Page 83 of A Home Among the Snow Gums
‘Of course I have. She’s got a life interest in her cottage.’
‘Good idea. Add in a clause that we maintain it, we get a cleaner through it once a week, organise help for her if and when she needs it, and Mrs L gets to retire as much or as little as she wants to.’
‘What, are you my bloody lawyer now?’
That was the first time ever—ever—that he had heard his father mention his university degree. And he hadn’t said it like a swear word either.
‘Would—’ Tom kept his tone very calm and very even ‘—that be a bad thing?’ He was already manning the property portfolio. But horse sale contracts needed to be written up, lease agreements renewed, employee disputes resolved … he could do it.
Heneededto do it. It would give him a focus if the worst came to pass.
Bruno scowled. ‘That one in town turned out to be as useful as a fart in a henhouse.’
‘He was having a crisis, Dad. Divorce, drinking, medical problems.’
‘Don’t correct me, son. If I want to poke a stick at someone, I’ll poke a bloody stick, understood?’
That sounded like a yes. ‘So it’s agreed. I’ll officially handle the Krauss legal matters, on the condition that you can be as surly as you like to anyone you like.’
‘Ha!’ said Bruno. ‘Maybe you’ve got a bit of me in you after all.’
‘It’s a deal, then.’
‘You’ll work from home.’
Bruno always had to be the boss, didn’t he? Tom prevaricated with a non-answer: ‘The files are all at the pub.’
His dad grunted and wheeled his way forward to the next garden bed. ‘Ah.Rosa Bonica.Put this beauty in a few years ago, maybe the last time I could get on my hands and knees and dig in the garden the way god intended. Pinch that stem off for me, would you, son? There’s something growing on it. I’ll get the magnifying glass onto it in my study.’
Tom fiddled with the stem his father was looking at, trying to work out how to snap it off without snapping off half the bush; that’d be a sure way to set back this new accord he and his father had found.
‘When I’m gone, I want these roses looked after.’
Today was a day for firsts. His dad was being franker than he’d expected and Tom wasn’t sure how to respond. Not with pity, Bruno would hate that.
‘I’m no gardener, Dad. You want these roses babied, you’re going to have to pass that job on to a gardener. Maybe Kev can come from town every now and then and tend to them.’
‘My legs and arms may be useless, Tom, but my brain’s working just fine. Of course I meant get an expert in; only a moron would leave their prize roses to you. Now, it’s time for a little plain speaking of my own. I’m gonna need you to wheel me over to that snow gum if you want to hear it.’
The station’s small cemetery lay under a stand of old gums. Wrought iron railings, weathered to rust, guarded the ragged patch of ground, and the small headstones within had tilted askew. He’d had to whipper-snip in there as a kid: tough dry paddock grass and tiny yellow dandelions had kept his grandparents and his mother company over the years.
He had no memories of any of them.
‘What do you see?’
He could see the Snowy Mountains, of course. They filled the horizon to the west, purple with shadow now the sun had fallen behind them. The paddocks, the stables where his father had spent most of his working life.
The homestead.
‘Do you love it, Tom? Do you love Ironbark? Or did I wreck it for you all those years ago?’
He sighed. ‘Dad.’
Bruno’s pale hand clutched his. ‘I worry …’ Now his dad’s voice was becoming creaky and weak. ‘I wanted this place to be ours. The Krauss family. I wanted it to be a place people loved. And then I drove you away.’
Tom wasn’t about to argue that point. Bruno had driven him away and it had taken him close on twenty years to erase the bitterness.
‘I never stopped loving Ironbark Station, Dad.’
