned.

‘Men like to be chased just a little, my girl. So you dress yourself up real nice and use some of the money in the jar under my bed to hire yourself a dray and horse. And check the almanac at the store. That way you'll be safely travelling on the night of a waning full moon.' Mrs Grant winked. ‘They can't rush you back now can they, if it's too dark to travel at night.'

Lauren swirled across the brown grass with the second-hand skirt and blouse clutched between her fingers. She was going to visit Wangallon and show Luke Gordon that she was a lady, one very much in demand.