The Grass Castle (38 page)

But now the story is different. The police said a man had come across Doug’s skeleton in the mountains some years ago and retrieved his skull. The man hadn’t considered the consequences of his find, or the meaning it might have for someone else—least of all Doug’s family. He’d passed the skull on to a friend who collected bones . . . this was the worst of it for Daphne: the concept of Doug’s skull sitting as a showpiece in a stranger’s home. After the police had departed, she’d vomited up her distress and flushed it down the toilet. Too late for being precious now, she’d told herself . . . but it was a bit rich for someone to keep Doug’s skull.

‘How can it be your fault?’ Daphne says, dismissing Abby’s concern.

‘I know the guy who had it.’

Daphne finds this hard to believe but Abby’s face is serious.

‘That guy with the red Commodore,’ Abby says. ‘He told me he had a human skull in his collection and I told him he had to hand it in.’ She shakes her head. ‘I never imagined it could have anything to do with you. I just thought it was wrong, that he shouldn’t have it, and that a proper burial was necessary.’

Daphne feels overwhelmed by all this information. ‘It isn’t your fault,’ she repeats.

‘But what if you’d died when you found out? I couldn’t have lived with that. As it was you collapsed again, and I feel so guilty.’

Now Daphne sees where the girl is coming from. ‘My little episode had nothing to do with Doug’s skull turning up. It was just an unlucky coincidence . . . or rather, a fortunate event, according to the doctors. Now we know what is happening with my health, they can do something about it. I’m supposed to be happy about that.’

‘But you’re not?’

Daphne frowns. ‘Nobody celebrates having surgery at my age.’

Abby grins. ‘I guess not.’ Then her face lines again with worry.

‘I’ll be fine,’ Daphne says. ‘They say I’m in top shape, whatever that means. And I intend to survive. I want to live.’

It’s such a ridiculous epiphany she almost laughs.
She likes being alive
. And she’s good at it. A lifetime of experience and she knows how to do it; such a pity to waste all that by dying. She sees now why she is here when Doug is not. It isn’t because she is weak. She chose life because she is strong, because she can face things, absorb pain. Not everyone can. Doug wasn’t able to.

‘My husband didn’t want to live,’ she says to Abby. ‘That’s why his skull ended up in those mountains. He couldn’t cope with the suburbs.’

It had been clear from the moment they moved, and she remembers it all so clearly—how a dark entity had taken residence inside Doug. He’d folded in on himself like a closing anemone, all the soft parts hiding away, the lights going off. She’d seen it each morning when he emerged, empty-eyed, from the bedroom. He was sleeping late and it seemed a great weariness was pressing him down. On the farm, he never slept in. He was up with the kookaburras in the early pre-dawn, and by the time the morning sun crept over the ridge, he’d already had breakfast and was out with a lead-rope in his hand, looking for his horse.

‘Doug just wasn’t cut out for urban living,’ she tells Abby. ‘He’d lived almost a lifetime on the land, with air and space around him. He couldn’t fit his soul into a backyard. The fences hemmed him in.’

Daphne would find him lying on the bed, hands folded on his chest, eyes closed. She would stand at the door watching him breathe, the sadness simmering inside him. More than once she offered to take him to the mountains for a daytrip or a picnic but his eyes remained shut and he refused to go, said he didn’t want to.

‘I tried everything,’ she says. ‘I suggested golf, bowls, bingo, bridge, the Rotary Club. But Doug refused everything. He said golf and bowls were for old people who couldn’t entertain themselves. That he’d be damned if he would sit around talking with city folk, pretending he was interested in what they had to say. Said he’d rather be dead in his grave.’

Abby laughs. ‘I think I agree with him,’ she says. ‘Bowls is boring. But who am I to comment? I’ve never played it.’

None of it had sounded particularly appealing to Daphne either, but she’d known they had to find a way to prop themselves up, and it seemed the only way was to engage with the community. There were fights every time she tried to force Doug into life.
Let’s find things to do together,
she’d said. Maybe it was time for them to retire anyway. Other people retired in their fifties, didn’t they? Public servants with big superannuation payouts? The payout for the farm would serve as their super. They would invest it, make it last the distance, and if it ran out they would probably qualify for the pension. Maybe enforced retirement could be a good thing. They’d worked hard all their lives. Perhaps they could stop and enjoy themselves, do some recreational things, maybe buy a caravan and travel around Australia, join the Grey Nomads.

‘It was a tough thing to face forced retirement in middle age,’ she says. ‘Doug wasn’t young, but he certainly wasn’t old. He was in his late fifties with plenty of work left in his bones. But it wasn’t likely he could find other employment. What would he do? Work on a road gang turning stop signs? Fill shelves at the supermarket? Of course not! And he wasn’t the sort to sit around and chew the fat. Not unless it was with other farmers, discussing the cattle markets, or the price of land, problems with weeds, the cost of hiring labour. By the time we left the farm, he was definitely starting to slow down but he wasn’t ready to retire. He was a worker, never idle. In the suburbs, he ground to a halt like an engine without fuel. Then our old dog died, and everything went downhill from there.’

Daphne pauses for a moment then decides to tell Abby everything—the girl is an adult after all, and there’s probably not much she can’t handle. She settles herself, knowing this won’t be easy. But she feels she needs to do it. If Abby knows the story behind Doug’s disappearance, she will understand it better. Daphne draws a steadying breath then lets the story come out.

She remembers the day clearly. It was autumn, fine and cool. Doug had woken in a strangely euphoric mood. He’d emerged early from bed and listened to the radio as he ate breakfast. Over coffee, he asked Daphne about her plans for the day, said she ought to go out and buy herself a new dress, said he might go out himself, maybe visit his friend, Sel. Selwyn owned a small property out of Queanbeyan where sometimes Doug went to help out or talk about the old days. Daphne hoped Sel might be able to lift Doug out of his gloom. Doug was always good after visiting with Sel, came home with a bounce in his stride, as if he’d found the missing part of his soul.

She didn’t ask what he would do after visiting Sel, preferring to leave him in his upbeat state of mind—it was such a nice change from his moping. She decided to go shopping to buy some nice thick steaks for a barbecue dinner. Doug liked a good steak, and Daphne had found a decent butcher in town who knew his cuts. Perhaps they would have a happier evening. They might talk some more, laugh together, remember good times.

Doug came to her then, and folded her in his arms, held her strong. Daphne was surprised at this uncommon show of affection—he’d been so locked into himself since they shifted to the city but she relaxed against him, and drew in the sweet smell of his neck, the familiar mustiness of his beard. When they pulled apart, Daphne saw a bright gleam in Doug’s eyes, so she pushed herself against him once more, kissed him then grabbed her handbag from the table and hurried out the door. That night she would cook him a feast and they would be together as they hadn’t been in months.

When she came home from the shops, the house was silent, which was no surprise as Doug had probably gone out. She put the shopping on the table and wandered through the house looking for him, just in case he was home and perhaps sleeping. But the house was deserted. She went out to the garage, and yes, Doug’s work truck was gone. On the workbench, his tool boxes sat undisturbed.

She passed the day cleaning and gardening, and by the time she went to shower and prepare dinner, she was very happy with herself. She put on a fresh dress then donned an apron while she chopped vegies and marinated the steak. When everything was ready, she turned on the TV for the evening news and picked up her knitting to kill time till Doug arrived. He should be back soon; he was rarely out after dark.

But dark came and Doug did not appear. She began to worry. He was never usually out this long, and if he was likely to be late, he generally rang. Once or twice he had met up with a friend at the pub and drunk himself silly, but this had only happened a few times and Daphne couldn’t blame him. If drink was an occasional salve for despondency, she could cope. Even then, he’d called from the pub to let her know he was all right. Then he’d caught a taxi home and she’d bundled him into bed.

At seven o’clock the phone rang and Daphne leapt to answer it. But it was only Sel, and Daphne suppressed her disappointment.
Just wondering when Doug’s planning on bringing my truck back
, Sel said with an edge of grumpiness.
Wouldn’t mind getting my horse back too. Thought Doug would have shown up by now, with it getting dark and all.

Surprise then irritation ran down Daphne’s spine. Doug must have had plans for today that he hadn’t shared with her. If he’d taken a horse in a truck, he must have gone riding somewhere. Pity he hadn’t invited her too. She would have enjoyed it.
What’s he been up to, Sel?
she asked
. I don’t know a thing about it.

Doug had gone round to Sel’s place that morning and said he wanted to go for a ride. He had taken his saddle with him, which Sel said looked like it had been cleaned up a treat, maybe oiled not so long ago. Daphne remembered Doug pulling the saddle out from the shed just the week before. It had seemed a bit strange at the time, but Daphne had figured it was part of his healing process, to retain some links with their rural life. He’d muddled around looking for saddle soap then foamed it up and cleaned off the mould that had crept over the saddle. After that he’d gone out and bought a new pot of neat’s-foot oil from the produce store. She’d watched him smooth it over the saddle to make the leather dark and supple again. She hadn’t suspected he’d been planning something.

Sel said Doug had gone out for a ride, but wasn’t sure where, maybe on the old property if he could find a way in. But Daphne knew you couldn’t get into that country anymore, because the gates were all locked.

As soon as Sel was off the phone she rang the police. She was worried there might have been an accident. Doug could have taken a fall or crashed the truck. The police were helpful, but said maybe Doug was still on his way home, and that she should call them later if he didn’t show up. Daphne sat tight in the lounge room and watched the news play out, but she didn’t hear a thing. On the kitchen bench, the steaks were waiting. At eight o’clock she put them back in the fridge.

Another hour dragged by, and Daphne was exploding with tension. Nine o’clock came and she couldn’t wait any longer. She decided to go out to the old farm and find him herself. She rang Pam, who wanted to come too, but a great urgency had planted itself in Daphne’s chest and she couldn’t delay. She took a coat, hat and torch and plunged into the night.

The road to the valley was dark and quiet, not another car passed her by; she was alone with the halo of her headlights shining on the branches of the roadside trees that reached eerily overhead. She began to wish she had waited for Pam; the night had become huge with dreadful possibilities. She kept returning to Doug’s strangely elated mood that morning, and she wondered what he had been thinking. She hadn’t thought to check the gun cupboard before she left. What if he had decided to remove himself the same way he finished off the sick dog? But she didn’t think he was the sort to shoot himself. And yet how well did she really know this changed man who was her husband? Before they came to the city, she thought she knew him, but he had evolved into someone else. She didn’t understand the new darkness that he wore inside him like a cave, and it frightened her to consider that he might have hurt himself. She wanted him home and safe.

As she neared the valley, turning off the main road, the tightness in her throat increased. She rattled the car over the cattle grid into the park, winding through the shadowy forest and dodging a wallaby that leapt onto the road, dazzled by the headlights. At the entry track to the old homestead, she found the gate open, the chain snipped by bolt-cutters. She drove through the gateway and followed the track downhill, kangaroos bouncing out of her way like crazy wind-up toys. Straining to see ahead, she could just make out the shadowy silhouette of the homestead. Then down by the yards, her car headlights illuminated another shape—a large hulking shadow. Closer, she could see the reflection of tail-lights: Sel’s truck.

She pulled up and swung out of her car. It was dark, quiet, nobody around. Wind sang in the grass and, out across the valley, a kangaroo barked. She cast the beam of her torch into the night, but it penetrated no more than five metres and all she could see were two rabbits bopping among the tussocks. She figured Doug must have ridden out from here, and she peered into the blackness as if expecting that he and the horse might suddenly loom from obscurity. She cooeed and hallooed, waiting for a reply. But all that came back were echoes, faint sounds bouncing from the boulders on the ridge.

The search began the next day. Parks and SES vehicles headed up into the wilderness, and people in fluoro-orange overalls combed the valley while helicopters buzzed over peaks. Near the homestead, Daphne waited with the director of operations and Pam and Pam’s new boyfriend Ray, who had kindly come along in support. It seemed many hours elapsed before Sel’s horse was found up high near Mount Bimberi, the saddle still on its back, skewed but intact. A stirrup was missing. And so was Doug.

The SES troops shifted the focus of their search to higher country where they raked the high tops and alpine meadows, the crooked snow-gum forests, walking in formation across the landscape, seeking evidence, looking for something, anything. But the day passed into night, and there was still no Doug. As each hour ticked itself off, an awful clarity settled in Daphne’s mind. She was certain he was dead, that he had wandered off into his country as he had always wanted to.