by Anna Romer
‘This puts you right up there in her league.’
‘Your ex-wife?’
‘You’re ambitious, clever. Much bloody cleverer than me. Telling me I’d get last say in what went to print. I thought you were different, Abby. But you’re not, are you? You’re just one more journalist exploiting others for your own gain.’
Heat rushed to my face. I stood to attention and dragged in a breath, trying to hold my tongue, but it was impossible. ‘What about the Wigmore story? Your ticket back into the limelight, is it? “Hello, New York Times,” isn’t that what you said? You guard your own privacy with the ferocity of a wounded bear, but you seem unconcerned about exposing someone else’s. If anyone’s exploiting others for their own gain, Tom, it’s you.’
The atmosphere grew thick and oppressive, like the air in a hothouse. The clock ticked; overhead, the rafters creaked. And then from deep in the house, Poe gave a long and eerie yowl that sent goose bumps over my arms and broke the spell of silence.
Tom sighed and wilted back into the lounge. ‘Fair call. You’re right. I’m sorry, Abby. I asked for that.’ He looked across and offered a thin-lipped smile, wadding the article tighter. ‘I feel as if I’m reliving a nightmare I thought I’d put behind me. Just when my life gets back on track, whammo. It’s hit me kinda hard, you know?’
I went over and sat beside him. ‘Do you really think I’d submit this rubbish? I care about you, Tom. And I care about my reputation. This is slander, and I’m the last person who’d risk losing everything by getting sued.’
He gave a shaky laugh. ‘Not your style at all.’
‘No.’
The silence drifted back. Dust motes glittered in the stillness and the wind murmured in the trees outside. Tom’s fingers clenched around the ball of papers and that simple gesture told me all I needed to know: the damage was done. Not only to Tom’s reputation, but to his trust in me. No matter what we said now, no matter what we did, here was a rift that might never be mended.
Tom tossed the wadded article across the room, where it rolled into the shadows under a chair. ‘God, hon. I’m sorry for doubting you.’ He rubbed his eyes and then peered into my face. ‘Can you forgive me?’
‘Nothing to forgive, Tom. You’re right to be pissed off.’
‘But not with you. Hey, let’s have a drink and forget the whole deal, okay? Stuff Kendra and her poison pen.’
‘You know, I think I’ll pass.’ I got to my feet. ‘I’ll head home today, there’s a few things I have to do. See to the cottage and all that.’
Upstairs I packed my things, my heart so heavy I could barely breathe. Just now, Tom had tried to make light of it, but I’d seen the truth in his eyes. He was deeply hurt. And that hurt was my doing, whether I’d written the article or not. In a lot of ways, it did read like something I’d written. Kendra had mimicked my style, but worse, she had somehow known about things Tom had told me in private. The niggling in my mind grew fiercer, but it was a nut I couldn’t seem to crack. I needed time to think; I needed distance from Tom to get perspective. I needed to get away.
When I returned to the lounge room, he was at the window.
Going over, I kissed his cheek. ‘See you, Tom.’
His pupils were huge, his eyes shadowed by violet half-moons that hadn’t been there this morning under the magnolia tree. He caught my fingers.
‘Stay, Abby. We’ll work this out. Please don’t let this come between us. It’s a glitch, that’s all.’
‘A glitch?’ I let go his hand and pulled away. ‘Tom, I’m the one who convinced you to do the interview. I’m the one who gate-crashed your privacy, and now, as you said, you’re reliving your old nightmare. It’s up to me to try and put it right somehow.’
‘Abby, wait.’
Ignoring him, I hurried out to the back door and along the verandah, down the steps, the garden blurring as I blinked back tears. I knew how quickly resentment could eat a person’s heart. My mother had resented my father for finding solace in a bottle instead of with her. My father’s resentment after she left had swallowed him alive. And, as it turned out, I was no different. After I married Rowan, it had taken less than a year for my own bitterness – over feeling hemmed in, controlled – to send me running. Would Tom grow to resent me for the hurt this slander had caused him? Would it erode his feelings until he could no longer bear to look at me? If I couldn’t somehow put this right, then how long did we have before it all broke apart?
27
Barging into Kendra’s office on Monday morning, I slammed the weekend edition of the Express onto her desk and glared at her. ‘What do you call this?’
She leaned back in her chair, her cherry-red lips curling into a satisfied smile. ‘I call it the sensational front-page feature I asked you to write. The one you so dismally failed to deliver.’
‘It’s a bunch of lies, that’s what it is. I gave you a perfectly good article, with Tom’s approval. How could you do this?’
She scratched delicately at her neck, her amber eyes glinting. ‘How could I not? Especially after how the pair of you carried on at the parade. I had to stay up all night rewriting your puff-piece, and call in a favour with the printers to make the morning news.’ She leaned her elbows on the desk and sighed. ‘I asked for hot gossip, Abby. The juicy details. Instead, you sent me an arty-farty piece about inspiration. Nobody wants to read that.’
‘What you did is unethical. Probably illegal.’
‘It’s a small-town newspaper. A storm in a teacup. Gabriel’s a big boy, I’m sure he deals with bad reviews all the time.’
‘This is more than a bad review, Kendra. It’s a personal attack.’
‘He’ll get over it. And if he sues, it won’t be my neck on the chopping block.’
‘What?’
She gave a breathy laugh. ‘Why do you think I used your byline? I just thank God you left all the interesting research on the flash drive, alongside your drivel.’
I scrubbed my hands over my face. The research on my flash drive? I hadn’t slept, hadn’t eaten, couldn’t remember if I’d even brushed my hair. But suddenly the pages of notes I had dictated to my catch-all file rushed into my mind with sickening clarity. That was the niggle I’d been trying to remember. Everything I’d learned about Tom was in that file, even personal things I’d sworn to him would never see the light of day. My transcript of our interview, conversations we’d had, and Tom’s entire history – all left on the drive I’d handed in with my finished article.
The magnitude of my carelessness struck home. How was I going to face Tom, to tell him that the whole mess was my doing, after all? How was I going to put things right, expose what Kendra had done, when I was just as much at fault?
Kendra got to her feet. Gripping the edge of her desk, she leaned forward. ‘You were getting too big for your boots, Abby. All your talk about Deepwater, and about warning people – you needed bringing down a peg. So the next time I say leave something alone, then bloody well leave it.’
I went to the door. ‘There’s not going to be a next time, Kendra. You can stick your column. I quit.’
• • •
After the cavernous rooms I’d grown to love at Ravensong, my cottage seemed impossibly cramped. The air was musty, the ceiling too low, and the corners too dark. My collection of small paintings resembled postage stamps after the huge watercolours adorning the walls of Tom’s house. The orchid Duncan had given me last birthday had withered, its bulb wrinkled with stress, some of the leaves turning black. I doused it with water and thought about giving it a feed of liquid seaweed, but it seemed too much effort, so I put the poor thing outside.
At Ravensong I had looked forward to dusting all those interesting surfaces, polishing the big cupboards in the library, flicking cobwebs off the chandelier. Everyday chores were an adventure; there was always a window to peer from, a garden view to admire. An empty room to stand in and dream.
Here, there was just the shell of my old life.
�
�I’m here because I want to be,’ I announced to the ceiling. ‘This is my home. It’s where I belong.’
The phone rang constantly the first few days after my arrival home. Tom left messages on my machine, which I deleted without listening to. Just hearing his voice would wreck me. He believed we could work through this and move on; but I’d seen that look of hurt and disappointment in his eyes. A look I’d seen too many times before. Alice when I watched her from the hickory tree; my ex-husband Rowan, when I left him at the airport; my father just before he died. Tom might be able to forgive me, I knew that; but I’d never been all that good at forgiving myself.
So I ignored the calls and after a few days, they stopped. I tried to slide back into the grooves of my old life, to pick up where I left off. I wrote each day and sent some articles off to national papers, but my heart wasn’t in any of them. I had a couple of messages regarding the Express – not Kendra, but a woman from the regional network – urging me to call them back. Flack for the article, no doubt. I deleted those too.
Every day I went into the reserve. Some days I drove out beyond the perimeters of my previous search areas, other times I ran along old familiar tracks. Finally I went to Pilliga’s Lookout. From there I walked north, and when the sun was at its highest point, I unfolded my map and examined my surrounds. All around me stretched a sea of tall eucalypts and areas covered in sparse undergrowth, broken only by granite boulders pushing through the earth. There was no sign of any loggers’ trails, no evidence of ancient trees that had been felled. Not even the stock route. I followed my compass east to the river and then went home. Today I returned, but this time I travelled west from Pilliga’s, making notes on the map, ducking under low-hanging boughs, trekking along the riverbank and even climbing a little way down the steep bank into the gorge.
I returned to my cottage in a far lower mood than I’d been in all week. As I was rummaging in the pantry for something to comfort binge on – where were those Tim Tams? – I discovered the family snapshot I’d deposited there weeks ago, the morning I found Shayla in the campground. The edge of the photo was ragged where I’d torn my mother out, but as I studied the three remaining family members – me, Duncan and Dad – it was mostly my mother I saw. The way she giggled uncontrollably when Dad tickled her, trying helplessly to bat him away, peeping from under her curtain of dark hair, her plump cheeks glowing pink. Where was she now? Did she ever think of us? Did she even know that our father was gone? If only I hadn’t torn her out of the photo. Dad looked lonely without her. I studied his big square face with its frame of wispy fair hair, his lopsided mad-scientist smile.
I had flushed with pride when I told Lil about him, that day in the hospital. He loved his job. Was always going on about the environment and conservation. I guess that’s what inspired my interest in it. But after Mum went, he lost his spark. Withdrew from my brother and me . . .
I ran my fingertip along the photo’s ragged edge. ‘Oh, Dad. At least you had a good reason for withdrawing from the people you loved. Mum broke your heart . . . but what’s my excuse? I just drive everyone away because I’m scared. Scared if they get too close, they’ll realise what a terrible person I am.’ My mother, Alice, even Dad . . . the people I’d lost. The people I had pushed away. I’d been blaming them for my unhappiness, for my guilt. But I was blaming ghosts. I had clung to them too tightly, expected too much. And now I was turning into the sort of empty, bitter person I’d always pitied.
Was Duncan right, was I stuck in a rut, obsessing over ancient history and making myself miserable?
I gazed around. Four weeks ago the cottage had shone. Nothing out of place, not a speck of dust. Now there were unwashed dishes in the sink. Unopened mail cluttering the sideboard. Roses drooping in a big blue vase, their cast-off petals littering the floor. How was it possible that I’d managed to make so much mess in such a short time? Not just of my house, but of everything?
28
As I trod along the dim hallway, the floral carpet muffled the thud of my boots. I entered my father’s bedroom and stood a moment, breathing the dry air. The last time I’d been here, Dad and I had argued. I didn’t even remember what it was about, just that three days later he was gone, leaving me nursing a heart that was too bruised to admit I’d been wrong.
I went over and opened the wardrobe. Inside was a rack of neatly hung clothes – unworn for nearly half a year and with a thin haze of dust on the sleeves and collars – were long overdue at the Salvos. Each one of Dad’s shirts was a memory: the yellow one he’d worn that last Christmas; his favourite green check with the ragged cuffs; the pale blue stripe he kept for good. Once they were gone, would those memories be lost?
The front door clattered open. ‘Abby?’
‘In here.’ I swiped at my cheeks.
‘Jeez, sis! I can’t believe you’ve finally—’ He froze in the doorway.
I glanced over at him, and shoved my hands in my pockets. I attempted a bright smile, but my lips were quivering, my eyes bleary, and tear trails were stinging my cheeks.
Duncan’s sandy brows knotted and his mouth fell open. He took a step towards me.
‘I’m all right,’ I said, waving him away.
‘No, you’re not.’ He pulled me against him, soothing my hair and murmuring. A faint clean whiff of soap and something sweet – caramels and sugar – wafted from his T-shirt, and I flashed back to the little mother hen he’d once been, his skinny body wrapped in one of Mum’s old aprons as he fussed over the people he loved. ‘It’s okay, Abby. Wherever Dad is now, you can bet he’s happy. Hey, maybe they have polluted sediment in heaven? He’d be a pig in mud.’
I wiped my eyes. ‘More chance of pollution in hell, wouldn’t you think? Maybe the old coot went there?’ It wasn’t much of a joke, but at least we were smiling. ‘Anyway, Dunc. I wasn’t crying about Dad. I’ve cried about him so much over the years. Wishing things could have been different between us, you know? The silences shorter, the postcards more frequent. Our visits less awkward.’
‘Yeah, sis. Dad was a bit of a goose sometimes, but he did his best.’
‘I’d forgotten that the frowning man nursing a beer bottle in front of the television was the same guy who had, a long time ago when I was twelve, threatened the police with hell and high water.’
‘Dad pretty much threatened everyone with hell and high water.’
‘I really miss him, Dunc.’
‘Me too. It doesn’t seem to be getting easier like people say.’
I gazed about Dad’s room. ‘Maybe it won’t ever get easier. Sometimes I feel as if my life is just one big regret. How do you get past that?’
‘You know what I always say.’
‘Shag anything with a pulse?’
‘Besides that.’
‘Forget the past and enjoy the now.’
Duncan reached over and gently brushed his thumb under one of my eyes and then the other. ‘Come on, I’ll show you where Dad kept the rubbish bags.’
We grabbed a bunch of bags from under the kitchen sink and returned to Dad’s room. We began clearing the wardrobe, cramming Dad’s clothes and shoes and belts into the huge bags until six stood like lumpy sentinels by the door.
While Duncan dragged out some big dusty suitcases from under the bed, I went over to the dressing table. On it sat a pair of cufflinks, Dad’s wedding ring, his old-mannish glasses, and a large flat stone the size of my palm.
‘Hey, Dunc. Check this out.’
He stood beside me as I turned the stone over. Bev, Abby, Duncan and Col, was inscribed there. Best Day Ever, January 1993.
I placed the stone in Duncan’s hand. ‘Do you remember? We went for miles into the reserve along one of the remoter tracks. Had a picnic on the edge of an ancient beech forest – chicken sandwiches and leftover Christmas cake, a flask of frozen lemonade – it was heavenly. The wind sighing high above us in the casuarinas, the river murmuring below.’
Duncan laughed softly, trailed his fingers over the inscr
ibed letters. ‘I do remember. How old was I, seven?’
‘Six. And you should remember, you were the star of the day. Racing around looking for trees to climb, the higher the better. You were quite a little nutter, and your antics had us all in stitches.’ A warm feeling engulfed me and I felt somehow lighter. ‘It was one of our best days, wasn’t it?’
‘Yeah, it was.’
‘Maybe you’re right about remembering the good times and forgetting the bad.’
Duncan took my hand and placed the stone on my palm, then closed my fingers around it. ‘Keep it, sis. A little piece of that heavenly day, to remind you.’
I slipped the stone into my pocket.
• • •
A package was waiting for me when I got back to the cottage. It was a document-sized envelope addressed to me, and I recognised Tom’s handwriting immediately. I took it inside and propped it on the coffee table, then switched on all the lights and perched on the edge of my sofa, trying to fathom what it was. Tom’s novel about the Wigmore sisters, finished already? It seemed too thin to be a novel. A love letter then? Unlikely. It was probably hate mail. Or worse – and this had me sinking back into the cushions, cradling the sudden queasiness in my stomach – what if he’d decided to sue the paper, after all?
I sat there for an hour, brooding and sweating as dusk turned to night. My mouth was dry, but my limbs too rigid and tense to force into motion and get myself a drink of water. Finally, hands shaking like wind-rattled leaves, I tore the envelope in half in my haste to get it open, and drew out a wad of photocopied pages. The instant I glimpsed the lines of handwriting, my pulse started to skip. Was it Frankie’s diary? But it wasn’t Frankie’s writing. The scrawl covering the pages was so messy it was almost unreadable.
A note was stuck on the top page. I ripped it off and held it in my shaky fingers.
I got in my ute the other day, determined to drive into town and see you, plaster cast or not. I sat there for an hour, then gave up and returned inside. Whatever your reasons for staying away, I have to respect them. So I want you to know that I miss you, and if you need anything at all, I’m here.