Good News, Bad News

by Maggie Groff

  On a whim I decided to drop in on Daisy rather than call her. I changed into my farm-girl garb—black Levis, grey T-shirt, RM Williams boots and a battered old Akubra—grabbed my sunglasses, car keys and a bottle of pink grapefruit juice and headed out the door.

  With a lively sense of purpose I strode through town towards the railway station car park where I’ve been parking my old Toyota Avalon ever since the trains stopped running. So far the car’s only been pinched once and I was lucky as it was found in one piece.

  I breathed the usual sigh of relief when my green jalopy came into view, pulled the flyers out from under the wipers, climbed in and pointed her towards Daisy’s farm.

  Chapter 3

  It was midafternoon when I arrived at Yab Noryb, Dave and Daisy Fanshaw’s property in the lush green hills behind Byron Bay.

  According to the Fanshaws, Yab Noryb is an ancient Celtic term meaning ‘beautiful view of the ocean’, but I’d got wise to their ruse years ago. On the way out of their driveway I’d glanced in my rear-vision mirror and realised that the name was simply Byron Bay spelt backwards. It certainly pays to observe the road rules.

  The farmhouse is a restored Queenslander-style home with blue and white plumbago growing in wild abandon on the lattice screens along the verandah. Below the house are banana plants, an orchard of lemon, orange, mandarin, nectarine and olive trees, and a plantation of macadamia and pecan nuts. Behind the house, shielding it from the fierce western sun, stand two massive eucalyptus trees.

  ‘Is that a bogof?’ Daisy asked me, indicating the bottle of pink grapefruit juice.

  ‘What’s a bogof?’ I mentally transposed the letters in case it was another Fanshaw invention.

  ‘Buy one get one free,’ she explained.

  I laughed. ‘No, it’s a two for the price of one.’

  ‘That’s a twofer,’ she informed me. ‘Same thing, really.’

  ‘Are we doing domestic goddess talk?’ I made an attempt to look suitably horrified.

  ‘Uh-huh. Give it a few years and you’ll get the hang of it.’

  We were sitting at the long pine table in Daisy’s farmhouse kitchen. I was shucking broad beans, pleased that I didn’t have to eat them, and Daisy was rolling pastry for a steak pie. Twiggy, the Fanshaws’ frail, elderly greyhound, was asleep under the table, her back legs twitching as she dreamed of chasing sedated rabbits. Thoughtfully, I refrained from pointing out the physical similarities between Miss Longfellow and old Twigs.

  ‘Did Hermione tell you that O’Leary had his filthy way with Nemony in the lavender shed?’ Daisy asked.

  ‘She did.’

  ‘And were you appropriately disgusted?’

  ‘I’ll say. Sex and aromatherapy at the same time. Appalling.’

  Daisy grinned at me, dipped her fingers into the flour jar and dusted her rolling pin. We worked in silence for a time, perfectly comfortable with our own thoughts.

  I’ve known the Fanshaws for years, ever since I rescued their only son, Ben, from a party-drug coma on the beach. It was an inauspicious start to what has become a rich and rewarding friendship and I love the family to bits. Daisy runs the farm and Dave has a law office in town. He’s also a frustrated novelist who styles his appearance on Hemingway, even combing his hair over his forehead and trimming his grey beard à la Ernest.

  Ben, now twenty-eight, has recently moved home again and is writing a book about his experiences with a cult. The Fanshaws are embarrassingly generous towards me, and I try to even things out by helping Dave and Ben with their literary pursuits and Daisy with harvesting. I receive way more than I give, which bothers me more than it bothers them.

  I stopped shucking and looked at Daisy. ‘You know, people change a lot in thirty years. Miss Longfellow could be mistaken.’

  ‘Men don’t change too much,’ Daisy observed philosophically, ‘especially if they’re handsome.’

  I gave this some thought. Even though important bits soften and sag, the aura of male handsomeness usually remains. It’s not at all fair.

  ‘It’s difficult, though,’ I went on, ‘to identify someone from a newspaper photograph.’

  ‘Hermione is odd, but she isn’t a flake,’ Daisy assured me. ‘She was certain it was O’Leary.’

  ‘She also told me he had a physical peculiarity, which is how she knew it was him. Did she tell you what it was?’

  Daisy shook her head. ‘No, I didn’t look at the picture. I was concentrating on calming her down. And she took it with her, so I’ve not seen it.’

  Picking up another pod, I shucked too hard and a bean shot across the kitchen floor. Twiggy yelped, struggled into a standing position and hobbled across the floorboards, halting over the bean. She sniffed it and nudged it around with her nose, and then limped slowly back to her spot under the table. It made me feel rather guilty.

  ‘If Hermione thought it was O’Leary,’ Daisy insisted as she handfed Twiggy a piece of steak, ‘then it was him. You weren’t here, Scout. You didn’t see her reaction. She was beside herself.’

  ‘Yeah, okay, maybe,’ I said, ‘but Hermione said that she knew O’Leary only for a short while. It was a long time ago and she could be mistaken. Maybe her eyesight isn’t what it used to be. Maybe it was Hermione who knew him really well, which is how she recognised him so easily, and the Nemony marriage story is a smokescreen.’

  Daisy sighed loudly. An exasperated expression crossed her face and she rolled the pastry with unnecessary force. Uh-oh. It was time to back off. I pressed the mental pause button and waited.

  The wait wasn’t long.

  ‘Scout!’ Daisy said sternly, pointing the rolling pin at me. ‘Hermione was sitting right where you are, wrapping custard apples in newspaper, when she shrieked and jumped out of that chair.’

  I made an apologetic gesture with my hands. ‘Look, I’m sorry, Daisy, I’m not trying to annoy you. It’s just all a bit vague. She could have made up his relationship with Nemony.’

  ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, why would she make it up?’

  ‘Because she has an axe to grind with O’Leary. He may have done something terrible to her, or to the three of them. Think about it. If Hermione’s story is true, and O’Leary ruined her sister’s life, then . . .’

  ‘. . . then she’d be the last person to want the bastard resurrected and to cause Nemony any more grief,’ Daisy interrupted crossly.

  ‘Exactly!’

  Daisy looked puzzled, and then slowly an expression of awakened acknowledgement spread across her face. ‘Oh, now I see what you mean. God, I’d make a hopeless investigative journalist.’

  ‘Give it a few years and you’ll get the hang of it,’ I said and Daisy, quite rightly, flicked flour in my face.

  ‘Are you cross I told Hermione to talk to you?’ she asked anxiously.

  ‘Not at all. I’m just covering bases.’

  ‘And trying to find a reason not to mess up your holiday?’

  I smiled warmly at her. ‘That too, perhaps.’

  ‘Tea?’ she offered.

  I nodded. Tea, the official peacemaker.

  Daisy placed the kettle on the hotplate, finished making the pie, brushed the top with milk and then popped it into the oven.

  ‘If Hermione is telling the truth,’ Daisy went on, ‘you can be sure she has a good reason to prove that O’Leary is alive, despite the distress it would cause Nemony.’

  ‘I can’t think of one,’ I said. ‘Can you?’

  Daisy shook her head. ‘Make sure you ask her tomorrow. I’ve known Hermione Longfellow for over twenty years and there’s a reason for everything.’

  ‘She told me you weren’t friends.’

  ‘She said that?’

  I bit my bottom lip and nodded.

  ‘The old cuss!’ Daisy exclaimed.

  ‘She told me you trade commodities.’

  ‘We do. We barter farm produce. And . . . and . . . she once gave me something else. Yesterday Hermione brought over those broad beans you’re shu
cking, fennel and Jerusalem artichokes. I gave her macadamias, olives and custard apples.’

  ‘Yet you’re not friends?’

  ‘Apparently not.’

  ‘Does she always come here?’

  ‘Yes, I don’t know where she lives. Somewhere in the hills, I imagine. And before you ask, I’ve never met her sisters either.’

  ‘Don’t you think that’s strange?’

  ‘I suppose so. To tell the truth, I’ve never really thought about it. I just accepted that she’s a bit . . . you know . . . different.’

  The kettle whistled and Daisy heaped three teaspoons of Orange Pekoe leaves into a white china teapot that I’m sure is used only when I visit. It’s an insurmountable task, but I’m slowly reawakening the world to the wonders of real tea. Truly, coffee has had its turn.

  Daisy handed me a cup of tea and then cleaned up the table. There’s an impressive economy in her movement that’s satisfying to witness. In her late forties, Daisy is more stylish earth mother than glamorous lawyer’s wife, though she can do the latter if required. Everything about her is designed for natural easy maintenance—short, expertly styled ash-blonde hair, beautifully cut casual clothes, buffed short fingernails and a touch of crimson lipstick. Things are very disciplined in Daisyland.

  ‘What sort of something else did Hermione give you?’ I asked.

  ‘What?’

  ‘What sort of something else did Hermione give you?’

  Daisy tipped the bowl of broad beans I’d shucked towards her and screwed up her nose. ‘It’s a lot of effort for such a small reward, isn’t it?’

  ‘Mmmm.’ I knew she was avoiding my question.

  ‘Do you want to stay for dinner?’ she invited. ‘I won’t make you eat beans.’

  The smell of pie wafting from the oven was tempting.

  ‘Love to,’ I said, ‘but Harper is visiting.’

  ‘How is she?’

  ‘Not the best. I’m hoping we can talk tonight about what’s worrying her.’

  ‘Trouble at mill probably?’ Daisy commented wryly. ‘I don’t know how she stands that teaching lark.’

  I shrugged my shoulders. Neither did I.

  ‘What sort of something else did Hermione give you?’ I prodded.

  Ignoring me, she walked towards the back door and sang brightly, ‘Stay there, Twigs. I’m going to pick Scout some vegetables to take home.’

  ‘Daisy?’ I called out.

  She looked back over her shoulder, grinned broadly and said, ‘None of your business. Shut up and drink your tea.’

  Chapter 4

  It was approaching dusk when I stopped on the way home from Daisy’s at one of my favourite thinking spots, a hilltop overlooking Byron Bay.

  I was not unaware that my interest in Miss Longfellow’s case was partly to defer thinking about a problem that had been sitting on the backburner for far too long, a problem so complex that I had been secretly hoping a Viking would land his ship on the main beach and whisk me off to Norway.

  Okay, maybe not Norway.

  In essence, the matter in question was the imminent return to Australia of Toby Sawyer, the well-known Reuters reporter and my partner of ten years. Unfortunately, while Toby was away in a foreign war zone, there had been an incident at home—well, if I’m honest, a series of incidents—that had thrown a spanner in the well-oiled machinations of our relationship.

  Thankfully Toby had extended his overseas mission, which had given me a welcome reprieve from having to deal with the matter sooner, but it was now time to face the music.

  I got out of the car and made a pact with myself that I wasn’t allowed to leave until I had decided how I was going to tell Toby about the unfortunate incidents. On no account was I to speculate on whether there was an afterlife, or the very real danger that I may be turning into my mother. Or the ‘something else’ that Hermione Longfellow had given to Daisy.

  Below me lay the vibrant cosmos of streets and low-set buildings on the coastal flatland that abuts the bay. In the distance seabirds were circling over Julian Rocks, and the Byron Bay lighthouse flashed its warning from the headland. People say the magic of living in paradise lessens over time, but it hasn’t for me.

  I peeled a mandarin and tossed the skin in the bushes. It was time to think, and I started by eating a piece of mandarin, there being no point rushing into things. Then I analysed some historical and geographical facts.

  Toby and I had been together for a decade, although he had spent much of that time reporting from war zones I couldn’t visit. Even when he was in Australia we didn’t live together permanently—he had an apartment in the Rocks, in Sydney, where he stayed occasionally. The rest of the time he was in Byron Bay, with me.

  Now, here is the bad part.

  A couple of months ago, while Toby was in Afghanistan, I fell into bed with a local police officer called Rafe Kelly, and I couldn’t seem to stop. In my defence I should point out that Rafe is as handsome as sin, though I realise using this as an excuse paints me in rather a poor light.

  It gets worse.

  Toby and Rafe were at school together and are friends, which compounds the felony. Obviously Rafe was aware of my long relationship with Toby, and for all I knew Toby had asked Rafe to watch out for me while he was away. Well, he’d certainly done that. And how! My knees went weak just thinking about it.

  For a while I played with semantics. Toby and I hadn’t married, so maybe my relationship with Rafe wasn’t strictly an affair? Jeez, who was I kidding? I was being unfaithful to Toby and the disloyalty factor was killing me. But not, I’d noticed, enough to stop me sleeping with Rafe.

  Clearly, matters of the heart are not my area of expertise, but it’s not my fault. My romantic history has been rather modest, with an overall tally of three lovers. The first was Rob, my ex-husband and father of my grown-up twin daughters, Niska and Tasha. The second was Toby, and now there was Rafe. Well, technically, now there was Toby and Rafe.

  To backtrack, I was eighteen and at university studying journalism when I fell in love with Rob. In the wink of an eye I was pregnant with twins and we had the proverbial shotgun wedding. I gave birth to our beautiful girls shortly after I’d turned nineteen. The marriage lasted for fifteen mostly happy years. Fortunately, there wasn’t any acrimony in our separation—we simply grew apart. Rob and I have remained friends and he has since remarried.

  Our girls are now twenty-five and both live and work in Sydney. Tasha is a doctor at St Vincent’s Hospital, and Niska, who I’m proud to say followed my journalistic career path, writes for a gentleman’s magazine, or a ‘lad’s mag’ as she calls it.

  I leaned against the car and steered my thoughts back to the Toby and Rafe dilemma. In short, I was behaving like a trollop and loving every minute of it. Honestly I couldn’t imagine how I’d got myself into such a pickle. Well, if I thought about Rafe, yes I could.

  Not for a second did I believe that Toby wouldn’t hear of our misdemeanours on his return, so keeping quiet about it wasn’t an option, even though it was my favourite one.

  Playing my own devil’s advocate, I was considering the pros and cons of consigning one lover to the museum of broken dreams when a small hatchback suddenly veered off the road and pulled up with a skid.

  I felt a brief frisson of alarm before registering that the driver was Miles, the chef who owns Fandango’s, the restaurant below my apartment. Almost seventy years old, but looking much younger, Miles is short and bald and round with olive skin and wonderful brown eyes. I watched in wicked amusement as he struggled out of his car, an activity that required delicate manoeuvring considering the size of his robust tummy.

  ‘Is everything all right, darls?’ he called out as he hurried towards me. He had on his black and white checked work pants and an enormous green cable jumper.

  ‘Fine,’ I said. ‘Thanks for stopping though. It’s good to know chivalry’s not dead.’

  He slapped his portly stomach with both hands and breathed in deeply. �
��I smell mandarin.’

  ‘They’re from Daisy,’ I told him. ‘Want one?’

  Miles shook his head. ‘How is she?’

  ‘Good. She’s been given the all-clear by her oncologist.’ I was referring to Daisy’s brush a few years back with breast cancer. Actually it wasn’t a brush. It was more like an industrial sledgehammer. There had been two bouts of surgery followed by chemotherapy, radiotherapy and the inevitable follow-up investigations, setbacks and emotional turmoil.

  ‘I might drive out to Yab Noryb tomorrow,’ Miles said. ‘Take her some New York cheesecakes to freeze. Trade her for macadamias.’

  We were quiet for a time and I could sense Miles debating whether to stick around or abandon me to the armies of murderers he envisaged lurking in the bushes.

  ‘May I join you?’ he said eventually, and leaned against the car next to me.

  ‘Be my guest. I often come up here to think.’

  ‘And what complexity of the universe are you troubleshooting today, darls?’

  ‘The men,’ I admitted.

  ‘Oh, them!’

  He knew exactly what I meant. Since the start of my affair with Rafe, Miles and I had discussed the matter several times while sitting on the wooden steps leading from my back verandah down to the rear of his restaurant kitchen. We solved a lot of the world’s problems on those steps.

  Miles maintained that I hadn’t broken the rules of conduct as I wasn’t married to Toby, didn’t live permanently with Toby, didn’t have children with Toby and I was financially independent. However, I knew that in his eyes I could do no wrong, just as I knew that he found my struggle with the whole Toby/Rafe scenario endlessly entertaining.

  He lit a cigarette, inhaled deeply and blew out smoke rings.

  ‘Do you love them both?’ he asked.

  I shrugged my shoulders. It was a question I’d avoided asking myself. I wasn’t so naive that I didn’t realise my feelings for Rafe were, at this point, overwhelmingly physical. They were a type of love that was a percentage of the whole experience yet to be discovered. More lust than love, I suppose.