The Grass Castle (18 page)
The dog was a rusty old red heeler called Prince with a torn ear from one of his numerous fights. He was never a pretty hound, but Doug loved him in a rough manly way, and the dog was Doug’s devoted shadow, following him wherever he went—from room to room (the first dog they had ever allowed in the house) and into the shed. A few weeks after they moved to Queanbeyan, Doug developed his first urban habit, which was to feed the magpies, scattering a handful of Prince’s dog food on the driveway. He shouted when the old dog hauled itself to its feet hoping to chase the birds and hunt down the pieces of kibble. Instead, Doug sent the dog to its dusty pile of hessian sacks in the shed with a pointed disciplinary finger. But those were the only times Doug needed to raise his voice at Prince. They were mates, buddies with an unspoken mutual loyalty. Daphne saw it in the dog’s eyes and in Doug’s quiet hand, resting on the dog’s head in the evenings when the TV was on.
Over time Daphne came to see the dog as a competitor for her husband’s attention, but she also realised Prince was a gift. The dog kept Doug in touch with the world, even as Doug’s inner hermit tightened its grip. Then disaster. A lump appeared under the dog’s tail. Daphne noticed it when Prince was cleaning up his meal of dog food, tail erect and wagging as he pushed the bowl around with his tongue, trying to extract flavour from the metal. She showed the lump to Doug and wanted to take the dog to the vet, but Doug was intent on ignoring it.
The lump grew. It swelled and began to bulge and Daphne was worried about it. Eventually she persuaded Doug to visit the vet. It was a big step for him to pay money to have an animal seen to. They’d never used vets on the property—out there the cure for illness had always been a bullet. But he made an exception for the dog—his old mate—put him in the car and drove him to the local vet clinic. Prince sat like royalty on the front seat, his tongue lolling with delight.
Doug came home sullen and angry, the dog trotting miserably at his heels, uncertain of his master’s mood. The vet said Prince had developed an anal tumour, seen only in male dogs that hadn’t been desexed. The recommendation was to do surgery to remove the lump and Prince’s testicles at the same time. The operation would cost two hundred dollars. Doug refused, outraged. Two hundred dollars to knacker a dog and cut out a lump! He’d spent twenty-five dollars of good money already just to hear this rubbish. Fancy castrating a dog at Prince’s age! Doug wouldn’t hear of it. He wouldn’t do it to himself so he wouldn’t do it to his dog. He didn’t want to see Prince turn soft and fat like a backyard pet.
After that, Doug hid from the fact that the lump was growing by burying himself in full-scale denial. Daphne knew the dog needed veterinary attention, but she was afraid to raise the topic. She agreed that the cost of the surgery was exorbitant, but she knew Doug needed the dog, so she was prepared to pay to keep Prince alive. It was difficult to convince Doug, however. She tried to pick her moments, but he brushed her off, pointing out that the dog was still eating and enjoying its walks, so it must be all right. But the cancer was insidious. The lump slowly swelled until one morning Daphne saw the dog licking at its rear end. When she peered beneath its tail she saw blood and muck dripping from what had now become a grossly distended mass. She showed it to Doug, but his solution was to give the dog a rest from his morning walk so the wound could heal.
That was it for Daphne. When Doug disappeared down the street, she shoved the dog in the car and drove to the vet clinic without an appointment. In the waiting room, the receptionist berated her for not phoning first. Then she peered at the lump, crinkled her nose with distaste and went out the back to speak to the vet. They slotted Prince in between the scheduled clients, and Daphne was humbly grateful. She thanked the vet for seeing her, but was unprepared for his blunt assessment. He said Prince should have been operated on weeks ago. He could have saved the dog’s life if his advice had been followed and the lump had been removed when it first appeared. Now it was too late. The lump was invasive. It was a mess. Inoperable.
With trembling hands and undisguised tears, Daphne paid the bill, unable to meet the receptionist’s eyes. When she arrived home, Doug was sitting on the doorstep, hell and fury burning in his eyes—he knew where she’d been. Daphne tried to ignore him and opened the car door to let the old dog out. Poor Prince attempted to leap out like a pup, but his limbs were slow and heavy with arthritis, and he fell to the driveway with a sickening thump. Daphne heard herself whimpering as she stroked the old dog’s head then turned to wipe blood from the seat and tried to wave away the rotten stench of the tumour.
An argument ensued—the worst of their marriage. Doug was furious. How dare she spend more money on the dog, and for what outcome? Another twenty-five dollars, no doubt, and they were no better off. Daphne tried to tell him what the vet had said, that Prince could have had another few good years if Doug had listened to the initial advice and paid for the surgery. But Doug wasn’t having it. ‘It’s my dog anyway, and I’ll decide what happens to it.’
His yells brought the neighbours out into the street to see what was going on. Daphne dragged the dog inside to be sure Doug would follow. Then she gave Doug a dressing down. She told him she didn’t want the dog to suffer. Reminded him that Prince was a friend, not an old sick cow on the farm that could be left to die somewhere up the valley out of sight.
Something broke in Doug then, like a string snapping. He bent down to stroke the ears of the bewildered old dog where it lay on the lino between them. Then he lifted Prince in his arms and took him back out to the car.
‘What are you doing?’ Daphne asked, teary, following him outside. ‘Where are you going?’
He walked past her back into the house and came out with a long brown vinyl bag which Daphne knew contained the gun. ‘I’m going to fix things,’ he said, laying the gun on the floor in the back of the car. ‘Something I should have done a while ago.’
He strode to the driver’s door and, as he folded himself in behind the wheel, she noticed the wateriness in his eyes, the bare grief in his expression.
‘I’ll come with you,’ she said, rushing forward as he backed down the drive.
But he shook his head, lips firm, and then he was gone.
She sat for hours on the doorstep waiting for his return, terrified he might have shot himself along with the dog. He wouldn’t do that, would he? He wouldn’t leave her?
Dark came with no sign of Doug. Daphne sat through the usual TV programs oblivious to the motions on the screen. At ten o’clock she went to bed and lay there stiff with tension, listening for the sound of the car. Finally she heard the familiar rumble of the car in the street, the sound of the garage door opening and closing. Doug glided into the house, quiet on his feet. He undressed in the bathroom—she heard running water, the toilet flushing. Then he came out and slipped into bed beside her. Said nothing.
‘Where have you been?’ she asked.
At first there was no answer, then his voice scraped out, hard and harsh. ‘Took the dog bush. Put a bullet in its head. Dug a hole and buried it.’
Daphne reached for his hand. ‘It was the right thing. Best for the dog.’
For a while he left his hand in hers, then he tugged it slowly away and shuffled over on his side, his back to her. She felt the vibration of sobs shaking his body, pulled herself in close to him, wrapped an arm around him and hugged him tight.
She knew he was crying for much more than the dog.
‘Why did it have to happen?’ Daphne asks Abby now. ‘Why did we have to leave our land?’ It’s a rhetorical question—she’s not looking for answers. ‘Nobody comes here. It’s empty. Just you and me and the crows. They closed it for the public and none of them want it. What was the use of that?’
Daphne is wavering on the cliff-edge of tears. She’s touched and surprised when Abby takes her hand and strokes it gently. The girl seems to understand. Daphne gathers the shreds of her self-control and pats Abby’s arm. ‘You have work to do, dear. You should go and do it. I’ll stay here in the car. Maybe take a nap.’
She watches Abby bundle out of the car, grabbing a pack from the back of the vehicle then heading off up the valley. In the distance, kangaroos are a scatter of brown humps, resting and grazing. Abby turns and waves once then she is gone, becoming smaller and less visible among the shifting tussocks and the rolling landscape.
When she is out of sight, Daphne pushes open the car door and climbs stiffly out. She takes off slowly in a different direction. There is somewhere she wants to go.
Daphne walks slowly up the valley. Her hips and knees protest and she’s a little light-headed and a weird thumping sound is echoing in her head. But it isn’t far—if she can just find the spot where the track used to turn off into the trees. There’s a special place she wants to visit, a hidden clearing in the bush where parts of her soul are buried.
As she treads along the margins of the valley where the forest reaches down to merge with the grass, kangaroos reclining among the patchy scrub push up onto their feet and watch her pass. She takes the shortest route, as best she can recall it, but she doesn’t want to walk too close to any of those big old bucks.
She remembers one of her father’s stockmen being mauled by a kangaroo. He was on foot and too close to a big bachelor male. He had his dog with him, a skinny mongrel of an animal that always went in too hard when it was working the stock. The stupid mutt attacked the kangaroo, and there was a dreadful howling ruckus that was heard all the way down the valley. The stockman grabbed a stick and tried to break them apart, but the kangaroo sat back on its tail and slashed out at him with a hind toe. It tore a hole in his stomach, right through the skin and into his abdomen. His screams were so loud they echoed from the crags. Later Daphne watched her mother stitch the gaping wound with a needle and thread. Then her father drove the stockman in to hospital. Her mother’s repair job hadn’t been ideal, but it had probably saved the man’s life.
Poking around at the edge of the bush, Daphne finds the boulder which she now remembers used to mark the track into the scrub. This is what she is looking for. The trail is no longer distinct—it’s more like an animal-path—but Daphne knows this is the way. Shielding her face with her arms, she pushes through a snarl of undergrowth. Crimson rosellas startle from a tree, chipping and chiming as they burst into flight. Twigs catch on her skin leaving scratches and blood spots.
In a short distance the bushes give way to a cleared area of overgrown grass and a series of crumbling white headstones lined up in two short rows. These graves mark the tragedy of her family’s past. Here lie the remains of her brother who was crushed by the horse. Her mother and father rest here too; her father interred with all Daphne’s unanswered questions. Four stones cover stillborn babies that her mother buried. Little Gordon too.
Daphne sits on a rock and regards this sad altar to lost human life. She thinks of her mother: a melancholy, defeated woman. It was no wonder she was like that after losing four babies—Daphne doesn’t even know if they were given names. When she was little, her mother often brought her here to lay small posies of bush flowers at the feet of the headstones. She remembers her mother’s tears and long face, the rush of panic she felt seeing her mother so unhinged. At the homestead her mother was always sturdily in control, a stoic hard-working woman who trudged through her daily tasks without complaint. Here in the tucked-away bush cemetery, Daphne saw another side of her mother—the raw, emotional part where life had scoured deep gorges of grief.
She is suddenly heavy with her own wash of grief. She glances to Gordon’s headstone. Poor little fellow. So young. His life cut too short. She closes her eyes against the pale light and she can see him running on his skinny little legs around the homestead, beating the air with a stick. He is practising riding his imaginary horse. He’s six and Doug has said he can soon learn to ride. He’s a thin little boy, dark-haired like Doug, and he has Doug’s pointed nose and sharp face, the same gentle smile.
He’s a good helper, little Gordon. Since baby Pam was born, Doug has instilled in him a sense of responsibility. When Doug is away working up the valley, Gordon is the man about the place. He must do jobs to assist his mother and be quiet so as not to disturb the baby. Gordon’s promotion makes him feel big and important. It won’t be long before he will be able to ride up the valley with his father. Daphne refrains from reminding him that soon he will need to begin his schooling too.
It is a warm day, the first real taste of summer for the year. Daphne has been busy all morning, boiling water in the copper and scrubbing the dirty clothes on the washboard, passing them through the hand-cranked wringer. She is hanging the washing on the line beneath the eaves; the clothes will dry quickly in this heat. Thankfully Pam is sleeping so Daphne can complete the task uninterrupted. After this she will skin the two rabbits Doug trapped last night and set them cooking on the stove. Hopefully she will be done before the baby wakes for a feed.
The valley is at its best after a good wet spring. It is green with waving grasses, and fat black cattle spread out grazing along its length. This year they should get a good price at market. Doug has bought in an Angus bull with good bloodlines and he is happy with the new progeny. The young steers from the first drop are thickset and nuggetty. They have deep chests and straight backs, and with this excellent mountain feed they will be in prime condition when they are sold. Doug has decided to keep the heifers to boost his breeding herd. They are strong types, and it means he can get rid of some older cows that are getting long in the tooth and finding the subalpine winters hard.
Spring is Daphne’s favourite season in the valley. She loves autumn too, with its spare blue skies, but spring is a time for growth and abundance. Everything is productive: the birds, the cattle, the grass, the gum trees sprouting fresh red leaves from their swaying tops. Usually this is when she manages to get out riding too. Before the children were born, she used to help run the cattle up to the High Country to the summer grazing grounds. She doesn’t mind hard work, can turn her hand to fencing, making yards, marking and branding cattle.
