The Grass Castle (10 page)
She thinks of Doug: a quiet, proud man, honest and hard-working, patient and kind. It killed him when the land was taken. The government bought it back, claiming they had reason to do so. They had authority and there was nothing Daphne and Doug could do. The government took Doug’s life, though they’d never see it that way.
She wonders what Doug would think of the doctor’s referral letter, and it takes only a moment to decide he would agree with her. She did the best thing. The bin is the right place for the envelope.
She stands up and walks down to the yards, leans against the old silver rails streaked with lichens. Across the valley the wind is playing in the grass, making waves in the tussocks, the only tucker the kangaroos won’t eat. She feels the afternoon breeze freshening, a touch of cold on its breath.
Then she feels something else. A strange flash in her head, and a distant pinging sound. A whirring and swishing. A brief impression of the rails tilting.
Daphne has been having a misty dream. The landscape is a blanket of fog from which domes of granite loom and fade. She is in a different time. Black people drift among the hills and shimmy through the trees. Veils of smoke sit over the valley. There are fires out there: slow smoky cooking fires with glowing embers. Dark-skinned women squat by the coals, grinding yams. They use round white stones to crush the bulky roots, pressing them into tongue-shaped grooves worn into flat rock slabs by generations of women before them.
The sound of stone clunking against stone echoes from the crags. Someone is working on a weapon, chipping sharp edges into a sliver of rock. Maybe a spearhead to drop a kangaroo. Birds, kangaroos, black people, these are the only things that move, apart from the wind. The valley changes slowly, time wearing the rocks away. People come and go, their bones bleaching in crevices between boulders on the high tops.
Then Daphne sees a young woman looking down at her. The woman has blue eyes, fair skin, a chaos of unruly reddish-brown hair. Daphne feels a strange slow spinning. She remembers falling, doesn’t know how long she’s been out: minutes or seconds.
The young woman’s face is puckered with concern. Daphne has seen her in the valley before, but from a distance. She’s just a girl in Daphne’s estimation, maybe in her early twenties. They have passed each other several times near the homestead, maintaining polite separation, acknowledging each other with miniscule nods. They have never spoken. Daphne comes here to remember and she knows other people have their reasons for being here too.
Now she accepts the hand that is offered in assistance, and sits up, wavering a moment before the girl reaches down to circle her waist with an arm and helps her to stand. The girl is saying something Daphne can’t hear because there’s a thumping in her head, like a water hammer juddering through pipes in the walls of an old house. She leans against the girl and they walk slowly to the homestead where Daphne sits down on the boards of the veranda and slumps against one of the uprights. She watches vacantly as the girl drags a backpack onto the veranda and empties the contents: a jumper, notepads and pencils, a raincoat, a lunch box, a range of other paraphernalia. Then the girl sets out a mug and pours something into it from a silver thermos.
‘Here.’ She places the mug into Daphne’s hands and helps raise it to her lips. ‘It’s hot chocolate.’
Daphne feels something warm and rich trickle into her mouth. She almost gags before she swallows.
‘Drink up,’ the girl says. ‘It’s good for you.’
Daphne is vague and fluttery. She sips the warm liquid, clears her throat, tries to speak. Her voice comes out rough, like sandpaper. ‘Thank you.’
The girl nods and sits beside her, takes her hand. ‘You’re cold.’ She lays her jumper around Daphne’s shoulders. ‘Are you here on your own?’
Daphne shakes her head but can’t elaborate; she needs more time to rest and re-gather. The girl seems happy to sit, and together they gaze across the valley. The light is clear and strong. A currawong flaps over.
‘I should introduce myself,’ the girl says. ‘I’m Abby.’
She has a pretty face, Daphne thinks, as she tells the girl her name. But when you are craggy as the hills, all youth seems beautiful.
‘Are you feeling better?’ Abby asks.
‘A little,’ Daphne manages. It’s hard to talk.
‘I’m glad you’re okay,’ Abby smiles. ‘What would I have done if you weren’t? My first aid is out of date. I’m no good at CPR.’
Daphne taps her chest. ‘I’m fine,’ she says. ‘My heart’s still beating.’ Her head is beating too, she notes. It’s not supposed to—that’s why the doctor wrote out the referral that is now festering in the bin at the shops beneath layers of soggy hot chips and dripping drink cans.
The girl smiles. ‘What do they say? While you’re breathing you’re having a good day.’ She points over the rise. ‘I was coming down the valley when I saw you fall. Nobody came to help, so I ran to see if you were okay. I didn’t know I could move so fast. Did you say someone is here with you?’
‘My daughter is in the car up at the road,’ Daphne says.
The girl stands up. ‘I’ll go and fetch her.’
Daphne raises a hand to stop her. ‘Not yet, dear. She’ll come eventually.’ She shifts her gaze across the dry vista of the valley, and Abby sits down beside her again.
‘You come here often, don’t you?’ Abby says. ‘It’s a special place. I love it.’
‘I grew up here,’ Daphne says. ‘My family were settlers.’
Abby gazes up among the eaves. ‘Really? You lived in this old hut? It seems they’ve preserved it fairly well.’
‘There used to be a kitchen out the back,’ Daphne says, strengthening a little. ‘That’s gone now, just the old stone chimney left. And there were other buildings. Some were taken down. Others have crumbled away.’
‘This hut’s my best friend in bad weather,’ Abby says. ‘Not that we’ve had much rain this year. I’m tired of the drought.’
‘The land looks poorly, doesn’t it?’ Daphne agrees. ‘It’s sad to see it so run-down. All these kangaroos.’ She thinks of the past, and its place in the present, and how much things have changed. Then she thinks again of the doctor’s appointment and the referral letter and the rubbish bin at the shops. Suddenly she feels tired. ‘I’m sorry,’ she says, ‘I don’t feel well.’
Abby jumps up immediately. ‘I’ll go and get your daughter. I have a key to the gate so she can drive down.’
Daphne sits back weakly while Abby disappears round the side of the homestead. Soon Pam’s car noses around the corner and parks on the grass. Pam leaps out and gushes over her anxiously. ‘What happened? How did you fall? Are you all right?’
At the sight of her daughter, Daphne feels suddenly feeble and teary. ‘I’m tired. I need to go home for a rest.’
Pam helps her to stand up, then Abby returns, smiling. She has a long loose stride like a brolga about to take flight. She and Pam assist Daphne to the car. They hoist her into the passenger seat where she sags, drained. ‘Don’t forget the chair,’ she says.
Pam goes to get it.
Through the window, Daphne reaches for Abby’s hand and grasps it. ‘Thank you for helping me, dear. If I was in better nick I’d stay longer.’
The girl rubs Daphne’s hand with small pale fingers. ‘I’m glad you’re all right.’
Daphne lets go of Abby’s hand reluctantly. ‘I’d like to see you again,’ she says. ‘We could make morning tea for you. To thank you.’
Abby’s blue eyes hover on Daphne’s face for a moment as if she’s considering something. Then she pulls a mobile phone from her pocket. ‘Tell me the number and I’ll call when I have time,’ she promises. She punches in the numbers as Daphne announces them.
Then Pam is back. She tosses the folding chair in the back seat of the car and they drive slowly up the track to the gate. They wait for Abby, who swings the gate wide then closes it behind them and pushes the padlock shut. She leans against a post and waves.
As they pull away Daphne twists in her seat to look back, and what she sees is an outline of Abby’s pale face framed by a crop of wild hair.
The big brick Queanbeyan house where Daphne lives with Pam and Pam’s husband Ray is double storey and a tad ostentatious for Daphne’s taste, but Ray has worked hard for his money—there’s good business to be had from selling curtains—so Daphne supposes he’s allowed a status symbol or two. Ray ought to be retired by now, but he’s addicted to his job. He doesn’t do as much as he used to, so Pam doesn’t mind. She says work keeps him out of trouble. These days he mostly manages things from home—or interferes, according to Pam. He has enough staff to run the business, but he can’t quite let it go.
Daphne was independent till a few years ago. She had a small house in old Queanbeyan that she and Doug bought when they moved down from the mountains. She liked having her own space, living among the possessions she’d accumulated over a lifetime. But her arthritis worsened, and now it’s so bad she needs help to dress, and she can’t lift pots and pans anymore so she can’t cook. She wasn’t eating well, started to lose weight, and it was clear she wasn’t managing on her own.
When it had come time to downsize, she had considered moving into a retirement village with a hospice attached to it, but she was afraid she’d rot or die of loneliness. Who do you talk to in places like that? Someone told her it was good socially, that you make friends with similar interests. Daphne couldn’t face talking aches and pains all day. She couldn’t imagine herself in a museum with other old artefacts. It was denial, she supposes. Plus, she was worried nobody would come to visit her. Young people have such busy lives—where would they find time to come to a retirement village or hospice? Those places are for people without family, or for those with illness and dementia. She’s fortunate she doesn’t fit either of those categories. She still has all her faculties—although Pam says sometimes she’s not so sure.
Moving in with Pam and Ray seemed like a good solution. Daphne was hesitant about imposing on them, but she has her own bathroom, and her bedroom is away from the main activity area of the house, so she can retreat if she senses a need for it. She even persuaded them to construct a vegie patch for her. It was her only request. Pam joked about keeping her working and saving money on vegetables, but a vegie garden has always been important to Daphne, and she was relieved when Pam and Ray agreed to humour her.
One weekend, not long after Daphne had moved in, Ray donned a worn shirt and his thirty-year-old, paint-spattered work boots, and built raised garden beds at the back of the yard. That was five years ago, and to his credit, he still periodically collects bags of manure from a friend’s farm and digs it into the soil. Daphne appreciates his thoughtfulness.
She’s always had a vegie garden, can’t remember a time when she didn’t. On the farm, it was a source of fresh produce, especially in days long past when they didn’t drive to town very often, and salt beef and flour and tinned vegetables kept them going through the lean periods. There were no fridges back then so there was no way to keep fresh meat cool. In winter, they used to hang a side of beef from a shady tree and carve slabs of meat from it each day, keeping it trussed up to stop the wild dogs from attacking it, and the currawongs and ravens—always out for a taste of meat. But the warmer months were the season of salt meat and rabbit, and vegies . . . whatever was left after the kangaroos, possums and rabbits had been through.
Daphne had a vegie garden at her old Queanbeyan home too. It was the first thing she and Doug did when they moved into town. Those were hard times, and looking back, she can see that the garden kept her busy during the difficult transition to city existence. Even as her soul withered and curled up and dried out, somehow it helped to watch green things growing. There was a kind of therapy in standing there with a hose, spraying water onto the dark soil.
In her garden at Pam’s, she plants things that grow without effort. She should put in only a plant or two, but when the seedlings come in punnets it seems cruel not to give each one a chance, so she plants too much, harvests too much and hands out her produce to everyone she knows. In summer, Pam’s window sills are crammed with lines of ripening tomatoes, and the fridge is full of zucchinis, silverbeet and basil. In autumn and winter, she prods cloves of garlic into the soil, and broad beans for nitrogen. Pam refuses to eat the broad beans, so Daphne puts them in plastic bags and takes them to the bowls club, leaves them on the table in the kitchen for whoever wants them. There are plenty of old-timers down there who, like her, appreciate fresh food, lovingly grown and generously given.
Working with the soil also brings Doug back to her. She remembers watching him dig over their vegie patch in the valley, his muscles flexing and popping like potatoes. He was a strong man, his body wiry, tough as an ox. On a warm day, he’d sometimes shed his shirt and she would watch from the kitchen, shirking her tasks to enjoy the view of him down there—all man, with his beard floating around like a cloud. When he came in later in the day, she liked the smell of sweat and soil on him, earthiness clinging to his skin. She would kiss him hungrily, knowing sex might follow in the dark, once the chores were done and the babies were in bed. But that was a long time ago.
Living with Pam is mostly a good thing. Daphne gets on well with her daughter and fits herself into the lives of others as best she can. Sometimes it’s a bit much when the great-grandchildren invade. Daphne’s granddaughter, Sandy (Pam’s daughter), has three children. The eldest two, Jamie and Ellen, are at school, but Ben is only four, so he’s still at home. Often he stays with Pam while his mother is at work. Sandy has a part-time job as a dental nurse, and, as if that’s not enough, she also has commitments with the local wildlife group. There are many meetings and gatherings, so Pam looks after the children then too.
Through the wildlife group, Sandy cultivates her interest in caring for orphaned kangaroo joeys. Neither Daphne nor Pam can see the point of it when there are so many kangaroos around . . . you only have to go out to the valley to see them. Kangaroos everywhere. But Pam says they have to humour Sandy. It’s Sandy’s passion, and Pam says they have to respect that even if they don’t agree with it. Daphne sees it as a kind of madness. The world is changing, and people have lost their sense of balance and order. They prioritise strange things: animals equal to people. It’s craziness. Modern generations haven’t experienced hardship—they need a good Depression or a war to normalise them. Not that she’d wish such suffering on anyone . . . while it imparts an understanding of reality, it also damages people: her father, for instance. But sometimes it seems to Daphne that everyone around her has lost their mind and she is the only rational one.