The White Earth (7 page)
Then he saw that both Dr Moffat and his mother were gazing at the ceiling.
‘Are you going up to see him?’ his mother asked.
The doctor shook his head, laughed uneasily. ‘I don’t really like it. Those floors aren’t safe. With my weight I’d probably fall through.’
‘So why does he stay up there?’
‘God only knows.’
W
HEN JOHN MCIVOR REACHED HIS TEENS, THEREWAS SOMETHING disturbing he came to understand — many people did not like his father. The sentiment was unspoken but ever present, not amongst the station staff, who would never have dared, but amongst people outside Daniel’s sphere of influence. John sensed it in some of the older and wealthier inhabitants of Powell, for instance — the town councillors, the local solicitors, the editor of the newspaper — and it was as simple as a reticence in their conversation, or a hesitation before shaking hands. A faint revulsion. He had no idea what it might mean. It couldn’t be a question of class. His father’s origins were humble enough, but they were perfectly respectable — he had even been a police officer once. His famous pistol was a keepsake.
Perhaps it was just resentment. Kuran Station had loomed over Powell for decades, dominating its politics and strangling its access to land, so the station manager undoubtedly had enemies. In fact, lately even Edward White’s position in parliament had come under threat. He was a grey widower by now, an old man who rarely ventured beyond Brisbane. The newspapers called him ‘The Last of the Pure Merinos’, and it was not a complimentary title. Edward was seen as out of date. The Darling Downs, the papers said,needed fresh blood, younger men committed to a future of bustling shops and thriving farms of wheat and cotton, not relics of the squatter past tying up thousands of acres with their sheep. But Daniel McIvor had long closed his mind to such talk. Unlike Edward, he was still as hale as ever, and bestrode the plains like a colossus.
Indeed, his own great scheme was ripening. For some years now he had been whispering in Edward’s ear, pushing John’s suit for Elizabeth. At first the old man had resisted. His granddaughter, after all, could surely do much better than the son of his station manager. But Daniel pointed out the deeper problem. Certainly, Elizabeth might marry someone of her own status … but could anyone guarantee that her new family — perhaps city folk — would choose to keep a property that was already unprofitable, and likely only to get worse? And if Edward wanted to find her a husband from a pastoral background, then where was he to look? The other Darling Downs’ dynasties were in poorer shape than his own. No, what Kuran needed was someone born to the place, and passionately dedicated to its survival. Who better than John? And as the years went by, Daniel could see that Edward, growing ever more feeble, was coming round to the idea.
John himself left school at fourteen to take up station work full time, and at fifteen he was maturing into his role. The rest of the staff already looked to him as his father’s successor, and the daughters of Kuran village were making their interest known. But John had no interest in these girls. He was focused on Elizabeth. She spent most of her time now at boarding school in Toowoomba, but he watched her closely during her visits home. He thought she was beautiful, in a remote way, and he certainly desired her; but she worried him too. She remained so aloof. He found it difficult to imagine actual intimacy between them. Did that matter? Perhaps not. He looked at his own parents, and saw no great love between husband and wife. It was the station that mattered, not intimacy. Elizabeth’s prime role would be to confer ownership upon him. And in this, John trusted his father. After all, Edward was almost persuaded, and where her grandfather led, Elizabeth would surely follow.
But then Edward White died.
It was during the 1929 election campaign for state parliament, which in truth had not being going well. Edward was up against a much younger man from the Labor Party, and while the senior White might style himself as a grand old man of the plains, in reality he was just old. Critics had universally attacked his conservatism and denounced his vested interest. Daniel McIvor was there at his employer’s side as always, and yet there was only so much he could do. One afternoon the campaign cavalcade drove out to the little town of Kogan, where Edward was to address a meeting. Not long after they’d crossed the Condamine River, the candidate, who’d been sleepy and vague all day, went into convulsions. Daniel ordered the car to a halt, lifted Edward from the back seat, and, in an attempt to ease the fits, laid him out alongside the road. Edward White expired there in the scrub, several miles beyond the borders of his beloved station.
He was buried at the Kuran Station cemetery, in accordance with his wishes, and the funeral was an event. It was considered that his passing marked the end of an era. The little station church couldn’t cope with the crowd, so the ceremony was held under a great marquee surrounded by extra chairs for the overflow. After the service, a grand wake was held in the gardens of the House, presided over by Malcolm. It was the biggest party he had ever thrown, but there was no joy in it for him. It wasn’t that he mourned his father. If anything, that death had come too late, for Malcolm was no longer young, and he was in ill health. But now, instead of the release he’d been waiting for all his life, he found he was trapped in a new and unexpected fashion.
Hasty arrangements had been made behind the scenes, and a furious round of meetings had taken place between Edward’s allies in parliament, his political staff and, of course, Daniel McIvor. Unlike the other mourners, none of them considered the death of the old man to mark an end, although it was certainly an inconvenience. However, the pastoral cause had to go on. But who was to take Edward’s place on the ballot? The committee settled on Malcolm. He was incompetent, yes, everyone admitted that. But he had the family name, he was the son of the great man, and Kuran Station was, after all, his now. With a properly managed campaign he might still win. Malcolm himself was not invited to any of these discussions, and when told of the decision, he refused in horror. Undeterred, Daniel locked himself and Malcolm in the office one evening, and after a torrid night of persuasion, abuse and (it was rumoured) even physical violence, Malcolm emerged chastened and prepared to accept the nomination.
He announced his candidacy at his father’s wake, to tumultuous, if well-rehearsed, acclaim. It proved to be the sole highlight of his campaign. No matter how gifted his speechwriters, there was no hiding the unwilling candidate’s almost complete ignorance of political matters. Then his incipient alcoholism bloomed under the stress. Crowds laughed at him for his red face, his reedy voice, his swaying walk. Newspapers derided him as the last rotten fruit of a decaying aristocratic tree. His opponents mocked him as an idiot son better left hidden in the attic, where his father had sensibly kept him. And on the streets of Powell, Daniel’s free beer and intimidation could no longer turn the tide. It was a different age, a different mood, and the result of the election was never in doubt.
For Malcolm it was the last and greatest in a long line of humiliations. He left the station in Daniel’s hands and escaped to Brisbane with his wife. There he drank ruinously for a month and died — exhausted, insensible, coughing up endless gouts of blood — in his hotel room. He was fifty-one years old, and left an unpaid bill of close to a thousand pounds. The death was not noted. His body was transported back to Kuran and quietly buried in the family plot. There was no need for marquees or extra seating, even the little church was not quite full. And so Kuran Station passed to the last remaining member of the White dynasty. Elizabeth had only just turned eighteen, and since leaving school had been occupied with little else but burying her grandfather and watching her father slowly suicide. And in all that time John McIvor had barely spoken a word to her.
Indeed, in the space of a few bewildering months John’s world had been badly shaken. Kuran Station and its owners had always seemed as immutable as sunrise and sunset, but now he awoke to the uncertainty of the station’s future. It was the dark year of 1930, and the economy of the Powell region was plunged into gloom. They were calling it a depression; even worse, some said, than the depression of the 1890s. Streams of men came wandering over the plains in search of work. Daniel had none to offer. He was locked away in the office, growling in frustration as debts grew and commodity prices plummeted. He began to speak of drastic measures, of scaling back on the livestock, and of cutting down on wages and staff.
To John, the fragility of the station’s future only made the place all the more precious. He loved the wide golden spread of the plains, and the hills that swept up smoothly in the east. He loved the herds of cattle and the mobs of sheep straying lazily in front of his horse. He loved the days spent working out amongst the men under the open sky, or camping with them at night, beneath an arch of faultlessly clear stars. He loved the fury of the shearing shed and the way the wool bales piled up, great square blocks of prosperity. Most of all, he loved Kuran House. So solid and secure and rooted in the earth. The tragedy was that, since Malcolm’s funeral, the great stone building had stood empty. His wife and daughter had returned to Brisbane, and so the station lacked what it needed most — a living, beating heart.
It was a full six months before Elizabeth returned, and strangely she came alone. John’s father was immediately summoned to meet with her. Daniel, sensing that the fate of the station would be discussed, took John with him. She was waiting for them behind the desk in the office. She seemed older, much older than John remembered. She was only eighteen, after all. But he saw now a tall girl with a serious face and unreadable eyes, sitting straight in her chair, and she wasn’t really a girl anymore. She was — and this was the first time John had properly considered it — the owner of Kuran Station. There was no grandfather to direct her, no father to hinder her, Elizabeth was all on her own.
It should have been at this moment that she reached out to John and his father for support — John had imagined exactly how it would happen — but instead her greeting was cool. Daniel, however, seemed unconcerned. He poured himself a drink, made himself comfortable in a chair by the empty fireplace, and got straight down to business. He’d sent Elizabeth plenty of reports, she knew the situation and how much there was to be done, so here was what he thought…
Elizabeth cut him off. She had an announcement to make.
She was selling the station.
It was a simple statement, but in that instant John felt the whole fantasy of his life shudder and sway.
Daniel’s first reaction was complete disbelief. What on earth was she talking about? No one was going to be selling anything. But Elizabeth only shook her head and explained it all patiently. Her lawyers had been in talks with representatives of the state government and a deal had been brokered. She had agreed to surrender most of the pastoral lease, and as compensation the government had agreed to grant her a perpetual lease on the House and fifteen thousand acres surrounding it. Once the legalities were finalised, she would sell that land and return to live in Brisbane.
That was when the anger came, that was when Daniel loomed out of his chair. Who the hell did she think she was? He had worked for her family for almost thirty years, he and he alone had kept Kuran alive. Sell the station? It was impossible! But watching Elizabeth, John could see that she was unimpressed and unafraid — the determination never left her eyes. How could he have been so wrong about her? How had he ever imagined that she would need him or agree to place herself under his care? His face burned with humiliation, and still he said nothing.
Elizabeth produced a sheaf of documents. It was all there, the signed contracts and lease documents. The thing was settled. She had returned only to inform the staff of her decision and collect some personal items. The furniture would be sent for later. Daniel was shaking his head, refusing to hear, refusing to credit that any member of the White family could defy him. Did she really expect him to cooperate with all this? To divide up the station and disperse its assets, to throw away his life’s work? No, Elizabeth replied. It was no longer any business of his at all. As of this minute she was terminating his employment.
At that, a cataclysmic fury seemed to boil behind Daniel’s face …but Elizabeth only stared back at him, a smooth-skinned teenage girl, waiting with the imperturbable certainty of youth. And something broke in the station manager. The girl had fired him. It was her right to do so. It was inconceivable that she would have the
nerve
to do so. But she had. All the strength in him drained away, useless. And even through his shock, John understood that he was witnessing something acutely personal. Elizabeth hated his father. Why, he didn’t know, but he could see in her the same repugnance for Daniel McIvor that he had seen in so many other eyes, only naked and magnified. She said,
You
were only ever an employee, Mr McIvor.
And for the first time in the interview her gaze flickered over John as he sat by stupidly, and he saw that her contempt embraced him as well.
Your son was only ever
an employee. I think you might have forgotten that.
It was finished, all in a matter of minutes. John had spoken not one word of protest as his inheritance was ripped away from him. In the last moments he could only stare at Elizabeth, and out of his shame there flamed a terrible admiration for her. Then his father had hold of his arm, and was dragging him backwards through the office door.
W
ILLIAM WAS ROUSED FROM SLEEP BY A HAND ON HIS SHOULDER and a voice whispering his name. He opened his eyes drowsily. A figure was hunched over the bed, a face leaning down close to his. Was it a dream? And then he came fully awake, rearing back against the pillow.
‘Quiet,’ his uncle hissed.
William stared in amazement. The old man was right there — a bony, angular face, glowing weirdly in the beam of a flashlight. His hair was dishevelled and he was clad in wrinkled pyjamas underneath an old bathrobe. He looked like a prophet, come in from the desert.