Where the River Runs Read online

  Chelsea pulled into a spot next to one of the cars already parked in front of the supermarket. As she looked around, she realised that the chemist, where she’d always been given black jelly beans by old Mr Ford, had been replaced with a small café. Good, she might be able to get a decent coffee when she came into town. As Chelsea switched off the engine, she decided she would bet her last pay cheque that the cars parked in the street still wouldn’t be locked and the keys would be in the ignitions. No one ever locked their cars in Barker. Even with the few changes on the main street.

  ‘Mummy?’

  The sleepy voice of her four-year-old daughter, Aria, startled her and she turned around to face the back seat. Her daughter’s black curls were stuck to her head and her cheeks were flushed.

  ‘Hello there,’ she smiled. ‘I thought we’d stop for an ice cream.’

  ‘Are we at Papa’s place yet?’

  ‘No, this is the town where I went to school. Do you remember how I told you I had to catch the bus from the farm to school? Papa’s place is a bit more of a drive yet.’ She unclipped her seatbelt and opened the door. Unprepared for the blast of furnace-like heat, she gasped and slammed the door shut, before walking around to get Aria out of her car seat.

  ‘It’s boiling, Mummy,’ Aria said, pushing her hair back from her face. She was hot and sweaty, but still did a couple of hops and a jump up onto the footpath.

  ‘Summer in the Flinders Ranges is always hot, honey. I’d forgotten how hot.’ She wiped her long, slim fingers across her brow and pushed her hair from her eyes. ‘Come on, I think the airconditioner will be on inside the shop.’ She pushed open the door and waited for Aria to go in first.

  ‘Hello,’ said the man behind the counter as she felt the first blast of refreshing cold air.

  Chelsea tried to keep the look of shock from her face. Even though she’d realised Mrs Chapman probably wasn’t running the supermarket any longer, she hadn’t expected her to have been replaced by a man who looked like he came from the Middle East. This was Barker, after all, hardly a multicultural hub.

  ‘Hello,’ she said, gathering herself.

  Walking around, she noticed a section dedicated to Middle Eastern and Asian cuisine that never would’ve been in stock if Mrs Chapman still owned the store. And very different to the chops and three veg that her mother used to dish up to her dad every night. She grabbed a few essentials then lifted Aria up so she could look into the freezer and choose an ice cream.

  She put her items on the counter and the man rang up the purchases before putting them in a box. No plastic bags here. ‘Where’s Mrs Chapman?’ she asked as she handed over a fifty-dollar note.

  ‘Who?’ the man gave her a confused glance.

  ‘Mrs Chapman. The owner. Or doesn’t she own the shop anymore?’ She wondered how well he spoke English.

  ‘Ah, Gloria,’ he answered fluently, and Chelsea wanted to kick herself for making assumptions. ‘She is no longer here. I bought the shop from her two years ago.’

  ‘Right. Of course. I guess she’d be pretty old by now. Been a while since I was home.’

  ‘You used to live here?’

  Chelsea nodded and reached down to stop Aria pulling on her T-shirt, wanting her icy pole. ‘Wait, honey.’ Turning back to the man, she answered, ‘Yeah, I’m Tom Taylor’s daughter, Chelsea. Haven’t been home in ten years. I guess a lot has changed.’ Unwrapping the icy pole, she handed it to Aria and picked up the box.

  ‘It is nice to meet you, Chelsea. And you too, little one. I am Amal. Enjoy your time being in your homeland.’

  Giving him a curious smile, she guided Aria out the door. What did he mean, ‘homeland’? How did he know she’d been away overseas?

  ‘Let me just put this in the car and we’ll go for a quick look around,’ she said, placing the box on the back seat, then taking her daughter’s hand.

  They walked down the main street together, the heat rising from the pavement. Chelsea looked in each window in the hope of catching glimpses of people she knew—kids from school, or their parents. There was no one. How could the footpaths be empty with a few hundred people living in Barker?

  At the end of the street they came to the butcher’s shop and Chelsea wondered if she should get some steak for dinner tonight. Her dad always liked steak as a change from chops. Still, he might see it as a suck-up job.

  The door opened and an old lady carrying a string bag stepped out onto the footpath. Something about the woman was familiar.

  She glanced at Chelsea, then down at the little girl, and she stopped. ‘Chelsea Taylor? Is that you?’

  Chelsea couldn’t place her, so she just nodded. ‘Yes,’ she added for good measure.

  A look of disgust crossed the woman’s face. ‘Got a bit too big for your home town, did you? Well, it’s about time you came back. Fancy, never turning up for your—’ She broke off and shook her head. ‘Well … I can’t say that your father will be pleased to see you.’ With that, she turned and stalked towards one of the four cars parked in the street.

  Chelsea blinked, a sliver of anxiety running through her.

  ‘Was that lady angry with you, Mummy?’ The icy pole was now finished, and Chelsea could see Aria’s hands were covered in a sticky mess.

  ‘Let’s go and clean up those hands and get going out to Papa’s. What do you say?’

  ‘But …’

  ‘Aria, let’s go.’ Chelsea wanted to get off the street and away from prying eyes before anyone else could pass judgement on her. Was that what they thought of her now? Chelsea, the town darling, had become too big-headed for her home. She knew how a small town could have a person charged and guilty without any proper evidence, but the thought made her sad. If only they all knew …

  A few minutes later they were back in her little red Ford Focus and heading towards the petrol station, which boasted three petrol pumps and the best takeaway in the area.

  Chelsea’s mouth dropped open as they drove by the site. It was gone. Actually, that wasn’t strictly true. The shell of the building was still there, but the windows had been smashed in and the walls were covered with graffiti. There were empty spaces where the pumps had been. Where did people get their fuel from?

  ‘Mummy, what are those bushes? They look really prickly.’

  Chelsea ignored Aria’s chatter from the back seat and concentrated on the road. Now she had left the town boundary, she still remembered to slow down as she went through the creek, which had an unexpectedly deep dip, and to keep an eye out for kangaroos near the grove of saltbush on the side of the road. Her dad had always said it was the best place for a roo to jump out and surprise them—especially since the roos were the same colour as the vegetation.

  One kilometre out of town she saw the turn-off to the cemetery and lifted her foot off the accelerator.

  Was her mother buried there? She didn’t even know. Just as she hadn’t known about the funeral. Or about her death. Until it was too late.

  The lump that had threatened all day finally made its way to the middle of her throat and sat like a stone. She swallowed. It didn’t move.

  Tears were hovering too, but she couldn’t cry in front of Aria. She had to be strong. Like she always had been. No tears, no emotion, no thinking about things that would make her feel overwhelmed by sadness. This was the reason Aria’s father was never mentioned either.

  ‘Mummy?’ The high-pitched voice was now pleading. ‘Mummy! You’re not listening …’

  ‘What?’ The word came from Chelsea with such anger that Aria stopped talking and looked down at her hands, her lips trembling.

  The cemetery was behind them now and Chelsea pushed her foot down and blew out a breath. ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry,’ she soothed. ‘Look, let’s sing something. To take our mind off the trip. It’s been such a long drive and you’ve been so good. I know it’s hard being cooped up for hours. What would you like to sing? Your choice, honey.’

  ‘One hundred green bottles!’ Aria said, her voi
ce triumphant, as though she’d been waiting the whole journey for this moment.

  Chelsea closed her eyes briefly and sent a silent plea for patience, then started to sing.

  Chapter 2

  Scenes from Chelsea’s childhood kept her company as she drove the dirt roads towards her parents’ farm, Shandona.

  Aria had drifted off to sleep at about the fifteenth green bottle and, by the twentieth, Chelsea knew she could stop singing without waking her.

  As she passed through the deep creek lined with river red gums, she flicked on the local radio station she remembered listening to when growing up. More memories. She recognised some of the ads from years ago. Had no one thought to update them?

  Ed Sheeran’s ‘Castle On The Hill’ began playing, and goosebumps rippled over her skin as she listened to the words. He was singing about driving the roads home and how he couldn’t wait to get there. Maybe he was singing about England, but the words still resonated with her in South Australia. The verse about Ed’s friends started and it made her think of Lily. Did she still live in Barker? And what about Jason, or Kelly, or Shane?

  She thought about the time a boy she’d known from primary school had smuggled a bottle of wine out of his parents’ bar fridge and they’d sat on the edge of the reservoir, drinking under a star-studded sky. The moon had been nearly full and, if she closed her eyes, Chelsea could still see its reflection on the water. She had been home from the Conservatorium on summer holidays. The wine had been cold while her body was warm. That was the first time a boy had ever tried to kiss her. With her cheeks burning from the alcohol, she’d kissed him back. Kelly had told her later he had only done it as a dare. The hot flush of humiliation swept over her again, even after all this time.

  Chelsea narrowed her eyes and focused on the road to banish the memory. She’d been in two minds about coming home. Part of her was pulled by some invisible force, a need to be where she grew up. To show Aria where she’d spent her childhood and to sit on the bank of the creek where she’d once played in the puddles. It was a place where she could breathe in the peace. The other part of her was saying there was nothing here for her anymore. Hadn’t been for years. Why would she put herself through all the emotion of a homecoming when she didn’t need to?

  Rounding a corner, she saw the boundary fence of Shandona snaking its way down the rough hill onto the flood plain. She took her foot off the accelerator and she slowed down to take a better look. There had been an outcrop of trees on that hill when she’d been in primary school. The only stand of trees within a few miles. She’d wondered why they grew in that spot when there were no others around. One Sunday afternoon her Papa had slowly followed the winding track down to the flood plains. He and Gran had taken Chelsea for a drive after church to check the lambing ewes. It had been bitterly cold, but she’d still ridden on the back of the ute, enjoying the freezing wind against her face. One of those trees had caught her beanie and pulled it from her head and she’d called out to her Papa to stop. She’d watched her bright red beanie snared on a bare branch, waving in the wind, until he’d turned around and they’d gone back to pluck it from the tree. Her favourite beanie had been ruined. Gran had comforted her when they’d finally got back to the house and promised to knit her another one. ‘You’ll need something to keep your ears warm when you’re riding your horse,’ she’d said.

  But Gran had died before she’d been able to finish knitting the new one. She’d gone to bed one night and not woken up the next day.

  Chelsea hoped the half-knitted red beanie was still in the bottom drawer of her bedside table. She’d put it there after her gran’s funeral so she’d always have part of her close by.

  Driving slowly, Chelsea noticed changes to the road—it was now smooth and well cared for, not the potholed, two-wheel track it had been before the council had taken over the management of it. It was the opposite when it came to the boundary fences of Shandona: they were sagging and the wires were a combination of rusty and new. It looked as if someone without much money had tried to patch them the best they could.

  The land they enclosed was bare, save for scrubby bushes scattered here and there. On one side of the road, the paddock contained hundreds of emus—it looked as if they were being farmed, but she knew better. The country was in the grip of a drought and the emus would be looking for any skerrick of grass they could find.

  But the rivers, her favourite places, although dry and devoid of grass on the banks, looked just the same as they had when she used to ride Pinto through them. The beds were still filled with stones and river sand; the trees, hundreds of years old, towered overhead as though they were the rivers’ guardians.

  The road curved sharply, and there was a turn-off to the homestead just in front of her. She saw the white forty-four gallon drum posing as a mailbox, then the cattle grid. After she’d bumped across the grid, there was a short drive to the dam on her left and then she turned through the gates of Shandona for the first time in ten years.

  When Chelsea saw the house, her breath caught in her throat. The raised voices of the past screamed at her.

  ‘You won’t amount to anything by following that path!’ her mum had yelled.

  ‘After everything we’ve done for you, this is how you repay us?’

  And the pleading—‘Why?’—from a different time, after Dale had died.

  With a deep breath, she pulled her little car—her jellybean car, her friend Tori had called it—underneath the large gumtree on the corner of the disused tennis court and shut off the engine.

  ‘Mummy?’

  Chelsea turned in her seat. ‘We’re here, honey. Ready to get out and meet Papa?’

  Aria’s deep brown eyes were serious. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Okay, then let’s go.’ She unclipped her seat belt and got out, this time ready for the heat. The galahs, perched in the tree above her, rose with screeching protest as the noise of the door slamming echoed around the empty yard. Chelsea hadn’t even reached Aria’s door before they settled straight back down into the tree again.

  As she helped Aria out of the car she couldn’t keep her eyes still. The old meathouse that stood in the middle of the yard looked like it was derelict and disused, but the overseer’s house seemed well tended. The gardens were neat and tidy and she could tell the walls, although covered in a thin film of ever-present dust, were newly painted. This house was where she had lived with her parents until her grandfather had retired and moved to Adelaide, leaving them the main house. She wondered if the kitchen walls were still painted the same pale blue.

  Looking at her old home, she assumed there must be someone living there. A grey ute was parked out the front, and there were chooks in the hen house, along with a pile of logs on the verandah. Not that whoever was living there now would be needing them in the middle of summer, she thought. Her dad must have employed a workman.

  ‘Come on.’ She took Aria’s hand more for her own comfort than her daughter’s and started to cross the gravel yard. She kept her eyes peeled for snakes out of an old habit she thought she’d long since forgotten.

  Her family had moved into the main house when she was eight, the year Gran had died. Leo had decided he didn’t want to farm without his wife and that decision had stopped the arguments between Leo and Tom about succession. Tom, at forty-one, had more than enough experience to run Shandona on his own.

  The pathway leading to the main entrance was slate and wound its way between large, free-flowing plumbago bushes, which seemed to be planted in the ground but had been allowed to grow wild. They had to push it out of their way as they walked. On the other side of the path was a stone building that had been her dad’s schoolroom when he was a kid. Shandona was too far from Barker for Tom to attend school so, along with School of the Air, Leo and Evelyn had employed a governess to help educate their son, before sending him to boarding school in year eight. The last time she’d peeked into the disused room, the old desks and faded times-table charts, long since forgotten, had st
ill been on the wall.

  The laundry was next to the schoolroom and Chelsea wondered whether the twin-tub washing machine her mum had used was still there. Chelsea knew she’d kept it because it didn’t use very much water, but it had always seemed like a lot of extra work to her.

  Pip had loved maintaining a tidy and organised house. And a nice garden.

  As well as forcing you to play netball and not understanding you, a tiny voice in her head told her.

  Shush!

  The house was built from stone and had an enclosed verandah on one side, which had always been called the sunroom. Its louvred windows were open and dusty—something that would never have happened when Pip was alive. Chelsea’s stomach constricted. The temperature gauge that had always hung just outside the door was still there.

  Everything seemed the same, but it wasn’t. The house didn’t have the same loved feel as it had the last time she’d been here, and what she was seeing made her realise it was really true, her mum was gone. Swallowing hard, she blinked, hoping to see her mum raking the leaves from the lawn or walking back to the house from the shearing shed.

  There was nothing, except an old border collie sleeping at the end of a chain near the laundry door. As they pushed past him he sat up and gave a sharp bark. Aria squealed and made sure Chelsea was between them.

  ‘It’s okay,’ Chelsea told her. ‘He’ll be for chasing the sheep, and warning of visitors. He won’t hurt you.’ She realised Aria had never seen a border collie before. There had always been dogs when Chelsea had been living at home. Hers and her daughter’s childhoods were very different.

  ‘Hello? Dad?’ She knocked on the screen door and pushed it open. The dusty door squeaked and she called out again.

  ‘Papa?’ Aria copied her mother and pushed in front of her.