The Lost Valley

Chapter 7

Chapter 7

Tom seemed to be falling forever, as in a dream, merging with the rushing cascade. He bounced off boulders and snags on the way down, but felt nothing – not yet. If he could just spread his wings and soar up through the rainbow spray, like the spine-tailed swifts that nested on these cliffs. If he could be a bird …

Reprieve from pain ended when he smacked into the rocky pool at the base of the falls. The impact knocked the wind from his lungs, a small blessing. It stopped him gasping for breath beneath the water, when his mind was still spinning, when his body felt impossibly heavy.

Tom surfaced by instinct and struck out for the bank. His right arm didn’t work and each breath was torture. He hauled himself into the shallows left-handed, and with agonising slowness, crawled onto the river sand. Blood oozed from his many cuts. He vomited, light-headed, struggling to think. Struggling to accept what his brother had done. How was Harry feeling? Sick at heart? Frightened? Maybe he felt nothing; maybe he was happy. Tom vomited again, growing more and more dizzy. Would Harry come for him? And if he did, would it be to help? With this last, frightening thought, Tom’s vision faded and darkness descended.

Tom woke in a world of hurt. A round moon sailed high in the sky. His breath came in shallow pants and the pain in his arm made him scream when he tried to move. Tom gritted his teeth, dragged himself to the dark water and drank. With the help of a low branch he pulled himself to his feet, stiff with an agony more than physical. The agony of knowing his brother had left him to die.

Tom’s injuries had stiffened. Each inch of him ached. Raw skin showed through his shredded clothes, crusted with dried blood. Each step was an agony, but his legs moved when ordered to and moonlight showed the way. He could do this. He had to do this. With a groan, Tom shuffled off down the waterfall track.

Hours later, a light appeared in the gloom ahead. At first he thought the flash was inside his lids, a prelude to fainting. But there were hoofbeats, and someone calling. A sudden fear came over him and he stumbled into the trees.

The hoofbeats drew nearer. ‘Harry! Tom!’ Old George’s voice.

‘Here,’ yelled Tom, drag-footing his way back onto the track. ‘I’m here.’

Tom opened his eyes. Morning sun streamed through the window. He was in his own bed, unsure of how he got there, unable to remember anything after Old George found him. He knew one thing though – he was grateful to be alive.

His hurting was down to a dull throb. Tom peeked under the covers. Someone had cut off his torn clothes and taped up his torso. His wounds were cleaned and dressed, and his right arm lay stiff and heavy in plaster.

‘Thank God, Tom.’ He hadn’t seen Nana standing there by his pillow. ‘I’ve been frantic with worry.’

He pulled the sheet higher, embarrassed to be naked underneath. When he tried to sit up, a sharp spasm gripped him and made him gasp.

‘Lie down,’ she said. ‘Try not to move. You have a broken arm and broken ribs.’

Nana gently raised his head and held two pills and a cup of lemonade to his lips. She smelt sweet, like roses. Like his mother.

‘This will help with the pain.’ He swallowed the pills in one gulp, drained the cup dry and asked for another. Nana placed the softest kiss on his forehead. ‘I should never have sent you off like that. You must have been thrown from your horse, Tom. Flame came home without you.’

‘Is she all right?’ he asked through fat lips. Talking hurt his jaw.

‘Listen to you.’ Nana smiled and smoothed his hair. ‘Flame’s fine, Tom. Now, tell me what happened. What do you remember?’

He closed his eyes, head hurting, his mind a fog of confusion. Part of him wanted to scream out what Harry had done, wanted the world to know, wanted to make him pay. Yet the instinct to protect his brother remained strong, ingrained in his being. Tom licked his swollen lips, but no spit would come. What to do? A small voice said this was his fault too. He’d provoked Harry, telling him about Father like that.

‘Tom?’

An expectant silence stretched between them.

‘Ask Harry,’ he said at last, unable to meet her eye.

‘Oh, my poor darling, you don’t know, do you? Your brother’s still missing. His horse came in after midnight without him.’ She dabbed his cut face with a washer dipped in warm water and Dettol. He tried not to flinch. ‘Listen, Tom, this is important.’ She reached for his hand. ‘Did you find Harry yesterday? Do you know where he might be?’

He turned away.

‘Look at me, Tom. Buster came home lame and he’s lost his bridle. Harry’s out there somewhere, probably hurt. You have to think.’

‘Sorry, Nana, I can’t remember.’ His voice broke into a sob. ‘I can’t remember anything.’

Tom dozed on and off all morning, thinking about Harry and listening to the sounds coming through the window; the grind of car engines, the clip-clop of hooves, the mutter of strange voices and barking dogs. A waste of everybody’s time. They wouldn’t find Harry if he didn’t want to be found.

The corner clock had chimed twelve when Nana brought in a bowl of steaming chicken soup and a plate of buttered toast. The town police sergeant followed her into the room; a stout, middle-aged man with a ginger beard.

‘Sergeant Murphy’s coordinating the search for Harry,’ she said. ‘He has some questions.’

Murphy cast a curious eye over Tom. ‘So you and your brother had a blue before he took off up the mountain.’ The clock ticked out the seconds. ‘Were you still angry when you went after him?’

‘That was my fault,’ said Nana. ‘I sent Tom to find Harry.’

Murphy frowned. ‘What happened out there, son? Where’s your brother?’

Tom began to shiver.

‘He doesn’t remember.’ Nana laid an eiderdown over him. ‘He must have hit his head.’

‘If you don’t mind, I’d like to speak to your grandson alone.’ Nana crossed her arms and shook her head. Murphy glared at her, pulled a chair up to the bed and settled his square frame into it. ‘You’re pretty beat up, son. You and Harry get into a fight out there?’

Nana stepped forward. ‘Sergeant, anyone can see the boy’s been thrown from his horse.’

‘Maybe so.’ Murphy leaned forward and tipped Tom’s head a little further back on the pillow. ‘But no fall caused those thumb marks around his neck, or these knuckle-shaped bruises.’ He fetched a hand mirror from the dresser and held it up for Tom. ‘Take a gander at yourself, son.’

Tom drew in a sharp breath, causing a white-hot pain to rip through him. He didn’t recognise his reflection. Eyes rimmed in black. Lips split and crusted with scabbed blood. Nose smashed and swollen … and those tell-tale bruises. The story of Harry’s flying fists was written all over his face.

‘With you looking like this, well, it makes me wonder how young Harry ended up.’ Murphy’s mouth turned up in a cold smile. ‘You might be able to fool your grandmother, son, but we both know you and your brother got into it.’

‘That’s quite enough, Sergeant.’ Nana drew herself up to her full height. ‘My grandson is not on trial here.’

Murphy stood up. ‘All right, I’ll go.’ His eyes bored into Tom’s one last time. ‘Are you sure there’s nothing more?’

Tom was torn, the blood rushing in his ears. It would be so simple, the sergeant was standing right there. Why not tell the truth, clear himself of blame, and save everyone this pointless search for the supposedly injured Harry?

‘Your soup’s getting cold.’ Nana fussed around, arranging his lunch on a tray and helping him sit up a little.

Murphy sensed Tom’s ambivalence and placed an encouraging hand on his shoulder. ‘Help us out here.’

Tom’s mind froze. Did he really want Nana to know the truth? How he’d mocked Harry with the awful reality of their parents’ deaths? Leaving that part out would be worse than lying. If not for his cruel taunts, Harry would never have dropped him off a cliff.

‘Speak up, son.’

‘Sorry,’ said Tom. ‘I can’t remember.’

Disappointment and concern clouded his grandmother’s face. He wished he had the courage to reassure her about his brother. Harry wasn’t the bushman Tom was, but he could live rough for a while. He’d come home when he was fed up with bush tucker and cold nights.

Harry held out for three days. Then, one morning, Nana came running into Tom’s room where he still lay, too bruised and sore to move.

‘He’s home, Tom.’ She couldn’t stop smiling. ‘Harry’s home.’

Tom craned his neck to see around her. His brother stood in the doorway, clothes filthy and torn.

‘Tom’s been so worried about you,’ said Nana.

Harry approached the bed with halting steps and dark, unreadable eyes.

‘Glad you’re home,’ said Tom. He hadn’t meant to say it. He’d meant to be angry, but the words just slipped out.

‘We’re all glad you’re home.’ Nana wrapped her arms around Harry. He barely tolerated the embrace, standing stiff and unyielding. ‘Come on, you can catch up with Tom later, dear. The doctor’s on his way to check you over, and you need something to eat.’

Tom held his nose. ‘Make him take a bath while you’re at it.’

Two hours later, Harry was back. Tom studied his stony face, wanting to ask if he was surprised to find him alive. ‘The whole town’s been searching for you,’ he said instead. ‘Where’d you go?’

‘Upstream.’ Harry shuffled his feet. ‘Nearly starved to death. Couldn’t even snare a bloody rabbit.’

‘What did you tell Nana?’

‘That I fell off Buster and got lost.’ Harry gulped hard. ‘What did you tell her?’

‘That I can’t remember.’

Harry exhaled and rubbed his sunburnt neck. ‘Didn’t mean to let you go, mate. I couldn’t hold on.’ He plucked at the cream counterpane with his fingers, the same fingers that had let Tom plunge into the abyss. ‘You’re a tough bugger, tougher than me. I told myself you’d fall in the water. I told myself you’d be all right.’

Tom sagged back on his pillows. He knew Harry, knew the darkness in him. The same darkness was in himself. Buried a little deeper perhaps, but it was there. Why else did he taunt Harry with a truth so guaranteed to hurt?

‘I shouldn’t have left you like that. It was a mongrel thing to do.’ Harry looked him straight in the eye. ‘I’m sorry.’

Tom sat up, ignoring the pain of his cracked ribs. Had he misheard? Harry was never sorry, no matter what. His brother based this principle on one of Father’s oft-repeated PG Wodehouse quotes. It is a good rule in life never to apologise. The right sort of people do not want apologies, and the wrong sort take a mean advantage of them. Harry took everything their father had said to heart, with the literal interpretation of a child.

Tom snatched at the precious apology like a man overboard snatching for a life buoy. Eager to believe. In a hurry to forgive.

The knot of tension in the room unravelled. ‘How’s that dickhead, Hancock?’ asked Harry.

‘He’ll be good as new, apparently.’

Harry pulled up a chair to the bed. ‘I guess he won’t be coming back.’

‘Guess not.’

They talked about small things. Would Nana be foolish enough to engage another tutor? How long before Tom could use his arm again? Would he still be able to chop wood? Harry’s time on the mountain.

‘I found a new eagle nest, chicks and all. Once you’re out of that bed, I’ll show you.’

Their father remained the great unmentioned. Tom wanted to leave the subject alone. He’d have got up and walked out if he could. They tiptoed around the issue for a few more minutes, but Harry was gearing up to talk about him. It showed in his nervous eyes, and how his tongue flicked around his lips. ‘What you said about Papa,’ he said at last. ‘About what he did …’ His words ground to a halt.

‘I won’t take it back,’ said Tom. ‘I know what I heard.’

Harry held up his hand. ‘The thing is, I think I already knew. Not sure how. Just a feeling.’

Tom stared at his brother. All these years of putting Father on a pedestal, of being his defender and champion. How could he do that if he suspected?

‘I miss him every day,’ said Harry, his voice breaking. ‘I loved Mama, you know that, but I still love Papa too, despite what he did. It’s killing me.’ He fixed Tom with troubled eyes. ‘Do you love him?’

Tom tried to recall his father’s face, but it was a mere blur. Mama’s lovely image swam before him instead; the sunny smile and gentle eyes, the soft curl of her copper-coloured hair. She seemed so real, he could almost smell her rose perfume, almost hear her kind voice.

‘Well?’ said Harry. ‘Do you love Papa?’

‘Not any more.’ It felt good to say it out loud, like he was free of something. ‘You shouldn’t love him either, Harry. Father doesn’t deserve it.’

For an instant his brother’s eyes flashed with something akin to hatred. It happened so quickly Tom might have imagined it. A small fear squirmed in his stomach as he remembered hands around his throat.

The next moment Harry was smiling and shaking his head. ‘Wish I could see the world like you do, mate. Black and white. Good and bad – mostly good. My world’s a hell of a lot more complicated.’

‘Knock, knock.’ Nana came in with scones. ‘There’s jam and cream, just how you like, Tom, and Mrs Mills is bringing up a pot of tea.’ She set the tray down. ‘That’s enough talk for now, boys. You both need your rest.’

‘I’ll only go,’ said Harry, ‘if there are more scones in the kitchen.’

Tom watched him leave, his mind awhirl. So, all this time, Harry had a feeling that their father had committed a terrible crime. Tom started to shiver. He’d had no such feeling. What he’d learned in that overheard conversation had come as a complete shock, an utter heartbreak. Tom closed his eyes and faced the wall, wishing he could unhear every ugly word.