From Sydney Station they had taken a taxi back to Vaucluse with the hysterical toddler. Alex carried her into the house. As soon as they went inside her screaming stopped. She had seen her reflection in the hall mirror.
She held out her arms. “Juju, Juju!”
Her joy had changed to anger when she could not touch her sister. For weeks the torment continued. Fiona sought out mirrors, beat her fists on the glass and sobbed. Her vocabulary was reduced to a single word – Juju. She disregarded the toys and dolls Virginia bought her and cried until exhaustion overtook her and she slept. When she woke, she began crying again.
Alex decided to take her back to Eumeralla. Virginia begged him to give her more time, but he was intransigent. “It’s cruel, Virginia. I’ll take her back at the weekend.”
When he returned from work the next day Virginia had taken down all the mirrors. Fiona was awake and calm.
“I took her to the beach and she paddled in the water,” Virginia told him. “I’ll take her out every day. Don’t worry, Alex, she’ll soon forget.”
Two weeks later Fiona called him Dada. Then she called Virginia Muma. Soon she had regained all her previous vocabulary with the additions Virginia had taught her.
They took her to a mirror. “Fiona,” said Virginia.
“Juju,” said Fiona.
For months she said, “Juju,” when she saw her reflection, but she was bewildered not excited.
Eight weeks after her second birthday she looked in the mirror and said, “Fiona.”
CHAPTER 9
As Stefan drove out of Melbourne on his way to Kingower on Friday afternoon he got stuck in a traffic jam. Usually this irritated him, but as he waited in the barely moving line of cars his thoughts strayed to Fiona. The way she dominated his psyche unsettled him. His mind, usually so focused on what he was doing, was now prone to wander, even in the classroom. The five o’clock news came on and began to report the progress of the bombing raids in Vietnam. Snorting in disgust, he switched stations, and Marianne Faithfull’s sensual voice filled the car.
He attempted to analyse his feelings. ‘I’m too sensible to fall for someone because she’s stunning,’ he thought. ‘And I’m not in love with her, of course I’m not. I love Tree. Fiona just interests me. But why? She’s got more than just superb bone structure. She’s shrouded in mystery. And I don’t like the way the Kingower family treat her,’ he admitted as the traffic crawled towards the lights.
“If you’ll come and stay with me,” sang Marianne Faithfull.
He drummed his hands on the steering wheel. ‘I’m happy with Tree. We’ve got a good relationship based on the things that matter.’
The driver behind him blasted his horn and Stefan saw that the lights were green. Finally the traffic thinned and he was able to change out of first gear. Half an hour later he was in the country.
The only thing he disliked about Catriona was her style of decorating. Her cottage, with its primrose walls and white woodwork, was surprisingly feminine. Romantic Victorian prints of children and animals hung on the walls. As a historian, he knew that the children were more likely to have been down the mines or sweeping chimneys than playing outside idyllic thatched cottages. The elaborately carved rosewood furniture in her bedroom had been hers since childhood. Yellow and blue floral curtains hung at all the windows and the sofa and armchairs were upholstered in the same fabric. He hated floral patterns. In Stefan’s opinion, her cottage looked as if it belonged to a fluffy girl who would have hysterics in an emergency, knew nothing about politics, never read a book and had no interests apart from fashion. When they had been going out together for six months, he had told her so. It was the first time he had seen her angry. His comment that pastel colours, floral patterns and lace did not suit her practical nature or intelligence, incensed her even more.
Striding to the bookcase she had pulled out a thick volume. “Would a fluffy girl read this?” she had demanded, shoving Equine Anatomy and Physiology at him.
“No, I’m not – ”
“How would you decorate this place?”
“Like Kim’s.” As soon as he had said it he wished he hadn’t. The last thing he wanted was for Catriona to think he was unfavourably comparing her with her sister. To his surprise her anger abated.
She looked amused. “Earthy colours? Beige, ochre, wheat, terracotta? Scandinavian furniture?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because they’re natural.”
She pointed to the walls. “What colour is this?”
“Yellow.”
“Be precise, Stefan. What sort of yellow?”
“Primrose? Lemon?”
She smiled. “What is a primrose?”
“A flower.”
“Exactly. And what is a lemon?”
He guessed she and Kim had debated this subject already. “A fruit.”
“Is a flower a product of nature and therefore natural?”
“Yes,” he conceded. “It’s just that I like browns and stuff that looks as if it’s come out of the ground. My primitive genes must be dominant. Mud huts and all that. It must be why I like simple lines, not furniture that’s elaborately carved and curvy.”
To his relief she had laughed. He recollected that even in the midst of their disagreement he had been pleased that she had not started weeping like most of his previous girlfriends.
As he took the turning to Kingower, he tried to sort out his tangled thoughts. ‘Tree and I talk to each other, laugh together and spend our leisure riding horses. There aren’t any snags. I get on well with her family, my family adore her. Our politics are the same. I bet Fiona agrees with conscription and the Vietnam war. The thought of aborigines having the vote probably horrifies her.’ He got out of the car to open the gates. ‘I don’t know her. And I don’t want to.’
He drove up to the cluster of cottages and parked next to the Mercedes that Kim and Catriona shared. Kim’s dog rushed out of her cottage, barking. When Stefan got out of the car the warning bark changed to welcome. ‘Hi, Toby old feller,’ he said, giving him a pat.
Catriona came out of her cottage and threw her arms round him. “Ready for dinner?”
He kissed her. “I’m ready for something.”
“Good.”
He carried his case into the spare cottage and put it in the bedroom. Out of respect for her parents, when Stefan came to Kingower, Catriona went through the charade of preparing the spare cottage for him. She made up the bed and opened the windows to air it. When he arrived he went through the charade of unpacking. Kim knew he spent the night with Catriona and returned to his cottage before dawn. She had done the same when she had had a serious boyfriend.
Stefan looked at the bed and grinned. “Looks comfortable. I’m sure I’ll sleep well tonight.”
“Mine’s warmer.”
“I don’t get sufficient sleep in your bed.” He smiled at her through half-closed eyes. “You distract me.”
“Are you complaining?”
“Bitterly.”
She led him into her cottage and shut the door. “Dinner’s at the homestead at seven thirty.” She reached the bedroom and pulled back the white lace bedspread. Her cheeks were flushed and her eyes sparkling with anticipation. “We’ve got time for something.”
He kissed her and they fell onto the single bed.
That night Stefan was roused from sleep by a howl. “What was that?”
Catriona sprang out of bed. “Toby,” she said, pulling on her nightdress.
He grabbed his dressing gown and picked up the rock that she used as a doorstop. “Get behind me.”
Kim didn’t have any curtains at the front of her cottage, and the light from the lamp shone through her windows. He looked inside, expecting to find her struggling with an intruder, but she was sitting on the sofa with Toby. He tapped on the window and Toby barked.
Kim hushed him and opened the door. “Sorry, did he wake you? He knew I was upset.” Her distressed expr
ession became sheepish. “Did you tell Stefan who Oliver is?”
Catriona nodded. “But he thinks it’s nonsense.”
“Well it is,” he said. “What’s happened this time? Not another foal in the creek, I hope. Or did he tell you there’s a tiger snake under your bed?”
“What did he say, Kim?” asked Catriona.
“Two things.”
“Terrific,” he said. “There’s a foal in the creek and a tiger snake under the bed?”
“Sh, Stefan,” said Catriona.
He sat in the armchair by the fireplace. “It’s half past one – we’ve got to be up at six.”
“Aunty Ruth’s going to die. I think he said within the year, but it might have been in a year,” she said at last. “So she’ll either die before the end of December or before April next year.”
“Oh, God,” murmured Catriona.
Seeing how troubled she was, Stefan stopped himself from being sarcastic. “Has she got any problems – is she asthmatic?”
Kim shook her head. “But she smokes.”
“How old is she?”
“Fifty-three or four.”
“What else did Oliver say?” asked Catriona.
“May is going to tear this family apart.”
Catriona frowned. “Who’s May?”
“It’s a month,” said Stefan. “It could mean that there’ll be a terrible storm in May and the homestead will be struck by lightning and burn down – that would tear the family apart, especially if there was someone in it.”
Catriona looked horrified. “I thought you were sceptical about all this.”
“I am, but I’ll join your morbid flights of fancy.” He stood up. “Kim, you had a vivid dream. Let’s try and get some sleep or we’ll be falling off our horses tomorrow.” He gave her a hug. “Aunty Ruth will be alive and as fit as ever this time next year.”
Stefan went to sleep immediately, but Catriona was too fraught. Not wanting to disturb him, she went into the kitchen and made some hot chocolate. It was Ruth who had championed her and Kim when they wanted to go to university. Like his own father, David had the view that women were happiest when they were married with children.
At thirteen Catriona didn’t know if she wanted to get married. She didn’t know if she wanted children. She did know that she wanted to be a vet.
It was during dinner, on one of her weekend visits, that Ruth had asked her what she wanted to be.
“A vet,” she replied promptly.
“So do I,” Kim said. “But Daddy said only men can be vets.”
“He’s mistaken,” said Ruth. Her acerbic tone had puzzled Catriona, who had expected her to agree with their father. “There is nothing to stop either of you becoming vets if you want. Tell me if there’s anything I can do to help.”
“Don’t encourage them,” their father had said sternly.
“I will, David. Our father said I couldn’t be a doctor. He lied to me and you are lying to your daughters.” She lectured him for the next fifteen minutes, demolishing his arguments and making them seem ridiculous.
“You’re crazy, Ruth,” he said finally.
“No, she’s not,” protested Margot.
Ruth had looked amused. “He can’t wriggle out so he’s being pathetic.”
“Only a crazy person would disappear for four months.”
Catriona saw that Kim was as startled as she was.
“It was three months, David,” said Ruth. Catriona remembered that she had blushed. “I bet that your daughters know more about the anatomy of a horse than you do.”
“We know the names of all their bones,” said Kim. “And their digestive – ”
“That’s enough,” said their father. “If you’re so keen for them to go to university, Ruth, you pay their fees. I’m not wasting my money.”
“I’m sure they’ll get scholarships, David.”
It was then that Catriona had become interested in Ruth as a person and not just a spinster aunt. When Ruth returned to Melbourne, Catriona, who was helping Margot in the tack room, had bombarded her with questions. “When did Aunty Ruth disappear?”
“In 1946.”
“Why?”
“When Francesca died, her husband was on his way home from the war,” said Margot, putting the horse brushes in soapy water. “We tried to send him a telegram, but communications were down so we wrote to him. Unfortunately he didn’t get the letter. He turned up at Ruth’s flat expecting to see Francesca. Ruth was so shocked that he didn’t know, she just blurted out that Francesca was dead. He was mad with grief and disappeared – ”
“He disappeared too?” Catriona said as she filled the second sink with water.
Margot nodded and gave her one of the brushes to rinse. “Ruth blamed herself for telling him so badly. She went away. The only person she told was the Matron, who was concerned enough to tell us. She said that Ruth had been unwell, had lost a lot of weight and had been behaving strangely for months. We were terribly worried. We’d almost made up our minds that she had killed herself. Three months later she wrote to me at Acacia saying she was coming up on the train and could I meet her at the station. After that she was better.”
“Where had she been?”
“She never told us. We didn’t press her – we were in the middle of a – ”
“What?”
“Um ... ” Margot looked evasive. “Crisis. Someone got bitten by a snake.”
“Who? Did they die?”
“I don’t know.” As if realizing that was unlikely, Margot said, “They died later. It was one of the jackaroos.”
“What happened to Francesca’s husband?”
“He turned up at Acacia eventually.”
“They must have gone somewhere together.” Her eyes widened. “Maybe they were going to jump off a cliff – ”
Margot laughed. “Impossible. Laurence turned up before Ruth disappeared.”
“Where had he been?”
“He refused to tell us.” Margot frowned. “He was a contentious man.” She took the brushes Catriona had rinsed and put them out in the sun to dry. Now, you deserve some cake and lemonade.”
“Tree?”
She jumped. She had been so wrapped up in her memories that she hadn’t heard Stefan coming.
“Are you okay?”
She nodded. “I couldn’t sleep.”
He sat next to her. “Be realistic,” he said, taking her hand. “Oliver’s not being helpful, is he? He tells Kim that someone’s going to die and something vague about the family being in jeopardy, but not what anyone can do to avert it. That alone shows that it’s rubbish.”
“He might be preparing us for grief.”
“Tree,” he said putting his hand on her shoulder and giving her a little shake. “She has dreams, not premonitions. Come back to bed.”
She began to tell him about Ruth’s disappearance, but he yawned.
“I’ll tell you another time,” she said. As she washed her mug, she concluded that Margot had not been telling the truth. ‘There was a crisis, but I bet it was nothing to do with someone being bitten by a snake,’ she thought.
In the morning the alarm went off at six. In spite of his interrupted sleep Stefan felt energetic and optimistic that a weekend of hard riding would erase thoughts of Fiona. On trekking weekends they had to be ready for the riders who would arrive between eight and nine. After dressing in jodhpurs and riding boots they left their cottages and went to the homestead for breakfast. Kim and Catriona were so preoccupied that Margot asked them what was wrong. Kim told them about her premonition. To Stefan’s surprise, they all took her seriously. The mention of May agitated them even more than the premonition about Ruth’s death. David was the last person he would have thought capable of believing that the dead gave messages to the living. His reaction made Stefan’s scepticism falter.
“Do you know who May is?” Catriona asked.
Stefan saw their glances flicker to each other and then away.
“It
’s a month,” Margot said.
Stefan thought that her attempt to sound nonchalant failed.
David stuck a knife into the poached egg and looked mesmerized by the yoke seeping into the toast. “No,” he said.
Their mother’s laugh sounded unnatural.
‘They know who May is,’ he thought. ‘Or what it is. If they’d discovered that Kingower was bankrupt they couldn’t look more upset than they do now.’
Stefan was the only one who finished his breakfast. Most of the eggs and tomatoes on the other plates were scarcely touched. The toast racks and dishes of marmalade and butter were full. When the cook that they hired for trekking weekends worried that the food was inedible, Kim reassured her and admitted that they’d had a bit of bad news.
“Is May a person or the month?” Catriona asked, as they walked to the stables.
Stefan thought about it. “A person,” he said eventually. “You can be frightened of a person, but I don’t see how you can be frightened of a month. Unless someone else in your family has the same power as Kim and has had the same premonition.”
“No one else is psychic,” said Kim.
“What about the sister who died? What was her name?”
Catriona looked thoughtful. “Francesca. We don’t know much about her ... just that she was married to Aunty Margot’s stepson and died of an asthma attack at the end of the war.”
“Your Aunty Ruth seems to be a bit distant from the family. She doesn’t come to Kingower that much.”
Catriona sighed. “Fiona’s her favourite, I don’t know why.”
“She used to come all the time before Fiona wrecked everything,” Kim added. “It upsets Aunty Margot because Aunty Ruth was more like her daughter than her sister. When our grandmother died Ruth and Francesca were only little girls. Margot was old enough to be their mother and she practically brought them up.”
“What did Fiona do?”
Catriona scowled. “She caused a family row. Two family rows.”
Eumeralla - Secrets, Tragedy and Love Page 13