by Janine Grey
‘There’s no need . . . But Fin, could we stop at the lookout? You know the place.’
He thought of Mick’s revelation and felt his heart burn.
‘Yeah, I know. But it doesn’t matter where we are. Down the mine, watching the sunset or even fighting with you.’ He paused. ‘I feel just the same. I love you, Eliza.’
‘Oh, Fin.’
‘An unnamed source told me that you love me too. Is it true?’
‘I started falling for you that day in the mine,’ Eliza told him. ‘Do you remember? The day you gave me the sliver of opal. It was so sudden and so powerful, like being sucked into a whirlpool. I wanted to be sure – oh!’ Her eyes widened. ‘Is that the important thing he told you?’
Fin couldn’t stop his grin.’Yeah, but go on.’
‘I do love you, Fin, so much. But when I said I had something to tell you, that’s not what I meant.’
He shot her a quick glance, Happiness shone through her exhaustion, but there was a tension that shouldn’t have been there in a moment of pure joy.
‘What’s wrong?’
‘I’ll tell you,’ she promised. ‘But I need to do it at the lookout, where we can see forever.’
Fin didn’t quite understand but he assented, gathered up her things and got in the passenger seat beside her. In silence they drove towards the spot. Like on the day they’d first made love, the sunset was a showstopper.
‘It makes everything look beautiful,’ she said minutes later as they climbed the gentle incline. She settled on a rock, and laid her head on his shoulder when he sat beside her and took her hand.
‘Everything is beautiful now I know you’re safe,’ Fin admitted. ‘When I couldn’t find you, I thought – shit! I don’t know. I thought he’d hurt you, that I was too late, that I’d lost you. I’ve never been so frightened in my life.’ He squeezed her fingers. ‘God, I’m rambling. Say something, will you?’
‘You’re not rambling,’ Eliza replied him. ‘It’s sweet.’
Fin narrowed his eyes at the description and she giggled before her face turned serious. ‘I discovered some things when I was in the mine,’ she told him soberly.
‘As long as you never leave me.’
The words were out before he could stop them, hanging there. Fin felt naked: his deepest insecurity exposed by love.
Then, she looked at him with those deep blue eyes. ‘I won’t leave you,’ she promised. ‘But I need to tell you something – something that will change everything for you.’
*
Eliza reached into her pants pocket and drew out the rock. It weighed heavily in her hand, as though it contained all their hopes and fears and dreams. Opening her fingers, she held it out to him.
Not understanding, Fin took it. A ray of pink-gold from the setting sun struck it and it caught fire. She heard his intake of breath as he turned it slowly in his hand. Wonderment lit his face.
‘It’s what I think it is, isn’t it?’
Fin held the rock up to the light. The deep glowing heart of red flashed beneath the dull grey coat.
‘Yes,’ he said, in a voice that wasn’t quite steady. ‘The dark flame opal. You found it.’
‘No.’ Eliza raised her eyes to meet Fin’s. ‘Logan found it. Your father.’
He took his eyes from the opal to stare at her. ‘I don’t understand. How?’
‘Logan never left you and your mother, Fin, not in the way you think,’ she murmured. ‘He was down in the mine all along. I don’t know what happened. Perhaps in the process of extracting the opal he caused a rockfall, I don’t know. But the opal was there, next to his hand as though he’d been holding it when . . .’
Looking dazed, Fin stared at her.
‘There was a photo, an old Polaroid, close to his heart. He must have taken it from his pocket. It was of you as a baby, and your mother. Your names were written on the back, almost too faded to make out.’ Her voice broke a little as she struggled with the words. ‘He had you both with him when he died.’
‘He never left?’ Fin murmured.
‘Never. He died fulfilling his dream of a better life for his family, Fin. He was just unlucky.’
‘Some of the old-timers like Pauly, they still believe opal is cursed with bad fortune, especially this one.’ He glanced down at the opal in his hand. ‘It’s rumoured that the two previous owners of the mine who’d claimed to have glimpsed it both met with tragedy. I guess my father was the last.’
‘Maybe he’d think it was worth it, to know that Mairi will be cared for. Even if he had to wait an age to see that happen,’ she whispered.
When he said nothing, she reached out and took his hand tightly in his, and they watched the sun sink below the horizon and shadows fall across the land.
‘I love you, Fin. For all time.’
‘And I love you.’ He lifted their clasped hands and touched his mouth to the back of her hand. ‘We should go now.’
‘Would you like to go back to the mine for a few minutes?’ she asked as they walked back to the car in the near dark. ‘To be close?’
‘Not yet. We’ve both had a hell of a day – you especially. I want to get you home.’
She felt utterly drained, she realised, as though she could sleep for a week. During the drive home, she drifted off to the sound of the ute’s engine and flocks of birds making their noisy way across the evening sky. When they pulled in beside the cottage, Fin woke her with a hand on her shoulder. He made her sit out the back in the cool while he lit the big insect-repelling candle she kept on the outdoor table and went inside to forage for food and wine.
When he brought her a glass of pinot, she took it gratefully. He’d reheated some leftover pasta, but neither of them was particularly hungry. As the air around them thickened with the dart and hum of insects, Fin sat opposite her, arms on his thighs and wine glass held loosely in his hand. He was miles away, she knew, and let him be for a long while.
Finally, though, she had to raise the question that had turned and twisted in her mind since finding his father.
‘You know that your father couldn’t have written that note,’ she prompted.
He nodded absently. When he looked at her, his eyes were hooded.
She sucked in a breath at the knowing in his eyes. ‘You think you know who did, don’t you?’
‘I think I know who and why,’ he told her. ‘But even if I’m right, I still don’t —’ He stopped, seeming to gather his thoughts.
Feeling comfortably mellow as she sipped the last of her wine, Eliza reached out to squeeze his hand, encouraging him to go on.
‘When you called this morning, I was on my way to Coffs. My mother’s nursing home called this morning to tell me she was about to get married.’
That was enough to dispel Eliza’s languid state. Shocked, she pushed up straight and set her glass down. ‘Married?’
He gave her a wry glance. ‘My reaction exactly. Actually, mine was rather stronger. I think I F-bombed the sister-in-charge.’
‘I’m sure she’s heard worse.’
‘Maybe. Ma’s friend, Jerry Bragg, has got it into his head that he and my mother committed to each other before she became unwell. He thought there was no reason they couldn’t proceed with their wedding plans. I told him we’d talk about it next month, but the sister sounded worried that he might go right ahead. I had visions of flowers and confetti and speeches, all while Mairi sat there looking vacantly into space.’
‘But they wouldn’t – nobody would – surely not!’ she stuttered.
‘I told the sister to call the police if Jerry wouldn’t take no for an answer. But I thought I needed to be on hand. I was so angry at Jerry for being so ridiculous – and for ruining our weekend. That’s the reason I didn’t call you straight back. I didn’t want you to pick up on that and think my frustration was directed at you.’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ she murmured.
‘Hell, it doesn’t!’ he exploded. ‘Because of bloody Jerry, you were up at the mine alone wit
h a maniac.’
‘Because of bloody Jerry, with a little help from Mr Twomey, the mystery of your father was solved,’ she reminded him. ‘And you have the dark flame opal.’
Fin’s face took on its characteristic look of impatience. ‘I said Jerry was my mother’s friend, and I suppose he has been since my father died. But, really, he was my dad’s friend.
‘When I was a kid, everyone used to say how lucky Mum was to have him – they still do. I remember a woman my mother knew saying Jerry was sweet on her, but Ma just laughed it away. I guess I thought it was a bit of a joke the way he hung around her when she was never —’
‘Never going to marry him,’ Eliza finished for him. ‘You think he wrote the note.’
‘Maybe, if Logan was all that stood between him and the woman he loved. The thing is, I just can’t see him killing anyone, at least not deliberately. But if he didn’t – if my dad died accidentally – why did Jerry write the note? Logan wasn’t coming home to Mairi in any case.’
Eliza mulled it over for a long moment, considering the way other things often masqueraded as loyalty and love. And she thought she understood Jerry’s motivations.
‘Because it wasn’t enough that Logan was dead,’ she told Fin. ‘Jerry needed to reduce him in Mairi’s eyes. I saw the expression on her face in that photo. The love she felt for her husband was a powerful thing and knowing that he’d died to deliver the one thing that would promise her a better future – how could Jerry have competed with that?’
‘If she thought Logan had run out on her, left her with a baby to raise, she might suddenly see the best friend as a knight in shining armour.’
‘It’s a theory. But whatever his motivations, he knew Logan was in the mine and he wanted you away from there.’
‘Ever since I announced plans to start working the mine again, he’s been opposed to it.’ He pressed his thumb and forefinger into the groove between his eyes and nose. ‘If he didn’t know that the mine is now in my name, perhaps he figured that by marrying Ma, he could get his hands on the mine and shut it down. Bury his secret once and for all.’
‘It explains a lot.’
‘I thought he was genuinely concerned for my mother, and all this time . . . Fuck.’
‘You need to speak with him.’
‘I’ll drive down tomorrow, and hope to hell no vows have been spoken.’ He looked at her. ‘Would you come with me?’
Eliza leant across the table and put her mouth softly on his. ‘You know I will. We should check it’s okay with that policeman, Rees. He said he’d want to talk to us again.’
‘Ah.’ Fin kissed her and then when they broke apart he rubbed his eyes with his fingers. ‘Crazy times.’
‘I thought I’d left family dramas behind in Sydney,’ she told him. ‘I thought life would be simple here.’
‘So did I.’
‘Life’s always complicated, I guess.’ She looked over at him. ‘Do you think Mairi really had agreed to marry Jerry, before she became ill, I mean?’
‘I’m almost certain she wouldn’t have. She told me once she would never remarry. I didn’t understand it then, but I do now.’ He lifted his eyes to hers. ‘Logan was the love of her life.’
CHAPTER 19
It was late the following afternoon when they drove through Coffs Harbour towards the Treetops Community Care nursing home, having been on the road most of the day. The closer they got, the more tension Fin felt. What lay ahead was more than uncharted territory. There were no words that could describe how it felt to be about to confront a man who, at best, had shaped the memory of his father in the worst way, and who at worst —
‘Don’t jump to conclusions,’ Eliza interrupted his thoughts. She sat next to him in the Land Rover, looking cool and pretty in an emerald-green sundress. Her dark glossy hair was caught at the back of her neck in a tortoiseshell clip, and large sunglasses hid the signs of exhaustion that lingered after yesterday. ‘We were pretty tired and wrung out last night. We might have added two and two and got five.’
She was right and wrong. He’d had the night to let suppositions and possibilities rumble around in his head and now, tired as he was, his certainty that Jerry was involved in some way in Logan’s death – and that Mairi was the reason – had only intensified. A man doesn’t hang around a woman for thirty years to be a shoulder to cry on.
Sure, platonic relationships happened. He’d managed friends-only relationships himself with the opposite sex during school and uni. But to fix your attentions exclusively on one woman who was tied in life and death to another man – who did that?
He engaged the handbrake a little more savagely than necessary.
‘Don’t lose it,’ Eliza murmured as they made their way through the centre’s doors.
Fin forced a smile at the reception desk as he asked for Sister Day, who scurried out from a nearby office, relief evident on her round, rosy face.
‘Thank goodness you’re here, Mr McLeod. We expected you earlier. He’s in there now with her. Mr Bragg, I mean. There’s an engagement ring on her finger. We couldn’t stop him.’
‘But no ceremony? Nothing legal?’ Fin asked.
‘I told him we needed to see evidence of consent first, for legal reasons. He hasn’t come up with anything yet.’
‘Thank God,’ Fin replied, relieved that the delay hadn’t had disastrous consequences. ‘Can I see her – them?’
‘Of course,’ the sister said briskly. She looked curiously at Eliza. ‘Have you visited us before?’
‘Yes, some months ago, although I didn’t meet Mrs McLeod,’ Eliza said. ‘But I do have an idea of what to expect.’
‘Of course you do, dear.’ Sister Day looked at Eliza with confidence before she gave Fin a look that made clear she didn’t have nearly as much faith in him. ‘Very well. Come on through.’ She led them through the glass doors to the corridor. ‘You know the room, Mr McLeod. If you need assistance, I can have security on standby.’
Fin wondered if she expected his conflict with Jerry to become physical and did his best to summon a diffident demeanour. He assured her that he intended to handle the situation calmly and knocked on the door to his mother’s room.
When he opened it, his mother sat in her armchair. Jerry stood behind, brushing her hair.
‘Don’t worry about a thing, Mairi,’ he was saying, ‘I won’t let anyone stop us. You know you can trust —’ He broke off when he spied Fin and fixed him with an accusing glare. ‘You’re here, then. Finally made time for your mother at last. We didn’t expect you until next month.’
Fin ignored him. ‘Hi, Ma.’ He crouched down in front of his mother and kissed her cheek. She looked serene as she stared into the distance, not meeting his eyes. ‘How are you?’
‘She’s radiant, as every bride-to-be should be,’ Jerry answered with his usual confidence. He saw Eliza standing by the door. ‘Do I know you?’
‘I’m Eliza Mayberry, Mr Bragg.’ She put out her hand to Jerry, who ignored it. ‘We met briefly some weeks ago.’ Stooping, she took Mairi’s limp right hand in hers. ‘Hello, Mrs McLeod. It’s lovely to meet Fin’s mother.’
Mairi’s eyes refocused and she turned slightly to look at Eliza and then at Fin. It was the first time his mother had looked him in the eye in months.
‘Perhaps, Mairi, you and I could spend some time getting to know each other,’ Eliza suggested. She looked up at Jerry. ‘While Mr Bragg and Fin talk outside.’
‘I’m not going anywhere!’ Jerry blustered, his hand brandishing the hairbrush. ‘See, you can’t just show up here and kick me out of my fiancée’s room. You could be anybody. Mairi doesn’t like me to leave her. Do you, old thing?’
Fin wanted to smack Jerry in the mouth. From the way Eliza’s eyes chilled, he thought she did too. But instead she delivered a verbal smackdown designed to take the wind right out of Jerry’s sails.
‘As you wish,’ she said. ‘Provided you want Mairi to know the truth you’ve kept buried for thirty-
two years.’
Jerry’s eyes flickered and he looked nervously at Fin. ‘What’s she talking about?’
‘I think you know, Jerry.’
‘I have no idea. I thought you were here to talk about the wedding.’
Fin shook his head. ‘No, Jerry. There’ll be no wedding unless Ma tells us that’s what she wants. She’s had three decades to marry you – and she chose not to.’
‘She loves me. I can prove it. There are letters. You can’t argue with letters.’
Forged, no doubt, Fin thought. If it had worked so well once, why wouldn’t Jerry try it again?
‘No go, Jerry.’
‘But she needs me now. I take care of her. You’re never here. She needs me to make the decisions. To look after her affairs.’
Eliza’s soft intake of breath told Fin that their suspicions were running in the same direction.
‘Ma’s affairs are looked after.’
Jerry flapped the hairbrush. ‘Messing about in that bloody mine. And how is that supposed to support your mother?’
‘What I do with the mine is nothing to do with you.’ There was a warning note in Fin’s voice but, from the way he ploughed right on, Jerry was oblivious.
‘Ruin! It’s the right name for that godforsaken place!’ He expelled an exasperated sigh. ‘When Mairi and I are married, I’m going to have that place shut down for good!’
‘And why is that, Jerry?’ Fin’s voice was deceptively soft. ‘Why don’t you want me to work the mine?’
‘Because you couldn’t be trusted!’ he shot back. ‘You’ll abandon her, wouldn’t you? You already have. Just like —’
‘You can say it,’ Fin broke in. ‘Like Logan?’
‘Yes, like Logan! That mine twists a man until he can only think of one thing. And when it sucks him dry, he’s got nothing. Not even his pride.’
‘My father had his pride,’ Fin told him. ‘He backed himself when everyone else said he was mad.’
‘Well, he was. And when everything everyone said about him came true, he turned tail and ran, like a rat scurrying from a sinking ship.’
‘My father never ran out on my mother and me.’