by Fiona Lowe
He shot her an indulgent look as if he knew it might have been a while since she’d ridden a bike. ‘We’ll start early and finish for brunch and a swim.’
‘We’re talking a flat bike trail, right?’
He laughed. ‘Yes.’
‘With only two weeks to go until the holidays, I guess I can delay my Saturday sleep-in.’
‘Awesome.’ They traded mobile numbers and then she stood and collected her still damp sundress. Plucking the shirt she was wearing, she asked, ‘Can I return these clothes tomorrow?’
‘No worries.’ He rose from the couch and walked her out to her car.
Standing next to him, her gaze level with his chest, she suddenly felt not only short but also self-conscious. It didn’t make a lot of sense because throughout the evening she’d been more relaxed than she’d been in a long time. She tilted her head back so she could see his face.
‘Ah, thanks for the shower, the loan of your clothes and the wine.’ She reached for her purse, pulled out a twenty-dollar bill and pushed it into his hand. ‘My contribution to dinner.’
He pushed back. ‘No.’
‘Please.’
He shook his head, his expression shadowed in the fast-fading light. ‘Tell you what. You can buy me pizza one night and we’ll be square.’
One night sounded good. Very good. ‘You’re on.’
She pressed the car’s key fob and he shot out his hand, opening the door for her. ‘Stay dry, Georgie.’ A grin dimpled his cheeks.
‘I’ll do my best.’ She paused for a moment and then, feeling foolish, hopped into the car.
He closed the door behind her as she shoved her key into the ignition. She turned on the engine so she could wind down the window. ‘Thanks for a lovely evening.’
‘Any time.’ He leaned in and brushed his lips against her cheek so quickly it was over before she’d realised it had begun. ‘Drive safely.’ He slapped the roof of the car just like every country bloke she’d ever known, and then turned and walked away.
Heady warmth tumbled through her and she wanted to hug it close as much as she wanted to push it away. Hope was a double-edged sword and right now she didn’t want to expend any energy on something that might fall over by lunchtime tomorrow. Or not. Either way, it was way too early to be hoping that this might go somewhere.
A shimmer skittered from her scalp to her toes making her buzz more than a shot of espresso; her body was very much at odds with her brain. It was attraction versus logic and hope versus pessimism and the combination left her feeling giddy and a little light-headed. She pulled in a deep breath, flicked the indicator and pulled out into the quiet street.
For the next twenty minutes she sang loudly to the radio, trying not to replay all of the evening’s conversations in her head. She failed dismally. The fact was she liked Ben; he intrigued her. Funny how they’d both spent a lot of time talking about their families but not about themselves. Actually, it wasn’t funny at all. So often more was said about a person’s life by not speaking and she didn’t talk about the last two years if she could possibly avoid it.
Her mind started to wander back to that bitter night when every dream she’d ever held about motherhood had been obliterated in a terrifying and bloody mess. Of the chilling and never-ending silence that had followed. It only took one heartbeat to separate life and death; to cleave a child from its mother with wrenching and irrevocable finality. One. Tiny. Beat.
The familiar knot of heartache tightened in her chest and she gripped the steering wheel harder than necessary. Would she ever be able to think of Eliza without finding it hard to breathe? Would the intense loss of her daughter and the anger she levelled at her own body for letting Eliza down so badly and stealing her chance at motherhood ever metamorphose into something less raw? She didn’t know. Part of her didn’t want it to change, because the fear of forgetting was worse than remembering.
She pulled up in her driveway and set about collecting her gear from the car, including 2C’s books, before walking the short distance to the front door. As she rounded the closed-in section of the small veranda, she caught a flash of movement.
Her heart took off at a gallop. Intruder! A scream leaped into her throat and exited loud and fast through wide-open lips that would have made an opera singer proud. The high-pitched and piercing sound tore around the small space, threatening the early twentieth-century coloured glass.
‘It’s only me, Auntie G. I didn’t mean to frighten you.’
‘Charlie?’ She peered into the gloom as the booming sound of her blood in her ears receded. ‘God. You just gave me a heart attack.’
‘Sorry.’
Her niece was tall, willowy and as graceful as a gazelle, courtesy of years of ballet classes and Harriet’s determination that no child of hers would slouch. Right now though, the gazelle looked slumped and the toes of her ballet flats were doing a decent job of trying to bore a hole into the veranda boards.
Georgie’s rattled brain rapidly recovered from its fright and started sifting through the information. It was nine-thirty on a Friday night in the middle of the rowing season and Charlotte was seventy kilometres from school. Harriet hadn’t texted or called her to mention a visit. Her gaze slid to the side and she caught sight of Charlotte’s Country Road duffle bag; the overnight bag of choice for every female boarder at her school.
Her niece was as social as her mother and just like Harriet, Charlotte always expected to get her own way. Harriet had probably said no to a party and Charlotte had taken matters into her own hands. Georgie swallowed a sigh. She really didn’t want to have to ring Harriet and have a difficult conversation.
‘Charlie, it’s lovely to see you but exactly why are you here?’
Her confident niece promptly burst into tears.
A sinking feeling pressed in on Georgie, sending her stomach plummeting to her toes. Something was going on and whatever it was, it had just scuttled tomorrow morning’s bike ride with Ben.
CHAPTER
3
Xara watched Tasha’s school bus disappear around the bend and then checked the large roadside mailbox. She quickly rifled through the half-dozen windowed envelopes looking for something with the Billawarre Rural City logo printed on it. There were two letters from the bank, one from Medicare, a bill from the stock and station agent, a farming magazine and a box of nappies from the NDIS, but nothing from the council. She frowned. Harriet had texted her over a week ago saying James was chasing down the cheque and how furious he was at the ineptitude of some of the council employees. Based on that information, Xara had expected the cheque to have already arrived.
She blew out a frustrated breath and hopped back into the ute wondering how much longer they should wait before they enquired again. It was a fine line between being proactive and pushy. In any other situation she’d have drawn on her legal experience and sent a demanding letter; she was good at that. As president of the district’s parents’ support group for special-needs children, she often helped bewildered parents navigate the pothole-ridden roads of bureaucracy. But because of her family connections, this situation was different and her usual course of action would likely shoot them in the foot. James hated lawyers.
Mulling things over, she drove the kilometre back up the track to the house. With a hundred metres to go the dogs greeted her, racing the truck with enthusiastic barks and jumps. She slipped out of the ute to a hero’s welcome until her boot hit the back veranda and then the whining started. ‘We’ll work later,’ she said, immune to their sad faces. She had a heap of farm jobs waiting for her, along with lobbying letters to write and a meeting with her state MP, but like most women, first she had to deal with the mess that was her kitchen. Xara wasn’t a fastidious housekeeper but even she had her limits. Breakfast had been a disaster courtesy of Tasha having a bad morning. The frustrations of puberty were exacerbated when speech was impossible and this morning Xara had totally misjudged what Tasha had wanted for breakfast. It hadn’t been yoghurt and
the walls bore testament to that.
Killing two birds with one stone, she multitasked. Positioning the Bluetooth headset in her ear, she strapped on a pair of rubber gloves and telephoned her mother as she sprayed and wiped. For as long as she could remember, she’d been calling her mother under the guise of a chat but really it was to check and make sure Edwina wasn’t having a bad day. The phone rang and rang and she was about to hang up when her mother finally answered.
‘Seven nine six three.’
‘Hi, Mum. Were you in the shower?’
‘Xara.’ Her mother always said her name with an air of surprise as if she’d suddenly remembered Xara was her daughter. ‘I was out in the garden cutting the roses before the heat ruins them.’
Xara automatically glanced out at her beleaguered garden, which, like the rest of the house, needed a lot more of her time than she had to give. Her mother’s garden at Glenora had been planted in the 1880s under the supervision of the famous botanist William Guilfoyle, and it was magnificent. The towering Canary Island date palm—a big favourite in Victorian-era gardens—stood out against the sprawling oaks and elms, enormous rhododendrons, glossy gardenias, bright azaleas and a rose garden that rivalled Flemington. One of the oaks had been planted by a former governor and still had the plaque under it to remind all of the honour. The garden was laid out like an English park and spoke of an earlier time when Australians aligned themselves to all things British. It also said ‘wealth’ and ‘bore water’. Xara believed the garden was very therapeutic for her mother who, at times, lost interest in many things, but never her plants.
‘Are you on the flower roster for church this week?’
‘No. The roses are table decorations for the hall. The CWA’s catering the classic car rally’s breakfast of champions.’ Edwina laughed. ‘Old men reliving their youth would be more accurate, but they’re paying and the money will bolster the rural relief fund.’
‘I thought that was next week.’ Xara remembered Steve promising the twins he’d take them to see the cars. Both boys loved anything with wheels. Did he know the rally was this afternoon? This morning had been so chaotic he’d left for the sale yards before they’d said more than good morning and kissed each other goodbye.
‘The breakfast’s tomorrow but the expo’s this afternoon,’ her mother explained. ‘They’re parking the cars in High Street from four and they’ve already set up a row of white tents on the median strip for this evening’s market. There’s going to be music, food and a showcase of local wine and cheese. The traders are thrilled James managed to get the rally to come through town because it’s worth a lot of money. Did you hear him being interviewed about it this morning on the radio?’
Xara looked at her now yoghurt-free wall. ‘No. This morning wasn’t a great morning.’
‘Sorry, darling,’ her mother said with quiet understanding. Edwina was supportive of Xara in her own way. She didn’t cope very well with Tasha for more than a couple of hours but occasionally she took the boys for a night.
‘I saw Jacinta Beaumont the other day,’ Edwina continued, ‘and she told me how grateful Amy and Scott are for all your help with Rachel’s new lifting machine. They’re all very excited about the respite-care project.’
Xara swallowed a sigh. ‘That’s nice. I’ll be excited too if we actually get the money.’
‘I thought you got formal approval weeks ago?’
‘We did, but for some reason, council’s dragging its heels releasing the funds. At this rate the house won’t be built by December. We desperately want it to be fully operational for next summer to give families a much-needed break.’
Her mother made a tsking sound down the line. ‘It’s ridiculous the money’s taking so long. Ask James. I’m sure he can speed things up.’
Edwina sounded exactly like Harriet. It wasn’t often her mother acted like a rich and entitled woman but when she did, Xara took delicious delight in the irony. Harriet was impatient with their mother; she considered Edwina wishy-washy and indecisive but every now and then the Mannering family’s basic belief that they were born to rule rose up and spilled over.
‘Thanks, we’ll try that.’ Xara didn’t bother explaining that she and Steve had already asked James.
‘Do you want me to pick the boys up from school and take them to see the cars?’
She thought about her meeting. ‘That would great. Thanks, Mum. I’ll text Steve. He can meet you there, which will save you having to field a thousand questions about cars.’
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ her mother sniffed. ‘I can recognise a Torana and a Monaro at twenty paces and I can tell you if your manifold is cracked.’
Xara laughed, unable to picture her prim and proper mother sitting in either one of those symbols of working-class nirvana. Her grandfather had driven a Bentley and her father’s first car had been a Triumph Spitfire. ‘I’ll let the school know you’re picking up the twins.’ She rang off, still smiling at the idea of her mother knowing one end of a manifold from another.
* * *
‘Mardi, look!’
Edwina turned toward the sound of Ollie’s exuberant voice calling her by the name she’d chosen when Charlotte had been born. She’d been forty-seven at the time and far too young to be called Nana or Grandma so she’d settled on Mardi, having read the name in a book. Richard had thought it ridiculous and insisted she be Granny to his Gramps but in an uncharacteristic show of determination, she’d held firm. She was Mardi to all four of her grandchildren.
‘Mardi, did you have a car like this?’ He was sitting on the polished leather seat of a gleaming green and black Chrysler Imperial, whose bright red and shining Buffalo wire wheels screamed 1920s.
She half laughed and half groaned. ‘Ollie, darling, this car was old before I was even born.’
Hugh tilted his head, studying her. ‘So what sort of cars did you drive in the olden days?’
‘Your great-grandfather was very precious about his cars and I wasn’t allowed to drive them.’
Hugh and Ollie scrambled out of the Chrysler with a cheery thank you to the owner before slipping their hands in hers.
‘How did you learn to drive then?’
‘The same way every farm kid learns to drive and the same way you will: in a paddock bomb.’ It wasn’t strictly true. She’d learned to drive in a paddock but not in an old wreck.
‘Did your dad teach you?’ Ollie asked.
She reluctantly recalled her strict and dour father. ‘By the time I was old enough to learn to drive, your great-grandfather was sitting in Parliament. He had his own driver who took him from Murrumbeet to Spring Street and back.’
‘So who showed you how?’ Hugh said, his face full of interest.
Memories she’d buried long ago struggled to the surface. A dark-haired man with smiling eyes who taught her to change gears and change oil—among other things—and how, for a few precious months, she had dared to change the vision of her life. The memories brought with them fondness, regret and an age-old despair that had never completely left her despite the intervening years. Faded and ragged around the edges, the feeling still had the capacity to cut her deeply and leave her bleeding for days at a time. Each November she prepared for it like a soldier readying for battle; it was the other random times that caught her off guard and inflicted the most damage.
‘Mardi, who taught you to drive?’ Ollie asked again.
Needing to push the past away, she opened her mouth to say, One of the station hands, for that was exactly who he’d been, but instead she found herself speaking the truth. ‘A friend.’
They walked past the imposing redbrick clock tower that dominated High Street. It had been built in 1896 using a bequest from her great-grandfather and today it was considered architecturally and culturally significant along with the boulevard of elms that ran down the middle of the street. They’d been the first parade of public trees ever planted in Victoria. Edwina took some pride in the philanthropy and civic mindedness of her ancest
ors even though she knew the price one paid for being a Mannering was steep. Not that she ever mentioned that to the tourists she guided up the clock tower on Wednesday afternoons.
The festival’s sound stage backed onto the tower and the high school rock band, bless them, was blasting out what their peers considered music but Edwina considered ear-burning noise. ‘Can you play “Friday on My Mind”?’ a guy in a driving hat yelled out to the bass player but Lachlan Hamilton shook his head as he concentrated on his impersonation of Hendrix. That was a travesty in itself, Edwina thought as she hurried the twins quickly past the tent. If the teenagers of today had to bond with the music of her youth they could have at least chosen an Australian.
‘Can we have ice cream?’ the boys implored.
Edwina checked her watch. ‘You won’t be allowed near the cars with ice cream. How about we look at the next section and then we have ice cream when Daddy arrives?’
‘Yay.’ The boys cheered and hared off toward the next grouping of cars—ones Edwina had a chance of recognising at first glance.
She caught up with them running around a shining white Volkswagen with red and white striped seats complete with vinyl piping. A pang of memory pierced her as sharply as a blade and she automatically rubbed her sternum.
‘Oh, Edwina!’ Primrose McGowan, her dearest friend, surprised her from the other side of the car. She wore a far-away look. ‘Doesn’t this bring back memories? I can still picture it clear as the day you returned from your trip to London and Europe. You drove up the driveway of Irrewillipe in your brand new Volksie and stepped out wearing hot pants and white go-go boots.’ She let out a soft sigh. ‘You were the epitome of sophistication while I was stuck on the farm with Dad and ten thousand sheep.’
Edwina recalled that day for other reasons and she found her fingers had crept up to touch her pearls. She forced her hand back to her side and said, with a touch of grit, ‘It was summer. With no air-conditioning, I would’ve been a hot and sweaty mess.’