The White Earth Read online

  Outside, at the far end of the shed, were the grain silos, two great rusty metal bins thirty feet high. And here was the best place of all, for ladders ran up their sides, and if William had the nerve to climb one or the other, he could sit on the peaked roof and see the whole farm at a glance, laid out like a quilt. It was a square mile exactly, six hundred and forty acres, perfectly flat, the fields marching right up to the back of the shed, alternately golden or green or black with fallow. Beyond their own property were those of their neighbours, and from there the view went on for miles, dozens of farms, hundreds, stretching out to a patchwork blur under an uninterrupted sky.

  These were the Kuran Plains. They occupied, William knew, the northern part of a greater region known as the Darling Downs. If he looked south from atop the silos, he could see a smudge on the horizon that marked the town of Powell, with its ten thousand people;William caught a bus into school there every day. (An hour beyond Powell was the city of Toowoomba, the capital of the Downs. And beyond that again, over the mountains and down to the coast, lay the metropolis of Brisbane, where he had never been.) Turning east meanwhile, he could see, perhaps twenty miles away, the hazy blue ridges of the Hoop Mountains. They were an offshoot of the Great Dividing Range, and there was a national park up there, and forests and cool streams. Turning further still, to the north, he could see more plains, and then distant hills covered in scrub, where the Darling Downs came to an end at a little town called Lansdowne. And westwards? To the west was an open horizon that seemingly went on forever, bare of trees or towns or hills. Somewhere out there was a river known as the Condamine, and countless miles beyond that was the Outback, the desert, and the whole of Australia itself.

  But at times, sitting on the silo roof on a still, hot, summer’s day, the immense silence of the plains weighing down upon him, William would turn from compass point to compass point and find not a single thing in motion — not a bird in the air or a car on the Powell road or a tractor in the fields, not a single hint to let him know that the world lived and moved beyond his boundaries. There would be only himself, crushed and tiny on his lonely prominence, hypnotised by sheer scale into an exhausted lethargy.

  And now he was leaving it all.

  His uncle’s property lay no more than a dozen miles away, and yet it sounded nothing like William’s farm. It was a big place, his mother had told him, at least twenty times the size of their own, and it ran cattle, up in the foothills of the Hoop Mountains. It was called Kuran Station, and apparently it boasted a large homestead called Kuran House. They should consider themselves lucky, his mother said, to be offered such a grand new home. And yet William found himself disturbed at the thought. He would have to go to a new school. And then there was his uncle. William hadn’t seen him again, but he remembered the man with a limp, the measuring way he had stared at everybody, and he wondered what it would be like to live with someone so stern and so old.

  It was school holidays when the time to move came. William helped as best he could with the packing, feeling more cold and reluctant with every day. Finally, on the last afternoon, he went out to say his farewells. The house had turned into a foreign place, half stripped of furniture and littered with boxes, but the farm was worse. The bank had already held sales and auctions, and almost everything moveable was gone. The shed was empty except for the workbenches and the old cupboards and magazines. There was no grain in the silos. Someone had even taken the pile of timber away from the back yard. Out in the fields there were only the rotting stubble of the last wheat harvest and the black stretches of fallow paddocks. And somewhere down the back of the property, where he had never gone since the fire, was a field of ash, an alien place that had afflicted the whole farm.

  He stared east to the low humps of the Hoop Mountains. The weather was grey and chill, and leaden clouds rested like a sheet upon the range, but the wind rattled dryly and there was no sign of rain. To the northeast William could see a long spur of hills that ran from the mountains out into the plains. His uncle’s property was up on that spur somewhere, he’d been told. It looked as far away as the moon.

  Over a bleak dinner his mother attempted a smile. ‘It hasn’t been much fun for us, has it, Will?’

  He didn’t answer.

  ‘It’ll get better,’ she promised, a little desperately. ‘I know it’s all hard to understand, but moving in with your uncle is the best thing for us, really. You’ll see.’

  ‘Yes, Mum.’

  He went to bed, and could not sleep. He waited until the house grew silent, then sat on the back verandah, wrapped in a blanket, staring out as he had been the day his father died. It was dark under the clouds. A few pinpoints of brightness marked distant farm houses. Away on the southern horizon was a line of twinkling lights — the town of Powell, bright enough to cast a faint orange glow on the clouds above. He turned and looked towards the blackness of the hills and his uncle’s station. There was a lone light visible up there. He waited, clinging to the blanket. The light was orange, not white like the farm houses across the plain. It quivered oddly. And it seemed to be moving. He watched it without real curiosity for some time. Then it flickered and blinked out, and everything up there was night again.

  Chapter Two

  IT WAS ANOTHER COLD, OVERCAST AFTERNOON. THE REMOVAL van lumbered out of the driveway, and William and his mother followed in their old blue station wagon. William was in the passenger seat, and the heater didn’t work. He forgot to look one last time at his little cottage. Then the thought came to him that he hadn’t sat in the back seat of the car since his father died, and never would now.

  They turned onto the Powell–Lansdowne road and rolled north. Familiar landmarks slid by — the houses of neighbours, a disused railway siding, a line of old telephone poles, all leaning askew in the shifting soil. But after only a few miles William was already out of his home territory, for the focus of his life had always been south towards Powell, never towards the north. And so they soon came to a crossroads beyond which he had rarely travelled. Nearby rose heaped mounds of earth, surrounding a deep trench full of weeds and water, the mounds all grass-grown like ancient tombs. William’s father had told him they were merely the remains of an abandoned drainage scheme. But they were still ominous shapes under the grey sky, sentinels beyond which all was strange.

  They drove on slowly, the removal truck clearing their way. Some miles beyond the crossroads the road began to wind and angle away to the northeast. Ahead of them the long spur of hills marched closer, reaching out from the Hoops.

  ‘See,’ his mother said, pointing. She was an awkward driver, hunched small behind the wheel. Before the fire she had rarely driven at all. ‘Up there in the trees. You can see Kuran House. It’s not so far. We’ve hardly moved really.’

  William caught a glimpse of stone walls and a dark roof; then it was gone. He didn’t agree with his mother. They’d been in the car only fifteen minutes, but already it felt like another country. The farms were poorer here, as if the black soil was growing shallow as the hills grew near, like the ocean nearing a coastline. The road curved gently around invisible undulations, and before them the broad tip of the spur swelled out of the fields, cresting in a low hill. They crossed a bridge over a creek. Glancing down, William saw chunks of rock and a trickle of dark water. A sign announced ‘Kuran’, and then they were in a little village. Along the single street was a schoolhouse set in its playground, deserted for the holidays, then a worn weatherboard hall, and a string of small shop fronts, most of them empty. At the far end was a petrol station, a tin shed with pumps outside. No one was visible, and the half-dozen houses were closed tight against the cold, some of them looking as abandoned as the stores.

  ‘We’ll still have to do our shopping in Powell or Lansdowne,’ his mother said, staring about. ‘But the school looks nice, don’t you think?’

  William didn’t answer. The schoolhouse looked tiny — a single classroom on tall stilts. It was over a week before the next term started any
way. Ahead of them the truck was turning off onto a side road, just beyond the petrol station. The new track climbed and wound about the hill, potholes catching at the wheels of the car. Scattered gum trees waited amidst dead grass, and a few cattle grazed behind fences. Then a stone gateway appeared, with iron gates swung wide, tangled in the bushes. They passed through, rattling over a cattle grid,beyond which were the remains of a stone building, its roof fallen in and only the hollow walls standing.

  ‘That must have been the gatehouse,’ his mother said.

  The ruins slid away. The road curved further around the hill, and now they were crossing its southern face, looking out over the plains and back along the road by which they’d just come. William caught a glimpse of the chequerboard of farms laid out under the clouds, then the view was lost behind more scrub. They kept climbing. Finally they came to a long straight avenue lined with dark pines, their heads ragged and torn, almost black. At the end of the avenue was a high stone wall, pierced by an arched gate. It was open, but the removal truck pulled up, unable to fit through. William’s mother hesitated, then passed on, under the archway. A fringe of low branches scraped against the windscreen. When the car cleared them, there was Kuran House at last.

  A homestead, his mother had told him, and William had not really known what that might mean. Gazing at it now, his first amazed thought was of palaces and manors in somewhere like England, the stately homes of princes and dukes. Even in that initial moment he understood that the House wasn’t quite on that scale, but still, it was easily the biggest home William had ever seen, built all of sandstone, two tall storeys high, with a roof of grey slate. Wide terraces wrapped around both upper and lower levels. A circular driveway with a fountain in the centre led up to the front steps, a cascade of them, climbing in turn to the porch and the double front doors that looked ten feet high. From there the House stretched out until it met two perpendicular wings that projected forward from either side, framing the driveway and the fountain. William stared up at carved stone. Was his uncle rich?

  But then he was really looking, and the truth sank in. It was the roof he noticed first — the line of it sagged towards the middle, and dozens of tiles were cracked or sliding out of place. The gutters hung loose from the eaves, and below them, the high walls were draped in sullen vines and ivy. The upper verandah was ruinous, and within the shadow of the awning William could glimpse second-storey windows that were shuttered or smashed. The lower terrace was littered with junk — boxes, drums, a roll of wire, a dismantled bicycle — and the front steps were cracked and sunken. Splashes of white paint stained the sandstone walls, and some of the ground-floor windows had plywood partitions instead of glass. In another window an air-conditioner had been jammed, its grille streaked with rust. One of the front doors hung off its hinges, half open, and nearby sat a single metal chair, with some dirty plates and a coffee cup beside it, items that looked as if they might have been there for years.

  William’s mother was gazing through the windscreen, her hands tight on the wheel, a glint of dismay in her eyes. William looked at the House again, noting yet more signs of neglect. The fountain was full of grass, the driveway was deeply rutted with tyre tracks, and the garden was a wilderness of weeds.

  ‘It’s all right,’ she said, voice quavering. ‘It’s all right.’ She had papered on a smile. They climbed out of the car. No one emerged from the House to greet them, so they simply stood, staring up. ‘It … it might look a little run down. But it’ll be nicer inside. I’m sure.’

  One of the removalists called out, asking William’s mother what to do with the truck.

  She glanced back and forth nervously, looked at William.‘Your uncle said that they’re supposed to park around the back. I’d better go and show them. You stay here.’

  She headed back to the gate. William heard the truck start up and rumble around to the rear of the building. Then silence settled again, and he was alone.

  His new home frowned at him.

  William turned his back on the House and took a few steps away from the car, the gravel crunching beneath his feet. The pebbles of the drive were white, or had been, before becoming mixed up with dirt and grass. The garden spread before him. There were hints that it had once been something grander. He could see pathways meandering between the weeds, some of them paved with fractured stone slabs. There was other stonework visible as well — the borders of garden beds, a bench, a bower in a far corner — all of it smothered in plants, or half buried in dirt. Lampposts were dotted along the pathways, but there were no bulbs in the sockets, and a washing line had been strung between two of the posts, pale laundry hanging there forlornly. Great shaggy trees loomed all around. And sticking up crazily at the very front of the yard, where the hill dropped away, a diving board perched on what must have been the rim of a swimming pool.

  Nothing moved and no one came. Overhead the clouds hung motionless. The air in the garden was chill, cooler than down on the plain, and it smelled different too. William was used to the dry scent of grain and chaff, and the dusty breath of the black soil. This place had a dank odour to it, a complexity of plants and trees and weeds, a bitter forest smell, with an underlay of rotting wood. He noticed that there was a tall metal pole by the drive. A tattered flag hung limp at the top, patterned in blue and white, unrecognisable. A wave of loneliness swept over him.

  He turned back towards the House. It might have been deserted. He walked towards the front steps, feeling very small as the weight of the walls rose up on either side, a vertigo of stone. He came to the fountain, peered in. Water hadn’t flowed in it for years, and sand had gathered in the bowl, giving root to the grass. Its central pillar looked as if it had once borne a statue, but the column was snapped clean off, and only the enigmatic stump remained, a broken water pipe protruding.

  ‘Ahoy there, boy.’

  William glanced up. An old woman stood at the top of the steps.

  ‘You’d be the nephew then,’ she said.

  She was a hunched figure, wrapped in what seemed to be multiple layers of dresses and cardigans. She had a dark, hawklike face, and scraggles of grey hair escaped from a woollen beanie perched upon her head.

  ‘Your mother sent me,’ she said.‘Come up here a minute.’

  William ascended the steps silently. The old woman watched him with sharp eyes.

  ‘How old are you?’ she asked.

  ‘Nine.’

  A grunt. ‘Your mother is with your uncle and the moving men.’ She studied him some more.‘You know who I am?’

  William shook his head.

  ‘I’m your uncle’s housekeeper. My name is Mrs Griffith.’ She shuffled slowly about, taking him in from all sides. Her bony feet were encased in threadbare slippers, and her hands were twisted, curled in on themselves. She pointed to a plastic basket that sat near the front door. ‘Well, go on, pick that up. You can help me get the washing in.’

  William stared blankly.

  ‘Come on,’ she commanded, edging impatiently down the stairs, ‘They don’t want you under their feet while they get the furniture inside.’

  He picked up the basket and followed the old woman as she journeyed slowly across the tangled garden to the washing line. Then he stood by, holding the basket to his chest. The housekeeper reached up painfully and unpegged the clothes, dropping them into the basket, item by item — grey shirts, faded dresses, shapeless underwear. For a long time she didn’t speak, and neither did William. He stared at the House. None of this was what he’d expected. A housekeeper? Did that mean even more people lived here with his uncle? And yet the old man had seemed such a solitary figure on that long ago afternoon of the fire. William wanted his mother to return, but from around the back of House he could hear sounds of unloading, the voices of the men, and she would be busy there.

  The old woman was watching him. Suddenly she stabbed a peg towards the House. ‘You stay off those upstairs verandahs. They’re not safe. You stay away from the upstairs altogether. It’
s no place for games.’

  More clothes dropped into the basket.

  She considered him again, sidelong. ‘You don’t think it looks like much, I suppose. I suppose you think your uncle should just throw in a few sticks of dynamite and finish it off.’ She leaned down at him sourly. ‘That’s what he was told to do, you know, when he bought this place. The agent said he should just blow the House up and be done with it, before it collapsed and hurt someone. He offered to do it himself, before your uncle even signed the papers.’

  The washing was all off the line and piled in the basket. The housekeeper began her slow traverse back towards the House, William trailing behind.

  ‘But don’t be fooled,’ she went on. ‘It’s been here for one hundred and thirty years, and it’s not falling down any time soon. Those verandahs are a mess, but that’s just the woodwork. The stonework is fine. It’ll still be standing long after we’re all dead and buried. Even you, boy.’

  William mustered a question.‘Does anyone else live here?’

  ‘Who else would there be?’

  They were climbing up to the front porch. The old woman paused at the top, turned to face outwards.

  ‘Look out there,’ she instructed.

  From this height, William could see most of the garden, and there was indeed a half-guessed pattern to the overgrowth, the ghost of a formal arrangement long dead. The yard was bounded left and right by the stone walls, some sections dislodged into a jumble by tree roots, others leaning precariously. Directly in front was the swimming pool. He could see the outline of it, perfectly rectangular, the dusty gleam of tiles, the diving board, some metal handrails at one end. But the pool itself was empty and must have been for some time. There were sheets of rusty tin sticking up from within it, and the tops of tall bushes.