The Grass Castle (25 page)
For a while she hears the burble of their voices carried down on the tail of the wind. Then that is gone too, and all that is left is the rustle of swirling air, and the inherent sound of the landscape, pressing its shoulders against the sky.
She nestles deeper into her chair and looks around. Now that it is quiet, an insistent thudding sound beats in her head. It comes and goes: intermittent white noise she’s been trying to ignore. But she can’t help worrying about the little falling episodes that pop up out of the blue. There she was the other day in the vegie garden, planting potatoes, and suddenly she found herself on the ground. She has no recollection of anything in between. One minute, she was pushing a piece of potato into the soil, the next she was lying on the grass beside the raised vegie bed looking up at the sky. She didn’t tell Pam, of course, couldn’t face the fussing. And she was all right within minutes anyway. No real after-effects. These things must happen to old people all the time; you can’t be running to the doctor every five minutes to gripe about every little problem.
She gazes across the stretch of wild land that surrounds her, and peace settles on her soul. Here she is, back in the higher realms of her grass castle, which she thought she might never see again. It’s rugged and untamed and beautiful, even better than memory, and how wonderful it is to be immersed in it after so long. Time is meaningless in all this space. Seasons pass, years wither, fire burns, snow falls. But in essence not much has changed here since Daphne was young. The mountains will endure long after people are gone—and this is a reassuring thought. Perhaps it’s good after all, that this country was parcelled into a park. What would have happened to it otherwise? Landholders would have built big houses to take in the view. They would have built sheds and fences and yards, roads, farm dams, essential infrastructure. They would have ruined it.
Land ownership is a strange thing, she thinks. If people are allowed to use the land, to own it, they make their mark, they tame things. Her family changed things in a limited way, and their impacts were relatively minimal. But what if there was no national park and they had stayed? What if they’d had to sell to other landholders—people who weren’t as wedded to conserving country as her family was? What then?
In the end, maybe this was really the right outcome.
She thinks of Johnny Button the stockman, and his people. This land belonged to them before white people came. His people were pushed off by her family and other settlers. They were disconnected, cut off. But Johnny didn’t blame anyone: she remembers his smile, his easy ways, unmarked by anger or resentment. He accepted it and lived his bond with country as best he could, going bush, disappearing on walkabout. She never understood it when she was young. She accepted the assessment of the other stockmen, that Johnny was a little bit crazy. But now as she sits here in this country, home of the clouds, she sees how the land lives in you, how you hold it in your bones.
Her father always said the land was empty before his family came here. But Daphne knows it wasn’t and she’s sure he knew it too. If only she could dig up his secrets, hear the things he knew but wouldn’t tell about the Aborigines—all the knowledge that was buried in his silences. But he’s been dead for decades now, and the past will have to remain in the past. And yet it never does, does it? Consequences, punishment, guilt, regret: these things never die. The tendrils of the past stretch their long convoluted fingers into the present, and even further, into the future. And there’s no going back.
Abby and Cameron leave Daphne and follow the steep overgrown trail through the silvery grasses and up towards the peak. The track meanders around bogs and over boulders, among glades of snow gums with their narrow twisted branches spreading like thin bedraggled arms. Abby takes the lead, choosing the path of least resistance.
‘If this was summer,’ she says, flinging conversation over her shoulder, ‘we’d be walking among wild flowers—alpine buttercups and snow daisies and everlastings and trigger plants. They’re the prettiest flowers you’ll ever see. And they come in the most delicate yellows and pinks and mauves.’
Cameron is frowning, she notices, focused on the ground, trying to dodge the wet patches that populate the trail. ‘Where’s all this water coming from?’ he asks. ‘I thought we were in the middle of a drought.’
‘There’s always water up here,’ she says. ‘Especially in winter. It runs out of the mosses and bogs and soaks. And when clouds come across, even if it doesn’t rain, you get fog drip—fine drizzle that seeps out of everything and makes it all wet.’
‘Next time we should come here in summer then,’ he says. ‘The proper dry season.’
‘So you can see the flowers?’
‘No, so I can keep my feet dry.’
‘Then there’d be March flies,’ she says. ‘So you have to take your pick. Wet feet in winter or March flies in summer.’
‘We could come before March,’ he grumbles. ‘Then it would be perfect.’
‘March flies don’t follow calendars,’ she tells him. ‘They follow the heat. And your jeans would be a beacon. They like blue. It brings them in. You’d be a perfect magnet for bites.’
When Abby was a kid, she and Matt used to sit for hours, decommissioning March flies. They would catch them as they hovered over boots and trousers then they would restrain them and carefully pull out the proboscises before releasing the flies back into the air. Some days it seemed she and Matt disarmed an entire battalion, and yet there were always more flies to take up the charge. Now she supposes it was cruel, but she and Matt derived a depraved kind of pleasure from it—revenge for all the stings they endured over the years. Now, on the cusp of winter, there are no flies of course, and the only sting is from the breath of the wind that drives up from Victoria and accelerates across the high tops before reaching the Brindabellas. Abby pauses on a ridge to inspect the grey clouds massing to the south.
‘Do you think there’s any rain in those clouds?’ Cameron asks.
‘No,’ she says. ‘It’s all just show and pretence. Promises without delivery. I’m sick of believing in clouds and weather. They always disappoint.’
She glances at him and catches something in his look, a furtive intensity that unsettles her. What’s he thinking? she wonders nervously. Since they came back from Mansfield, her father’s words about marriage and children have been rattling in her mind like loose sharp stones. She’s afraid Cameron wants to rope her in, like one of the wild brumbies Daphne used to catch. Perhaps if she keeps him walking he won’t be able to speak. She puts her head down and strides fast up the path.
‘Have you heard from Matt?’ Cameron asks, puffing behind her.
‘He rang the other day,’ she says. ‘He’s landed a temporary job setting up tows for the ski season. It doesn’t pay much, but it’ll keep him out of trouble till they need him back at the vineyard.’
‘Do they make wine where he works? Why can’t he help out in the winery if it’s quiet in the vineyard?’
‘Same old,’ she says. ‘He never did any studies after high school. I keep telling him he ought to get a certificate in viticulture or something, but he can’t be bothered.’
She pushes upslope even faster, trying to make Cameron gasp for air so he’ll stop talking. She feels wild and loose and reckless and jittery. And those looks he’s been firing at her all day, like he’d like to undress her and marry her all in the one breath. It wasn’t decent in front of Daphne, and now they are alone she wants to discourage it. Who knows what might come out of him in this spare landscape with only the currawongs as witness.
They climb to the scabby peak and sit on a granite slab looking out over country. Clusters of boulders crowd the summits, and clouds shunt across the sky, casting shadows that race over the land. Abby draws it all in while Cameron sits beside her in silence. She’s pleased he doesn’t break the spell. Maybe he’s let go of all that intensity and is now feeling the same as she does up here: a lovely connection with the land. But when she turns to look at him, he’s watching her, and there are thoughts written in his eyes that frighten her. His gaze is serious and she wills him not to speak, but before she can turn away and mask the well of fear that’s rising in her, he leans close and touches his lips to hers. She closes her eyes, absorbs the smell of him, lets him kiss the breath out of her, feels tears sliding from beneath her lids.
He pulls back as a teardrop slithers onto his cheek. ‘What’s this?’
She can see the questions in his eyes. He reaches for her hand and she knows he’s going to speak. It’s flowing from him, all those feelings. She looks away. He’s misinterpreted her tears, he’s going to say something and it will all be wrong.
‘Abby. I love you.’
She sucks in cold air, can’t look at him.
His clutch on her hand increases. ‘Abby. I want to grow old with you.’
Her heart is clanging. She can’t speak.
He waits for a moment, then, ‘I know it’s early, but this is good. It’s special. And there’s no rush. But I want you to know that sometime in the next ten years I’d like to marry you.’
Something tightens in her throat. She tugs her hand free and stands up. His smile is radiant as he looks up at her, patient.
‘I can wait,’ he says. ‘It’s no big deal.’
But it is a big deal. Can’t he see that? Why couldn’t he let them stay happy without all this rubbish about commitment? She can’t cope with the pressure. Now she will have to end it.
‘We should head back,’ she says, avoiding his eyes. ‘Daphne will be waiting. I don’t want her to get cold.’
She leans down and gives him a peck on the cheek then she runs over the snowgrass and back down the track, leaving him there, sitting on the rock, watching her.
They drop Daphne at Queanbeyan then Abby drives them back towards Canberra, a great weight of silence sitting between them in the car. She feels Cameron watching her as she hunches down behind the wheel, focused on the road. She can tell he’s been waiting to speak to her since she ran away on the mountain top. All the way home the atmosphere in the car has been thick with his confusion. It’s her fault, and she knows it, but she doesn’t know how to deal with this. How did she let it get so messy?
It’s a relief when she pulls up outside his apartment block where the wind is blowing across the lake, chopping whitecaps on the grey water.
‘Why are we stopping here?’ he asks, blunt and edgy. ‘Don’t we need to take this vehicle back?’
She sees the mix of anger and fear in his eyes—perhaps he knows what is coming. She shakes her head and looks away.
‘What’s going on?’ he asks, tight.
She draws a steadying breath. ‘I think we need to take a break for a while.’
He slaps his hand on the dash and the sound frightens her. ‘No, that is not what we need.’
She glances at him, sees the black thunder in his face. She needs more words, and quickly. ‘I feel crowded,’ she stutters. ‘I can’t breathe.’
‘Since when have I stifled you?’ he asks, his voice hard. ‘I’ve done nothing but offer support.’
It’s true, she can’t deny it. ‘It’s just me,’ she says. ‘It’s the way I am. I need space.’
‘You can have as much space as you want. Just don’t do this.’
‘I’m used to my own company. It’s been a big adjustment letting you in.’
‘I can wait,’ he says. ‘I’m patient. I don’t understand how you can like me one minute then hate me the next. You can tell me. I’ll listen.’
She runs a hand across her throat. ‘It’s not that I don’t like you. You know that I do.’ Yes, her body tells him so. Can’t he see how difficult this is for her? ‘It’s just that . . .’ she dodges his eyes. ‘Look, I have to take the car back. I’ll call you soon. I can’t do this right now. I’m sorry.’
He reaches out a hand and runs a finger down her cheek, infinitely gentle, such a dramatic switch that it unhinges her and tears roll down her cheeks.
‘It’s a difficult time,’ she says, knowing this is all ineffectual. ‘I have to start writing up soon, and it’s like going into a cave. Everybody says I’ll be boring and horrible.’ She hates the pathetic superficial patter of her words.
‘I can handle boring and horrible,’ he says quietly. ‘That’s part of being in a relationship. I can cook for you. Bring you cups of tea.’
‘I’ll keep that in mind,’ she says. ‘I’ll probably need some cups of tea.’
‘Can I ring you?’ he asks.
‘Of course,’ she says.
‘Dinner sometimes?’
She fences him off, defining boundaries. ‘I’ll see how I go.’
He leans in and kisses her, the touch of his lips on hers drawing a ragged sob. ‘You’re sure this is what you want?’ he asks.
She bows her head in silence and refuses to look at him, closes her eyes so she can’t see as he gathers his belongings and steps out of the car. When the car door slams shut, she sits for a while with her forehead against the steering wheel, giving him time to walk away. Then she starts the car and drives off without looking back.
The only way Abby can cope with the separation from Cameron is to bury herself in work and close her emotional mind. She strives for recovery by taking up temporary residence in the library with her laptop as her best friend. It’s a poor substitute for Cameron, but safer. When she’s had enough of her electronic companion she can shut the lid and walk away. Not so easy with human relationships.