Chapter 1 ~ Coming home
Present day
The wheat fields, Western Australia
I close the book with a snap and glance out the window. Below, the landscape stretches away – remote, dry and flat. Heat wavers upwards to the sun, pouring itself into the space between horizon and sky. From my vantage point I can see the silver-beige wheat fields stretching as far as that same horizon and beyond, the road cutting a swathe through them. It is straight and narrow, the road, and flanked by a wobbly row of telegraph poles. Further back is a railway line, and a river that reflects the sky like a mirror. In contrast to the road, the river bends and twists itself across the flat landscape towards the sea. From this height it looks like a writhing snake.
The mail plane is banking now, dropping lower, and I can feel the descent in the pit of my stomach. Jack the pilot reaches over, taps my arm and nods downwards. A cluster of trees and roofs swings into view. ‘Almost there, Gemma,’ he yells above the noise of the engine. I stretch my legs to prepare for our landing.
It’s been years since I last visited. I close my eyes and mentally tally them. Six or seven, perhaps? Aunt Connie’s sixtieth birthday. No, I think savagely, dismissing my calculation. How could I be so wrong? Connie turned seventy-two last spring. Twelve years! Where had the time gone?
I drove that last time, an exhausting full day’s journey from Perth. Since then, I’ve seen them – both Connie and my father – many times, but always in the city. Every summer I send them tickets and wait at the airport as they stumble off the plane, watching anxiously as they navigate the chaos that is suburbia. They always seem lost and small amongst the tall buildings and whizzing cars. Dislocated, out-of-kilter. After a week or so they become twitchy and anxious to be gone. As they wave goodbye at the airport, I always know they are glad to be going home.
I open my eyes and bring my thoughts back into the present. Wings dip then straighten, sunlight glinting on the paintwork. As the mail plane drops lower I can see the township clearly now, rumpling the surrounding flatness, grey and dusty in the heat. School yard with children pointing upwards, hands shielding their small faces from the glare. Silos – cylindrical concrete monoliths – reach up above the trees, baking under the noon sun. General store and post office. Pub. Garage.
In another lifetime, this was home.
A momentary sense of completeness, of familiarity towards this place where I was born, overwhelms me. I blink and close my eyes again, letting the sensation take hold. Then, without warning, the reason for this unexpected visit slams back into my awareness.
Grady Halloran: my father.
Dead from a heart attack at seventy-five.