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By Root 684 0

into his seat. He did appreciate Matty’s clumsy effort at sympathy; it was a loving, masculine gesture. Words would have been impossible between them. Saverio didn’t dare confess to his son his ambivalence about Leo’s death. He had always been more comfortable with his daughter. On hearing the news, Adelaide had rushed to him, and clutched him tight, whispering, I know it’s difficult, I know it must be. It had been exactly the right thing to say. He had marvelled at her innate wisdom: only two years older than her brother and, no matter how much Saverio still tried to deny it, undoubtedly an adult. He gritted his teeth and held tight to the armrests as the aeroplane surged. In a few seconds the wheels would touch earth, the moment he always feared, the point where the hubris of this mass of steel and wire defying gravity would end in calamity for all on board. The bronzed gentleman farmer sitting next to him, with the open-necked polo shirt and the clearly expensive Italian loafers, stifled a yawn. The wheels of the craft touched asphalt, the plane pogoed, swayed from side to side, then righted itself and screeched forward on the runway. They were safe.

The drive from Coolangatta to Mullumbimby cut through some of the loveliest forest in the country. Saverio could see that if one believed in deities, one could call it God’s Country, could imagine that the hills and coves and vast open space were the garden and sky of Eden. From time to time, as the rental car climbed into the hinterland, he would catch sight of the ocean sparkling in the rearview mirror, the silvery light of the sky touching the glimmer of the sea. It was beautiful. No wonder his brother had made this part of the world home. But as he veered off the highway onto Demons Creek Road, Saverio felt a knotting in his stomach. He tightened his grip on the wheel.

There had been money put into the communities that dotted the verdant hills. Eleven years ago the road had still been gravel. Now it was shiny black bitumen. Architect-designed holiday houses jutted out of the greenery, all with prominent verandahs overlooking the sea. When Leo had first moved here in the early nineties there still existed the remnants of a commune, the property itself owned by a septet of academics who were radicalised as students at universities in Sydney and Melbourne. The commune had disbanded soon after Leo had moved there with Julian but, nostalgically loyal to their old politics, the landlords had all agreed that Leo could live and paint there rent-free. Saverio and Rachel had urged him to buy some land when it was still going cheap, but Leo had scoffed at their capitalist avarice. To the end he had refused any of the money left to him by his parents. I don’t believe in inheritance, he had brutally said to Rachel when she phoned after his father had finally died and they needed to know what to do with the portion of the estate left to Leo. But what do you want to do with the money? she persisted. The answer had come a week later in the form of a letter. Half of the money, it stated, was to go to the Aboriginal community centre in Redfern, the rest to an outreach centre in Kings Cross. The lawyer had raised her eyebrows on reading the letter and whistled out loud. ‘Are you sure he’s not a little mentally unbalanced, your brother?’ It was intended as a joke but they did not miss the eagerness of her question. ‘Just do whatever he says,’ Saverio had replied. ‘Just as long as I don’t have to speak to the prick.’

The car nosed its way up the dirt drive to the cottage. Eleven years before there had been an immaculately maintained herb garden, a fig tree, and lime and lemon trees. The garden was now overrun by weeds, and rotting fruit covered the ground underneath the untamed foliage of the trees. Saverio wasn’t surprised. The garden had been Julian’s project and once he’d gone Leo wouldn’t have had the gumption to keep it together. The chassis of the car scraped along the ground as the front left wheel sank into a pothole. Frigging Leo, Saverio thought, he couldn’t look after anything.