New Beginings - 2. NB Chapter 2

When I arrived at home, just before 5pm, after dropping off my class mate – Kyle Davies, oldest son of Reverend Davies, to his home in town, I found the Rev’s car, she was sitting on the steps of the house, which is built from local stone. “Good afternoon Rev, sorry to keep you waiting, I said as cheerfully as I could, and I led the way into the unlocked house.

“You know, it would be best if you kept the house locked while you are at school” Reverend Davies suggested to me, and I nodded my head in understanding, “I have some farm work to do, and also my family lawyer coming, so please make this quick” I said to the minister. “Thanks for bringing Kyle home, it saves him a lot of travel time, I just wanted to ask if we could come over during the day tomorrow, to collect your parent’s belongings, so we are not there when you get home” the Rev said to me.

“Yes, that would be good thanks, I will leave the back door unlocked for you” I replied, “That’s fine, I will leave you to your chores, bye for now” the Rev said to me as she smiled and headed out the door, and I could hear the distant rumble of an approaching vehicle, which I knew would be the lawyer, so I went inside and put the kettle on, and changed out of my school uniform.

Once seated at the dining table with the lawyer, and a cup of tea each, I waited for the lawyer to tell me what he needed to tell me. “Well young Huon, you don’t need to worry about money, the trust fund that your father set up, gives you comfortable living expenses, and your education costs at the grammar school and university if you wish to continue studying, are covered with an education trust fund.

I have been in contact with your neighbour, Mr James Edgar, he is willing to lease your farm for a minimum of ten years, with the option of another ten years, and what he will pay in rent, will give you a very comfortable living, for at least twenty years” the lawyer – Mr Frankton informed me. “I will gladly accept the offer for the farm lease, with one exception, the homestead paddock of 92 acres, including the house, shed, stables and yards, the orchard, small vineyard and the river frontage, including the boat landing, is not part of the lease, which will be 850 acres in total.

He will be responsible for the upkeep and maintenance of watering points, all boundary fences and internal fences, within that area, plus maintain all the firebreaks along the boundary” I said to Mr Frankton, “That sounds fair enough, I will have it all drawn up for you to look at and sign in a few days’ time” Mr Frankton replied. Once the lawyer had left, I went to milk the cow, feed the chooks, and feed the poddy calves.

By the time I had finished my chores, it was getting dark, and after a shower, and another microwave dinner, and watching a little television, I spent two hours doing some homework, before heading to bed. The following day was the same routine as yesterday, feeding the animals, having a shower, getting ready for school, and driving to school.

When I arrived home, that afternoon after dropping Kyle off at his place, I found a note on the dining room table, “Hello Huon, we have removed all of your parents clothing, and we thank you for the donation, as you are probably aware there are a lot of personal effects as well, and I will come over on Saturday morning to help you with going through all of those items.

At my work, I had a visit from a young man with a strong European accent, who was asking if I knew where you live, as he wanted to contact you urgently. I informed him, that I could pass on a message and that is all, I think he said his name was Sebastian, anyway he said that he had to return home urgently, and that he would be back to see you as soon as he can return”. I groaned when I read this, in some way I was pleased that he had gone, and in another way, he seemed like a nice bloke.

After reading the note, I noticed that there was a message on the answering machine, and I pushed the play button, “Hello, I hope I have the right place, I am trying to find Huon Devonport. My name is Sebastian Wagner, I have to return home on urgent family business, and that I will be back as soon as I possibly can, if this isn’t the right place for Huon, then can you please pass on this message to him, thank you”.

I pressed the erase button on the machine, and after getting changed, I headed off to the sheds to feed the chooks and collect the eggs, before I milked the cow, and fed the poddy calves, before heading back to the house to shower and this time he made some eggs and bacon, plus toast for dinner, to use up some of the eggs that had accumulated, over the past week. The rest of the week was pretty much the same, as the past two days, and when I arrived home on the Friday afternoon, Mr Frankton was there waiting for me, and he produced lease agreement document, which stated everything that I had requested, so that only 850 acres of the land was available for lease, and I signed it. I also asked Mr Frankton to enquire if James Edgar would buy the dairy cow, poddy calves and chooks off me.

The next morning, I slept in a little bit, before struggling out of bed, and went to feed the animals, before returning to the house for a shower, and cooked some savoury scrambled eggs and toast for breakfast, as well as a cup of tea. After breakfast, I went for a walk down to the boat landing, which was mainly just a ten - metre long stone wall that had been built, one very dry summer, when the river was at its lowest in nearly two decades.

I was sitting at the boat landing, when I heard footsteps approaching from the house behind me, and turning, I saw Rev Davies and her son Kyle approaching, and I gave them a wave, not bothering to get up to greet them. “Hello Huon, you have a beautiful spot here, do you ever come down to watch the Avon Descent each year” the Rev asked me referring to Australia’s longest rapid water race, held in August each year.

“Yes, I was watching it this year, but I decided to watch from the front veranda, instead of here at the boat landing, it is interesting to watch them flying past in their jet boats one moment, and see canoes and kayaks cruise past at a slow pace, the next” I replied as I stood up and led the way up to the house. Over the next three hours, I cried a lot, as I decided what to do with all of my parent’s personal belongings, and the Rev and Kyle placed the items in the appropriate box, to be sold, donated or kept.

As we sat at the dining table drinking tea, once the chore was all completed, we chatted about school for a while. “By the way, I presume you found that note that I left you about that foreign young man, that was looking for you” the Rev said to me. “Yes, thank you, he is the son of my dad’s old university friend. Dad did four years of studies at Oxford University, and his room-mate was a chap from Switzerland.

His father was killed in a car accident on the same day that dad was killed, and Sebastian wanted to get to know me a bit. Unfortunately, when we met, it was when I was visiting Mum and Dad’s graves, and I was in no mood to be talking to him about me. I let him buy me lunch at the pub, and he told me about how our fathers met at Oxford, but when he wanted to get to know me more I said that I wasn’t interested, and I left the pub.

That is when he contacted you, to get a message to me, and he found out my phone number and left a message on the answering machine. That reminds me, I need to change the message on that machine, as it still has dad’s voice on it” I replied. “How about if I make a message for the machine for you, so it doesn’t give any details or clues about you” the Rev suggested, and I just nodded my head yes.

A few minutes later, she had recorded a new message on the machine, and she played it back to let me hear it, “You have called Deepdale Estate, no one is home right now, please leave a message after the tone, thank you” the message said, and I smiled, it was perfect. Once we had finished our cuppa’s, I helped carry the box of goods to be donated to the car, and the boxes of things to be sold and kept, I stored away at the back of the storeroom, to deal with at another time.

Kyle asked if I would like him to stay for the rest of the day to keep me company, and I agreed that I would like that very much. Kyle was a year younger than me, so I didn’t socialise with him at school, and I would occasionally see him during lunch breaks, until the end of the school day, when I would drive him back to his home in Toodyay, we didn’t talk much during the journey home each school day, as Kyle liked to listen to his music on his I-Pod.

I agreed to drive Kyle home in the late afternoon, no later than 5pm, so he could do his own chores, and school homework. Once his mum had gone, Kyle and I went to the shed, so I could show him the poddy calves, dairy cow and chickens, and once we had done that, we jumped onto the 4-wheeler bike and we went for a drive around the orchard and vineyard, before returning to the shed.

After some lunch of cold meat and salad, we jumped into the farm ute, and we drove west along the river bank to the boundary, then turned north, so that I could check that part of the boundary fence, then turning eastwards, along the back - boundary fence, where we came across a new break in the fence line. Cursing at the kangaroos and emus, that would be responsible for this damage, I stopped the vehicle near the break, and climbed out.

Over the next twenty minutes, I showed Kyle how to fix a broken fence, which he found a little puzzling at the repair process, no matter how many times I showed him. Once the repair was fixed, we set off again, and I was pleased that there was no more damage to the fence, as we continued to follow the boundary line.

Once back at the shed, I unladed all of the spare wire, and the tools, placing them back in the workshop, before we headed back to the house, to clean up a little and have some afternoon tea. I retrieved two cartons of eggs from the fridge, and placed them on the table, “I have an over-supply of eggs at the moment, make sure you take these home with you” I said to Kyle, who smiled and nodded his head in acceptance.

Once I had delivered Kyle back to his place, I returned home and began doing my chores, before having a shower, and heading into town to have a pub dinner, as i was getting sick of having microwave dinners. Saturday night they usually have a live band playing, so it was another good reason to go into town. When I arrived back at home sometime after 10pm that evening, I had eaten a good meal and enjoyed the live music, and I was generally in a good mood, until it was interrupted by the phone ringing, shortly after I entered the house.

Forgetting about the answering machine, I raced to the kitchen to answer the phone, and there was a long distant pause on the line, which I was a little confused about, until I heard a voice, “Hello is that you Huon? It is Sebastian Wagner here, sorry if I am calling you so late, it is 2 in the afternoon here” the voice said, and I suddenly remembered the foreigner, who had come looking for me, just over a week ago, and I nearly hung up the phone.

“Please Huon, I need to talk to you, it is important” Sebastian added, “Very well, make it brief, as I need to get some sleep” I replied in a neutral tone. “I had to return home, because my grandmother has fallen ill, and so I needed to come home to look after my younger twin brothers” Sebastian began to explain, when a voice in the background interrupted him. “Seb, è il tuo ragazzo australiano?” I heard him say, and it took me a moment to translate what the boy had said, “Seb, is that your Australian boyfreind?” and I was a little surprised.

“Non è Joachim, è il figlio dell'amicizia universitaria del papà” I heard Sebastian say in reply, “No Joachim, he is the son of Dad’s university friend”, and I began to chuckle, realising something, “Err Sebastian, I think your brother just outed you to a stranger” I said before Sebastian could say anything. “Yes, the little rascal did, I am sorry about that, and I hope this doesnt change anything, and that we can still be friends” Sebastian replied, “As I said before, I am still thinking about it, and don’t punish your brother, he wasn’t to know that we just met last week” I responded.

“Ok, maybe a little of tickling, that is all he will get, any way going back to why I called, my grandfather passed away two years ago, so my grandmother has been taking care of my brothers on her own, except when they came over here for holidays with our papa and I. When I received a call from my grandmother’s neighbour, to say she was ill and in hospital, I had to race back home to look after the rascals.

I have just returned from visiting her, the doctors say she is terminally ill, and will only live for six months at the most, so I cannot return to Australia for some time, but I do want to return, and convince you that I want to be friends with you. Maybe I can bring the rascals with me, and we can spend Christmas with you on the farm” Sebastian suggested.

“I won’t have the farm for very much longer, I have signed a long-term lease agreement, with a neighbouring farmer, all I will have is a couple of acres, and a few buildings, including my home, and I may close it up and move to the city so I am closer to the university, where I plan to study” I replied. “I see, well I still want to see you again, maybe we can keep in touch, so we can try and work a way of catching up” Sebastian suggested, “Maybe, I will think about it, but for now I have to concentrate on completing my high school education” I replied.

“Yes, that is important, I finished my studies a year ago, I am doing part time studies for a diploma in Business Management and part time degree in Environmental Sciences, anyway I will call you again in say a month’s time, to see how things are going for you, bye for now” Sebastian said and he ended the call. I headed to bed straight after the long-distance phone call, and I set my alarm for 7 am, so I could get the animals fed, have a shower and get into town in time to attend church.

Although I was not a regular attendee, I felt that I needed to make an appearance, since the Rev and the Op Shop ladies had made an effort to help me in the past week. The church was a reasonable size for a country church, I estimated that about 50 could be seated comfortably, but I doubted that even a dozen regular parishioner’s attend the church service each week.

When I walked into the church, just as the first hymn was being sung, I was surprised to see over twenty people were in attendance, and quietly I accepted a copy of the hymn book and prayer book, and sat in the 2^nd from back row pew, and once I had found the correct page, I joined in with the singing. My dad had always told me that I had a good singing voice, but at school I would sing very quietly, and purposely out of tune on occasions, just to avoid from being noticed by anyone.

I seemed to have forgotten to do that on this occasion, as the hymn came to the end, I found Reverend Davies looking directly at me and smiling, before she stepped up to the pulpit to read the first bible reading for the morning. When I saw that the next hymn was Amazing Grace, I closed my eyes as I sung, it was a song that my mum sung to me as a young child when I wouldn’t go to sleep, and I thought of her as I sung, loud and strong, and with tears on my cheeks.