Seventeen
With a packet of trusty Life Savers in her pocket and a mournful Shirley bleating her displeasure as Rowena shut the vehicle door, they were off at just a few minutes after four.
Reggie had packed them a picnic, wicker basket and all, which Lachlan had stowed in the back with a couple of deck chairs.
Rowena wore boots—proper ones she’d bought in town a few weeks ago—jeans and, because the days were heating up now, a plain v-necked t-shirt, fitting extra snug around her boobs. She tossed in a hoodie, though, for when the sun sank below the horizon and the chill set in.
They passed the bunkhouse and headed into the great beyond, the sky an endless blue arc ending at a horizon that seemed a million miles away.
She’d spent a lot of time staring out over the deck when she was living at the bunkhouse.
It had been her favourite spot for her morning coffee—back when she could stomach coffee—watching the endless play of morning light over the trees and scrub.
And now here she was, venturing forth into it.
They stopped at the shearing shed first. It was surrounded on three sides by big old gum trees, shading the stumped, corrugated-iron building from the worst of the Australian sun. Inside, the hardwood floorboards, still naturally polished from the lanolin, were in good shape.
‘We haven’t sheared a sheep for four years. We destocked during the second year of the drought and decided to go into meat sheep. It was risky—people around here thought we were crackers—but with strong lamb prices it’s paid off for us.’
Rowena frowned. ‘Don’t all sheep need shearing?’
He shook his head. ‘We run Australian Whites. They have hair, not wool. Did you not notice that with Shirley?’
‘Oh …’ She supposed, thinking about it, Shirley did have a fine fluffy covering. ‘I just assumed it was her baby coat. Like baby teeth.’
Lachlan laughed. ‘Nope, that’s her wool,’ he said, performing air quotes. ‘It does grow and get thicker over winter, but it sheds in summer, which means no shearing. And no flystrike either. They’re hardier, too, as are their lambs, and they eat anything.’
Rowena looked around the eerily empty space, which seemed to echo with long-ago voices. It felt as if the shearers had just left for the day rather than several years before. ‘Do you miss it?’
He quirked an eyebrow. ‘Shearing?’
‘Yep.’
‘Yes and no. It’s hard work. But it’s great camaraderie so …
’ He shrugged. ‘Maybe one day it’ll be profitable to run Merinos again, but out here you’ve got to adapt to survive.
We’ve had a couple of good wet seasons and good rain going into winter, but the next El Nino could change all that.
You’re always trying to make decisions based on next year and long-range weather forecasts. ’
She nodded, impressed that Lachlan was prepared to be nimble and change things up according to the conditions. Looking at farming as an outsider, it had always seemed a job steeped in traditional ways. ‘It’s good not to be stuck in your ways.’
He shrugged. ‘Can’t afford to be.’
As they left the building, Rowena glanced across at a clump of trees a hundred or so metres to the right. In a clearing in the middle, she just made out a large area cordoned off by what appeared to be a white wrought-iron fence.
She shaded her face with her hand and squinted. ‘What’s over there?’
‘It’s the McCabe family cemetery.’
Rowena glanced at him, the afternoon sun catching blond highlights in his soft whiskers. ‘Really?’
He nodded. ‘Yep. You want to see it?’
‘Could I? It’s not too … ghoulish?’
‘Of course not. Come on.’
Rowena followed him past yards bordered by metal railings shining dully in the sunlight, then across the sparsely covered ground, conscious that he’d shortened his natural stride to match hers.
‘My great-grandfather picked the site himself so he could keep an eye on the shearing shed at all times. He planted the trees so there’d be shade and privacy for mourners, and to attract birds and bees.’
Rowena geared down another notch as they entered the shadows of the gums that towered overhead, walking through the trunks, aware she was approaching hallowed ground.
A massive flowering ironbark situated at the back of the plot dominated the space, its spreading branches almost encompassing the entire breadth of the yard.
She looked up, the sky visible only in tiny speckles of blue through the drooping, grey-green foliage. Clusters of fluffy, pinky-red flowers emerged randomly like star bursts, their fragrance softening the astringent eucalyptus tang.
‘It’s beautiful here,’ she murmured, her voice low as befitted a place of last rest.
‘Yeah,’ he said, his voice also low. ‘I think so.’
The gate opened with a squeak and Lachlan indicated for her to precede him.
Stepping inside tentatively, Rowena noticed the small plot was well cared for.
Not in a manicured lawn kind of way, but the headstones, one of them dating back to 1932, were all intact and easily read, the concrete bordering each grave well maintained.
Nothing was overgrown and there was very little leaf litter strewn within the boundaries. Given the number of surrounding trees, that seemed miraculous. Someone obviously visited regularly.
She walked quietly amongst the dozen graves, all situated well forward of the ironbark. The only sounds breaking the silence were the ruffle of a light breeze through the leaves and the twitter of birds.
The headstones varied from a simple cross or upright plaque to a rather grand white marble slab right in the middle belonging, she assumed from the inscription, to Lachlan’s great-grandfather. He’d died in 1947 at the age of fifty-nine.
Someone had died at ninety-eight. And there were two children’s graves. Siblings. One eight, the other nine.
‘Oh.’ Rowena pressed a hand to her chest as she looked at two small, stone angel ornaments. ‘How sad.’
‘Scarlet fever,’ Lachlan supplied.
A section off to one side contained half a dozen small white crosses all close together. A paw print and a name had been etched on each.
Bo. Lady. Griff. Murphy. Scheherazade. Goldie.
‘Pets,’ Lachlan murmured.
Rowena nodded, touched by the simple yet powerful memorial. In her short time here, she’d come to learn that dogs were an integral part of Blairgowrie life.
Walking past the pet area, she came across a grave with reasonably fresh roses laid at the foot of the plain headstone.
Alice Regina McCabe.
Michael John Barry.
Taken too soon. Fly free now, darlings. Fly free.
Glancing over her shoulder at Lachlan, she said, ‘This is your mum and dad?’
He joined her, staring down at the grave. ‘Yes.’
‘It’s nice that they buried them together.’
He didn’t say anything for long moments. Neither did Rowena. But, without thinking about it, she slipped her hand into his. If he was surprised by the action, he didn’t show it, just laced his fingers through hers.
‘They scattered most of his ashes from a plane over the reef he loved so much, off Cairns. But my grandmother and my aunt on my dad’s side wanted me to have some of his ashes so he could also be here with me.’
‘That was thoughtful.’
‘Yeah.’ He chewed at his bottom lip as if he was back at that day again. ‘I hadn’t really cared at the time. I mean, he was dead, right? He wasn’t his ashes. I hadn’t understood how important it was going to be to me when I was older, and I’m grateful they had the wherewithal to suggest it.’
He knelt then, his hand sliding from hers. ‘You didn’t take your father’s name?’ she asked absently as she watched him brush at a few stray leaves.
His mother had obviously kept hers but it was unusual to see, in a marital situation, a child not taking the father’s surname back then.
‘I did,’ he said, resting back on his haunches. ‘I changed to McCabe when I was fourteen. I grappled with it a bit, worried that somewhere out there my father would see it as a rejection of him. But eventually it just felt right.’
Rowena nodded. She supposed some people, not comfortable with deeply emotional subjects, might have told Lachlan that his father would have understood. And she had no doubt that was probably true. But she’d worked in NICU for long enough to know that platitudes seldom helped.
Instead she slid her hand on his shoulder and stood silently as she stared at the grave.
Eventually he roused, pushing to his feet, brushing off the denim covering his knees. Rowena’s gaze fell on the roses—so … well, English, in this very Australian setting.
‘Did Reggie bring those?’
‘No, I did.’
Rowena was surprised by the admission, although she didn’t know why.
Lachlan was hardly some knuckle-dragging Neanderthal running around pretending nothing ever bothered him.
He’d spoken about the loss of his parents, his marriage failures, how he’d grappled with changing his surname, with emotional intelligence and honesty.
‘I visit once a week,’ he said, ‘since returning to Blairgowrie.’
‘Do you talk to them?’ That’s what she always encouraged grieving parents of her patients to do. Talk about them, too.
‘Yeah.’ He nodded. ‘Usually.’
‘What do you tell them?’
He shrugged. ‘The latest gossip from town. The weather. Sheep prices.’
Rowena laughed. ‘Newsy.’
A smile broke across the solemnity of his face as he continued. ‘Reggie’s latest antics with Madge. And lately about you. And … the baby.’
Ah. Well, yes … she guessed that made sense.
‘My mum always said babies were little gifts from the future. I think they’d be tickled pink knowing they were going to be grandparents.’
It was on the tip of Rowena’s tongue to sound her usual warning bell but she quelled the urge. She didn’t get to do that here. The man had to have somewhere to go, someone to talk to during this time.
‘She sounds lovely.’
‘Yeah.’ He lifted his gaze to hers. ‘She was.’ He gave a gentle smile then, before saying, ‘Come on, we should get going if we want to check some fences before the sun sets.’