Mrs Wallace told the Gazette that she is committed to preserving Millbrooke’s past. She said that old buildings are not only compatible with a twenty-first century Millbrooke, but also constitute a huge asset aesthetically, historically and economically.
‘The past can be our future,’ Mrs Wallace said. ‘A town that has retained its history is very attractive to tourists, and heritage-based tourism can significantly boost a town’s economy.
‘Visitors often comment on the uniqueness of Millbrooke’s nineteenth-century streetscapes,’ she said. ‘Too many country towns have lost their sense of history, but it is still easy to imagine what our town must have been like at its peak during the gold rush era.
‘Nevertheless, the people of Millbrooke have to be vigilant. There will always be those, even within our community, who want to desecrate our history for their own ends. That’s why we need at least one councillor who will make the case for preserving things rather than altering them unsympathetically or, heaven forbid, knocking them down.’
While Angie was walking up Miller Street for her weekly visit with Samantha, she overheard a grey-haired woman who was looking at the ads in the window of Morrison Real Estate.
‘What do you think of this place, Geoff?’ the woman asked her partner as she pointed to one of the colour photographs.
Though it was a perfectly normal question, the name made Angie jump. Her heart was pounding so hard she could hear it inside her head. When she reached Samantha’s, she went straight to the toilet and vomited. As she emerged, Samantha asked, ‘Are you okay, Angie?’
‘Not really. I know it sounds stupid, Sam, but I just heard a woman call her partner by the name of the man who attacked me.’
‘It’s not stupid, Angie. Something like that can trigger a strong physical reaction.’
‘It’s just an everyday name. There are thousands of men called . . .’ Angie couldn’t finish the sentence. Instead she substituted: ‘With that name.’
‘Anything can be a trigger, Angie. Even something as innocuous as a name. All the triggers you’ve told me about – the spices, the lifts, the car – aren’t intrinsically frightening, are they? What makes them so for you?’
‘The association between them and him.’
‘Go on.’
‘I’m afraid of those things because I’m afraid of him.’
‘How could the triggers become normal things again?’
‘By eliminating the fear, I suppose.’
‘In what way might you begin to do that?’
Although Angie shrugged her shoulders, she knew Samantha would persist. In a minute or two, she would pose the question in a different way. So Angie offered an answer which was partly tongue-in-cheek: ‘I could imagine he’s dead. Buried deep in the ground.’
‘Visualisation can be a powerful tool, Angie, but I’m a little uncomfortable with that scenario.’
‘I don’t intend to kill him, Sam. Or even hire a hit man. It’s just wishful thinking.’
‘Can you come up with a more positive way of asserting your own power?’
Angie looked for a smile on Sam’s face, but there wasn’t one. ‘I really don’t know, Sam. Could you possibly give me a hint, just this once? I won’t tell on you to the counsellors’ association or whatever they’re called.’
Sam sighed loudly. ‘All right, Angie. I’ve noticed you never refer to the abuser by name. I can understand that you don’t want me to know his last name. All the same, wouldn’t it be a significant step towards empowerment when you’re able to say the man’s first name out loud?’
On the Monday after the by-election, Angie was seated at her usual table in the emporium café. The leading article of the Gazette, lying on the table in front of her, told the story of Saturday’s poll.
Millbrooke’s New Independent Councillor
By Jonathan Taylor, Editor
Saturday’s Millbrooke Shire Council by-election saw a win by independent candidate, Mrs Angie Wallace, who ran a successful pro-heritage campaign.
‘The strong support for an independent candidate indicates the public’s disaffection with party politics and the pragmatism and cronyism accompanying it,’ Mrs Wallace said. ‘Council will need to heed the concerns of the community regarding the future development of Millbrooke. I am hopeful it will rethink its cavalier approach to allowing commercial interests to despoil our local heritage.’
Councillors will gather early in January to hold the annual meeting at which they vote for a new shire president. The incumbent, Mr Bob Brannigan, has indicated that he will again be a candidate for the position.
‘Good morning, Madam Councillor. How’s the hangover?’ asked Richard as he took his seat opposite Angie in the café. The previous night there had been celebratory drinks at the Manse.
‘Why didn’t you remind me that when you’re over fifty the hangovers are twice as bad?’ Then she blushed as she remembered Richard’s bout with the bottle. What a stupid thing for her to say.
Overlooking her remark, he replied, ‘You certainly proved me wrong, Ange. Do you forgive me for the Buckley’s and none comment?’
‘Maybe.’
‘Who are you going to support for mayor?’
‘Certainly not Bob Brannigan. Possibly one of the non-aligned councillors. It would be good to see an environmentalist at the helm. Anyway, I have a month to decide.’
‘Well, I hope the new mayor does something about the inefficiencies of this council. The rates are exorbitant. There must be plenty of areas where they could save costs.’
‘But you wouldn’t want services reduced.’
‘Of course not. I’m not suggesting they slash any programs. Millbrooke Council throws money away through its own stupidity. They sign tenders with incompetent businesses, then pay a fortune to get out of the contract once they realise what they’ve done. They employ expensive consultants, who provide reports that nobody ever acts on. They mail out rate notices and then the next week we receive our quarterly newsletter. Why not mail them together and save hundreds in postage?’
‘Sounds as though you should have run for council instead of me.’
‘No way. Besides, I’m a consultant. They pay me a fortune to prepare heritage reports that they invariably ignore.’
22 THE GLASS ANGEL
It was Angie’s third Christmas since Phil’s death. Last year, she had spent it with Vicky and the boys in Sydney. She’d thought she could cope, but the festive season had resulted in crying jags and depression. Blake had called it anniversary syndrome. This year, however, she felt better. It didn’t make sense, not after what she’d been through recently. Still, if she wasn’t bursting into tears at the sight of her husband’s photo, she wasn’t going to question why.
This year everyone was coming to the Manse for Christmas lunch. She had already invited Richard – she couldn’t imagine celebrating Christmas without him. But she was undecided about Diana. After all, she was not the kind of person Angie wanted at the most important family event of the year. The problem was that Diana had nowhere else to go. Even her own daughter thought she was on a cruise.
‘Don’t feel obliged to ask her,’ Richard had said when Angie first broached the subject.
‘I feel sorry for her, Richard. It’s not a time for her to be alone.’
‘I didn’t think you’d want to have anything to do with her after what she did to Jennie.’
‘I’ll never forgive her for that. But I realise she’s a seriously damaged person. Who knows what might happen if she’s left to her own devices on Christmas Day? Best to keep an eye on her.’ What was that old saying? Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.
‘Are you sure? I don’t want her to spoil your Christmas.’
‘It’ll be fine. Anyway, Vicky and Blake will make sure she behaves herself. They don’t take nonsense from anyone.’
But in her heart Angie had serious misgivings. Ever since Richard had told her about Diana’s attacks on Jennie, she’d been holding her breath, anticipating another burst of malevolence, although what it might be or at whom it might be directed, she had no idea. Then again, Richard seemed to have things under control, taking her for sessions with the psychologist and organising her move into the flat.
As for his apparent declaration of love, Angie still didn’t know what to make of it. She even wondered if she’d misheard him, but she certainly hadn’t imagined the throwaway line about an amor platonicus. As usual, he had been cryptic in his choice of words – they might infer romantic feelings or they could indicate the equivalent of a playground friendship, innocent and childlike.
Angie’s next dilemma was where to place the name cards she’d made for the dining table. She wanted to put Richard at the head of the table. But what would Blake and Tim make of that? Would they see Richard as a usurper? Particularly Blake, who was now the senior male in the Wallace family and the self-appointed guardian of his mother. Besides, allocating Richard a prominent place at the table might arouse Diana’s suspicions. Finally Angie decided to put Blake at one end and Tim at the other.
Then there was the matter of the tree. For the past two Christmases, it had remained packed in its cardboard carton, along with numerous smaller boxes containing thirty years’ worth of ornaments. They were too closely associated with Phil. Not that he had ever helped to decorate the tree. During the Christmas period he’d been far too busy in the emergency ward. It was the worst time of the year – accidents, domestics, suicide attempts, overdoses. Maybe that’s why he loved to come home to his safe haven. He would behave like a child, examining every ornament, marvelling at the lights. When the boys were asleep, they would drink eggnog and leave a can of beer and a piece of Christmas cake under the tree for Santa, even when their sons no longer believed in him. Then they would go upstairs to their yellow-walled bedroom with its toile-covered bed and make love.
When Richard popped in to see Angie on the morning of the twenty-third, she asked him if he could fetch the Christmas boxes from the mezzanine level of the barn.
‘Where do you want the tree, Ange?’
‘In the sitting room in front of the window.’
Richard wouldn’t let her assemble the fake fir tree. He was worried she would strain her almost healed arm. After he’d put the colour-coded branches into the trunk, he twined metres of lights through the branches and attached the star at the top.
‘I’d like to hang the ornaments on my own,’ she said. ‘I might cry a bit.’ Every ornament had its own history.
‘It’s okay to cry, Ange.’
‘Well, maybe you could do the top branches. And I can do the others.’
At lunchtime he was still there, helping her arrange a garland on the mantelpiece.
As they stood back and admired their efforts, she said: ‘I love you, Richard Scott.’ She wasn’t sure where those words had come from – they’d just tumbled out of their own accord. Immediately she regretted them. Her face flushed with embarrassment, she turned away from him. Then she heard:
‘I’ve loved you longer, Angie Wallace. From that very first day when we met in the café.’
‘Is this a competition?’ she asked, suddenly feeling like a character from one of those old screwball comedies with Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant.
‘No, because you could never win it. You didn’t have a coup de foudre.’
‘That doesn’t mean I love you less.’ There, she’d said it again. If it really was a movie, she thought to herself, this is the point where he would take me in his arms and kiss me. She waited for it to happen, but there was only a pat on the head and a peck on the cheek. Had he mistaken her for one of those delicate glass angels they had just unwrapped from their tissue paper cocoons and carefully attached to the tree?
Six weeks ago, the thought of any man touching her would have made her nauseous. The thought of Geoff Goodmann touching her still did. But Richard Scott was another matter altogether. She wasn’t sure about the idea of sex though. It made her anxious. So perhaps it was better that Richard continued to play Paul Henreid’s Jerry while she took the part of Bette Davis’s Charlotte Vale. At least for the time being.
On Christmas Eve the boys arrived with Vicky and Alfie in the back seat. Alfie went crazy when he saw the alpacas – a city dog meeting his first farm animals. They had dinner under the pergola, watching the sky turn from pink to orange and then to a black so intense they could see every single star, even a satellite or two.
Next morning as they opened their presents in the sitting room, Alfie tore the wrapping paper to shreds. Angie gave the boys photo albums with handpainted covers. It had been a project she did with her painting ladies. As was their custom, Angie and Vicky exchanged bottles of French perfume, each knowing the other’s favourite brand.
Richard and Diana arrived promptly at noon. Although it unsettled Angie to see the two of them entering the room together, she reassured herself they weren’t a couple. Not any more. Wearing white silk, Diana looked thirty-five. Angie caught Blake giving Diana an interested look. Oh dear. It hadn’t crossed Angie’s mind that Blake might fancy Diana. Or vice versa. Didn’t he realise she was his mother’s age?
Diana had brought a huge arrangement of flowers from the Millbrooke florist – all white, like her outfit. Richard handed Angie a grey plastic bag with something inside.
‘Open it afterwards, Ange,’ he said, kissing her chastely on the cheek.
No one would ever have guessed Angie and Richard were two people who had recently declared their love for each other.
‘Are you visiting Millbrooke, Diana?’ asked Vicky once they were all seated at the table.
‘No, I live here. I have a flat in town. It’s ideal for entertaining.’ Diana shot a look at Blake.
‘I have my own place too,’ said Vicky, ‘now that I’m divorced. The bastard ran off with a thirty-eight-year old floozy. But he didn’t get the dog.’ She pointed to Alfie, who was sitting at her feet, being fed morsels of turkey and ham.
Angie glanced at Vicky’s glass. She had only drunk half her wine, but it appeared that she had already indulged in some of Angie’s eggnog. The name was actually a misnomer considering it didn’t contain eggs at all, only ice-cream, black coffee and a pinch of nutmeg, blended together until they were frothy. Plus an all-important swig of Scotch whisky. If you drank more than a tiny glass, you couldn’t drive home afterwards – not if you wanted to be under the legal limit.
‘Would you ever consider marrying again, Auntie Vicky, or are you through with men altogether?’ asked Blake, who loved to kid his Auntie Vicky.
Before Vicky could answer, Diana said, ‘I read once that a woman of a certain age has as much chance of finding a man as she has of winning the lottery.’
‘Perhaps that’s why certain women recycle their men,’ Vicky replied.
Angie almost choked on her mouthful of kumera and baby beetroot salad. This was not going well.
Then Diana continued, ‘What about you, Angie? I don’t suppose there are many prospects here in Millbrooke.’
Angie flushed as pink as her home-grown beetroots. ‘I’m perfectly happy on my own.’ She didn’t dare look at Richard’s face.
‘But don’t you get bored?’ asked Diana. ‘There’s nothing to do in this town. It’s like living in the past. Even the movies they show are from the twentieth century.’
‘Actually,’ said Richard, ‘the sense of history is what makes Millbrooke so interesting.’
‘Well, I’ve never really understood what you see in this place, Rich. Which is why I’ve made a big decision.’
Suddenly there was silence as everyone awaited Diana’s revelation.
‘I’m going on a cruise. Six months around the world. I only booked it this week.’
Angie took a generous swig of eggnog. A real cruise! What a bombshell. She felt like jumping up and down and applauding. Furtively she glanced across at Richard, who looked as surprised as Angie felt.
‘When are you leaving?’ Angie asked, tempering the excitement in her voice. Already her mind was running ahead, imagining Diana snaring an ageing Texan oil baron, who would then become Husband Number Three.
‘The middle of January. That gives me time to buy my cruise outfits at the January sales.’
There was silence as everyone digested Diana’s news. Meanwhile, she nibbled delicately at her salad and Angie passed around the red currant jelly. Then Vicky began describing her recent cruise down the Rhine. Obviously bored, Diana fixed her eyes on the young man next to her and said, ‘What about you, Blake? Are you attached?’
‘Not at the moment,’ he replied with a smile. ‘I’m enjoying my freedom. Exploring the possibilities.’
‘So you should,’ said Diana. ‘A gorgeous man like you. You could have any woman you wanted.’
Angie couldn’t believe her ears. Right in front of her, Diana was flirting with Blake and he was encouraging her. Still, it might have been worse. Diana could have been coming on to sweet, innocent Tim.
‘Blake, could you help me carry out the plates?’ asked Angie.
‘I’ll give you a hand,’ said Richard.
‘No thanks, we’ll be fine.’
When they reached the kitchen, Angie closed the door.
‘What the hell are you doing, Blake? Diana’s my age.’
‘I know that, Mum.’
‘Well, what was all that talk about “exploring the possibilities”?’
‘It’s completely innocent.’
‘If that’s innocent, you could have fooled me.’
A Place of Her Own Page 25