The Grass Castle by Karen Viggers

Author:Karen Viggers [Viggers, Karen]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: FIC000000, book
ISBN: 9781743434918
Publisher: Allen & Unwin
Published: 2014-01-08T11:00:00+00:00

The trip back to Canberra begins quietly. Cameron allows Abby her silences in which she mulls over her father’s observation last night that Cameron is angling for commitment. The thought sits like a stone in her guts, and she finds it difficult not to flinch when he reaches every now and then to squeeze her leg. She knows he simply wants to show his support and let her know he’s there, but fear is roiling in her like a storm. It’s enough to be worried about Matt, and now she has this to think about: this plummeting feeling that she has allowed things to go too far.

She’s aware that her anxiety around permanence is not a rational beast. Just by wanting her in that way, Cameron is asking more than she can give. The butterflies of escape are whirling in her feet. She needs to carve off, needs to project herself elsewhere, shift herself into a future where she is safely alone. Matt would understand.

Cameron is oblivious—he must think she is stewing on her missing brother. He plays soft music to fill the spaces: Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, Pachelbel’s Canon in D, Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake. Abby submerges in the fluctuating tide of the music. She holds her emotions inside and stares out the window.

They are spinning along the internal bypass through Albury when her phone rings, flashing Matt’s number.

‘It’s him,’ she mouths to Cameron as she rams the phone to her ear. ‘Matt?’

‘Hey. How’s things?’

Relief floods her when she hears his voice. He sounds jolly and cheerful, unforgivably relaxed. For a moment, she wishes she could hug him then sudden anger shoots through her like a charge of electricity. ‘I’m crap actually,’ she says. ‘Where the hell have you been?’

He hesitates. ‘I’ve been north. Central Oz. You ever seen that country? It’s bloody amazing. I walked the Larapinta Trail.’

‘You’ve been for a hike?’ She can’t believe it. ‘Why didn’t you tell someone?’

‘I left a note.’

‘You call that a note? Gone bush. Don’t try to find me. What sort of note is that?’

‘I didn’t think anyone would mind,’ he says, stung. ‘What would anyone care?’

‘Well, sorry, but people do care. We’ve all been frantic. We thought you might have killed yourself or something.’

There’s silence on the phone, then, ‘That’s a bit rich.’

‘Last time I saw you in Mansfield, you were telling me how down you were. How you were worried you might be like Mum. Did you expect me to think you’d gone off for a picnic? I’ve raked the High Country trying to find you. We’ve all been going crazy with worry.’

Matt says nothing.

‘Are you all right?’ she asks, trying to stifle her rage.

‘I’m fine.’

‘Everything’s okay?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then what the hell were you thinking, disappearing like that?’

Silence again, then a measure of contrition. ‘There was no work on, and I was sitting there on my own, and saw a doco on Central Australia, so thought I’d go and do the trail. I didn’t think you lot would go off like a pack of chooks .

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