Sunset Ridge Read Free

forty masterpieces in the last twenty-five years of his life?’
    â€˜Well, I –’
    â€˜Who knows what other pieces could be floating around the world? Who knows how many sketches and paintings sit hidden in attics, hang unheralded on walls, or for that matter were buried in the mud of the Somme? This is your family history too, Maddy, and I’m asking you to use your contacts and your knowledge to make this retrospective happen. I wanted you to be involved not only because you’re his granddaughter and understand the art world, but also because we both know that you would benefit professionally if the retrospective goes ahead. But if you keep delaying it I will have no choice but to hand it over to somebody else.’ Jude took the sketch from Madeleine and slipped it between the pages of the sketchpad. ‘In the end, the retrospective is about honouring a great man, not you and me arguing over our differences.’
    Madeleine had never liked ultimatums, and she made a point of telling her mother just that. She had, after all, agreed to visit Sunset Ridge with a view to soaking up the environment that inspired her grandfather, yet still Jude couldn’t help but lecture her. Last night’s conversation had quickly degenerated, leaving Jude to retreat to her bedroom with a bottle of wine, while Madeleine fell asleep on the couch. The high point of the evening was when Jude handed Madeleine a rusty key and tersely informed her that it belonged to a tin trunk in the Sunset Ridge schoolroom – a trunk containing items that had belonged to Madeleine’s father, Ashley, and had not been touched since his death twenty years earlier. George’s wife, Rachael, was intent on clearing out the schoolroom and Jude wanted Madeleine to sort through and dispose of the items in the trunk. ‘I don’t want Rachael touching those things,’ Jude had said stiffly. ‘It’s a family matter.’
    The car rattled over the corrugations in the road. The final few kilometres were punctuated by stockless paddocks and desolate cultivations. The drought was biting hard across eastern Australia but apparently George was still managing. The road to the homestead veered through red ridges and uninviting stubby scrub that merged with dry-leafed trees. George’s wish of thinning out the dense bushland had not eventuated. Instead, the money was put towards pushing saplings in a far paddock for sheep feed. The result was a narrow track that seemed at constant battle with the scrub lining either side. The rental car bumped over the rough road, wound past a fallen-down crutching shed and hit the straight track and open gateway that led to the homestead. The sixty-acre house block had been systematically cleared a hundred years ago, and the area remained virtually treeless except for three stands of Box trees that sat halfway between the work shed, stables and house dam. Beyond the house paddock to the south-east was a shearing shed and the Banyan River, which had been dry for nearly two years.
    Outside the homestead Madeleine stared bleakly at the fan of red dirt extending from the house. The surrounding paddock was devoid of grass. Spirals of dust lifted into the air. A crow cried out soullessly. The sickly stench of something dead floated on the hot breeze. Clutching a suitcase, overnight bag and laptop, she passed through a wrought-iron gate and a sage-green colour-bond fence, gravel crunching underfoot. She did a double-take at these improvements and walked up the back path. The low bougainvillea hedge no longer bordered the front of the house, and the meat-house was gone, replaced with a square slab of cement upon which was arranged a table and four chairs. Madeleine came to a stop at a pale brick wall with two oval windows.
    For a moment she thought she was at the wrong house. The brickwork was new, the windows sheltered by fixed green blinds that gave the appearance of sleepy eyelids. For