by Diana Fraser
“Yeah. I never used to mind speculation but it’s harder now it’s so personal.”
“It’s only for a few months. And then we can return to our worlds.”
“Do you think they’ll ever be the same again?”
He shrugged, knowing what she wanted to hear. But he couldn’t reassure because he didn’t lie. “No. Nothing’s ever the same. Everything changes and we change with it.” He saw her face fall and wanted to see her smile again. “But it’s not always for the worst. Who knows? I may make you a better person.”
She grinned and thumped him. “You’re impossibly conceited, Max Connelly.”
He heard a shout, followed by the barking of dogs, and they both looked down the hill to where a man stood on the road beside an open gate. Beside him were two cocker spaniels looking around short-sightedly, barking in response to their master’s call. They knew something was up, even if they had no idea what. Behind his father, a house sat nestled amidst sheltering trees from which a lawn ran down to a secluded beach.
Laura gave a low whistle. “Is that your family’s place?”
“Yep. Welcome to Belendroit. And that’s my father and our two mad dogs, Stanley and Boo. Let’s get this over with.”
“Dad!” Max said as they reached the road. He noticed his father hadn’t moved. Still stood, hands casually in his pockets, in a 1970s pose, his face without its usual deceptively affable smile. But the dogs ran up to him, wagging their tails, jumping and running around in circles, barking. Max stopped to pet them. “Dad, this is Laura McKinney.” He turned to her. “Laura, this is my father, Jim Connelly.”
Laura stuck out her hand. “Mr. Connelly, nice to meet you.”
Jim’s frown hovered over fierce eyes. “Laura McKinney? I thought it was Laura Connelly from what I read in the papers.”
Laura glanced at Max. Even the dogs sensed the tension, scuttling behind Jim and sitting expectantly.
“Christ, Dad. How about a simple ‘hello’ and ‘welcome to Belendroit’? You can do the third degree thing later if you insist.”
Jim Connelly’s lips firmed into a line. “I’m sorry, son, but I’ve been stewing about this since I first heard. I could hardly believe it. Not even invited to my eldest son’s wedding!”
“You wouldn’t have liked it, Dad, it was crazy.”
“It would have been nice to have had the opportunity to make up my own mind.” He turned to Laura with a constrained smile. “My eldest son has always been a mystery to me. Never wanted to settle down and then suddenly, this! Out of the blue. However, I can understand it a little better now I’ve met you.”
“Come on, Dad! Mum said you proposed on the first date! And were married within the month.”
“Things were done differently then, son. We wanted to start a family as soon as possible.”
Max snorted. He knew what that meant.
“Do you intend to have a family?” Jim asked Laura.
“Dad! For God’s sake. What kind of question is that to ask?”
He turned a studied benign face to Max. “A reasonable one.”
Max felt Laura’s touch on his arm. “It’s fine, Max.” Laura turned to his father. “No, I… we… won’t be having a family. I don’t want to have children.”
“Not have children!”
“Dad,” warned Max. “It’s none of your business.”
“Of course it’s my business. They would be my grandchildren. Your mother and I had hoped for a rugby team of grandchildren by now.” He shook his head at the mention of Max’s mother. “She’d turn in her grave if she could have seen this.”
Max held up his hand. “Let’s stop this now. Apologies, Laura. My father appears to have forgotten his reputation for ‘charm’.”
Jim grunted and sighed. “You’re right, of course. But you must know—” Whatever he was going to say was halted by another arm raise by Max. “Okay.” He rocked back on his heels and took a deep intake of air. “Laura,” he said with a rush of breath. “I am very pleased to meet you and I apologize for my boorish outburst.” As if sensing the change in their master, the dogs leaped around to greet Laura. Their master obviously now approved of their visitor.
The change from fierce—those white bushy brows rose up from his blue eyes like heavy clouds revealing a bright promising day ahead—to charming was instantaneous and disarming. Max sighed to himself. Chelsey was correct. His father was charming and, unfortunately, enjoyed the fruits of his charms without regard to consequences. There were times when this had made his mother deeply unhappy and that was something Max would never forgive him for.
Laura wiped her hands, which the dogs had decided to lick copiously, onto her jeans, and took his extended hand and shook it. “And I apologize for the unusual circumstances.”
“Laura, welcome to Belendroit. Please forgive a stick-in-the-mud old man. I’ve been around too long to understand things like this.” He waved his hand abstractly. Max and Laura exchanged glances. “Come on in, and I’ll make a pot of tea. Amber was by yesterday and dropped in a cake. Vegan, I’m afraid. And I suspect lentils are involved if the taste is anything to go by. But it’s okay when warmed and eaten with a lot of cream and jam.”
Laura grinned and fell into step with Jim. “Amber?” she asked, ducking her head to avoid the late-blooming flowers which dipped from the overgrown bushes lining the driveway.
“Max’s little sister. She’s the baby,” said Jim, his expression warming. He obviously had a big soft spot for his baby girl, despite her penchant for lentils.
“A twenty-one year old baby,” said Max, walking on her other side. “Who prefers animals to people. Stanley and Boo think all their Christmases have come at once when Amber’s here. She spoils them rotten.” He picked up a ball that was lying on the ground and threw it for the dogs. Laura was pretty sure that Amber wasn’t the only Connelly to spoil the dogs.
“Hasn’t Max told you about his siblings?” asked Jim.
Laura and Max exchanged a quick glance. “A little. I met Rachel in Wellington before I came to Queenstown. And I met Lizzi at Queenstown Lodge.”
“Apart from Amber, there’s Rob who we don’t see often, Gabe who works in Akaroa, and Cameron—he’s the proverbial black sheep of the family, we don’t hear anything from him from year to year.” Jim sighed. “And then there was poor Jonny who died overseas.” Jim suddenly looked up at the house, which revealed itself from the grassy drive they’d walked down. He stopped walking and regarded the house. “Belendroit,” he said simply.
Laura surveyed the old colonial house and laughed. “It looks like it’s smiling!”
“You’re not the first to say that,” said Jim. “It’s the way the roof juts out over the first floor windows, like eyebrows raised in surprise. And with the veranda fretwork framing the door—”
“That’s the smile,” added Max.
“It certainly looks a happy house.” She stepped forward. “I’ve never seen a house with such character before. It looks sweet, like you want to look after it.”
“I rather think it’s the other way around,” said Jim.
Jim’s expression turned reflective as he stepped toward the house with Laura by his side. It wasn’t like him, thought Max as he fell into step. Maybe this marriage was affecting more people than he’d imagined.
They walked up between the two wings of the house onto the deep veranda, which provided welcome shade on the hot morning.
“Max, why don’t you show Laura around while I go and boil the kettle?”
Max set up the camera. “Let’s get some photos of us together first.”
Despite Jim’s grumblings, the photos were quickly taken before Jim disappeared inside the house.
Max smiled at Laura and gestured to the open French doors which led off the veranda. “Belendroit awaits.”
Laura let out a low whistle. “This is like another world. How old is this place?”
“Around 1890 as far as we can make out. It was one of the first built i
n the area by the French settlers.”
“French?”
“Yes, the French settled around here. In fact, New Zealand would have been a French colony, if it hadn’t been for a couple of very determined English men who set up the New Zealand Company and brought English people by the shipload out here to settle, before the French could organize anything.”
“I had no idea.”
Max watched as Laura walked into the old-fashioned drawing room and turned around slowly, taking it all in. He tried to imagine it through her eyes—from the overflowing bookcases which flanked the central fireplace, its toffee-colored wood complementing the William Morris wallpapered walls, to the lush, richly colored velvets and silks draped over the back of the leather chesterfield couch which was cracked in places, rubbed smooth with an age-old patina in others. Victorian colors of ruby red, dark green and regal blues were interspersed with the occasional startling magenta. The whole was warm and welcoming, and totally consistent with the style and age of the homestead and its ramshackle, sprawling character.
She turned to him with bright eyes. “I feel like a child who has stepped into a fairy tale house full of secrets and treasures, all with stories attached, waiting to be discovered.”
He grunted softly. She’d hit the nail on the head. “This place is full of stories. My mother was full of stories.” He joined Laura who was looking at a large book, open on a table placed behind the chesterfield. “Dad’s a bit of an antiquarian. This is a map of the area before the English arrived.”
She peered at it. “And we’re here?” Her finger hovered over the old paper, not daring to touch it.
“Yes. We existed before Akaroa did. The town began some twenty years after my ancestors built this house.”
“You must feel really grounded with such a history. I can’t imagine it.”
“I guess so, but I feel I belong in Queenstown now. That’s where I was happiest growing up. That’s where my future is.”
“Mine is to keep on moving.” She gave a quick bright grin, as if daring him to challenge her statement.
He dared. “You don’t find it lonely?”
“Lonely? Are you kidding? I’m never alone.”
She was wrong and he was sure she knew it. From the beginning he’d been intrigued by her and now he knew her better—had been given a glimpse of the real, vulnerable Laura—his intrigue had turned to something else. He turned from her abruptly. But what? Surely it was nothing more than the same impulse which made him want to protect his sisters? That was it, he thought to himself. This feeling which Laura stirred was nothing more than a desire to protect—pure and simple.
“Tea!” called Jim from the balcony. They both looked through the French doors to see him set down a tray on the large table which dominated the veranda. He looked toward them. “You haven’t progressed very far! I’ll take you around myself after tea and this”—he glanced with distaste at the cake—“lentil creation.”
* * *
As Laura followed Max outside, she couldn’t shrug off the feeling that she’d walked right into a fairy tale. Even outside, the veranda was chock full of character and style. Not in the sense her parents would have used the word “style”, but “style” it definitely was.
She sat in a white cane chair, made comfortable with hand-embroidered cushions from another age, and smoothed her hand over the silk stitches. Her parents’ house had nothing like this—everything was modern in their Californian home, created by machines. They’d have hated the fact that some of the threads were worn and there was a splash of red—most likely wine, judging from the straw-covered chianti bottles in which candles melted down the side—which would have been reason enough for her mother to have given it to charity. Seems charity began at home here.
Laura sat beside a thick wisteria vine around which glimpses of the bay could be seen. In front of them lay the small thicket of trees which protected them from the road, which, gathering by the lack of traffic, was obviously not often used.
“How do you like your tea, Laura?” asked Jim.
Laura couldn’t remember the last time she’d drunk tea, or how she’d drunk it. But she didn’t want to come across as rude. “Oh, black, please.”
“Excellent. Earl Grey should always be drunk black, with a twist of lemon. Is that how you like it?”
“Yes, please.” She did now, anyhow.
Max hadn’t sat down, he looked around, uprooting some withered plants. “You should get someone to help you around here, Dad. At least in the garden.” He rattled an overgrown vine, part of which had died. “They’d sort this lot out for you.”
“I don’t need help,” his father said firmly.
“You’re not getting any younger.”
“Thanks for the reminder,” Jim said grimly. “Besides, Betty comes in and tidies up a bit.”
Max scoffed. “She does a whole lot more than that! She does it surreptitiously so as not to hurt your feelings.”
Jim gave Max a warning look from beneath his impressive white eyebrows. “She’s a friend.”
Laura coughed and lifted her fine-bone china cup, which sat on a mismatched saucer. All the china was a mixture of different English potteries. She took a quick sip. “Um, delicious.” And to her surprise, it was.
Jim’s expression changed instantly as he turned back to her. “A woman of discernment.” He sat back in the cushioned chair which was obviously his usual seat, if the opened books, pairs of glasses and coffee cup, complete with dried remains, was anything to go by. “So, tell me how you two met.”
Laura and Max exchanged glances. She had no idea how much Max wanted to tell his father.
“I first saw Laura speeding down the hill by the Lodge on a racing bike, take off from a jump which only the most experienced bikers tackle, land in one piece and stop immediately before the drop down to the road.”
Jim’s startling eyebrows raised toward his thick snowy hair. “Wonderful!” he exclaimed and thumped his foot on the veranda, making an alarming hollow sound, as if his foot could disappear through the old boards at any moment.
“It was fun,” said Laura.
“So you’re a mountain biker. My son Jonny used to mountain bike.”
“I do a bit of everything.”
“And what do you do for a living?”
Again she and Max exchanged looks. “Just that really. A bit of everything.” She gave Max some time but he said nothing. If he wasn’t going to take the lead, then she’d have to. She took a deep breath. “I accept challenges for a living.”
“Really? What kind?”
“Any kind.”
“And how does that bring in money?”
“We—that’s me and my friend, Kelly, who manages everything—monetize my online presence. Companies pay us to promote their products. But we only do that if we believe in them.”
There was a long silence in which Jim steepled his fingers and pressed them to his mouth, his eyes trained on her. She shifted uncomfortably in her seat.
“I guess you think it’s a strange way to live, but”—she lifted her chin—“it works for me.”
“And marriage to my son was simply another challenge to you?”
If she’d felt uncomfortable before, she wished the beautiful house of Belendroit would sink into the lush vegetation, taking her with it. She nodded and took a hasty sip of scalding tea.
“That’s it, Dad,” said Max. “Got it in one. A challenge for us both because neither of us are into marriage.”
Jim closed his eyes briefly as if he’d been struck. He opened his eyes with a sigh. “I’m glad your mother isn’t here to listen to you say such things. It would have upset her.”
While the conversation was tense, Laura also found it strangely fascinating. Her own family were uncommunicative and her mother, cold. Little was ever said about anything meaningful. But here, in the Connelly household, it seemed much was said, and much was meant. She followed Jim’s gaze to Max who, for the first time, also looked u
ncomfortable.
“Let’s leave Mum out of this.”
“Why?” answered Jim.
“Because you have no idea what she would have said. Because all she wanted was the best for all of us. And for you, despite everything.”
Laura was now not only fascinated but confused. It seemed there was a subtext to this conversation about which she knew nothing.
“I may have made mistakes—”
Max’s scoffing laugh interrupted Jim. “And some!”
“But I loved your mother. Whatever I did or didn’t do, we both believed in marriage and, whatever you care to think, we had a very happy one.”
Max pushed himself off the wall. “Who are you trying to kid, Dad?”
Jim rose from his chair. Despite his age he was the same height as Max. “You know nothing of marriage, Max, and this… this preposterous marriage of yours only proves that.”
Laura felt she was intruding and stood up because it didn’t feel right to sit and watch this. “I’m sorry, Jim. We thought this would be a good idea. It obviously isn’t. I didn’t want to upset you.”
It was Jim who turned from Max to look at Laura. “You’re a wonderful girl, Laura. A blind man could see that and, it seems, even Max can. But this marriage of yours isn’t right. How can it last?”
Laura licked her lips. “It can’t, Jim. It won’t. That was the nature of the challenge. Marriage for six months, after which it’ll be annulled.”
Jim pressed his lips together and looked away. His gaze fell to the camera. “That’s why you wanted the photo,” he said sadly.
“Yes,” said Max, picking up the camera, his movements revealing his agitated state. “We needed a photo to show the corporate sponsors that it’s a real marriage in the full sense of the word, including family.” Max ignored Jim’s scoffing noise when he said ‘real’. “Because it’s not only Laura who’s attracting corporate sponsors, it’s me. This marriage will give me invaluable publicity for the Lodge.”