Chapters (32)
In that moment Ned felt a swelling, a ripping expansion, a hugeness that rang through him for the length of his life, a feeling that was sometimes rivalled but never quite matched. Not at weddings, not at births, not at funerals. Not when he worked his way north to Longreach, where he finally saw Toby again, finding him cocky, funny and largely unchanged. Not during good seasons or bad. Not when he was alone on cold waterways, not when he was in the grip of people he loved. Not as he poured dirt into graves, not as he watched his children, then his grandchildren, play. Not on the white sands of hidden beaches. Not in the shade of ancient trees, in whose canopies he imagined he could see the darting of cream-brown quolls. Not on rocky mountain roofs. Not in the presence of whales, not while viewing fine ships. Not at the scent of Huon pine. Not as Callie’s last breath eased out of her, in their house overlooking kanamaluka, the eastern sun warming her face right up to the final moments of her life. Not at his ninetieth birthday, surrounded by his family and what was left of his friends, as he felt both powerfully loved and profoundly alone.
Not even then, at the very end of his life, did he feel it again, although he always remembered it: this hugeness of feeling. This undamming of a whole summer’s fear, this half-sickening lurch to joy. This sight of his eldest brother coming home.
~
Ned was shaking. He could hear the banging of his blood. His knees were bending. He put a hand out to steady himself, found nothing to grasp. His lungs and throat hurt. Every inch of him was too hot.
A sound came from the porch. He swivelled to see his father looming in the doorway. The old man’s cup hanging slackly in his hand, tea trickling from its lip to drench the doormat. His eyes wet, his mouth loose, his face a shining mess. His chest ballooning. Breaths rushing out of him, leaving him ragged.
Ned turned back to his brother, alive in the driveway. He felt Bill’s eyes on him. Felt their hard, loving light.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Much of this book was written while I was the inaugural Hedberg Writer-in-Residence at the University of Tasmania. Thank you to the university, especially Robert Clarke and everyone in the School of Humanities, and to the Copyright Agency for funding the residency.
Thank you also to Bruce and Mary Hewitt, Emily Bill, Chris Arnott, David Winter, David’s mum, Michael Heyward, James Roxburgh, Ric Crouch, everyone at Text Publishing and Atlantic Books, the Thomas Dewhurst Jennings Society, Red Jelly, The20, and everyone in my family, near and far.