Hope's Road Page 3

  Tammy thought about that. Things had gotten worse over the last few years. At night when she came in from the dairy, Shon would be sitting in his chair, feet up on the pouf, beer in hand, watching the news. He wouldn’t even acknowledge she’d come in the door, wouldn’t say hello or pass the time of day. It was up to her to get the tea, lock up the chooks, feed the dogs and do the myriad other chores it took to shut down the homestead for the night. Shon would just sit there ignoring her until his tea landed on the table, dead on six-thirty. Always six-thirty and woe betide if it wasn’t.

  ‘Can’t you do anything right?’ he’d rage. ‘I’m off to the pub. At least I can get some food and decent company there!’

  Company all right. Joanne, the publican-cum-hooker.

  She knew she wouldn’t see him again now until tomorrow night; his part-time job as agronomist for a big national seed company took him all over Gippsland during the day. When they married they’d agreed he’d keep his job four days a week until they started a family. She had her workman, Jock, to help with the heavier work on the farm, and could run the rest herself. The extra money had come in handy to pay the creditors when her grandparents died, but she hadn’t seen much of it since.

  Shon had always resented the fact it was her farm, her life that he had become a part of. It hadn’t been really apparent at the start, just little comments like . . . ‘I’ll have to ask the boss about that,’ or ‘I’ve given up my life to come and live yours.’ He’d been a travelling grass-seed salesman living out of cheap motels and pubs when they’d met, so she wasn’t sure how that one worked.

  After she’d inherited the property, Shon had pressured her to sell up. He’d tried to coerce her with visions of a different life, something beyond milking twice a day, irrigating and agronomy. She’d refused. She loved farming, and there was no way she could sell Montmorency.

  Lucy’s voice interrupted her thoughts. ‘Promise me one thing, Tammy?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘That from today you’ll at least start living life outside of this farm.’

  Tammy thought about that. Why the hell not? Bloody Shon was enjoying himself, after all. It was about time she did too. ‘Okay, I promise.’

  ‘Right. Give me two minutes.’ Lucy disappeared onto the closed-in back verandah and Tammy could hear her tapping on the computer keys. Minutes ticked by, then the sound of bouncing footsteps. Lucy reappeared in the doorway, a triumphant grin on her face. What was she up to?

  ‘I’ll pick you up at seven-thirty Sunday night – no excuses.’

  ‘Where’re we going?

  ‘Narree.’

  Tammy’s senses went on high alert. ‘What for?’ she asked tentatively.

  ‘Pole dancing.’ Lucy tried her best to look coy. ‘Hanging upside down always gives you a new perspective on things.’

  Chapter 5

  Joe splashed the dregs of his cup of tea over the side of the verandah. A few drops caught the dog at his feet, causing it to flinch in its sleep. ‘C’mon, Boots. Move that fat lazy arse of yours. Time to get some jobs done.’

  The dog opened one eye to check on his owner, assessing the urgency of the command. He shut it again when he saw no real movement from the rocking chair.

  At eighty-nine years old, Joe knew exactly how his dog felt. Aged bones soaking up the warmth of the early morning sun were hard to shift. And the view laid out in front of them took some beating. Although Boots had obviously grown immune to it, Joe never tired of looking out over a kingdom he’d come to think of as his own, breathing it in, making its goings-on a part of his life, albeit from the safe distance of his hill.

  The majority of the Great Dividing Range – the gently undulating Narree foothills rising to the soaring peaks of the likes of Mounts Cullen and Adelong – were all there in a steely blue: a private view of rugged, remote magnificence right at his own door. At the base of the range, shining paddocks of emerald green smothered the flats, with dots of black and white Friesian cows interposed with the occasional caramel-coloured Jersey. Shelter belts of native trees skirting around fence-lines gave the land the look of a patchwork quilt, with the Narree River and its weaving splayed across the rich fabric like elaborate silver appliqué.

  An early-morning breeze flowed over the paddocks below his house, the spear grass rippling like giant ribbons in the sun. It was strangely relaxing yet disturbing at the same time, all that long, dry grass close to his old miner’s shack. Time to move the cattle into the front part of the farm: he didn’t need a fire hazard at his door.

  Joe tipped the rocking chair back then forwards, back then forwards, gathering momentum at each rock. On the third tip he dropped his feet to the floorboards and heaved himself up, letting the momentum get him upright.

  The chair tipped back and clipped Boots’s long hairy tail. The dog leaped into the air, yelping, and Joe staggered slightly sideways before groping at a verandah pole to steady himself. ‘Fuck it, Boots.’ Joe was more pissed off than contrite. He was finding he was stumbling a bit more every day, especially if there was a change due in the weather. Any alteration in atmospheric pressure seemed to make his knees and ankles seize up, particularly in the mornings. All part of getting old, he supposed. He didn’t like it, though. Not one little bit.

  Joe bent over and scratched behind his old border collie’s ears. The dog was still licking his tail. ‘Sorry, mate. Didn’t mean to hurt ya.’ Boots leaned into his wrinkled and veiny hand, thumping his tail in ecstasy. It never took much to make a dog happy. Shame humans weren’t the same. Joe’s eyes flickered back out to the east and the rich green spread of Montmorency Downs. Nothing he could do about that, regardless of Nellie’s yabbering voice in his head.

  ‘Righto, enough dilly-dallying about. We’re off. Bales of hay to feed this morning.’ He dumped his mug on top of the flattened bollard beside the verandah steps and clumped his way to the rack near the front screen door. Sambar deer antlers of different shapes and sizes held coats, hats and vests, all in varying states of disrepair.

  Joe shrugged himself into a ripped oilskin with a barely discernible green chequered flannel lining. A flying cap with fluffy Biggles-like muffs for his ears went onto his nearly bald head. A pair of black, heavy gumboots onto his socked feet.

  And then they were off. Man and dog. Down the steps, into the bright morning, where dewdrops were still shining through spider webs on the corrugated walls of the barn.

  Joe made his way to the lean-to shed that housed an ancient Fordson Major tractor, an iconic piece of machinery. He checked the oil and water then climbed aboard, cranking over the engine. After a few false starts the cold motor caught and fired. The noise was raucous, drowning out the kookaburras who’d started cackling and destroying any peace that had remained.

  Joe backed the tractor out of the open side of the barn. ‘C’mon, Boots!’ The dog slunk around the side of the tractor, setting his sights on the hayshed behind the house. ‘Shame you can’t open gates,’ yelled Joe. ‘That’d make you worth keeping.’ Boots ignored him, and climbed through a fence that was missing a top wire then pissed on a post that was leaning sideways into the breeze. Joe swore Boots could understand him better than anyone, and dogs certainly had their own ways to thumb it at their owners.

  There were only a few gates on Joe’s eight hundred acres. The solid, galvanised ones fronting the roads and bush tracks circumnavigating the farm, the one into the hayshed yard and the mallee gate separating the front half from the back part of the property.

  Joe let his cattle roam the place. He didn’t understand all this new-fangled stuff about cell grazing, wagon wheels and strip feeding. Truth be told he hadn’t wanted to understand it. For to do that meant change, and he knew he wasn’t so good at change; never had been.

  He clambered down off the tractor and opened the gate to the hayshed yard. Got back on the vehicle and trundled through. Using the hay forks on the fro
nt he picked up a round bale, backed the tractor around and with the rear hay grabs picked up another one. He’d had hydraulics fitted to the old girl. It’d been worth it. One round was worth twelve or so small bales and lifting smalls had been hell on his back. Nellie had forced that change on him and, though he’d never admitted it to her, he was glad. His back had been caning him.

  Joe drove the tractor out the gate, closed it and set off across the paddock. He stopped when he remembered he’d left his other dog, old Digger, chained to the side of the pigpens.

  By the time he got there, Digger was yelping in a weird strangled kind of way, straining at the chain. ‘Settle, boy. C’mon, pull back so I can let the clip off.’ But Digger was having none of it, and he had the chain pulled so tight he was choking himself. ‘For fuck’s sake, you idiot, gitback!’ Joe reefed on the dog’s collar, which loosened the pressure enough for him to undo the clip. Digger took off towards his mate Boots, who was hanging out by the tractor, chewing on a rat’s head he’d found beside the barn.

  The two dogs started to fight over the tasty morsel, rolling and barking, biting and snapping at each other until the rodent’s head was forgotten in the rumble. Suddenly another blur of black appeared, snatched the delicacy and made it back to the barn with blistering speed. By the time the two dogs realised what had happened, the black cat was up on top of a thick timber rafter, looking smug and chewing ravenously.

  Joe chuckled to himself. He didn’t need anything but his animals around this place; they were trouble enough. He climbed back aboard the tractor and took off, the dogs streaking out in front, barking and jumping around like a pair of excited hooligans. ‘Git behind. Git behind, I’m telling ya!’ Joe roared at them. Through naked gateways with latches hanging limp, beside fences lying on their side, and past posts devoid of wires, they made their way towards a mob of cattle camped in scrubby bush at the far reaches of the farm.

  There had been a time in his life when Joe had cared. Really cared about himself, his life and where it was going to take him. He’d been in his twenties, bursting with youth and enthusiasm. He and his older brother, Thomas, had been set to take on the world. Sons of a well-respected man, a shire councillor, with a prosperous farm that had been in the family for generations.

  But there’d been the war and life had thrown its greasy tentacles around them. Things had changed and, with no extra workers to be found, they’d had to work their arses off to keep it all afloat. Being needed on the land, he and Tom had entered the war late. And they’d been lucky, for both of them came home, a fact which at times had made his mother publicly bow her head when faced with the grief and envy of others, while in her heart she rejoiced at her good fortune.

  But that good fortune hadn’t lasted.

  Thanks to a dark-eyed brunette called Mae.

  Joe had spotted her at the Lake Grace Centenary Ball in 1946. It had been a warm summer night, laced with the scent of roses and wisteria. A stylish, toe-tapping band had been brought in from Melbourne. A supper to rival a Menzies high tea was laid on by the competing cooks of the area, and the decorations had made the Myer Christmas windows seem dowdy. All the ingredients were in place for a wonderful night to meet a beautiful lady. And at thirty years of age Joe was looking for the woman he could spend the rest of his life with.

  There at the invitation of country cousins with whom she was holidaying, Mae Rouget blew into his life with all the force of a hot and howling north-westerly. Draped in a strapless tangerine ball-gown of the softest chiffon, she was a knockout. Glossy, long brunette hair fell in waves onto a slim back. Her sultry full lips and dark eyes made him want to tell the rest of the world to go hang itself and leave him completely alone with this vision. She was all he’d ever want or need and he finally understood the meaning of love at first sight.

  When she opened her mouth and spoke, what little sense that remained in his head dissolved. It was a voice straight from heaven. Perfectly pitched yet with a slight lilt of huskiness curling at the finish: enough to get any man’s libido up and attentive.

  He hadn’t let her out of his arms the whole night and he was sure she was as besotted with him as he was with her. She’d given him no reason to think otherwise, refusing all other dancing partners, gazing into his eyes.

  He’d gone home walking on air, incessantly checking that her phone number was tucked safely into his inside pocket. A promise for dinner and dancing the following weekend.

  A few weeks and two dates later he was planning how to make her his – where he’d get the money to buy her the engagement ring she deserved, when to tell his parents and brother, who was away buying a new bull for the farm.

  He could have just about kissed old man Parker when he’d made the offer of a job falling trees with his bush-gang. ‘Just for a month, maybe a bit more, to get me outta trouble. Bloke laid up with a crushed foot and I’ve got a nephew comin’ down from Queensland to step into his spot. Takin’ him a time or two to get here though. What do ya reckon, Joey? Can ya dad spare you to help me out?’

  Joe knew Tom was due back any day, so he said yes right away, thinking of that glittering diamond ring he’d now be able to afford.

  He’d hitched a ride up the bush with old Parker, worked his arse off for six weeks, seven days a week, dawn till dusk, and made enough money to buy what he wanted. He waltzed home excitedly fingering the rolled-up notes and jangling the many coins now in his pockets.

  To find his parents all in a tizz of excitement.

  ‘Oh Joey, you’ll never guess! Thomas is getting married. It’s so exciting. After they’re married they’ll move here and your dad and I can now buy one of those lovely new homes I’ve been eyeing off in Lake Grace.’ His mother’s normally pallid cheeks were touched with rosy-red circles as she moved around the big farm kitchen making a special celebration tea. ‘But don’t worry, love, you can live with us. Oh Joey, she’s just beautiful and Thomas is so happy and in love. Such a whirlwind romance! I’m dying for you to meet her.’

  At that moment Tom walked through the door. ‘About time you came down from those hills. Good to see you, little brother. I’ve brought a few good-looking bulls home. Love the look.’

  Joe stroked his new beard, the result of weeks without a razor and the need to keep his face warm on the higher mountain-ash-clad peaks. ‘Yeah, good to see you too. Mum says you’re getting married? Congratulations.’ He pumped his brother’s hand. ‘Where did you meet her?’

  ‘Down in the city. She’s our stock agent’s wife’s cousin. They went to boarding school together.’

  Joe breathed a sigh of relief. It wasn’t Mae then. She wouldn’t have been a boarder, living in the city and all. He felt the tight band on his chest loosen. Didn’t know why it’d been there in the first place.

  ‘Anyway, she’ll be here in a sec. You’ll love her, Joey. It’s a bit rushed, I know, but she’s the one. The best thing that’s happened to me.’ He put his arm around his younger brother’s shoulders and gave them a squeeze.

  And Joe was pleased for Tom, knowing how seriously he shouldered the mantle of being the eldest McCauley. Three generations of expectations fell heavy, and Joe was happy Tom had found someone to share the load.

  ‘Thomas?’

  The world stopped, lifted up on its axis and moved slightly left.

  Only one person in the world had that husky lilt to her voice. Joe spun around to see his brother moving towards the beautiful creature framed in the doorway.

  Glossy, long brunette hair fell in waves onto a slim back. Sultry full lips lifted to take Tom’s ardent kiss. Dark eyes swept across the room over his brother’s broad shoulder, widening in startled shock at the sight of Joe.

  But it was the different expressions that followed which cut him to the very core.

  First, sudden comprehension.

  ‘Mae! My darling girl, welcome to our home . . .’

  Chased
by measure.

  ‘Mae! How lovely you look. Come and meet my other handsome son, Joe.’

  And lastly – regret.

  ‘I’m Mae. How do you do, Joe? It’s so nice to meet you . . .’

  The fingertips of her slim hand were touching his – those dark eyes looking at him like he was a stranger – while her other hand was clasped tightly by his brother. Now he understood the meaning of complete and utter devastation.

  He turned and left. Grabbed his kitbag from where it had been discarded on the three-quarter-bed in his room only an hour before. And walked out of the house.

  Never to make his way down the gravelled drive of Montmorency Downs again.

  Not ever, in sixty years.

  Chapter 6

  ‘Want some toast?’ said Travis. The kid was rustling around up in his bedroom loft like a possum loose on the roof. It was driving his father nuts.

  ‘Billy! You want some toast?’ Travis yelled this time.

  ‘Huh?’ A shock of red hair appeared over the rails of the platform above Travis’s head.

  ‘I said, do you want toast?’ Travis drawled it out, sarcastic and slow.

  His son flushed bright pink and stammered back, ‘I’m sorry, Dad. I didn’t hear you.’

  ‘Any wonder with all the racket going on up there. What’re you doing?’

  Billy looked shamefaced then stared up at the ceiling so close to his head. ‘I’ve lost somethin’,’ he whispered.

  ‘Speak up, boy!’

  ‘I’ve lost something,’ the child said again.

  Travis considered him for a moment. What was the kid up to? Billy snatched a quick glance down at his father then peered back up at the ceiling, but not before Travis saw momentary fear and a glint of tears in his eyes.

  For fuck’s sake. ‘Well, hurry up and find it and get down here for your breakfast. I’ve got things to be doing.’