Henry made an angry sound deep in his chest and swore. ‘You’re not a screw-up. Why does everyone except Ida and me keep saying that?’
She was looking at her old maths book, wondering why she’d kept it. ‘Because you just met me,’ she said.
It hurt; it really hurt. The pile of crap she probably didn’t want had always lived with her parents. Occasionally it would be a joke – When are you picking up all this junk? We want to rent out your room! – but her old room had been safe, and Cate knew she could go there to regroup, find the next job, the next share house or the next temporarily available apartment.
She was used to travelling light, and this stuff was far better kept with her parents. She looked at it all again, sitting like an unwelcome messenger next to her. She was not welcome back. Not to stay. Her parents were finished with her comings and goings, and now she was on her own. She glanced back into the house where she could hear Ida starting to move slowly down the hallway, and the weight of it felt all the heavier on her shoulders.
When the phone rang the next moment, she ran to answer it. It was Deirdre.
‘So. You’ve had a rough time in the city and you’ve come to Ida’s to hide out for a while?’ Deirdre snapped. She’d heard.
‘Kind of, Mrs Broderick.’ There was no response. ‘But I’ve learned my lesson and I’m trying to fix my life.’
‘Well, I was talking to Audrey, and she wanted me to let you know that she can have Finley, and I’ll come and feed the chooks for you and Ida when you have to go to Perth for the court date.’
‘Pardon?’
‘Someone mentioned a court case in Perth? We can look after things while you’re gone. I assume your Henry is going with you?’
‘Um, I don’t know. He’s not my —’
Deirdre was too busy to argue the point. She made an impatient noise that sounded like an exasperated sigh.
‘Well, it’s no bother. I can come by in the mornings – I’m up early milking anyway. And Audrey loves dogs. She’ll have a fine time with him. Anyway. There it is. I’m off to milk the cow again, or she’ll go dry. Lazy creature.’ There was a sniff of vague disapproval Cate didn’t feel was directed at her. ‘I’m glad you had the sense to come here to Ida,’ she added. ‘I knew you had some brains.’ She hung up, without knowing she was terrifying and kind.
Cate stared at the phone in surprise. When she looked up, Henry was watching her, standing quietly with his arm around Ida, tiny, frail Ida. Henry’s face was still, but she recognised the concern he kept hidden, and she realised she knew his face almost as well as her own.
‘We’re just wondering how you are,’ Ida murmured.
Cate smiled reassuringly. ‘I’m fine.’
‘Is there a bit of talk about town?’
She nodded. ‘A bit.’
‘She’s a nice woman, Kath, but she can be a terrible gossip. Of course her family has had its troubles over the years, and I think she sometimes overcompensates by talking about everyone else, to make sure we all forget her past.’
‘What past?’ pressed Cate.
‘Past past.’ Her aunt smiled. ‘We country people know each other’s stories, my dear, and many of us know how to keep them to ourselves. But if she’s been talking about your terrible accident, then just between you and me, it’s got more to do with her family than you. But we can make allowances for human frailty, can’t we, Cate?’
Cate paused. Not today, she couldn’t, but maybe she could tomorrow. She looked closely at Ida, who was standing calmly in the lounge, like she had known all along.
‘Aunty Ida, do you know about the car accident? You know I killed my best friend?’
Ida nodded sadly. ‘Yes, dear. I’m sorry to pry, but I asked your parents about it while I was with them. I had a feeling there was something hurting you, and I wanted to know what it was.’ She took Cate’s hand. ‘I’m very sorry such a dreadful thing happened to you and your friend, Brigit. Tea, please, Henry,’ she declared, and he melted into the kitchen as if he had never been there at all. Ida’s fingers were hard and cool on Cate’s hands. Her skin was like paper.
‘You look so miserable, darling,’ Ida said. ‘Can I help at all?’
Cate shook her head. ‘No – it’s done now, Aunty Ida, and there’s no taking it back. I’m just a massive screw-up, and everyone knows it. I can never escape it – and I don’t deserve to.’
Her aunt gave her a sympathetic smile. She moved to the lounge and perched gently on the edge of the seat. Cate sat opposite her, in Uncle Jack’s old chair, battered with use and greasy from wool and oil.
‘Cate. I can’t hear you speak like that,’ she said and folded her hands neatly in her lap. ‘Do you know what I used to do when I felt awful and I didn’t like myself?’
‘Drink?’ Cate asked hopefully.
‘Don’t be silly, dear. I borrowed other people’s eyes and had a good hard look at myself.’
‘Okay . . .’
‘And I found – if I chose carefully and sensibly, of course – that I really wasn’t the terrible person I thought.’
Cate looked at her lap. She couldn’t take kindness at the moment.
‘Maybe you should look at yourself through someone else’s eyes. I don’t know your friends – maybe they wouldn’t be a great choice anyway – but how about Henry? How about Brigit? How about me?’
Cate looked at Ida’s soft grey eyes, and wondered what they had seen during her eighty-four years, and what tears they had cried. They were kind, and they had lived in the world. And when Cate looked into them she saw that she was loved, that she was forgiven.
‘You don’t really know me, Aunty Ida,’ she whispered.
‘Darling, of course I do. I know you better than anybody.’ Her aunt took her hand and waited until Cate could bring herself to look back at her. ‘Because I know you now.’
Okay. It was finished. Cate had carefully stitched it together as she sat with Ida, and it had taken every ounce of concentration at times, Ida providing support by laughing happily at all her mistakes and curses. Cate, dear, she had helpfully supplied, do you think you really ought to be swearing at the poor jumper quite so much? I think you’re frightening it! The jumper was frightening her. It wasn’t good enough, it was embarrassing, and she was going to have to give it to Henry, who would know how silly it was. Damn. She wished she had never started it.
She carefully considered losing it, or setting it on fire in a terrible accident. Wool was super-flammable, wasn’t it? Every now and then Ida would insist on having a look, as if she was the knitting expert, having been Audrey’s best friend for a thousand years. Oh, yes, dear. Very nice indeed. Audrey will be very proud of you. And Henry will love it. And now, the damn thing was finished, and Ida knew it. She kept glancing at her, as if to say, If you don’t give it to him, I will do it for you. She folded it and refolded it, and tugged at the sleeves and pulled at the collar. Awful. The only thing she liked about it was the colour.
She stood with it in the kitchen, holding it up to the light. The stitches were too —
Henry chose that moment to walk in, and immediately saw the jumper.
‘What’s that?’ he asked, staring at it.
Cate leapt about a foot in the air. ‘Oh! It’s nothing! It’s just a thing – a jumper.’ Oh, God.
He reached out slowly and touched it. ‘Is that my jumper?’ he asked, with a sort of weird hope in his voice.
She couldn’t say no. ‘Ah, no, it’s uh, one of Uncle Jack’s.’
He narrowed his eyes and frowned at her.
‘Okay,’ she sighed, ‘it’s yours.’ Her face was blushing so hard, it was never going to forgive her for this. It was practically bursting capillaries.
He didn’t take it from her but he slipped off his (Uncle Jack’s) windcheater and shirt and stood briefly and fantastically topless, before he slowly reached for it and pulled it over his head.
Wow. Okay.
He looked down and stroked the wool. ‘I love
it,’ he said, his voice sounding husky and soft, like it was a secret. She stood staring at his stomach for a while, so she could assess it from afar. She was too scared to touch him. Then she shyly reached out and smoothed the seams down his arms, walked around him and pushed the shoulder seams with her hands, gently tugged the waist into place, feeling his large body warm the small stitches she had made for him.
‘I’m glad,’ she breathed.
The next morning Ida was feeling so well they decided to take advantage of her improvement and head to the lake to see how much rain had flowed in over the last couple of days. They packed a thermos and lemon cake for morning tea, and a large knee rug to keep the chilly air at bay. Henry drove and the two girls and Finley sat in the back. When they got there they found the lake was filling from the recent rain and the still water was shining in the sun.
‘Oh, look! All the birds are coming down for a look at the water!’ Ida was excited to be back at the lake. It had been the centre of Windstorm social activity for quite some time, although it was frequently dry.
‘Look how far out the water goes! Henry, did you know that nearly a hundred years ago they used to race horses on the lake bed when it dried out in summer?’
‘No. It doesn’t look like it gets hard enough to race on.’
‘Well, it used to, when it was a freshwater lake. It’s a shame it’s all gone to salt now.’ She started to make her way to the wooden jetty that thrust out into a large dam like a swimming hole at the side of the lake.
‘Can you just help me, Cate dear? I’d like to have a look at the jetty.’
Cate took her arm.
‘Of course you know why I love the jetty so much, Cate, don’t you?’
Cate looked blank. ‘You like to swim?’
Ida shrieked. ‘No! Did your parents tell you nothing? For heaven’s sake, no!’
Henry was grinning. He liked it when Ida got fired up.
She began her next tale with absolute patience.
‘One afternoon, when we had been seeing each other for a while, Jack brought me here to the lake for a picnic. We had a lovely time and saw some friends, and Jack told me all about farming and his plans for the next year, and then he said, let’s go for a walk along the jetty, and I said what a nice idea, and we were walking along, and I was looking out at the end of the jetty and I realised he wasn’t with me.’
‘Had he fallen in?’
‘No, dear! When I turned around to find him, he was right there, on his knee with this ring.’ She held up her hand where it still sparkled. ‘And he said, in his lovely deep voice, Ida May Wallace, I will love you till the day I die. Will you marry me? He was a plainly spoken man – one of his many admirable qualities.’
‘And what did you do?’ asked Cate.
‘I married him, of course!’
‘No! I mean, did you laugh, did you cry? Did you kiss him like mad?’
Ida laughed happily. ‘You want the juicy bits! Well, let’s see – I was so surprised I shrieked. Then I said, Yes! Yes! Yes! then I hugged him and kissed him like mad!’ She was smiling. ‘And do you know what? It feels like it was just yesterday – like all the best things that happened to me all happened just yesterday.’
Some wild ducks flooded onto the lake behind them, flurrying to the still surface with flapping and splashing, and when Cate turned back, Henry was watching her, his eyes bright and intense, a smile risking a sprint across his face.
‘Can we go up to the timber patch on the hill on the way home?’ Ida asked later.
Henry nodded. ‘Of course we can. It’s a nice day to go up and have a look.’ He drove out to the farm, with Ida and Cate happily chatting about Uncle Jack on the way back. Cate hadn’t known either of them as well as she could have. They were always just her country aunt and uncle with no children. Her parents were fond of them and they caught up fairly regularly, but she had had no real sense of who they were, what they were interested in, what made them laugh.
They drove through the paddocks together, through the great living lungs dotted with scrub and salmon gums and water tanks, listening to Ida’s tales of Uncle Jack, who got the new tractor stuck in the dam, who fell off the roof, who bought her a horse named Zorba the Greek, who could fix any piece of machinery with things he found in the workshop junk pile, who laughed and laughed at The Goon Show. Cate liked him more and more by the moment, and she liked even more that he still lit Ida up like a Ferris wheel at night.
Ida drifted off and dozed as they drove quietly along, with Cate anxiously watching her face to make sure she was still there. Ida was often tired, her breathing became laboured very quickly, halting her in her tracks until she could drag enough oxygen into her body to balance the deficit. The car slowed and Ida’s eyes opened. She caught Cate watching her and winked. Still here.
‘Here we are,’ she said. ‘I always loved this bush.’
Henry stopped the car and helped Ida out. There was a cool wind blowing softly and the olive-green leaves above them rustled against each other. Ida indicated an area a good distance inside the fence that surrounded a scrubby stand of bushes.
‘Now,’ she said, with the authority of David Attenborough, ‘over towards the back of this little stand of bushes, you will find – in spring – some of the loveliest wildflowers. I come to check them every year. It’s best done with a thermos of tea and a slab of fruitcake. The recipe is in my recipe drawer.’
Cate sighed. The bloody recipe drawer was where random pieces of paper went to die. And no one had eaten fruitcake since the Second World War, had they?
‘You will find,’ continued Ida, deliberately ignoring Cate’s grim expression, ‘spider orchids, donkey orchids, cow kicks and leschenaultia. Jack put that fence around the area years ago to keep the sheep out, and it works very well.’ She observed Cate’s enthusiasm. ‘Make sure she comes, Henry, every year. And keep that fence up, won’t you? The sheep will get in there in a second to get out of the wind.’
Henry nodded. When you were eighty-four you got to tell people what to do, even if it didn’t make sense.
‘I love fruitcake,’ Henry supplied thoughtfully.
Perfect. Cate knew she was going to have a date with the damn recipe drawer that afternoon.
The wind whipped up suddenly and nearly blew Ida off her feet, as if she was losing her grip on the earth.
‘Now. Where did you put Mac?’ Ida asked, looking at them both.
Henry put his arm around her and led her to the circle of gums. There were a couple of old jam posts lying along the grave. Henry had obviously been back for a visit at some point.
Ida leaned her hand on a tree and looked down at the spot with great respect and affection. Soon, my old friend. Very soon now. ‘Good dog,’ she said clearly so he could hear her over the wind, from whichever rabbit hole he was snuffling. She turned to Cate. ‘Isn’t it cold up here, dear?’ she said. ‘I’m ready to go now. Let’s head home for a nice cup of tea.’
For the first time in her life, Cate found the idea almost appealing. She put her arm around Ida and rubbed it up and down to warm her.
‘Let’s go, Aunty Ida. I’ll put the kettle on.’
One of the great pleasures of life was to come out of a cold wind into a warm kitchen, Cate decided, as she took out the teapot and the fine teacups. Henry helped Ida to her seat by the window, and knelt in front of the fireplace, snapping kindling and making a neat pile.
Ida watched him contentedly. ‘You know, I think you’re as good at that as Jack was, and he could get a fire roaring in that fireplace in five minutes flat!’
Henry grinned. ‘I’m not that quick yet, but I’ll give it a go.’
‘Practice, dear. That’s all it is. Could you bring me the recipe drawer later? I’d like to find my fruitcake recipe for Cate.’
Henry laughed. ‘I don’t think city girls like fruitcake much, Ida.’
‘Ah, but you do, so she’ll learn. For you.’
He dropped a handful of large branches on
to the pile, then reached for the matches. ‘I think you’re presuming a lot there, Ida. I let her down, and now I’ve got a bit of ground to make up. I don’t know if she’ll trust me again. I know I want her to, but one day she’ll leave here and I’ll have no reason to stay.’
Ida nodded. ‘I suspect you have great sadness behind you, dear Henry,’ she said. ‘But don’t worry about the future. I can see it very clearly indeed.’ She fussed with her knee rug, as if she was trying to find the right words. ‘And might I just say what a privilege it’s been to spend my last days watching two young people falling in love.’
Cate came in with the tea things on a tray.
‘I’m making toast,’ she announced. ‘We’ve finished the lemon cake.’ She placed her load on the side table. ‘Are you okay there, Aunty Ida?’
‘Yes, I’m very comfortable,’ Ida said. ‘I’ve got a lovely view of the garden, and I’m just asking Henry for the recipe drawer so I can find you that fruitcake recipe.’
Cate grimaced. ‘Plenty of time for that, Aunty Ida. Let’s not rush into things like fruitcakes.’
Ida smiled happily at Henry, who almost blushed.
Cate dutifully went to fetch the drawer and handed it over to Ida, who made interested noises at its arrival. Henry excused himself – maybe the man did have limits after all – and headed for the workshop to fix stuff Cate knew nothing about. It may have been the military thing, but he did like to run a tidy shed, and he was slowly working his way through all the little jobs on the farm, fixing things as he went.
Ida sat for a long while, fiddling about with the recipes on her lap.
‘I never did make that one. Oh, and that one – way too spicy! Jack fed it to Mac. And Mac vomited on the verandah. Disaster! Oh, this one was nice. I did it for the World Vision cake stall. Sold very well . . .’ She kept going, looking for the fruitcake recipe, squinting and folding yellow bits of paper.
Cate sat trying to read, but it was difficult because Ida kept pulling her back into another reminiscence. Eventually, she gave herself up to the past and settled in to give the recipes her full attention as the day drew slowly to a close. After a while, she realised she was hungry.
The Drifter Page 27