Prodigal Daughter Page 6

  ‘Damn cows!’ said Tom. ‘I want them on the place like I’d want a hole in the head. If they’re not kicking you for the hell of it, they’re knocking down the fences and pugging up the dams.’

  Her father wasn’t giving in. Diana watched with interest Rosie’s closed eyes and her mum’s rolling ones. They’d heard this before. ‘Farming’s always seemed to me to be a bit of a gamble,’ she offered.

  ‘It all depends on your position. You can relax if you have everything covered and don’t owe too much,’ said Mal, as he passed the mutton casserole to Tom and reached for the mashed potatoes. ‘I think farmers have been kicked in the guts for just a bit too long. If everything hangs on an inch of rain and you’ve lost badly the previous few years and you’re hundreds of thousands in debt …’ He shrugged.

  ‘That’s why I like to stay with what I know and like.’ Her father sounded grim. ‘There’s no one else to blame if you go under.’

  ‘I hate the way these conversations degenerate so quickly,’ said Rosie. ‘We’ve heard it so many times before.’ She turned to Diana. ‘Did you know Philly did really well in her exams last year?’

  ‘Mum was telling me about her course. She really likes it then?’

  ‘It’s the best hospitality course in the state, she told me last week.’

  Stella frowned. ‘I thought she said they had one of the best lecturers in the state, didn’t she?’

  Rosie tossed her curls back. ‘More or less the same thing.’

  Diana picked up her glass again and settled back in the chair. Relax, settle, she told herself, swirling the red wine around her glass. It was a beautiful Australian cab merlot. She squinted at the label on the bottle but she’d never heard of it.

  ‘Well, at least we don’t have to spend as much on fertilizer as we would if we had cattle on the place. You can’t fatten cattle without it.’

  Mal didn’t answer.

  ‘We’ll never know, will we?’ Rosie disappeared into the kitchen.

  Rosie was always quick to point the accusing finger, and then equally as fast to duck for cover. Stella, as usual, was up and down and busy serving. Family, familiar—they must have come from the same Latin root. Which one came first, Diana wondered. She felt removed from the farming conversation, but what could she expect? There was a piece of her dying to be part of everything again. Once upon a time she used to have opinions. Her dad and Mal would listen to them, too.

  Rosie was back with a tub of ice cream for the table. ‘This must all be so boring compared to conversations in London!’

  She sounded bitter. Everyone looked down or at the wall.

  Diana was shocked out of her reverie. London.

  No. She paled and the world went dizzy for a second.

  There was a pause. ‘Oh, I’m sorry, Diana. I didn’t mean it like that.’ Rosie went back into the kitchen.

  Diana tried to rise and follow her but the room started to spin and she sat down again. The last two days had been huge—the drive from Sydney, stacking the bike, family politics … She was just so tired.

  Mal frowned at her. ‘Hey! You’re probably better off just sitting for now.’

  ‘I just wanted to tell her it was okay. Everyone doesn’t have to go round treading on eggshells.’

  ‘Rosie just speaks before she thinks sometimes,’ Stella said.

  And her mother was still sticking up for her. Diana swallowed the resentment and laughed. ‘So do I. It must be a family failing. It’s okay. I’m sorry, I can’t … I just don’t want to think about … London, right now.’

  ‘Who’d like some ice cream?’ said Tom.

  ‘Not for me thanks, Dad.’ Diana turned to Mal. ‘So what’s it like, working for this Patrick?’

  ‘Okay, for a city bloke, I guess.’

  ‘Oh, I think he’s wonderful, Diana. Just wait till you meet him,’ said Stella. ‘We met him first in the bushfire we had about four years ago. I’m sure we told you. It took us all by surprise. It was the most horrible fiery day, anything could have happened. Temperature was over forty and the wind suddenly changed and Lost Valley was in trouble. Tom raced over to help Patrick save his home and the sheds.’

  ‘We had to move pretty fast,’ said Tom.

  ‘And then I had to call Dad up on the CB to hightail it back here,’ Stella went on. ‘The smoke had thickened and was swirling round the house. I couldn’t see more than a foot in front of my face. Patrick came back and helped us. He’s been a good friend ever since.’ She got up and stacked some plates. ‘Coffee or tea anyone? Rosie, come and sit down.’

  Rosie had reappeared and, rather unhappily, took her seat at the table.

  ‘A little more red, Dad?’ Diana held out her glass. ‘Mal would like some more, too.’ Mal laughed.

  ‘Do you really think you need another?’ her father asked.

  She frowned. No one had said that to her for twenty years, and then she smiled ruefully at her dad. ‘No, but it might help me get to sleep,’ she said. ‘Lost Valley is such a beautiful old place. It would have been a pity if it had burned down.’

  ‘Patrick loves it. He’s always tinkering with some idea or other. But then he’s got plenty of money.’ Tom poured some more wine into Diana’s glass and went to fill up Mal’s.

  ‘Thanks Tom.’

  ‘Don’t you think that’s enough, Mal?’ Rosie echoed her father’s comment.

  ‘I think I should be able to manage a half a kilometre down the road without mishap,’ he snapped.

  ‘Yes, I didn’t mean … Oh, you are impossible.’

  Diana’s head started to pound. Nasty ones that did a zip round first.

  ‘Can’t you two let up for a while?’ said Tom. ‘Diana’s not well.’

  ‘Oh, that’s right. Poor Diana! She’s bogged the bike, had Mum and Dad worried out of their minds, but let’s all consider Diana, shall we?’

  Rosie got up and walked out. Mal took off after her, mumbling apologies.

  Diana looked at her father. ‘Jeez, I’m sorry, Dad.’

  He shook his head and shrugged.

  ‘No, I mean about the bike, I hope it’s all right. If it needs fixing I can take it into Bruno.’ She stood. ‘I have to get the car back to him anyway. He can sort out getting it back to Sydney.’

  ‘Don’t worry about it, Diana. The main thing is you’re all right. You’re tired, you should go to bed.’

  Diana weighed the truth in that statement and sighed gratefully. ‘Okay. Goodnight, Dad, sleep tight.’

  ‘Don’t let the bed bugs bite.’ Tom smiled, finishing off the rhyme they used to say to each other when Diana was a child.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  When Diana woke the next morning Saskia was lying all over her. Damn, she was taking up most of the bed. Extricating herself, she carefully moved Saskia further over, lay back and examined the ceiling of her old room.

  So you think you’ve done the right thing?

  It’s too early to tell but it has to be the right thing, Charlie, being in London was not good.

  That’s the bed your parents bought for us when we came over for ‘the visit’.

  It was our honeymoon. At least we didn’t get another. So I guess it was.

  It had all started okay. Charlie was on his best behaviour, then Rosie got spiteful and jealous and her parents became stiff and uncommunicative. And Charlie, well Charlie got all possessive. Diana had felt she was in the middle of a giant tug of war.

  No wonder I didn’t want to come back. The only person who liked me was your grandmother.

  And that was the truth. She remembers you, too. What a God awful mess it was.

  England seemed so empty without Charlie. England was Charlie. ‘Time for bed, Di,’ he’d say, when she’d forgotten the time and was up to her ears in clay. He’d stick his head round the door with a big grin on his face and refuse to leave till she’d packed up. Different matter when he’d been immersed in his painting. Strange, but she missed the annoying things almost as much as his endea
ring qualities.

  Seven blurred weeks and she couldn’t remember anything from one minute to the next. The four of them had been so lost. That evening, after she’d spoken to Sebastian, she’d waited till six o’clock, and then she’d picked the phone up and just told her mother they were coming home. Australia, Mum, Dad, Rosie and Mog’s Hill. She’d needed it like a drowning man needed oxygen.

  Diana considered her options now. Was she being selfish, dumping herself and the kids on her parents? Surely a few weeks in twenty years wasn’t asking too much. No one seemed all that excited to see her. How happy were Rosie and Mal at the moment? Was there a problem? She must ask her mother. They looked as if they were going to jump down each other’s throats, and her parents were no better. And Granny, that made her want to cry. What was wrong with everyone? She closed her eyes.

  ‘Mummy.’

  Diana groaned and opened her eyes again. A pair of honey-coloured eyes were trained on her with the intensity of laser beams.

  * * *

  After breakfast, Diana watched out the kitchen window as the red bike and Mal—with an ecstatic Milo on his lap—came into view, followed by her dad in the ute. The bike must have started all right. Mal and Milo were both wearing helmets. Funny, only wimps wore helmets twenty years ago.

  ‘Thank heavens, they’re here. It must be okay.’ She went outside on to the verandah.

  ‘Mummy, I’ve been steering.’ Milo’s eyes were shining and with a shy smile he looked up at his uncle. ‘Thanks Mal.’

  That had to be the happiest she’d seen him look for months.

  Mal was undoing the buckle under his chin. ‘It’s okay, pal. Won’t be long and you’ll be doing it yourself.’

  ‘Mummy, Mummy, the bike’s all right!’ Milo was running up the steps.

  Diana laughed as he launched himself at her. ‘Careful. I’m so glad everyone’s got their priorities right. Where’s the sympathy for your poor mother?’

  ‘I don’t suppose anyone told you, you don’t lean in when turning a corner on these quad bikes.’ Mal was amused.

  ‘Well, better late than never. I’ll know next time.’

  ‘And next time you go out, you wear a helmet.’

  Diana made a face at him and muttered, ‘We never did before.’

  ‘That was then, now you do.’ Frowning, Mal turned back. ‘No after effects? You’re okay?’

  ‘I’m fine. My pride is dented.’

  They wandered back into the kitchen. Diana idly picked up an apple and bit into it.

  Stella looked up. ‘Who do you want to catch up with now you’re home?’

  ‘No one. It’s so good to see you all and just be here. Making up for lost time.’

  ‘What about Megan? Is she still down the coast?’

  ‘She is. I should get down there, I suppose. The kids would love it. I wonder where Johann is?’

  ‘Who was Johann?’ said Stella. ‘Oh, I remember, he was one of the boys in that flat you shared when you were at college.’

  ‘He and Paul, Megan and I, we were going to conquer the world. Now Paul’s dead, Johann wanders aimlessly round the world. Megan does random art things down the coast, and I’m a potter in London.’

  ‘You’re pretty successful though. You’ve achieved your aim.’

  ‘I suppose.’ Diana was thoughtful. ‘What is success? I used to rate success pretty highly. I don’t know what’s really important anymore. I wanted to be a farmer. Do you think I would have made a good farmer, Mum?’

  ‘Mummy, Mummy, we’ve found a sculpture!’ Sienna’s clear accented voice reached them before they saw the two little figures rushing out from the behind the sheds.

  Diana exchanged a look with her mother. Puzzled, they went back out on to the verandah to two excited faces.

  ‘Mummy, Mummy, Stella, come and look!’ Sienna dragged Diana down the steps and behind the tool shed where she saw the ‘sculpture’.

  Collapsing with laughter Diana clutched Stella. ‘What a hoot! It’s a grader. You poor, over-cultured English babies!’

  Before them up against the fence, in all its rusty-orange decayed glory, stood the Aveling Barford Grader. Her father had a passion for smooth, well-formed roads. This was just one in a long line of graders he’d bought over the years. God knows where it had come from. Diana circled the grand old machine, seeing for the first time its beautiful sculptured lines, the sweeping round discs above the blade.

  ‘I do see what you mean though,’ she said. ‘It is magnificent.’

  The grass was growing up through it. Obviously it hadn’t been moved for a while. Milo tried to climb up into the cab but couldn’t reach the bottom step.

  Diana went to lift Milo up into the cab. ‘Lord, it must be sixty years old, it’s an antique. The kids would only have seen something like this in the sculpture parks we dragged them around in London,’ she said, turning to her mother with a smile.

  ‘It doesn’t look like a grader,’ Milo argued.

  True, it had little in common with the modern, yellow variety. ‘It’s a very old one,’ Diana explained. ‘Tommo uses it for smoothing the roads. He loves to make the drive all even, with drains for the water to run off.’

  ‘One of the advantages of the drought—there hasn’t been enough rain to damage the roads lately,’ her mother said drily. ‘Tom does love that thing but he hasn’t done any grading for a long while. He gets up in it every now and again just to turn the engine over.’

  ‘You should get Tommo to show you his old bike. It’s a beauty,’ Diana told Milo.

  Stella laughed ‘Only if you’ve got a few hours to spare.’

  A large truck with four tiers of hay was coming up the drive. They all went to watch it being unloaded.

  CHAPTER NINE

  The next week zipped past, introducing the children to the farm and trying to get them to be comfortable with her grandmother, which was a bit difficult as she never remembered who they were. Diana’s main problem was avoiding heart-to-heart talks with her mother. She had no desire to open up and talk about herself. None whatsoever. Just thinking about Charlie was a no-go zone. She’d managed it before, pushed thoughts of home and her mother and father away when she’d gone to England, surely she could do the same in reverse. That was her plan anyway.

  On the way into town, with Diana driving, Stella beside her and the two girls in the back, she saw the bare brown paddocks and the dusty gum trees beside the road. Either early winter frosts or the fact it had been some weeks since the last rain had dried everything off. The pale green fuzz she’d noticed on her arrival was fast disappearing. Slowly, the drought was making an impact.

  ‘When do you think it’s going to rain again?’ said Diana. ‘I don’t know how you keep going. It’s pretty depressing, isn’t it? I mean you get, what, twenty millimetres the other day and the grass starts to grow and then it doesn’t rain for weeks or months. I hadn’t realised how awful it was.’

  Her mother didn’t answer.

  ‘Why doesn’t Dad want to come to town?’

  ‘He never wants to come to town these days. I don’t know, he’s not very social at the moment, he doesn’t seem to enjoy other people’s company. Maybe it’s because all any one talks about is the drought. At the moment I’m trying to get him to go to the Picnic Races. They’re on in a couple of weeks. Patrick has invited us but he’s saying no. Still, if anyone can talk him into going, it’ll be Patrick.’

  ‘How old is this Patrick?’

  ‘In his fifties I guess, or late forties. He and your father get on really well. Patrick asks questions and then listens to the answer. It’s very flattering, and quite unusual. You know, the older you get the less people really want to know what you think.’

  ‘Mum, you’re not old.’ Diana laughed and gave her a little pat on the leg. ‘I remember never being able to go to the Picnic Races because they were on a Friday.’

  ‘They’re on Saturdays now.’ Stella sighed. ‘We haven’t been for years. Try to talk your fathe
r into it. We could all go.’

  Diana dropped Stella and Saskia off at the shops and took Sienna to see Granny. Milo had disappeared with Tommo again, and she couldn’t help feeling a little jolt of satisfaction—those two were getting along so well.

  Sienna was the shyest of her children. It was only recently she’d removed her fingers from her mouth where they’d seemed permanently lodged. She hadn’t just sucked her thumb, but at least three fingers at once. Of all the kids, she was getting on best with Peg, even though Peg never remembered who Sienna was. But Sienna sat quietly while they talked, and seemed to love to listen to Peg ramble on about the past.

  After they arrived, Diana found the photo albums for Sienna to look at.

  ‘What’s this, Granny?’

  It was an old photo, black and white, with an old truck and a youthful Granny and Grandpa standing beside it armed with sticks. Diana couldn’t remember seeing it before. She lifted the album off the floor and placed it on Peg’s lap. She and Sienna leant on the chair either side to see.

  ‘Goodness, that was the truck that came to get the rabbits.’

  ‘Rabbits?’ Diana was stunned. Why would they need a truck for that? ‘What rabbits?’

  ‘When we were first married and went to Mog’s Hill, there was a terrible plague of rabbits. There were rabbits everywhere. You’d look out and it seemed as if the hill was moving. Ugh! Frank employed an army of rabbiters—about thirty of them at one stage—and we got about twelve thousand one week.’

  ‘Twelve thousand, that’s impossible!’

  ‘Tell that to the rabbits. We sold them to the local abattoir. Of course, they had to be skinned too. That was my job, to turn the skins inside out. We could get one pound for a pound of skins. Eight skins to a pound. Good money. Someone cut the head off and I helped pull the skins off and peg them out on some wire. Frank didn’t trust them though, said you had to watch them.’

  ‘Watch who?’

  ‘The Rabbiters, of course. It wasn’t in their best interest, was it, to get rid of them all? Leave a couple behind and hey presto, job continuity. Frank had to watch them, all right.’