by Fiona Lowe
Harriet surprised herself by saying, ‘That sounds reasonable.’
‘Thank you. When things were good again, I hired a private investigator. Your father, who in nine years of marriage had never been home before eight on a Thursday night, walked through the door just as the phone rang. He answered the call. Richard could be very persuasive when he wanted to be. To this day I have no idea why the investigator risked his reputation by telling him what I’d hired him to do. Your father was paralytic with rage.’ She blew out a breath. ‘I’m surprised you don’t remember that fight. All the yelling. It scared me and I was a lot older than six.’
Harriet had very little recollection of her parents ever arguing or raising their voices at each other. When Edwina was well, her father would say what he wanted and Edwina would make it happen. When she was sick, he’d just ask Mrs Abercrombie. As a teenager, there’d been a few occasions when she’d been aware of some passive-aggression from Edwina but those episodes hadn’t happened often. In fact, she’d always thought quiet harmony was a feature of her parents’ marriage. It had certainly contrasted with Auntie Primrose and Uncle Davids’ volcanic one. They didn’t care who was in the house when they argued—insults were hurled, doors slammed and feet pounded. Later, there was always the sound of laughter and sex.
Back then, Harriet had assumed that despite Edwina’s ups and downs, it was her father’s gracious consideration of her mother’s illness that made the marriage work. That the reason her parents never argued was because they’d found a way to be happy. Now she was starting to wonder if she had even the remotest understanding of her parents’ relationship.
Edwina reached the dry stone wall built on the boundary of Miligili, stopped and gazed out across the Rises. ‘I told Richard all I needed was information that the child was safe and happy. That if I knew she was safe it might help me with the episodes of depression. Help me cope. Surely that would have been better for us as a family.’
‘And?’ Harriet had a horrible sense she already knew the answer.
‘He wouldn’t have a bar of it. He was terrified the story would come out and he’d be made to look a fool. Given the investigator had told Richard what he was doing instead of protecting my privacy, I had little to combat his argument.’ She wrapped her arms around her middle as though she was in pain. ‘Richard told me that if I insisted on continuing the search, he’d have me declared an unfit mother, divorce me and keep you and Xara.’
‘No,’ Harriet heard herself say vehemently as she shook her head so hard it ached. ‘Dad wasn’t cruel. He’d only have said it out of shock. And let’s face it, finding out that your wife of nine years had a secret love child stashed somewhere would test anyone.’
‘Harriet,’ Edwina said wearily, ‘I’m not placing blame. I’m just telling you what happened.’ She turned and commenced the walk back to the house.
‘At least Dad stuck around,’ Harriet said, determined to safeguard her father in his absence. ‘Another man would have left.’
‘Am I supposed to be grateful for that?’ her mother asked with an unusual flare of anger. ‘Michelle was born before I met your father. Did he tell me everything about his life before he met me? No. I accept I’d kept a secret from him but we weren’t newlyweds, we’d been married for almost a decade. We’d made a life together. I was his wife. I’d loved him, been faithful to him, and I wasn’t asking him to accept and raise someone else’s child. All I was doing was trying to get well and stay well. I thought as my husband he’d have wished that for me too. For himself. For you and Xara. It was the only thing of great importance to me that I ever asked him for and he declined.’
Harriet knew what it was like to be betrayed by a spouse and exactly how James’s betrayal had affected her. She raged to defend her father but as she tried to rustle up her indignation at Edwina for asking too much of him, she struggled. Everyone had a past and she doubted her father had been a virgin before he’d married. She supposed there was a chance he’d sired a child he’d never known about. Or had known about. She immediately silenced the disturbing thought.
‘I’m sorry Dad let you down back then, but he must have made it up to you in other ways over the years. I mean, the two of you were married for forty-five years.’
Edwina gave a derisive snort. ‘Richard didn’t leave me but it wasn’t because he forgave me. The man was a conundrum. He mostly stayed for selfish reasons but I’d be unjust if I didn’t mention his love for you and your sisters. Love and duty tangled up with position and power pretty much summed up our marriage.
‘By then your father had a thriving practice and a reputation he loved. Despite Whitlam having introducing no-fault divorce, there was still a stigma attached to it, especially in Billawarre. He’d have lost far too much by divorcing me and he’d worked too hard to get everything he’d wanted. He had social standing, he had money and he had the town’s respect. And he loved you and Xara and the idea of family, even if he didn’t love me enough. All in all, it was easier for him to stay. And he did, but from that moment, he lived by his own rules.’
‘And what does that mean?’ Harriet asked savagely, immediately regretting the question. She shouldn’t be furthering this unwanted destruction of her father—she should be putting a stop to it right now. Miligili homestead was in view. If she started running, she could be inside with the door bolted before Edwina and the words she didn’t want to hear reached the veranda. It was a good plan, only her legs refused to pick up speed. She felt like she was trapped in a careening car with no brakes and no way to escape until it crashed and burned.
‘Oh, Harry,’ Edwina sighed as they clambered over the stile. ‘I know this is hard. You and Richard had a special bond. It was forged during your first year when I was sick. I experienced a lot of guilt about not being able to mother you during those early months. It built upon itself after each of your sisters was born and I lost more time with you over again. I let you see your father through rose-coloured glasses. In your eyes he could do no wrong and I allowed that to happen. I never offered you any evidence that contradicted some of your opinions of him or of me.’ Her mouth wrinkled in a resigned line. ‘I’m certain Richard offered you plenty of opinions about me and my fragile mental health.’
Your mother’s a worry. God, I don’t know how she’d survive without me.
Your mother’s lucky she married me. Another bloke wouldn’t be quite so understanding.
Harriet’s hands rose quickly to cover her ears and drown out the words. She wanted to refute that Richard had ever said such things but as she desperately tried to prop up the image of the man she loved so much, she knew she couldn’t. Not now. Not since she’d been told her father had known for years about the baby her mother had lost. Not lost. The baby had been stolen from her.
As if sensing Harriet’s divided loyalties, Edwina gave her arm a gentle squeeze. ‘Your father was a talented surgeon, a good doctor, and a loving and doting father. You were lucky to have him.’
‘I’ve always known that.’ But the words rang slightly hollow.
Edwina dropped her hand. ‘But like the rest of us, he had feet of clay.’
‘I never saw it.’ Harriet had the ridiculous sense she’d just lost her father all over again. James had hidden so much from her and now it seemed Richard had too. Did she put the men she loved on pedestals and become blind to their faults?
‘Richard and I are both to blame for that,’ Edwina said sadly. ‘We kept secrets too. Everything changed the night he found out about Michelle. The perceived partnership I thought we shared became weighted very much in Richard’s direction. He held the power. With my history of depression and time in the clinic, I knew if he did file for a divorce, he’d have had no trouble convincing a court I wasn’t fit to have custody. While holding that over my head, he punished me for never telling him about Michelle by entering into a series of affairs in Melbourne. He spent the last twenty years with the same woman. An oncologist at the Royal Melbourne.’
Harriet’s stomach contents roiled and surged as she suddenly connected this traitorous piece of news with her father’s routine. ‘So his week in Melbourne every month for lecturing and training was a lie?’
‘No, of course not. You’ve got his academic gown. It’s just while he was up in Melbourne for that week, he also had a mistress.’ Edwina’s tone had become practical and matter-of-fact—conversational even. ‘Do you remember Patrice Nicols? She came to the funeral and you spent a long time talking with her.’
Harriet remembered the conversation because of the strong connection she’d experienced with the woman who’d been open about her admiration for her father. ‘Oh my God! I thought she was a colleague!’ The anguish in her voice carried across the paddocks. ‘Fuck! She’s only five years older than me. She stood with me eating cucumber sandwiches and drinking cups of Darjeeling. She told me how much she respected him. How much he’d be missed.’
‘You can’t fault her for lying. She loved him.’
‘The accident? Was he with her when—?’
‘I’m sorry.’
Harriet’s legs trembled and her head spun. ‘I’m going to throw up.’ She stumbled into the house and into the powder room. Collapsing onto the floor, she hugged the toilet bowl and vomited up what was left of her lunch, the wine she’d drunk before Edwina had arrived and the final vestiges of her father—the man she thought she’d known.
CHAPTER
33
‘I’ve got questions,’ Harriet said ten minutes later as she walked into the kitchen. She’d washed her face with cold water, gargled with mouthwash and changed into her pyjamas. She had an overwhelming need to feel cosy and secure even though she knew it was all just an illusion.
‘Ask while you eat.’ Edwina was welding a spatula over the sandwich press. She handed Harriet a glass of wine and a plate filled with toasted triangles of Vegemite and cheese. The comfort food of her childhood.
‘Did he and Patrice—?’Harriet gulped wine, unable to finish the sentence.
‘You have a half-brother. He’s in Year Seven at Scotch.’
‘Of course I do.’ She slapped her forehead with her palm, the news not totally unexpected given her father and Patrice had shared a twenty-year relationship. ‘But he wasn’t at the funeral, was he? I’d have remembered a thirteen-year-old boy.’
Edwina served herself a sandwich and switched off the press. ‘A private viewing was arranged. Patrice preferred it that way.’
‘She preferred it!’ Harriet’s shout bounced off the walls. ‘How could you allow that?’
‘Richard was Oscar’s father too,’ Edwina said simply.
The nausea Harriet had experienced when she’d found out about Patrice surged again. She was furious with her father for being in a long-term relationship while still living with her mother but she was equally aghast that her mother had put up with it for so long.
‘How can you be so calm about it? How could you and Dad live your lives together like everything was normal?’
Edwina bit into her own sandwich, her tongue chasing an errant string of cheese. ‘Normal is a relative term, darling. Richard separated his life into compartments. I belonged to his life in Billawarre with you and your sisters. He had a second life in Melbourne.’
Harriet was struggling to keep everything straight. ‘God, Edwina. Why did you put up with it?’
Edwina flinched at the criticism. ‘It was a different time, Harry, and as I explained before, I had very little choice. I either accepted life with your father on his terms and found a way to make it work, or I lost everything. I’d already lost one child. I wasn’t going to lose you and Xara.’
Harriet saw the determined set of her mother’s jaw and for the first time glimpsed true strength of character. With aching realisation, she saw exactly what Edwina had sacrificed for her and her sisters: an embattled self-esteem and self-respect laid over a lifelong grief for a stolen baby. It would have taken remarkable strength of character to make a disastrous situation like that work. To live in a marriage where your husband lived two lives. Edwina’s secret had festered inside the family all of their lives. Only it wasn’t just Edwina’s secret. Her father had contributed his fair share as well.
‘But …’ Harriet faltered, not quite able to ask the question.
Edwina delicately wiped her mouth with a paper serviette and took a sip of wine. ‘Ask me. I’m an open book. I’ve lived with the damaging effects of secrets all of my life. I don’t want any to exist between you and me or between me and your sisters.’
‘Georgie?’ Harriet said. ‘How …? Why?’
Edwina’s head tilted slightly as her eyes rolled. In that moment, Harriet recognised herself.
‘Yes, of course I know how but …’
‘How could I have sex with Richard?’ Edwina said matter-offactly. ‘I know it’s hard to comprehend but for three weeks out of four, our life was much the same as every other marriage. I refused to spend any time thinking about week four. Besides, I was an expert at not thinking about a lot of things …’ She drank more wine. ‘Given everything, having another child wasn’t something either of us wanted but we’re human. Contraception fails. Mistakes happen. Do you remember that trip we took to Fiji?’
Harriet remembered it well. There’d been snorkelling, swimming and her father’s undivided attention, which was a rare and treasured thing. A framed photo of her parents taken on that holiday was still on display at Glenora. Her father looked handsome, tanned and relaxed and her mother looked elegant and genuinely happy.
‘We were a long way from Billawarre and our real life,’ Edwina continued. ‘Perhaps I imagined that he’d changed or perhaps I was seduced by Fiji.’ She waved her hand as if both scenarios were preposterous. ‘The news of the pregnancy two months later brought reality crashing back down onto both of us. Even though we knew what was coming, I never considered a termination and your father never asked me for one. Richard did all the right things and he made sure I had the help I needed. He was there for you and Xara while I battled the demons. He was always there for you.’
The complex nature of her parents’ relationship baffled Harriet. How could her father be both callous and caring at the same time? How could Edwina have stood it? ‘What about the other women?’
‘To his credit, your father never mentioned them to me and I never asked. In the years before Patrice, I’d occasionally get a phone call from a woman. I always told Richard. They never called again and I imagine he ended things with them quicksmart—he didn’t want a whiff of scandal making it back here. When he was in Billawarre, his focus was on his family. When he was in Melbourne, his focus was there. On the journeys in between he visited you and your sisters at school. He loved you. None of this changes that.’
Harriet had treasured those visits but knowing what she knew now tainted them. ‘God, Mum! You’re defending him?’
‘I’m not. He wasn’t an ideal husband but he was a decent and loving father. I don’t want you to confuse the two.’
Harriet dropped her head into her hands as a throb started in her temples. ‘But what about all the fuss he went to on your birthdays? Those parties were legendary in the district and he always proposed a toast to you. How could you stand the hypocrisy?’
Edwina’s chin rose in a classic supercilious Mannering gesture. ‘I made a choice. You have to remember, I grew up with a philandering father. I knew how the game worked and to be fair, your father was a much nicer person than your grandfather. He was generous with his money and we lived in a beautiful home and I had carte blanche with the garden. I got on with my life and we fell into a pattern. Your father was either a conundrum or a man of his time.’
‘Are you excusing him?’ Harriet asked, horrified.
‘No.’ The emphatic word rang off the walls. ‘I don’t think I ever forgave him for his reaction to my need to find some information about Michelle.’
‘Then why didn’t you leave when Georgie turned eighteen? And why didn’t he leav
e when Patrice had what’s his name?’
Edwina smiled gently. ‘Oscar. Be kind. He’s a nice kid. It’s not his fault his father kept him a secret from you.’ Her expression sobered. ‘When Oscar was born, I fully expected Richard to leave. But I think he feared your reaction and honestly, I don’t think he wanted to live with Patrice full time.
‘As for me, well, I’d created a good life here. I had friends, the historical society, the CWA. You’d just moved back from England and Charlie was five. I wanted to be a grandmother.’ She raised her head and looked her daughter straight in the eye. ‘Your father was a huge influence in your life and I couldn’t fight that. If I’d left, I’d have lost the small part of you that you’ve allowed me to share. I’d have lost Charlie.’
Harriet had no reply. She desperately wanted to talk to Xara. She needed her sister to help her find her way through this. To make sense of it.
‘I need fat. Chips, chocolate, ice cream. Anything.’
Edwina pulled a family-size block of Cadbury chocolate out of her handbag and passed it to her. ‘I knew you wouldn’t have any in the house.’
Harriet’s throat tightened as she bit into the milk chocolate and savoured the velvety touch and the sweetness on her tongue. She’d spent a lifetime thinking Edwina had been a relatively ineffectual mother but she’d got it wrong. Despite the periods of time stolen from her by depression, Edwina did know her. She understood her better than she’d ever given her credit for.
Edwina opened more wine and refilled their glasses. ‘Harry, I grew up in a family whose public face was the polar opposite of what went on in private. I hated the suffocating hypocrisy and boarding school was only a temporary escape. I plotted for a more permanent one where I had control of my life instead of my father controlling it. I wanted out so badly that I thought of little else for my last two years at school. I felt my father owed me something for keeping his family secrets. It took a lot of convincing but he finally agreed to pay for my university education.’