A Daughter’s Choice

by Lee Christine

  ‘I’m as much in the dark as anyone,’ Veronica said, shifting a small table so it sat between them. ‘There’s been so much rumour and innuendo flying around it’s impossible to separate fact from fiction. That’s why I tried to keep you out of it for as long as I could.’

  Lynsey watched as her mother settled onto the lounge. She’d never understood how her father could prefer a woman like Yasmin over her lovely mother. But who knew how the male brain worked? Genetically modified crop seeds were a lot easier to work out.

  ‘Cody Nossiter seems to have it in for us. What exactly did he say at that meeting you went to?’ She needed to know if Willow had got the facts straight.

  ‘He asked whether your father had purchased this house with company funds.’

  ‘Do you know if he did?’ Her family had moved into the house well before her parents had separated eleven years ago.

  ‘He certainly did not.’ Her mother took a sip of wine then twirled the stem between her fingers. ‘You remember when my father died of that brown snake bite?’

  Lynsey nodded. ‘I was only ten, but I remember how sad Grandad Anderson’s funeral was.’

  ‘It was an awful way for poor old Dad to go.’ Veronica was quiet for a few moments, lost in her memories before speaking again. ‘You might not remember, Lynsey, but Vincent and Diane had been living on the property helping my father to run it. It made sense for Vincent to stay on and keep doing that; he’s the grazier in the family—like Dad was. I bought this house with my half share of the inheritance. It’s always been in my name.’

  ‘I’m so pleased Dad’s not on the title deed.’ Lynsey leaned over and squeezed her mother’s hand. She couldn’t bear the thought of her mum losing her home because of something her father might have done. ‘So, Cody Nossiter’s making a lot of noise about nothing.’

  ‘He is. Nevertheless, people will speculate. You have to prepare yourself for that.’

  ‘Julian scoffed at me for not coming back earlier. He thinks I’m only concerned about my inheritance.’

  ‘You’re entitled to be worried. Your father’s the major shareholder and you inherit the controlling interest in the mill should anything happen to him.’

  ‘It just goes to show Julian didn’t know me at all.’ Lynsey picked up her glass, bristling anew at the comment she’d overheard. ‘And I hate it that he can still hurt me—even now.’

  ‘Oh, sweetheart.’ This time it was her mother who reached for Lynsey’s hand, fingers cool from the chilled glass. ‘Don’t take it to heart. Everyone’s stressed and on edge.’

  ‘It’s not my problem that he’s walking around with a chip on his shoulder.’

  ‘Have you been out with anyone lately?’

  Lynsey smiled at her mother’s attempt to divert her thoughts away from Julian. ‘There’s a guy at the lab. Jeremy.’ She tried picturing her co-worker, but the image that came to mind was of Julian Stone, squatting in the storeroom of the depot, faded jeans clinging to his powerful thighs, shirt sleeve riding up to show off the intricate tattoo on his triceps as he dragged out the container of lube.

  ‘Is he nice?’

  ‘Huh?’

  Her mother gave her an odd look. ‘Jeremy.’

  ‘Oh. He’s alright.’

  ‘That sounds very … lukewarm.’ Her mother set her glass on the table. ‘Come on, you’d better eat something. That wine will go straight to your head.’ She stood up and headed towards the kitchen. ‘I’ve made lasagne.’

  ‘Yum. Is it …?’

  ‘Yes, it’s vegetarian. I’ve been trying to cut down on my red meat.’

  ‘Oh. That’s good, Mum.’

  ‘I haven’t forgotten what you told me about the water footprint. Every time I go to buy a damn steak at the butchers I can hear your voice in my head telling me it takes fifteen thousand litres of water to produce one kilogram of beef.’

  ‘It’s true.’ Lynsey trailed after her mother, watching as Veronica opened a drawer and pulled out a pair of oven mitts. ‘The planet doesn’t have an infinite supply of water, Mum. At some point, all humans will be forced to become vegetarian or vegan.’ Lynsey ignored her mother’s shudder. ‘There’s no other way we’ll be able to conserve the water we’ll need.’

  ‘I know, but can you keep your views to yourself, especially around here in the middle of farming country?’

  Lynsey chuckled. Despite the seriousness of the situation that had brought her home, she was looking forward to spending more time in the warmth of her mother’s company.

  The doorbell rang, a lilting melody of four notes that echoed throughout the house.

  Her mother stilled, the lasagne halfway out of the oven.

  Lynsey put her glass down on the granite bench with a snap. ‘What time was he supposed to be here?’

  Her mother glanced at the oven’s digital clock. ‘Eight-thirty.’

  ‘Well if that’s him he’s an hour and a half early.’

  Her mother slid the baking dish back into the oven and closed the door. ‘I’ll go.’

  ‘I’ll come with you.’

  In the lounge room Lynsey shifted aside the lace curtain. A man was standing on the front porch. Slim, with a receding hairline and heavy-framed glasses, he was dressed in a dark suit and looked like an auditor from the taxation office. ‘Is that him?’ Lynsey whispered.

  Her mother peered through the glass as the man leaned forward and pressed the doorbell a second time.

  ‘Yes. Mr Gresham, the liquidator’s assistant. He’s been at all the meetings.’

  Lynsey let the curtain fall back into place. ‘Well, we’d better let him in. It’s not as though we have anything to hide.’

  Lynsey hurried into the hallway. When she opened the door, the man was halfway down the stairs. ‘Can I help you?’

  ‘Oh.’ He swung around. ‘I was just about to come around the back.’

  Persistent.

  Lynsey opened the screen door and gave the man a polite smile. ‘I’m Lynsey Carter.’

  ‘David Gresham. I apologise for being early. I hope I didn’t interrupt your dinner.’ He wiped his feet on the mat before stepping into the hallway. A meticulous type, seeing as it hadn’t rained in about two years.

  ‘Through the archway on the right,’ Lynsey said, closing the door behind him.

  ‘Mr Gresham,’ her mother said as they joined her in the lounge room. ‘You’re early.’

  ‘I understand if it’s inconvenient, Mrs Carter. My last appointment had to be rescheduled. I called by on the off chance you’d be home.’

  ‘That’s quite alright. Would you like to sit down?’

  David Gresham perched on the edge of an armchair. His expression was amiable but his eyes flicked around the room as though assessing the value of its contents.

  ‘Mum.’ Lynsey hooked a thumb in the direction of the kitchen. ‘Do you want me to wait out …?’

  ‘Stay here, Lynsey,’ her mother said before prompting David Gresham with an enquiring look.

  ‘As you’re aware, our firm is handling the administration of the Mindalby Cotton Company.’ He cleared his throat, his gaze flicking to the portrait of Lynsey hanging in pride of place on the lounge room wall. ‘We need to investigate further into the company’s affairs as certain irregularities have come to our notice. Regrettably, it seems there are a number of years where the records are unaccounted for. It’s been an incredibly frustrating process.’

  ‘I’m sorry to hear that, Mr Gresham. But I fail to see what that has to do with Lynsey and me?’

  ‘I need to ask you. Did you ever have anything to do with the company accounts?’

  ‘No.’ Veronica Carter straightened like a witness facing a make or break question in a court trial. ‘The operations of the company were conducted at the mill. Donald and I have been divorced a long time, Mr Gresham—some eleven years.’

  ‘Are there any records kept here in the house?’

  ‘No.’ Lynsey’s mother gave a short laugh, her gaze moving
from David Gresham to Lynsey and back again. ‘My goodness. I’ve been running a ladies boutique in town from the day Lynsey started school. I’ve hardly thought of the mill.’

  Lynsey had always admired her mother, but watching the cool way she handled David Gresham, her admiration reached new heights.

  ‘Very well. I appreciate your time.’ David Gresham got to his feet and Lynsey followed him to the door.

  ‘Let me know should anything come to mind.’ His eyes flicked over Lynsey from behind his magnified lenses, as though assessing her value at a liquidation sale of the contents of her mother’s house.

  ‘We’ll be sure to let you know.’

  When he’d gone, she headed back into the lounge room to find her mother staring at the carpet, her complexion ashen. ‘Wow, that was intense.’

  ‘Oh, Lynsey. I didn’t see that coming.’

  ‘See what coming?’ Lynsey sat down beside her mother. ‘Mum, what didn’t you see coming?’

  ‘I’m not proud of what I did.’ Her mother spoke in a whisper, as though David Gresham might still be listening from outside.

  Lynsey’s heart began to pound like a Taiko drum. What was her mother talking about? ‘Mum, you’re scaring me. What did you do? Come on, you can tell me. Get it off your chest, as you used to say.’

  Her mother gave a watery smile. ‘My words coming back to haunt me.’ She took a deep breath and spoke in a shaky voice. ‘When your father left, he just walked out; he didn’t even take his clothes. He didn’t need them, he said, as Yasmin had been buying new clothes for him. He’d lost all this weight you see, like men do when they find a younger lover.’

  Lynsey nodded and swallowed the lump in her throat. ‘I remember the day I came home from school and found him gone.’ That day had left a scar on her soul. One of two scars she would wear forever.

  ‘I needed something to do, so I packed up all his clothes and I drove up to Bourke. I dropped them off at a charity shop. It made me feel better, and it was my house after all.’

  ‘It’s understandable you’d do something like that. You were hurting.’

  ‘I’d been at him for months to clean up the home office. He had paperwork everywhere. I called him at the mill and asked him to come and pick it all up. He didn’t come over, so a few days later I called him again. I ended up calling him three times and when he still hadn’t turned up I packed everything into plastic crates.’

  ‘Okay. What did you do with the crates?’ Lynsey asked, not sure she wanted to hear the answer.

  ‘I put them in my storage unit. You know the one where I keep all the extra shop stuff?’

  Lynsey nodded. She remembered shelving and clothing racks being stored in that garage before she’d left for Brisbane. ‘So, do you still have Dad’s paperwork?’

  Her mother nodded. ‘It’s been there the entire time.’

  ‘Do you think they could be the records the administrator’s looking for?’

  ‘I don’t know. I just threw everything into boxes and put it all in there.’

  ‘And Dad’s been okay about leaving it there?’

  ‘He doesn’t know.’ Veronica clasped and unclasped her hands, the confident woman who had greeted Lynsey earlier, long gone. ‘When he finally came to collect it three weeks later I told him I’d taken it all to the dump. Of course he was furious, but I was equally furious. I told him if he’d picked it up earlier it wouldn’t be landfill by now. He called me all sorts of crazy and left.’

  Lynsey smiled. She’d never witnessed her mother lose it like she’d obviously lost it with her father that day. ‘At least you didn’t throw paint all over his BMW. I’ve heard some wives do that kind of thing. That would have really pissed him off.’

  Her mother nodded and attempted a smile. ‘It certainly would have.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell Mr Gresham this, Mum?’

  Veronica’s eyes widened. ‘Because I don’t know what’s in there, and I didn’t want to look foolish. At the time, I was too broken-hearted to care. I just wanted to get rid of everything belonging to your father out of the house.’

  Lynsey took a deep breath and put her arm around her mother’s shoulders. ‘Well, there’s only one thing we can do, Mum. We need to go out to that storage unit and go through it all.’

  Her mother looked at her in dismay. ‘Not tonight.’

  ‘No, not tonight.’ Lynsey stood up and, taking hold of her mother’s hands, helped her to her feet. ‘On second thoughts, I’ll go out there tomorrow while you’re at the shop. You don’t want to be sitting in a cold storage unit going through all that stuff. Besides, it’ll give me something to do. Where’s the key?’

  ‘It’s in the safe with my jewellery and the title deed to the house.’

  ‘Good. That’s sorted then.’

  ‘Thank you, Lynsey.’

  ‘We can’t be seen to be hiding anything.’ She slipped her arm around her mother’s waist and gave her a gentle squeeze. ‘Now, come on. Let’s go back into the kitchen and have our dinner.’

  ***

  Two hours later, Veronica Carter kissed her daughter on the cheek and watched as Lynsey climbed the stairs to her bedroom. ‘Good night, Lynsey. Have a good sleep, sweetheart.’

  ‘You too, Mum. See you in the morning.’

  Veronica switched off the light in the hallway and walked into her bedroom. It was lovely having Lynsey home, much nicer than catching up with her in Brisbane when she was there for a trade fair or to buy new stock. Having Lynsey under her roof again was like old times when there had been just the two of them—after Donald had left and before Willow had moved in.

  Veronica took off her glasses and put them away in the pretty case Lynsey had given her. David Gresham’s questions had come as a shock and she was glad Lynsey was there for moral support. Never in her wildest dreams had she expected the voluntary administrator to question her about the mill’s accounts.

  Walking over to the bed she’d shared all those years ago with Donald, she leaned down and switched on her side of the electric blanket. It had been embarrassing telling Lynsey how badly she’d behaved back then, especially when she’d always tried to set a good example for her daughter. It was the one time in her life when she’d truly let herself down.

  Unbuttoning the cuffs on her blouse, Veronica walked over to pick up a ceramic picture frame that stood on her dressing table. She smiled, the faded photograph she’d taken years ago of a three-year-old Lynsey and Donald’s father never failing to lift her spirits. Lynsey was sitting on his shoulders, Henry Carter’s large hands wrapped around her white-stockinged legs to keep her in place. Lynsey was laughing, her chubby fingers clutching handfuls of Henry’s hair as the mill rose behind them in the background. She’d been his little shadow back then, accompanying him to the mill, riding in the trucks, drawing on the office floor as he attended to his paperwork.

  Veronica set the picture frame back in place, the old hurt and disappointment a gash in her heart that would never heal. Lynsey had never been unconditionally loved that way by her own father, but it was hardly surprising when Donald had never been anything like Henry Carter.

  Chapter Four

  Just before eight am on Thursday, Julian looked up from his desk to see the tanker driven by Sid Akers pull into the depot.

  Setting aside his calculator Julian tore the page of figures he’d been working on from his notepad and screwed it up into a tight ball. He took aim and lobbed the paper ball against the wall, watching as it dropped through the toy basketball hoop and into the plastic bin.

  Nauseous from a lack of sleep he stood up and left his office. He’d tossed and turned all night, thinking about the progress payment due for the half-built ethanol plant and whether he should contact the bank to discuss his agreement with Donald Carter. If the bank didn’t contact him first, that is. If that wasn’t enough to keep him awake, there was Willow’s report of Sid’s dangerous driving coupled with the shock of seeing Lynsey again.

  He paused at Bridie�
�s desk. ‘Is the cheque ready?’

  ‘Right there.’ His accounts clerk pointed a long, red fingernail at a white envelope sitting in her out tray.

  Julian left the envelope where it was and walked out into the yard. He loved everything about owning his own business with the exception of what he was about to do now.

  With a resigned sigh he watched Sid Akers climb down from the cab. The guy was huge, minimum one hundred and thirty kilos with arms like tree trunks—hairy tree trunks.

  ‘Sid,’ Julian said when the truckie was safely on the ground. ‘Come into my office. And bring your logbooks.’

  Akers turned to look at him, dark eyes staring from a face half concealed by a bushman’s beard that reached to the centre of his chest. ‘Righto, boss.’

  Julian retraced his steps into the building, snatching up the white envelope from Bridie’s tray on the way back to his office. It would be over in ten minutes, the problem of Sid Akers and his dangerous driving behind him. Recalling old Mick Gleeson’s words, ‘Never put off until tomorrow what you can do today’, Julian rolled his swivel chair out of the way and stood behind his desk. There would be no seated discussion today.

  A minute later Sid strolled in wearing a baffled expression, like he had no idea what was going on. Julian didn’t buy it. The truckie knew he was on his final warning.

  ‘Close the door.’

  Sid did as he asked then stared at Julian, bald head gleaming under the fluorescents, huge beer gut obscuring his belt.

  ‘I’m sorry, Sid. I’m going to have to let you go.’

  There was a brief silence, then the truckie took two steps forward and slapped his logbooks onto the edge of the desk. ‘What have I done now?’

  Resting both palms on his desk Julian leaned forward. ‘You almost ran someone off the road.’