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The Road Home is definately the best short story I’ve written. It was the only English piece that got me straight A+ in Year 12 and I’m very happy with it. I got the idea from an oral task presented by my mate Peter Roberts and I thank him for it. If it wasn’t for that I don’t know what I would have done. The Road Home was supposed to go in the 1999 School Window (a collection of the year’s best works) but I forgot to give it to the Window committe on time. As I’m rarely responsible for anything, I think I’ll blame Michael Holt for that

The tires rolled over the old cattle grid, shaking the vehicle slightly. It had been a long drive west from the city and fatigue was already affecting the young man’s concentration. He was worried that he would not recognise the old place. Five years was a long time. For five years he had not ventured out of Sydney and now he was coming home. His memories, permanently etched from the childhood days long passed, guided him through the small town, and towards his family’s old house.

Paul O’Connor’s was an old family. They had once traced their ancestry four generations back to a Scottish couple. It was quite a surprise since as far as anyone could remember, West Wyalong was the family’s home. The small town of not more than five thousand, situated almost exactly between Ungarie and Murrumburrah-Harden was their “little sanctuary”, as Paul’s grandfather was known to say. It was so sacred that, except for an agricultural fair in Leeton, the family had not moved twenty kilometres from the town. The O’Connors stayed with their land and stressed family unity.

Although night was beginning to shroud the town, Paul’s eyes fixed onto the ugly shape of aging wood and crooked nails at the front of their property. Five years since his departure, more that fifteen since its construction, and it was still standing - albeit with a fresh coating of paint. His father, fascinated by wood, insisted on passing his skills to his young son. Almost two weeks they spent in that old shed - sawing, sanding and nailing the pieces together. It was a time of bonding between the old man and his boy and upon its completion was placed out the front for all the world to see. It was their letterbox. The memories flowed through young man’s mind and his pulse began to speed. How proud his father would be with him. Only two years out of university, with a promising career and a new car, Paul O’Connor was finally ready to go home. He had intentionally kept his arrival a secret and mentioned nothing of it in his letters. It would be a surprise.

It was not yet completely dark and Paul could easily make out their old farmhouse a few hundred metres away. Some of the lights were already on and his imagination created for him the scents of home cooking - fresh bread, a perfectly roasted beef and potato salad. He played his arrival in his mind, over and over again, each time feeling more exhilarated about the reunion. The lights in the distance marked the end of his five-year journey and he waited impatiently to reach them. Oh, they would be so proud. They would be so happy

As his sedan crunched through the dirt track he gazed around the paddocks, trying to find something else to which memories could attach. The fences had moved, grass and weeds stood where clearings should have and not a cow could be seen. The O’Connor family was in the cattle business; it had been for decades. Since his grandfather’s death however, the profits slowly dwindled. There were always good years, of course, but they became increasingly far spread. Standards had dropped considerably. Where before the family could comfortably spend almost all of its profit, these days saving was a priority. The few good years supported the many bad.

As he passed the inner grid, the young professional quickly skimmed the paddock to his left. This was his paddock. He and his friends spent their youth playing cricket and charging around this fenced off area. At first he did not recognise the metal frame, rusting and alone in one corner of the field. He slowed down. Could it be? All that remained of the old swing were two separate tangles of iron. The centre crossbar, almost completely corroded, had broken along the middle. Not four metres away, an old stump stood rotting. Perhaps the old gum on which he loved to climb, he could not be sure. The whole area gave an eerie aura of solitude and neglect - a forgotten past that no one wished to revisit. Could it be?

Paul had always stood out from the rest of the O’Connors. Somehow he was different, although no one could pinpoint how exactly. When he began to show real interest in his studies, his family dismissed it as a transient phase. When he became disinterested in the business, they dismissed it as impossible. No one believed he would do anything else. The O’Connors stayed with their land and stressed family unity.

Suddenly the approaching lights grew dimmer and his prior exhilaration turned to anxiety. The day that the letter from Sydney arrived, the atmosphere in the household was not unlike a funeral’s. Until then no one had really believed that, even if he wanted to, he could go away. Until then it was a game. It was true that he topped his class and set a new record of excellence at Wyalong High. It was true that he possessed ambitions far greater than cattle farming, but until that letter arrived it was a game of childhood rebellion. No longer. His father read every word of that brief document until he could recite it whole. Paul O’Connor had been accepted to study at the University of New South Wales in Sydney.

His father saw this individuality as an aggression against the family built over the decades. To him, Paul was betraying his own at the time when they needed him most. It was a year of tremendous hardship but the prospect of Paul helping out the following year was hope enough to keep going. To prove his allegiance to the O’Connor family and to regain his father’s love and respect, Paul worked daily during that last summer. He slaved all day unlike ever before but his father refused capitulation. He was not allowed to leave the farm.

Slowly the emotions that drove Paul from this place five years ago began to return. As the car drew closer to the house, he could hear his father’s voice ringing in his ears. The years apart and his swift success had shielded him from the rage of his relatives and even drove him to forget. He had betrayed his family. He had committed a sin against his own blood and that old grief began to once again eat him from inside. The car, almost by itself for Paul no longer had a conscious control of it, came to a halt metres from the house. They would be so angry.

The front porch burst into light and someone pulled aside a curtain and looked out at the stationary vehicle. It was too late; he could not go back. Did he do the wrong thing? Was it his sin or theirs? Surely they would be proud of him. Paul had followed his heart and his ambitions but kept his family close. To sever and reject ties is the only true betrayal. Nausea gripped him as he stared at the figure in the window. That figure was the first contact he had with his kin for half a decade and he sat watching it for some time. He had not betrayed his family. He had returned.

Copyright © 1999 Andrej Bece