“Did you want to go to university?”
“Not really. Connie had the brains for that.” He studied her closely. “I don’t want you to feel tied to this place, like it’s a duty. If you think you need to be doing something else, you do it. You’ve still got time to work out your own path. I’m not going to pressure you.”
Bree was surprised. “Thanks, Dad, but when I go to Marla it’s only temporary. I can’t imagine doing anything else but living and working here.”
“Like I said, there’s time to decide. And if you’re serious about Owen he might want something different.”
Bree frowned. She hadn’t thought that far ahead. “It’s early days with us yet.”
“Oh, right, yes. It’s just that your mother…” He grabbed his collar and tugged it away from his neck. “Never mind. So you don’t have to rush off to Marla?”
“No, I can stay here till you’ve sorted what you need to.” She took a deep breath. While he was being candid she had another question. “What were you going to say about Mum?”
A dog barked and he looked in the direction of the kennels. “Nothing. It doesn’t matter.”
“Is Mum okay?” Bree decided to press on while her dad was being chatty.
“Why would you ask that?”
“She left in such a hurry after she’d had those tests. You told us to give her some space. But hearing about Mrs Halbot, well, I wondered if there was something you’re not telling us.”
The colour drained from his face. “Hell’s teeth, I’m sorry you’ve been worried. Your mum is physically fine.” He took a breath, blew it out so that it whistled over his lips. “We had a bit of an argument. It’s nothing that can’t be sorted but your mum’s always wanted a holiday and she decided she was going. It’s partly my fault. I keep putting her off.”
“Then I announced I was going away.”
“We both want you to do what’s in your heart but I guess… well, the timing was off.”
Bree’s shoulders sagged.
“Like I said, your mum wanted a break. She’s having a great time in the warm. She’s fine.”
Fear wormed its way inside her. If her mum had left over an argument that sounded serious. “Will you two be all right?”
“Of course we will.” Milt threw an arm around her shoulder, gave her a squeeze. “You know what a grumpy old bugger I can be. Your mum needed some space and I’ve given it to her.”
“Do you think she’ll come back soon? Not ’cause I want to leave but…well, I miss her. Kate and Laura do too.”
“Me too, love.” Milt’s arm stayed around her shoulder but he stared off into the distance. “That’s why I want you to stay. As soon as we get seeding underway and this bloody stuff with Connie sorted I’m going to fly over and join your mum, have a few days in the sun then bring her home.”
Bree wasn’t sure whether to be reassured or not. Her dad leaving the property during major work like seeding for a holiday was unheard of. Something was happening between her parents and she didn’t understand what.
Twenty-Nine
Natalie took a deep breath of fresh air, captivated by two little birds hopping among the branches of the shrub in front of her cabin, at one moment invisible in the shadows and the next illuminated by the sunlight glinting through the leaves, their happy chirrups punctuating the quiet morning.
At the first hint of light she’d woken, made a coffee and come outside. She liked the early morning, as the sun’s rays first peeped over the horizon. The lower temperature was cool on her skin and she enjoyed the sense of taking a deep breath, a pause before whatever filled her time.
Each day started as a clean slate but was soon filled with her regular beach trips, chatting with other campers and reading, and sometimes, when Rosie wasn’t busy, she took Natalie off for little tours. Yesterday they’d gone to Cygnet Bay to the pearl farm. The days here rolled on so casually and Natalie went with them; not making plans, taking each moment as it came. There were no alarms or bells, appointments to keep or lessons to plan; no-one to feed or take care of but herself. It was complete decadence in comparison to the frantic, busy life she lived at home…and yet she felt restless.
She gripped her coffee mug in her hands, stretched her legs, closed her eyes and tilted her face to the sun trying to reclaim the sense of freedom the early-morning calm usually bestowed on her.
Her phone rang, startling her. She dumped the mug, plucked her mobile from the table and saw Milt’s picture. She did a quick calculation as she jabbed accept and put the phone to her ear; seven-thirty here would make it nine o’clock at home. Usually he’d be outside working on a Thursday at this time.
“Milt?”
“Hello, Nat.”
Her stomach lurched. “Is something wrong?”
“No.”
“We usually speak at night.”
“I know but I haven’t heard from you since last Saturday. There are things we have to deal with. This Connie stuff has to be sorted. I’ll have to change some paperwork for the farm. It’ll need your signature…and there are other things…Jack—”
“I can’t, Milt. I’m still not ready.”
There was a pause. “I wondered how much longer you’re planning on staying.”
She let out a sigh of annoyance. His call had frightened her but it seemed there was no real news. “I don’t know but I’m not ready to leave yet.”
“So you’re still up on the peninsula?”
“Yes.”
“It’s just that originally we thought you were going to Brisbane.” Once again a pause. “You could be anywhere.”
“Well, I’m not just anywhere. I’m enjoying life in this community and I’m staying for a while longer.” She was sharp, deflecting him.
“Okay,” he said. “I love you.”
Natalie looked at her phone. He’d rung off. When was the last time he’d told her he loved her? When had she said it to him? She gripped her head and groaned.
And at that moment Rosie stepped around the corner of the cabin.
She eyed Natalie a moment before she spoke. “I came to see if you wanted to go on another fishing trip.”
“That’d be great.” Anything to clear her thoughts. “I’d love some more fresh fish.” They’d gone to the supermarket again yesterday after their trip to the pearl farm. She’d topped up her supplies but she hadn’t bought much meat.
“How about we have a cuppa first?” Rosie said.
Natalie looked at the coffee she’d made earlier, unfinished and cold in the mug. “Good idea.”
She made herself a fresh cup and a tea for Rosie and brought them outside.
“You all right?” Rosie asked.
“I had a call from Milt wanting to know how much longer I was staying.”
“Fair enough.”
They sipped from their cups.
“I miss my girls,” Natalie said.
“Maybe it’s time to go home then.”
Natalie looked out over the grass and the little park area she’d grown used to. “It’s so peaceful here.”
“I know.” Rosie settled back in her chair. “But I also know you can’t hide here forever. The world’s still out there waiting for you to re-join it.”
“Dot, who I met back in Broome, said something similar. Always leave while you’re still enjoying yourself.”
“What is it that’s stopping you getting on a plane and going home?”
Natalie could feel Rosie’s penetrating look. She kept her own gaze resolutely on the treeline and shook her head.
“This thing that you argued with your husband about, can it be sorted?”
“I don’t know. It all seems so hard. We’ve been through tough times before but this time…Something happened early in our married life. I thought our marriage was over then but we overcame it.”
“How?”
“It was terrible at first. I shifted into the spare room. Eventually, my father-in-law found out about it.” Natalie smiled. “He was an insightful ma
n, Clem. Anyway, he suggested some options and eventually Milt and I talked. We talked and we talked.” Natalie dragged the words out, remembering those days when talking was all they had left. “We covered everything, what had happened, what we wanted from each other, we made a new set of life rules… we had some time alone without the girls. We only had Kate and Bree then.” Natalie felt a warm shiver wriggle down her spine. “We had good sex.”
She turned. Rosie was still studying her, a slight smile playing on her lips.
“So can’t you do that again?”
“Maybe.” She thought about her earlier stilted phone call with Milt.
“Do you want to?”
And there it was. The question she’d asked herself but not in the bright light of day. She’d lost her purpose in life and somehow her marriage had come adrift with it. Natalie lurched forward and gripped her head in her hands to stop it from exploding.
“I don’t know. I don’t feel as if I know anything any more and I feel so guilty.”
“About Gabe?”
Natalie felt heat rise up her neck.
“I’m guessing there’s not a lot to feel guilty about…yet.” Rosie’s eyebrows lifted.
Was there? Natalie’s cheeks burned now. Gabe was often in her thoughts. She’d even imagined kissing him, wondered what it would be like to be held by him, but nothing more. It was flattering to think that another man might find her attractive. She shook her head. “He’s a good man but I refuse to feel guilty about the friendship we’ve developed.”
“Fair enough.” Rosie’s look was open, trusting. “Everyone needs friends.”
“Perhaps I feel selfish rather than guilty.”
“Why?”
“I think about what happened to your family and what you went through, and my neighbour Veronica and the battle she’s facing, and I feel such a fraud. What have I got to complain about?”
“This is your life, Natalie, not mine, not your neighbour’s. You have every right to question your own life and what you want from it. Don’t let anyone else tell you what you should do.” Rosie put her hand to her chest. “It has to come from inside you.”
Natalie felt a bubble of laughter rise within her. “Faye, the other woman I met in Broome, said don’t let anyone should you.”
Rosie nodded, drained her cup, placed it back on the table and stood up. “If you need more time, you take it. You know you’re welcome to stay but right now if we don’t get going Charlie will be getting tetchy. He wants to come fishing with us.”
“I’ll get my hat.” The weight of decisions to be made felt lighter on Natalie’s shoulders. “Thanks for the chat. I feel like I’ve become one of your lost boys.”
Rosie nodded. “Sometimes you have to lose yourself to find yourself.”
They weren’t out fishing for long. Charlie and Rosie caught a decent feed of fish in quick time and as usual Natalie had no luck. She hadn’t been focused on the fishing – her mind had wandered over the short conversation she’d had with Milt and then the conversation she’d had with Rosie before they’d set off. Both had stirred feelings of guilt and uncertainty she couldn’t shake.
She was relieved when they dropped her back at her cabin. Charlie had promised to bring her some fish once he’d cleaned them and Rosie had given her a perceptive look as Natalie had waved them off. Now her cabin was hot. She flicked on the aircon and wandered restlessly between the rooms. She picked up her current novel but put it down again, still not happy with the way the woman was dealing with her problems. Natalie didn’t believe anyone could be so resolute as to turn their back on their family.
The wind went out of her and she flopped to the bed. Hadn’t she done the very same thing? She stretched out and stared at the ceiling fan going around in lazy circles. It was old and greyed by the years.
“Certainly not sexy,” she said out loud then rolled over. Now she was talking to ceiling fans. Perhaps she was really losing the plot? Dust motes swirled in the stream of bright light shining around the curtain. She watched them for a while, then her gaze drifted to the bedside chest and there, poking out from under some magazines, was the corner of the little red book.
Why had it come with her? She should leave it here in a bin when she moved on. She sat up and propped herself against the pillows, then tugged it out and held it on her lap, one thumb rubbing the soft leather of the cover. Then, steeling herself, she opened it to the second chapter. Her big bold NO written next to the words – The model wife should accept her husband’s friends and receive them in her home, her own statement – but not in his bed – the photo of the tennis party with Vee beaming out at her. She flicked to it now and the words she’d underlined when she’d been struggling after Bree’s arrival in their lives. She should not bother her husband with too much baby talk, even though he is the father and may stand a good deal of it, she must remember there are other interests in the world.
The birth itself had been protracted and she’d ended up with a lot of stitches; her milk had been slow to arrive and then copious when it did. Life on the property was difficult. Keeping feed and water up to stock, checking their health, was daily, full-time work for Clem and Milt. It was a long hot summer and Natalie had dragged herself around, unbidden tears falling at the drop of a hat, and feeling as if she leaked from every orifice. She was constantly tired, uncomfortable and sad, but determined she could manage, and then the final nail in her coffin.
She could see back to that terrible day like it was yesterday. There’d been a country tennis carnival in Adelaide and Natalie, concerned her husband needed a break, had encouraged him to go. Brianna was three months old. The day Milt left for the carnival Olive and Clem had also been away visiting Connie who’d just had her first baby.
Natalie remembered so well her overwhelming tiredness, and Bree wouldn’t settle. By lunchtime, all out of ideas, Natalie had parked the baby in the pram in the kitchen under the fan and taken Kate with her to the bedroom. She’d set Kate up with crayons and paper, put on some music and laid on the bed. She could still hear Bree’s cries so she’d put a pillow over her head and that’s how Olive had found her when she returned from Connie’s.
Olive had settled Bree and put her to sleep, she’d sent Kate off with Clem to check troughs, then she’d made Natalie a cup of tea and drawn a chair up beside her bed and they’d talked. Olive was the only one Natalie had told how bad she felt. Neither of them had understood that she had post-natal depression but Olive had done her best to help, saying she could manage the girls for twenty-four hours and Natalie should take a break. One thing Natalie had no trouble with was breastfeeding and she had extra breastmilk stored in the fridge. She could go to Adelaide and spend the night with Milt, just the two of them away from the property.
She’d jumped at the chance. The first half of the drive she’d felt weak with failure then she’d felt guilty with relief. Relief that someone else knew how she felt and that her baby was safe and she could have some time with her husband just for themselves.
She’d arrived unannounced at the motel just on dark and pulled in beside Milt’s car. The room had been in darkness and she’d thought perhaps he was off having a meal but when she knocked a light went on. She’d heard voices, had knocked more insistently, and then Milt had opened the door in a pair of tennis shorts, looking drunk and dishevelled. The shock on his face was only outdone by the look on the woman’s face behind him. Veronica Halbot was wide-eyed and red-faced. Natalie remembered lurching to the side of her car and being sick and by the time she’d straightened herself up Veronica had disappeared so that Natalie could almost believe she’d imagined what she’d seen.
It had been a dreadful, sleepless night. There were no other rooms free so she’d had to stay in Milt’s. He’d slept on the floor. The old rattling air conditioner had barely lowered the temperature in the stuffy room and the next morning Natalie had driven home leaving Milt to continue with the carnival.
Her life had fallen apart. Not only was she
struggling with being a mother but she believed her husband to be an adulterer. She’d moved into the children’s room, telling Olive it was so Milt could sleep better and she could deal with the girls more easily. She’d been consumed by embarrassment at first, thinking people would find out, then she’d felt guilty, blamed herself for not being a better wife. Whatever the reasons for Milt’s glitch she couldn’t bear everyone knowing about it; her parents who hadn’t liked Milt from the start, her friends, everyone in the district would know.
It had been Clem’s understanding and his generous offer of support and lots of talking between her and Milt that had got them through it. Eventually she had decided her marriage was worth saving, and she’d accepted Milt’s adamant claim that it had been nothing more than a fumble and a kiss. She’d decided to forgive him and stay. Ever since then they’d both worked hard to make a happy marriage and, until the arrival of Jack in her home, she thought they’d succeeded.
She looked down at the book again now. When she got home from Adelaide she’d seen herself in the mirror. There were dark shadows under her bleary eyes, her hair was lank and in need of a cut, her dress faded and sack-like. Then she’d pictured Veronica and her pretty, if surprised, face; her shining, golden hair; and how the little clothing she’d had on was lacy and seductive.
In that moment Natalie had known the words in the little book were true. She flicked back to the first chapter and read them now.
A frigid or indifferent wife could be supplanted by an ardent mistress. And for the same reason she should always be clean and not permit her person to become unattractive. I must impress upon her the fact that love begets love, politeness begets politeness, and if she does her part the husband will be more likely to do his part, and that much depends upon her own individual effort.
And there it was. The words sounded loud in the empty room even though she’d only murmured them. A chill rippled down her spine again. Her own individual effort. She remembered how those words had stuck with her. For a long time she’d believed the affair had been her fault, that her lack of effort had driven her husband into another woman’s arms. When she’d begun to feel better and she’d decided to save her marriage, she’d been able to put it into perspective and realise she wasn’t to blame but she’d kept the book. She’d filled it with positive sayings – A perfect relationship isn’t perfect, it’s just that both people never give up. She and Milt had vowed that together and it had become her favourite quote out of the many she’d written in the book. Her finger trailed over Clem’s funeral card. She’d noted the sad times as well as happy family events. The photos rekindled fond memories, and then there were the extra loose leaves, recipes, household hints, flyers – she’d done it all to break the book’s spell. The Model Wife had rarely seen the light of day over the last ten years; why was she dwelling on it again now?
The Model Wife Page 34