The most important thing to do, the only thing to do, was to go home right now.
Will get on plane today x
•
Val
I asked Emily to tell you. I thought it was all straightforward. Dad told me when he came over to make dinner when I had the flu. I’d just been so sick. But it’s no excuse.
Joseph
I didn’t say he was a scientist but that he studied goat diseases. Your mother told me. I thought you’d want to know. Val said she’d tell you. It might help you find him. Are you having a good time?
Darla
I never said that, I said he made goat cheese. It’s not my fault if Joseph can’t hear. Why are you being so stroppy about this?
Darla
I can read your tone in your text messages, Christmas. You don’t have to shout at me.
Darla
Look. I did my best. You’ve been on about this for thirty years and I’ve had enough. This conversation is over.
•
‘I hope everything will be okay,’ Christmas said, wringing her hands while Lincoln darted around the room collecting his scattered clothes.
‘So do I.’
‘I know how much your nan means to you,’ she said, feeling tears spring to her eyes, overwhelmed by all the emotions of the past hour, including the idea of Lincoln losing Elsa.
He didn’t say anything to that. She wanted to go to him and hold him, but it had been such a tumultuous morning that she didn’t know if it was the right thing to do.
At last he stood, dressed in jeans and a loose cotton shirt, his suitcase zipped, casting his eyes around the room one last time.
‘I have to go,’ he said, just as the taxi’s tyres rolled onto the gravel driveway.
‘I know.’
‘I’m sorry about everything this morning,’ he said, his eyes filled with unhappiness.
‘Me too.’
‘I didn’t mean to cause you any pain,’ he said.
‘I know.’
‘But it’s weird now between us, isn’t it?’
‘A bit.’ She tried to smile. ‘But we don’t have to talk about any of that now. All you need to do is concentrate on getting home to Elsa. We can talk when I get back. Okay?’
‘Okay,’ he said, and then looked off into the distance, his face awash with worry.
She went to him then and hugged him tightly and he wrapped his arms around her and kissed the top of her head. She hoped, fervently, that everything would be okay, for all of them, but she simply didn’t know.
24
Darla shoved the potoroo head into the hessian bag and tied the rope tightly before flinging it into the cool box with some vigour. She tossed the hacksaw onto the spindly grass on the side of the highway and took a moment to catch her breath and survey her surroundings.
Last night’s text conversation with Christmas had rattled her, if she was honest. And she did like to call things as she saw them. Christmas was out of line.
A mob of grey kangaroos dotted the fields as far as she could see. There must be two hundred of them at least, poking around in the last pink light of dusk, their joeys loping about on unsteady legs while they experimented with chewing on long blades of grass and tree shoots. The younger ones that were still in pouches hung their faces out and sniffed and blinked, secure in their mother’s care.
She did admire wallabies and kangaroos. They were such tough, formidable breeders and survivors. A mother kangaroo would spy a predator approaching and call to her joey, twitching anxiously while it stuffed itself back into her pouch, and then speed away with her baby tucked safely inside.
But in truth, not all kangaroos were good mothers. She’d watched enough mobs in her time doing this work to see that not all macropod mums were created equal. There were the ones who simply left their babies out in the cold after dark and they froze and starved to death. The ones who would flee to save themselves from the approaching dingo and leave their baby to be taken. And the ones who were clumsy—who smacked their pouches into rocks or tangled their young in barbed-wire fences as they zoomed through.
The fact was that some kangaroos were just bad mums.
Darla retrieved the hacksaw, picked up the cool box, slid it into the back of the Kombi and shut the door. That would be her last collection for the day. It was far too cold now to keep going, and night was falling. Tomorrow she’d complete all the paperwork and statistics that were outstanding and find a post office to fax it to her supervisor, who was intensively analysing her research.
She stepped into the van, snapped the seatbelt buckle into place and wondered. Was she a bad mother?
She cast her mind back to the dark days of fear and uncertainty as a pregnant eighteen-year-old, having moved back home to be with her parents. The long months leading up to the birth, subjected to looks, sniggers and judgement from strangers.
And then the birth itself, a now-almost-forgotten endurance of pain that ended with a squirming red, goopy baby landing in her arms. And that moment when the baby’s miniature fingers grabbed tightly onto hers and Darla had cried and cried, unable to believe that she could create something so utterly perfect and complete. She had done that. It was astonishing to her that this happened every minute of every day all around the world. It seemed impossible—a true miracle.
Like her very own Christmas miracle, right there in her arms in the month of March.
Her parents quizzed her on the name, probably thinking she’d been high on painkillers or something. But Darla had just laughed and laughed, ecstatic with her little baby, and said, ‘Look at her! She’s the best present I’ve ever received. She’s like every Christmas morning everywhere in the world, from now until forever, here in one precious baby.’
Now Darla shook her head, shoved the van into gear, and eased off the clutch. Of course she wasn’t a bad mother.
•
Christmas lay under a mountain of pillows. A large and heavy goose-feather one lay across her face, shielding her from the day outside the drawn curtains. The sounds of breakfast came from down the hallway once more. Of cutlery and crockery and whistling kettles. Laughter and loud discussions of the best way to travel the motorways to avoid expensive tolls. The smell of burning toast crept in under the door. It made her feel sick. It was so offensive it might as well have been the smell of burning hair.
She and Lincoln had planned to go to Gordes today—if they could finally tear themselves out of bed—to explore the vineyards, and she’d allowed herself to imagine sipping wine with him, overlooking the valley of picture-perfect farming land, talking and laughing and kissing. Instead she ached with the humiliating knowledge that she’d ruined all of this for herself. She’d pushed Emily towards Lincoln. She’d convinced herself that finding her father wasn’t important. But it did matter, much more than she’d allowed herself to admit. And then she’d lost the plot, spectacularly, in front of Lincoln, who’d said he’d fallen in love with her and genuinely seemed to mean it. The very thing she loved about him—his easygoing nature and natural optimism—had been the complete opposite of what he’d seen in her. He’d seen her freaking out. And now he was gone.
She only had herself to blame, because she’d thrown away the rules.
She’d been going along just fine before she met Lincoln van Luc. She’d been happy. Ecstatic? No. But who really was? Even those who claimed to be happy were only going through the motions half the time. Most people, she’d come to realise, defined happiness more as the absence of unhappiness rather than any sort of actual bliss. Everyone said they wanted to be happy, of course, but few people seemed to be so. They were always moaning about the weather, about politicians, the price of petrol or their aching bones. Or the person who served them at the supermarket yesterday who wouldn’t stop whinging.
There’d been nothing wrong with her carefully devised system of happiness. It had been working for her. And she’d slipped up, like an alcoholic who momentarily thought they had it under control. And n
ow here she was, in one of the most beautiful places on earth, hiding under a pillow.
Well, it wasn’t good enough. She needed to get herself up and moving. Stop wasting the last days of her time here.
Yes, that was all she needed to do. Just get up out of bed.
Ready? Come on. One, two, three . . . and . . . up!
But her limbs didn’t budge. She couldn’t get up.
•
Lincoln arrived at the hospital straight from the airport and ran into his sister in the corridor. She was returning to Nan’s room with hot chocolate in a paper cup.
‘Missing Link!’ She beamed, putting her cup down on a wooden bench directly beneath an excessively large and jaunty poster for bowel screening, which showed lots of laughing middle-aged people playing croquet and, rather inappropriately, slapping each other on the backside.
‘It’s good to see you,’ he said, hugging her tightly. ‘How’s Nan?’
‘Doing better. I’m sorry you’ve had to race home. It’s the flu—the true flu, not a cold or the man flu, but the one that can kill oldies—so it was serious, but luckily she’s on the mend. I think hospital was the best place for her to be.’
‘That’s a relief,’ he said, releasing a breath he wasn’t even aware he’d been holding.
Jen cocked her head to one side. ‘You’re rocking the two-day growth thing,’ she said, tapping him on the jaw. ‘Suits you.’
‘Thanks.’
‘You tired? Of course you are, you just got off the flight from hell.’
‘Not too bad.’
‘Then why the long face?’
‘Because I’m a horse that walked into a bar.’
‘What?’
‘You know that joke. A horse walks into a bar and the bartender says, “Why the long face?”’
‘Oh.’
‘Never mind. Nathan would get it.’
She smiled with maternal pride. ‘You’ll have to call him and tell him later.’
Elsa’s room was overly warm and her face looked flushed. She smiled weakly at him. ‘No more yeti, I see.’ A nasty-looking cannula was taped into a blue vein in her age-spotted hand, and a large area of bruising seeped from beneath the white tape holding it in place. A saline bag dripped away into the line.
He kissed her forehead and his lips sizzled on her skin. ‘Are you hot?’ he asked, putting a hand on her forehead. ‘You feel hot.’
‘She’s had a lot of fevers,’ Jen answered for her, making herself at home in a vinyl armchair as though she’d been sitting there for two days, which she likely had been.
‘Lot of fuss for nothing,’ Elsa said.
‘What are they doing for you?’ Lincoln said, towering awkwardly over her as there wasn’t another chair to sit in.
‘Trying to rush me to my grave with horrible mushy food you wouldn’t feed a dog,’ she said.
‘Painkillers and fluids mostly,’ Jen added.
‘Speaking of dogs, where’s Caesar?’ Lincoln asked.
‘He’s with Sarah. Do you know it was him that raised the alarm?’ Elsa said, before descending into a long and hacking coughing fit that was uncomfortable to listen to. Jen caught his eye and wrinkled her nose.
At last the phlegmy noises ceased. ‘He barked and howled and whined until someone came to find me on the floor. I couldn’t work out what the dreadful noise was, but it was him.’
Lincoln’s chest swelled with deep gratitude. And a little pride, too.
‘Now Sarah’s taking him in every day she goes to work and she’s got him a little red cape to wear because he’s a rescue dog. He’s sleeping his way around the nursing home, the rogue.’
‘I bet he’s being spoilt rotten. He won’t want to come home again.’
Elsa chuckled, coughed some more, then yawned. Jen drained the last of her hot chocolate and stood up. ‘Nan, I’m going to take Lincoln home and get him cleaned up and then we’ll be back later, okay?’
‘Fine,’ Elsa said, before closing her eyes.
Lincoln sat in the passenger seat of his grandmother’s tiny Honda while Jen drove.
‘Jeez, Jen, do you think you might want to slow down a bit?’
‘I’ve never had a speeding fine,’ she said, slamming in the clutch and revving up another gear as she careened around a bend through the wheat fields.
‘I don’t think that’s the point.’
‘Hey, how was France? Tell me what happened with the girl.’ She turned fully to grin at him, waiting for him to answer. In that split second, he took in her dark hair—freshly dyed by the look of it, with some sort of slightly purple tinge to it—and her sun-weathered face. She looked good, actually. Like one of those super mums who always seemed to be cheerfully busy and hugely efficient. Not manic, but capable and sturdy. Like you’d expect a nurse to be. Or a special needs teacher. And she was both, really. But that observation was quickly swept away by mortal terror as another long bend approached.
‘Eyes on the road, Jen!’ His hand clenched on his seatbelt. ‘Shit! Do you drive like this with Nathan in the car?’
‘He loves it. He laughs and laughs and makes engine noises and gear-change noises at all the right times.’
‘Again, I don’t think that’s really the point.’
‘Stop changing the subject. What happened with the girl?’
‘It’s messy.’
‘Do you want to talk about it?’
‘Nope.’
‘Do you want ice cream?’
‘I’m not a woman.’
‘How about a beer, then?’
‘Now you’re talking.’
•
‘This is a terrible idea,’ Lincoln said, gripping the dash, Jen once again behind the wheel. At some stage over multiple beers last night at the Clarendon Arms, Jen had convinced him to go with her to their father’s place to try to sort things out.
‘Well, it can’t go on as it is,’ she said. ‘Oh, look at that cow, isn’t it gorgeous? It’s licking the other one like it’s a long-lost friend.’
‘Eyes on the road, Jen,’ he said again, teeth gritted. But nothing he said made any difference to the way she drove. They barrelled onwards through the bleak countryside, narrowly missing an ambling echidna, and jolted to a stop in their father’s driveway.
Their footsteps creaked over the sloping verandah. Jen opened the screen door, calling out as she went.
Tom was just coming into the kitchen from the backyard, carrying three large muddy lumps.
‘Hi, Dad,’ Jen said. ‘Still growing weird-shaped potatoes, I see.’ She hugged him, and it was only as her robust arms wrapped around Tom’s frame that Lincoln noticed just how scrawny he’d become.
Tom accepted the hug and patted her lightly on the arm. ‘Doesn’t matter what they look like. Cheaper than the outrageous prices you pay in the shop.’ He nodded at Lincoln, warily.
‘Hi, Dad.’
Jen looked from one to the other. ‘It’s going to be like that, is it? Just like it always was whenever you had a blue?’
‘It’s hardly just a blue, Jen. He’s been blackmailing Nan.’
‘Yes, Dad. What’s with that?’ Jen said, her gaze direct, motherly hands on hips.
Tom dropped his grimy potatoes into the dull sink. ‘Don’t get above yourselves with me. This has nothing to do with the two of you.’
‘Of course it does,’ Jen said. ‘We love Nan. She’s doing better, by the way, in case you were wondering.’
Tom looked out the window. ‘That’s good.’
‘And Caesar’s doing well too, in case you were wondering,’ Lincoln said.
‘You still got that old mutt?’
‘He might have saved Nan’s life, actually,’ Jen said.
Tom looked at her, fleeting appreciation crossing his face before he set his jaw again.
‘Can we all sit down?’ Jen said. She herded Tom to the old green sofa, currently hidden under piles of newspapers, and beckoned to Lincoln to join them. He sat reluctantly in the single c
hair opposite.
‘I don’t have much time in Tasmania,’ she said briskly. ‘I’ve got a boy at home who needs me, and Mum can’t be expected to look after him on her own for long. I love him to bits, but gosh he’s hard work.’ It was a rare, brief admission of her daily struggles. ‘And I’m going to skip the pleasantries because there doesn’t seem any point to that.’
Tom folded his arms and looked to the ceiling. Lincoln stared at his father, daring him to make eye contact.
Jen spoke firmly. ‘So, Dad, you have to realise that what you’ve been doing to Nan, bullying her, is not okay.’
Still, Tom said nothing.
‘Even if you don’t feel you can love her—’
Tom jerked his eyes to his daughter and went to say something but Jen halted him with a stern hand and continued. ‘Even if you don’t feel you can act like a son and treasure every last day you have with your mother here on earth, I’d like to ask you to please consider acting like a polite stranger. Actually, maybe a touch more than that. Maybe a concerned neighbour.’
She waited, allowing Tom to absorb that.
‘I want to visit Tasmania under pleasant circumstances,’ she went on. ‘Not because Nan might be critically ill and her son won’t look after her, and not because my father and my brother aren’t talking to each other. You are not individuals in this family. A family is a system of which each of us is a part. Do you get that?’
Lincoln got it. He was a botanist. Nothing in the jungle could exist without everything else. Every living organism had to do its part in order for the whole system to work properly. Everything depended on everything else. Sickness in one area led to sickness elsewhere.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I get it.’
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