Rocking Horse Hill Read online

  A shared love of the land had brought Em and Teagan together in their teens, that feeling that their hearts were encased in a fist of soft soil, never to be released. To see her in despair over the farm she adored made Em ache with compassion.

  Unfortunately, unlike show jumping, hacking offered little professional reward. This was a competition of aesthetics over athleticism, where the prettiest, most well-mannered and floaty-paced animal won. A win in the ring barely covered entry fees. The only way to make money was to on-sell the horses plucked off the track or from under the knackers’ nose and retrained, an enterprise Em gave up a few years ago. She didn’t have time and she hated relinquishing animals she’d put so much work into and come to love.

  Horse talk gave way to other topics. Worried about Teagan’s lack of appetite, Em reached across to touch her arm. Only a month ago Teagan admitted to feeling like she was trapped at the bottom of a dark well with only a pinpoint of light far in the distance. Disturbed by the analogy, Em had tried on several occasions to get her to talk to a doctor, only to fail each time. Just going through a bad patch, she assured Em. Everything would be fine once the farm turned around. Except now months had passed with no change.

  ‘How are things at home?’

  ‘The same.’ Teagan smiled wanly. ‘Dad’s still hiding in his office, going over the books or whatever it is he does. Mum sits in the lounge, knitting and watching telly with this pinched look on her face.’

  ‘And you?’

  ‘Working my arse off. God, I hope this season’s better than the last.’ She fiddled with her cutlery and sighed. ‘I sold the last of my cows this week. There’s just not enough feed to keep them going through to the spring. I promised the sale money to Dad, to help out.’ She bit her lip. ‘But how can I when he hasn’t paid me any wages for a month? I need money to live too.’

  Jas slapped her palm on the table. ‘Don’t you dare give him that money. Not until he lets you look over the books.’

  ‘I told you, he won’t let me.’

  ‘Then I think Jas is right,’ said Em gently. ‘You have to protect yourself in case it all goes under.’

  Teagan shook her head. ‘It can’t go under. It can’t. The farm’s all I’ve worked for.’

  ‘I know, but it’s like me and the hill. No matter how I feel about the place, how much I love it and could never leave, the truth is it’s not actually mine. It’s Digby’s, to do with as he chooses, just as the farm belongs to your parents, to do with as they want.’

  ‘But your situation is hardly mine. For starters, Digby’s loaded. All we seem to be doing is going broke. If things don’t improve Mum and Dad won’t have any control over anything anyway. It’ll be the bank’s call.’

  ‘You need to see those books,’ said Em. ‘That farm is on some of the most productive land in the district. There’s no way it should be going under.’ She leaned closer. ‘Promise me you won’t give him that money until you see the books and find out where the hell all the cash is disappearing to.’

  Teagan nodded but Em knew her well enough to know it meant little. When it came to the farm, Teagan was as bad as her with Rocking Horse Hill.

  Sensing a change of tone was needed, Jas sat back with her hands over her belly. ‘I always knew there was a good reason I had you as a friend. That lamb was amazing. As were the potatoes. If you weren’t a girl, I’d marry you.’

  ‘Just as well. I couldn’t tolerate sharing a bed with someone who sleep-talks as much as you.’

  ‘I can’t help it. It’s my vivid imagination. Speaking of which, how’s that sexy Saxon going?’ she asked, referring to the hero of The Ballad of the White Horse, King Alfred. When she had seen a photograph of his statue at Winchester that Em had downloaded for research, complete with crown, shield and upraised sword, Jas had developed a hero-crush.

  ‘Not bad. About a third of the way through the calligraphy.’

  ‘But you only started it a month ago,’ said Teagan. ‘That’s great progress.’

  Em shrugged. ‘There are only so many times I can clean the shelves and count stock. With the shop dead I’ve had plenty of time to work.’

  She carried their plates to the sink and checked out the window. Enough light spilled out into the ebony night to expose the bent branches of the fruit trees lining this side of the yard and the flooded flower and berry fruit boxes that separated the orchard from the drive. Though the window was too small to capture more than the far, tapered end of the crater, she could sense its presence. Like a thrum deeper than the wind, as though the mountain was burrowing its ancient roots deeper into the earth as anchor against the assault.

  Em stepped out of the way as Teagan arrived with the other dishes.

  At the bench, Jas leaned over the desserts. ‘They look amazing, as alw—’

  A roaring crack of lightning ripped the air. Outside, the night exploded with phosphorescent light. The house shuddered, rattling the huge glass panes of the lounge. Em whirled back to the window and cupped her hands to the glass as another ear-splitting crash rent the sky, followed by more blinding white light. ‘Oh, my God!’

  ‘What is it?’ asked Jas, scrambling to her side. ‘Holy shit!’

  Teagan peered between them. ‘What?’

  ‘It’s one of the cypresses.’ Em tried to assess the extent of the damage through the rain slick. ‘Along the fence line. Looks like it’s split.’

  ‘What, like in half?’

  ‘I think so. I can see exposed timber.’ She let out a shaky breath.

  ‘It’s just a pine.’

  ‘A pine planted nearly a hundred years ago as memorial to all the farm workers who died in the Great War.’ She rubbed her face, forcing away the burn of rising tears.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Jas.

  Em let her hand drop. Perhaps it wouldn’t look so bad in the morning. At least the rain meant there was no risk of fire. ‘I should check on the animals. Make sure they aren’t frightened.’

  ‘We’ll come with you,’ said Teagan.

  ‘It’s pointless all of us getting wet.’ Muffy had snuck into the kitchen to press her warm body against Em’s leg. She stroked the dog’s soft fur. ‘You stay here and protect Jas and Teagan. I won’t be long.’

  ‘Then we can all sit around the fire, scoffing your dessert and drinking too much,’ said Jas.

  Teagan nodded. ‘And planning your new sister-in-law-to-be’s hen’s night.’

  ‘What if she’s not a hen’s night kind of girl?’

  Jas grinned. ‘Then we’ll just have to turn her into one.’

  Three

  Granny B picked up a length of cypress branch, inspected the pale, ragged end and then slung it away. Two splotches of colour seeped through her powdery makeup, giving her the over-rouged appearance of a porcelain doll. There was a stoop to her back, a slight sag in her shoulders, and her tread seemed to lack its usual purpose. Em understood. She’d felt the same yesterday, standing at the edge of the wreckage in the frigid Saturday dawn, her heart tight with sorrow as she surveyed the cypress.

  It wasn’t the tree so much. Trees grew and fell all the time – such was the cycle of life. It was the hole in the Avenue of Honour, the way the line of dense canopy abruptly faltered and opened to the sky, the shattered cypress’s remains jutting into the rift like bleached and broken bones.

  Granny B returned to Em’s side and dug into the pocket of her Harris tweed coat, extracting a thin cigar and a beautifully etched rose-gold S. T. Dupont lighter, a thirty-fifth wedding anniversary present from Grandpa Philps. ‘Who did you say this company was?’

  ‘Argyle and Sons. They’re based in Mortlake. Unfortunately they can’t come for a few weeks.’

  Em’s gaze returned to the tree. Half of it had pitched onto the fence and across Stanislaus Road, dragging wire and old posts down with it. Em had used a tractor and chains to haul the worst of it to the verge but there was little she could do about the fence until the site was cleared. The remainder of the tree had
caved inward, held from total collapse by the strength of its branches, dug into the dark soil like braced arms fighting the inevitable.

  Muffy padded around the scattered needle clusters, bark strips and cones, snuffling and scratching. The air smelled glorious. A pure scent, strangely uplifting despite the sorrow of the tree’s loss. Granny B flicked her lighter and pine gave way to fragrant tobacco. Em let the silence stand as her grandmother smoked and mourned.

  Weak morning light coated the remaining trees, turning their outer canopy vivid green while their interiors remained shadowed. The rain had stopped at last. As predicted, Saturday had seen the wind swing to the south-west, driving the lumbering clouds eastwards. Now the sky shone with the sublime deep cold blue of a southern winter.

  Em scanned the debris. She would have to keep some part of the tree, a cone or piece of timber, something, to touch and remember while she and future Wallaces waited for a replacement cypress to mature.

  Every one of the half-dozen nurseries she’d phoned had no stocks of Cupressus macrocarpa. It was, she’d been told, a highly unfashionable tree and difficult to acquire. She’d be better off collecting seed and growing seedlings herself. For a while Em feared the gap was destined to be permanent. Finally, after an extensive Internet search, she discovered a promising link to a specialist grower in Beaconhills, on Melbourne’s far eastern side. A quick phone call and she had her prize, one that could even be delivered. At a price.

  Her research had also led her to a business that harvested old cypress trees from farm sites and on-sold the timber to carpenters and woodworkers. For a single tree, collection would be expensive but Em felt it was the right way to proceed. The timber would have another life, and that seemed fitting somehow. As though the soldiers’ memorial, and perhaps traces of Rocking Horse Hill, would live on elsewhere.

  With a deep sigh Granny B flicked her half-finished cigar into the grass and ground it into the soil with the heel of her long leather boot. ‘Your great-grandmother had names for all the trees.’

  ‘After the soldiers?’

  She nodded. ‘This one was Second Lieutenant Stanley. I remember because he won the Military Medal at Polygon Wood only to be killed the next month at Broodseinde Ridge.’

  ‘We’ll replant. In the spring. Make it whole again.’

  Her grandmother turned from the avenue to contemplate the crater. Em followed suit, grateful for the change of weather and the weak, though welcome, cast of sun. The day was sad enough without drizzle.

  The ashy paths that once snaked to Rocking Horse Hill’s summit were fading, overgrown with weed or hidden by an encroaching rash of plastic-collared seedlings, planted by a local Landcare group determined to rehabilitate the crater’s eroded and denuded slopes. No matter how important their work, Em couldn’t suppress her dismay at the sight of all the trees. They spoiled the hill’s majesty; made it just another extinct volcano in a land dotted with many. Some of the best afternoons of her childhood were spent on those slopes: sliding from top to bottom on her bum, riding the hill like a giant, dirty slippery dip. Her mother exasperated by her wrecked jeans and inevitable scrapes, while her grandmother and uncle secretly encouraged the fun.

  ‘Ugly, aren’t they?’ said Granny B, as though reading her mind.

  ‘Just a bit, but they’ll go. Eventually.’

  What the crater would look like then, Em didn’t know. Darker, she supposed. Perhaps a little mysterious, with the soft trees masking the hill’s true stony nature. She smiled slightly. As a child Em had cultivated all sorts of romantic ideas about the hill, and spent countless days exploring its slopes and crags, imagining secret passages that led, Narnia-like, to parallel universes of mystical animals, kings and brave knights. But there never was and never would be anything mysterious or romantic about the volcano. Thousands of years ago the earth suffered indigestion and burped up molten rock and Rocking Horse Hill was the result. Even so, her heart continued to resist logic. Em loved the hill too intensely for pragmatism, and a person’s sense of home wasn’t something that could be rationalised or calculated. That connection belonged to the soul.

  ‘Felicity seems keen to visit the farm,’ said Granny B.

  ‘Does she? That’s great.’

  Her grandmother gave a non-committal ‘mmm’ and bent to ruffle Muffy’s ears.

  ‘You don’t agree?’

  ‘I’m not sure I agree with the suddenness of all this. Your brother has never been one to make decisions in a hurry.’

  ‘He’s in love, Gran.’

  ‘Apparently.’

  ‘And she’s beautiful.’

  ‘Beauty alone does not make a marriage, Emily, as your mother will well attest.’

  Although she’d never approved of Adrienne’s choice of husband, Granny B didn’t often refer to the breakdown of her daughter’s marriage. For all his faults, Henry Jones was still Em’s and Digby’s father, even if they rarely saw him. A move to Sydney, remarriage and a new, young family kept him busy. And even Em understood how insular and exclusive the Wallaces, with their name, privilege and deep pride in their history, could feel to outsiders. A feeling she hoped Felicity would never experience.

  ‘How is she settling in?’

  ‘Why don’t you come and see for yourself?’ Done with the hill, Granny B snatched up a small cypress cone, filed it in her pocket and began marching towards Em’s four-wheel-drive, her long coat flapping and Muffy chasing her heels.

  *

  Em knocked on the door of the old stables and waited. When there was no answer she glanced towards Granny B, who was still standing by the Nissan, lacquered silver-white hair shiny in the rising sun. Her grandmother flicked her hand, indicating that Em should enter but Em had no intention of barging in. Once she would have knocked, called out and bounded up the stairs, but Felicity’s arrival had changed things. For Digby, life now meant lazy Sunday sex, intimacy, indulgence, free of interruption from presumptuous sisters.

  She stepped back and looked to the upper floor windows. Digby’s lodgings consisted of a narrow downstairs entrance area, mainly used for coats, boots and other outdoorsy items, and a long open-plan first floor room that ran the entire length of the building, over what had once been stables but was now a five-vehicle garage. The centre window was slightly ajar. Em moved beneath it, preparing to call up, but was halted by the electronic flourishes and sword clangs of Digby’s favourite video game.

  Em felt a surge of sympathy for Felicity. When in thrall her brother’s world condensed to action and reflex, driven by sound and millions of pixels, which was fine for Digby but frustrating for anyone who wanted his attention. She retraced her steps and pushed the door open. Calling his name loudly, Em levered off her boots and padded up the stairs, continuing to announce herself as she went.

  ‘Hang on,’ said Digby, frantically pressing buttons.

  Em watched in amusement as Digby carried on with the game. On the large flat television screen behind him, the Prince of Ulpherstone swayed at the edge of a precipice, a red-eyed green-and-gold dragon roaring fire at his back.

  She inspected the room while he continued to battle. The apartment remained pure bachelor pad: dark leather sofa and recliners, heavy square-cornered timber furniture, a coffee table with agricultural­ and horticultural journals in stacks. Discarded clothes littered the floor and bed of the far sleeping area, black and white striped doona forming a rumpled bank where it had been tossed back on rising. But unlike the kitchenette’s normal state, the sink was empty of its usual pile of dishes, the dishwasher chugged quietly beneath the sink and there was a sweet scent to the air, like floral body wash or spray-on deodorant. A woman’s smell.

  The noise ceased. On the screen the dragon lay slain, the paused Prince’s sword dripping with its blood.

  ‘What are you doing in town?’ asked Digby. Unlike his apartment, Digby appeared casually elegant in a pair of jeans and a checked shirt with the sleeves rolled midway up his forearms. Leather deck shoes encased his sockless f
eet. His jaw was unshaven and his dark hair, the same shade as Em’s, stuck out at messy angles as though sex rubbed. Even dishevelled, his long lean Wallace frame and features kept him handsome. Once, he’d been too pretty, too poetic-looking, but age was at last beginning to sharpen his soft edges into masculinity.

  ‘I came to see your fiancée, actually.’

  ‘She’s in the kitchen with Mum, getting a cooking lesson.’ He scratched absently at his forearm. ‘It’s something she never really learned.’

  Em blinked. ‘What, at all?’

  He shrugged, as if never learning to cook was perfectly normal. ‘I don’t think her mum had much interest in it.’

  ‘Yeah, but —’

  ‘Not every family’s like ours, Em.’

  ‘No,’ said Em quickly, hearing the defensiveness in Digby’s tone and realising how judgemental she must have sounded. ‘Of course not. So why aren’t you over with them?’

  ‘I was but Mum ordered me out. She said I was distracting Flick and getting in the way.’

  ‘Ah. Well, you know what us Wallace girls are like with our kitchens.’ Em settled into a leather armchair. It’d been weeks since they’d last had a proper chat. ‘Felicity’s settling in okay, then?’

  ‘Seems to be. Gran’s being a bit stiff towards her, though.’

  ‘Give her time. She’s just worried about the suddenness of your engagement, that’s all.’