A Changing Land(64)

Anthony cringed. Sarah was setting herself up for a mighty fall.





Sarah tiptoed into the bedroom and began packing an overnight bag. Anthony had left one of the bedside lights on and the glow was bright enough to choose a couple of crisp white shirts, a pair of clean jeans and a tailored navy blazer with smart gold buttons.

‘What are you doing?’ Anthony sat up in bed, rubbing his eyes. ‘Geez it’s freezing in here.’

‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you.’ Sarah shut the bedroom door. She was beyond feeling anything. From the dresser she selected underwear, the string of pearls once owned by her grandmother and a pair of pearl earrings. ‘You told me a couple of days ago that I’d have to sort out the problem myself. Well, that’s what I’ve decided to do.’

Anthony tugged at the bedclothes. ‘I didn’t mean for you to rush off on some hair-brained –’

‘Clearly I have to see a solicitor and as you seem so ready to accept what you consider to be the inevitable, there’s no point in you being involved in this particular exercise.’

‘I see.’ He bashed his pillow into a more comfortable shape. ‘So what you’re saying is that you’re effectively cutting me out.’

Sarah zipped up the bag and sat it on a small chair in the corner of the room. ‘Jim arrived yesterday afternoon. Tonight is the first I’ve seen of you. Look at this from my corner, Anthony. You haven’t exactly been the supportive fiancé.’

‘Is this your idea of some type of payback?’

Sarah shook her head and sat on the end of the bed. ‘Anthony,’ she began as if talking to a child, ‘this isn’t about you, or me. It’s about Wangallon. I’m the last direct descendent after Dad – there is no one else.’

‘There’s Jim.’

Sarah frowned, choosing to ignore the jibe. ‘There are spare seats on tomorrow’s plane to Sydney.’

‘I’d be calling Ronald. It is his bloody mess after all.’

‘I can’t.’ She sat on the edge of their bed. ‘Sue’s ill.’

‘Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t know.’

Sarah wished she didn’t feel so alone. ‘Well, once again you haven’t been here much to support me and when you have we’ve been arguing.’ The expression didn’t change on his face. Sarah wasn’t the only one facing change both internally and externally; Anthony was developing into the type of person who wouldn’t give an inch and she didn’t like it. What happened to the man she fell in love with. ‘I’ll have to go see Dad anyway, and Mum, so I’ll tell him then, in person.’ She reached out and touched his hand. It had been days since they’d last held each other. ‘If I don’t try to keep the property together I’ll feel like I’ve failed every one of the Gordons who have come before me.’

Anthony pulled his hand away and tugged the blanket higher across his chest. ‘And what about us?’

Sarah sighed. ‘Did you consider my feelings when you dreamt up the Boxer’s Plains idea? Do you even comprehend how painful it is to me to hear you talk about Jim’s inheritance as if it’s inevitable? Knowing you feel that way, what is the point of you coming with me?’

‘You haven’t answered my question, Sarah.’

‘And I can’t. You are the one who has to answer it. You have to look at the way you’ve behaved over the past few weeks. Our relationship began on Wangallon and it will end on Wangallon, whether it be next year or in fifty years, but there has to be a Wangallon first for everything else to exist. That’s the way I see it.’ He was staring at her as if she were a museum sculpture. ‘I don’t expect you to understand.’

‘Good, because I think you’re being a bit melodramatic.’

‘That’s probably because there’s not three generations of your forefathers buried here.’ Outside the wind rattled the doors leading out onto the verandah. ‘When you first came here, this place was just a job for you.’

‘That’s unfair. I love this place.’

‘You do now.’ Sarah could feel their relationship taking on a new form, one which would never be quite the same again. ‘Wangallon has to continue being run the way it always has. I’ll accept the two thousand acres of cultivation, the grassland that’s already been cultivated. I have to as it has already been developed. I think that’s fair considering how you went about it, but that’s it. I want the rest of the project stopped until this mess with Jim is sorted.’