The Bark Cutters (19 page)

Sarah opened her mouth to speak.

‘I know, you're gonna say there's heaps, but we just don't know how long the water will stay here. Angus said during the last flood the water lapped the floorboards for nearly six weeks.' He patted the aluminium seat opposite him.

Sarah remained standing on the dam bank. Why couldn't people just give her a bit of space? That was all she wanted, room to breathe. Instead she felt surrounded. The house was claustrophobic, her father and grandfather argued, her mother was starting to get under her skin and to compound everything she felt guilty about staying on at Wangallon now Jeremy was en route to Sydney.

‘You coming?'

And now here was Anthony, grinning like some schoolkid with an icy-pole to lick. ‘I can manage this, Anthony,' she answered brusquely. ‘Why don't you have the day off? I'm sure Grandfather won't be needing you.' She didn't mean to sound dismissive however she just couldn't handle Anthony today. She'd been so happy to see him, but then guilt speared through her when she thought of Jeremy. It was stupid, she knew that. Jeremy was the one she loved and he understood why she needed to stay on.

The contours of Anthony's face, partially shaded by day-old growth, tightened as he clambered awkwardly out of Sarah's boat. ‘Nice tone of voice. What am I? The hired help to you now?' Grabbing the crate Anthony dropped it into Sarah's tinnie, the small vessel dropping half a foot into the murky water with the weight. As he swiftly untied the rope that bound the two boats together, Sarah rushed to jump into her tinnie as it began to drift away from the bank.

‘I'm sorry, I didn't mean to –'

‘I'm a little surprised you didn't go as well,' Anthony talked over the top of her. ‘Not much you can do here and I'd imagine you're a little out of practice.' Anthony climbed into his own boat and, tipping the brim of his hat down further over his face, started the outboard. ‘Don't think you have to stay.'

‘What do you mean, “Don't think I have to stay”? Of course I want to stay.' Sarah yanked miserably on the starter cord of the outboard motor. ‘Just because you're back doesn't mean I'm
defunct.' Did he hear her? Shit. How could anyone hear a bloody thing over the twin engines.

‘Anyhow, no doubt old fig jam will be pleased to be outta here,' Anthony yelled.

Sarah stared after Anthony as he directed his boat in the opposite direction. He had just called Jeremy fig jam. Everyone knows what that means, she thought to herself: Fuck I'm Good, Just Ask Me.

Cocking his akubra back on his head Anthony swatted at a mosquito. ‘This place is more than just a breeding ground for you, mate.' He sniffed at the festering river of moulding vegetation.

A few days later they stopped listening to the radio. One lunch hour, halfway through the rural news report, Angus switched off the station.

‘I think we have all had quite enough of the daily horror stories floating over the air like spectres. We know how bad it is and we certainly don't need to be constantly reminded of the losses.'

Sarah looked across the kitchen table at her mother. She rarely involved herself in any of their conversations. She was adrift in her own thoughts. She meandered through the house, spending her days knitting and watching the soapies on TV. She cooked meals when no-one was present to stop her, baked beans, runny fried eggs dripping in fat and lettuce and made polite conversation when required, but that was the extent of her life. Sarah found herself questioning her father's patience daily. The close proximity of the flood meant there was no escaping her mother's changed personality, but even making allowances for that it was difficult to reconcile her mother's deterioration. Her father asked for her understanding, especially when Sarah told him how Sue had taken to having gardening conversations with Granny Angie;
yet understanding was the one thing Sarah was unable to give her mother. This was the same woman who had had an affair. She'd not been a true mother, obsessed as she was with Cameron then, lastly and most cruelly, Sue blamed her for Cameron's death.

‘How will she survive this tragedy, the loss of her home,' Ronald tried to explain to Sarah one day, ‘when she has never recovered from the last?'

Sarah recalled biting her tongue. She was at a loss to understand her father's continued loyalty to a woman who had betrayed both him and his daughter.

Climbing into the helicopter hired to check stock, Sarah squeezed in next to her father. From above, the expanse of territory covered by the flat muddy water was daunting. Trees guarded the clogged land like sentinels in a surreal world. As the helicopter dropped closer, hundreds of sulphur-crested cockatoos and wild budgies flashed through leaves heavy with insects. Last night three generations of Gordons had pored over bank statements, discussed expected losses and the insurmountable debt required to restock with cattle and sheep. Their most immediate concern, however, was where they could purchase fodder. The SES was assisting with initial stock feed requirements, with more Hercules dropping bales of feed to stranded animals, but once the waters receded Sarah knew they would be on their own unless the government offered some form of assistance. It all depended on how widespread the damage was.

They ventured further into the more distant parts of Wangallon, observing what they could not alter, haunted by helplessness. Dam banks and small rises provided the only refuge for the starving, waterlogged animals. Herds of cattle stood quietly, heads down. Mobs of sheep clung tenaciously to the few dry ridges available. There were very few lambs to be seen. In one large paddock, more than two hundred cattle were moving steadily through the water. Their backs formed an arrowhead formation,
rippling the otherwise still surface. The helicopter hovered above the pitiful sight.

‘They're canny old girls,' her father said into his headset. ‘They'll be heading for Boxer's Ridge.'

The pilot answered and in seconds they were above a dry area, empty except for half a dozen kangaroos and a fox.

‘That'll make for interesting dinner conversation when they get there.'

‘Well, at least we know there's still stock out there to be fed, Dad.'

‘That's right, Sarah. That is exactly bloody right.'

That night the sky was luminous with stars. Brushing her shirtsleeves free of sandflies, Sarah resumed her stance, gumboots swallowed in mud, arms resting on the back gate. It was strange how many times the image of dead sheep came to her. In her dreams their backs disappeared, their once soft white faces crying out as they sank slowly out of sight. Reminding herself that they still had stock that were alive and well helped her sadness. Still, their losses remained as unsalvageable and as irreplaceable as West Wangallon.

Sarah needed to apologise to Anthony for the way she had spoken to him earlier in the week. The last thing she wanted was to hurt him. There had been far too much of it in her life. She needed to be honest with herself and admit that she missed Anthony, but since her brother's death she had been unable to make sense of her feelings. Her desire for Anthony seemed to be irrevocably caught up with the past and it was a past too painful to revisit. No-one knew what a basket case she'd been on first arriving in Sydney, how many listless, friendless days she'd spent judging herself for her brother's death and the mess both her life
and her family's had become. She had closed the door on her beloved Wangallon to survive and that same door had also closed on Anthony. At least in Sydney with Jeremy, stability, fun and security were hers. She knew where she stood with Jeremy. She was finally experiencing some control and direction in her life.

The night air, heavy with heat and moisture, draped her body. The earth was close tonight, its hot, moist breath bringing a sheen to her skin. A trickle of sweat escaped from her matted hair to run down her neck, gathering between her breasts.

‘If you gaze up long enough, especially in the quiet, all the things you don't want to remember come back,' Anthony said quietly.

With the swish of water he was beside her. He smelt clean like mown lawn, his hands gripping the fence, the iron straining under the lean of his body. If she turned ever so slightly, she knew he would turn to look at her, soaking up her face with the dark blue of his eyes as he had in the past.

‘In the bush there is always too much time to remember,' Sarah answered. In Sydney, she was too busy to dwell on the past, too preoccupied with her life. Here, with Anthony beside her, she almost expected her brother to appear with a couple of beers and a ready joke.

It was hot and uncomfortable, Anthony decided, slapping at mosquitoes as he wondered what had possessed him to follow Sarah outside. Now leaning next to her he allowed himself the luxury of studying her profile in the dark, the smooth curved bones and long swan's neck. Perspiration, staining the pale cream of her shirt so tantalisingly sheer on her skin, highlighted the strap of her bra beneath.

Anthony still marvelled at how easily Sarah left Wangallon. He'd heard snippets of her life through Angus. The months she'd spent unemployed, her growing skill as a landscape photographer and her increasing demand at the small photographic studio in
Surry Hills where she worked. It amazed Anthony how quickly she'd adjusted to city life. But then it struck him that she hadn't adjusted, Sarah had simply run away. And he was not surprised that someone had taken a fancy to her and she to him. Sarah was trying to create an entirely new life for herself.

If he only knew what to say to her, but they had both changed. He had cared for her once, but it was so long ago and so much had happened in their lives since Cameron's death that there was a gulf between them now. It would have been better if she had stayed in Sydney, Anthony decided, walking away.

Hamish stepped out of the Bank of New South Wales building in George Street, into the grey morning where covered wagons stocked with produce unloaded across the busy street, a shop owner checking the delivery of cases of flour and sugar. A highly polished black carriage pulled by matching bays headed down the slope towards Circular Quay, scattering three open drays hauling timber for the many buildings going up. Careful not to slip on the dirty cobblestones, Hamish skirted through the busy traffic, avoided a group of ragged children rushing past him with a trooper in pursuit, and sidestepped the tattered workers off-loading coal and firewood for heating. Gingerly stepping over puddles of water, horse shit and other refuse, he crossed safely to the other side of the street. It was mid-morning. He'd time enough to walk to the auction house, purchase the fine oak dining table he wanted and still be back at the club for lunch.

Hamish was inordinately pleased with his business meetings to date. Especially rewarding was the time spent with his old
acquaintance, Tootles Reynolds, from Ridge Gully Stock and Station, whose surprisingly fertile business mind had allowed him to prosper and acquire two further agencies: one in Sydney, the other in Bathurst. Tootles, whose business network naturally included colonial merchants and import houses – the main buyers of wool – was the obvious man for the task of organising the consignment of Wangallon's wool-clip, which this very year could possibly exceed the largest ever in New South Wales. Consigning his clip with Sydney's leading wool store, Hamish obtained excellent foreign exchange rates and promptly received substantial monetary backing from another agent in London, immediately gaining purchasing power overseas by selling his wool in London.

With his main business completed, he had banked his sizeable advance and enjoyed a lengthy stay at a gentleman's club in Sydney, purchased some pieces of furniture and other household items, subscribed to a selection of local and European magazines and purchased a trunk of books from an estate sale. The trip also afforded him the chance to meet the Abishara brothers, owners of the Bourke Carrying Company, to whom he had consigned his wool clip for the arduous trip south to Sydney. All that remained was to obtain a nanny for his children. Once organised, all his new belongings were to be packed up to begin the arduous wagon journey north.

The young girl walked briskly out of the butcher's shop and stepped up into an open dray. Hamish noted the grey-haired man, his sickly pallor and the look of concern on the girl's face as she turned, touching his arm lightly. Her eyes caught Hamish's and she smiled brightly.

‘Good morning, sir.'

‘Good morning to you, Miss,' Hamish responded, surprised by her confidence.

‘If you are visiting Mr Harrow, the butcher, do ask for his freshest cuts. He has a fondness for saving the best for the
Governor's kitchen, regardless of whether he is called upon to provide for his Excellency or not.' Ensuring her companion was settled, she placed a paper parcel between them on the seat. Then lifting her small hand, the lass tenderly caressed his cheek and rested her fingers momentarily on his shoulder. Taking the reins confidently from the man beside her, she twitched the horse's flank lightly with a short-plaited crop.

A strong sense of familiarity came over Hamish, a feeling of continuity, as if whatever he had sought or expected upon arriving in this distant country had at last presented itself. The journey was complete. Yet the girl he stared at so frankly could not have been more than fifteen. Even more astonishing was that she not only met his gaze but continued to stare back at him with a mixture of admiration and curiosity. Hamish found his arm lifting briefly in a wave; the girl's eyes flickered with delight. Her wide unblemished face, graced by large eyes and a generous mouth, promised in a single glance both strength of heart and honesty. Hamish wished he knew the lovely creature. Tendrils of dark hair shone black against the whiteness of her neck. It was not the fire red of Mary's or the light blonde of Rose's, but a luscious deep black blue. The girl smiled delightedly, as if pleased with her older admirer, before concentrating on manoeuvring the dray into the traffic.

Hamish stepped back under the awning of the butcher shop as rain began to fall, the street clearing quickly of pedestrians. The splash of rain hit the canvas awning above his head, falling in a veil when it reached the edge. He watched the dray until it disappeared from sight. This is ridiculous, he thought to himself. Nonetheless he found himself walking into the butcher shop and enquiring after the young woman.

The butcher answered Hamish's questions with little reluctance. The girl in question was Claire Whittaker. Following the outbreak of fever, she and her father were the only ones left of
a family of eight. They owned land at Parramatta and were of respectable stock, though the butcher doubted an abundance of money for, although the slender frame of the young girl was always neatly dressed, she never carried the style of a moneyed lady. Hamish left the shop clutching the girl's address on a square of paper.

The girl was probably half his age, Hamish thought as he walked back up George Street. His fingers curled around the slip of paper in his pocket. That night he dreamt of a young girl full grown into a woman, wearing a crinoline not quite two yards in diameter. The skirt, dark blue, was complemented with a paler blue blouse, and around her neck was a blue velvet neck ribbon. In his last sight of her, the dream presented her in a brown pork-pie hat, with several coloured streamers falling from it at the back.