33

The train pulled in at Queanbeyan around four. My heart pounded as I looked out onto the familiar platform. Father had sent his coachman to collect me in a buggy. I’d already sent my trunk and Felix down on an earlier train, so I walked to the buggy with nothing but a dry mouth and hope.

As we clopped down the familiar streets, breathing in the cool air, memories rushed at me. We turned the corner and the shingled roof of my father’s house was visible above the trees. Soon I’d see its ornate balustrades, turrets and other Victorian features. The late-afternoon light would make the blue of the plumbago vivid, the horses would be grazing in the home paddock, tails swishing, the red brick of the house blazing, a thin, peaceful line of smoke rising from the chimney pots.

He must have heard the buggy arrive as he suddenly appeared on the verandah, two unfamiliar servants behind him and dear old Mrs Baker, housekeeper and the nearest to a mother I’d had. Father was still stern and upright, his iron-grey hair thick, a few more lines around his eyes. He blinked away tears as we shook hands then embraced for a long moment. I felt my own tears as well, but no shame as I finally laid down my sword, just gratitude that I wasn’t in a far-flung war cemetery or a shallow grave out west.

After supper, Father and I settled into our chairs by the fire in the drawing room. The room was exactly as I remembered it, except there was a new dog in front of the hearth, and above the fireplace, in an ornate silver frame, stood a photograph of me as a young officer, clear-eyed and square-shouldered.

We talked late into the night as, outside, a blossom tree danced in the wind and the crickets clicked in the darkness. I told him of discovering the murders and how it all unfolded. As I spoke, the stony plains of the west appeared, divided by the shimmering brown river winding its way south, turtles suspended in the shallows, wallabies drinking as shafts of afternoon sunlight fell through the trees. White cockatoos screeched and fussed as they settled down for the night. Over by the fence a flock of sheep huddled, nibbling the grasses as through their skin, silently pushing out to the light, grew the golden fleece that bound us all.