Hope's Road (9 page)

‘Tammy McCauley. And this here's Travis Hunter and his son Billy.' Tammy pointed across to the child.

‘Nice to meet you. I thought the old bloke said your name was Murphy.'

‘My married name is Murphy.'

‘Oh! So you're married.' Dean looked pointedly at her naked ring finger, his disappointment apparent though he'd tried to hide it. She felt . . . what? Flattered? Vindicated that a red-blooded male thought she was attractive while the man she'd thought loved her called her a frigid bitch?

Maybe try horrified. Was this now what she'd have to deal with? The unwelcome advances of men who didn't interest her in the slightest? Oh dear. And he really did look like a nice man. A nice
ordinary
man, who did absolutely nothing for her.

Travis stepped up to grab Dean around the shoulders and push him back towards the ambulance. ‘Good to meet you, Dean. You and your mate there'd better get the old bloke loaded and to the hospital, don't you think?'

‘Yes, right. Best be off.' Dean threw another look at Tammy as Travis propelled him on his way.

Tammy moved to where Billy sat in the dirt, still playing with the dog. The border collie was lying on his back, legs spread wide, paws drooping like unworn socks. His tongue was lolling this way and that in ecstasy as Billy rubbed along his belly.

If only her life could be as simple as a dog's.

Chapter 14

Tammy stood in front of the old miner's shack, took a deep breath and mounted the front steps. She grabbed the handle of the wooden screen door that sheltered the inside of the house from prying eyes and slowly drew it open, hesitant to enter a space that was not her own.

She walked inside slowly, Billy following close behind. The screen door sprang shut with a whack and Tammy jumped. The boy silently took her hand as though he too was unsure of himself. She took another step. If she and Billy didn't do this, what was Joe going to have with him at the hospital? She should just get on with it.

The hallway was floored with hardwood boards; an old Axminster carpet runner lay on top in a vain attempt to hide the wear on the fading varnish. Turning to the left, she opened a door and took in the ‘best room' – the lounge or parlour of the old house. The faded flowery wallpaper was peeling. Unfamiliar ancestors glared from ornate photo frames. Over-stuffed club chairs were parked formally at the fireplace and a tattered chaise longue sat with decayed elegance in the corner. There was an antique auto-trolley parked in the middle of the far wall, laden with a blackened silver tea service. The handworked doily spilling over the edges was spotted with brown rustlike stains. The air smelled of age and damp. She shuddered. Only dust, ghosts and memories inhabited this room.

Tammy pulled away, nearly stepping on Billy, who was right on her heels. The boy hurriedly moved back and she quietly closed the door. She swung around and saw the hall table and the phone Billy had used to ring 000. Thank heavens they taught that sort of thing at school these days.

Beyond the table was another door, slightly ajar. She pushed it back to reveal a bedroom with an old featherbed, black iron bedsteads standing sentinel at the head and foot. The bed was covered with a beautifully handworked bedspread. Once cream, the bedspread was now riddled with grubby dirt and possum poo, which had fallen through the parting tongue-in-groove ceiling boards. Except for the shadow of an old cedar chest of drawers, the room was bare. No one – at least of mortal soul – inhabited this space either.

Where the hell did old Joe sleep?

Within four strides she was back in the hallway and into the next set of rooms. She peeked shyly around the door. An antique cream wooden and flywire-encased cot, which looked for all the world like a huge meat safe, sat adrift in the centre of the small space. Forgotten, unloved, untouched. A cot full of dreams that never came true.

Tammy couldn't help but wonder what the story was. Did her Aunty Nellie get pregnant but lose the baby? Why didn't they have kids? They obviously wanted them, judging by the contents of this room. She couldn't suppress another shudder. The whole house reeked of loneliness and she despaired for the old man who was so dead against leaving this place in the back of an ambulance.

‘Geez, it's not much chop, is it, Tammy?'

She started. She'd forgotten Billy was with her. He was staring all around him, eyes wide, like he was trying to work something out.

‘No, mate, it's not.' So he felt it too. The despair, the loss of all hope and love.

She looked around the small kitchen. A functional table sat against the far wall. A single wooden ladder-back chair was parked at the end. And still no sign of where Joe slept.

They moved on, down a small step and into the closed in back verandah. To the left a loo, which Tammy was glad to see, as she'd feared the old man was still relying on an outside toilet. To the right was a shower and ancient twin-tub washing machine. In front of them under some louvre windows was a camp stretcher, swag laid out on top. An old-fashioned eiderdown was perched at the end of the swag.
Finally
they had found where the old man slept. And it was pitiful.

A small gentlemen's wardrobe was standing with its doors slightly ajar. Billy walked over. Inside, neatly folded, were some work clothes, a couple of pairs of faded plain pyjamas, rolled black socks and jocks and singlets. All white.

Packing was going to be easy.

‘Right, Billy, we need a bag. Can you have a look around and see if you can find anything suitable? I'll pack up his clothes.'

Tammy rolled her shoulders and moved towards the ward­robe, laying bits and pieces out on the eiderdown. Then she looked down at their threadbare state in dismay. There was no way she could send the pyjamas to the hospital. Brought up by a woman who kept a couple of new nighties up in the cupboard ‘in case I have to go to hospital', she just couldn't send these with her uncle, even if he didn't want to admit they were related. She'd have to stop in town and buy him some new ones.

She put the PJs back in the cupboard. Hunting around under the bed she found some old slippers which would do the job. She moved into the little room that held the shower, collected some toiletries from under the vanity basin and put them on the bed too.

‘Find anything, Billy?'

‘What?' The boy appeared in the doorway.

‘That would be “pardon me”. Did you find anything?'

‘Nah. Nothing I can see except these shopping bags. Will they do?' Billy held up a bundle of white plastic.

Good Lord. Surely they could do better than that. He'd be at the hospital looking like an old hobo. Her mind whispered, But that's what he really is, Tim Tam!

Bugger it. She'd buy him a cheap overnight bag too.

‘We'll load the stuff into those bags for the minute, Billy, and buy him something nicer when we get to town. I won't have anything at home; Shon's probably used it.'

Billy looked at her.

Tammy shrugged. ‘He's left me.' Not knowing why she felt so comfortable saying this to an ten-year-old boy yet was unable to ring her best friend Lucy and tell her about it.

Billy nodded, just the once, and then got to back to work. Ah. That was why. Lucy would have wanted to know the ins and outs of everything; and Tammy wasn't ready for that. She needed to come to terms with the fact that her marriage was finally over.

‘I'll carry these bags out to the truck.' Billy's quiet voice broke into her thoughts. He'd loaded the pitiful pile of clothes into a couple of bags. ‘Dad's out there waiting. He'll be wondering what we're doing.'

‘Right. No worries. I'll just –' Tammy waved her hands around, not really knowing what it was she was going to do, but recognising she needed a minute to herself. She was standing in her uncle's house and she felt like an alien. Unwanted, unneeded, an intrusive presence in the private world of Joe McCauley.

She moved to close the cupboard doors and walk away from the camp bed, but spotted something which made her halt in her steps. A photo frame, propped up by the bed, on a rickety table beside an old-fashioned alarm clock with bells. It held a photograph of Joe's wife, Nellie. Tammy reached to pick up the cheap frame. Mission brown plastic bordered a photo of a woman who was smiling into the camera. Wearing a dark green cotton dress, she was broad across the shoulders and had a large, squarish-looking bust. A straw hat shaded the woman's eyes but Tammy could see deep creases around her temples, and her smile was a mile wide. Such a lovely, comforting looking woman.

If only she could have known her.

If only Nellie could have made it all better for both of them. Her husband and her great-niece. ‘Tammy . . . ?' Hunter's voice came echoing down the hall.

‘Coming!' She hesitated a moment, glancing again at her aunt, before she tucked the photo frame under her arm. The alarm clock followed. The old bloke might want a few familiar things around him. She took one last look at the camp stretcher he used for a bed, shook her head and moved back through the house. She met Hunter just as he was removing his boots to come in the door.

‘Oh, there you are,' he said, leaning down and pulling his boots back on. ‘We'd better be going. Do you want me to drop you at your place to pick up your ute?'

‘Umm . . . not sure.' She wondered if Shon was gone. ‘I'll ponder that for a minute and let you know.'

Travis gave her a slightly bemused look. Tammy could just about hear him thinking: Women!

He turned to yell at his son. ‘Billy! Grab those dogs and tie them up, will you?' He swung back to Tammy. ‘I'll come over and feed them while Joe's away.'

‘I'm sure he'd appreciate that. He wouldn't want me to do it.'

‘Want to tell me about that?' Trav raised one eyebrow, and slung her half a smile.

Tammy felt her tummy curl up into little knots, and it wasn't all due to the family feud. A half-smile that made a man look so delicious should be deemed illegal.

She got her thoughts back on track. ‘He and my grandfather never got on. Something to do with my grandmother. I was never told, just something I heard once made me think perhaps both brothers were in love with her.'

She remembered a conversation one day in town. It was a Friday afternoon and Mae had just walked out of the hairdressers to meet her teenage granddaughter in the street. Mae looked beautiful, hair all tinted, falling in waves. Nellie was walking in, and she looked awful. Dowdy, hair in dire need of a perm, a cut, anything to give her a bit of style. Or so Tammy's grandmother had said in the car as they were travelling home. ‘I can't understand what Joe saw in that woman.' There was a churlish note to her voice, like she was miffed, which set Tammy to wondering: Why would her grandmother care who Joe married? Her grandmother had gone on, ‘Tamara, always remember that land means
everything
. Money, power, security. Love doesn't necessarily make for a comfortable life.'

Trav's voice came crashing through her memories. ‘Is that all?' he asked. ‘I overheard Joe calling you a land-grabber.'

Tammy tried a smile to prove she hadn't been hurt by the old man's words. She could feel the ends of her mouth turn up, but inside she was cold, remembering her earlier argument with Shon. Bloody land. It made you but it could also break you.

‘Montmorency Downs once included McCauley's Hill. When my great-grandparents died, they left the arable land to my grandfather and the marginal hill country to Joe. At the time Joe was working away, falling trees up the bush. That was his job and he was only home on the weekends. My grandfather, on the other hand, had leased the low country off his parents when they retired and was working it, all day, every day, milking cows. It seemed fair the way my grandparents explained it when I wanted to know why Joe hated us. Now, well, now I'm not so sure.' She remembered the state of the house she'd just been in, and compared it with the more stately and opulent homestead down at the bottom of the hill. The antiques, a legacy of five generations, crowding the rooms at Montmorency; the single wooden ladder-back chair in the kitchen behind her.

‘Dogs are done, Dad.' Billy arrived at their side.

‘Righto, boy. Let's move then.'

Tammy glanced one last time at the house. The rocking chair, the culprit of all the commotion, lay discarded on its side. The rifle was nowhere to be seen.

‘Trav? The rifle?'

‘Locked it up in his gun cabinet. Found one in the shed.'

‘Right, thanks.' Although Tammy wasn't sure
why
she was thanking him. It wasn't like she had the right to thank anyone on Joe's behalf. She jumped into the ute beside Billy as Trav piled into the driver's seat and took off.

As they drove down the road to Tammy's, Trav lifted his eyebrow. ‘Decision time, Ms McCauley. What's it to be? Our company or your own?'

Tammy took a look down the drive. Shon's twin-cab was nowhere to be seen. Good. But at the moment, her own company sucked.

‘I'll ride shotgun with you boys, if you don't mind.'

A clap from Billy beside her sealed the deal.

And Trav turned to her and half smiled.

Tammy amended her thoughts on that look being deemed illegal. By the feel of her tummy, outlawed was more like it.

Chapter 15

‘What's wrong with plastic bags?' Trav asked, perplexed, as he watched Billy and Tammy load Joe's things into a new overnight bag. They'd stopped off at Drapers Emporium on their way and were now standing in the hospital car park.

‘
Dad
!
You can't send him to hospital with plastic bags. He'll look all different from the others.'

‘The others? What others?'

‘The other patients.' Billy stopped short of rolling his eyes. Trav was about to tick him off for his attitude, when he could have sworn he saw Tammy rolling her eyes as well.

‘Right. The others. I get it.' Of course he did. But when had he, Travis Hunter, ever worried what anyone else thought of him? Since Kat left you with a two-and-half-year-old son to raise, you hard-arsed bushman.

‘Let's go find out what old Joe's done to himself,' said Tammy as she zipped up the bag. ‘I reckon he'll still be in casualty. The Narree ED has never been known for its ability to fast track its patients.'

Travis moved to take the bag from Tammy, but stopped when she threw him another killer look. She took off across the car park.

He stuck his hands in his pockets instead and strode towards the front entrance after his son. Where was this desire to help a woman he didn't even know coming from? He'd never had it before. Well, not since Kat left.

‘Mr Hunter? Mr Hunter! Beatrice Parker's my name, and tracking you down is my game.'

He swung around and met clear space and fresh air.

‘Down here, Mr Hunter, down here.'

He shifted his line of sight south a couple of feet and was rewarded by two twinkling blackcurrant eyes staring up at him.

‘What are you doing here?' asked Beatrice. ‘Not hurt, are you? What about your boy? He all right?'

An Uzi couldn't have spat questions faster. ‘Nope. Just visiting.'

‘Well, I'm here to cheer. You look like you need a bit of jollying along. Was that Tammy McCauley who went in just in front of you? There's a likely sort of nancy to fancy.'

‘She's married, Mrs Parker.'

‘Not for long. I just met Mrs Sellers. She sells craft on a stall here at the hospital for the church, and she's been texting . . . or was it sex-ting?' The old woman put a finger under her chin in studied thought. ‘All these odd words they're putting in the dictionary these days, I don't know. How's a woman supposed to keep up with it all, I ask you?' The blackcurrant eyes widened to the size of sultanas.

‘Anyway, she's been chatting to her husband Rob on one of those fancy iPhone thingies. I really need to get one of those. Did you know you can play Scrabble on them? Now where was I? Oh yes, Rob. Anyway, he's just been buying a sausage roll at the corner store, although I think the roadhouse makes them better . . .'

Trav was still back at sex-ting. What the hell? ‘. . . and he was talking to the alcohol deliveryman, from the pub? And
he
said, Shon Murphy's just moved in with Joanne at the Lake Grace Hotel.'

‘Is that so?' He'd moved from Scrabble to Shon Murphy.

‘Yes, and it's all happened today! Although that man has been dangling the angles all over the place, just like
those
Murphys do, so it doesn't surprise me he's finally hustled for a hussy. So tell me, what's Tammy doing here?'

‘Her uncle,' he said, distracted. The bastard was gone?

‘
Joe?
' Mrs Parker's jaw dropped. Her mouth started flapping but no sound came out. The sight was enough to make Trav refocus.

‘Yes. Joe,' he said as he went to walk away; the damned woman slipped around in front of him and blocked him.

‘Those families haven't talked in years. In fact, I don't think Joe's
ever
talked to the girl. What's happened?'

‘Don't rightly know, Mrs Parker, but if you'll excuse me, I'd better be –'

‘Don't you go getting all tetchy now, son. I'm just worried for Tammy. Donald once told me the whole story, but I hoped Joe might have been able to put it aside, make up with the girl after she lost her family.'

Story? What story? Trav stopped then tried his half-smile. It seemed to work on Tammy, maybe it would work here too. ‘What story was that, Mrs Parker?'

He watched as the little blackcurrants went slightly misty, and Beatrice's head dipped, like a confidence was about to be shared. ‘We-ell,' drawled the woman as she paused for a deep breath. ‘Joe used to work for my father up the bush. It was when Joe was a young fella and he started up there in a logging coupe, cutting down trees by hand with a crosscut saw. He was wanting to earn money to buy some woman an engagement ring. But while Joe was up the scrub, his brother met the same woman. Mae was her name. She married him.' An arthritic hand came up to dab at something which looked suspiciously like a tear. ‘Joe was devastated. He never went back to the farm. Never spoke to his brother again that I know of. Didn't even go to their funeral when they were killed in that car accident.'

So Joe had been found wanting too. By Tammy's grandmother. Mae had moved on to another bloke. Bloody women. It only confirmed his opinion once again. Love them and they leave. Love them and you'll get hurt, big time.

‘It was a train, you see, that killed Tom and Mae. A level crossing without lights or boom gates, just on the other side of Lake Grace. Bang, and they were both gone, leaving their granddaughter on her own. Oh, she was in her late twenties by then but even so . . .' Beatrice paused, seeming to run out of words.

Trav waited, hoping for more information. He wanted to know what had happened to Tammy's actual parents.

As if she had read his mind, Beatrice sighed, ‘And then there was the poor girl's
mother 
. . . '

‘Dad? Tammy needs you.' It was Billy speaking softly while pulling on his arm.

‘What?'

‘Tammy. She needs you, c'mon.' His son was dragging him in the direction of Casualty, leaving Mrs Parker staring after them.

‘Bye, Travis,' called Beatrice. ‘Happy hunting!' As he glanced at her, he could have sworn the old woman winked. It was that flutter of her right eye again. Maybe it was a tic. Maybe it wasn't. Whatever it was, it didn't really matter because up ahead all he could hear was Joe McCauley's voice:

‘
Fuck of
f
! Just get me out of here!'

Tammy was standing beside the curtain to the cubicle, her back to the heavy plastic doors that led to the rest of the hospital. Joe was sitting up on a trolley bed facing her, a hospital gown round his middle baring a grey-haired and wrinkly chest. He was yelling his head off.

‘I'm not being admitted into no fuckin' hospital. You just put me back in that ambulance and take me home!'

‘But Mr McCauley, you have a broken hip.' This was from a registrar clutching X-ray films, standing a safe distance from the bed. ‘And you need an operation to give you the best chance of recovery.'

‘I don't give a shit what you think. There's nothing wrong with me. I've just got a few bruises.'

‘Mr McCauley,' said a nurse, who stepped out from behind the registrar. She was employing her very best ‘difficult patient' voice. ‘The break is high up in the hip socket. We need to operate to set it in the right place, so you can walk properly again. The orthopedic surgeon told you that.'

‘You're not getting your mitts on my body, you damned hussy! There's nothing wrong with me. Take me back to my –' Joe stopped when he spotted Hunter.

Tammy, the registrar and nurse all turned to see what had caught his attention.

‘Trav, maybe you can make Joe see some sense?' Tammy interjected. She had her arms folded across her chest.

‘Tell them, Hunter. Tell them I'm fine,' said Joe, glimpsing a chance of redemption. ‘See, he's a bushman, he understands. You can't shut me up in this place. All these walls and people and sterile things and no fresh air.' His voice went from full throttle to a pitiful whine. ‘You just
can't
.'

Trav shifted from one foot to the other. Why was he the one they were all looking at for the answers? He felt like a wild dog that'd just been cornered. How the hell had he got himself into this situation?

He could relate to what the old man was saying, sure he could, but looking at the registrar's face was enough to tell him the break wasn't good. How to get that through to old Joe though? There was a chance to fix things and if the old bloke wanted to remain independent, well . . .

Travis sighed. A man had to do what a man had to do.

‘Joe.' Trav drawled it out slow but steady, all the time keeping his eyes on the old bloke's face. They conducted a silent conversation.

Be a man, McCauley. Stand up and be a man.

I'm old and I'm fuckin' scared.

It'll be right. We'll take care of you.

I don't need taking care of!

You do.

Don't want to have to rely on anyone.

Stiff shit. You're going to have to.

It took a few moments but then, finally, movement. Old Joe's nod was almost imperceptible and Trav was sure he was the only one who caught it. He looked down at his son. Billy was standing by his side, a small smile on his face. He'd got the message too.

Not so the nurse. ‘Mr McCauley, you must have this operation –'

‘All right!' snapped Joe, still looking at Hunter.

‘What?' The nurse was taken aback. ‘What did you say?'

‘I said all right. What, are you deaf as well as dumb?'

‘Uncle Joe.' Tammy's voice held a warning.

‘Don't you Uncle Joe me, you –'

‘I know, I know, you fucking land-grabber,' said Tammy, arms still folded. ‘You've made that perfectly clear. And I'm not so keen on you either. Be as rude as you like to me, but these people here' – she swung her arm out to encompass the medical staff – ‘they're here to
help
you. The least you can do is be polite.'

The tense silence that followed was broken by a doctor entering the cubicle. Trav assumed he was the ortho­paedic surgeon. Long, thin, bare fingers stroked a clipboard as he contemplated his notes. ‘I've spoken to theatre,' he said, unaware of the atmosphere around him though he could have cut it with one of his scalpels. ‘We can go in as soon as the operating suite is free.' He looked bored – and a little arrogant too. ‘Now, Mr . . . ?'

‘McCauley. It's Mr Joe McCauley,' said the nurse, simpering at the new arrival. The registrar had muttered something and disappeared. Must have known he was out-gunned, thought Trav.

‘Joe, we need to operate on your hip.' The man spoke slowly and deliberately, like he was addressing a child. ‘You'll have to be in hospital a short while but then you should be right to head home to . . . ?'

‘Lake Grace. McCauley's Hill, Lake Grace,' said the nurse. She really wanted to please.

‘Do you live on your own, Joe?'

‘Nup. I've got me two dogs and cattle.'

The doctor looked up. ‘No one else? A wife? Partner? Friend?'

‘Nup. Don't need nobody else. Just me dogs and cattle.'

‘They're not likely to be able to look after you though, are they? While you're recuperating?'

‘I don't know 'bout that. Boots and Digger'll do well enough.'

The doctor ignored Joe and spoke to the nurse. ‘He'll have to go into the Lake Grace nursing home for some respite care after here. Can you organise that?' The man spoke like it was a rhetorical question. He smiled his smarmy grin and the nurse melted like a Mars Bar on a hot dashboard.

‘Now you just wait a cotton-pickin' minute! I ain't goin' into no bloody nursing home! I'm going back to me hill,' said Joe, sitting up straighter, then quickly lying back down with an agonised look on his face. The old man was starting to shake so bad the bed was rattling. ‘I'm goin' home! Tell them, Hunter. I'm going home!'

‘Mr . . . ?'

‘McCauley.' The nurse piped up again.

‘Right. McCauley. Well, you won't be able to look after yourself for a while following your discharge from hospital. I'm sorry but it
will
have to be the nursing home.'

Joe looked terrified.

Trav felt something crawl up his leg. A hand tug on his shirt.

Billy.

‘We'll look after him.'

Trav looked around. Who said that? Then he realised
he
had. Shit.

‘Trav?' said Tammy. ‘Are you sure?'

No, I'm not fucking sure, he thought as he opened his mouth to speak. He hadn't talked this much in months. ‘He can go home to his hill. Billy and me – we'll look after him.'

The sheer relief on Joe's face was worth it.