Beth

We prick out the seedlings into six-inch grow pots, deep enough to avoid J-rooting, a lesson hard learned after my first lot of tube stock suffered heavy losses. Neme is at the other end of the bench. She returned last night not long after sunset. Whatever she went to do has left her galvanised, her fingers working so deftly as she progresses through a row of Wallowa that it looks more like choreography than slog. Seems we’ve found our equilibrium – a woman, a girl, and this plant world that enfolds us. This is the true experiment.

Neme watches closely as I spray the seedlings in my finished tray with Seasol.

‘It’s kind of a superfood. Made from bull kelp grown off the coast of Tassie,’ I explain. ‘It stops them from getting transplant shock.’

Neme holds out her hand and gestures for me to spray it too. For a moment I’m unsure why. Then I get it. Transplant shock. The kid doesn’t miss a beat.

As I transfer the tray to the wheelbarrow, I hear a vehicle pull up, a large one by the sound of the engine’s throb. It rattles to a halt. Neme pauses, a seedling cradled in her hand like a fledgling fallen from its nest.

‘Stay here,’ I say to her, ‘I’ll see who that is.’

The route I take from the potting shed to the back door is hidden from the front yard. It’s quiet inside, except for the ticking of the fridge. Someone – perhaps a couple of someones – is walking up the front verandah steps. The loose board by the back door creaks, but it’s only Neme, her heron T-shirt filthy from wiping her hands on it. I shake my head at her, though I would’ve followed me too. Whoever’s at the door knocks, but no one calls out ‘Beth’.

‘Keep out of sight,’ I whisper to Neme.

She steps into the hallway, her back and hands pressed against the wall, no stranger to making herself scarce. I open the door slowly. A woman in a navy pantsuit is brushing back her fringe with fingers decked in gold. Behind her a man has a camera balanced on his shoulder, his khaki vest evidence of the kind of story he’d rather be shooting.

‘This is private property. You shouldn’t be here,’ I tell them, squaring my shoulders.

‘Beth Mathers?’

When I don’t reply, she glances at the cameraman, a red light turning on above the lens. ‘I was wondering if I could have a word with you about the young girl who’s staying with you. The one they’re calling the desert girl.’

I put my hand between my face and the gaze of the lens. ‘There’s nothing for you here,’ I say to the reporter, who looks ready to peel the roof off my house and climb in if required.

‘Can you tell us anything about her? Where she …’

‘You have to leave. Now.’ The tone of my voice surprises me – deeper, and capable of cruelty.

The reporter moves closer, the wind carrying her scent, something expensive and crisp.

‘Before we go, Ms Mathers, I’d like to ask you about your parents’ death,’ she says, this time her face assuming a cold facade. ‘There are reports that it was a murder-suicide. Would you care to comment?’

Reflux rises in my throat, sulphurous from the eggs we had for breakfast. I swallow it down. Slam the door on that face. The woman calls to me – real story, your version of the truth – using my name as if we’re old friends. Then she falls silent, like a falcon before it dives. Feet shuffle on the old boards. The muted tones of hands shielding mouths. No doubt they’re weighing up their legal options and the likelihood of getting a glimpse of the desert girl. Better still, capturing her on film. Locked in my bedroom cupboard is my father’s Winchester, which I’ve taken out and oiled every six months, but this is the first time I’ve felt the urge to put it to my shoulder and set my eye to the sights. Run the vermin off my property.

The wince of the third step lets me know they’re on the move. From the kitchen window, I watch them talk in a huddle, the cameraman raking back his long hair, the woman on her phone. Then they get into a van, the station’s logo blazoned on the side like heraldry, proof of what breed they are.

Neme emerges from the hallway, her eyes darting towards the door.

‘They’ve gone. Nothing to worry about,’ I tell her, not convinced. They’ll be back, no doubt about it, or others like them, and they’ll multiply like grasshoppers in a plague year, strip to the stalk.

Neme frowns. She points at the photo in the kitchen – the one of my family at Mungo National Park – and it takes me a moment to work out what she means.

‘You heard what that reporter said about my parents?’

She nods.

‘Don’t pay any attention to that. People like them will say anything to get a headline.’ I slump on the couch. Neme joins me, her eyes questioning. She nudges my thigh. ‘You want to know the truth? Okay. But I’m warning you, it’s not a happy story.’

She shrugs her shoulders. I edge forward on the couch.

‘My father had terminal lung cancer. He was in a lot of pain, so my mother had to give him strong medicine, morphine, and some other drugs too. One day she gave him too much – by accident – or my father took extra. Whichever way, he died. Then my mother had a heart attack, probably from a mix of the strain of looking after my father and finding him dead. She had a history of heart problems. They were found side by side in their bed. The coroner’s report concluded there was nothing suspicious about their deaths, but sometimes people like to see more than there is, or take revenge on some long-standing offence.’

I look down the hallway to their old bedroom, where I now sleep. Neme follows my gaze. I remember when I first heard of their deaths and how the scenario had sounded too theatrical for my parents, who were minimalist in their expressions of love. I’d also asked myself if there was something dubious about this simultaneous passing. An element of the untoward. Of course, it proved ripe material for a town like Gatyekarr.

When my father got sick he refused to leave his land. I’d hear my mother shouting at him, even when he was at his worst, imploring him to move into Horsham to get the kind of care she couldn’t give him, or couldn’t bear to give. Sometimes it revolted her enough that she’d burn the cloths she’d used to clean him, no detergent capable of ridding them of the chemical stench. A body she’d sworn to honour for a lifetime had become an object of disgust, whatever had once existed between them wasting like disused muscle.

Neme nudges my thigh again. She must sense there’s more.

‘Even though he was really sick, my father didn’t want to leave this place. He knew I had no interest in taking over – at least not then, or not in the way he envisaged. The land he’d worked his whole life, and two generations before him, would be sold into other hands. He loved this place enough to risk his life for it – what little he had left – and yet he’d never ceased to pound it with chemicals and leach it of all its nutrients. People are complicated, Neme.’

She leans closer. The mustiness of the potting soil on our hands and clothes fills the air until the room smells elemental.

‘It’s one of the reasons I tend to prefer plants. They only need soil and water and light. But even the sun, even water, can destroy as easily as it creates. It’s like love. Love of another person. Love of the land. Of what we believe we can’t afford to lose. It makes people do crazy things. Does that make sense?’

She nods, pauses and nods again.

I take her hand in mine and stroke the back of it. The tiny cracks and folds, even in that young skin, where the soil’s got in.

I will not let her pay any longer for the failings of others.

This I promise her without need for words.