Read Online In the Shadow of the Trees by Elenor Gill - Free Book Online
Authors: Elenor Gill
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he’d hardly been there at all. A grey man, with a grey soul. Perhaps he lived in the past. Maybe that was why there was so little of him here in the present.
I worked on the sketches until nearly noon, refining some and creating more with greater detail, until the wall was nearly covered. It had grown really hot and I was ready for a break.
Bramble tried to get into the Land Rover with me but I thought I had better not take her off the station without permission.
‘Guard the homestead girl, I’ll bring you something nice.’ Then I keyed the engine and drove onto the lake track.
Driving over the pine-covered hill and down onto the highway I felt like a deep-sea diver resurfacing from the ocean bed. It made me realise how isolated the Sullivan place was, how removed from the real world. I noted the turn-off in case I couldn’t find my way back, and then drove onward. The same road wound on as it had two days ago, as if I had never stopped. I drove through the same crumpled hills past sheep that had not moved. The sun pounded relentlessly on the car. Tar on the road had started to melt into jet-black slicks and a heat haze warped the surface into impossible waves. After a while some isolated houses appeared, their white painted weatherboards cracking in the noon heat.
Suddenly my foot slammed on the brake and I threw the gears into reverse, weaving the truck backwards till I could see over the hedge. White stones, marble, crosses—a graveyard.
I walked between the plots, along narrow strips of mown grass, neatly edged and weed-free. The church was a way off, over another hedge and through a garden, but close enough to belong to this land. Many of the graves bore vases of freshly cut flowers. There was even a mound of bare earth, piled with wilting wreaths. All was cared for and loved, laid to rest by a small community who still tended their dearly departed.
The names were all strangers to me, of course, but the dates were not all recent. Some of the stones looked old, very old, especially over the far side, under the trees. I navigated the square set paths to head in that direction. Here the graves bore signs of age and wear, no fresh flowers, but everything was neatand orderly. Of course the older stones were weather-marked and hard to read. But I saw 1945, and a little further on 1936. What had Jason said? The graveyard was too far away to take the Sullivan dead? This was barely two kilometres from the house, no distance, even by horse and cart. There was another marked 1925, another, 1931.
Then I found a name I knew:
David Sullivan
1865–1940
son of Michael and Anne Sullivan,
father of Thomas
Anne Sullivan. I had knelt by her gravestone yesterday, had washed her name clean and traced the letters with my fingers. Jason’s great-great-grandmother. This was her son, who died seventy-four years later. She had died in 1866 when David Sullivan was just a year old.
It was darker in this corner of the cemetery and most of the gravestones were smaller and less ornate, some a simple wooden cross telling of hard times and poverty. But a tall monument dominated the farthest corner. No carved figures or ornamentation; just a plain, marble block, some two metres high, and on it:
Michael Sullivan
1832–1913
The dairy turned out to be the only shop in the area and large enough to be a small supermarket. It was crammed with all manner of stuff: food, tins of paint, towropes, batteries. I was still trying to juggle with the maths, who was born when and how long they managed to survive, as I took a wire trolley and filledit with milk, asparagus and melons, more wine (I was getting through quite a lot), fresh strawberries and some herb bread. In the pet section I picked up a packet of dog biscuits, then found an earthenware water bowl. You don’t need a dog, I tried telling myself, and she’s not your dog anyway. Even so, the bowl and the biscuits found their way to the checkout. On impulse I picked up a torch.
I worked on the sketches until nearly noon, refining some and creating more with greater detail, until the wall was nearly covered. It had grown really hot and I was ready for a break.
Bramble tried to get into the Land Rover with me but I thought I had better not take her off the station without permission.
‘Guard the homestead girl, I’ll bring you something nice.’ Then I keyed the engine and drove onto the lake track.
Driving over the pine-covered hill and down onto the highway I felt like a deep-sea diver resurfacing from the ocean bed. It made me realise how isolated the Sullivan place was, how removed from the real world. I noted the turn-off in case I couldn’t find my way back, and then drove onward. The same road wound on as it had two days ago, as if I had never stopped. I drove through the same crumpled hills past sheep that had not moved. The sun pounded relentlessly on the car. Tar on the road had started to melt into jet-black slicks and a heat haze warped the surface into impossible waves. After a while some isolated houses appeared, their white painted weatherboards cracking in the noon heat.
Suddenly my foot slammed on the brake and I threw the gears into reverse, weaving the truck backwards till I could see over the hedge. White stones, marble, crosses—a graveyard.
I walked between the plots, along narrow strips of mown grass, neatly edged and weed-free. The church was a way off, over another hedge and through a garden, but close enough to belong to this land. Many of the graves bore vases of freshly cut flowers. There was even a mound of bare earth, piled with wilting wreaths. All was cared for and loved, laid to rest by a small community who still tended their dearly departed.
The names were all strangers to me, of course, but the dates were not all recent. Some of the stones looked old, very old, especially over the far side, under the trees. I navigated the square set paths to head in that direction. Here the graves bore signs of age and wear, no fresh flowers, but everything was neatand orderly. Of course the older stones were weather-marked and hard to read. But I saw 1945, and a little further on 1936. What had Jason said? The graveyard was too far away to take the Sullivan dead? This was barely two kilometres from the house, no distance, even by horse and cart. There was another marked 1925, another, 1931.
Then I found a name I knew:
David Sullivan
1865–1940
son of Michael and Anne Sullivan,
father of Thomas
Anne Sullivan. I had knelt by her gravestone yesterday, had washed her name clean and traced the letters with my fingers. Jason’s great-great-grandmother. This was her son, who died seventy-four years later. She had died in 1866 when David Sullivan was just a year old.
It was darker in this corner of the cemetery and most of the gravestones were smaller and less ornate, some a simple wooden cross telling of hard times and poverty. But a tall monument dominated the farthest corner. No carved figures or ornamentation; just a plain, marble block, some two metres high, and on it:
Michael Sullivan
1832–1913
The dairy turned out to be the only shop in the area and large enough to be a small supermarket. It was crammed with all manner of stuff: food, tins of paint, towropes, batteries. I was still trying to juggle with the maths, who was born when and how long they managed to survive, as I took a wire trolley and filledit with milk, asparagus and melons, more wine (I was getting through quite a lot), fresh strawberries and some herb bread. In the pet section I picked up a packet of dog biscuits, then found an earthenware water bowl. You don’t need a dog, I tried telling myself, and she’s not your dog anyway. Even so, the bowl and the biscuits found their way to the checkout. On impulse I picked up a torch.
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