Beautiful Lies (35 page)

“Yeah? Well, mine might take me back, I guess. But I'm a drongo. Still and always. Nothing's changed.”

He had to guess what a drongo was. “You're not. You're funny and clever, and you have a good heart. You make the best out of things, whatever they are. And you stand up for
yourself when you have to. Anybody who wants to be successful has to learn that.”

She seemed surprised he could find anything good to say about her. “Think so?”

“Yeah. And you're smart enough to do anything you want. You could be good in school, if you thought it mattered.”

“Not good enough to make Mum and Dad happy.”

“Maybe that changed while you were away. Maybe they've done some thinking. You have, haven't you?”

She didn't nod, but in the pale light of a canopy of stars, she looked pensive.

The ute slowed to a halt, and Noel opened his door. The two blue heelers riding on the seat beside him began to yelp as he came around to the back and pointed down a dirt track. He was a man of few words. “Jimiramira.”

Matthew swung himself over the side and reached for Tricia to help her to the ground. Then he grabbed the canvas covered sleeping bags and handed one to her. “About how far, do you think?”

Noel scratched his head. Then he shrugged.

“Six hours by foot?” Tricia asked.

“About.”

Matthew held out his hand. “Thanks, Noel. We really appreciate the ride.”

Noel shook his hand, but dropped it quickly. “Don't wander.” Without another word he got back in his ute. The dogs quieted and the engine roared. In a moment he was a cloud of dust. In two he was gone.

Matthew couldn't remember ever experiencing a world that was so completely still. If Tricia hadn't been there beside him, he would have been sure he was the only person left alive.

She plopped her swag on the ground and dropped to sit
on it, head in hands. “I'm knackered. Don't tell me we're going to knock about the old backblocks tonight.”

“Let's get down the road a little. Then we can find a place to camp.”

“We don't have to go way off in the bush. No worries someone's going to run us down out here.”

He turned on the flashlight, and they started along the track, picking their way carefully in the darkness. Despite his exhaustion, Matthew felt excitement rising. “Do you suppose we're on Jimiramira? I mean, it's a big place, right?”

“Mopoke. We've probably been on the station for miles and miles.”

“Why didn't you say something?”

“I figured you knew.”

“This is where my dad was raised.” Matthew tried to imagine that. This was where his grandfather had been raised, too. And his great-grandfather. He was a Llewellyn, and this was Llewellyn land. An apartment in the city was one thing. But the apartment building only had streetlights. Jimiramira had stars, galaxies, an entire universe, shimmering above it.

“I'm not going a step farther.” Tricia stopped in the middle of the track. “This is it.”

Matthew looked off in the distance. He had been born in Australia, and since he was old enough to read he had devoured every book about the country he could find. But he wasn't sure what to call anything. Plants were different here. He recognized eucalyptus trees, because they were common enough in California, but the landscape was so alien he almost felt as if he were exploring another planet.

The land stretched back from the track in low, undulating waves—not hills, exactly, but products of wind, water
and erosion. Somehow he had expected grass. It was a ranch, after all, a station. But no grass was in evidence as far as he could make out. Only tufts of vegetation and odd desert shrubs. There were trees, too. A few towered high in the distance, but most seemed stunted and forlorn.

“I've camped a lot,” Matthew said. “How about you?”

“More than I wanted.”

“Mrs. Myrtle gave us some matches.” Matthew shone the flashlight in a circle around them. “Let's figure out where we want to sleep, then we can find some sticks and start a campfire.”

“A regular Boy Scout.” Tricia shook her head, but she didn't argue.

They settled on a wide bare patch about fifteen yards from the track. Tricia spread the canvas and untied their sleeping bags, while Matthew took the flashlight and searched for wood. He found enough within a hundred yards to start a good-sized blaze. It seemed as dry as the landscape, and he was glad they had chosen a spot away from trees. He didn't think his grandfather would be impressed with him if he started a bushfire.

Just to be safe, he collected stones, an easy enough task, and made a ring before he piled the wood in the middle. For some reason he remembered a Jack London story he'd read in English class about a freezing man with only a match or two between himself and death. He wondered if his own fire would catch. Suddenly he didn't want to be here, in this silent, desolate place a million miles from San Francisco, without a fire. “I wish we had some paper….”

“No worries. We've got something better.” Tricia stripped dried leaves from some of the branches he had brought back with him. “Gum leaves are so full of oil, the trees explode like bombs in a bushfire.”

“You've seen it?”

“Nah. But my dad has. He's not a reader, Dad isn't, but he loves to tell stories. At night, when I was a little girl, he'd put me to bed if my mum was busy, and he'd tell me about growing up here and the things he saw.”

Matthew knew that Tricia must be as tired as he was, because she sounded wistful, as if it was just too exhausting to hide her feelings. “My dad tells me stories, too. That was the only way I could find out what it's like to be here.”

“You never came to visit him?”

“No.” Matthew piled the leaves in the middle of his circle and lit a match. They caught quickly, and soon enough the twigs had caught, too. When the fire was burning brightly and he was satisfied it was going to continue, he took the flashlight and went in search of more wood. Three trips later he was sure they had enough for the night.

Matthew crawled into his sleeping bag, which Tricia had laid out right next to hers so they could share the biggest piece of canvas. The temperature had dropped as darkness fell, and he was grateful for the fire as well as warm covers. The ground beneath him was hard, but he didn't think that was going to matter.

He was all set to sleep. He was exhausted.

And he was still wide-awake.

Beside him, Tricia tossed and turned, as if she couldn't get comfortable in any position. “Are you okay?” he asked.

“I'm not used to sleeping when it's dark.”

He thought about that, and his cheeks flamed. “Are you going to get used to it?”

“I don't know.”

“Did you like that…you know…so much you want to keep doing it?”

“You mean having sex for money?”

That was exactly what he'd meant. “Uh-huh.”

“I never did it ‘cause I liked it. I didn't plan to do it when I left home. I thought I'd get a real job at a bank. I'm good with figures, that's one thing I can do. But I couldn't find anything, and then I met Charlie. He made me feel special, like I was important. At first I didn't know what he wanted. Then, well, it seemed like the only thing to do. I thought I could just save some money, you know, and then I could find something better.”

“Why didn't you take the job that lady at the bookstore offered you?”

She was silent for so long he didn't think she was going to answer. “Mrs. Duff knew what I'd been doing, you see. I knew she'd be watching me all the time and wondering if I was up to no good. She was trying to save me from myself, only I didn't think I needed it. I'm not a bad person.”

“Well, you stole my wallet.”

“But I thought you'd be okay. I always picked people who looked like they'd be okay.” She paused. “I guess that part
was
bad, though. I didn't much like stealing, but I had to give Charlie money every night, whether I'd been with men or not. And sometimes that was the only way I could do it.”

Matthew closed his eyes. The stars were so brilliant the sight of them made his chest hurt.

“I'm sorry,” Tricia said. “If I hadn't nicked it, you'd be with your grandfather right now. You wouldn't be hungry—”

“I'm not hungry.”

“Well, you wouldn't be out here on the ground now, would you?”

“Neither would you. You'd be back in Sydney, stealing somebody else's wallet or—kissing men.”

“Not a lot of kissing goes on.”

His cheeks flamed again. “I know what goes on. That was just a nice way of saying it.”

“
Do
you know what goes on?”

He was silent.

“Have you ever done it?” she asked.

He remained silent, growing warm in new and distant places.

“I guess not,” she said, humor in her voice.

“I'm only fourteen. Almost fifteen.”

“No. Really?”

He was gratified she sounded surprised. She wasn't an easy girl to fool. “Really.”

“Do you want to do it?”

He stiffened. A touch had accompanied her words. Now her hand rested lightly on his shoulder.

Did he want to do it? Was he a healthy teenage boy who had reached puberty early? Did he have a rich fantasy life that couldn't possibly be as satisfying as the real thing?

“I mean, if that's what you want,” Tricia said, “I could show you how.”

No one would ever know whether she showed him or not. In fact, Matthew guessed that anyone who had seen them together just assumed they had been…that they'd done…

He couldn't even say the words to himself.

“I didn't ask you to come with me for that.” He choked out his response.

“Oh, I reckon I know. I thought American boys were sophisticated, but you're not. You're shy, aren't you?”

“No. I just don't think this is right.”

“You're a Bible-basher, are you?”

“No! I just don't think it should be this easy for you.”

“You don't want me selling it, but I'm not supposed to give it away, either?”

“You're doing it because I've been nice to you, that's all. It's not supposed to be a reward. You're supposed to be in love. Or something.”

She giggled. “You don't have to love somebody for all your parts to work right. That's a dead bird.”

“Maybe not. But it's better if you do, isn't it? Haven't you ever done it with somebody you cared about? Wasn't it better?”

She pulled her hand away. For a moment he thought he had hurt her feelings. “I never have,” she said at last. “But I thought maybe I was going to have the chance tonight.”

He turned toward her. In the flickering firelight her face seemed innocent and vulnerable. He reached out and touched her cheek. “I like you, too.”

“Don't you think I'm pretty?”

He remembered one of his father's favorite expressions. “Abso-bloody-lutely.”

She giggled. “Maybe you'll come back to Australia when you're older. Maybe I'll be somebody else by then, somebody better.”

“I like you the way you are.”

“Well, if you do come back, you won't know where to find me. I'm not going home to Humpty Doo.”

“Right.”

“But I'm not going back to Sydney, either.”

“Good on ya.”

“You're sure about tonight?”

He was sure, but he knew it would take some time for his body to cooperate. He settled for taking her hand and threading his fingers through hers. Slowly they fell asleep under the gleaming canopy of stars.

R
oman Llewellyn kept to himself. His men understood and honored that, and so did the owners of the neighboring stations, who had long since given up inviting him to socialize. He attended the local yearly race meeting, participated in the occasional charity fund-raiser, and opened the homestead for an old-fashioned bush barbecue at the end of each year's muster, inviting all his employees and anyone else who cared to come.

But Roman's hospitality was governed by the calendar. He would no more consider attending an impromptu gathering than he would casually shoot Jimiramira's prize Brahman bulls. He preferred solitude, craved it, in fact, and vastly preferred the company of a horse to any man he knew.

He was a stern taskmaster, whipcord lean and even now, at sixty-three, as strong as any man half his age. He drank whatever and whenever he pleased, ate a diet rich in station beef, and until a year ago—when he'd finally given up the habit—rolled his own cigarettes. He had never been inside a health club, but he still rode for hours each day and
did every job he asked of others. He was “Boss” to his men and “Mr. Llewellyn” to his housekeeper and cook. He could hardly remember the last time anybody had called him Roman.

Or Dad.

“Boss, someone on the phone, back at the house.”

Roman looked up to see Luke, one of the aboriginal station hands, standing at the stable door. He couldn't imagine who might try to reach him. Jimiramira's staff was large. He had a pastoral superintendent, a commercial manager, a bookkeeper, a housekeeper. Although his word was final, there was always someone more suited to answer inquiries than he was.

He looked down and continued picking the hoof of the thoroughbred gelding in the first stall. “Bloody shoe. Never did fit to start with,” he muttered. “Told Sandy to have it fixed. He'll hear about this.”

“Boss, you want I tell Mrs. Myrtle to ring you some other time?”

He looked up again and frowned. “Helen Myrtle?”

“That's who it is, yeah.”

Roman dropped the horse's hoof and dusted his hands on his trousers. “I'll take it here.”

Luke jammed his felt hat deeper over his ears and strode off toward the house. Roman headed for the tack room, where he'd had a radiotelephone installed when the technology had become available. He picked up the receiver and punched a button. “Helen?”

He listened for a moment. “You're certain?” he said, when Helen Myrtle had finished. He listened again, thanked her and hung up the receiver.

“Bloody hell.” He shoved his hands in his pockets and rocked back on his heels.

Roman Llewellyn might keep to himself and prefer it that way. But apparently a young man named Matthew Llewellyn did not.

 

“It's winter here, right? It's not supposed to be hot.” Matthew trudged along the road next to Tricia, his sleeping bag under his arm. He wasn't sure what time it was. At some point on the trip to Jimiramira, the battery in his watch had died. He didn't know when they had awakened and eaten their sandwiches, and he didn't know how long they had been walking. He only knew that the next time they stopped to rest, they would finish their water.

What if they weren't on the right road? What if somehow they had gotten turned around?

“This isn't hot,” Tricia informed him. “You don't know hot, do you?”

“It never gets cooler than this?”

“At night.”

He had been cold as he slept. He remembered waking to a great, brooding silence and wishing that he and Tricia could share their sleeping bags. He'd lain awake for a while, fantasizing about that, but eventually he'd piled more wood on the fire instead.

“How long do you think we've been walking?” Matthew said.

“It doesn't matter, does it? We have to walk until we get there.”

“You don't think we got turned around?”

“No, Yank, I don't!”

He settled into stride again. He was surprised there wasn't more to see, but the uniformity of their surroundings was something he could count on. He had expected exotic marsupials of all shapes and sizes. Instead he'd
seen a cow or two in the distance, but nothing like the herds he'd imagined when Cullen told him stories of his childhood.

“I thought we'd see cowboys on horseback by now. Stuff like that,” he said after a while.

“More likely you'll see men in helicopters these days. They still use horses, only not as often for mustering. A station like this is so large it would take weeks to cover it any other way.”

“My dad said when he lived here they went out for weeks at a time on their horses and camped at night.”

“Still do, to work the beasts once they're in the yards. Only they use whatever's handiest to bring them in now. They probably still have men who ride the boundaries to keep an eye on the fences. Maybe your grandfather will give you a job.”

Matthew knew she was teasing, but he wondered what his grandfather would say if he asked to live here with him. He didn't want to, not really. He knew his mother would never come to visit, and his father hadn't been back in years. But even though the terrain was alien, even though he knew so little about how a station like this one was run, even though his grandfather was a stranger, Jimiramira still felt special to him.

They fell into a long silence. He ached from nights of sleeping in trucks. Even with a sleeping bag, the ground last night had been hard and unyielding. The sandwiches had already worn off, and his thirst was bigger than the remaining water. But all that seemed minor in comparison to the real question of the hour.

“You know,” he said at last, “my grandfather might not let us stay.”

“That'd be a cow of a thing, wouldn't it?”

“He and my dad go their separate ways. I'm not even sure he knows I exist.”

“Happy little family, huh?”

They crested a hill. Matthew hadn't minded the climb because he'd hoped that when they reached the top, the homestead might be in view. Instead he saw another long stretch and another low rise in the distance. “Crap.” He shook his head.

“Suppose he doesn't let you stay. What'll you do next?”

Matthew hadn't wanted to think about that. It had taken every bit of planning and energy just to come this far. “Oh, I'll just move on. I have to go somewhere else, too.”

“Where?”

“Western Australia.”

“You planning to walk?”

He moved the sleeping bag into a more comfortable position. “I don't have a plan. Not yet. Right now my plan is to see my grandfather.”

“Why do you have to go to Western Australia?”

“I just do, that's all.”

“I'm not going with you. Not this time.”

“At least
I
know where I have to go. You don't even know that.”

“Well, I know something you don't.”

“Like?”

“Somebody's coming.”

Matthew peered down the hill at the road beyond. At first he didn't see anything. Then, at the edge of the horizon, he saw dust clouds rising in puffs. His throat closed, and for a moment he was speechless.

Tricia filled in the gap. “I reckon we could keep walking, but it hardly seems wise, does it? Whoever it is will be here in a few minutes.” Tricia pulled the bottled water
from inside the waistband of her shirt and held it out to him. “Drink up, mate. You'll need all your strength, won't you?”

 

The homestead was not at all the way he had pictured it. Matthew felt the way he had on his first trip to Disneyland. Then he had expected nothing more than a pumped-up amusement park. This time he had expected the Jimiramira of Aunt Mei's description, with a few updates. His father had spoken only rarely of his boyhood home, preferring to tell stories of people he'd known and colorful trips into the outback. When questioned, Cullen had been evasive, as if he didn't want to think too much about what he'd lost.

Now, for the first time, Matthew understood. Cullen hadn't lost a house and a father. He had lost a village, an entire way of life, an identity.

“The boss, he's waiting up at the house.” The dark-skinned man named Luke got out of the ute and slammed the door behind him. Matthew opened his door and got out, motioning to Tricia to follow him.

She slid across the seat and down to the ground. “Right pretty place, don't you think?”

He did think. The main house where his grandfather was waiting was sparkling white and shaded by huge old gum trees with smooth, mottled bark and feathery leaves. A wide veranda with a dark red floor surrounded the house on the three sides he could see, shaded by an expansive corrugated metal roof. The veranda was surrounded by shrubs and flower borders, and the flourishing lawn was bordered by a green metal fence with an ornate gate.

He spoke his thoughts out loud. “I guess when the house burned down, they decided to build something better.”

“When did it burn?” Tricia asked.

He thought about Mei, whose age, to him, was indeterminate. “I don't know. A long time ago.”

“Didn't your father live here?”

“He doesn't talk much about it.”

“Uh-oh.”

He cleared his throat. Luke had disappeared, but other people moved around the periphery of his vision. The house was only one of many low-slung white buildings, and beyond the house was a wide stableyard, fenced and divided into paddocks. He glimpsed men on horseback, as well as a flotilla of vehicles. Far off to one side was an airstrip with a small plane at one edge and a helicopter at the other.

“Looks huge to you, doesn't it?” Tricia said. “It's not one of the biggest, though. Coolibah Downs, now there's a station. My dad was a stockman there. Jimiramira's an infant in comparison.”

“Is it?” He couldn't imagine. He suspected Jimiramira might be larger than some states in New England.

“Big enough, though,” Tricia conceded.

“We should go right in.” Matthew straightened his clothes, although there wasn't much he could do with a T-shirt and jeans. He had combed his hair with one of Mrs. Myrtle's donations, but he hadn't had water or toothpaste to brush his teeth, even though a new toothbrush resided in his pocket. He was meeting his grandfather looking exactly like a runaway instead of a man with a mission.

“I think I'll wait on the porch,” Tricia said.

“You're sure?”

“It's your frigging reunion, not mine.”

He wondered if she meant her own would come later. He hoped so.

He opened the gate and ushered her through. Then they walked along a stone pathway to the porch. Tricia split off
to take a seat on a green wooden bench nestled beneath a shuttered window. “Luck to you,” she said. Then she settled herself on the bench, thrust her feet in front of her and her back against the shutters, and closed her eyes.

Matthew knocked. A gray-haired woman in a plaid dress came to the screen door, a feather duster in one hand and a rag in the other. She seemed surprised.
He
was surprised no one had told her to expect him.

“Umm…I'm Matthew Llewellyn. I'm here to see my grandfather.”

For a moment she just stared at him, as if he had said he was there to burn down the house with everyone inside it. “Matthew?”

“That's right.” He sent her a shaky smile. When she didn't move, he cleared his throat. “I'm Cullen's son.”

She frowned. “Cullen?”

“Cullen Llewellyn. Roman Llewellyn's son.”

She muttered something under her breath, either a curse or a prayer. Then she opened the door and peered outside. “You've brought someone?”

“Yes, but she'd rather wait on the porch. If you don't mind,” he added quickly.

“Does your grandfather—”

“I'll see to him, Winnie,” a man said.

Matthew found an older man staring at him, his eyes narrowed in contemplation. Matthew's heart seemed to move in his chest. Winnie melted into the cool shadows of the house, and the man didn't speak again. Matthew knew it was up to him.

“Hello, sir. My name is Matthew Llewellyn. I'm Cullen's son. Are you…?” Suddenly he couldn't say the word. At school he had been surrounded by friends with family at their fingertips. He had ached for more time with his fa
ther, and for years he had imagined knowing this man and coming to this place.

But in his imagination, this man had smiled and welcomed him.

“I'm Roman Llewellyn.”

Matthew stood taller. “Then you're my grandfather.”

“I suppose.”

“I know you weren't expecting me.”

“An understatement.”

They stood quietly, taking each other's measure. Roman seemed both older and younger than Matthew had imagined. The boy could see traces of his father in Roman's weathered features, but the scowl, which seemed permanently etched in his face, was so unlike Cullen that Roman seemed even more a stranger.

Roman continued to scrutinize him. Matthew could feel his cheeks growing warm, but he refused to look away. “Where are your parents?” Roman asked at last.

“I don't know, sir. I haven't spoken to them since I left.”

“Left?”

Matthew tried to think how he could tell his story in the few words he sensed this man might give him. “My mother put me on a plane to New York to meet my dad, only I got off in Denver and made my way here, instead. I'd planned it that way.”

Roman nodded.

Matthew realized he was supposed to continue. “Well, you see, I knew I could never come here, to Australia, any other way. I left them a message and told them I'm safe, of course. But, it's just, well, they don't know where I am exactly.”

“Exactly?”

Matthew smiled wryly. “At all.”

“You've left out a thing or two.”

“Or three,” Matthew admitted.

“Why did you come to Jimiramira?”

“You're my grandfather.”