The old man sits on his throne. He stares out
over his kingdom, down the slope of the paddock to the crystal still waters
reflecting the sky and its spare pale clouds. He is lord of all he surveys,
from the gentle hills that roll down on each side to plunge headlong into the
frigid waters of the lake, to the low sheltered scrubland dotted with mangy
paper barks protecting the lakes edges. His eyes refocus onto the foreground,
to a patch of hardy Jarrah atop the jutting ridge obscuring the dam wall from view.
A kangaroo, startled, bounds over rock piles and between blackboys. Spud lifted
his head, his ears pricked in alarm. His instinct begged to sprint after the
roo and make as much of a ruckus as he could manage, but no, he had been given
a task, and he must fulfil it to the best of his ability. He turned his head to
the glass behind which his king sat, tea in hand, and stifled the noise forming
in his throat.
A sheep,
alert to the attentions of her guard, quivered her left leg fractionally.
Sensing its chance it bolted from beneath the strangled shade of the skeletal
Karri towards the gravel track demarking the edge of freedom- the hillside
below. Spud’s head snapped back from the window, his muscles twitched into
relieving action and he set off like the tail of a whip- crack- after it,
alongside it, in front of it, wheeling it around until it saw its salvation
amongst the numbers camped beneath the twisting white trunk. As she hit her
flock she initiated a chain reaction that rattled through the herd until its
effect became known on the other side. Sheep shuddered nervously, threatening
to break equilibrium, only for Spud to round the pack, menace and quell any
flights of fancy that may shake loose from his meticulous control. He trotted
around proudly with his pink tongue lolling gratuitously from the side of his
mouth as he conducted a quick head count and gauged the mood of his audience.
Content, he once more stretched his back legs out behind him, front legs bent
beneath his ribs, to lay in the in the shade of an arm on high.
The King shuffles restlessly behind the glass, turned to sit almost sideways on his
chair, his right forearm on the low back of the chair, his right on the table.
The perfection of the tableau brings out an involuntary and contented smile on
his sun-weary face. A black swan drifts uneasily between the Karri and the
bush, descending perilously towards the lake. Spud looks up lazily, yawns and
lowers his head once to rest between his paws, eyes trained on the mob. Phillip
traces the swan’s ungainly descent, its wings everted against the wind to slow
itself before the plunge. It extends its legs towards the water as the wings
beat hard against the wind rushing into its face. It hangs there a moment,
suspended in time, before it’s webbed feet skid briefly across the surface
before it suddenly sinks to sit and preen on the lake’s surface. The swan
extends its neck and honks softly in greeting to its mate padding in the
shallows, a doleful cry that drifts languidly up the hill, over Spuds head,
toward the homestead.
From
the left, a silver Gemini bumps quietly and slowly along the track beside the
lake. Its occupants peer intently out the windows at the smooth surface, the islands,
the furrowed lines of old crops running up the slopes, the tree, and the house
perched on the hilltop like an idle splotch of watercolour on a painter’s
canvas. For one of them it is like a second home, for the other a whole new
experience. For both it is splendour. Phillip turns to his wife in the kitchen
busying herself with the Sunday roast.
“They’re
here”, he announces.
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