Promises

by Cathryn Hein

  ‘You don’t smell, except of horses.’ And wonderful Sophie things like toothpaste and soap.

  ‘Are you scared of me?’

  ‘No.’

  Sophie tossed the contents of her cup out into the yard and stood. ‘If you aren’t going to talk to me, Aaron, then there’s no point having this conversation. Who are we taking out next?’

  He glanced at her. Her cheeks were red and her grey eyes dark. She was angry. He looked away, knowing that what he was going to say was likely to turn that anger into pain.

  ‘I’m not scared of you, Soph. I’m scared for you.’

  ‘Why?’

  He closed his eyes, his heart aching, and tried to find the words to ask what he needed to hear. The words wouldn’t come, but they didn’t need to. From the moment he looked at her again, he knew she’d already figured it out.

  She gasped and took a step back, her eyes full of disbelief. She tugged at the sleeves of her jumper, stretching the woollen fabric over her hands. It was done so quickly, he knew it was automatic, like an animal hiding its wounds from a predator.

  ‘Oh, God. Tess came to see you, didn’t she?’

  He nodded and stood. She looked so pale he thought she’d collapse. He took a step toward her, but she held up her hand, warning him away.

  ‘Give me a minute.’ She turned and stumbled across the yard to Rowdy’s stable and disappeared inside. Aaron stood helpless, not knowing what to do. Wanting to comfort her, but fearing it would only make things worse.

  He sat back on the step and put his head in his hands. Once again, he’d failed. He’d made her miserable when all he wanted was to see her happy, to see her living a life filled with joy and love and laughter.

  There could be no forgiveness for what he’d done, but he could at least watch over her and keep her from harm. How was he supposed to do that, though, when the very thing he needed to protect her from was himself? But he had to be strong. The time had come to pay for Fiona Dixon and Rodger Laidlaw’s deaths.

  And he knew now the price was Sophie.

  She came out of Rowdy’s box with her shoulders squared and her stride steady, and he admired her for her composure. She sat down next to him on the step. There were no tears, just the same determined look he’d seen on her face before she took off out of the starter’s box on Sunday.

  ‘What did she tell you?’ she said.

  He swallowed. ‘That you’d tried to kill yourself.’

  She nodded. ‘I did. When I was fifteen.’

  ‘Did you mean it?’

  She laughed but bitterness tinged its edges. ‘Oh, yeah. I meant it all right.’

  Oh, shit.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I was upset over a boy, among other things.’ She looked at him and then sighed. ‘Go on. Ask away. I can see you’re dying to. You want all the gory details? I’ll tell you, every single last horrible moment of it if you want. Just get it over with so we can go back to being whatever it was we were before.’

  But what were they before? Two people pretending to be friends? Real friendship required honesty, and he could never be honest with her. Almost lovers? That was a joke. The only sex he could ever have with Sophie was in his head. So what were they? Romeo and frigging Juliet, that’s what. Destined never to be anything except fated because he’d once been stupid and naive and unforgivably cruel.

  He rubbed his hand over his face, overwhelmed by bleakness and sickened by his own pessimism. Sophie sat beside him clench-jawed and rigid, drawing on a strength he wished he shared.

  ‘Who was he?’

  ‘No one important.’

  ‘He must have been important to you.’

  She turned to look at him. ‘Why do you need to know? ’

  He needed to know so he could hunt the bastard down and beat the shit out of him, but Sophie didn’t need to hear that.

  He shrugged. ‘Curiosity, I guess.’

  She looked away. ‘It was just someone from pony club I had a teenage crush on.’

  He took her hand. It felt cold. ‘What happened?’

  When she spoke, her voice was unemotional, robotic, as though she’d repeated the explanation a hundred times and was now bored with it.

  ‘He asked me out. There was no one to stop me, so I went. I was fifteen. He was eighteen. He acted like he really cared about me and, like the stupid little fool I was, I fell for it. Two weeks later, I lost my virginity to him on the back seat of his car at a pony club camp. Afterwards, I found out he’d done it for a bet. Slashing my wrists seemed a good idea at the time. Happy now?’

  No. He wasn’t happy. His gut burned with anger and his heart ached with sorrow and guilt. But as he’d discovered over these past weeks, when it came to Sophie, his guilt was like a hungry animal that fed on her suffering. It needed more.

  ‘And the other times?’

  ‘What other times?’

  ‘Tess said you’ve tried a number of times.’

  ‘Tess is full of shit.’

  He scanned her face, trying to work out if she was telling the truth.

  ‘I don’t lie, Aaron. I hate lies, just like I hate secrets. Ask me anything and I’ll give you a truthful answer, even if it hurts.’

  ‘Are you okay now?’

  ‘Yeah. Two years of Dr Charlton and lots of drugs put paid to that. Now I’m just your average 22-year-old going through another rebellious phase. The difference being that I’m older and a bit smarter this time.’ She smiled, this time genuinely. ‘And I have no intention of having sex on the back seat of anyone’s car, including yours.’

  ‘I don’t blame you. Given the springs have gone in the Land Cruiser’s, it’d be bloody uncomfortable.’

  She laughed. ‘I’ll remember that.’

  He squeezed her fingers, serious again. ’Promise me you’ll tell me if you ever feel like that again.’

  ‘What, like having sex on the back seat of a car?’

  ‘No, I meant the other.’

  ‘I know you meant the other.’

  He touched her face. Her skin was soft and cold from the frigid morning air. He wanted to kiss it. She closed her eyes and pressed against his fingers as though his touch was the loveliest thing she’d ever felt. His stomach flipped over.

  ‘Promise me you’ll tell me.’

  She opened her eyes and shook her head. ‘I don’t need to. It won’t happen again. And that, I can promise you.’ She turned her face from his hand and stood. ‘Come on, let’s get back to work.’

  Aaron didn’t want the moment to end. He wanted to stay on the step talking to her. ‘It can wait a bit longer. We’ll have another cuppa.’

  She shook her head, her mouth narrowed and her eyes focused on the distance. ‘Nope, let’s get this over and done with.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because the sooner I leave here, the sooner I can get back to Vanaheim and murder my aunt.’

  Twelve

  The cottage stank of unwashed clothes and stale alcohol. Sophie stepped over an empty wine bottle and yanked on the kitchen curtains. Light exposed the squalor in which her aunt lived.

  ‘Tess!’

  A grunt issued from somewhere in the next room.

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ muttered Sophie, kicking another bottle out of the way and stomping into the lounge. Tess lay on a fully extended recliner wearing yet another of her brother’s old work shirts, scarlet lace underpants and football socks. A balled-up pile of denim sat on the carpet in front of the television. Sophie assumed it was Tess’s discarded jeans.

  She jerked open another set of curtains. Blissful sunlight streamed in. Outside, in contrast to the cottage’s dust and grime, ryegrass and clover pasture swayed glossy and vibrant green in the breeze. Against the boundary, Vanaheim’s plane trees stood solid and strong. Whatever her aunt threw at her, Sophie knew she had to do the same. She turned back to Tess.

  ‘You’re a disgrace.’

  Tess shrugged, reached down for the bottle sitting beside her chair and dr
ank straight from it.

  Sophie crossed her arms and leaned against the wall. Tess had her moments, but Sophie had never seen her this degenerate. She wondered what had happened. Dumped by a lover? It was hard to imagine her aunt having one.

  ‘What do you want?’ The words came out slurred and Sophie realised that even though it was barely lunchtime, Tess was incredibly drunk.

  ‘What do I want? Now, let me see.’ Sophie put a finger to her mouth as though thinking hard. ‘I want Buck to stop being horrible, I want Costa Motza to win races and make me rich, and I quite fancy the idea of sleeping with Aaron Laidlaw. Urn, what else is there?’

  Tess’s flaccid mouth turned up in a shiraz-stained smile. ‘Told you.’

  Sophie ignored her. ‘Oh, yeah. I wouldn’t mind knowing why my father dislikes me so much, and you, for that matter. But what I’d really like – no, what I want and will do my utmost to achieve, is you off Vanaheim.’

  The smile fell from Tess’s lips. She narrowed bleary eyes at Sophie. ‘Can’t make me.’

  ‘I’m going to apply to the trustees to take my inheritance early. I’ve proven I can look after the farm. I think they’ll take that into consideration.’

  ‘Bitch.’

  Sophie pushed off the wall and snatched the bottle, holding it out of Tesss grasping reach. ‘What is your problem?’

  ‘You!’

  Sophie stared at her, heart hammering. Tess may have been drunk but the loathing in her eyes was unmistakable.

  ‘What have I ever done to make you hate me so much?’

  ‘Exist.’ Tess flicked a lever and the recliner’s footrest snapped down. She stood, wobbly but upright, facing off her niece. ‘It’s your fault I’m stuck here in this miserable hole. Yours and your selfish bitch of a mother’s.’

  A slap would have been better than hearing those words. At least Sophie could have hit back and felt justified. But words had always been Tess’s greatest weapon. Her victims bled slowly from their wounds. She liked to watch their suffering.

  ‘You can leave whenever you want.’

  ‘No I can’t!’ Tess fell back into the chair.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Your fucking father, that’s why not.’

  Sophie stared at her in confusion. What are you talking about?’

  Tess surveyed Sophie through narrowed eyes. ‘Why didn’t you do it properly when you had the chance?’

  There it was, a reference to Sophie’s suicide attempt. Tess always brought it out when she really wanted to hurt. Sophie glanced at the trees again and straightened her shoulders. She could endure this.

  ‘Because unlike you, I have some strength of will. I’m tougher than you think, Tess. I always was. It just took me a while to realise it.’

  Tess grunted.

  ‘Why can’t you leave?’

  Her aunt wrapped her arms around her bare legs and hugged them to her chest. ‘Do you know what I was doing before I came here?’

  ‘Not really. I thought you were working in a hotel or something.’

  Tess made a noise of disgust. ‘Is that what Ian told you?’

  Sophie couldn’t remember. She thought it was Tess who’d told her, but perhaps it was her father. It was all too long ago and she’d been too young and too distraught to care. And they’d never had the sort of relationship where it was normal to share such things.

  ‘It wasn’t a hotel. It was a guesthouse called Braeburn, overlooking Corio Bay. A grand old house built in the ’20s as a seaside getaway by a wealthy Melbourne family, which was converted in the ’50s to holiday accommodation. And it was once your grandmother’s.’

  ‘My grandmother’s? Why haven’t I heard about this?’

  Tess gave her a ‘don’t be so stupid’ look before staring sulkily at her socks. ‘It was my house. And your father took it.’ A tear slid from her eye. She swiped it away and reached for the bottle, but it remained in Sophie’s grip. Tess glared at her. ‘Give me my drink.’

  ‘Not until you tell me what’s going on.’

  ‘Won’t make any difference.’

  ‘Why don’t you let me be the judge of that?’

  Tess said nothing. She stared at her feet, mouth tight, fingers digging into her legs as she held them curled up tight to her chest. Sophie waited. She wasn’t leaving until she had the truth.

  ‘Braeburn was meant to be mine. She promised it to me.’ She regarded Sophie, red eyes watering. ‘We visited each summer, in a room set aside especially for us. Just Mum and me, and for two weeks of the year I was the most important thing in the world, not Ian. It was our special place, where we were both happy. Then she died and Dad claimed it.’ Her mouth tightened even further, as though she was trying to hold herself in. ‘He said I didn’t deserve it.’

  Sophie took a breath. As a child she’d picked up hints of a rift between her grandfather and Tess. On the rare occasions Sophie was naughty in his presence, he’d shake a finger and tell her to watch it she didn’t turn out like her aunt. And more than once she heard Wally Dixon tell his son how glad he was to see that Sophie took after him and not Tess. But like everything else, when she’d asked for details, everyone clammed up. Even her mother.

  ‘Is that why you left Vanaheim?’

  Tess snorted. ‘Hardly. I left because the only thing Dad cared about was Ian. No matter how well I did at school or sport, or how hard I worked on the farm, Ian did it ten times better. So I stopped trying. Decided to have fun instead.’ She smiled a little, lost in a memory. ‘The old boy didn’t like that much, but belting me only made me worse.’ She sobered, bit her lip and stared out the window. ‘I hate this place.’

  If what Tess said was true, then Sophie couldn’t blame her. ‘Then what happened?’

  ‘I got pregnant.’

  ‘And the baby?’

  ‘Miscarriage.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  Tess sneered. ‘No, you’re not.’

  Sophie did feel sorry for Tess but wasn’t going to waste her breath convincing her aunt otherwise. ‘So why come back here if you hated it so much? Dad could have found someone else to look after me.’

  Her aunt eyed the bottle. ‘I need a drink.’

  ‘You’ve had enough.’

  ‘Just give me the bottle,’ said Tess wearily. ‘Or you can forget about me telling you anything else.’

  Sophie twisted the bottle in her hands, considering; then, with a sigh, she handed it over. Tess snatched it from her fingers, pressed the neck to her mouth and drank in gulps. Disgusted, Sophie looked away.

  ‘Your father promised me Braeburn. He knew how much I loved that place. He’d arranged a job for me there when things were bad, and kept it secret from Dad. I thought once the old boy died he’d pass it on, but Ian kept telling me I wasn’t ready.’ A tear leaked from her eye. ‘I was. I’d worked hard, stayed clean. I deserved what my mother promised me, but he wouldn’t budge. Then your mother killed herself and he came up with an offer he knew I wouldn’t be able to refuse.’ Tess’s voice choked as the tears fell harder. Sophie reached for the wall, her stomach clogging with guilt and despair, and slowly slid down its length. ‘Six years with you was all I had to do. I told myself I could manage, that the sacrifice was worth it, but this place eats at you.’ She pointed a shaky finger at Sophie. ‘Then you had to go and ruin it all by slitting your fucking wrists!’

  The bottle smashed against the wall above Sophie’s head. Glass and red wine sprayed over her in green and burgundy drops. The tough base of the bottle struck her shoulder and fell to the carpet with a dull thud. Sophie started to shake.

  Tess stood up and advanced across the room, red-stained teeth bared, eyes glowing like a rabid animal. She stood over Sophie.

  ‘Do you know what he did?’

  Unable to speak, Sophie shook her head.

  Tess crouched in front of her, grabbed her jumper and yanked on it. ‘He kept Braeburn. Your bastard father punished me for your weakness. I’ve got to stay in this place with you until yo
u turn twenty-five.’ She let go and fell backwards onto the glass-covered carpet. ‘I hate you,’ she said to the ceiling.

  And at last Sophie understood why.

  She crawled to her aunt’s side. ‘I’ll get you help.’

  Tess shook her head. ‘Just do one thing for me.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Don’t do anything to upset your father.’

  Sophie closed her eyes, knowing she meant Aaron. ’I can’t, Tess. I think I’m in love.’

  ‘Then we’re both fucked.’

  ‘I pity her,’ Sophie said to Aaron as they rode out on Monday morning.

  The sky leaked wintry drizzle, as if nature understood the futility of Sophie’s plight. She’d spent the weekend cleaning the cottage and trying to think of a way to help her aunt. Burdened by guilt and feeling she owed Tess, Sophie had invited her to move back into her old room, but it didn’t last a single night. Tess could be a nasty drunk, but sober and surrounded by Vanaheim’s memory-laden walls, she was diabolical. The only solution Sophie could come up with was to speak to her father, but Tess was adamant that she keep out of it. If she upset him, Ian could take Braeburn from her forever, and then everything would be lost.

  ‘She doesn’t deserve your pity,’ said Aaron. ‘Not after all the things she’s done to you.’

  ‘I still feel sorry for her. We’re both the victims of my father.’

  ‘We’re all victims of your father, Soph.’

  Sophie looked at him. ‘What do you mean?’

  He shook his head. ‘Nothing.’

  They rode on. Sophie’s mind circled his words, trying to work out what they could mean. Nothing made sense. She’d tried to ask Tess about Aaron, but after her aunt’s initial confession, she had clammed up.

  ‘We should get drunk together one night,’ Sophie said to Aaron as they walked the horses along the firebreak. The pines seemed menacing today, as if bad things hovered in the forest’s dark depths. She wished she could shake off her despondent mood, but today seemed a day for unhappiness.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because then for once you might tell me what’s going on in that handsome head of yours. It worked for Tess.’

  ‘Some things aren’t worth knowing.’