As Quinn headed down towards the lake with Captain at his heels, Aisha’s unwelcome neighs rang out from the stable yard. Today was the first time anybody had mentioned that horse’s name for a very long time. Well, it wouldn’t do any good for Zoe to plead her case. His mind had been made up long ago. The mare was dangerous, a threat to everybody’s safety. There was plenty of truth in that, enough to justify him placing her out of bounds. But it wasn’t the full story, not by a long shot.
Aisha neighed again, a haunting, lonely cry. Quinn put his hands over his ears, unwilling to hear, trying to block out the wave of unwanted sympathy he still felt for the mare. He wasn’t a cruel man. He knew she was neglected and starved for attention. The problem was, in his mind she was inextricably linked to Josh’s accident. He couldn’t help it. The mere thought of Aisha transported him back to the time when his brother’s life had changed forever. To the time when a terrible argument between Quinn and his father had forever ruined their relationship.
He and Dad at the hospital, hollow with worry and grief. Barely eating or sleeping, never leaving Josh’s side. Except when he went into surgery to have a hole drilled into his skull. Quinn could see it like it was yesterday: his little brother lying in ICU, covered in wires and tubes, looking so pale, so frail. A ventilator making his chest rise and fall in an eerily natural way. But there was nothing natural about it. Switch off that monstrous machine and Josh would die.
Quinn stopped, crouched down, and pressed the heels of his hands against his eyelids, hoping the swarms of dots might obliterate the dreadful images. It didn’t work. It never worked, and the memories came swirling back.
After hovering for days, they’d finally been chased off by an ICU nurse. She took his father aside. ‘Go home, Mr Cooper, have some sleep. Let the doctors get on with their job.’ They drove back to Swallowdale in silence – exhausted and powerless to comfort each other, separated by a gulf of sorrow.
When they arrived home Dad went inside and came out with the rifle. ‘I’m shooting Shiva’s filly as well.’
Quinn’s reaction was instant and unequivocal. He placed himself squarely on the path in front of his father. ‘No, you’re not.’ Dad’s face turned redder and redder, and a throbbing vein in his neck looked like it might burst. ‘You shot her mother,’ said Quinn. ‘That’s revenge enough. Stacking tragedy on top of tragedy won’t help Josh.’
‘It’ll help me,’ said Dad. ‘Now get out of my way!’ He waved the rifle around wildly, and tried to push past.
Quinn didn’t think it through; there wasn’t time. All he knew was that he had to stop his father. He had to protect that foal. For the sake of Josh and for the sake of fairness and compassion, he would not allow another heartbreak into their lives.
Quinn threw his weight onto his right foot. Grabbing the stock of the rifle with his left hand, he shoved it aside. A gathering force moved from his swivelling hips to his powerful right arm as he cocked it back, squared his fist and took aim at Dad’s jaw. The unexpected blow sent him crashing to the ground. Quinn stood for a few moments, rifle in hand, gazing down at the unconscious figure of his father. He stooped to check that his pulse was steady and strong. He pulled off his own shirt, folded it and placed it beneath his father’s head. Then he ran down to the yards, loaded Aisha onto a float, and drove the frightened weanling north for two hours to an agistment farm outside of Gladstone.
Quinn had returned to find his father drinking whisky out on the verandah. The two of them never spoke about what happened that night, but their father–son bond was broken. The intimacy had gone out of it: the affection, the playful banter, the careless companionship. Henceforth Marshall Cooper remained guarded and aggrieved, despite Quinn’s constant efforts to fix things, to win him over. Then he died, and it was all too late. And Aisha? Free-spirited young Aisha? Through no fault of her own, the beautiful mare epitomised his ruined relationship with his father.
He couldn’t explain the feelings Aisha triggered in him to anybody. Not even to Bridget, although he sometimes suspected that she guessed. It would involve opening himself up in a way unheard of in the Cooper clan. Even before his mother died, they weren’t a family of sharers. And after her death, what little emotional communication they did have vanished altogether. Man up and tough it out had always been his father’s advice, up until Josh’s accident. Afterwards, Quinn would have welcomed even this harsh counsel, but there was none; they barely spoke at all. And when they did, his father confined his comments as far as humanly possible to practical matters.
Get a grip. No point trawling through ancient history, worrying about things he couldn’t change. Quinn checked his watch. He’d walked further than he meant to, halfway round the lake, and people would be arriving at the house any minute. He shook his head to clear it, and turned back. Bridget would tell him to focus on the positive, and it was sound advice. Like today’s meeting of the Kiawa Canegrowers’ Association. He was looking forward to the gathering, for it concerned PWSY, the one positive thing to come out of Josh’s accident.
Project We’ll Show You, or PWSY as it was commonly called, had kicked off nine months ago. It was Quinn’s baby. Through traipsing around after Josh to various rehabilitation programs, he’d come across other young people with disabilities. Some of them lived in Kiawa and its hinterland region. Many couldn’t, or wouldn’t, attend mainstream schools, and the nearest special training college was a two-hour drive away. Thanks to their various sets of mental and physical challenges, these kids struggled to find jobs as they grew older. Parents faced a daunting choice. Should they uproot the entire family and head for the city to seek out opportunities for their child? Or should they stay in their community, close to social and family supports, but leave their child’s future in limbo? Individual stories touched him. The mute teenage girl who’d spent an unsuccessful year looking for work, and now refused to leave her house. The poverty-stricken single mother trying to raise four kids and wrestling with her eldest son’s autism at the same time. There but for the grace of God . . . not everybody had the Coopers’ deep pockets.
Quinn had an idea. As president of the Kiawa Canegrowers’ Association he had some local clout. Why not ask members to take on one or more of these kids, provide them with a job, and train them for a career in agriculture? It was a big ask. Sugar prices had hit an all-time low, and the region was still recovering from last year’s devastating floods. But, despite all this, the scheme had taken off. He’d spent a lot of time talking to families, trying to match each kid’s abilities with the work on offer. A start-up government wage subsidy helped convince members, but so far most farmers had kept their PWSY employee on after the initial funding cut out. Some had even taken on another, and more growers were coming on board as word got out. Kiawa was rallying to help its own, and now over twenty local cane farms were part of the project. So many young people gaining confidence and independence, realising their potential, forging a future. Pity Josh wasn’t one of them. Quinn had tried hard to involve his brother in the day-to-day running of Swallowdale. Josh wasn’t interested. Maybe he wasn’t ready for more responsibility. Maybe he’d never be ready.
Quinn reached the house as Mal Owen and his son Shane pulled up. The teenager grinned and nodded a greeting. Not much older than Josh and already his father’s right-hand man. A worm of envy squirmed in Quinn’s stomach. ‘Good turnout,’ said Mal. He was right. The drive was crowded with vehicles. ‘And no wonder. That young feller you sent me? Dylan? He’s keen as mustard, sharp as a tack and a whiz with machinery to boot. Worked at the family truck repair shop, apparently, just for the fun of it, until his grandad retired. Then he couldn’t get a job because he’s deaf. Well, some other feller’s missed out badly, because Dylan’s the best new worker I’ve had in donkey’s years. Never takes a sickie, never late . . .’ Mal dug his son in the ribs. ‘He could teach this shirker a thing or two, I can tell you.’
Shane grinned again. ‘He already has. He’s teaching me Auslan. I can swear at you, and you don’t even know.’
Mal tousled his son’s hair good-naturedly. ‘Watch out, mate. I’m picking up that signing stuff too.’
Dylan’s was a common success story. Young PWSY workers were earning themselves a fine reputation. Quinn employed two autistic kids himself to help with the harvest, both of them reliable and enthusiastic. Not like Josh. Josh, who mooched round the house all day playing online computer games, or spent his time fooling about with the dolphins. Half the time he even slept at Leo’s shack next to the Reef Centre, so he could be there early the next morning. The kid was utterly unmotivated to do anything useful.
The raucous bass-and-drum sound of Metallica boomed down from the balcony, startling them all. They looked up to see Josh playing air guitar, lost in a loud, distorted riff. Quinn shook his head and smiled. Josh might not be responsible like Shane. He might not be keen-as-mustard like Dylan. He might never be either of those things. But for all his brother’s faults, Quinn wouldn’t have swapped him for the world.