wasn’t a cattleman, though God knows he’d struggled to become one. The trouble was his heart wasn’t in it and he wasn’t half tough enough. He wasn’t much good at giving orders, either, or even knowing what best to do in difficult situations when Rory, the man of action, had always come up with a solution right off the top of his head. Jay’s only gift was fixing things, especially machinery. Rory had constantly reassured him that was a considerable gift. He could take any piece of faulty station machinery apart and put it together again in fine working order. Just like he had once longed to put the damaged human body back together.
He was thirty years of age, two years Rory’s senior, but he still longed for the beautiful woman who had been his mother. She had understood him but she had never been strong enough to withstand their father. She was scared of him the same way Jay had been scared of him. The only one who wasn’t scared was Rory. But even Rory had been known to flinch away from their father’s vicious tongue.
Now that Rory was gone their father took it out on him.
He returned to the homestead at dusk, cursing the fact, as he did every day, his father was such a severe man who these days possessed not even a chink of lightness of soul. Bernard Compton had become damned impossible. When Jay entered the kitchen through the back door prior to taking a shower in the adjacent mudroom, he found his father slouched over the huge pine table, a whiskey bottle near his hand. Jay never remembered his father drinking so much but these past weeks he’d been getting into it as if alcohol took his mind off his troubles and what was already going wrong on the station. It was his grandfather and the Compton men before him to whom they owed the success of Turrawin. Then Rory. The necessary skills and attributes had skipped a generation. Oddly enough, his father, like him, was excellent with machinery but he took little pride in Jay’s inherited ability. In fact he went out of his way to deride it.
‘That’s all you’re bloody good for, son. Tinkering about!’
His tinkering had saved the station a lot of money.
Bernard Compton looked up as Jay entered the room. There was no welcoming smile on his heavy handsome face but a scowl. His once brilliant dark eyes were badly bloodshot. ‘There’s a couple of postcards from your brother,’ he said, taking a gulp of his drink.
‘You’ve read them?’ Jay moved towards the table, feeling a rush of pleasure and relief at hearing from Rory again.
‘Why not? They’re bloody postcards aren’t they?’
‘They’re addressed to me,’ Jay pointed out quietly, picking them up. ‘You shouldn’t have sent Rory away, Dad. We can’t do without him.’
‘I’mnot asking him to come back, if that’s what you think.’ Bernard Compton’s face was set grimly. ‘I don’t get down on my knees to anyone least of all my own son. No respect, Rory. No respect at all. Looking at me with his mother’s eyes.’
‘Mum’s beautiful eyes,’ Jay said, his glance devouring what was written on the two postcards, each from different Outback towns. ‘He’s at a place called Jimboorie. Or he was.’
‘I can read,’ Bernard said roughly, staring up at his son. Jay was a handsome big fellow, strong and clever, but for God knows what reason glaringly inadequate when it came to running the station. ‘So what do you want me to do about it?’
‘Beg Rory to come home, Dad,’ Jay answered promptly. ‘The men look to Rory, not me.’ Not to you, either, hung heavily in the air.
‘He made his bed now he’s got to lie in it,’ Bernard Compton said. ‘What we need is an overseer given you’re so hopeless.’
‘You’re not much better,’ Jay retorted, almost beyond caring what his father thought. ‘Why didn’t I have the guts to do what I always wanted to do?’
‘Become a doctor?’ Bernard snorted, and threw back the whiskey.
‘I’d have been a good doctor,’ Jay said in his quiet way. ‘It’s in my genes. I should have pushed for it.’
His father hooted. ‘You’ve never pushed for anything in your life.’
Not with a father I hated and feared. ‘Maybe there’s still time to make plans,’ Jay said. ‘Rory told me there was.’
‘That’s because he wants Turrawin.’ His father told him with a savage laugh. ‘There’s no end to your gullibility, son. Rory wants Turrawin,’ Bernard repeated.
‘Well, I don’t want it, Dad,’ Jay replied, his unhappiness growing more unbearable every day.
‘Why, you gutless wonder! I’m ashamed of you, Jay,’ Bernard Compton thundered, striking the table with his large fist.
‘Do you think I don’t know that?’ Jay asked in a weary voice. ‘You’ve bludgeoned me over the head with it for years, Dad. But my inadequacies are modest compared to yours. All you’re good for is letting loose with the venom.’
‘Why you—!’ Bernard Compton, his face flushed a dark red, started to rise, but Jay, a powerful young man, shoved him back down on his chair. ‘When I was a kid I used to find you very frightening. Mum did, too. But no more. I pity you from the bottom of my heart. You’re a hollow man. Rory should have Turrawin. I’m the one who has to give up on this life I was never meant to lead.’
‘What are you saying?’ Bernard Compton’s bloodshot eyes were filled with shock and disbelief.
‘You heard me. Rory should have Turrawin otherwise this historic station will go steadily downhill. Only Rory can save it.’
‘Over my dead body,’ Bernard Compton exploded, glaring at his son.
‘Why do you hate him so much?’ Jay marvelled. ‘He’s your son, isn’t he? Is there some bloody thing we don’t know? Is that why Mum left? What’s the goddamn mystery?’
Bernard Compton gave an awful grunt, clutching the whiskey bottle and pouring himself another double shot. ‘Of course Rory is my son, you idiot. And I don’t hate him. I bloody well admire him like I admired my old man. But there has to be a lot of space between us. I don’t want him on my territory.’
‘You’re afraid of him aren’t you? He’s everything you wanted to be. Grandad loved him so much. He loved me, but I always knew Rory was the favourite.’
‘That old bastard!’ Bernard swore blearily. ‘He certainly didn’t love me. He always made me feel a fool.’
‘Then I’m sorry, but it was never his intention. Grandad was a really good man. I’ll stay with you, Dad, until we get a competent overseer in place. I thought we could bring Ted Warren in from Mariji. He’s more competent than I am to handle things. Then I’m going to get a new life. Up until now I’ve always had the weird feeling I’m on hold with nothing to hope for. That has to change. But first, I’m going to find my brother.’
Allegra stood on the front verandah watching life giving rain pour down over the burdened eaves in silver curtains so heavy it was impossible to see out into the home gardens. It was well over a week now since Rory Compton had made the two-hour journey from Jimboorie township to Narooma with his offer; an offer Valerie and Chloe had near jumped at. She on the other hand had made it abundantly clear it wasn’t enough, although she pretty well believed him when he said it was the best he could do.
