The White Earth (29 page)

‘But what about everything else? What about the laws we were trying to stop?’

‘Ah … well, the world hasn’t been asleep these last months, more’s the pity. We’ve lost too much time. The legislation is due before the Senate very soon now. Maybe it’ll pass, maybe it won’t. But it’s too late for us to do anything about it.’

‘But what will happen to the station?’

‘The station?’

‘Don’t the new laws mean that people can come here, and you can’t stop them?’

His uncle nodded in sudden approval. ‘Good, good. You remember. And who is it who’ll come here, whether I like it or not?’

‘The Aborigines?’

‘Yes, but we don’t hate them, right? We aren’t burning any crosses around here, are we?’

‘No,’ said William, confused.

‘Good. It’s right that you should be worried. Nothing good will come of those laws.’ But then the energy faded. ‘Still, I thought you understood by now. The fact is, we don’t have all that much to worry about, even if the legislation passes. Native Title won’t touch us. Not on this property. This is a perpetual lease we’re on, Will. As good as freehold any day.’

‘But I thought…’

‘It was the rest of the country I was fighting for. Out west. The sort of land that some of those fools at the rally will lose. Pastoral leases. Crown land. Well, to hell with them.’

‘The League can’t stop it?’

‘There is no League any more. Not my League anyway. The others can go by any name they like.’ His uncle had shrunk back into his chair, curled around a knot of bitterness. ‘I don’t know if we could have stopped it anyway. But by Christ, at least we could’ve made a point. At least we could have shown the rest of the country just what’s being threatened here.’

But William only heard that the League was lost. All those people on the hillside, all the cars and the campground and the games and ‘Waltzing Matilda’ floating into the sky, all the things that had happened before the shooting started — they were gone. Yet the League had seemed so strong, that afternoon, so right.

‘Forget about those people.’ The old man was watching him again, carefully. ‘That isn’t why I called you here. There’s something else I’ve been wondering about. Something that happened up there on the hill, something you said.’

William felt himself go still.

‘That night, I saw you sneaking away during the speeches. Where did you get off to?’

‘I … I felt sick. I went for a walk.’

‘Sick? Sick with what?’

‘I don’t know … I just had to leave.’

But his uncle was leaning forward now. ‘No, Will. When you came back, just before everything went crazy, you told me you’d seen something. Off in the hills. What was it? What did you see?’

William pressed himself back into the chair. ‘Nothing.’

‘Don’t lie to me, boy.’

‘Fire. I saw fire.’

‘That’s not what you said.’

William felt a pit opening within him. He couldn’t say something like this out loud, could he? Not in this hot, windy ruin of a room. It had been a madness that night, some sickness that had taken hold of him and made him see things that weren’t there. To say it out loud could only bring the madness back, make it real. But his uncle’s eyes were startling white in their black circles, irresistible.

‘A man. I saw a man on fire.’

‘Ah …’ William had expected laughter, a scornful dismissal, but instead the old man only nodded, strangely pleased. ‘And you’ve seen him before?’

‘No.’ But he could hide none of the truth now.‘Maybe. Once, from a long way away. Before I came here.’

‘And who do you think he is?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Your father?’ The eagerness was awful.‘You know your father was burned. Do you think it was him?’

‘No.’

‘How can you be sure?’

But William only shook his head, wide-eyed. That was the worst possibility of all, yet he knew it couldn’t be true, knew it with the certainty of old love. His father would never come to him in such a form, would never force his son to see something so terrible.

His uncle looked away, studied the rumpled bed thoughtfully. ‘You weren’t asleep? You weren’t dreaming?’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘We see a lot of things in dreams.’ He glanced back to William. ‘But I believe you. There’s something about you, Will. Something a little touched. It’s your eyes. They aren’t always looking at what’s in front of you.’ He passed his hand before William’s face, and William felt a dizziness as his eyes followed the long bony fingers waving back and forth.‘But we’re blood, you and me. We must be. We share the same ghosts.’

The old man straightened, and William felt something pass, a shadow lift.

‘Your mother though, that’s a different story. She’s no family of mine. Oh, I know — she’s been busy up here. But you and I both know what that’s really about, don’t we?’

In a daze, William nodded.

‘Yes … but I’m not going to hand this place over to her just because she’s fed me a few meals, am I? She’s not the important one, is she?’

‘No,’ echoed William.

‘Watch her, Will. She’s your enemy. She’d sell this property in an eye-blink, if it was hers to sell. You don’t want that to happen, do you?’

William shook his head.

‘Good. Mrs Griffith now — she’s your enemy too. That’s why she called my daughter. She’s hoping that if Ruth comes home, then maybe I’ll send you away. Why would I need a nephew if I have my daughter back? She isn’t thinking straight, of course. If I had my daughter back, then I wouldn’t need a housekeeper either, would I?’

The old man was coughing again.

‘Don’t forget it, Will. Two women in this House, and neither of them is on your side. And now there’s a third one on her way. The worst of the lot.’

Abruptly he was standing, levering himself painfully from the chair. He swayed when he was upright, and William rose to support him.

‘The bed,’ his uncle instructed breathlessly, resting a hand hard on William’s shoulder. Together they shuffled across the room, and the old man sat down carefully on the edge of the bed. For a time he gazed away to the curtained windows, pondering some thought. The sky out there looked as dark as if a storm was approaching, and yet it was only dust and smoke from far-off fires.

‘Tomorrow, I’m told. She’ll be here tomorrow.’ He swung his legs onto the mattress and sank back against the pillows. ‘Who knows. Maybe I’ll ask her about her dreams too…’

An amazing thought came to William. ‘Have
you
seen the burning man?’

His uncle only smiled, closed his eyes.‘Thanks for coming up, Will. You can send your mother to me, when you get downstairs.’

William almost asked the question again. Because what if it was true? But the old man looked serene now, ready for sleep. William backed away towards the door.

His uncle lifted a warning finger. ‘Be careful of my daughter, when you meet her. Be careful of what she says to you. Don’t trust her.’

‘Why not?’

‘She’ll pretend to be your friend, that’s why.’

Chapter Thirty

R
UTH MCIVOR NEVER REALLY CAME HOME FROM BOARDING school. Brisbane was too far away for weekend trips, so she returned to her parents’ house only during the longer holidays. And even then, things weren’t the same. The eager girl John remembered was gone, replaced by a reserved young woman, a stranger. She ignored the farm and spent most of her time in her room, buried in books. In one sense that didn’t bother John — she was doing better than ever, academically. But there was a pang, nevertheless, whenever he saw how little interest she had in anything he said or did. Surely she understood he still loved her, and missed her when she was away? Surely she understood that, in the end, it was all for her benefit?

Perhaps Dudley was the problem. Inevitably, John and Harriet had brought him home to live with them again, reinstalling his camp bed in the office. Of course, they moved him back to his farm when it was time for Ruth’s visits, but she still knew. The smell of rum, of unwashed clothes and hair, lingered in the house even when Dudley wasn’t there. The same smell must have embedded itself in her skin that night, never to be cleaned away or forgotten. But whatever Ruth thought about the situation, she said not a word. Not to her father anyway.

In 1962, having graduated from school with first-class results, Ruth enrolled at Queensland University to study law. John was impressed. Other girls her age were taking secretarial work or employment in dress shops, or doing nothing at all, simply waiting for a husband to appear and provide. But not his daughter. When it came time to assume her place at Kuran Station, she would have both a rich estate
and
a professional career. Even so, he felt some disquiet, for it was not as if Ruth sought her parents’ approval: she simply declared her intentions and demanded their financial support. And she visited home even less frequently from that point on. In quieter moments, it struck John that if everything he was doing really was for Ruth’s benefit, then it was odd that he never talked with her about it. But these concerns always passed. She was growing up, that was all, finding her own way. She would come back to him once Kuran Station was secured, and she realised just how much her father could do for her.

In the meantime, he was busier than ever. In 1958, in partnership with Dudley, he finally purchased a third property. It was the same size as the first two — a square mile selection of black soil on the Kuran Plains — and close enough for him to manage conveniently. Over the next few years his life consisted of little else but work. There were two thousand acres of prime cultivation to be ploughed, planted, tended and harvested. He hired men to help, of course, but still, he was hardly ever home, returning mainly to eat or sleep, or to rest his bad leg, which was still prone to give way when he was tired. But it was all paying off. Bumper season followed bumper season, and in 1962 the partnership purchased another three hundred acres, and then, in 1964, yet another three hundred.

But if the world seemed to be opening up at last for John, then it seemed to Harriet that it was shrinking down ever more tightly. Her daughter was gone. Her husband was a silent, driven man she barely saw. And her other suitor, from far in the past, had become her major care and burden. For it was also in 1964 that Dudley began to sink into what would become his final illness. His lungs were choked with emphysema, and the instability that had afflicted his mind for so long had developed into dementia. He was bewildered by faces he no longer remembered, by places he no longer recognised, and Harriet had to bathe, clothe and feed him. She knew full well that he should be in hospital. Not that there was any hope of a cure — Dudley was dying, and no hospital would change that. What she resented was that he had to die right in front of her, so slowly, in her own house. But John refused as vehemently as always to send him away.

So Harriet gave up her community work, withdrew into the invalid’s isolation and sat by Dudley’s bed through the long, last days. Her patient slept restlessly, often crying out from unconsciousness, and she stroked his greasy hair gently, her heart torn and bitter. She would strive to remember the young logger she had once known, and to pretend that it was him she was nursing, but all she really saw was the man who had raped her daughter, and the man who had chained her to this sickroom. There were moments, in fact, when she wished she had never met either Dudley
or
John. Her life might have been so different. But it was all too late now. Dudley finally passed away in early 1966, slipping off in his sleep. He was fifty-two years old. The war had inflicted wounds upon him that were mortal, sure enough, but it had taken him over twenty years to die.

The funeral was held in Powell. There was only a small crowd, including five middle-aged ex-servicemen from the Eighth Division. John would have liked to ask them about Dudley’s war experiences, but at the wake the veterans gathered in a circle, looking inwards sombrely, and he found himself too ashamed somehow to intrude. An even more disconcerting presence was Dudley’s aunt. She was a hale farming woman in her sixties, and seemed keenly interested to hear about her nephew. John tried to appear helpful, but knew that he sounded guarded and hostile. Nevertheless, when she asked to see Dudley’s farm, he could not refuse. After the wake he drove her out and showed her over the house. It was obvious that it had been empty for some time, and when the aunt, surprised, inquired about Dudley’s last years, John had to admit that he had lived with himself and Harriet.

So the suspicions were sown. In the following weeks, John heard rumours that the aunt was looking into her nephew’s affairs. And when she did indeed challenge Dudley’s will, he was enraged but not surprised. It only confirmed that he had been right all along. At least with Dudley dead, and his glaring disabilities buried with him, John was confident the situation could be saved. And so it proved. The McIvors won the court case, and were even commended by the magistrate for their solicitude. What they lost was the battle of public opinion, for the dispute made headlines in the Powell newspaper. The aunt’s lawyer had not spared John and his wife, accusing them of manipulating a vulnerable ex-serviceman for their own ends, and of virtually imprisoning him in their house,away from the advice and succour of his family. And despite the verdict, somehow it was this uglier version that the townsfolk came to accept.

The gossip didn’t much concern John. He had the land, secure in his own name at last, and as fate would have it, the following few years were golden. In 1967 he purchased another twelve hundred acres, bringing his ownership of Kuran Plains land to just on four thousand acres all told. He was now one of the largest grain-growers in the area. He was also one of the most unpopular. This was only partly because of the suspicions about Dudley. John was a demanding employer, paying poorly for long hours. He refused to serve on any grain boards or committees, as was expected of a farmer of his stature. He belonged to no church or club, and gave nothing to charity. Indeed, he was so mean, his neighbours muttered, that despite his riches he still lived in the tiny, dilapidated cottage he had bought in the 1940s. He hadn’t even bothered to install proper plumbing.