For the heir to
triumph the father
must fall

I

Susannah kept the fan spinning fast above her head while she prepared the meal. Clouds appeared that afternoon, towering sculptures of cumulus, but they never ventured further than the northern corner of the sky. The heat had changed. It was thicker and denser. She could hear the noise of unhappy cattle and, occasionally, men shouting. They had returned to clean up the home paddocks. The last load of cattle would leave tomorrow, marking the end of the season. When the shearing finished on the farm there was always a cut-out, her father providing beers for the shearers, and in later years when there were more New Zealand shearers, they often had a hangi as well. She wondered if John intended to do anything for them before he sent them off. And what would happen to Texas and Laura?

She heated the oil in a pan on the stove and fried some onion. The couple had returned with the men last night. She hadn’t seen Laura yet. They appeared to be sleeping together in Laura’s quarters and eating across the creek in the camp kitchen. Last night John repeated what the grader driver had said. That Laura was begging for it. John saw his wife’s smile and she could tell it made him angry. Susannah was smiling because she knew that neither man could cope with the idea that Laura had chosen Texas. She was no longer available to them. Not that she probably ever was.

Susannah couldn’t understand how men’s minds worked.

She wondered what they thought of her, how she compared with Laura: the mother who kept the house, who had the keys to the cool room and the medical chest but not the means to escape. She corrected herself, she did have the means to leave; there were vehicles, bank accounts. It was just that she was unable to believe that she could be anybody else.

There was the solid sound of boots stepping onto the veranda and a light tap at the door. Through the flywire she saw the shape of a man. She pushed it open and he stepped back, removing his hat. It was Texas.

‘Boss left his notebook up here.’

‘Has he?’ Her face reddened. ‘I’ll have a look.’

Dark curls pushed out from under the flattened hair around his head. His shirt was a deep blue with sleeves rolled to below the elbow. She handed him the notebook and saw that his wrist was narrow and wondered why she was unable to look him in the face. She stepped outside after he left and looked into the

Texas fading light. There was something about being on the veranda that made her feel like she was on a stage. How many women had stood there before her? And did any of them feel that perhaps they’d been given the wrong role? Her eyes settled on something closer, a pale pink patterned gecko that steadily traversed the wall in search of insects brought in by the light. The gecko’s large protruding eyes reminded her of a mammal embryo. Its translucent fingers and toes spread out to stick to the wall. She remembered the documentary about a kangaroo joey and how its hairless pink body clung to the fur of its mother, its mouth wedged tightly over her large nipple, sucking relentlessly while she carried the creature until it grew to a size that altered her shape completely. She didn’t resent her children. Not really. And she couldn’t imagine being without them. Perhaps she just resented other mothers for not telling her what it would be like. She became aware of the fact that she was standing looking at the wall. Hastily, she stepped off the veranda.

She looked at her image in the bathroom mirror; the reflective material was flaking off in patches and she couldn’t see all of herself. Laura’s return made her feel as though she’d never been anything other than a mother. Her thoughts were interrupted by the shrieks of her children. The boys drove boats into each other in the bath. When they were dried and dressed in their pyjamas she let them run ahead of her towards the kitchen.

‘There you are.’

Susannah turned around. Laura appeared in front of the bougainvillea having come from the direction of the laundry.

‘I’ve been looking for you.’ Laura was smiling.

‘You really should carry your torch at night. In case of snakes.’

‘I can see from the light of the laundry,’ said Laura.

Susannah followed the children. ‘Do you want a cup of tea?’ she asked over her shoulder.

She reached the kitchen door.

‘I was thinking of something a bit stronger.’

‘Oh . . . there’s the men’s beer,’ said Susannah, facing her.

She walked back and unlocked the cool room and handed Laura a can of beer. Perhaps Laura would like to have a drink with her, while she fed the children.

‘Can I have another one for Texas?’

Susannah paused.

‘I’m not going to drink them both,’ Laura added with a grin.

She had changed. Her arms and her face were tanned by the sun and her skin was youthful enough for it to look natural and healthy. She seemed assured, more self-possessed. She looked as though she belonged.

‘The drinks come out of your wages,’ said Susannah, turning her back on her.

Susannah was cross with herself for being disappointed.

The woman was sleeping with an Aboriginal for christsake. The thought escaped before she could help it and it made her feel even guiltier, but the fact was she couldn’t imagine what Laura might see in him. She turned on the tap at the sink and looked through the louvres into the darkness. She didn’t want to think like that, she wanted to think differently, to be less shut off from other ideas and experiences.

Texas John returned when his meal had spoilt in the oven. He’d been with Gerry. She could smell the alcohol on his breath and it wasn’t the first time he’d chosen overproof rum over the food she’d cooked. He was standing under the light in the kitchen without a hat and his shirt tails were hanging over his jeans. She wondered what they’d been talking about. She caught his sodden, uncertain look. She could tell him what he wanted to hear, that he was everything he imagined himself to be, but she decided she wasn’t that generous any more.

The next day she went to find Laura. On her way to put the children down for their nap she’d seen her hanging out washing on the line. Laura was obviously getting ready to leave in the cook’s vehicle that afternoon. Susannah passed John at the table in the sleep-out, writing cheques. It reminded her she’d be alone with him soon and she needed to find something to do. At the end of the yard was a corrugated-iron tank on a stand and a creeper was tangled around its legs. Beside it was a track leading to the creek that ran behind the homestead. She stepped across the timber plank to the other side. The bank rose gradually and further up, where the ground evened out, there was another tank made of concrete. She walked around the side of it, having been there once before when no one was about. A dirty blue tarpaulin shaded the kitchen and in places where leaves had collected, she had to lower her head. Laura was sitting beside one of the trestle tables on a faded orange plastic chair. She was reading. There were other chairs randomly arranged around her. Timber cabinets sat on top of tables, and behind her was a sink made out of half an oil drum mounted on a frame. The dirt was hard like concrete and Susannah wondered if it came from termite mounds, remembering that people used this for floors and even tennis courts a long time ago.

‘Hi.’ Laura smiled warmly. ‘Didn’t expect to see you here.

I’ve just made some tea, would you like some?’

‘No, don’t worry,’ said Susannah, standing, her hand resting on the back of a chair. ‘I just came to say goodbye.’

‘Oh,’ Laura hesitated. ‘I’m staying. With Texas. I thought someone might have told you.’

Susannah held the back of the chair with both hands. She didn’t like being surprised. ‘John might have . . . but I probably wasn’t listening. I see. So what are you going to do? There’ll be no one here to cook for you.’

‘Um, sorry, I hadn’t really thought about that.’

‘Yes, well. John won’t want you eating with us. You’ll have to eat with Gerry on the veranda. And you’ll have to work. We can’t feed you for nothing.’

Returning to the homestead, Susannah sensed change; the heat was heavy with moisture and clouds threatened. She looked for her husband.

‘Why didn’t you tell me she was staying?’

He looked up from the desk. She was standing over him.

‘I’ve asked Texas to stay on and do some work round the place.’

‘What about her?’

‘She’s just his bloody woman. What can I do?’

Texas II

Each morning the sky was clear and she knew what had to be done and then clouds with dark underbellies thickened and covered the sun. It became harder to think, and her body felt like it needed to be wrung out. But it never rained. It was only the build-up. She couldn’t shake the feeling that something might happen, something might happen to one of them. The country was so colourless, unless a shaft of light fell through a gap, and then the red, the green and the yellow became bold and intense and out in the paddock the silver skin of the boab seemed to simmer. She moved the sprinklers around the yard, glancing in at Laura’s room when she passed, checking to see where they were; if they were down at the shed, finding a reason to be there and everywhere and beside the tree that screened their sleep-out, catching an image of a couple together. She was curious about their relationship and perhaps a little envious of their closeness, the way they touched each other. Then the weather lifted and the days returned to dry, hard heat and she forced herself to forget about them.

John was talking into the handset of the Flying Doctor radio. The boys were eating jam-covered crusts.

‘Roger, over.’

She looked up as he replaced the handset.

‘I’ve got to go to Perth.’

She took their plates over to the sink.

‘There’s a plane going from the airstrip near town. It’ll just be for a few days or maybe a week. There’s a course they want me to do and then some planning meeting.’

He reached across for the bread, mug of tea in his other hand, and then, standing, leant against the bench as he ate and drank. Long legs crossed at the ankle.

‘Texas is going to do a bit of fencing. He’ll have to camp out,’ he said with his mouth full. ‘Laura can give you a hand with the kids.’

Laura was at the doorway as though summoned and Susannah wondered briefly what she was thinking.

‘Tell Texas I want to speak to him,’ he told her.

Susannah glanced through the angled glass at the profile of the stockman as he faced the direction of the hills, his rollie stub between his lips, smoke whispering from his nose.

John called through the flywire. ‘I’ll be with you in a minute.’

Texas acknowledged him with a slight turn of his head.

He pulled down the brim of his hat and she couldn’t see him any more.

John followed her into the bedroom. She asked him to take their best suitcase down from the top of the cupboard. She opened it flat on the bed. It smelt of somewhere else. He stood on the other side of the bed.

‘You’ll need a tie,’ she said.

‘I’m not wearing a bloody tie.’

‘Aren’t you doing a course?’

He looked towards the wardrobe and back. ‘Do you think I need a tie?’

Texas He suddenly looked like Ollie. She reached into the back of the drawer and pulled out his only tie, which was navy blue and striped thinly in red and white.

‘You’ll be all right,’ she said.

He watched her fold his clothes and place them neatly in the suitcase. When it was nearly full he left his side of the bed and came around behind her. His arms appeared across her chest and he sighed into her neck. She let her body relax into his and for a moment she watched the loose end of a spider’s web dance as though it was a living thing against the wall. He released her and fastened the suitcase.

‘Thank you,’ he said, before he left the room.

She stared across the bed to where his pillow rested beside hers, feeling strangely vulnerable without him. She breathed deeply the shaded air. A dove’s wing pattered on the other side of the screen and it cooed doodle doo, it’ll do, it’ll do, through the flywire. Sounds were louder with the generator turned off. She heard a vehicle start down by the sheds and the little boys’ chatter on the lawn. Then there was Laura’s voice, her London accent familiar from all the British comedies on the ABC that Susannah had watched with her mother. Susannah moved into the laundry. Clothes were in piles on the floor: shirts and shorts, faded and soft, wrinkled and crumpled, baskets brimming. She was swimming in clothes, suffocated by everyone’s clothes.

She pushed open the white gate into the yard, noticing her bare arm red from sunburn and the gate wet from the sprinkler. She stepped out of the shade and the sun pierced the back of her eyes. She had just returned from visiting Irish to tell him that John would be away for a few days. Irish reminded her of a man who used to help her father with the mulesing. They were both old men who kept away from the cities and their own pasts for reasons they never revealed.

The man who worked for her father came from Austria many years ago and used to own one of the virgin blocks that bordered the boundary of their farm. He lived alone in a caravan in the bush. Sometimes he came for dinner and he sat opposite her father; both of them cleaned of the lambs’ blood which by the end of the day had hardened on their hands and faces. His land was taken away by the government because, unlike the other farmers in the area, he’d resisted clearing it all, warning there would be problems with the drainage of water if he did. It bothered her that she couldn’t remember his name or if he still lived on the edge of their farm; if he was still alive to see the salt patches spreading in that part of the country.

Her head felt as though it was stuffed full of cloud. She thought it was probably the heat. It was becoming humid again.

She smoothed the seams of her T-shirt from her waist to her hips and it reassured herself of her own shape. Laura was squatting with her arm outstretched, her head level with the boys as the two of them peered into her cupped hand. Susannah couldn’t see what she was holding. Ollie hopped about on one foot while Ned, his body stiff with intense excitement, continued to lean towards Laura. Then he shuffled backwards. He looked up across the lawn, noticing his mother.

Texas ‘Look, Mummy. It’s a frog.’

‘A frog,’ echoed Ollie, hopping in a circle around Laura.

‘A froggy frog, a froggy frog, a froggy frog.’

Ollie’s dance widened to include Susannah. In Laura’s hand was a small dark green frog. Laura smiled and straightened carefully, the frog pinned to her hand by her thumb.

‘Litoria splendida. The magnificent green tree frog,’ she said, adding apologetically, ‘My dad was a biology teacher. Used to bore us to death with details from his latest herpetology newsletter.’ Her face shone with warmth. ‘It’s amazing. These frogs were only discovered recently. They’re usually found in caves and places that are damp and dark.’

‘Really,’ said Susannah, and to the boys, ‘Shush, you’re making a lot of noise.’

‘Give me a look.’

‘I want to see the frog. I want to see the frog.’

‘You’d think they’d boil in this heat, wouldn’t you?’ said Laura to Susannah.

‘Can we kill it?’ asked Ollie.

‘No,’ said Laura, laughing. ‘We must look after him. People think they’re very special. Native Americans put them at the bottom of their totem poles.’ Laura knelt down between the boys. ‘What we’ll do is we’ll find a container and we’ll keep him as a pet. What do you think?’ She looked up at Susannah. ‘Is that okay?’

‘Sure.’ Susannah shrugged and turned away.

A willy-willy gusted dustily at the edge of the lawn, disturbing the dry leaves and the little baked pieces of rock.

III

Susannah lay on the bed she shared with her husband. A breeze moved through the trees and the leaves clattered together. Her head was enveloped by the pillow for the foam had started to separate. Someone had turned the lighting plant on again. It must have been Irish, since Texas was still camped out on the boundary. She could hear the pulse of the engine quicken as it kicked into gear and the light flashed above her.

It was only supposed to be on during certain times of the day and night, to conserve fuel, but there was no schedule now that her husband was away. When it went off she let clothes soak in the tub. She could hear children’s voices and then quick little feet becoming fainter as they travelled up the hallway. Susannah imagined what it might be like to be someone else. A rider swinging up into the saddle, leaning into the horse’s warmth, gathering up the reins, squeezing with her knees and feeling the horse move beneath her, faster and faster. Her centre would become the centre of her horse, in rhythm, rocking, and crossing the country, long shadows slipping quickly past.

The frog sat in a clear Tupperware container on the bench beside the sink. They’d poked holes in the lid for it to breathe.

Amber eyes with a black elongated pupil. Its legs tucked into itself. The children called it Hoppy. Susannah wiped around the container.

‘It’s beautiful, isn’t it?’ Laura peered in at the frog. ‘Look at

Texas the bright yellow outline of its legs. When it jumps away from predators it flashes yellow to startle them.’

Susannah stopped what she was doing and watched her. Laura looked up and flushed slightly.

‘Frogs are great, don’t you think? We’ve killed almost all of ours off except for the grass frog.’

‘I hadn’t really thought about them,’ said Susannah. ‘We used to cut them up for biology.’

‘In the backyard of our house in London we had a pond where frogs would spawn. Every year I watched them hatch into tadpoles.’

‘I used to catch tadpoles,’ said Susannah, turning to face Laura.

Susannah pulled out a chair and sat down. She clutched in both hands the cloth she had been using to wipe the bench.

‘When we were kids I remember at the end of our driveway there were gravel pits which used to fill up with water in the winter. There would be islands and sometimes we made bridges between them with old fence posts. We had a dog. I’d follow her through the scrub so that I wouldn’t get caught up in these big spiders’ webs. The bush there is full of chittick and banksias. And orchids as well. You had to look carefully to see them.’

Susannah stopped then and Laura came back into focus. But Susannah wasn’t ready to see her so she looked away.

‘Where was this?’ asked Laura.

‘Oh . . .’ said Susannah reluctantly. ‘South from here.’

She twisted the cloth in her hand. There was a silence that widened into an ocean.

IV

Irish moved lopsidedly along the track. Susannah could see the water level had dropped where it crossed the road. Frogs made plonk plonk noises from below the grassy banks. Irish turned off the road, following the creek upstream towards the sound of running water. The old man was leading, the two boys in between, walking quietly, occasionally looking over their shoulders to check where their mother was. They followed the meanderings of the creek. Grass grew to the edges and saplings leant towards it. The water was shallow where it ran noisily over rocks and stones like a small rapid. Leaves from the trees on the other side of the bank lay on its surface, flecking the mirror image of a sky framed by foliage. Irish reached a flattened patch of grass where the bank rose a little higher and, below, the water was still, and rustles in the bush hinted of animals they didn’t want to see. They watched as he baited a small hook with what looked like a piece of red meat from a tobacco tin.

His breath rattled noisily.

‘I want to . . .’ whined Ollie.

‘Shush,’ said Susannah. ‘Remember what he said. Come, we’ll sit here and then we’ll be able to see when he gets a fish.’

They heard the wings of a large bird leave the water further down.

‘Pelican,’ Irish said wheezily as he threw his line into the water.

How strange, she thought, for it to be so far inland. The baited hook landed with a gentle plop and little rings of water

Texas widened around it. Susannah couldn’t see the bottom. She looked around for something to sit on and settled on a fallen tree branch. Ollie moved in to lean against her.

‘Mummy,’ he spoke in an exaggerated whisper. ‘Can the fishes see us out their window?’

‘Ha ha, fishes don’t have windows,’ said Ned scornfully.

Ollie pushed Ned’s shoulder. ‘Do so.’

‘Be quiet both of you, else we go home.’ Susannah took Ollie and held his arms. ‘The water is like a window. I don’t know whether they see like we do.’

There were no creeks or rivers on the farm where Susannah grew up. Just ground water which seeped to the surface and created stark wooden sculptures where once there had been trees. Irish was sitting on a tree stump and his breathing seemed to have settled a little. He cleared his throat and spat into the creek. She wanted to ask him if he was okay. She saw the line twitch in his hand. He jerked it.

‘Bastard. Gone.’ He pushed the brim of his hat back. ‘When I was a young fella . . .’

The line went taut and he stood up. She saw it zigzag across the water. Muscles in his forearms stretched tight as he pulled it towards him. All of them, standing; the boys struggling to contain themselves. The line dug deep into the rough skin of his forefinger and gathered loosely at his feet. Straining, he landed the fish in the grass where it lay flapping.

‘Not a bad size eh?’

The boys leant over it.

‘It’s talking,’ shouted Ned.

The gold-coloured fish gasped. It was like the bream that swam in the southern rivers. She leant in closer. It was making a grunting noise. Irish picked the fish up under its gills and worked the hook free. The boys moved back towards her. He laid the fish on the grass again and used his knife to remove its scales. The sun slipped behind the trees and the creek was in shadow. He cut an opening in the fish with his knife and hooked out its guts with his finger.

‘Good tucker,’ he said, wiping the blade of his knife on his trousers, holding the fish in his other hand.

The light was leaving. Irish sat down on his tree stump, facing them instead of the river. He placed the fish on the grass beside him and the boys crawled towards it then rested on their haunches. Ollie picked up a stick and prodded its eye.

‘Watch im, he might bite.’

The boys edged a little way back and Irish grinned. His teeth were an ugly brown and his lips were blue. There was a splash in the water further upstream.

‘Are there crocodiles in the river?’

‘Maybe a little one, you know freshwater.’

‘What about in town?’

‘I stay out of town. Too much fighting and drinking these days. All me old mates have gone.’

He cleared his throat and unscrewed the tobacco tin lid. It was the one with the bait. He replaced it and took the other one from his pocket.

‘Them poor little half-caste blokes gone to that government station. Like that fella Texas, he was one of them. Taken away

Texas when he was just a snipe. Same time his mob were moved off here.’

She’d heard of Aboriginal people being forced from stations, leaving their country to live on the fringes of towns, but she hadn’t known anyone directly affected by it. His eyes narrowed as he lit the rollie with a match. Light flashed and went out and the smoke caught him and his body seized, coughing. He stood up and the coughing subsided eventually. They all watched him replace the tobacco tin.

‘You know, I could take you into town. See a doctor.’

Irish stared past the gaps in the trees to where the water was coloured pink by the sky.

‘No need of them old girls any more.’ He sat down again on the broken branch. ‘Texas and his cousin, they hadn’t worked out here since the other bloke was running the show.’

It took her a moment to realise what he was talking about.

‘How did he get a name like Texas?’ she asked.

‘Ah, from when he was a snipe I reckon. He grew up over the back here, maybe twenty, thirty years ago. I remember all them little fellas, keen as mustard, hanging about the yards like a mob of galahs.’ He paused, wheezing gently. ‘One of them bloomin old ringers probably give it to him and it just stuck. Those fellas, they been sitting on a horse or riding a bull from the time they could walk. Better than any fella.’

She remembered watching some of the men ride out one morning. Before they appeared, she heard shod hooves strike the stony track, horses’ bits jangling, and from the veranda she could smell their tobacco. They rode through the opening in the fence and then one of them turned back to close the gate.

He leant down, holding his reins in one hand, kicking his horse, manoeuvring it backwards, and then squeezed it forward and it leapt into a lumpy canter to catch up with the others. They were heading north-west away from the homestead to where the country rose steadily and then sharply towards a sandstone ridge. The sun was not long up and it lit the slope and the bright textured rock and the rounded curves of the animals.

They stepped out in single file through clumps of grass with thin wispy spears and balls of spinifex and lean white trees, and in that moment time had seemed to stretch like the line of men as their horses separated and settled into their own pace.

Irish reached for his fish and stood up and dangled the tail over the boys so that they shrieked with gleeful horror. He held it out to her.

‘Here, you take it for supper eh?’

‘Oh no, I couldn’t, you need it.’

He nodded towards her. ‘I got me some leftover stew.’

She didn’t really relish the thought of eating this inland fish but he obviously wanted her to have it. She herded the boys out of the long grass and along the track, carrying the fish by a piece of transparent line that Irish had threaded through its mouth and gills. The harsh exclamations of cockatoos in the treetops followed them home. She noticed as soon as they reached the homestead that the generator was off. There had been an unnatural absence of sound all afternoon but she hadn’t realised what it meant. There were no lights anywhere.

She hoped Irish would turn on the lighting plant when he

Texas returned to his camp. She ushered the boys into the dim hallway, wondering where Laura was, then she saw her out on the veranda. She’d taken two chairs from the kitchen and was sitting on one of them and resting her feet on the other. She must have noticed Susannah’s eyes on her book because she leant down and picked it up off the ground.

‘I found heaps of these cowboy stories over at the camp. Have you read this one?’ She held it close to her face since it was almost dark now and read: ‘Clayt Blain turned Shana away from him, but kept her locked under his encircling arm. Together, they walked in the dying sunlight to the ranch house. The End. ’ She looked up and grinned. ‘Is that romantic or not?’

‘I don’t have time to read,’ said Susannah, thinking about the children and what to do with the fish.

‘Oh and what’s happened to the lights? They’re not working?’

Susannah looked back at her. ‘The generator’s off. And Irish doesn’t seem to have done anything about it.’ She continued half to herself: ‘I don’t know where Gerry is.’

‘So you mean we’re without light?’

‘If Irish doesn’t get it going.’

The kitchen darkness was unfriendly and behind her was Laura, holding the door open for the remnants of outdoor light. The torch was at the end of the bench and when she turned it on light swept around the edges of the room. At the storeroom door she asked Laura to hold the torch while she looked for the candles, concentrating on what was within the circle of light and not the strange shadows it produced, thinking it was like the beam of a lighthouse. There was a bundle on the shelf below the tobacco and quickly she reached for it and retreated. They placed the candles in jars around the kitchen and told the boys to stay away from them and eventually the children grew tired of prancing and dancing in front of the monster-like shapes they created. She bathed them quickly since they smelt of the fish. They’d swum it across the lawn and into the bougainvillea, which was where she decided it could stay.

After all the jobs were done she noticed that somehow the warm glow from the candles had transformed her kitchen, her children were content and the face of the woman across the table was comfortably familiar. She thought fleetingly of Irish and wondered if she should have gone to see him.

‘I was just thinking. Before I came here I’d never been anywhere where there wasn’t any electric light.’

Laura was smiling in a sort of self-satisfied way and it irritated Susannah.

‘I remember,’ Laura continued, ‘I was on a bus on the King’s Road and I saw a sign which said Outback Adventures and there was a picture of a kangaroo and I think it must have been Ayers Rock. And then when I came here I met a man in the pub who said his name was Outback. I thought he was joking but he even gave me his card.’

Susannah took the children’s bowls to the sink and turned around. ‘Why did you come here?’

‘I always wanted to work on a station in Australia. For as long as I can remember.’

Susannah allowed herself a small smile, and then she said:

‘I’d better put the children to bed.’

Texas When she returned she was surprised that Laura was still there. She had cleaned the kitchen and washed up the dishes. In another place they might have been friends.

Laura faced her. ‘I’ve just put the kettle on. Do you want one?’

Susannah was about to say that she would see her in the morning. ‘Why don’t we have a drink?’ she said instead, suddenly feeling lighter, more generous.

Laura’s hair was below her shoulders and the blonde streaks glinted in the candlelight. She wore a green singlet and khaki shorts and she looked like every other young girl Susannah had seen with a backpack travelling around Australia.

‘You’ve got a new necklace?’

Susannah had noticed it before. It was a more delicate chain than the one Laura had previously worn. In the middle of the heart-shaped pendant was a cloudy, milky-coloured stone with flecks of blue. It looked like an opal. Laura’s hand reached up to clasp it.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Texas gave it to me.’ And she looked to Susannah’s left, towards the panel of louvres, her gaze limpid in the yellow light. Her focus returned and the colour was high on her cheeks. ‘He brought it back as a surprise. I didn’t realise he went into town to see his family.’

Susannah could see that she was in love with the stockman. It made her impatient and she reached for the glass of rum, staring into its contents before she swallowed. ‘Well, anyway,’ she said, looking up, ‘at least you’ve got your air ticket. If you ever want to leave.’

The girl’s eyes dropped to her glass and she moved it around in her hand. ‘I’m going to stay,’ she said. ‘I want to be with him.

I’ll make it work. I know my parents will be upset but once they meet him I’m sure they’ll understand and this life, it’s so . . .’ She paused, searching for the right word. Susannah waited. There were lots of words she could have inserted and the one Laura chose wasn’t among them. ‘It’s so exciting,’ said Laura with a bright smile.

‘Really.’

Susannah gulped down more rum. She knew there was so much she could say but she didn’t know where to start, and besides, why should she tell this girl anything? No one had told her.

‘But you must be used to it,’ continued Laura. ‘I guess it’s not the same when you grow up here.’

‘I didn’t grow up here,’ said Susannah.

‘Oh yes, I remember, you said you were from somewhere in the south.’

‘Yes.’

‘Well . . . what was it like growing up there?’

Laura’s entire body seem to sparkle with expectation. Susannah drained her glass and was quiet for a moment, remembering.

‘It was fairly flat country and we grew clover and wheat and barley and I used to help my dad with the sheep until I went away to high school.

‘When we were little my brother and I used to get dropped off by the school bus and my mother always had biscuits or cake that she’d baked and a glass of milk and Milo. I’d get an

Texas apple for my pony. She’d look out for you, her ears twitched forward, and she had this noise she used to make, and then I’d ride everywhere, all over the farm. It’s what I want for my kids. That opportunity.’

‘Oh,’ said Laura, ‘I can’t wait to have children.’

Susannah refilled her glass and pushed the bottle into the middle of the table. She leant back in her seat. Her eyes narrowed.

‘You’ve no idea, have you?’ The rum was like a charge sparking, igniting her fury.

Laura sat a little straighter in her chair, looking wary. Perhaps she could see it in Susannah’s eyes.

‘Don’t be so bloody stupid,’ said Susannah. ‘You’re going to have children? What are you going to do, drag them around from one bloody station to the next? Stick a baby in a cot on the back of a horse, or under a tree while you go mustering?’

Laura stood up. ‘I know what I’m doing. I don’t need to listen to you. I think you’re jealous.’ She was at the door. ‘I’ve seen you, watching us, and I think it’s sick.’

Susannah was suddenly very tired.

‘Here, take a candle with you,’ she said.

V

Susannah woke when daylight penetrated the thin weave of the curtain and slowly she became aware of the soft worn sheets lightly covering her body and the empty space beside her and the louder than usual cacophony of bird sounds which could only mean that the generator was still turned off. Without it, there was no beat that helped determine the time of the day and everything that should happen within it. She felt vaguely disturbed, thinking it was probably the residue from the rum, remembering the conversation with Laura and regretting it.

Her thoughts changed shape and suddenly it became important to find Irish.

The twitters and whistles of birds punctuated the inevitable quiet. She had never been inside his caravan but he didn’t answer when she called out so she stepped up into the dim interior that smelt so bad it almost made her sick. What squalor.

How could anyone live like that? Her eyes took time to adjust and she could see the outline of the bunk and the rumpled blanket and the items of clothing and what looked like little white wings scattered over everything. She realised they were scrunched pieces of toilet tissue. She paused for a moment, holding her breath, thinking she should have checked in the engine room. He was probably already there.

The two blackened diesel engines sat side by side in the dense little room. She half expected one of the big wide belts to start moving of its own accord and she was glad to be back outside in the bright light of the day. She shielded her eyes with her hand and looked towards the line of trees that marked the creek and the pool where they were the evening before. Her shadow was long and thin and her elbow pointed like an arrow.

She looked away from the sun and over the sheds to the hills beyond the homestead.

Texas In the paddock behind the house the ground started to slope towards a crown of sandstone rock, but before it rose steeply there was a fence and something hanging from it. It was a piece of cloth, soft faded cotton, caught on one of the wire barbs. The sun lit the red-coloured earth and it glowed with an eerie brightness. Looking up at the ridge of rock that ran all the way along the top of the hills, it was like a deep red scar that interrupted the benign blue sky. She doubted he would have come this way but she’d have a good view from there and it didn’t seem too far to walk. She left behind the scrap of material, thinking it could have been there for weeks or months. Perhaps she would be able to see him from the ridge; if he was fishing or if he’d gone somewhere else. He certainly hadn’t driven anywhere. She remembered his old vehicle in the same place it always was, parked in the shed beside the workshop. A gust of wind rattled the nearby windmill and it swung around to catch the breeze, the piston moving up and down, making a solitary shushing sound.

She climbed over the fence and stepped through the grass quickly where the ground was mostly level, but it was thicker than she thought and she was glad of her jeans and her sandshoes. Treading heavily as a warning to any snakes. She picked up a strong snappy-gum stick for protection. As she started to climb higher it became hotter. The breeze was behind her and every now and again she turned and paused to look back where she had come from, feeling the cool air wash over her face. She followed the thin wavering line of a cattle pad or a track created by some other creature and eventually the grass on either side thinned and there was more spinifex and gravelly rock. Her shoes slipped a little on the loose stones crunching beneath her feet and the sound of her pulse thumped in her ears. Flies were sticking to her skin, and unlike the flies down south they wouldn’t go away.

They seemed attracted to the moisture on her face. It wasn’t far now but it was steep and suddenly a rustle in a big clump of spinifex caused her to start and out of it ran a beautiful bird with a thin spike on its head. Too quickly it was gone and she was left with the memory of gold feathers scalloped and edged in black.

Just ahead was a small tree that twisted out of the rock and cast a small area of shade over a boulder that looked like a good place to sit. She was thirsty and she realised how stupid it was not to have brought any water. No one knew where she was. All she had said to Laura was to keep an eye on the children. The air was still and the sun almost overhead. She flicked the flies from her face, hearing the whine of other insects, and all around her the bush twitched with life. The distant homestead roof winked between the dense foliage of the garden’s trees, the bougainvillea a splash of colour amongst it. And beyond there and the dull gleam of the rectangular shed roof was the line of the creek that curved back and forth through the undulations of the land. It looked like the body of a snake and she marvelled at the way patterns were repeated, from the smallest thing to something more permanent like the shape of water. And then she thought how strange it was that the outline of an animal could be so obviously etched in the

Texas landscape, but her eyes saw further, to the far distance, where, within the folds of the ranges, a woman lay on her back, her breasts bluish-purple mounds. Between the woman and the snake-creek was the flood plain, variously shaded in ochre colours with dots for trees that grew densely in places and sparsely in others. The faint mark of a track or the line of a fence reminded her that it was a landscape used by men. And she wondered where were the cattle, probably keeping to the cool shade of the trees by the creek. Perhaps Irish was there? A kite wheeled above, the tips of its wings edged like fingers as it glided and drifted in spirals.

The familiar call of a crow was answered by another. She looked behind her. There, less than twenty metres away, the rock rose up as a sheer cliff face and before it was a small stand of feathery sheoak, or what she thought were sheoaks but they could have been something else, and in amongst the branches were three or four crows. A little to the left of the trees was a crack in the rock which seemed to widen into a small cave as it got closer to the ground and it was then she saw that he hadn’t quite made it. She turned back towards the safety of distance and her dry mouth suddenly flooded with saliva and she swallowed noisily. She didn’t move; she couldn’t. The crows cried horribly. And her eyes traced the line of the ranges and the pale cool light above them and she thought how refreshing it looked, far, far away from the heat and the intensity of the moment. She wouldn’t look behind again. She knew she ought to do something: cover him up or get help from the men. Call the Flying Doctor. Instead she stared out to the plain, so hard that her eyes blurred and she could imagine what it might have been like when it was an ancient sea floor and the flowing sea current shaped the hills and the ridges. Ripples solidified into rock. There were fossils to be found in the valley, she knew that, fossils that came before everything. It comforted her: the thought of other lives being lived, over and over again, and in that light her mother’s death did not seem so significant. The old man was gone. She thought of him climbing the hill, stumbling, falling in the dirt, unable to reach the cool darkness of the cave ahead, the liquid in his lungs taking his breath away.

Everything he knew was gone too. She imagined his head lying close to the earth, cushioned by mounds of grass. She hoped he was dead before the crows found him. But he knew what the country was like.

Then she remembered where her mother was buried. Her grave was among the grey concrete slabs and plastic flowers in the cemetery on the edge of town. At one end of the small fenced enclosure a couple of sickly-looking ornamental trees stood seemingly unnourished by the dead that lay around them.

She wondered how often her father visited. When any of their sheepdogs had died, her father dug holes beside different veranda posts, etching their name in the timber, and the grass that covered them always grew more greenly. She would write to her father and ask that he plant something for her on her mother’s grave. Her eyes felt hot and swollen but her face was cool from the moisture on her cheeks. And as she allowed the tears to fall it felt as though the tightness in her chest that had

Texas been there for so long was unravelling like a spool of cotton. It didn’t matter that she couldn’t see anything. There were some things she didn’t need to see to understand.

When she descended, the slope was in shadow.