Promises

by Cathryn Hein

  But he’d wanted to protect her from pain. He didn’t want to see her hurt. He wanted to hide what he knew because he loved her.

  And she only loved him more for it.

  As for her father, redemption was still a long way off.

  The carpet was damp where she’d spilled her coffee, but her father had mopped up the worst of the stain. The tray was gone, and in its place sat an open bottle and two glasses filled with red wine. He handed her one.

  ‘I thought this would be better.’

  ‘Yes.’ She took a sip, holding the wine in her mouth for a moment before swallowing. ‘But next time I suggest you warn me if you’re going to drop another bombshell like that.’

  ‘That was the worst of it. I apologise for not being more tactful.’

  ‘I don’t think it would have helped.’

  ‘No. I suppose not.’

  She put the glass down. ‘Tell me from the start what happened.’

  He sighed and picked up a photograph of the woman who was once his wife. He traced a finger down her face. The gesture seemed almost loving, but Sophie knew it wasn’t.

  ‘She was very beautiful, your mother. You look a lot like her.’ The frame went back on the shelf. ‘As I explained to you last time I was here, your mother was a very ill woman, but she refused to take any medication to control her depression. Dealing with her became exhausting.’ He smiled sadly. ‘You won’t remember, perhaps.’

  ‘Not definite things, just impressions.’

  ‘Yes. You were young and far too busy with school and your horses.’

  She stood and joined him. Just as she had so many times before, she stared at Fiona Dixon’s photograph, but this time she saw a woman she didn’t quite recognise.

  ‘Riding is the only thing I remember us doing together,’ she said. ‘That and the tunnel of love.’

  ‘The tunnel of love?’

  Sophie shook her head. The tunnel of love was her secret memory. It wasn’t for sharing. Not even with her father. It doesn’t matter.’

  ‘She wanted to be a professional showjumper. Did you know that?’

  Sophie didn’t, but she wasn’t surprised. Her mother had been a gifted horsewoman.

  ‘Her dream never came true, unfortunately. She met me and then she had you, and then her illness kept her incapacitated, but she had high hopes for you.’ He touched her cheek, the motion tender, paternal. ‘She would be very proud of you now, Sophie. As I am.’

  Her eyes welled up. ‘You’ve never told me that before.’

  ‘I know. I’ve been a very bad father to you.’

  She didn’t correct him. She didn’t mean to be cruel, but it would take more than this to make amends.

  His hand dropped. ‘Yes. You have every right to be angry.’

  ‘I do, but my anger isn’t important right now. I want to know about Mum.’

  ‘Of course.’ He took a mouthful of wine. ‘Living with her became intolerable. I asked for a divorce. She refused. She said she didn’t want her daughter growing up in a dysfunctional family.’

  ‘Ironic, considering what she did,’ said Sophie.

  Her father smiled. ‘Yes. It is rather.’ The smile faded. ‘I won’t bore you with details, but during this time, Carol Laidlaw – Aaron’s mother – and I became lovers.’

  ‘How nice for you.’

  His expression hardened. ‘Be careful, Sophie. It’s not wise to pass judgement too hastily. One day you’ll learn that the world doesn’t operate in absolutes.’

  ‘There are some absolutes, Dad. Husbands shouldn’t cheat on their wives, mothers shouldn’t kill themselves and fathers should love their daughters.’

  ‘I do love you. I always have.’

  She wanted to believe him, but it was hard after all this time. His actions, or lack of them, over the years, surely revealed his true feelings, and it was difficult to summon sympathy for a man who had shown her so little.

  ‘It’s just that when I look at you …’

  ‘You don’t see me, you see her.’ She took a shuddery breath, understanding now. ’And the older I got the worse it became.’

  His face collapsed. He blinked rapidly, and Sophie caught a glimpse of a man she didn’t know. A man tortured by his wife’s death, by blame and failure. She put her hand on his forearm but it was as if he couldn’t feel it. With his empty glass in his hand, he crossed the room and sat down heavily on the sofa. He reached for the bottle and refilled his glass, and Sophie realised how very, very hard this must be for him.

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘It’s not your fault, Sophie. It’s never been your fault. You should be proud to be like her. She was fragile, yes, but when she smiled …’ He shook his head, as though no words could ever describe what Fiona Dixon radiated. ‘She just didn’t smile enough.’

  ‘I’m not fragile any more, Dad.’

  ‘Yes, I can see that.’

  ‘So tell me the rest of it.’

  He sighed. ‘Carol wanted to leave Rodger. Fiona was still refusing me a divorce, but Carol said it didn’t matter. She would move to Canberra. I was spending most of my time there anyway. In the end, I agreed.’

  ‘Were things so bad at Hakea Lodge?’

  He nodded. ‘Rodger used to hit her.’

  Sophie began pacing the room. This went completely against Aaron’s memory of his father. ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘That’s what Carol told me. I have no reason to disbelieve her.’

  ‘Is that why you don’t like Aaron? Because of what his father did to his mother?’

  Her father’s face turned rigid. ‘He never defended his mother, never once stood up to his father. Carol said he used to hide in the corner with his hands over his ears. He’s a coward.’

  Sophie slumped back into her chair, staring at the ceiling, her mind working overtime. Aaron a coward? She didn’t believe it. Aaron was no coward. There was something fishy about this story. She turned to her father. ‘Dad, are you absolutely positive Carol is telling you the truth?’

  ‘Why on earth would she lie about something like that?’

  ‘For sympathy? So you’d protect her? Stay on her side?’ Suddenly, her brain chugged over and she finally understood. ‘It’s her, isn’t it? She’s kept you away from me. That’s who Tess was talking about when she said “she” hates me more than my mother. It was Carol.’

  She sat up. It was all becoming clearer. ‘Did you tell her I was working with Aaron?’

  Ian nodded.

  ‘And is that when she told you Aaron never protected her?’

  ‘I know where you’re heading with this, Sophie, but you’re wrong.’

  ‘Am I?’

  Her father didn’t answer. He didn’t have to. Sophie saw the truth. Tess knew too, so did Aaron. Carol Laidlaw had played Ian Dixon for a fool. Aaron had said she was never happy unless she was the centre of attention, and there was no greater threat to a relationship than a needy daughter. And for years, Sophie had been as needy as they came.

  But as she now realised, love was a funny thing, and criticising Carol Laidlaw wasn’t the way to make her father see reason. If she was honest with herself, she wasn’t even sure she wanted him to. No matter what his excuses, he’d made his bed and he could damn well lie in it.

  ‘Tell me something,’ she said. ’Do you love her?’

  It took a while for her father to answer. ‘Yes. More than I loved your mother, much to my eternal shame.’ He shifted, and Sophie saw how uncomfortable the subject made him. ‘I broke it off after your mother died. I couldn’t live with what we’d done, but then I found I couldn’t live without Carol, either. It only made the hollowness worse. Carol has her faults, I admit, but she came to my rescue at a time when I was beginning to question my own sanity. Your mother had a way of making me feel worthless. Carol made me feel like a man again.’

  ‘But why keep it a secret for all these years? Surely no one would care now?’

  ‘I thought it was best for you. You were so youn
g, you wouldn’t have understood. I thought I would just wait until you were older to explain, but then you started having problems.’ He spread out his palms and stared at them. ‘I didn’t want another Fiona on my hands. And you have to realise how impossible it seemed at the time. First there was the scandal with Rodger and if that wasn’t bad enough, your mother went and killed herself. Carol was terrified of being blamed for both. The way she acts sometimes, I think she still is.’ He looked at Sophie, pleading for understanding. ‘I loved her and I loved you and I was desperate to protect you both. So we kept it all a secret. But I can see it was a mistake. Perhaps if I’d told you the truth from the start none of this would have happened.’

  Sophie held herself back from pointing out that none of this would have happened if he’d managed to stay faithful to his wife, but they’d fought enough for one night and, as she was so fond of telling Aaron, the past was over. It was time to stop the blame and move on. Besides, there were other things to discuss.

  ‘I know about Braeburn, Dad.’

  Immediately, his eyes narrowed. ‘Tess told you, did she?’

  ‘I had to force it out of her, but yes. She told me.’ She leaned forward. ‘Vanaheim’s killing her. There are too many bad memories here. She needs to escape and get her life back in order. She needs Braeburn.’

  ‘No. She must stay her time.’

  Sophie blinked. ‘Why?’

  ‘Your aunt had only one job to do, and that was look after you. She failed. She can stay here and rot for all I care.’

  A whirlwind of fury overtook her. How dare he? Of all the selfish rotten things he had done, this was right up near the worst of them.

  With deliberate care, she lowered her glass before she threw it at him. Then she let him have it.

  ‘And what about me, huh? You’re condemning me to a life of looking after a drunk. Gee, Dad, thanks very much. On top of everything else, that really goes to show how much you care about your daughter, doesn’t iot? You don’t love me. You never have.’

  ‘That’s not true! I do love you, but I cannot forgive your aunt for what she did. She let my daughter slit her wrists in the bathtub while she sat drunk in this very lounge! Do you have any idea how close you were to dying? Well, do you? They pulled you from the tub unconscious and barely breathing. Tess couldn’t even bring herself to do that. She just babbled incoherently into the phone until an ambulance arrived. I will never forgive her, Sophie. Never.’

  ‘For God’s sake, Dad. Can’t you see you’re only making things worse? You say you care about me, but then you go and do this. How do you think it makes me feel knowing Tess is suffering because of something I did when I was fifteen? If you want to blame someone, blame yourself. You were the one who was never here. You as good as abandoned me when Mum died. I didn’t understand anything. I was twelve years old. All I knew was that both my parents had left me and somehow I was to blame.’

  His eyes were huge. ‘But you weren’t to blame.’

  ‘How was I to know that? I was twelve! Mum was dead and you wouldn’t even look at me. And don’t even get me started on Tess.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, his voice like gravel, and Sophie was shocked to see tears in his eyes.

  Her anger died, exhausted by a fight that served no purpose but to hurt. She sat down and put her head in her hands. How many lives had been ruined by Fiona Dixon’s suicide? Surely, after ten years, they’d all suffered enough?

  ‘Dad, listen to me. This has to end. It’s been ten years. We need to move on. All of us need to, including Tess. Give her Braeburn and let her go.’

  ‘She doesn’t deserve it.’

  ‘Perhaps not, but when you punish her you punish me and that’s not fair. Let her go. And if you won’t do it for her sake, then at least do it for mine.’

  It took a long time, but in the end, she talked her father around.

  Tess finally had her freedom. And so, Sophie hoped, did she.

  The following day, for the first time in his parliamentary career, her father called in sick. The night before had taken its toll on them both. They faced each other over breakfast weary-eyed and yawning, but also, Sophie felt, with a new perspective on each other’s life.

  Conversation was stilted at first, but gradually eased into something more relaxed. They talked about the farm, about Sophie’s hopes for it. She told him about Buck and Rowdy and her dreams of competing on them at three-star level, of maybe one day reaching even greater heights. Emboldened, she even told him about Costa Motza and how he’d improved, what a thrill it was to watch him race, and how she hoped he might prove everyone a fool and win.

  Too wary of spoiling their rapport, she didn’t speak of Aaron, though the absence of his name only made the issue of her relationship with him more palpable. Several times she observed her father taking a long breath, as though fortifying himself to broach a difficult subject. Each time, his mouth thinned instead of opened, keeping whatever he wanted to say trapped inside. He was right to avoid it. Aaron could wait for another time. This morning belonged to family.

  After breakfast, surrounded by sweet morning air and weak, late-autumn sunshine, they walked down the track to Tess’s cottage. Sophie hesitated at the door, nervous of the confrontation to come, then tightened her jaw and knocked. She’d faced her father, she could damn well face Tess.

  As usual, there was no answer, but as Sophie went to push inside, Ian held her back.

  ‘Maybe it’s best if I deal with Tess alone.’

  ‘I should be there too, Dad.’

  He shook his head. ‘No. There are things we need to sort out between the two of us. I don’t want you getting caught in the crossfire.’

  Sophie bit her lip, uncertain. Tess might need her. ‘I’ll wait here.’

  ‘Don’t you have work to do?’

  ‘Yes, but —’

  ‘No buts.’ He smiled and brushed his hand over her hair in a paternal gesture that made her spirit swell. ‘Don’t worry. I’ll yell if I need help.’

  He waited until she’d reached the old stockyards, halfway back to the house, before entering. Sophie halted and regarded the cottage for a moment, then perched on one of the weathered redgum rails, biting a thumbnail.

  Vanaheim remained quiet, undisturbed except by the warble of magpies and the occasional lowing of cattle, and a light breeze whispering through the plane trees. To distract herself from what was occurring in the cottage, Sophie constructed plans for the future, when the property would be at last hers.

  First on the agenda were new stockyards. Solidly built, the old ones still served their purpose, but they lacked modern innovations, like a sheltered work area where she could set up her laptop and have shade from the elements, rounded races that made stock handling easier, and extra space and troughs for weaners. The more she researched, the more she realised yard weaning was the future. Though a lot of extra work, the animals were less stressed and showed increased weight gain over those paddock-weaned, which meant higher prices at the saleyards. Vanaheim’s profitability was solid, but that didn’t mean it couldn’t be better.

  Shouts from the cottage broke her contemplation. Tess’s shrill voice sliced through the air. Cattle grazing the lower pastures raised their heads and stared. From the front paddock, Chuck let out a whinny. Sophie considered going to the rescue but the escalating argument, so vicious and filled with long pent-up blame and bitterness, held her in place.

  She tensed, torn over whether to interfere. Abruptly, the yells stopped. She slid off the rail and took a few steps toward the cottage. Her father appeared at the door. He caught sight of Sophie and then looked back inside. Sophie took another two steps, but he held up his hand, signalling for her to stop. Sophie saw his mouth work as he spoke once again with Tess. Then he closed the door and cut through the grass toward her.

  ‘Is she okay?’ she asked when he’d reached the yards.

  ‘She will be.’ He held her gaze. ‘I said she could have Braeburn.’

  As
Sophie went to smile he held up his hand. ‘But she has to go to rehab first. She’s in no state to take it over. As soon as I can arrange a place somewhere you’ll be free of her. You’ll have everything you want.’

  This time she let her smile break. At last, it was over. Buoyant with relief, she leaned into her father and hugged him.

  ‘Not everything, Dad. But close.’

  Ian Dixon had barely turned out of Vanaheim’s lane toward the late-afternoon sun before Sophie was in the Range Rover, heading for Hakea Lodge. The moment she pulled into the drive, the horses started calling to her. Rowdy banged his front hoofs against his half-door and whinnied, but when Sophie approached to give him a kiss, he tossed his head away in a grump. For once, she ignored him. Aaron was more important.

  She found him sitting on a bag of corn staring at the made-up evening feeds. He didn’t move when she walked in.

  She sat opposite him, leaning forward and letting her hands dangle between her legs in a mirror of his pose.

  ‘Dad came last night,’ she said.

  He nodded. ‘I saw the car.’

  She swallowed, wondering where to start. ‘We talked. A lot. About Mum. About me.’ She paused. ‘About your mother.’

  He glanced at her and quickly looked away, his expression unsurprised. He looked like he had barely slept. The skin under his eyes was bruised and puffy, as if he’d been in a fight and come out the loser. It made his blue eyes appear dark, sad. Sophie wanted to wrap her arms around him.

  ‘Why didnt you tell me, Aaron?’

  He pressed his thumbs into the corner of his eyes. ‘I guess I was scared.’

  ‘Of what?’

  ‘That you’d be upset. That you’d do something stupid. Your father warned me not to tell you. He said you wouldn’t cope. Tess said the same. I thought they were wrong, but I couldn’t take the chance.’

  She looked at her hands, at the fingers that had once held a razor blade. She remembered gouging her flesh in an orgy of blood-letting. It had felt so good at the time, like floating in salty water with the summer sun blazing down while the tide dragged her to peace. She sighed at the damage she’d done; to herself, to others.