Song for Emilia Read online

  The music flowed, and soon she’d forgotten her edginess. When they played Misty, again Sandra sang the words to herself in a whispered voice. Billy glanced over, nodded with approval. Everything was all right between them, thank goodness.

  As he’d suggested, they kept Winter’s Day for their final song. The figure remained at the table, but alone on this wet night.

  The ‘flower woman’ – as Sandra nicknamed her – came out of the audience towards Billy, and as he left the stage she linked her arm through his.

  Seeing Sandra’s startled expression, Billy said, ‘Sandra, meet Jenny.’ And in a stage whisper, he added, ‘we actually know each other now.’

  Billy had lied to her? After the first flower-tossing episode, somehow he’d caught up with the woman, secretly, and all along... well, Sandra could hardly complain about secrets. Ha ha, Billy Liar.

  She kissed Billy goodnight, nodded to Jenny, and watched them walk into the darkness under a single umbrella. No offer of a lift home tonight.

  She’d forgotten her own umbrella, how silly – and set off at a brisk pace in the direction of the Hotel Australia.

  Footsteps sounded behind her and she quickened her pace. Too gloomy to take a short-cut up Rowe Street ...

  She heard her name called. It could be anyone from the club: all strangers, unknown. Heart in her mouth, she turned to face whoever it was hurrying towards her.

  In the random street lights, rain glistening on his hair, his face, coat flapping as he ran, boots splashing on the wet pavement – Nick Morgan!

  In an instant, he’d folded his arms around her, kissed her hair, her wet cheeks, her mouth. Too stunned to respond, Sandra froze like a statue.

  ‘Sandra—’ Nick said. ‘I have so much to tell you, but I was afraid—’ He dropped his arms, stepped away from her, uncertain.

  Finally, she was able to answer, ‘You never wrote again. You never rang.’ Her voice rose. ‘For all I knew, you were dead.’

  Nick steered her up the street and into the hotel. The foyer was busy, and he guided Sandra to a quieter corner of the lounge.

  She regarded him across the table – his pale face, his shaking hands. ‘Was it you at the club a few weeks ago, with whoever it was – never speaking, leaving before we finished?’

  ‘I wanted to, believe me. I came with a mate from uni—’

  ‘You’re at uni again?’

  ‘No, and I’m leaving tomorrow. My friend was too busy to come, but I was determined to see you tonight.’

  As he ordered their coffees, she saw with sadness the hollows in his cheeks, blue patches beneath his eyes; knuckles cracked and scabbed. Nick ... he looked terrible.

  ‘I wanted to tell you, and I should’ve told you sooner, but with everything the way it was ... I couldn’t.’

  Softer now, her heart no longer racing with fright and anger, she put her hand over his. ‘I’m sorry for the way I reacted. I didn’t know who was following me. It’s not Curradeen here.’

  ‘My fault,’ Nick smiled apologetically. He took a sip of coffee. ‘I wouldn’t mind a splash of rum in this,’ he joked. His dear, familiar smile.

  ‘You wanted to tell me something?’ Sandra asked. Something about university? Maybe he was deferring another six months. Another year.

  Nick shook his head, ‘No, not now.’ He looked up from his coffee, glanced around the room, then as if measuring his question, he asked: ‘Are you and Billy together? The way you play, you both look so good. That’s why I never spoke to you. But tonight Billy left with someone—’

  ‘We’re just music partners, that’s all, and it’s going really well.’

  Nick took her hand across the table. ‘So, what about coming back to Wilga Park for a few days after your exams?’

  Aware of Nick’s relief at her reply about Billy, she was stunned by this surprising suggestion. Her first thought had been, What about the club, what about Billy? Billy’s name again... she brushed it aside. This was a chance – perhaps a last chance – to be with Nick, to see the Morgans again. Should she ask about his family, about the drought, about Beth?

  ‘You’re sure it will it be all right – how is your mother?’

  ‘She’s not too bad,’ Nick said. ‘Will you come?’

  He drained his coffee, put down the cup with a sharp click, waited in the silence between them for her answer.

  ‘I guess it’s only missing one rehearsal,’ she finally said. ‘I’ll work it out.’

  Sandra knew it sounded weak, but she wanted to go, she was dying to go. The old affection welled up in her as she allowed a smile. ‘Late October?’

  ‘Perfect. Any time, just give me a ring.’

  Nick hailed a taxi for her, and after a fleeting kiss, he was walking fast into the rainy night.

  When she arrived home, Sandra felt like yelling out down the hallway, ‘I saw Nick! I’m going to Curradeen!’ But in the dark and silent room, she slipped off her wet shoes and coat, threw her clothes onto a chair, and after a quick wash, she tucked herself into bed.

  Never, Sandra mused ... never in a million years, could I have predicted meeting Nick like that. Such a heart-ache. She pressed a finger to her lips – lips that Nick barely skimmed with a cool kiss, as if he were embarrassed. Or scared?

  ♫

  As the plane circled before coming in to land, Sandra pressed her cheek to the window, saw barren paddocks deserted of stock. Like surveying an abandoned country, she thought. The plane seemed to almost touch the treetops before landing. She was tired after the exams, dispirited, already wondering if this visit was a mistake.

  Nick waited by the gate, right on time, the same slight kiss on her lips. She felt uneasy – his manner was strained, the light gone from his eyes.

  ‘We’ll talk at home,’ he said, putting her suitcase in the back of the ute.

  The town appeared much the same as when she’d seen it months ago, although a couple of shops were closed, For Sale signs on each door. As they drove across the countryside, it opened out to an arid plain, brittle trees and clumps of saltbush lending the only colour.

  During the final drive to the entrance of Wilga Park, Sandra’s apprehension grew. Nick had hardly spoken, except to mutter, ‘Thanks for making the trip,’ which only made her feel worse. No animals, anywhere. Then as they parked at the garden gate, in the round yard close by, she spotted two horses.

  With surprise, she exclaimed, ‘Isn’t that Toffee?’

  ‘And Honey,’ Nick gave his first real smile. ‘I decided to keep her. I can care for them better here. I gave Paddy away, he’s a good first horse for a kid.’

  ‘Oh, Honey looks beautiful.’

  She wanted to run and pat them both, but Nick said, ‘First, a cup of tea, right? I’m parched and you must be thirsty.’

  ‘Where are the dogs?’ Sandra asked, seeing the empty kennels, chains lying loose in the dust.

  ‘I gave the young one to a drover I met on the stock route. Trix is somewhere – she hangs about.’

  He whistled shrilly through his teeth and the kelpie came, dancing around his legs. Nick smoothed her head, fondled the silky ears. ‘She’s a good old worker, aren’t you, girl?’

  The homestead seemed to crouch under a cloak of neglect.

  The path to the house was no more than a dusty track; the veranda needed sweeping. Inside, the rooms weighed heavy with melancholy.

  Nick saw her glance about the kitchen. ‘Sorry, it’s a mess, but I can’t keep up.’ He filled the kettle with water and set two mugs on the table.

  ‘Nick, tell me about your mother?’

  Hardly breathing, she watched Nick as he turned to face her, passed her a mug of tea.

  ‘Mum isn’t coming home. She’s had a couple more strokes and the care is better in Melbourne with her family. There’s a nurse comes every day—’ His face starting to crumble, he slumped in a chair, then looking up at Sandra again, he said, ‘I shouldn’t have asked you to come. It’s dreadful here. The whole place, the house... my
mother.’

  ‘But she’ll come back eventually, won’t she?’

  Nick shook his head. ‘She can’t speak. Her right side’s no use, she can’t dress or feed herself. She’d never manage. And my father—’

  He looked so downcast, she decided his father’s news could wait. ‘When we finish our tea, can we say hello to the horses?’ she suggested. Anyway, she’d rather Mr Morgan stayed in Melbourne with Beth.

  Pushing back his chair, Nick opened the screen door and they walked through the garden, the yellowed grass. ‘I’ve tried to care for the roses,’ he said. ‘It’s probably useless, but they’re tough old plants.’

  ‘Your mother and I watered them with buckets. And look, there’s some buds.’

  ‘I’ll tell her next time I phone. I ring every few days, not that there’s much to say, and I’m never sure if she understands.’

  The horses came to the fence, nickered, and Nick put his hand in his pocket. ‘She always likes a carrot,’ he said, stroking Toffee while she munched.

  Sandra ran her hand down the horse’s neck, enjoying the warm chaffy smell. ‘The first day we met at the polocrosse you gave me a carrot for her, but I didn’t know how to hold it.’

  They patted the horses until Nick said, ‘I’ve got a chook for dinner – guess I’d better go and fire up the oven. We’ve got an electric stove now, better than the old Aga in summer.’ Again, his quick smile. ‘Mum would’ve loved it.’

  Preparing the chicken for the roasting tin, he said, ‘I’m having a beer while I do this. Want one?’

  ‘Mmm, I don’t really drink beer—’

  ‘Wine, then? Lemonade?’

  ‘Yes, please. A glass of wine.’

  ‘You can choose. There’s several bottles in the fridge, bottom shelf.’

  Nick grinned when Sandra showed him the label on her choice. ‘Ha, one of Dad’s best whites. You’ve got expensive tastes, young lady.’

  ‘That’s what your father called me after I played the piano.’

  ‘Last winter – you made him happy, I remember.’

  While Nick fixed the chicken, surrounding it with sliced vegetables, she watched his hands, enjoying his brisk movements, the practised way he dealt with it.

  ‘You won’t get anything fresher than this,’ he slid the tin into the oven. ‘Killed this morning.’

  ‘You did that?’

  ‘Chopped, plucked and roasted by me. Let me know if you find the odd feather.’

  While the chicken cooked, they took their drinks to sit on the veranda.

  ‘These boards have heard a lot of talk over the decades.’ Nick raised his glass, ‘Here’s cheers. You’ve no idea how good it is you’re here, Sandra. You’ve done me a big, big favour.’

  A favour ... that wasn’t how it felt to Sandra. There were a lot of unanswered questions, and one by one, she intended to find out the answers. Eight months without a word from Nick and then he showed up – secretly – at the club. Begged her, yes, really it felt like begging, to visit Wilga Park. He could have told her the story in Sydney. There was no reason for her to be here, in this atmosphere of desolation.

  ‘Cheers,’ she responded, at a loss for anything else to say. A lone cricket scuttled across the floor.

  ‘I haven’t told you,’ Nick said, ‘how much I liked hearing my song at the club. Actually, it was a bit of a shock.’

  ‘Billy spotted you a while ago. He said “two strangers” but I’d never have guessed it was you.’

  Nick looked into his glass. ‘Ha, sorry about that. Whenever I had a gut-full of Dad’s orders, I’d just take off, but I could only ever stay overnight. And then, watching you and Billy—’ She heard his long exhalation of breath. ‘I seem to be saying sorry a lot,’ he added. ‘Well, I am sorry. For a lot of things.’

  Evening was closing in. Beyond the peppertrees, horizon and sky merged in a last golden haze. In another month it would be officially summer. Nick jumped up several times to check the dinner, put knives and forks on the table. In the centre, he placed a small vase with sprigs of yellow flowers. ‘Weeds,’ he commented. ‘That’s about all that grows now. We call these bobbliejinks.’

  He poured a glass of wine for himself, topped up Sandra’s. They ate and drank, and when Sandra found a tiny white quill stuck in the chicken leg, she plucked it out with a giggle.

  ‘I couldn’t cook a roast dinner if I tried,’ she admitted. ‘This is really the best chook I’ve ever eaten.’

  ‘Thanks. Mum thought I should know how to cook, for when I was here by myself.’

  ‘You’re sometimes here alone?’

  ‘Yes, whenever my parents went to wool or sheep sales, and I stayed home. And when Mum went to Melbourne to see her family, I’d cook for Dad and me.’

  After a dessert of icecream and jelly, they took their glasses and the bottle and went to the lounge room. Nick lit a candle, pushed wide open the doors to the veranda.

  He raised the lid of the radiogram. ‘Since my mother left,’ he said, ‘I’ve been going through her classical records. I wish I’d taken more notice when I was growing up; I mostly listened to pop like the Delltones and Buddy Holly, though Mum and I got to like The Beatles—’

  ‘The Beatles, too!’

  He slipped a record onto the turntable. ‘This is one of her favourites – a Saint-Saëns concerto – she reckoned the piano was like horses cantering.’

  ‘You told me you learned piano for a while—’

  ‘For a while. Kids at school gave me a hard time so I quit.’

  Nick patted the cushions for Sandra to sit beside him. A crooked smile at her over the top of his glass, he said, ‘I like to sit here every evening with my feet up, and watch the country going to hell.’

  Nick’s ironical remark was so unexpected, Sandra had no immediate reply.

  ‘All the galahs have cleared out,’ he added.

  Sensing that behind him lurked a black cloud. she put her feet next to his on the foot-stool. Perhaps this was the moment to ask, and Nick had just given her the cue.

  ‘Nick, there’s something—’ she began.

  ‘Yes, there is.’ Voice harsh with sudden bitterness, he said, ‘I was crazy to think you should come. It was selfish. I’m by myself and your parents don’t know that. You shouldn’t be here. We’ll change the ticket tomorrow and you can go home.’

  She chose to ignore his plea that she should leave. ‘You haven’t mentioned your father, when’s he coming home?’

  Nick’s shoulders shuddered as if he’d dropped a heavy bale of hay. ‘Okay, I didn’t know how to tell you ... it’s like this: the last time my father decided we couldn’t carry the rest of the sheep, he shot all but fifty—’

  He was rushing to speak, his words tumbling. ‘Fifty sheep, the best of the best – with the mob on agistment, all that’s left from three generations of the Morgan stud.’

  Sandra remembered the day Harry Morgan returned from shooting the first sheep: the look on his face ... the look on Nick’s face after he’d bulldozed them into the burial ground. She wanted to weep – for the family, the poor sheep, the whole helpless situation.

  ‘Oh, that’s terrible for your father—’

  ‘He didn’t speak for days, just sat in his office. Sometimes I looked in to check how he was, and he’d be sitting, staring at nothing—’

  Nick suddenly got up, returning with another bottle of wine. ‘I’m not only working my way through Mum’s records, I’m working my way through Dad’s cellar.’ He flourished the bottle. ‘Chianti classico, drink it anywhere.’

  He drew the cork, filling their glasses. ‘My mates are all beer drinkers, but my folks liked a glass of wine with dinner. I got used to it.’

  Accustomed to seeing him with a cigarette in his hand, Sandra asked, ‘You don’t smoke any more?’

  Nick gave a grim smile, lip turned down. ‘I got to hate the smell of Dad’s cigarettes. Gave it up.’

  The music flowed around them – smooth arpeggios up and down the ke
yboard – disturbing and lovely at the same time. The candle guttered, and they continued to sit in the darkening room.

  ‘I tried, Sandra, I really tried,’ Nick said. ‘I wanted to convince Dad I’d stay here, help the place get back on its feet, build up the stud again when the season changed.’ He bunched his fist. ‘My father didn’t believe me. Mum had gone, she’d never return to the life they’d led together. He felt he’d gone sour, wasted his life ... wasted himself.’

  ‘But how do you know he felt like that?’

  Nick swivelled to look at her. ‘He told me. He stood over there at the fireplace, and he told me. He said he’d quietly put Wilga Park on the market several months ago, and signed the expected proceeds over to me with enough to look after Mum for the rest of her life. That’s when I took off to Sydney the first time, and went to your club with my mate.’

  Heaving an enormous sigh, the words burst from his lips: ‘I can’t put it off any longer, I’ve got to tell you. My father’s gone.’

  ‘What? Where’s he gone?’

  Nick didn’t immediately answer. He gulped his wine, gazing fixedly at the floor. Then, as if he dredged up the words from some wretched place, he said: ‘He’s gone, Sandra, he’s dead.’

  Shocked, she took his hand, held it tightly while Nick stared into the night. ‘Oh, Nick, I’m so sorry. What happened?’

  ‘He shot himself. He drove to the woolshed and shot himself.’

  Sandra caught her breath. Harry Morgan, tough to the end, must have wept to lose the pride and joy of his life. But was it so terrible he had to give up and take his own life? She couldn’t understand it. Surely there was always tomorrow?

  ‘That’s the saddest thing I ever heard,’ she whispered. She reached a hand to him, touched his shoulder, felt the tension in his body. ‘When—?’

  ‘Two months ago. Do your best, son, he told me, and slammed out of the house. He left me to go searching for him when he didn’t come in for dinner.’

  Two months of stored grief: Nick wept silently, head in his hands. ‘The woolshed, the damn bloody woolshed ... where his heart was, you know? His whole love for this place.’