The Bark Cutters (16 page)

Hamish threw his glass into the hearth, the pieces smashing violently. ‘You, Howard and William will be coming with me and that's an end to it, Rose.'

Rose's slight hand slapped hard against her husband's face.

Immediately Hamish experienced that same feeling of smothering sadness that seeped into him prior to the birth of the twins. ‘Why did you ever agree to marry me?' His wife shook her head as if unable to formulate an answer. ‘Have I not cared for you? Have you not been provided for in the best possible way in comparison to your former life?' Rose merely stared at him. She was like a porcelain doll. Golden hair and light-coloured eyes and the flush of youth highlighting her fair skin. Whatever Hamish expected from a companion in life, this cold young woman would never give it to him. There was a cost to respectability, one that would
shadow him for the rest of his days. ‘I have something of yours.' He had not intended to return it this way, but he was angry at his petulant wife and his own misjudgement of her. As she opened the small box, her eyes falling on the gold and jade brooch, her initial expression of surprise quickly changed to suspicion.

‘You see, you do know me.'

The pale eyes narrowed, an angry redness crawling childishly from the high collar of her dress.

‘You stole this?'

‘Perhaps you will feel more comfortable knowing your dear Sir Malcolm assisted in creating the wealth you and yours now enjoy.'

Rose snatched at the piece, cradling the brooch in her hands. ‘It was a gift, a gift from a kind, honest gentleman.'

Hamish could not live with such naivety anymore. ‘Indeed, the same kind, honest gentleman who bribed members of Parliament and the Lands Department to secure one of the largest tracts of land in New South Wales. The same man who forced two daughters to return from England, to marry one to the son of the Manager of the Bank of New South Wales, and the other to the owner of his wool-broking house. How convenient to have one's fortunes intermarried with the two major institutions in this country.'

Rose glared at him, her fine nostrils flaring with each breath.

‘Instantly the continued success of three major businesses is dependent upon each other.' Hamish pulled at the servants' bell. The swag of stiffened material hung from the ceiling and wound its way via an intricate pulley system to the kitchen. Walking through to the adjoining dining room, he had barely seated himself when a red-haired youngster appeared with a curtsy.

‘Cured ham, some edam and bread, fresh baked now. Don't bring any of yesterday's. Oh, and tell Lee I want him to join me in around –' he looked contemplatively at his wife – ‘say ten
minutes, and that's supper for one.' Pouring a glass of brandy from his favourite decanter, cut crystal etched with a fine engraving from which the wine came forth from its sterling silver rim, Hamish waited for Rose to retaliate. Having followed him she stood at the far end of the dining table like a condemning judge. Far better the lass understood the way business was done these days, Hamish decided, than to continue her sentimental attachment to a man who, but for a chance of birth, could have been born poor like the rest of them.

He tapped his fingers impatiently on the fine grain of the burr-walnut table. This interview was beginning to tire him. ‘And this same kind, honest man sent his wife back to England so he could indulge himself in the flesh of his housemaids while he treated his convict labour like animals.'

The brooch burnt her hand, burnt her deeply. Was everyone in her small circle unscrupulous? Her mind returned to Sir Malcolm's estate, recalling every detail as if she still resided there. Her gowns laundered, the tinkle of piano music after dinner, the time spent reading to Sir Malcolm in the library, the quiet elegance of the frequent daily visitors when Sir Malcolm was in residence, the fresh flowers.

‘Incidentally your dear, honest Sir Malcolm died of the pox in Sydney last month. Ridge Gully Stock and Station is handling the sale of his estate, sixty thousand head of sheep, of which we now own half, and the land is to be broken up into parcels, subdivided into thirty lots for sale.'

Rose found herself mesmerised by a streak of dirt on the collar of her husband's shirt. ‘Is there anything else?' she enquired in a small voice.

‘Yes, my dear. Spare me the virgin innocence and the complaints. You may consider me unworthy compared to your own high morals but I notice that that same morality does not extend to the spending of my money.'

‘You are a –'

‘A bastard? If I am you have made me so. I have only ever shown you kindness.'

‘I detest you.'

Hamish slammed his fist on the table top, the action rattling crockery and cutlery alike. ‘And you are the daughter of a whore or did you conveniently decide to forget that fact?'

Two weeks later Rose stood in the middle of the nursery. In the small box, the box her mother told Rose many years ago belonged to her unknown father, she placed the gold and jade brooch. Beside it lay a dried flower, a length of green velvet ribbon and a love poem copied in her youth. It was a plain wooden box with neat brass hinges and a worn piece of red cloth to hide the scratched bottom. It was an old box, a relic from a childhood she could barely recall. With shaking hands Rose closed the lid and threw it in the small fire in the nursery.

Checking her reflection in the heavy gilt mirror above the nursery mantlepiece, Rose tied a firm bow beneath her chin. The loop of ribbon held her brown travelling bonnet tightly in place. Tucking a stray wisp of hair back into place, with shaking hands she took a sip of brandy from the sterling silver flask before replacing it on the mantlepiece. She had considered secreting the flask in the folds of her brown wool dress but the thought of Howard and William stopped her. Rose dabbed at her lips with a lace handkerchief, her pale hands fluttering in the reflection of the mirror. Coal-smudged eyes stared back at her with a vacancy that scared her. Even her weight, in the past so constant, was dropping. By the time they travelled the five hundred miles northwest, Rose wondered if there would be anything left of her at all. Certainly part of her heart would remain in Ridge Gully.

She gently lifted the sleeping Elizabeth into her arms and with a sigh, sat down in the rocking chair with her daughter. ‘I will always love you,' Rose said softly as her daughter's almond-shaped eyes fluttered to wakefulness. Elizabeth's pudgy finger traced the path of a tear as it rolled down Rose's cheek. Rose grasped the finger before hugging her daughter fiercely. ‘Be good for Nanny and remember I love you.' Rose dearly wished to tell her young daughter that they would be together again soon. Her intuition told her otherwise.

Angus looked past the brittle garden through the house paddock, across to the line of trees spanning the horizon. The floodwater was moving fast. It glistened in the distance, the shimmering blanket mesmerising in its beauty. Trees appeared to bathe delightedly, long, thirsty branches leaning deep towards the earth intent on scooping armfuls of blessed water into their ancient hearts. Angus shook his head slowly, this entrancing mirage hid a swirl of mud and debris, beneath which the scales of this water-creature grew, sucking at the soft earth, waiting to consume. No inhabitant of the bush ever said no to a fall of rain, for you could do more with moisture than crumbling dirt. However, floods, like fire, were ruinous. The season had started perfectly, Angus recalled. A good fall of rain in the spring, some welcome storm showers in November to freshen the countryside as summer's heat increased and then another good downfall mid-December. Invariably it was only when the dams and low-lying areas were filled and the rivers and creeks brimming that there
was heavy rain upstream that had the potential to swell the waterways downstream.

He rubbed his knuckles together, the bones scraping noisily. Twenty years since a flood of this magnitude, twenty years! The family would have to move in with him at Wangallon homestead to escape the rising waters. ‘God forbid,' he voiced softly, wincing at the assortment of fractured human beings soon to descend upon him. He glanced across to the creeping liquid, clicking his tongue. Why he had tried to convince his son not to build here, he didn't know. Had Ronald listened? It didn't matter what age your kids were, they never listened.

Returning inside, Angus strode through the house, passing the greying Christmas tree in the lounge room where Sarah and her excuse for a boyfriend, Jeremy, stared dismally at the brittle branches sagging under the weight of decoration. Once it had been white; the kids used to play at its base with a small Frosty the Snowman, laughing at the concocted stories their mother would devise with the help of tinsel and a few of the less precious baubles. He caught Sarah's attention as he passed her and gave a brief, curt nod. She knew he was not impressed with Jeremy's presence and he'd told her as much. Bloody ridiculous dragging the boy all the way up here to the bush, even if Angus did suspect Sarah cajoled him into coming so that she would not be subjected to a week's holiday alone with her parents. Christmas had become his granddaughter's yearly penance. And unfortunately it was the one time of year when Anthony took his holidays as well.

The breaking of crockery echoed from the kitchen. Angus waited a few seconds before entering, willing himself not to compound the calamity of the coming flood by allowing his irritation to get the better of him. Sue's mouth twitched nervously; the bobbed brown hair, dyed weekly to hide minute strands of grey, tucked continuously behind her ears. The woman rambled incoherently although Sarah, following him into the kitchen
with an attached-at-the-hip Jeremy, appeared to understand what her mother said. With Ronald still on the telephone, Angus returned to his partially eaten Christmas lunch to munch loudly on a leg of roast turkey pulled directly from the bird still sitting on the table. The grease settled into a thick smear on his lips and fingers as the meat slid down his throat. He could give orders, or he could wait to see if sanity prevailed. He sucked his fingers appreciatively.

‘What about the scraps, Ronald?' Sue asked, her voice high-pitched. ‘Where will we put the scraps?'

Ronald finished his telephone call and rested a consoling hand on his wife's shoulder, as the agitated woman scraped barely touched turkey and salads into a large red plastic scrap bucket on the sink. ‘The water is being directed by the cotton levee banks,' Ronald said.

‘Really,' Angus encouraged, stunned by such useless information extracted after a twenty-minute conversation.

‘Yeah, all those bastards and their irrigation developments have altered the entire flood plain in this part of the country.'

‘Well, you're not telling me anything I didn't already know,' Angus countered, letting out a turkey-enriched belch.

‘Usually they go into the compost bin, but … but will it be washed away?' Sue continued.

‘I'll just be in the lounge room, reading,' Jeremy announced quickly, ‘if anyone needs me.'

Angus huffed noisily. ‘We'll be sure to holler if we need your services, lad,' Angus called out to the man-about-town lawyer, solicitor or whatever the boy was or did. Yes he was polite, well-mannered and all that crap, but was he any use to Wangallon? Or, for that matter, his granddaughter? Across the room, Sarah smiled at him as if in apology. Angus nodded, they both knew that this life was disintegrating. Like rats, they sensed the impending doom.

The next day Sarah and her father travelled by flood boat straight up the centre of the twenty-kilometre dirt road from Wangallon homestead to West Wangallon, the home deserted on Christmas Day. Along the way the stench of death washed over them. At the boundary gate, drowned sheep hung, caught on the barbed wire. Their sodden, twisted bodies, eye sockets bloodied by feeding crows, clung to the barrier that marked the end of their Styx crossing. The majority of sheep were theirs, but some belonged to neighbours many kilometres away.

The tall belah trees lining the road served as watery guideposts. Though the water level was now stationary, their bark showed the flood's peak and Sarah marvelled at this new unknown seascape where familiar features, such as anthills, scrubby bushes and tree stumps, were obliterated as if they'd never been there. They covered the distance between the houses in silence as the outboard rippled the water in the eerie landscape, small creatures wiggling at the waterline of trees. Above, shuddering branches held a menagerie; cockatoos, jenny wrens and hawks competed with goannas and lizards for space on sagging branches. Snakes wove in and out. Bottles, tins, paper, branches, even children's toys, floated on the muddy water, along with the decaying carcasses of sheep, birds and stray dogs.

The bloated animals floated past like lifebuoys. Two sheep, weighed down by the weight of their wool, covered in a myriad of spiders, centipedes and other insects, stood hopelessly in their path. Their gait was laboured, their nostrils and mouths bleeding. Ronald lifted his rifle, and within seconds blood trickled from their matted foreheads. As if in relief, the animals slumped, passengers searching for dryness, the weakest to drown or be eaten.

West Wangallon, the eerie monolith built thirty years prior,
rose dismally from the floodwater. Father and daughter stared. If a man's home truly was his castle, theirs lay under siege, the outcome already rising, phantom-like, before them. For whether or not the house before them lay wasted by the force of the flood, the true victim was Sarah's mother. Sarah understood how her mother felt. Sue still grieved for Cameron as she did and their home held every single item of his clothing, his books, his cassette collection. If you opened his bedroom door and walked into his room you could almost breathe in the scent of him. No-one wanted that last remnant of his short life to be washed away.

Sarah tied the boat to the gatepost, four thick knots holding the rope. Turning, she lifted her face into the lifeless ears of a joey just visible from its mother's submerged pouch. She slapped at the sandflies and mosquitoes, felt the stinking water seep upwards towards her thighs and wished she had not come. Only ten days ago she had been in her darkroom developing a photograph of a young family. The shoot, held in Centennial Park among picnicking families, cyclists, walkers and young lovers, had been a dream of a job. It had served as a gentle reminder that her bread-and-butter jobs weren't that bad, particularly as the money earnt from them allowed her to pursue her real passion, landscape photography.

‘You lead the way, Dad,' Sarah found herself saying as the image of a sunny day in Centennial Park was replaced by reality.

‘Don't touch anything, and look out for snakes and spiders.'

Sarah shivered as she waded up the back path and thought of the one person who would have been able to lighten the situation – Anthony. They still sent each other Christmas cards, but she had not laid eyes on him for nearly three years. Her Christmas holidays were his also and when she came north he went south. They were living different lives now. Time changed everything and everyone.

The interior was gloomy, as if a sunken wreck. Even the air smelt stagnant, with undercurrents of rotten egg stench. The kitchen and dining room still held the remains of Christmas lunch. Chairs and other furnishings rested on top of platters and cutlery. Blowflies buzzed overhead. Sarah waded after her father through a swirl of wrapping paper, tinsel and the smashed remains of precious baubles, the beam of her torch catching small gift cards, their depictions of Santa blurred and grey.

Not one room had been left undamaged and most of the furniture that could not be stacked up on something else had been toppled by the force of the flood and ruined. Water ran freely through the house, and the stench of decaying small animals and furnishings brought bile to her throat. In the hallway Sarah halted outside Cameron's room. The door was closed. Gritting her teeth, she moved onwards. In her old bedroom she checked her chest of drawers now resting lengthways on her bed. She didn't think she'd forgotten anything important, but there was something rattling around in the top drawer: the gold bangle. She pulled it out, shoved it in her jeans pocket and left her bedroom.

‘There's a snake!'

‘Shit! Where?' Sarah's kneecaps marked the water level.

‘It's gone towards the spare room.'

The gauze on the front verandah heaved under a mound of lizards, spiders, ants and centipedes crawling over each other in a seething mass. Beyond was the space where the garden used to be. The only things visible were trees.

‘It'll be too much for your mother.'

Through the blur of water, Sarah imagined her mother's lone silhouette at the end of her garden. A garden created from the
dirt of the outback, created from buckets of water carried in the early days before the garden pipes were laid. How many trees and shrubs had died over the years and been replanted? In her memory, gums, box, sandalwood, poplar, bougainvillea, pansies and geranium merged in shape and colour. Only one stood out in Sarah's memory, one that kept dying, one Sue continued to buy for years:
cestrum nocturnum
. Even now she could taste the night scent of the dollopy thick fragrance, imagine it lingering out there somewhere with the coastal childhood of her mother.

‘There's not much to save, Dad.'

‘No.' Leaving the verandah they carefully waded down the hallway, over rotting floorboards, tracing the increasing line of wetness sucking up papered walls. ‘Still it's mainly just clothes and the few bits of furniture that we couldn't move in time. The carpets are ruined, the wallpaper and I'd say the foundations and the floorboards will need major work but other than that there are only memories.'

Sarah caught the sadness in the lowering of her father's voice. For once they understood each other, memories cemented their existence.