Secrets of the Springs Read online

  A report seemed an unsatisfactory end to my parents’ murder, but what else could I expect? The callousness of Palmer’s act could not be assuaged by the simple fact of his death by natural causes, some thirteen years later. Some part of me wanted to howl the unfairness of it to the world. He had no right! The crux of my anger was the sheer injustice of his action – that his monstrous, overweening pride could lead him to think his victim so unimportant that he could snuff out his life with as little compunction as swatting a fly. Surely no sane person could act that way, so had he been mad? Or had he just hated his brother so much it had unbalanced him? If so, why had my father’s sins been enough to arouse such primal emotions of jealousy, hatred and fury in his own brother?

  Once, I thought miserably, I would never have asked the question, so great had been my trust in him, but that was before the Pandora’s box of Palmer’s confession. Prior to opening that I would not have believed Dad capable of any act that could have led to his death, but now I had to wonder. If he could deceive my mother, the woman he had claimed to love, what else had he the potential for? Here I could not help but draw the parallel with Mark. He had betrayed me too and, if rumour had any substance, had been drunk at the wheel when his wife was killed. Once, I would have sworn that I knew him down to the marrow of his bones, to the very thoughts in his head. Once, he had been the constant star in my firmament, but I had been wrong about that too. There had been another Mark, one whose face I had never previously glimpsed, and now it seemed it had been the same with my father.

  In a way it was like being orphaned anew because the unwanted knowledge subtly altered all my memories of him. Illegitimacy shouldn’t matter, I told myself; it in no way changed who I was, and besides this was 1976, not the eighteen-hundreds. But, all the same, the knowledge of it left a film of deceit across the past, blurring images made sharp and bright by love into smeared facsimiles that had lost their power to comfort. My eyes were wet and my hands were no longer producing their little shower of greyish flakes. Sniffing back tears, I bore down on the scraper, loosening one long shard of paint and then another and another. It was only when the tool slipped, twisting in my hands to dig a sudden gouge in the timber, that I stopped, and sat back on my heels. Anger might make the work go faster but it couldn’t alter the truth.

  On Sunday Joe was as good as his word, turning up with a second scraper soon after I had begun on the next section of railing, and setting to with a will.

  ‘Maybe I should have checked the sheds before I bought the brushes,’ I said. ‘Could be we already had some.’

  ‘Nothin’ you’d want to use,’ he assured me. ‘The hairs drop outta them when they get too old. True there ain’t much else you wouldn’t find in them sheds. Don’t reckon yer dad ever threw anythin’ out.’

  ‘Did you know him well, Joe? The thing is,’ I confessed, ‘I don’t remember you being here when I was little.’

  ‘Why would yer? But matter-o-fact I was here when you were born.’ He paused to swipe paint flakes off his chin. ‘Even before that ’cause I worked for yer granddad for a bit too.’

  ‘Really?’ I eyed him. ‘How old are you, Joe, if you don’t mind my asking?’

  ‘Sixty-four last month. Yep, it was Charles gave me my first job. Stayed a year, drifted off, came back maybe nine, ten years later. Story of me life, really. Most of it’s been spent within coo-ee of the Barrier country. I was here when yer dad came home with his bride.’ He shook his head. ‘Your mother – reckon she was about the prettiest thing I ever saw. You’re the dead spit of her, you know, ’cept for being blonde – reckon you got that from your dad.’

  I blushed at the artless compliment. ‘Thank you, Joe.’

  He shrugged. ‘It’s true, you gotta know it yourself. Anyway, your mum – I reckon all us hands were a bit in love with her . . . Even yer granddad’d get a sort of spark in his eye when she was around. An’ yer dad – if he hadda been any prouder he’d’ve bust.’

  ‘So what did you think of him, my father? Was my uncle here then, too?’

  ‘For a bit, coupla seasons maybe. The old man was still running the place then ’n’ we were always short-handed. The men were tricklin’ back home from the war, see, and sheep,’ he added ruminatively, ‘sheep take a lot of labour. They hadn’t stopped the fuel rationin’ neither. Wasn’t like today – a bloke ’n’ a couple dogs ’n’ a bike . . .’ He shrugged and continued. ‘He was a good sheepman, your uncle. Course, he grew up workin’ ’em; best man I ever seen with a kelpie. You see blokes wavin’ and yellin’ and doin’ their nuts with dogs till the poor bloody animal don’t know what he’s gettin’ told, but Palmer weren’t like that. His dogs always knew exactly what’e meant, ’n’ he done it all on a bit of a whistle or maybe the flick of a finger. Yer had to watch close to catch his signals. He was that cut-up when your dad sold the flock. Malvern Park’d made quite a name for itself back then, y’see. Best sheep in the district.’

  ‘I thought you hated them?’

  ‘Don’t mean I don’t know ’em,’ he said with dignity. ‘Might be stupid, bleatin’ bloody animals, but they done all right for the property. Course, your dad was right. He said wool’d had its day. He switched horses while the rest of ’em hung on waiting for prices to rise again.’

  I nodded. ‘Dad used to talk about it – how the corporation stockpiled the wool – hundreds, thousands of bales, in huge warehouses while the rent costs rose and rose, and the price continued to fall.’

  ‘What they call progress,’ Joe agreed dourly. ‘Some smartarse invented himself synthetics ’n’ ruined an industry.’

  ‘So that was why they fell out, Palmer and my father? Because he sold the flock?’

  ‘They were never mates,’ Joe said, ‘but that didn’t help. Not that it was Palmer’s business by then, ’cause the old man’d died and the place belonged to yer dad.’

  ‘Wasn’t that a bit unfair? I mean, Palmer was the one who stayed.’

  ‘Yeah, but it ain’t like he was turfed out with nothin’. I reckon old Charles knew they couldn’t share, ’n’ your dad was the married one. Better for the property, see? So he left Palmer the cash to start up that business of his. Musta been plenty if he had enough left to build that fancy house. Damn near as flash as this place was – but they were always tryin’ to outdo each other, the Macrae boys.’

  I paused in my scraping to rest my hand. Gripping the tool was tiring. ‘Did you ever see Palmer’s mother?’

  ‘The yeller piece? No. She was outta the picture by the time I turned up.’

  ‘So she was Aboriginal? I heard that, but Palmer was white skinned.’

  ‘Half-caste, she were,’ he corrected, ‘not a full-blood. Still made her a gin, but it don’t always follow the kid comes out black. Her eyes ’n’ hair, yeah, the kids usually get that, but I seen mixed blood families with little white brats ’n’ brown ’uns too. Comes down to the luck o’ the draw, I reckon. Mighta been another reason the old feller didn’t leave Palmer the land.’

  ‘Because of his Aboriginal blood?’

  ‘Well,’ he puffed air through dry lips to dislodge paint flakes, ‘I got nothin’ against them meself, but they ain’t your typical station owners, are they? Charles mighta reckoned it’d be bad for the Park, pull its reputation down.’

  ‘That’s awfully racist, Joe. And you said yourself Palmer was a good sheepman, so I don’t see how . . .’

  ‘I never said it were true,’ he answered mildly, ‘I’m just sayin’ how it is. You know any blackfellers yourself? You meet ’em for a drink maybe, ask ’em home to dinner? Course you don’t! You give a blackfeller a job, yer don’t work for him.’

  ‘But Palmer could pass as white.’ I wondered why I was defending the man. ‘And your argument falls down, Joe, because he did employ people and run a business. And Marty was telling me he used to have plenty of station men, owners and managers to dine at his house. She said it amused him to invite them.’

  ‘I bet.’ Joe wagged his he
ad. ‘Yer gotta admire him. See, it’s a fight all the way if you’ve got a touch o’ the tar in yer. Course, you could say he had the upper hand, with the agency. The squatters had to deal with him, ’n’ he made sure he rubbed their noses in it. Got to be a big man in town – they mightn’t’ve liked him, but he had their respect, and that takes a bit of gettin’ for a coloured man.’

  ‘Yes, well it’s a sad reflection on society, that is,’ I said. ‘You think it made a difference between him and Dad?’

  Joe shrugged. ‘Bound to, ain’t it? It’s the tar that does it – and it explains why he never married.’

  Because he was in love with my mother, I thought, but Joe was finishing his rumination. ‘He ain’t hardly goin’ back to the tribe for a woman. I mean, he’s fought too hard to get where he is to go ’n’ lose it all for a yeller wife.’

  If Joe’s was an accurate reading of the social climate thirty years before, then I could see that Palmer would have had no chance of courting a respectable white girl, not one who shared the cultured tastes and education that he had somehow acquired. It was unfair, and blindly prejudicial, but back in the fifties, small towns were. Still, however horrible the racism he experienced was, neither that nor Palmer’s loneliness could possibly excuse murder.

  Chapter Sixteen

  On Monday I drove into town with a picnic lunch and an armful of towels to collect the dinner set and crystal from Palmer’s house. I had thrown some empty cartons in too, and was kneeling on the floor layering saucers into folds of the towels when Fiona rapped on the front door.

  ‘It’s open,’ I yelled.

  Her hesitant steps approached along the hallway. ‘Front room,’ I called, then she stepped through, smart in a skirt and jacket, her gaze skittering over the room.

  ‘You know, I’ve never been in here before,’ she observed. ‘How are you, Orla? All that time when we were kids and you never once asked me to your home.’

  ‘I preferred yours, that’s why. You’re looking very smart! How’s Sophia?’ I got up from my knees and stretched.

  ‘Okay, thanks. It was measles by the way – at daycare. But Sophia’s had her shots, so she’s fine. Her gran’s got her today.’

  ‘And how’s she? The tests she was having . . .?’

  ‘Benign, thank God!’ Fiona held up crossed fingers. ‘Just a cyst.’

  ‘That’s a relief. Well, I imagine you don’t have long, so shall we lunch?’

  ‘After a quick tour? Seeing I’m finally here.’

  ‘Why not?’

  I showed her over the house, beginning on the ground floor and ending in my old bedroom where she wrinkled her nose at the combination of curtains and colour scheme. ‘Whoever decorated? It’s like Dracula’s castle.’

  ‘I know. Hideous. Can you wonder I was at yours so often? This whole place exudes gloom. Quality gloom, mind you. Alec gave me some surprising figures.’

  ‘Yes.’ She gave me a sideways impish grin. ‘Has he been in touch? He was quite smitten, you know. Pole-axed almost. He was humming “The Snowy Breasted Pearl” when he left.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Oh, Orla – it was a choir piece we learned.’ She began to sing. ‘There’s a colleen fair as May . . . You must remember! We had to go over and over it!’

  ‘Yes, I do now.’ Annoyingly I felt my colour rise, and I turned to open the wardrobe and haul out Mr Bill. I dusted him off. ‘Here, I’ve been meaning to give you this for Sophia, but he might want a good tubbing first. I loved him when I was little and I’m afraid it shows.’

  ‘Orla, are you sure? Shouldn’t you hang onto him for when you start your own family? I mean —’

  ‘No,’ I said abruptly. ‘Truly, I’d love her to have him. God! It’s nearly one o’clock. Let’s get downstairs or you won’t have time to eat anything. No, I’ll take him straight out to your car – you don’t want dust on your suit. There’s no power and I didn’t want to have to mess about with the stove so I’ve brought a thermos for tea.’

  The sausage rolls had been packed straight from Marty’s oven and were still warm. There were carrot sticks and hard-boiled eggs and slices of moist date cake as well. ‘Lordy!’ Fee exclaimed, nibbling carrot sticks instead of cake. ‘Is she trying to fatten you up? Mind you, another pound or so wouldn’t hurt.’ She eyed me, head on one side. ‘You’re a bit thinner than you used to be. Not like me.’

  ‘You’ve settled down,’ I said equably. ‘Suit jacket, pumps and perm – whatever happened to becoming Lady Macbeth?’

  ‘Out! Out, damn spot!’ Fee cried, rolling her eyes, then crunched another carrot stick. ‘Love happened, and domesticity. It’s funny – he looks so ordinary, Roger. Well, he is I suppose, to everybody else, but he lights up my life, Orla. The smell of him, the feel of his arms around me, the way his hair falls – I wouldn’t give him up, not even for the chance to play opposite Laurence Olivier.’ She looked curiously at me. ‘Have you never felt that way?’

  ‘Once,’ I said, ‘but it didn’t last.’

  ‘Well, you could try again. There’s Alec —’

  ‘Except I’m too busy right now,’ I interrupted. To prevent her persisting with the subject I added, because sooner or later the truth would leak out, ‘Something I was going to tell you, Fee. My uncle – half-uncle – was responsible for my parents’ death. All the years I lived in this house and I never once guessed that he had killed them.’

  ‘Good God! Killed? I – well – how?’ Her expressive face registered astonishment. I compressed the tale into the few remaining minutes of her lunchbreak and heard no more about Alec. Fee had never known when to let something go. It was the actress in her I supposed that made her milk every situation for all it was worth, and sometimes well past that point.

  Once I had waved her off I returned to my packing, carrying each filled carton out to the vehicle before starting on the next. I was hoisting the last box off the floor when Ben’s voice sounded at the open front door.

  ‘Hello! Are you there, Orla?’

  ‘Come in, Ben.’

  He did so and hurried to relieve me of my load. ‘I’ll get that. I was heading out to the Park and caught sight of the Nissan.’ He eyed the loaded vehicle. ‘You’ve been busy.’

  ‘The packing bulks it up, but there are a lot of pieces – gravy boat, meat platter, creamer . . . It’s not just dinner plates and tea cups. Have you got a message or did you just want to see Marty?’

  He flushed a little. ‘Both. The woman from the Tourism Board rang this morning and apparently there’s a letter of confirmation in the mail. Your first guests will arrive on the ninth.’

  ‘Of next month?’ He nodded and I did a rapid calculation. ‘That’s only a bit over a week away!’

  ‘Sooner the better; it’s a short season, remember. Besides, you’ve nothing to worry about. The place will sell itself, you’ll see.’

  ‘I haven’t finished painting the verandah! No, I haven’t even started,’ I cried. ‘I’m still getting the old paint off.’

  ‘Well, I’ll give you a hand then.’ He glanced at the sun. ‘I’ve finished in the office for the day, so I’ll follow you out.’

  My thoughts returned to the guests. ‘Wait a minute. How many? And what age are they?’

  ‘Four guests, that’s all I can tell you. I expect the details are in the mail.’

  ‘Right. Well, I’ll check the box before I leave.’ I pulled the door closed and locked it. ‘You go on out, Ben. I’ll swing past the post office and be right behind you.’

  By the time I got back to the Park, Ben, Marty and Joe were having smoko in the kitchen.

  ‘What kept you?’ Ben rose to pull out a chair as I entered.

  ‘Oh, I ran into someone. Thanks.’ I took the cup Marty handed me. ‘No, nothing for me.’ I waved aside the biscuits. I was late because I had pulled up at the old boundary hut to read the only letter that had been waiting in the mailbox.

  I had written to the Registrar of Births Deaths and Marriages in the fo
rlorn hope of learning that Palmer had somehow faked my father’s divorce papers. The letter neither confirmed nor denied my query, but simply informed me that a ten-dollar fee was payable for the information, which might take up to a month to be processed. Get the money first, I thought cynically. But now that my first automatic refusal to give credence to the claim was over, did I really need to pursue the matter? There was, I reluctantly decided, no point. Suspicion was catching. I could now see how even the use of my father’s name, as it had appeared on his army discharge – Henry Charles McRae – worked against him. Henry/ Harry . . . had he ever been challenged on it, how easy it would have been for him to claim the latter as a nickname dating from his army service. Sadly I saw how easily trust could be lost, and once it was, how every little fragment of a life could be called into question.

  It seemed appropriate to consider my father’s infidelity at the place where my own heart had led me astray. I might have dressed it up back then as the love of the ages but I was no longer a teenager, and the hard truth was that Mark had committed adultery, just like Dad. And I was scarcely blameless, knowing very well that the arms I had willingly gone to were those of a married man.

  Perhaps faithlessness ran in families? If so, we had all been punished, including my mother. For a moment I wondered if she could possibly have known the truth. Would Dad have risked it and told her? Somehow I doubted it. Mum had always been rigidly honest, more so than Dad if I thought about it. I couldn’t remember him ever doing anything really wrong but he’d had a way of winking at small misdemeanours. ‘What the eye don’t see, colleen . . .’ I had loved the complicity of those winks, of sharing something that was, if not exactly forbidden, then frowned upon by others. It had made me feel special.

  ‘There’s always ways, my girl.’ That’s what he’d said the day we rode across the paddock and struck the fence below the gate he’d been aiming for. It was hot and the horses were tired; my legs were weary from kicking Bess along and the idea of riding an extra mile had put a whine in my voice. ‘How?’ I had glared at the shiny wires, two barbed and a plain that barred our passage, as Dad swung down and took the fencing pliers from their pouch on his saddle. I knew he couldn’t just cut them because extra wire was needed to mend a broken fence, and we had none with us.