A Changing Land(107)
Catherine Jamieson gave her such a withering look Maggie felt as if she suffered from the plague. ‘He asked, Maggie Macken. But I could no sooner leave here than he could leave his blue haze.’
This was news quite unexpected. Maggie attempted to breathe evenly, but concentrating her thoughts in that department only made her more breathless.
‘You should have stopped Jim from going. It’s not right to steal from others.’
Maggie collected herself. She was an upstanding citizen in Tongue, well married with a son and, very soon most likely, the Mackens would be richer than all their neighbours. ‘Steal? It is certainly not stealing. Besides it’s you who decided to tell what lay hidden for years.’
‘Because your boy hankered after young Sarah when she visited and you did nothing to dissuade him. If he’d been my boy I would have told him to stay away. It wasn’t seemly the way you let them keep company. Especially when you made no bones about the company you’d kept.’
‘Were it not for you, my boy would not be over there,’ Maggie countered. ‘None of this would be happening. After all it was you with your “holier than thou” attitude who told what never should have been spoken.’ Maggie wondered once again at the logic of hiding a nasty mistake with a lie, especially when women such as Catherine Jamieson were probably shrewd enough to guess the difference. Still Maggie persisted with her argument. ‘Besides, it’s the grand father who has left the will.’ She fiddled with the car keys in her hand. Catherine Jamieson was still staring her down. ‘It’s family business now and naught to do with you.’
‘You shouldn’t have done it. You didn’t love Ronald.’
Maggie blinked. It was strange to think that this woman talking to her may once have been young, both in looks and spirit. Maggie cleared her throat, pressed her shoulders back a little. She reminded herself that she had nothing to prove to anyone, only her family to be considered. ‘Of course I loved him.’
The older woman looked at her, unconvinced, shuffled in her handbag for a tissue and pressed it against her nose. ‘More than your running? More than the running shoes your own poor mother heard you lament about daily? If I didn’t know better, Maggie Macken, I’d say you were lying.’ Mrs Jamieson turned smartly on her heels as if dismissing an unruly child.
Maggie watched Catherine Jamieson walk away. The town gossips said the woman had been jilted, or that her man had died; whether through accident or illness no one knew. What would those same gossips say if they ever discovered that the man in Catherine’s heart was Ronald Gordon? That Catherine Jamieson never married because she loved a man she could not have? That type of love was something Maggie could not even begin to comprehend. No wonder the woman hated her.
Locking her car, Maggie walked towards the sign-posted trail. The locals had always been kind to her, believing her to be a young woman who’d been taken advantage of some twenty-eight years ago. This coupled with the fact that Maggie’s pregnancy coincided with enough money to finally purchase a pair of running shoes only added to the glances of pity afforded to her by neighbours and townsfolk alike. Overnight she was transformed. Maggie Macken was the promising local runner whose career was cut short by an unfortunate turn of events.
The track sloped downhill. Maggie slipped through wet grass and mud. In the distance, across the sea entrance, mountains rose enticingly. There was usually mist swirling about the peaks, while at the base the icy grip of the North Sea clutched at the rocky shoreline with each incoming wave. Maggie reached the bottom of the small valley and a pebble-strewn stream. She gasped as the cold water soaked immediately through her lace-ups and clucked her tongue at the stupidity of trying to negotiate an overgrown path in shoes meant for a morning’s shopping. Scrambling over a wooden stile, she brushed rising flies from her face, hung her handbag over her shoulder and looked at the overgrown track leading uphill. Her feet were cold, her body hot and the sun was beginning to prickle her skin. She couldn’t recall the distance to the ruin, nor whether the climb was a steep one. Maggie looked over her shoulder. Surely after all the years since she’d last climbed this track, hoping a young man followed, her memory wouldn’t fail her. There were at least two further stiles to be crossed. And the track was a slippery one, but quite doable even when wearing questionable shoes. Maggie tucked her hair behind her ears, stamped her feet in the soft vegetation to increase her circulation, and walked on.
Hamish rode out towards a pinkish glare of heat and dust, refusing to look over his shoulder at the woman who had so wantonly provoked him. There was the tang of smoke in the dawn air, signalling bushfires to the south-east. Aborigines, he surmised, adjusting his arse in the saddle. He would need some of Lee’s salve if he was to carry out his plan against Crawford. Age had made his backside sensitive to riding long distances. He turned his horse to the ridge and headed towards the creek, his gaze drawn every so often to the smoke hanging on the horizon. The Aborigines were adept at lighting fires to smoke out kangaroos, lizards and other campfire edibles. Hamish had observed the regeneration of trees and plants once these untended fires had burnt through the county, yet such fires on Wangallon were banned. In the heat of summer a conflagration could quickly ensue, destroying the valuable grasses so vital to his livestock’s survival and Wangallon’s prosperity. Of more concern was the danger to his beloved cattle and sheep. Hamish had been witness to the terrible sight of burnt sheep; the sweet stench of lanolin and the horrific burns. He wished no such pain on any creature – friend or foe. Yet out east, as evidenced by the sting to his eyes this morning, there were no such constraints.