‘That’s what friends are for,’ Fantasio quipped, tying her hair back and out of the way as they set to work.
Sheridan had arranged for a local mover to deliver a bed, washing machine and refrigerator she’d bought from a second-hand merchant and the man came while the pair were in combat with the kitchen and bathroom.
Soon after they began cleaning out the fireplace, peering up the chimney as Fantasio used a long-handled, wire-bristled broom to bring down years of grimy soot onto the hearth, together with the skeleton of a dead bird and the remains of a nest. Ash, soot and charred kindling was dumped on the plot behind the house where Sheridan imagined a vegetable garden might one day flourish, the two women grinning at each other’s soot-marked hands and faces.
Before Fantasio exclaimed, ‘Oh, I nearly forgot! I brought a transistor radio, too, Christine!’ She dashed out to her car and returned waving it about. ‘We can listen to music while we work!’
She fiddled the dial to the Shepparton radio station and turned up the volume.
They listened to Elvis Presley singing Wooden Heart in German, the two women singing over the top of him – Treat me nice, treat me good, treat me like the way you should … joining him in a rousing chorus, Cause I don’t have a wooden heart!
They clapped and laughed at the end and continued cleaning, joining in on other songs as the transistor played loudly between rooms, the energy of one inspiring the other as they made quick progress through the house, Sheridan’s faith in what she’d done gradually being restored by what they were achieving together, she and her new friend.
Toward lunch time, Sheridan suggested she drive into town to buy pies from the bakery before it closed.
‘I’ve got an Esky in the car,’ Fantasio told her. ‘I made sandwiches this morning and brought some fruit and cake as well.’
Sheridan put her hands on her hips, saying, ‘Is there anything you don’t think of?’
‘Not much,’ Fantasio admitted, with mock modesty.
They took the house’s two plain, wooden chairs outside into the sun and had lunch there, talking about the house and the difference they were making.
After a while, and with Sheridan beginning to feel it was time to turn the conversation away from her place, she asked, ‘How’s the bub going?’
‘Just delightful, but I can’t tell you how tiring little George is. I swear he’s up earlier than the sparrows. You have to come and see him. You promised, you know.’
‘I definitely will. I’ll do it soon.’
‘You must. Even Gianni’s starting to warm to him. Though God knows how long that will last.’
They chatted about the toddler, Fantasio telling Sheridan of the changes she’d had to make to the house, how her routines were being turned upside down, of the altered arrangements at the salon, and at the words little George was able to say and how he seemed to understand all that was said to him.
Sheridan wasn’t quite sure how to say it, but asked, ‘Is there any progress on your brother’s estate?’
‘Some,’ her friend answered. ‘I’ve talked to the lawyer again and we’re going to challenge the will. We’ll argue that it was made under duress and unfair influence, or something like that. I can’t remember the lawyer’s exact words, but he’s done something and in the meantime everything at Hilltop is frozen. Is Sergeant Cole making any progress or has he just decided it was an accident after all?’
‘I’m not totally sure. If it wasn’t, he seems to think it’s related somehow to your brother’s gambling and the money he was putting into horses.’
‘He said that? What proof has he got?’
Sheridan wiped crumbs from her hands, and bit into a plum.
‘Bank records. Betting slips or something.’
‘That’s great, isn’t it? Harry wasn’t only throwing our money away at the Bramleys, he was gambling it, too. Stupid horses. God knows what else he’d been doing to that place. He should’ve kept milking the cows himself rather than paying a sharefarmer to do it. If ever there was a new way of losing money, Harry would have been the first to discover it.’ She turned to Sheridan pensively as she ate. ‘Has Sergeant Cole said anything more about me?’
‘Not to me. But that’s good about the will being frozen, anyway.’
‘It is. But you’ll tell me, won’t you, if …’
‘I will.’
‘Wonderful. I must have achieved something with my lawyer, too, because I’ve already had my first dirty call from the Bramleys.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘He didn’t say his name, but I could tell the caller was Ken Bramley. There was all sorts of foul language and it was obviously about the will.’
‘Did he threaten you?’
‘Not in so many words, but yes, he did.’
Sheridan was indignant. ‘Do you want me to do something about it? He can’t go around doing stuff like that.’
‘I’ll settle it,’ Fantasio said, looking to choose her next sandwich, before rejecting the idea. ‘Bramley has bitten off more than he can chew if he thinks he can threaten me. That good for nothing lot thought they’d stumbled onto a gold mine when Dianne hitched up with Harry, and God knows how much they’ve already siphoned off him, but it’s going to stop now, I can tell you that much. The tap’s been turned off.’
‘Does your lawyer think you’re a good chance to get the will overturned?’
‘Fifty-fifty, he thinks. Which makes it worth doing. I certainly wouldn’t just roll over and see everything our family worked hard for being handed over to the Bramleys on a platter. Never.’
‘I agree with what you’re doing, Linda. If I can help, you have to tell me, okay?’
‘Thanks, you’re a sweetheart, Christine,’ Fantasio said. ‘Now finish up your sandwich. We’ve got a lot of work to do.’
Chapter 22
Lloyd and Nancy Cole had readied their home for Vicky’s arrival. Her room had been aired and vacuumed, the eiderdown smoothed and a small posy of winter flowers picked from the garden and arranged in a glass vase. Nancy had baked and shopped and she and her husband were joined together in looking forward to welcoming their daughter home.
But Vicky was late, and they waited impatiently. Cole pored over his form guide again after he had earlier taken down the race scratchings from the radio, and placed his bets at the TAB. Nancy fretted that Vicky had changed her mind without telling them. She could be unreliable like that. She kept an eye on the window and an ear on the early warning system that was their dog, Whisper.
When the dog began barking, she said, ‘Good old Whisper’ and hurried to the front door, Cole just behind her.
‘That’s her. I could recognise the sound of that old bomb anywhere,’ Cole said, his voice full of joyful expectation as he heard their daughter’s car labouring into their driveway.
Vicky’s car spluttered to a stop as they watched from the front porch. What they saw was a surprise.
‘She’s got someone with her,’ Nancy muttered in astonishment as the car pulled to a halt. ‘A fellow. Did she mention anything to you about it?’
‘No, she didn’t,’ Cole said and felt himself bristling.
Vicky burst from the car grinning ear to ear. In a ragged, knitted woollen jumper, thick scarf and striped beanie she was their gambolling, rugged-up winter child again.
‘Mum, Dad, this is Leo. Sorry, I meant to call you about it and then I forgot. You don’t mind, do you?’ she said, dragging him along behind her, her beau shyly reluctant.
‘No, no,’ her mother quickly reassured her.
Cole said, ‘Leo’, shook his hand and then tried to embrace his daughter who pulled away from him before he could even kiss her.
‘Nice to meet you, Leo,’ Nancy said. ‘Come inside. There’s lunch on the table.’
Still holding Leo’s hand, Vicky conducted him o
n a rapid-fire tour of the house and yard, pointing out her favourite outside hiding places as a child and inside, and unnecessarily, her father thought, her bed.
The young couple sat side by side at the dining room table while Cole and Nancy brought lunch out from the kitchen.
Cole whispered, ‘I don’t know where she thinks he’s going to sleep, but it’s not going to be inside this house.’
‘Come on, Lloyd. Be kind. He can sleep in the spare room. He seems nice enough.’
But all Cole could see were the ruins of his plan to have a quiet talk and the rallying company of his daughter.
‘Are you sure Vicky didn’t say anything to you about this?’ he queried.
‘No, she didn’t. But she’s here and that’s the main thing. Help me with this, will you?’
As Nancy carried a hot casserole dish to the table, she explained, ‘I made a hot lunch for you. I thought you might like something substantial after your long drive.’
‘Thanks Mum,’ Vicky said. ‘Looks great, Leo, doesn’t it?’
The young man only nodded, and as they were to discover, he didn’t have much to say for himself, answering mostly in monosyllables. His hair was long and dank. He wore a ribbed, corduroy jacket and blue jeans that could have done with a wash. He was an arts student according to the little they could prise out of him. Cole thought he wouldn’t be his first choice as a prospective son in law.
Vicky, anyway, rushed to fill in every gap in the conversation. Next year she would be starting her teaching rounds, where she and the fellow classmates would get to go into actual schools and take classes under the supervision of experienced teachers. She was already full of the lessons she couldn’t wait to teach to the kids.
‘We’re ruining this planet,’ she said breathlessly. ‘Chopping down the forests and polluting the atmosphere. It can’t go on.’
‘Are you still smoking?’ her father asked her. ‘There’s a way you could do your bit for the atmosphere.’
‘On an industrial scale, Dad,’ she stressed, as if he was a nincompoop. ‘The big companies, the petrol and coal companies. They’re ruining it for future generations. What’s this world going to be like for our children and our children’s children?’
‘Maybe you should stop driving your car then, and not switch lights on or use electrical appliances.’
‘Lloyd,’ Nancy quietly admonished him.
‘It’s alright, Mum,’ Vicky said, unperturbed. ‘It’s all about education. If people don’t know you can’t blame them.’
Cole’s mood darkened further as he listened to Vicky tell her mother all she and Leo had been doing in Melbourne: their involvement in the anti-war rallies, the plan some of the guys had to occupy the offices of the head of their college, although they were still debating that, the posters they pasted onto light poles and brick walls in the dead of night.
When Nancy asked them how else they spent their time, besides being in class, Vicky said they listened to political lectures, or had picnics in the Botanic Gardens, or listened to bands playing in pubs. They went to happenings, or took long drives along the coast or driving into the countryside to stay with friends for weekends.
Terrific, Cole thought. When it was like pulling teeth trying to get her to spend even a weekend home once every six months, she was gallivanting all over the state with her mates at the drop of a hat.
The thought of it did nothing for his mood.
After lunch, the party all took part in clearing the table and doing the dishes, Vicky joining her father at the sink.
‘Are you grumpy, Dad?’ she asked.
His hands deep in dishwater, he said, ‘We weren’t expecting you’d be bringing whatshisname along, that’s all. You could have asked us beforehand, you know.’
‘Leo was last minute. I didn’t think it would be a big deal.’
‘You hadn’t even told us you were going out with anyone.’
‘Is there a law against that?’ she said. ‘Do I have to tell you and Mum every single thing I do?’
‘No,’ he said, trying to keep his composure. ‘But you hardly tell us anything, love.’
‘You don’t know what it’s like. I’m studying. I’ve got a part-time job …’
‘What part-time job?’
‘Waitressing. In a restaurant in Carlton.’
‘There you go then. See? You never told us anything about it.’
‘Is that important?’
Cole dropped a handful of cutlery into the draining rack.
‘It’s not important. But we like to know what you’re doing. It’s fairly normal for parents to be interested in what their children are up to, as a matter of fact,’ he said, eyeballing her.
‘Up to?’ she said. ‘Alright, I’ll tell you everything I do. 9 a.m. Get out of bed. 9.15. Have breakfast. Etcetera, etcetera. Do you want to hear more? Is that what you want me to do?’
‘You know it’s not. We’re interested in how you’re getting along. You’re our daughter. We’re not spying on you or holding an inquisition into what you do. You’re old enough to work it out for yourself …’
‘But …?’
He gently took the tea-towel from her and dried his hands.
‘We’d like to have you here more, too. It’s been a big change for us, you and Alan being in Melbourne. And your mother …’ How to say it? ‘I’m struggling. She’s struggling, more than me I think.’
Vicky took pause. ‘What’s wrong with her?’
‘She misses you. She’d like to see you more often, or to at the very least talk with you regularly on the phone, but you always seem to be out, and if the person answering the phone passes on our messages, you aren’t getting back to us. And …’
‘And …?
‘She’s drinking, love, more than what’s good for her.’
‘We all drink,’ she said.
‘Not everyone,’ he reminded her. ‘And not in the quantities your mum is.’
‘What are you saying to her about it?’
‘What I can. But I think I’m only making matters worse. Whatever I say it always seems to be the wrong thing.’
‘I’ll say something to her.’
‘Just be careful how you do it, then,’ he advised. ‘I was hoping maybe you could both go away somewhere, too. Take a break together.’
‘With Mum?’
‘Yes, why not?’
‘Dad, I’m up to my ears with everything I have to do in Melbourne. You’ve got no idea. With the job and everything I hardly have a spare moment. But I’ll see what I can do.’
‘Thanks,’ he said, but he sounded flat and he knew it.
And Vicky soon appeared to forget that they’d had the conversation, not broaching the idea of having some time with her mother at all, as far as he could tell. By mid afternoon she and Leo were looking bored, fidgeting about and wandering out of the house every half hour to have a smoke, Cole hearing their laughter from inside, and feeling the distance between he and his daughter.
And then, when they were together in the lounge room, someone mentioned Vietnam.
Vicky said, ‘This country is gutless, the way we won’t stand up to the Americans. Whatever they say, we do. We’re like sheep. Even if it means our involvement in the murders of thousands of innocent civilians in Vietnam. And the worst thing about it is, this government won’t even consult its own citizens.’
‘Because they know what’ll happen if they do,’ Leo irritated Cole by interjecting.
‘And the draft,’ Vicky continued, working herself up. ‘What do they think they’re doing sending us to fight? It’s not like we get a say in it and I bet they’d have a different view if the politicians had to go fight, too.’
Even though Cole was no supporter of Australian involvement in Vietnam, his daughter’s tone rankled and he couldn’t help but say, ‘W
e elect governments to represent us, so you actually do have a say in it.’
‘I didn’t vote for them! I’d never vote for those clowns in a million years!’
‘But the majority of the country has. That’s why they’re the government,’ he countered. ‘And you have to respect the views of the majority.’
‘They used a law of parliament to force people to fight overseas. We didn’t actually vote for that,’ she shot back. ‘If they’re so sure about what Australians want, why don’t they put it to a referendum!’
‘She’s right, you know,’ Leo said.
‘I don’t think you need to butt in,’ Cole told him. ‘Remember you’re a visitor in this house.’
The debate deteriorated after that, and when Vicky and Leo retired to the back yard for their next cigarette they remained out there.
‘Why did you have to do that?’ Nancy said.
‘Do what?’
‘Provoke an argument.’
‘I didn’t provoke anything. She did it all by herself,’ Cole fumed and retired to the kitchen to listen to the races on the radio.
Vicky only came back into the house to have brief words with her mother, and to make several phone calls, the purpose of which became evident when she told her parents that she and Leo wouldn’t be in for dinner because they were catching up with old school friends of hers at the pub for a counter meal. They didn’t need to wait up for them either, she continued. It was likely to be a late night.
Cole decided then and there he would go to the Shepparton trots where he could watch his horses lose his hard-earned in person.
Chapter 23
It was already dark when Cole set out for Shepparton. Nancy’s plans for dinner had been well and truly scuttled and she’d dismissed his invitation to join him, wanting to stay put in case Vicky had a change of heart. It was going to be a dismal night for her, he thought, waiting for something that was never going to happen, but however hard he’d tried to talk himself into staying home with her, the remembered conversations with Vicky and Leo enveloped him in a numbing, miserable fog. He knew, too, that Nancy would dive for the bottle as soon as he departed.
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