She pulled up at home and looked down on the passenger seat at the book she’d borrowed: Women in Local Government: by being there you can make a difference. More use right now, she’d decided, than Suzanne’s suggestions, although she might read the other two later. She turned off the ignition and picked up the book, examining its cover.
Could I make a difference? she wondered.
She was flicking through its pages when Amber shouted ‘Boo’ through the window.
‘You little devil!’ she called out, as Amber scurried up the front path, laughing. She leapt out and chased her, catching her on the verandah and whirling her around. ‘Hello, sweetheart, how’s your day?’ she asked, hugging her close.
‘I’m in the hockey team, I’m in the YMCA hockey team!’ she yelled, jumping up and down. Her face glowed and her newly cut bob bounced around her face. She looked thirteen now. Paul would have loved seeing her like this. She was going to be taller than both of them; she’d already outgrown one pair of school shoes this year. And she was topping her class—she definitely didn’t get that from them.
For the first time, she truly wondered about Amber’s mother, not as a threat, but as a woman. It was something she had never allowed herself to do.
‘Mum?’
‘Yes, yes, that’s great news! Let’s go have a hit out the back, I’ll find my old stick, it’s in your Dad’s shed somewhere,’ she answered, unlocking the front door. Whoever she was, she thought, following Amber in through the door, I’ll be forever grateful.
The late evening breeze, fluttering in through Kerry’s bedroom window, did little other than move the day’s heat around the room before laying it back over her naked body. She tossed and turned trying to find a cool spot on the cotton sheets. She stretched, already feeling the tension in her calf muscles from chasing the hockey ball around the backyard. She was surprised at how much she’d enjoyed whacking the ball—she hadn’t played since before Amber arrived—and was equally surprised at Amber’s stick skills.
She thought of Bill. He played hockey for Mines—maybe he could give Amber some tips. Maybe he could give her some. She wriggled about. Unable to sleep, she sat up, pulled up the sheet and turned on the light. The lace curtains billowed, a seductive promise of relief, wafting in a musty, damp earth smell. Perhaps a cool change was coming.
Maybe I’ll read for a half hour, she thought, reaching over for the book by her bed. She looked at its cover and again thought of Bill and how much he had supported her. A soft heat rose up her body.
It had been so long.
Dean had been tempting but she was glad he’d soon be leaving for The West Australian in Perth—he was too young. But he’d reminded her that she was a woman, with feelings and needs, beyond that of a mother and a grieving widow.
And so had Bill. They’d spent so much time together lately, up to and after the election and helping her to prepare for the council meetings, that she was beginning to realise how much she looked forward to him coming around and that she missed him when he wasn’t there.
She thought of Paul. Was it too soon? She held the book to her bare breasts. It felt cool against her skin. She imagined his hard body pressing against her, him saying, No, love, it’s never too soon.
Kerry opened the first page of Women in Local Government and started to read.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Aggie swatted a fly from her face and wondered about its purpose, other than to make her life a misery. She was up early to avoid the heat of the day, and so were the flies. The summer heat brought them out in droves and their fat buzzing and bombarding around her kitchen when she was cooking sent her into a frenzy of swatting and spraying. She stirred the apricots and checked the time. Five to seven—time to make a cup of tea and toast. She’d check on Jack in an hour. He was sleeping longer and longer in the mornings and dozing off in the middle of sentences.
The mantel clock in the lounge room chimed the hour and the ABC news came on. With her cup of tea in one hand and a piece of toast and vegemite in the other, she settled down on the couch to listen, before beginning her meditation. They were still on about the impact of the stock market crash on the government and rumours of state assistance to Perth-based millionaires who had supported the party. She tuned out and thought of Lori who was coming for dinner but tuned back in when a phrase caught her ear—‘bottom of the harbour’— tax evasion schemes. It all sounded connected but it was too late, she’d missed in what context, and who.
It was sport now; Australia’s defeat of England in the Cricket World Cup. Yes, yes, she thought, reaching over to switch off the radio, not interested. Like the recent Melbourne Cup. She knew Kensei would win. And … and, she thought for a moment, and next year it’ll be a flower or something. But it all meant nothing to her, that wasn’t why she had her gift. Opening people’s minds. That’s why she had it. Not even predicting the future, that was just the method, not the purpose. She put down her empty cup and sat back in her chair, feet on the floor. She breathed deeply and relaxed until she felt the familiar quickening, and disembodied, she rose beyond the physical, beyond knowing.
The clock chimed eight as she opened her eyes again, her heartbeat resuming its normal rhythm, her mind at peace with its purpose. A fly buzzed about her face. ‘Damn flies,’ she complained aloud. She was back.
An hour later, the flies were buzzing around Jack’s flywire door. His back door was open, the kitchen dark. ‘Jack?’ she called out again. Two phone calls about tea-leaf readings had held her up. Booked out, she’d referred them on to Lori. ‘But ring her in the evening,’ she’d told them. ‘You won’t get her during the day, she works.’
‘Jack?’ she yelled louder. She opened the flywire and peered through the gloom, past the kitchen, down the narrow hallway, to where his bedroom lay. Uncertain, she took several steps into the kitchen, and called out again. About to do the unthinkable and move towards his bedroom, she gasped in relief as a bedraggled Jack, pulling at the strings of his pyjama pants, tottered into the hallway.
‘Jack, you gave me a fright.’
Jack peered at her, dragging his hand through his hair and rubbing the stubble on his chin. He looked so lost she wanted to rush forward and hug him.
‘Are you all right? It’s nine o’clock. Were you up late?’
‘Nine o’clock?’ He glanced into his bedroom then back at her. ‘Bloody clock batteries have died! Sorry, Aggie. Gimme a moment, I’ve something to show you,’ he said, turning back to his room. ‘Put the kettle on,’ he called out.
A quarter of an hour later, his threadbare dressing gown tied tightly at the waist, Jack sat beside her at the kitchen table. They sipped their tea together in silence; he was still waking up. She noticed his skinny legs poking out the bottom of his gown and his hard-nailed big toe sticking out the end of one of his slippers. Jack was generous to a fault with everyone else, particularly her, but never to himself. He poured his tea into his saucer to cool it down and sipped it. Not until he’d finished did he speak. He reached into his dressing gown pocket and pulled out a long, narrow fawn-coloured envelope. She knew what it was.
‘Here, take a look, I had it witnessed.’ He handed over the will and leant back, watching her.
‘Oh, Jack, do I have to? I always get upset. I’m sure you’ve put everything in order and I know where it’s kept.’ But she took it anyway and pulled the grey form out of its cover and unfolded it with respect.
‘Down the bottom, see,’ he said pointing.
She held it up towards the small amount of light coming in the window and read the last entry in Jack’s tiny writing.
It was money for Kerry’s girl, Amber. For her education, it said.
Tears filled her eyes and when she looked up, Jack was rubbing his with the old rag he kept in his pocket.
‘All right?’ he said, his voice gruff. ‘I’ll put it away then,’ and took it back.
‘All right,’ was all she could manage as she watched him shuffle up the hallway.
She loved him, she’d always loved him. Not the way she loved Frank, but like it, since the day they last lifted Frank over the threshold, from under the apricot tree, and she saw the tenderness in his face, the love and respect he had for Frank, and for her. And it was that respect that had kept them as friends. When she thought about it she’d probably spent more time talking with Jack this past ten years than she ever had with Frank. Jack liked her just as she was, she didn’t have to entertain him or read tea-leaves for him; she slowed down around him and was still. They’d shared every day together, except their bed, living in their separate houses all these years, separated by a code, a code of behaviour. But they’d been each other’s comfort and she had no regrets. It was as it was meant to be. She knew that. She’d miss him but … she sipped the last of her tea and noticed a tea-leaf slowly twirl its design into her future.
She picked up the cup and read it and knew about his dying, in the New Year, when Jack would discover that final secret. She put down the cup and wiped her eyes.
Aggie buried her nose in the bunch of roses and swooned from the intoxicating perfume. They lifted her mood. Her heart had been heavy since visiting Jack this morning. She arranged the flowers in a vase and placed them in the centre of the kitchen table. The spicy smell of the roses competed with the sweet tang of the stewed apricots and the fresh earthy smell of salami and salad on the table. Lori would be here soon. All ready. Tonight she would tell her.
‘Can I come in?’ called Lori, peering through the sliding front flywire door.
‘Yes, you can but not any flies you’ve brought with you,’ she said, laughing.
‘They’re particularly bad today, aren’t they, usually means that rain’s coming, doesn’t it?’ Lori replied, ducking in through the door and sliding it shut behind her. She handed her a round cake tin. ‘Early Christmas present from Mum to me to you, half a fruitcake, we can have some with a cuppa later. I’d never eat it all and Paddy doesn’t like fruitcake.’ She shook her head. ‘Who doesn’t like fruit cake?’ she asked, laughing, following her into the kitchen. ‘Mmmm, smell those roses. Oh, yum, cold meat and salad, just what I feel like. Is that salami, Aggie?’
Aggie lifted the cake out of its tin and placed it on a cake plate. She smiled, pleased with herself. ‘Yes, I bought it from the supermarket, they’ve a smallgoods section now. It won’t be as good as your dad’s but I hope it’s going to be all right.’
Lori ran around the table and gave her a hug. ‘Oh, Aggie, everything’s going to be all right! And you said it would be.’ She stepped back and smiled at her.
Knowing, she said, ‘Well, sit down and tell me all about it, we can talk over dinner and then we can have our session.’
Between mouthfuls of salami and salad, followed by apricots and cream and a thick slab of wine-soaked fruit cake, Lori shared the past month’s events. Paddy now knew that she was clairvoyant and Catholic, something Lori finally understood about herself; their long discussions into the night had helped define just what she believed in. After Lori’s experience of what she could only describe as being washed in love, she’d realised the only framework she had to make sense of it all was her faith, and that felt okay. She would keep seeking, but for now, it fitted. And Paddy was trying to understand.
‘It wasn’t the tea-leaf reading so much that upset him, as not feeling I trusted him enough to tell him,’ Lori went on, sipping her tea. ‘And we’re not moving in together, just yet. I think we got carried away. We will, we just need to get to know each other better, maybe spend some time away together first.’
‘Tahiti?’ she asked.
Lori eyes widened. ‘No! I was thinking Rottnest Island, after Christmas. Do you see Tahiti?’
Already open, she nodded. ‘Yes, eventually.’
Lori smiled and went quiet, absorbed in her own thoughts, her dreams, no doubt.
‘How did the university entrance exams go?’ Aggie asked, pulling Lori back.
Lori was open too, the light around her head intensified. ‘It all went well,’ she said dreamily. ‘The answers all came to me.’
She’d been about to ask her when she’d get the results but knew it didn’t matter; Lori was in and she would get an offer in the New Year. Her path was waiting; it was up to her to choose it. She will bear witness: Aggie’s guide moved in closer and her skin tingled. She saw Lori shiver as her guide moved closer too. ‘Shall we start?’
‘Yes, let’s begin,’ Lori said quietly, her eyes shining, light radiating around her.
Agnes’s heart soared. Her love for Lori formed a visible band of connection between them. Tonight Lori would learn that eventually she would move on from reading tea-leaves, her clairvoyance would need no intermediary, she would study and find a balance between her intellect and her soul, and she would carry on Aggie’s work—opening minds.
Aggie closed her eyes. A white light filled the room and filled their hearts.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Aimee stared out the kitchen window, watching the sun rise towards a lingering pale moon. The moon and the broad disc of sun looked like two flipped coins—one silver, one gold—hovering over the cloudless Christmas Day. And so the world turns.
She had made up her mind. Three months of wrestling with her decision had pulled her through the depths of despair into a resolute calmness. She breathed in the seductive aroma of brewing coffee and smiled as the percolator sighed. A phone call had woken her, too early, but it had been good to hear Lee’s voice. The percolator gave a last gasp and she poured herself a large mug of coffee. She sat at the breakfast bar, elbows on the bench and stared out the window again, planning her morning. There’d be a phone call from her mother shortly, then she might call Lori, check if she needed anything else done for lunch, finish the last of the icing on Lori’s cake, pack the gifts, shower, get dressed, go. Oh, and Amber’s birthday present.
Lori had told her she’d invited Kerry and Amber over for the afternoon. Well, she’s invited half the town over. No, not really, she mused, but almost everyone from the office had been invited. And Lori had reminded her about Amber’s present. She had returned from leave to find the Steele file closed. It made her think about the boundaries between client and friendship in small communities. The reality was her relationship with the Steeles was based on a professional encounter and ethically it ended there. The interim caseworker had visited Kerry and assessed the crisis was past and in discussion with Patrick, they’d agreed to it being closed. In many respects, she’d decided, it was better that way, she didn’t have to feel compromised or ask to be taken off the case, with all the concomitant questions. But the questions in her heart had made it ache.
She jumped as the phone rang.
‘Merry Christmas, lovey.’ Her mother sounded subdued.
‘Merry Christmas, Mum.’ They’d only spoken once since she’d walked out without explanation that night. Her father had told her mother they’d argued. The birthday dinner was cancelled.
A wave of compassion for her mother washed over her. ‘Mum, look I’m sorry about not being in contact, I’ve had a lot to think about, been really busy, I—’
‘It’s all right, lovey, it’s all right. There’s something I need to tell you.’
Her heart pounded. What had been said?
‘It’s your dad. He’s retiring.’
‘Retiring?’ She was stunned.
‘Well, that’s what he’s telling them. He’s had enough—“bottom of the harbour” stuff—I can’t say much more.’
‘What’s he going to do?’
‘We’re going to have a holiday then he’s talking about going to work, part consultant, part pro bono, for a native title group in the Kimberleys.’ She heard her mother take a deep breath. ‘There are things he and I have to talk about, Aimee.’
The silence hung between them.
‘I love you, Mum.’
‘I know, lovey.’
‘Mum …?’ She stopped. She could see no place to begin and nowhere to end it.
‘Mum, wish Jon a Merry Christmas for me when you ring him.’ Her brother’s position in London had been extended.
‘I will. You have a lovely day. I miss you. I’ll call you soon. Bye, lovey.’ Her mother’s voice cracked.
‘Bye, Mum,’ she responded and hung up the phone. Perhaps they had found a place to begin.
She was in the bathroom, piling her hair up in a loose bun, when the phone rang again. She’d iced Lori’s cake, showered and dressed; only the presents to put in a bag and she was ready.
‘Aimee, I’m glad I caught you. Do you have some serving platters? I’m going to need more than I thought. Mum’s arrived with more food wrapped in tinfoil, I’m sure she thinks we’re all going to starve because we’re having a cold Christmas lunch! Oh, and Merry Christmas, sorry, I’m in a bit of a flap.’
She could hear the noise of the Patroni family in the background. She remembered last year’s Christmas and smiled.
‘Yes, I’ve got a couple. I’ll bring them. And Merry Christmas to you and your family. And to Paddy, is he there yet?’
‘Yes,’ Lori’s voice dropped to a whisper. ‘He slept over last night.’
She laughed. The power of our families, she thought.
‘Good on you, Lori. Now you just have to tell Nonna,’ she teased.
‘No, it’ll all be right after today,’ she responded. ‘And how about you, all set?’
‘Yes, and I have your cake. Is there anything else you need? Brave woman, changing tradition.’
Lori had again offered to host Christmas but this time it was to be a cold buffet. The reactions were divided down generational lines—the younger ones had the numbers.
‘I’m starting to wonder,’ Lori said. ‘It’s no less work, we’ve spent the last few days cooking and preparing but at least we’re not all slaving over a hot stove today or sweltering in my kitchen. And no, I don’t need anything except your platters. Will you be long?’
The Secrets We Keep Page 24