Could they possibly hold on?
A few splashes of bracingly cold water brought her fully awake. She stared in the mirror unseeingly as she patted her face dry with a soft towel. She always laid her gear out the night before to save time: same old thing. Hers was a uniform of tight fitting jeans—she looked great in them, or so her good friend Simon told her—and today a blue and white checked cotton shirt. Seated on the side of the bed, she bent to retrieve her boots, pulling them on over grey socks. She didn’t even bother to check her appearance. Who was to see her but the sheep and her dogs? The dogs were beautiful border collies, Monty and Brig—Brig being short for Brigadier. Border collies were special dogs, in her opinion. Though some sheep men in the Valley wouldn’t have them. They thought them too temperamental, preferring sprightly kelpies or Australian Shepherds. Certainly Border Collies could seriously misbehave if they weren’t getting enough exercise. They had quite a tendency to nip heels, which didn’t make them popular with visitors, and they could be destructive, but their phenomenal intelligence, their wonderful herding ability and their infinite energy, willingness and capacity to work tirelessly all day long had won Alana’s heart.
From long habit she quickly applied sunblock to her face, throat and the V above her shirt, and put protective gloss over her lips. A square of scarlet silk secured her thick honey blonde hair at the nape. She shoved her well worn cream Akubra down over her forehead as she made for the door. Barely ten minutes had elapsed, but the light had changed. The soft dove-grey of pre-dawn was taking on a solid blue cast as the sun leaned over the hills, flooding the Valley in golden dayshine.
Now the dawn chorus was up, building to a great crescendo. The noise was deafening to a city- dweller. She loved it. Nothing sweeter. Thousands and thousands of male birds in the Valley calling love songs to the thousands and thousands of females ready to listen. It usually took a good hour for the cacophony to die down, but some birds persisted for the best part of the day, pouring out their passion.
Today it was her job to ride up into the hills and round up the wethers—the castrated male sheep— before they started to scatter all over the hillside or moved deeper into the ridges with their tall trees. Usually she had her older brother Kieran’s invaluable help, but Kieran was away in Sydney on business for their dad. Briar’s Ridge was so deep in hock there was the real, sickening possibility they could lose it. These days their father rarely left home. He clung to the valley where his wife, their mother, was buried. Alana swallowed on the agonisingly hard lump in her throat. She couldn’t afford to break down. She was no stranger to sorrow, but life went on—no matter what.
Downstairs the homestead was silent, except for the loud ticking of the English long-case clock in the entrance hall. It kept wonderful time and was actually very valuable. Her mother had brought it and all the other beautiful antiques in the house with her on her marriage. Some people in the Valley—her Denby relatives in particular— thought Annabel Callaghan-née-Denby had married beneath her. Like the Radcliffes, the Denbys were the old squattocracy.
One hand on the mahogany banister, Alana descended the central staircase, turning left to tiptoe along the wide, polished wood corridor, covered with its splendid Persian runner—her mother’s. She moved past the big master bedroom—her father no longer slept there—and on to a much smaller room that in the old days had been the nursery. There their father—a big man, easily topping six feet—had set himself up, turning his back on all his old comforts and the crushing memory of having a much loved woman lying beside him, aching to hold her when she was no longer there.
The door was ajar, so she could hear him snoring. Even that was a relief. These days, almost three years after her mother’s death, Alana dreaded the thought that one morning she would find her beloved father dead. Broken hearts killed. Guilt killed. Even his drunken snoring sounded desperate. She pushed the door a little more, saw him lying, his dark, tanned, handsome face squashed into a pillow, his raven, silver-flecked curls matted. He was covered by a very beautiful ultra-fine wool rug her mother had woven. One long brown arm was flung over the side of the bed, and an empty bottle of whisky lay on its side, a few inches from his fingertips.
Just how many empty bottles had she dumped, even hidden? He always bought more. On the small bedside table was a large studio portrait in an antique silver frame. A young woman’s lovely smiling face looked out of it. The hairstyle was different, but the thick honey-blonde hair, the creamy complexion, the large hazel eyes that at different times had turned pure green, were the same. Then there was the smile. It could have been a photograph of her. Alana vividly remembered how the close resemblance between them had delighted her mother.
“When you’re older, my darling girl, you too will be named the most beautiful woman in the valley at the Naming.”
The Naming was a special event at Wangaree’s Wine Festival. The festival attracted large crowds from all over the State of New South Wales and beyond. Wine-lovers, food-lovers, music-lovers— they all came. And Guy always hired some famous artist to perform under the stars in the grounds of his lovely historic mansion, Wangaree. The Naming didn’t happen every year, more like every three, but Guy had already announced, to great excitement, that it would be on the agenda this year. It wasn’t just the honour—there was an all-inclusive holiday for two to California’s beautiful Napa Valley with it, and spending money to boot!
She had no intention of entering. She thought of herself as a modest working girl. Besides, there was no money for a knock-out evening gown— though she could still get into the beautiful dress her mother had made her for her eighteenth birthday party. Let one of her Denby cousins carry off the prize. There were three of them: Violette, Lilli and Rose. All flower names, all born into a privileged world far removed from her own. Indeed, there had been little or no interaction between the families. Violette—never, never Vi— the eldest, at twenty-seven, and judged to be the most glamorous of the three girls, but not by much. All three sisters were extremely good-looking, although Rose was by far the nicest. Violette and Lilli were pure snobs, and Violette was one of Guy’s special friends—but so far there had been no serious commitment, like an engagement.
Thank God! Something inside of Alana shied away violently from the thought of Violette’s ever becoming Mrs Guy Radcliffe. But then she didn’t want any other girl in the Valley to become his wife either. Now, that was a real puzzle. It wasn’t as though she was in the running, or as if she wasted any time making herself unhappy about it. Her world was very different from Guy’s. Violette was certain to win The Naming. Good luck to her.
As it happened, Alana’s mother had been the inspiration for the original Naming, though the festival was the brainchild of the Radcliffes. She thought she would never be as beautiful as her mother, Annabel, and nor did she have her mother’s wonderful craft skills. Her mother had excelled at quilting, rug-making, dressmaking, cooking, baking, making a house and garden beautiful, keeping her family well and happy. All those were art forms. Her mother had had them in abundance. Her own skills were with animals. Alana was an excellent rider. She had won many cross country and endurance races, beating Violette, who was a fine rider, on three separate occasions. That hadn’t gone down too well with the Denbys. They had the born- to-win mentality of the Valley’s social elite.
With the familiar tug of sadness she closed the door on her sleeping father, leaving him to his self induced oblivion. Every day of her life, while she was up in the hills within the cathedral of trees, she prayed he would break out of his prison of guilt and remorse. Everyone in the valley except Alan Callaghan knew it wasn’t his fault his wife had died after a crash involving their station ute and a big four-wheel drive leisurely exploring the famous sheep and wine district. Holding to the centre of an unfamiliar valley road, the four-wheel drive had side-swiped the ute hard as it rounded a bend.