House for All Seasons

by Jenn J. McLeod

  Max’s hands on her shoulders were warm and reassuring. She wanted to tell him he would never be alone; she would always be there. But now wasn’t the time.

  ‘And you know, Pops,’ he continued. ‘There’s nothing wrong with making one place home. So can I count on you to stay put for a while? That might be good for us both.’

  ‘There’s no place like home, eh?’ She clicked her heels together three times. Humour was always Poppy’s last defence. Max’s barrage of encouragement and kindness was quickly breaking through every barrier she put up. ‘Just don’t you go getting all serious on me, do you hear me?’

  ‘Is that your way of answering my question?’

  Poppy challenged herself to look Max in the eyes, knowing they were capable of weakening her resolve. ‘I’m not saying yes, but I’m not saying no either.’

  ‘Well, that’s a start.’

  26

  It was a small funeral, on an unusually cold and cloudy February day. A condolence book was in place. It had been Max’s idea. Poppy hardly thought it necessary for a small funeral, but she didn’t say so. Some of the army buddies Johnno had obviously kept in touch with introduced themselves to Poppy. Eli was missing, which saddened her. Where he was remained a mystery. He had not returned from his trip north, and with no way of contacting him, Poppy would need to leave him a note, although the appropriate words for such a message had so far escaped her. There were others in attendance who seemed to know each other, but she had no idea who they were or what they might have been to her father.

  Even in death, Johnno was a stranger.

  For someone with the world at her feet, Poppy’s world had gotten very small, now smaller still. She’d always thought she had a very full life. In reality, Poppy didn’t have a life. She had a career. Standing by her father’s grave that morning, Poppy had made a promise and shared it with Max.

  ‘I’m going to focus on putting more energy into my personal life, start filling it up a bit. It’s too late for Johnno, but it’s not too late for me. I owe it to him and to Willow to make the most of my life and be happy with who I am.’ Poppy didn’t push Max away when he tightened his arm around her shoulders. He’d done that a lot these past few days and it felt good. ‘Come on, Popsicle, rain’s coming. Everyone’s gone to the pub for a drink for Johnno. You want me to take you there or take you home?’

  Poppy moved away under Max’s guidance, stopping under the awning of a picnic table. ‘You know, I think I’d like to stay alone for a bit. I promised myself I would spend some time with Willow and Gypsy before I leave. I never stuck around town long enough to attend Willow’s funeral.’

  Out of the corner of her eye, Poppy noticed one remaining mourner, standing under a red umbrella. She recognised her instantly; the woman looked so much like her daughter.

  Cheryl Bailey.

  ‘That’s weird.’

  ‘What is?’ Max enquired.

  ‘Amber Bailey-Blair’s mother—there.’ Poppy flicked her head. ‘I used to feel sorry for her. Unhappiest woman on the planet.’

  Who could blame her with a husband like Jack Bailey, and ungrateful Amber for a daughter?

  ‘Nice of her to come, I guess. Unexpected, but nice,’ Poppy said, noticing the way the woman hovered uncomfortably.

  Probably itching to get back to her bottle.

  Cheryl Bailey seemed to be waiting, standing to one side, the stems of several sunflowers clutched in one hand. When the last of the attendees walked away from Johnno’s gravesite, she moved towards it hesitantly, paused and placed a single stem with the other floral tributes on the ground.

  ‘She obviously knew your dad.’

  ‘Hardly. From what I remember, Mr Bailey—total control freak—liked to keep his wife away from everyone. Poor woman had embarrassed herself and him one too many times.’

  She knew she should probably go over and thank Mrs Bailey for coming, but Poppy had had her fill of commiserations.

  ‘Max, I want to be alone for a bit.’

  ‘Are you sure you won’t come with me? You’d be better off at home where it’s at least dry and warm.’

  Home!

  Teardrops mingled with spots of rain on her shirt as she stared at the four distant plaques on the ground that marked her entire family. Poppy doubted she’d ever feel warm again. At least Johnno was with them now.

  ‘You go, Max, I’m fine.’

  He smoothed her hair, tucking it behind one ear.

  ‘If you’re sure. I’ll be at the pub having a drink with Johnno’s mates.’

  ‘That’s nice.’ She managed a small smile. ‘And, Max, when I get back to the house we’ll pack. Then you can really take me home. Turns out Calingarry Crossing’s not the Emerald City after all.’

  ‘And what are you planning to do about your Dandelion House?’

  She didn’t have an answer.

  *

  Poppy set out to find Gypsy’s and Willow’s plots. The cemetery was not big; locating them would surely not be too difficult. It turned out to be surprisingly easy. Even more surprising was finding two sunflowers side by side, marking the spot, and looking up to see Cheryl Bailey walking away in the distance.

  Just when Poppy thought she had no more tears to cry, the dam burst—again. She sank to her knees, no concern for the soggy ground saturating her trousers.

  ‘Sorry doesn’t seem enough, Gypsy, but I am. I’m sorry for so many things. I stuffed up and lost my way. So busy running I forgot to keep track of where I was going and how distant I’d become from everything and everyone. You’ve reminded me how central you and Willow were to me, and the importance of making a home and having people to share your life.

  ‘Thank you for helping me find my way back home. There’s so much I still don’t understand. I’m so used to being in control of everything. But Johnno’s visit … your letter … If you’re trying to tell me something, Gyps, please tell me what you meant about you and the other grownups not being honest. What grownups? What weren’t you honest about?

  ‘Oh God, there I go again.’ Poppy drew in a shaky breath and somehow found the strength to smile. ‘Sorry about all the questions, but I guess some things never change. I am a reporter, after all—or at least I was.’

  AUTUMN/WINTER

  Amber Leaves

  27

  She could see the society page headline: After twenty years of marriage, Amber leaves devoted husband and wealthy lifestyle behind to find …

  What? What was she looking for?

  Redemption?

  Absolution?

  ‘Just imagine,’ she muttered to herself, staring at the empty blue eyes looking back from the dresser mirror.

  Imagine if everyone knew Mrs Phillip Bailey-Blair was once just plain Amber Bailey of Calingarry Crossing.

  Not that anyone ever called Amber plain.

  Not at six.

  Not at sixteen.

  And definitely not now at thirty-six.

  After crushing an indiscriminate selection of pants, shirts and shoes into the Louis Vuitton luggage strewn over the chaise, Amber reefed the zipper closed, then charged into her walk-in robe, hunting through the designer-label labyrinth for the warmest overcoat she owned, all the while darting around her husband as if he wasn’t there.

  ‘Amber, my love, this is crazy.’ Phillip Blair, renowned plastic surgeon and patient husband, stood in the middle of the room shaking his head, his eyes clouded with confusion, his mouth twisted in part amusement, part disbelief. ‘I don’t understand where all this has come from. I had no idea you were so unhappy. Why didn’t you tell me? Is there something you want, something I can give you?’

  ‘No.’

  Amber didn’t want for anything more in a husband, nor did she want for anything that could be packaged, wrapped and delivered to the door of her Sydney Harbour waterfront penthouse. How did she tell him it was her own package—her life—that was the reason for leaving.

  It wasn’t that she didn’t love her husband. She did.
Who wouldn’t? Phillip was perfect, no surgery required. Amber’s father, Jack Bailey, had done well to source such a wonderful husband for his reckless and pregnant daughter, and so soon after settling in Sydney. Not that Jack could take the credit for Phillip falling in love with her. The man had been ready to marry again and the vivacious Amber had been the forty-year-old’s second chance at fatherhood, having lost his first wife before they found time for babies. Phillip had needed someone to take care of and marrying seventeen-year-old Amber, complete with baby, was the ultimate package deal. He fell quickly, and so began her transformation to a real-life Barbie.

  Amber knew Phillip loved her. Only last night they’d made love. He was always so generous and thoughtful. Amber’s problem was how she saw herself: a prized possession, an artificial wife, a reluctant socialite addicted to painkillers and cosmetic procedures, with an increasingly embittered daughter.

  ‘This house thing, Phillip, I am committed. You know that,’ Amber said, not stopping to look at her husband.

  ‘Darling!’ The word floated out on a breath of exasperation. ‘We have no need for a quarter share of a dilapidated house in Garryville.’

  ‘It’s Calin-garry, Phillip.’

  ‘And how am I supposed to know? I’ve never been allowed to go there. No matter how many times I suggested when Fiona was growing up that she might like to see her mother’s old home town, you refused to even mention the place.’

  ‘This is not about us alone. There are three other people involved.’

  ‘So you said. Three women you’ve never mentioned in the twenty years we’ve been together. What sort of commitment can you possibly feel?’

  ‘Look, if nothing else, I at least have to be seen to be going along.’

  ‘Does your father know what you’re doing?’

  Amber ignored Phillip’s question. She hated her father’s constant involvement in their marriage. The fact that Jack Bailey had her husband’s ear and was privy to everything about their lives had started aggravating Amber several years ago. Perhaps such a friendship between men was inevitable when you marry someone old enough to be your father. Everything she did and said, everything about their lives, got back to Daddy on a weekly basis. Every Saturday, to be precise, as the two men teed off at Sydney Golf Club. By the eighteenth hole, the skilful Jack Bailey would have extracted an update on his prize daughter from Phillip.

  What launch invitations she’d received.

  Which charities she was supporting.

  Whose luncheon she’d attended.

  Amber didn’t blame Phillip. Her father, who’d shot from rural council officer to real estate entrepreneur after striking it lucky in the Sydney property market, had not got to where he was today without a highly developed knack for manipulating people. In contrast, Phillip wore his wealth, both inherited and earned, graciously. In fact, for a man who made his living defying nature, he was unaffectedly sweet and tolerant—both traits in play at this very moment. However, a common thread ran through Phillip and her father. Each was master at moulding people, Phillip transforming the outside, while Jack Bailey played around inside people’s heads. The pair had treated unsophisticated Amber like a project, reining in the wild country girl, refining her, perfecting her. Little did they know that after twenty years Amber felt no more precious than a one-cent coin dropped into a glass of Coca-Cola that comes out all shiny and new, but still just a worthless one-cent piece.

  ‘Amber, I asked you a question. Did you tell your father?’

  Amber stalled, stopping briefly to check herself in the dresser mirror, dabbing the corners of her mouth with her little finger before smacking her Dior ‘Crimson Kiss’ lips together noisily.

  ‘No, Phillip, I have not told father,’ she said tersely. ‘I will leave that to you for the golf game on Saturday.’ She swiped the small bag off the chaise longue, draped her coat bag over one arm and threw the strap of her handbag over the other shoulder. ‘And be warned,’ she said as she strode past her husband. ‘He’s likely to have a fit knowing I’ll see my mother.’

  ‘Your mother?’ He landed a firm hand on Amber’s shoulder and she froze, realising her mistake. She turned to face him squarely, ready. ‘Amber, what are you talking about? You told me your mother was dead.’

  Amber wrenched her shoulders away. ‘She is.’

  ‘For pity’s sake, what’s going on? You have a daughter—remember? What about Fiona?’

  ‘Do I really, Phillip? I think she’s yours and Daddy’s. Fiona doesn’t need me. She never has needed me, not for twenty years.’

  ‘Don’t you care?’

  ‘A mother doesn’t have to care. I learned that a long time ago.’ The words only added fury to her petulant plonk on the edge of the bed as she crammed her feet into knee-high boots. ‘You and Jack see to her every whim and Fiona is happy to make her own life. I am not and probably never will be any part of that.’

  She scooped up a photograph in a tiny silver filigree frame from the side table, the only picture that mattered to her and the only item in the packing process to be handled with care. Then she wedged it securely on top of the jam-packed handbag.

  ‘What are you taking the picture for? Is that what all this is about?’

  Amber quashed the cruel cackle brewing inside her, soothed by the picture staring up from the open bag. A newborn wrapped in a blue cotton cocoon, the name Christopher Blair handwritten along the bottom edge.

  She mellowed. ‘I’m very sorry, Phillip. I don’t want to argue over this with you. Can we just say goodbye, please?’

  Fighting wasn’t in Phillip’s nature. A voice raised in frustration maybe, like now, or the occasional night in the guest room; these said more than angry words.

  Twenty-year-old Fiona Bailey-Blair appeared in the doorway to her parents’ bedroom.

  ‘What’s going on?’ she demanded.

  ‘Fiona!’ Amber’s brain stumbled over the last part of her conversation with Phillip. ‘How long have you been here?’

  ‘Long enough.’ The girl looked at Phillip, then at the chaos of clothes that hadn’t made it into Amber’s suitcase. ‘So, you’re finally going. Grandad said you’d walk away one day.’

  ‘I’m not walking away, Fiona.’

  ‘Oh yeah? Someone’s going somewhere and I don’t see that happy holidays look on Dad’s face. So where are you going?’

  ‘There’s something I have to do. I made a promise to some friends.’

  ‘And you were going without telling me.’

  ‘I was going to—’

  ‘Going to what?’ Fiona glowered. ‘Text me?’

  ‘No, I planned on calling into your apartment on my way to the airport.’

  ‘Did you really? Do you even know the way to my apartment?’

  ‘Fiona, that’s enough. Don’t speak to your mother like that,’ Phillip said. ‘Show a little respect.’

  ‘Why? Does walking out show respect? Forgive me if I don’t stick around for the teary farewell.’ Fiona kissed her father on the cheek, calling back from the hallway, ‘I’ll come over later, Dad.’

  Amber dropped her shoulders and sighed. ‘You see what I mean, Phillip. Fiona doesn’t need me.’

  He knew better than to try and change his wife’s mind. She had to do this and he had to let her.

  ‘At least let me have John drive you.’

  The cackle erupted. ‘Oh, Phillip, I do not need a chaperone or a driver to get to Calingarry Crossing. I’ve booked a flight and I’m picking up a hire car at the other end.’

  She let her husband wrangle the large suitcase down the stairs and into the boot.

  ‘If you can have John collect the Saab from the airport …’ The instruction stopped short of gratitude; she was fighting to stay strong as he wrapped his arms around her.

  ‘When will you be back?’

  She didn’t want to cry. Tears might tell him the truth: that she was leaving him, maybe for good. She let him hold her, his lips brushing her name across her foreh
ead until she dragged herself away and mumbled, ‘Forgive me, Phillip.’

  Once in the car, Amber pressed the button that folded the soft top of her Saab into its compartment. Everything neat and tidy, the ugly bits tucked away with a simple press of a button, or in her case, with the slice of a scalpel.

  *

  On the aeroplane, Amber checked her face in the compact mirror, knowing she didn’t look too different from the schoolgirl who had left town two years before school finished. On the inside, though, she couldn’t be any further removed; very little remained of the Calingarry Crossing Amber. Phillip Blair called her procedures ‘perfecting the perfect’. Being married to the Sydney plastic surgeon came with perks. In a way, she was a walking, talking advertisement for every type of cosmetic procedure. At first it had been a thrill, a novelty. Who doesn’t want to defy nature? Not to mention gravity. Then came the addiction. She couldn’t get enough. Pills, potions, beauty procedures. Nothing was out of the question. When her husband refused her requests for more, she went elsewhere. The day Amber had overdosed on painkillers was the day Phillip took charge, and a therapist started taking a not-so-little consultation fee each month. Parts of Amber’s face remained numb even today, but that went hand in hand with her emotions. Thanks to the marvels of medicine, there was little doubt Calingarry Crossing’s older residents would recognise the Bailey girl.

  ‘I guess we’ll find out who they remember and what they remember soon enough,’ she muttered out the window of the little Dash 8 aircraft as the pilot announced preparations for landing.

  28

  Calingarry Crossing remained a full two-hour drive from the closest airport. The burnt-orange avenue created by two rows of liquidambar trees in full and glorious autumn show was the first familiar sight of the old house. In the last moments of sunlight, however, the trees seemed to close in around the gloomy old place, reducing it to a silhouette against a dismal dusk canvas. Despite the fiery autumn leaves, the rapidly growing darkness exaggerated the grimness. The house looked cold. Amber hated the cold, but that wasn’t all she dreaded; she’d spent very little time alone in her own home, let alone in isolation like this. No wonder the kids at school had called it the old spooky house—the inspiration for many teenage slumber party stories.