The Bark Cutters, page 37
‘You can fix things,’ Angus stated firmly with an exaggerated wink.
‘These are peoples’ lives you are messing with. Jesus, I can’t believe this shit. You chose me as a fucking breeder.’
‘Get over yourself, Anthony. Business is business and there is no place in the world for second best.’
‘Yeah, well you certainly illustrated that with your own son.’
Angus stood up. Shrapnel, jumping up quickly onto the log beside his master, began to growl softly. ‘Don’t presume to dictate to me, boy.’
‘Isn’t that exactly what you have been doing all your life?’ The cattle were at the yards, streaming in in a rush of red and white, filling the pens with dust, dogs and the yells of the men as they forced the cattle onwards. ‘You’re not the man I thought you were,’ Anthony finished simply. The truck, already reversing, gave a great exhalation of breath as the air-brakes came on and the long vehicle became stationary.
Angus joined him as they walked towards the yards, his knees paining with effort as he fought to keep up. ‘I’m exactly the man you thought I was, Anthony. That’s why you’re still here.’
At the cattle yards Anthony scaled the high timber fence, jumping down into the yard below.
‘I’m giving you two months’ notice, Angus,’ Anthony called back. ‘I’ve had enough.’
Angus rested his arms on the timber railings, his gnarled fingers playing with the rough splinters beneath his hands. ‘I won’t accept it.’ He’ll get over it, Angus decided. Maybe now things were out in the open some kind of reconciliation would be possible between Sarah and Anthony. At least that is what he wished for, that and wishing Cameron had been a better horseman. With difficulty Angus climbed the timber railings, his face distorting as his knees suffered under the twisting motion of lifting one leg over the top railing to begin the climb down the other side. Years ago he would have flown over the bloody thing in a flash, made a mockery of these new breed of lads who called themselves stockmen. God, how he hated old age, especially when there was still so much to accomplish. Walking through the first empty yard, he lifted the chain on the large gate to enter the next, which held about fifty head of steers. They were in forward-store condition, a long way off being fat but certainly a handy enough weight to consider selling them, a far better option than trying to feed them as the bite of winter exaggerated an already debilitating drought.
‘Angus, get out of the way!’
It was the lad Anthony, screaming and running towards him from the left. To his right, old Shrapnel barked and straight ahead a steer was charging directly at him.
‘You don’t strike me as the kind of lass who would rush into something.’
Sarah looked up slowly from the untouched water glass twirling in her fingers. Leaning back into the two-seater couch, she rubbed the bridge of her nose tiredly. Last night’s dream of the settlement of Wangallon still haunted her thoughts. She listened to Mrs Jamieson’s deep sigh as she joined her on the couch. Great, Sarah thought as she made room for the older woman.
‘Sarah Gordon, times were when things didn’t matter so much. The clans did inter-marry. That was then.’ Mrs Jamieson pulled herself upright. ‘Not now.’ She cleared her throat carefully. ‘You can’t have a relationship with Jim.’
‘What? Who’s talking about a relationship?’
‘Who do you think? Mrs Robert Macken.’ Mrs Jamieson got to her feet, smoothing her plain cotton dress and gathering her worn cardigan about her. ‘Besides, you love someone else.’
The conversation seemed to be moving very randomly. Sarah shook her head vehemently.
Mrs Jamieson inclined her head knowingly. ‘Aye, you run from your heritage, as lost within your own life as Jim is. Half of him is missing, lass. An important part he’s unaware of: his father.’
‘His father?’ Sarah repeated, screwing her eyes up in confusion.
‘Lass, I look at you and see myself. I look at you and … Sarah Gordon, lass, your land is far more important to you than anything else. You love your country, the land. As I love mine. I don’t believe you would forsake your home, even if you did care for Jim.’ Mrs Jamieson reached reluctantly into her dress pocket, her hand quivering as she withdrew an old black-and-white photograph. ‘I can see it in your eyes as sure as I saw it in your father’s.’
Sarah accepted the photograph. ‘My God, it’s Dad!’
‘Drink this.’
Sarah threw back the dram of whisky accompanying the fresh coffee and thought of the many photographs salvaged from her father’s office in West Wangallon. Then there were the discarded ones, images Sarah found so entrancing that they hung in her Sydney apartment. The cottage in one of those photographs was the very same she now inhabited. Why hadn’t she seen the resemblance sooner?
‘Pride, lass, pride stops a great deal from being accomplished in the world. It stops people from sharing the truth with the very ones they care most about.’ Mrs Jamieson took a fortifying gulp of her whisky. ‘Maggie Macken knows who you are now, Sarah, yet how could she acknowledge you? By doing so she would break her boy’s heart. She hopes you will leave. She only ever wanted her son’s happiness, but even if a romance were possible between you two young people we both know you would not leave Wangallon for anyone, let alone Jim. Maggie and I, well we have never seen eye to eye, thanks to your father, but in this case we have agreed it is for the best.’
‘For the best?’ Sarah moved to stand opposite Mrs Jamieson. Her head pounded with the strain of this bizarre conversation. Perspiration collected at the waistband of her jeans, her palms were sweaty. ‘I don’t understand any of this. How did you come to have a photo of my father and why on earth would you think that there is something between Jim and me? That is what you’re insinuating, isn’t it?’
‘Maggie loves her son. She’s always loved him, you know, as much as I have. Who is to blame her for wanting everything for him? Those who know the story would keep their mouths shut all right. But there are others who would not. This is a small community, Sarah Gordon. It is too small for your dreams and even if you both left, those of us who remain would suffer the gossip for years.’
‘Gossip? What are you talking about?’ Sarah asked, her voice rising uneasily.
‘This place is in our blood, as yours is in you. And if you truly listen to your heart, you will understand the truth. Jim is your half-brother.’
Sarah saw the faces of the men in her family, saw their piercing violet eyes, heard Maggie Macken’s descriptions of a country she had never seen.
‘Robert Macken is not Jim’s father.’
Sarah experienced a pain in her abdomen, a feeling of being physically hit.
‘Jim doesn’t know you are his half-sister, Sarah, lass, and it is better that way. You must break off your friendship, if that is what it is.’
Much later, after Sarah managed to consume a couple of spoonfuls of thick barley soup, her head cleared a little. Now she knew why her father had been less than thrilled with the idea of this trip.
‘I lost my only brother, Cameron, in a horse-riding accident. Every day of my life I –’
‘Your pain lingers like a shroud, but none can bring him back; nor should they.’
‘I see so much of him in Jim. It’s the way he looks at the world, joking, caring about everything as if, as if –’
‘It were his last?’ Mrs Jamieson finished. ‘It is easy to love the reckless, for those are the ones we fail to truly understand. But you love Jim for your brother’s sake. You want to see those things in him, but he is not reckless, he is his own person, steady, responsible, serious and strong; no doubt, lass, a good counterpart for a brother.’ Mrs Jamieson pushed the soup closer to Sarah, nodding towards the bowl. ‘Be content to know there is another like you in the world, Sarah Gordon. Most of us are never fortunate enough to have more than one gift bestowed on us in a lifetime.’
‘But Jim, surely he has a right to know?’
‘At some time. We all have to be ready. Maybe the time has passed, maybe it will come again in the future.’
‘And my father?’
Mrs Jamieson leaned back and smiled.
‘He arrived from nowhere with stories of his home and his family. At the ceilidhs he entranced us with his tales of settlement, told us of how his forefathers set out from the Gordon Highlands and carved a country such as Australia until they had a portion of their own. I loved him then and there. We all did. He was the embodiment of so many of those who left, of so many forefathers never seen again. In him he carried a sister, brother, aunt or great-grandfather. He had the passion of a hundred lifetimes in his eyes, and he loved his people and place as much as I loved mine. I adored him.’
‘You?’ Sarah could not believe the grey-haired woman sitting opposite her.
‘I wasn’t always old, Sarah,’ Mrs Jamieson replied, her feathery eyebrows lifting in amusement. ‘I thought of marriage, but then I believed I could no sooner leave the North Country than he could leave his blue haze. We spent many a day together and then on the last, at a time of my choosing, I turned away from him. He left without a word and returned, oh, months later. When I saw him, I knew then and there that if he asked me, I would go with him. He stayed part of the winter here. There were many days he spent in the company of Lord Andrews and his father. They were a gentleman family then. We saw each other and I waited, but he never asked me again. He was too proud and I said nothing. Before he left, I heard young Maggie was outing with him. I saw the flare in both their eyes one night and knew he would not visit me again, as sure as I knew he would not stay for Maggie, nor would he ever return to Tongue.
‘In the summer, Jim was born and Maggie married Robert. I did not need to see the boy to know who the father was. And I had heard of the violet eyes of one line of the Clan Gordon. Young Jim had those eyes like his father and –’ she nodded pointedly at Sarah – ‘his sister. I spoke to Maggie many years later, told her I had written to Ronald, your father, telling him of his boy. She’s not spoken to me since, until this morning. She believed young Jim’s birthright should remain a secret. But it was too late. I told your father because it was only right he should know.’
‘Dad never said anything.’
‘And you would be expecting him to? He didn’t know about Jim until the year your own dear brother turned five.’
Sarah couldn’t stop her eyes filling with tears as she recalled the gradual disintegration of their family.
‘I’m sorry, lass. Things have been hard for you.’
‘Hard!’ Sarah gave a weary sigh. ‘My mother virtually ignored me. Her life revolved around my brother. She adored him, I guess, because Cameron was the son of her lover, while I was the daughter she didn’t want.’ Wiping tears from her cheek, Sarah blew her nose loudly.
‘I’m sorry, Sarah.’ Mrs Jamieson patted Sarah’s hand, the roughness of her calloused palms pulling the soft skin beneath.
‘Well, it’s done now,’ Sarah replied sadly, removing her hand from the table top to place it protectively in her lap. ‘I guess after Mum learned Dad had been unfaithful she just found it difficult to love me. Ironic, isn’t it? She was also unfaithful, yet there was no room in her heart for me.’ She wondered if the revelation of Jim’s existence caused the wedge between her grandfather and father. ‘Grandfather must have found out about Dad’s affair and been disgusted.’
‘Or supremely disappointed young Jim wasn’t shipped out to Australia. Look, Sarah, I gave no thought to how the news of Jim’s existence would affect your family. No doubt your father believed your mother would be able to handle the situation, otherwise he never would have told her. But, you see, you can’t tell how people will react, that is why it is so important for you to keep this to yourself. You met a soul on the other side of the world, lass. You know a part of your father few would. What’s done is for a reason. Don’t destroy a family you may never see again.’
‘But doesn’t Jim deserve to know about his father and his family? Don’t you want to know …’
‘What? Tell us what in our hearts we know, lass? Tell us he married a woman who didn’t share his love for his beloved home, but at least bore him two strong children? All a man can ask for is strong young ’uns. I see the sadness and know you, Sarah Gordon. Go back to Wangallon, it’s what made your family. Go back and live. Don’t wonder for the rest of your life what might have been.’
Sarah was sitting on the cracked cement step outside the cottage when the familiar rattle of the ancient green pick-up slowed on approach. Swallowing involuntarily, her hands grew clammy as Jim appeared from the vehicle’s interior. Dressed in dark jeans and a round-necked jumper in a mottle of green and grey hues, Sarah noted that although tall, it was his barrel chest and thick arms that marked him as a Gordon. And, violet eyes aside, he only needed a pipe and a dog by his side to replicate the yellowing photograph of her great-grandfather, Hamish. He walked steadily towards her and, as Sarah’s eyes traversed the length of his body, she studied this man who was blood related, and caught her first glimpse of the steadfast, sensitive boy Mrs Jamieson spoke of. As he sat next to her, spreading his legs out before him, crossing his ankles carefully, Sarah sensed the weight of responsibility that rested comfortably on his broad shoulders. How wrong she had been. Jim Macken was a Gordon all right.
‘You won’t stay, will you, Sarah? Mother said so.’
Preferring to have been given a day to gather her swirling thoughts instead of the few hours granted to her, Sarah touched his forearm, her fingers resting there, feeling the deep curve of his bicep. ‘I have to go home.’ She watched the bunching of his facial muscles, poring over the features of this man who was her half-brother, rendering his image forever in her brain. She wanted to run upstairs and grab her camera, take heaps of photos, jump, leap and wail, cry out to the world she was not alone anymore. ‘Leaving you will be like leaving my best friend.’ It was the most she could say. ‘But I can’t stay here, Jim, it’s not my life, it’s yours.’ Already her tears were rising unbidden.
‘Answer me, lass. Do you really love your land so much you would never leave it? For that is what Mrs Jamieson says.’
Her silence answered him. He wiped his hands roughly on his jeans, ‘I should go then.’ He stood slowly, straightening his back as if finishing a long day of manual labour. With the slightest incline of his head he began to walk away.
‘Jim …’ There were so many things she wanted to share with him; so many inconsequential things that she realised only he could fathom, for they were alike; he was her half-brother. ‘You know that out of everyone in the living world, you are the essence of me?’ Running to the door of the truck, her hands caught his.
Jim raised an eyebrow, the action turning his quizzical scowl at what he considered an overly melodramatic outburst into genuine concern. Something wasn’t right here, but it was beyond his control. He turned the ignition, comforted by the familiar rattle of the engine. He cared for her, but he would not ask her to stay. ‘You cannot pass through someone’s life, Sarah, without leaving a little of yourself behind.’ He accelerated sharply and did not look back.
Mrs Jamieson waited patiently by her side, her arms folded in the pose Sarah would come to remember her by; the pocket on her flowery apron bulging with dust rags and tissues, the perpetual scowl of dissatisfaction and shock of grey hair at odds with the youthful gleam in her eyes. Agreeing to disagree on the subject of revealing Jim’s true birthright, they had finally reached a truce that allowed this last moment of companionable silence as Sarah waited for a taxi outside the cottage.
‘One day Ronald Gordon will meet his son and glad he will be to know that the bond between his daughter and young Jim will not be broken by distance or time.’
Sarah hugged the older woman tightly. ‘Tell me one thing, Mrs Jamieson,’ she asked, breaking free of her friend’s protective arms. ‘How can you decide someone’s life for them?’
‘How can you not give your young man in Australia a chance?’
They had only discussed Anthony twice. Once on the arrival of his telegram some days ago and this morning when Mrs Jamieson asked his name. Within seconds Sarah found herself discussing her broken engagement to Jeremy and her grandfather’s will. As for Anthony, Sarah knew her friend meant well but Mrs Jamieson was really off-base. The taxi drew up in a shower of gravel.
‘Thank you for everything.’ Sarah’s mouth stretched flat in thought, ‘Geez, I’ve made such a mess of things.’
‘Nonsense.’
‘And Anthony changed. I don’t think he is the same anymore. And there are so many stipulations and options and –’
‘Rubbish, lass. It is strength of belief that is required. You think you have to make choices, but you don’t. Your life is waiting for you. Now let’s pop that bag in the boot and send you on your way.’ Mrs Jamieson opened the boot of the dark sedan into which Sarah placed her luggage, ‘If you think you leave a part of yourself behind, well, remember you take a part with you. In the end, it will make a whole.’
‘I’ll telephone.’
‘And I’ll expect it,’ Mrs Jamieson replied.
The eastern sun shadowed the country. It took her an hour to walk to the cemetery, during which Rose stopped to pick the small paper daisies managing to cling to life. She drew breathless, her feet dragging on the narrow track that wound onwards through the spring herbage, her long skirt trailing twigs, soil and leaf litter. There was rain last night. A brief cooling shower that washed clogging dust from leaves and petals and it was this fleeting glimmer of freshness that propelled Rose onwards.
The clearing resembled a still pool of water. About its edges, aged trees formed a cooling canopy overhead while grasses swayed in a calming ripple. There was a low paling fence surrounding the wooden marker, the face of it lying in the sun’s path until mid-morning, when the sheltering trees protected it for the rest of the day: protected the sleeping place of her dead children.
