The Stockmen Read online

  Rosemary made her way to the mounting yard where Sam, sweat trickling down his brown face, helmet under his arm, was holding onto the heaving Oakwood. He called out to Rosemary.

  ‘Here! Now take your winning picture for the paper!’

  She lined him up in the viewfinder. There he was, gorgeous Sam with dust sticking to the sweat on his face, a big white grin, and eyes that crinkled when he smiled. And his horse, head held high, nostrils flared and his ears thrust forward. Click.

  Sam took a step towards Rosemary. ‘Can you just hold him for a sec?’ he asked.

  Rosemary found herself juggling her handbag, camera and a set of sweat-covered reins. Oakwood swung his head around anxiously, knocking Rosemary’s hat skew-whiff. He tossed his bit up and down so it clattered against his teeth. A long string of saliva trickled onto Rosemary’s arm. His eyes rolled in his head and he danced on black hooves.

  ‘Whoah, boy,’ Rosemary said, stumbling as her heels sank deep into the turf. Then, as if he were telling her to shut up, Oakwood dropped his head low and rubbed his sweaty, dusty face all over her white dress. She glanced up, looking for Sam, and saw him in the corner of the mounting yard, his hand on Jillian’s shoulder as she wiped away tears. She had her hat off and her dark hair had come loose, falling over her strong shoulders. Sam stooped a little to look into her eyes and smile gently at her. Then he glanced towards Rosemary, said something to Jillian and bounded back to her, the beaming smile again on his face. He grabbed the reins.

  ‘Thanks.’ He inclined his head towards Jillian. ‘She’s a sore loser, that one, but it wasn’t entirely fair. Duncan’s bloody dog. Anyway, better get this boy hosed down.’ A quick kiss on her cheek and he began to lead his horse away.

  ‘Where will we meet up?’ Rosemary called out.

  Sam spun around. ‘Boys want to shout me a few winning beers. I won’t be long, I promise. Just a couple at the pub.’

  Rosemary’s face fell. Sam came over and took her hands.

  ‘Just one beer then,’ he said.

  ‘Let me come with you,’ begged Rosemary. ‘You never take me to the pub.’

  ‘Your mum would tear strips off me if I took you there. You know she hates it. Besides, I heard your mum ask some of the girls back to your place for drinks. You can get on the Chards with my mum and talk weddings. Get some plans in place for when you move in.’ He ran his hand over her slim waist. Rosemary wrinkled her nose.

  ‘You’re so cute when you’re pooky, Pooky.’ He tipped back her hat and kissed her on the brow. She looked down at her dusty Diana Ferrari slingbacks.

  ‘All right. Piss off then,’ she said sulkily.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I said piss off!’

  ‘Oh! That’s ladylike!’ Sam said. ‘I’ve just won the Stockman’s Cup for you and you won’t even let me go to the pub with my mates! Is this how it’s going to be when we’re married? I thought you’d want to go home with the girls. They’re happy to do it. Isn’t it good enough for you?’

  ‘It’s not that, Sam.’

  ‘Well, what is it then?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘You never know. That’s your problem. That’s why you need me!’

  He pulled her to him and looked into her eyes.

  ‘Just wait until we’re married. When Mum and Dad move to the flat in South Yarra, you’ll have the whole homestead to look after. You won’t have time to “not know”. It’ll be perfect. You’ll see. Okay?’ Gently, he kissed her on the nose.

  She nodded and smiled a little, but she still felt the frustration within her. She sighed. He could get any girl he wanted, that’s what her mother said, and he had chosen her. She watched him saunter away in his tight denim jeans and his sweat-stained shirt.

  Sitting in her dirty dress beside the Glenelg River, glad to be alone, Rosemary listened to the far-off sound of Duncan’s droning commentary. Angrily, she swiped an unexpected tear from her cheek, then wondered why she was crying. All her mother’s friends told her what a lucky girl she was, engaged to Sam. But so much seemed to be missing from her life. She wished she knew what it was like to thunder around the track on half a tonne of horse muscle, instead of just watching from the rail. She snapped a stick in half and threw it into the olive-green river. Why couldn’t she be more like the other girls, the ones who’d be drinking in the pub with Sam tonight? she wondered. Why didn’t he take her with him?

  She turned her head towards the breeze. She wished it carried something with it, a whisper of things to come. As it lifted her straight blonde bob away from her sweating neck more tears fell from her eyes. Her mother would be looking for her. She covered her face with her hands and took some deep breaths. Suddenly she felt something warm and wet on her cheek.

  Startled, she looked up. A red kelpie sat beside her, trying to lick away her tears.

  ‘Rack off!’ she said, gently pushing the dog away.

  ‘He’s just being friendly,’ came a voice from behind her.

  She turned and saw the silhouette of a man holding a horse. He stepped into the shadow of a red gum so she could see him clearly. It was Billy O’Rourke.

  ‘Don’t you like dogs?’ he asked.

  ‘No! Yes. I mean I do, but I …’

  ‘You should like dogs.’

  Rosie looked up at Billy’s weather-beaten face. He was smiling at her kindly from beneath a broad-brimmed hat. He held his horse’s reins lightly in his tanned fingers. She had seen Billy by the river often in Casterton as he schooled nervous, green-broke horses. And he sauntered into The Chronicle’s office each week to file his livestock sales reports.

  ‘I do like dogs,’ she said.

  ‘That’s good, because I’ve got a job for you. Are you in the office tomorrow?’

  ‘Yes,’ Rosemary nodded. Unfortunately, she thought to herself.

  ‘Good. See you then.’ And he began to lead his horse away.

  ‘Hang on! What’s the job?’

  He turned and winked at her. ‘You’ll see.’ Then he walked back towards the track, his legs slightly bowed and his shoulders rounded from all those years of bending over sheep in shearing sheds.

  The red kelpie watched him leave but stayed sitting by Rosemary’s side. He thrust his warm nose under her hand, begging for a pat. As Rosemary rubbed his velvety ears, he laid his chin on her knee, looked up at her with his chocolate-brown eyes and sighed.

  ‘What do you want?’ Rosemary asked.

  Then Billy whistled and the dog was gone.

  Chapter 2

  The convoy of dusty four-wheel drives rattled over the grid and through the white timber gates of Highgrove station. Rosemary sat jammed next to Prudence Beaton in Margaret’s new Pajero. On the forty-minute trip home, she had tried to ignore the faint smell of dog urine emanating from Prue. Now she leaned her forehead against the window and looked out at the sun setting over the high golden hills of the valley. Sheep were drifting in single file over the dry pasture towards the river for their evening drink. Their heads were slung low and the sun on their backs made their fleeces glow golden.

  Only ten years ago, Highgrove station was running fifteen thousand merinos on its four thousand hectares. It was one of the oldest merino and Hereford cattle studs in Australia. The merinos bustled through the bluestone shearing shed like an endless river, leaving behind them white fleeces of bright, beautifully crimped wool piled as high as the dark rafters. But, over time, the business seemed to stall. Now stock numbers were reduced to just one third of those in Highgrove’s heyday.

  Rosemary sighed as she thought of the heady days when her family’s merino stud reputation was at its height. Back then, her father won every broad ribbon for their stud rams and the women loved him for it. They clustered about him in their Black Watch tartan skirts and gold-buckled navy shoes, stroking the trophies, fingering the tasselled fringes of the championship ribbons and purring how clever he was. Their tweed-coated husbands thrust firm handshakes Gerald’s way and offered ridiculous
sums of money for his prize-winning rams. And in the thick of it, by Gerald’s side, was Julian. He was the ever-present groom, holding grumpy sheep by the jowls in the line-up as the judges spent hours deliberating on their final placement. Rosemary always begged to help, but her father always refused.

  ‘You’re just too small to exhibit the rams,’ Gerald had once said. ‘Imagine the ruckus if one got away – it could cost us the championship.’

  Instead, Margaret dressed her up in Laura Ashley prints and insisted she be involved in the home industry section. Here, her mother’s flowers burst forth in showy, opulent blooms no judge could pass by. The luxurious texture of Margaret’s chocolate cakes and golden scones never failed to attract blue-ribbon status, fifty-cent prize money and the accolades of other women in the district. But then the wool prices began to slump. Fewer buyers steered Gerald away to corners of the show pavilions to discuss deals. The once-bustling sheds at Highgrove fell quiet and the rams were all turned out to fend for themselves on pasture. The jackaroos moved on and were never replaced, the stud groom was given his notice, and spiders began to weave their silver webs over the felt show ribbons that hung from the rafters of the ram shed. Now only mice and rats scuttled up and over grating that, these days, only faintly held the scent of lanolin.

  Oblivious to the crumbling farm, the convoy of chattering ladies drove on from the river flats towards the grand old homestead on the hill. The double-storey, red-brick house was bathed in evening light, its wide verandah casting a shadow like a frown around the building. Massive gum trees draped their limbs elegantly over the high, wrought-iron gateway that seemed to announce the prestige and privilege of the house. It was a hollow declaration, thought Rosemary as the vehicles bumped over the front grid. She had seen her father stooped over the bank statements in his office. But her mother continued to cook up storms of gourmet food and organise party after party, as if nothing had changed.

  Fat four-wheel-drive tyres crunched on the circular gravel driveway. It was fringed by a green lawn, mown to perfection. Here, the ladies tumbled out, crumpled, tipsy and tired. All were looking forward to Margaret’s hospitality within the cool walls of the homestead.

  Rosemary sat slouched on her mother’s chintz-covered chair in the drawing room, rubbing at the stains Oakwood had left on her dress. As she watched the women flit about, drinking white wine and giggling, she wondered what Sam was up to and when he would call her tonight.

  ‘How about you, Rosemary? More Chards?’ asked Prue Beaton, bulging out of her electric-blue and hot-pink Anna Middleton silk suit. Prue perched her ample bottom on the arm of Rosemary’s chair and tipped wine into her already full glass. She leant so close Rosemary could see the sweat gathering in beads on her top lip. Prue giggled before she spoke.

  ‘When you marry Sam Chillcott-Clark, are you going to be all modern and keep your own surname?’

  ‘Or why not just add another hyphen?’ tittered one of the ladies.

  ‘Yes!’ squealed Prue. ‘Perfect! Rosemary Chillcott-Clark-Highgrove-Jones! Or Rosemary Highgrove-Jones-Chillcott-Clark! Hasn’t that got an air of importance to it?’

  Margaret smiled as she offered around a platter of Atlantic salmon and capers on crusty, home-baked bread.

  ‘That name is almost as long as the fencelines will be when the two properties merge,’ said Prue, and the ladies fell about laughing.

  Not long after that Rosemary quietly excused herself. Slowly, with a sigh, she climbed the wide stairs to her room.

  Rosemary’s bedroom was her sanctuary, though sometimes it felt like her prison too. On one side, French doors led to a wide verandah which looked out over the front garden and beyond, to the river valley. The view from the verandah teased her, highlighting how trapped she felt within the house, her mother’s voice jerking her about like she was on a lead. Feeling the sadness creep into her again, Rosemary crossed her room to the deep bay window on the other side. The timber window seat was a perfect spot for gazing out to the cobbled courtyard below. She could see the stone archway where workmen used to come and go in battered vehicles, and the beautiful old stables made from dark, pockmarked bluestone. Tacked on in the same stone were the workmen’s quarters. Sometimes, when she couldn’t sleep, Rosemary had sat in the darkness trying to catch snippets of the men’s conversation and the rumbles of laughter that rose up to greet her loneliness. She especially loved the sounds that came during shearing time. She could see the shed beyond the roof of the stables. She loved to hear the music belting out from the small windows of the shearing shed, competing with the whirring noise of the machines. From her regular perch at her window she would watch the sheep coming into the yards in full wool and then leave bright-white and shorn close, leaping over shadows as they galloped out the gate.

  Tonight the floodlight illuminated the old hand-chipped stone of the buildings. Her mother’s geraniums, in giant pots, shone in rich clumps of pink and green. Julian and her father had just driven into the courtyard. They had worked late after a full day at the races. Rosemary could tell by the way the ute doors slammed that they were both in bad moods. She heard her father swear as he tripped over an old-style barrel of daisies in the yard. He often complained that his wife had even ‘country-styled’ the work areas, which were no place for her roses and terracotta. In the past, the workmen and jackaroos had also shuddered when they saw Margaret coming. She’d want a hefty slab of sandstone moved, or a hedge pruned, or a load of gravel shovelled and raked on the driveway. It didn’t matter that there were sheep to drench, troughs to check, vehicles to service. Rosemary had lost count of the number of workmen who had left because of her mother’s demands and her father’s coldness. As a result, Julian had become the main whipping boy.

  Rosemary could hear her brother now, dragging shovels and other fencing tools noisily from the battered Toyota farm vehicle. Julian was just a year younger than her and lean as a greyhound. His work clothes hung on him and his plaited kangaroo-hide belt looked as if it would wrap itself around his waist several times. His hair fell in brown waves over his eyes, almost to his fine cheekbones. Despite Margaret’s badgering, he always wore it longer than most of the men in the district.

  The pair of them, brother and sister, didn’t seem to fit anywhere in the modern world. Neither of them was into Killing Heidi, or B&S balls or text-messaging mates about trips to the MCG for a day on the grog at the cricket. The Highgrove-Jones kids were being raised by their mother to be the next generation of ‘landed gentry’. Rosemary sighed. She dreamed of riding out over the wide plains and up to the rocky ridges that were part of the run country on Highgrove station. But her dreams had remained only that, dreams, and life just ticked over. The same events each year, marked on the David Austin Roses calendar. Christmas drinks, hospital fundraisers, garden open days and Church fetes – these were her mother’s domain and this was where Rosemary was expected to be.

  The work events that really mattered – like shearing, crutching, drenching and lambmarking – were marked on her father’s Weekly Times calendar. Rosemary watched them from afar. She had hoped that a world of opportunity would open up for her when she got engaged to Sam. He had the finest Australian Stockhorses in the district, and a line of sleek kelpies that were the best money could buy. Rosemary had spent hours imagining their new life together on the Chillcott-Clark property. Sam would teach her to turn a beast on the shoulder and plunge at a gallop into an ice-cold winter river; to whistle and cast a steady, prick-eared kelpie dog out wide around fresh-shorn sheep; to bustle against other horses in the flurry of a polocrosse match; to be the farm girl she’d always dreamed of being.

  But, a year on, none of that had happened. Instead she found herself embraced by Mrs Chillcott-Clark, who lived in the same intense Country-Style-at-all-costs frenzy as her own mother. Rosemary bit her lip and curled up on her bed. As she shut her eyes she heard the shrill ring of the phone echoing in the house and out in the courtyard below. Her father was now inside the house talking i
n his clear voice.

  ‘Highgrove station. Gerald speaking.’

  Rosemary bounded off the bed. Her father’s voice rose from the stairwell.

  ‘Sam, my boy! You’ll have to speak up. Sounds rowdy where you are. No, my lad. She is. Yes …’

  Rosemary ran down the stairs.

  ‘Yes, she’s in bed I think. I’ll tell her in the morning. Cheerio then.’ And he put down the phone.

  ‘Oh, Dad!’ Rosemary wailed. ‘I wasn’t in bed! Where was he? Can I ring him back?’

  ‘Sam said he’ll pick you up after work tomorrow in time for the Rotary quiz night. He still had to float Oakwood home tonight so he can’t drop in.’

  ‘But, Dad!’

  ‘Leave it at that, Rosemary,’ said Gerald. He turned and walked away.

  Back in her bed, Rosemary shut her eyes and thought about Sam. He was her first proper boyfriend. She remembered the taste of beer in his mouth and his hands on her shoulders the first time he had kissed her. They had gone into the kitchen to get some drinks for the guests at her mother’s tennis party and he had stood close to her as she went to the fridge for a jug of homemade lemonade. He had looked at her with his melting dark-brown eyes and told her she was ‘the catch of the district’. Then he had kissed her. Rosemary, knees buckling, worried that she’d drop the jug of lemonade.

  ‘Ooops! Mum will go off if I spill this,’ was all she could say, but she felt a buzz in her head and a smile leap to her lips when she looked up at Sam.

  Rosemary rolled over in her bed, replaying that first day when Sam had made her knees buckle.