The Grass Castle (44 page)

The house nestled beneath the old oak trees which spread their branches over the roof like protective arms. Passing the sheds, she crossed the last open space of baking sunlight before reaching the door where she kicked off her shoes, not bothering to pair them on the rack. The shade of the veranda enveloped her, tracing shadows on her skin. She opened the door and slid thankfully inside.

It was quiet in the house, which was normal when her mother was navigating a slump. She tiptoed down the hall to her mother’s bedroom. Usually she would creep in and plant a small kiss on her mother’s marble cheek, pausing to watch the slow rise and fall of her chest as she lay inert on the bed. Today the room was empty.

She moved through the house, peering into each room, drawing consecutive blanks. Her mother was not in the kitchen—the table was still cluttered with this morning’s used breakfast bowls, flies crawling in the congealed clots of Weet-bix. The lounge room was empty too; sometimes her mother would sit in a chair by the window, watching the oak trees wave their arms. But she was not in the lounge room, not in the bathroom, not in Matt’s bedroom, and she was not in the laundry, where dirty clothes lay in limp neglected piles.

When she had determined her mother was not in the house, she drifted outside, stopping to watch the cows sheltering beneath the gum trees along the house-paddock fence. They were dozy and listless, their tails switching flies from their backs. She crossed the driveway to the shed, wincing as her soft sweaty feet contacted the sharp gravel. Beneath the tin roof, heat swelled and simmered. She smelled the rich oiliness of the tractor, the aroma of hot hay. Swallows scattered under the beams, circling and chattering in the dim light. Her mother was not in the shed.

She wandered down to the stables, empty now that her mother had stopped riding and the horses had been turned out for summer, until her mother called them in again, offering pieces of cut apple in the palm of her hand. Down in the horse paddock, the horses were standing in the shade, and her mother was not with them, which was no surprise.

The only remaining place was the chook shed, which was not somewhere her mother visited often. Earlier in the year a fox had invaded and slaughtered the chickens. It was murder, not even for hunger—the fox had left torn and decapitated carcasses, not even bothering to eat any of the meat. The girl and her father had buried the mangled birds down below the compost heap. Then her father had purchased from a neighbour new pullets, which had grown into fine white Leghorns. Since then her mother had refused to go down there, leaving the chooks to someone else to tend.

Now she reached the shed. The door was ajar and it was then that she noticed the chickens were out, grasping the opportunity to scratch in the garden at the back of the house, and scattering the mulch. She grabbed the handle and swung the door wide.

That was when her heart emptied and her mind stopped, her future finished.

She remembers the shaft of light cast through the open door, the drone of flies circling the shed, the rusty metallic smell of blood. On the floor, lay her mother, half-sitting, eyes starring glassily, a round black hole burnt smooth in her white forehead. Across her lap, the rifle lay fallen from her hands, and she wore an expression of surprise mingled with absence.

The girl stood there, unmoving, watching the flies crawling their way in and out of her mother’s eyes and nose, the hole in her head. She heard the startled clucking of a chicken somewhere outside. Then her mind closed like a door slammed shut and silence descended—utter mental silence, as unseeing and unhearing as her mother, lying slumped and lifeless on the straw.

When the telling is done, Abby hovers in an empty space somewhere between the present and the past. She is surprised to find she doesn’t need anything from Daphne. The old lady’s presence is enough, the bearing of witness. She feels an odd opening in her chest, a parting, like a clearing of clouds after a storm. There is no beam of sunlight, but there is a sense of loosening, a change in the air, a lessening of the load.

The images haven’t altered and the story is the same—still horrible, still shocking. But now the words are out and the facts are known. They have been announced, relinquished from the vault. The kangaroos triggered it, and because of them, the terrible thing is no longer a secret. Abby hopes that now the worst is revealed, perhaps she can start to let it go.

She meets her old friend’s gaze and sees tears shimmering in Daphne’s eyes, feels moisture on her own cheeks. Then she reaches for Daphne and they grip each other’s hands and hold tight. All the words have been said, and there is nothing more to say.

She leaves Daphne in the car and wanders, pensive and alone, up the valley. After last night’s traumas and this morning’s release, she needs to recuperate now, to take pause in the soothing presence of the mountains and the trees.

The wind has dropped and the valley is quiet and still. Up ahead, her kangaroos are grazing, their jaws grinding rhythmically. She’s neglected them these past weeks and they watch her with a new untrusting vigilance. Already they’ve partly forgotten her. That is their wildness. You can gain an edge of familiarity, but instinct is undeniable.

She sits in the dry grass and absorbs the fragrant air, the hollow echo of a currawong calling among the rocks. Despite her fatigue, she feels more settled than she has in months. She lies down in the grass and stares at the clouds, emptying herself out, trying to come to terms with the enormity of what has just passed: the handing on of her story to Daphne. It is something she’s never done before, opening herself up like this, and the feeling of exposure is unfamiliar, but at the same time it is liberating. Unraveled, she stretches out, arms behind her head, adjusting to the sensation of metamorphosis.

Eventually the breeze strengthens and cold starts to set in. She climbs to her feet and turns back towards the car where, hopefully, Daphne is napping.

It is then that she sees him, standing by a snow gum along the track. She falters, sudden weakness in her knees. He shouldn’t be here. She asked him not to come. Slowly she closes the distance to meet him, and he waits, awkward, his hands in his pockets, and she thinks of the first day she met him in the car park for an interview, and how much has happened since then.

‘I’m sorry,’ he calls before she is upon him. ‘But I couldn’t stay away.’ He flings his arms wide, and swings his gaze over the valley, the rocky tops, the hills of rustling forest. ‘Look at this, will you? How can it all be so normal after yesterday?’

She stops and contemplates him, unmoved.

‘I’m sorry for what you had to go through,’ he says. ‘Both inside and outside the gate. I was so frightened for you.’

She stays where she is, keeping her distance, staring off down the valley, unsure what to do with him.

He walks up, stands near, close, warm. ‘What’s with the beanie?’ he asks, smiling.

She looks at him, raises her hand and pulls the beanie from her head, waiting for his reaction.

His face crumples and tears spring in his eyes. With warm hands, he reaches for her, crushes her to his chest, strokes his hand over her scalp, softly and gently murmuring, his lips against her head. Then he pulls back slightly, his hands lightly gripping her shoulders. There is a smile in his eyes, kind, patient. ‘Don’t worry,’ he says. ‘Hair grows. And I know a good hairdresser who can fix you up. Maybe not glue the hair back on, but at least make you smooth and silky. A Sinead O’Connor. Very brave, very sexy.’

She leans her forehead against his chest, and his fingers glide over her ravaged scalp again, unafraid of the bristly texture, somehow still loving her.

Then she is crying. For herself. For her mother. For everything.

He holds her till the tide of tears passes, then he bends to catch her eyes again, serious now. ‘Let’s walk down the valley,’ he says. ‘Like the first time we met.’

She moves to say something, but he shushes her gently. ‘You don’t have to talk,’ he says. ‘We can walk as long as you like. For ten minutes or forever. It doesn’t matter. I’m happy to go as far as you want.’

She takes his hand and they walk through the shuffling grass with the wind chuckling in the trees like a river. Then she begins to tell him about her mother.

The valley sighs around them, and above, a flock of galahs shrieks at the sky.

EPILOGUE

The first time the two old women meet, Daphne weeps.

It is in a city café. Daphne waits at a table with Abby, while out in the street the winter wind rattles long-shed autumn leaves up and down the gutter.

Daphne’s heart taps a fast rhythm. She is anxious and excited and a little afraid. This is a beginning, a small chance to make her peace. The offering she wants to make may mean nothing in the scheme of all the wrongs that have been done. But it is something she wants to do.

She doesn’t know what to expect of this woman, Betty, who should soon be here. Abby has described her as damaged but wise, strong but gentle. It’s a bundle of contradictions and Daphne doesn’t know what to read into it. She envisages Betty might be angry. She could be indignant and self-righteous. Daphne figures she has every right to be. But whatever Betty says to her, Daphne knows she can carry the burden.

We all have matters of grief
, she said to Abby in the valley that day after the cull when Abby told her story.
It’s how we bear that grief which makes us who we are, and marks the strong from the weak.
Now she knows that both strength and weakness reside in everyone, along with the courage to renew. This is the journey she has undertaken: her life’s journey. Today is another step on that path.

When the woman enters the café, Daphne knows immediately who she is. It’s not the colour of her skin that sets her apart, although she is distinctly darker than Daphne. Nor is it anything about her features, even though she has a broadish nose and black eyes. Rather it is something about the sad, humble aura she wears like a coat: a sense of agelessness, an earthiness, a strange pull of gravity that somehow puts her at the centre of things.

Daphne watches her close the door then glance around the café with measured deliberation. Trembling with anticipation, Daphne rises slowly to her feet and extends her hands. The woman steps forward, a smile spreading her lips. They reach and clutch each other, fingers entwined.

For a whisper of a moment, Daphne remembers Johnny Button, his dark fingers against her skin. Then she is back in the present, holding Betty’s hands.

The two women grip each other without speaking, eyes locked, nodding. Daphne sees that Betty already knows what she wants to say. She sees that she is forgiven. She knows this as surely as the wind lives in the mountains.

Their exchange takes place without words. Then Daphne ushers Betty to a chair, the old leading the infirm. Daphne needs words to create reality. Words unspoken have coloured her life. Today there must be no doubt.

They sit, and Daphne’s eyes are already clouded by tears. She feels in Betty a wealth of kindness and compassion. She wasn’t prepared for this—she’d expected rejection, hostility at least. But Betty’s eyes are deep, full of life’s punishment, and softened by a glow of acceptance, infused with a sliver of hope.

‘Thank you,’ Daphne says, and Betty chuckles: a warm bubbling sound that rises from within and rolls in her chest.

‘I done nothing yet that warrants thanking.’

‘You came.’ Daphne says. ‘That’s important to me. You could have said no.’

The two women look at each other, and Daphne’s tears spill onto her cheeks. She feels the trickles running warm down the creases that line her mouth. She tastes salt as the tears spread on her lips.

‘Don’t you cry,’ Betty says, rubbing Daphne’s hand in hers. ‘Been too many tears over the years, and they don’t fix nothing. I ought to know. I shed a few.’

Daphne’s tears keep coming. The infinite well that never runs dry. For Gordon. For Doug. For her father. For her country. ‘My family had a property on your land,’ she says after a while. ‘It was in the mountains. They lived there for many years. It was good land. Beautiful land.’

‘That’s good country.’ Betty says. ‘But I’m Ngunnawal. From further north.’

‘I understand,’ Daphne says. ‘But it was Aboriginal land that my family took and somehow I feel that links me to you.’

‘My country, my heart.’ Betty touches a hand to her chest.

‘I buried my son there,’ Daphne says. ‘Lost my husband to that country too. Part of me is with them up there.’

‘Riding the wind.’ Betty smiles knowingly. ‘Like them old crows.’

Daphne pauses, feels the land beneath her skin, hears the cark of the ravens calling among the rocks, the wind gushing in the trees, sees the little cemetery of sad bleached stones carrying the stories of the lost. She’s certain Betty has many such stories too—written into the convoluted map of life. ‘Maybe this sounds strange,’ she says slowly, ‘but I think I understand the way your people feel about that country. The way the land lives inside you. How it owns you, and you can’t let go.’

Betty’s face is luminous. ‘Country lives in you and you live in country. All one.’ She sighs as if the weight of life is resting on her shoulders.