‘Well, that’s dinner solved. Now for a hot shower.’
First she put the wine in the refrigerator, seeing for the first time the handwritten note stuck under a magnet, the strange shorthand scratched in blunt pencil requiring careful deciphering. With a flick of her foot, she forced the fridge door closed, then opened the bag of nuts and threw a small handful into her mouth before leaning in to read the note.
Sorry. Family crisis. Make self at home.
Feed and water animals daily. Feed in shed out back.
‘Animals? What animals?’ She craned her neck, peering into the darkness beyond the kitchen window, seeing little other than her own reflection staring back. Surely, someone had relocated any farm animals and cleared the property out.
Like they have the bloody kitchen cupboards!
Every cupboard she opened was bare—except for the cockroaches.
A little fumigating wouldn’t go astray.
‘Animals indeed!’
29
Daylight seeped in at the edge of the roller blind and Amber’s brain fought to make sense of her surroundings. Waking up in a strange bed was worryingly reminiscent of high school, when she’d partied big, crashing wherever she could: a mattress, a spare room, the back of a panel van. Except this morning, there was no hangover or headache, no desire to stay curled up under the blankets half the day. Calingarry Crossing’s girl most likely had come a long way, but was it long enough for people to have forgotten? Just because she’d managed to wipe her memory clean didn’t mean others would have done the same.
‘Oh dear,’ she grumbled, uncurling her body from the unusually cramped quarters, missing her duck down-filled pillows and doona. She had sun loungers at home bigger than this bed!
The shower almost made up for her frustrating arrival last night. The old-fashioned rose set high above the claw-foot bath let a full flow of hot water warm her body without the need to sway back and forth as she did under the dismal drizzle of her apartment’s modern, water-efficient plumbing. After dressing in charcoal-coloured woollen pants and a red shirt with a black jacket, she added a brightly coloured Thai silk scarf and tucked it under her lapel.
Amber stopped in the kitchen to fill a glass with water. She expertly downed her regular concoction of capsules—the half-dozen little pills that helped her deal with the job of being Mrs Phillip Blair, juggling social calendars and business commitments until the distinction between them blurred. Then there was the medication prescribed by her naturopath, supposed to keep mind and body balanced. For months, ever since the meeting at Madgick & Associates, she’d felt sort of stuck at the centre of the seesaw, teetering there, too afraid to make any drastic changes. Consequences came with every choice. She knew leaving Phillip and coming back to Calingarry Crossing would make her father mad as hell. Her mother? Well, that reaction Amber couldn’t predict.
Squawking somewhere outside grabbed her attention.
The view from the kitchen window took in the expansive acres that sloped away gently beyond several fenced paddocks and all the way to the bottom of the property where the river’s north arm, carrying fresh water from the mountains, ran into the wider, faster-flowing section of Calingarry Creek. Closer to the house sat the source of the offending racket, a strangely imposing structure: an elaborate, double-storey hen house.
Chickens!
She didn’t see any birds, just a sheet of white paper flapping in the breeze, impaled on the spikes of an old metal rake leaning against the side of the fenced-in coop. With her curiosity kicking in, despite the less than inviting early-morning temperature, Amber added her cashmere pashmina shawl to her ensemble before heading outside. The wind was bitterly cold; it was the sort of morning that only those with no choice dared brave. Cheeky gusts circled and danced their way up the hill towards the house, playing havoc with Amber’s wrap and scooping the fallen autumn leaves into a rainbow whorl at her feet. Hugging the shawl tighter, she scurried over to the handwritten note on the spikes of the rake. In the same scrawl as the note on the refrigerator she read:
Chook food in blue bin. Handful each night. Let out each day after laying. Use rake to muck out every few days.
‘Muck out? Not likely.’
Surely this was some sort of practical joke. Not the sort of thing she’d expect from Sara. Poppy, yes. Amber had been the butt of many jokes while growing up. You didn’t have a father and mother like hers and not get a hard time at school. Jamming the scrunched-up paper into her coat pocket and cursing under her breath, she sighed, shrugged, surrendered. Leaving those chooks cooped up all day did not sit well with her. No matter how magnificent the abode, one could still feel trapped. Amber knew that.
‘Any house, any size can still be a cage, can’t it, girls?’ She undid the chain latching the entry gate and ducked inside. ‘Come on,’ she said, lifting the trapdoor on the roost, immediately overwhelmed by fluttering chickens.
Eight in total, several common-looking brown and two smaller white bantams, flapped their way free of the nesting area, a shower of straw and feathers following. Amber squealed at the sudden flurry, almost tripping in her haste to get out of the way.
‘Happy now?’ she said, about to leave, when a further series of cackles emanated from inside the roost. ‘Great. Now what?’
One shiny black chicken glared at her from inside the nest.
‘If you want to sit there all day, sweetheart, that’s your prerogative, but you’re wasting your time.’ Amber knew all about that, and she had a fertile rooster on hand, unlike poor old Blacky here.
She hurried back to the house, any desire for eggs on toast replaced with a need for cappuccino.
*
As she drove away from the Dandelion House, Amber thought about Poppy and Sara. What had they made of the place, the animals, the town? How had they filled in their days? Did they stay long? She doubted Poppy had, but she couldn’t know for sure. The house hardly looked lived in and neither woman had left a note. But why would they leave anything? They’d hardly parted ways under the best circumstances twenty years ago, and the meeting in the rooms of Madgick & Associates last year had been strained, to say the least. The Huckenstead woman—whose pasty complexion would benefit from a few solarium sessions—had been adamant. No communicating, no discussing their experiences, no lobbying each other about the house’s fate. Not until all four had stayed.
Ridiculous rules, as if they were still children. A welcome note was surely acceptable—and polite. What about society’s rules? Amber spent half her day writing notes—commiserative, congratulatory, complimentary. Genuine or not, a note would at least be a sign there had been life before her in this gloomy old place.
What had her friends thought of her when they met last year? She was certainly different from bad girl Amber Bailey who had spent more time in the corridors than in the classroom. After-school detention had served two purposes for Amber: a badge of honour—with students nicknaming her Always Amber because she was always in trouble—and a blessing. Staying behind, forced to sit in a classroom after school, was sometimes preferable to going home. The only thing waiting there for Amber was a bored mother lost in the lives of glamorous daytime soapies, her customary I’m not drunk, just happy smile smeared in pink over wonky lips.
Jack, Amber’s long-suffering father, had constantly propped his wife up in public. In private he’d had to pick her up—literally. Amber was always coming home to find her mother had fallen over something, up something, into something. Drunk again. The mother Amber remembered had two faces. One she wore in front of other people. The other, the desperately sad one, she saved for home. Eventually Cheryl stopped trying to maintain her mask of compliance in public, and the number of invitations to attend community events with her council-employed husband slowly declined.
From an early age, Daddy’s little girl had learned to shift the blame to her mother when things didn’t go as planned, like falling pregnant before her seventeenth birthday. That scandal had only sent her
mother deeper into her booze bottle. Thank goodness her father had taken Amber away from Calingarry Crossing to deal with what he’d called an unfortunate situation, leaving behind the biggest scandal Calingarry Crossing had seen since … well … ever. Nothing scandalous happened in Calingarry Crossing.
Amber’s decision not to tell Phillip about coming back home was made in order to avoid news of her return getting back to her father before she’d had a chance to make her escape. Like Phillip, Jack wouldn’t understand why anyone would leave Amber a quarter share of the old spooky house; it was difficult enough for Amber to understand. She hadn’t been tight with Gypsy. Unlike Poppy, Sara, and Caitlin, Amber had showed little sensitivity or patience around Willow, the girl being one of those who failed to meet her demands, like her mother.
Amber planned to contact her mother at some stage while in town. Of course. Possibly a quick coffee somewhere very public. Maybe the local café or a park. That would mean fewer awkward silences or emotional displays. Today Amber would go into town, buy food and hope to find a place that knew how to make a good coffee.
Then she’d think about contacting her mother.
30
Amber pressed each pre-set car radio button with increasing impatience. When that didn’t work, she hit the search button and the local community station clicked in, the presenter finishing an ominous weather report, then announced in a nauseatingly optimistic tone that he was about to play, ‘a snappy little tune for all you listeners out there’. When John Farnham started to sing ‘Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head’, Amber poked the OFF button, eyed the clear, blue sky and muttered, ‘Not likely.’
Adjusting the rear-view mirror, she double-checked the hair she’d spent twenty minutes straightening with a big round brush and a ton of hair product. She’d hated her ginger curls forever. In her eyes, not even Nicole Kidman had made them cool. Amber didn’t want to think about the hours she’d spent taming her long locks. She still wore it smooth, a short bob to show off the three different foiled colours—gold, mahogany and cyclamen—and the two-hundred dollar haircut; although what she’d do about that in Calingarry Crossing for the next three months she didn’t know. What she’d do about the rest of her life after three months was another question, also without an answer.
Once on the main street she slowed the car to fifty, passing the pub on the corner, the Country Women’s Association op shop next to it, the Stock and General, the barbershop—still with the red and white striped pole by the door that every dog had to sniff before cocking its leg, and the butchery. The only change to the corner store was the clunky ATM that took up the entire window. The row of fig trees running along the centre of the road didn’t look too much taller, but she was certain their spread had expanded. In primary school, a pre-pubescent Poppy and her merry band of boyfriends had hidden in those trees, ambushing kids with water bombs and fistfuls of fig tree berries. They’d even targeted Amber and her girlie friends in their best clothes.
‘You got your revenge, though, didn’t you?’ Amber laughed to herself. She and another girl had sneaked into the boys’ toilets at school and stretched clear food wrap across the top of every toilet bowl. They never did get Poppy back, though.
Amber did a U-turn around the fig tree at the end of the street and pulled up outside what used to be Nick the Greek’s old milk bar. No longer did the shop echo with the pings and dings of pinball machines and the whir of the milkshake maker. They’d been replaced by the surprisingly sophisticated chink of cups on saucers, cutlery on crockery and the buzz of a coffee grinder.
Coffee! Let’s hope it’s a good one.
The area at the front of the café was cool but quiet, with tables and chairs scattered haphazardly. One table, under an outdoor gas heater, also had dappled sunlight. Perfect. Too much sun only accentuated her freckles, anyway. The menu, although simple, seemed adequate and tempting with its impressive selection of vegan and gluten-free choices. She would have liked more time to consider her options, but with the shadow of a waitress hovering over her table, Amber chose quickly. She settled for a cafe latte and a slice of chunky fruit and walnut toast with honey on the side, and then began casting her eyes over the messages and missed calls on her phone, which were mostly from Phillip.
‘One cafe latte for the lady at table two,’ a male voice said, the latte glass and saucer slipping onto the table from behind her.
Without lifting her head, Amber muttered a thankyou and continued deleting messages.
‘Need a little sweetening, perhaps?’ the waiter asked, a small terracotta pot of sugar sticks appearing from behind her.
Trying not to show her aggravation, Amber insisted, ‘No, thank you, I’m fine.’
‘Doesn’t sitting out here make you worry about waterbombs?’
She let out a short, sharp breath of annoyance and directed her death stare towards the waiter. ‘If you don’t mind, I would very much like to … Will? Will Travelli?’
‘Willing and able, I believe was the name for a while.’
‘Oh.’ An unexpected glow burned Amber’s cheeks. Embarrassment. Not a reaction she experienced too often. ‘You remember that?’
‘Amazing the places your head goes when you’re stuck in a hospital bed for weeks with nothing much else to do.’
‘Yes, I guess so,’ she replied flatly.
Of course she’d heard about the accident when it happened. Who hadn’t? She’d heard more than she cared to for months afterwards, mostly about the football star’s ongoing restorative surgical procedures. Being married to a doctor made for predictable dinner party conversation with their physician friends.
‘So you’re autumn, eh?’ Will said.
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Autumn. We’ve covered spring and summer with Sara and Poppy. I gather you’re autumn. Besides, Sara said to expect you.’
‘Did she now? And how was Sara’s stay? Did you see much of her?’
‘Nice try,’ Will winked. ‘She warned me you’d ask. I thought you weren’t supposed to know about each other’s time here. Although—’ He leaned in, motioning for Amber to do the same, ‘I am still easily persuaded, and as I recall you could be very persuasive once.’
‘And you were very un-willing on that particular occasion, as I recall.’
‘Not according to the goss.’ He must have seen what Amber felt—the rapid draining of blood from her face and the whoosh as it rushed back, creating a flood of perspiration beneath the tinted day-cream. ‘Hey, buck up, Bailey. Come on, I’m joshin’ ya. Get over it, Amber. I did.’
‘Will, about that thing with my father …’ Amber shifted uncomfortably in her seat and cleared her throat like she was about to deliver a speech. ‘What he said about you, me and, well … you have to understand … I was too drunk that night to know, so when he asked me …’
‘You chose the best-looking guy in school—right?’ Will’s wink didn’t help. She had to get this said.
‘Believe me, the next day I tried to tell him. I tried. I promise.’ Amber heard the desperation in her voice. ‘He made it all up. I had no idea until it was too late and—’
‘Hey, chill.’ Will smiled and reached out, his massive hand engulfing Amber’s tiny, balled fist pressed hard on the tabletop. ‘No café confessions today. Your dad is your business. It was so long ago. Forget it. I don’t hold grudges. If I did, geez, I’d be a mean bastard by now. And as you can see, I’m still the perfect gentleman. Doesn’t mean you didn’t have a bit of a razz coming to you.’ Will beamed. ‘Seriously, it’s good to see you in the flesh. Must say, I got a bit tired of seeing you in the social pages.’
‘Don’t tell me about the spotlight. You and your wife weren’t exactly—’ Amber groaned inwardly. ‘Oh, Will, I’m so sorry.’
Will’s smile seemed to tire, as if he’d heard all the apologies before.
‘Yeah, I know about the spotlight. The media loved the whole shebang. The good, the bad and the downright tragic. Ebony and I, we had the pe
rfect combination of all three and those bloody tabloids didn’t miss a trick. If a journo didn’t know the facts, they made them up. I can’t believe Poppy gets her kicks out of a business like that.’
‘You don’t think Poppy may have mellowed with age?’ Amber remembered the pensive woman who had talked about her father in the conference room that day. ‘You did see Poppy while she was in town, didn’t you?’
‘A bit. The short time she was here she kept pretty much to herself.’ A bell sounded inside the café. ‘Uh-oh, that’s my cue.’ Will backed his chair up. ‘I swear, sometimes I hear that bloody kitchen bell in my sleep. I’d best get back to work. Maybe we can catch up sometime and you can keep trying to get info out of me.’
‘Sure,’ she said, and watched Will whistle his way back into the café.
Seeing him like that for the first time, being back here, remembering her youth and facing one humiliation after another …
So many memories and none of them good. At least Will’s welcome had been genuine. She doubted her next one would be as warm.
31
After a quick stop at Harvey’s corner store to stock up on a few essentials, Amber loaded her provisions into the car and took a stroll along the main street, surprised at how quaint her old hometown looked. According to the road sign on the way in, Calingarry Crossing was now part of Cedar Cutters Way, a scenic tourist drive that took in a network of towns, each boasting some sort of historical significance.
Calingarry, she mused. Who’d have thought!
The cluster of well-cared-for shops were possibly heritage, which was perhaps why Will’s café, although quite modern on the inside, retained the same old-fashioned charm from the street with its decorated barge boards trimming a rust-pitted tin awning.
I wonder! Amber considered how such a classification might add value to the sale price of Gypsy’s old estate.
The town did have a certain charm, and considerable work had gone into the raised garden that ran down the centre, bordering the three massive fig tree trunks. One faded sign boasted ‘Tidy Town Finalist’ and another advised that the Lions Club and Legacy looked after the area, including the park benches with engraved plaques.
House for All Seasons Page 27