step back. ‘Yes. It does.’
‘We were friends once.’
‘Jim, what do you expect of me? You’re only here for your inheritance, otherwise you wouldn’t have bothered coming. Your letter said it all.’ He was staring at her, scrutinising her as if trying to understand the person before him.
‘You’ve grown hard, Sarah Gordon.’
‘I’ve grown realistic, which I should, don’t you think, considering the circumstances.’ Opening a camphor wood chest she took out a thick woollen blanket, setting it on the end of his bed.
‘I thought this would be easier, that you would appreciate my situation.’
‘What? When you don’t appreciate mine?’ She turned on a gold and cream bedside lamp. ‘You know nothing about Wangallon or my life here.’
‘Perhaps not, but I do own a thirty per cent share and I would have thought that even you, Sarah Gordon,’ he emphasised the surname, ‘would appreciate that.’
Sarah rubbed automatically at a smear of dust on the dresser. ‘You come here after discovering you are related and expect a grand welcome and a golden handshake. Where have you been during the last one hundred and thirty plus years of Wangallon’s life?’
‘That’s a damn unfair thing to say. After all it was your father who decided to keep everything secret.’
‘Oh I see, and you were conceived through divine intervention and your mother was physically forced to keep the truth of her child’s father a secret. Please don’t have the audacity to stand there and tell me it’s my father’s fault. Your mother obviously never had any intention of revealing who your father was and Dad didn’t even know your mother was pregnant when he left Scotland.’ Sarah’s chest heaved. She could have said much more, although Jim was already looking shocked. ‘You didn’t know that?’
Jim paled. ‘No.’
Sarah thought of her mother’s indifference during her childhood. Jim’s existence was only part of the cause for it. Sue Gordon had also taken a lover and after his accidental death, she doted on their love child, Cameron. If Jim was intent on recriminations, he could have a lesson in blame apportioning. She could ill afford to feel sorry for him. ‘I’ll leave sandwiches in the fridge for you.’ That was the best she could offer. She certainly wasn’t going to do his cooking. ‘There’s space in the wardrobe if you need to hang anything and if you need water, use the brass tap in the kitchen. It’s rainwater. The rest of the house is running on dam water at the moment. We haven’t had rain for a while.’
Sarah shut the bedroom door and looked across the hallway. Diagonally opposite were two bedroom doors – one once belonged to her great-grandfather, the other to his first wife, Rose. She opened Rose’s door tentatively. Inside was a washstand with a matching ceramic bowl and water jug, an old wardrobe, dresser and a bed. The yellow curtains were drawn closed and the room smelled musty. Sarah sprayed some lavender scent about the room. It was a custom her grandfather had taken to and now the lavender scent in its plastic bottle was a permanent fixture on the dresser. Some months ago she’d found herself walking straight up the main hallway, only to detour into Rose’s room. Now the airing and scenting of the room formed a part of her weekly routine. Sarah smoothed the creased pale pink bedspread and left the door slightly ajar to air.
Next door was her great-grandfather’s room. Sarah’s fingers hovered over the doorknob, before clutching at the tarnished brass to turn it. Nothing happened. She turned it again but the door wouldn’t budge. Strange. Intrigued enough to consider placing her shoulder against the aged cedar and giving it a good hard shove, she reconsidered. Only once had she stepped across the threshold into Hamish’s room and even then her grandfather had led the way. Sarah recalled an almost overwhelming male scent and glimpses of dark furniture, fluttering curtains and a yellowing photograph hanging crookedly on the wall. Angus had tutted in annoyance before steering Sarah out of the room.
Hamish achieved almost folklore proportions when Sarah was little. To her it seemed that the strength of his person had permeated every atom of Wangallon. The position of every building, yard and fence division had been planned by him, and his pain staking plans and details of the management of the property were all carefully recorded in copious leather-bound ledgers. Angus had packed them away for safe-keeping in an old tin trunk. One day, Sarah promised herself, she would read