Frustration shot through her. ‘Dave,’ she turned and looked at her son, a stern expression on her face, ‘that’s not how it is and you know it. You’ve all got the same importance in this family and are equal in the business. I don’t understand why you all can’t get along.’ And that includes your father, she thought.
Dave leaned back against the chair and crossed his arms. ‘I get along with my brothers alright, you know that, Mum. Not as good as you’d like, I know, but we can talk to each other. But Dad? You can deny it all you want and smooth things over when the arguments start, but Dean and Adam are who Dad wants here, not me. He gets their opinions on all of the big decisions, never bothers to ask me. Not since…’ He stopped, then looked over at Carlene. ‘Still, it doesn’t bother me too much. I’m farming here on Wind Valley and you know that’s all I’ve ever wanted to do.’
Carlene looked across the paddocks, again, anxiety trickling through her. ‘I know that, son.’
Chapter 2
Dave walked into his small bedroom in the shearers’ quarters and slammed the door shut. Fiddling with the knobs on the portable air-conditioner, he used the bucket to pour water into the back of it, then switched it on. He bent down and let the breeze flow onto his face until all the sweat had dried and his body began to cool down.
Summer in Australia, he thought. Heat, flies and endless sun. Thinking about his mates from ag college, he wondered where they all were. Jimmy was probably still at home on the farm, working his way up the pecking order; and he’d heard Zappa had got a job managing a feedlot in the eastern states.
Maybe he should call Jimmy. It’d been a while since they’d spoken and he might be having the same problems at home as Dave was having here. Perhaps they could organise a weekend in Perth—head to the OBH and get a skinful. Soak up a bit of sun down at ‘the Cott’. Dave liked Cottesloe beach even though it was always crowded. The water was clear and cold and made for good swimming.
His eyes wandered across to the faded photo pinned to the wall next to his pillow. It was of Dave five years ago—a skinny, scrawny bloke of eighteen—with his arm around a girl with long curly hair and curves in all the right places. He wondered what Kim was up to now and wished again they hadn’t finished their holiday romance that summer. She’d captivated him from the first time he’d seen her smile and heard her laugh—it had sounded like whiskey, dark chocolate and mischief all rolled into one and Dave wanted to be part of whatever she was involved with.
That summer had been a big adventure: he’d saved up the money to catch a bus all the way from Perth to Adelaide, where his aunty and uncle had picked him up and driven him two and a half hours north to their farm on the outskirts of Spalding. He and his cousin Kate had spent days riding horses and motorbikes, camping out and alternating between working and playing on the farm. Then the family had all packed up and gone to Wallaroo, on the coast, to their holiday shack. He’d met Kim on the beach.
Kim had been wearing a bikini, and although she had curves in all the right places, it’d been her hair and smile that he’d first noticed. Then once he’d heard her laugh, well, there was no going back.
Having become inseparable for the four weeks he’d been on the coast, his heart had been broken when they’d decided not to try a long-distance relationship. There didn’t seem to be any point, she’d said. He was going to uni to study agriculture and Kim was going back to Barker, where her family lived. They could always write. And they had for a while. Then the letters had become fewer and, finally, they had stopped altogether.
He still missed Kim and, since that summer, no other girl had ever turned his head the way she had. Maybe he should write to her and see what she was up to. Or maybe not; finding out Kim had another boyfriend wasn’t something Dave wanted to hear.
Pulling the chair away from the wall, he turned it around, before sitting down and resting his arms on the back. Dropping his chin down, and putting Kim out of his mind, he thought about last night’s argument with Dad and his mother’s desperate attempts to stop it. Her voice had been full of despair, as if she knew that nothing she said would make any difference.
‘Sam, stop. You’ve got to listen to what all the boys have to say, not just the older two,’ she’d said in a calming tone. ‘Don’t you want to keep this operation working well? Somehow you have to find a way to work together, but if you don’t…God knows what will happen. Can’t you see that? We’re being torn apart.’
His father had slammed his fist on the table. ‘Stay out of it, woman!’ he’d roared. ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about.’
Dave hadn’t been able to stop the anger that had bubbled so violently to the surface. He’d pushed himself out of his chair and launched himself at Sam, stopping inches from his face. ‘Don’t speak to her like that!’ he’d shouted at his father. Then he’d fallen quiet at the sound of his mother crying and begging him to stop. It wasn’t until he’d felt her hand on his arm that he’d walked away.
Adam and Dean had sat still, not moving. Dean had finally got up and looked at them all, the disgust plain on his face. ‘And to think I want to bring Mandy into a family who behaves like
