by Trish Morey
And then, because that was suddenly dangerous territory, she picked up the book she’d been reading yesterday in one hand and, holding her gran’s fingers in the other, started to read.
Staff dropped by to check on Violet and to turn her or moisten her dry lips and mouth, but mostly it was just Pip and Gran and the story of the Cornish miners who had travelled so far and risked so much to make a dangerous living in the colony of South Australia, as Violet’s own grandparents had done so many years before. And as she read, she was struck with the uncomfortable knowledge that her forebears had worked so hard and in such difficult conditions to carve out an existence in their new home – and she’d all but turned her back on it. She shouldn’t feel guilty, she knew. It was a different time and a changed world. Nobody would have expected her to be beholden to the past, her forebears would no doubt be proud of all she’d achieved, and yet still, the hollow feeling in her gut persisted.
For their lives had been filled with work and family and festivals, while her life was filled with numbers and spreadsheets and reports. Somehow it didn’t seem enough.
Someone brought Pip a sandwich and a cup of tea around noon, and it was then that she noticed Gran’s breathing becoming more laboured.
‘It’s changed,’ she told one of the carers when they looked in and it hadn’t improved. ‘It’s like she needs to cough.’
The carer squeezed her shoulder. ‘It’s normal for this stage, lovey. We’ll get her something to help her breathe.’
And they moved her ever so gently, so Pip tried to once again focus on the words she was reading, but though quieter, her gran’s breathing still seemed erratic – racing one minute, stalling for seconds the next – so that she waited, breathless herself, for the next shuddering intake.
Except that when it came, she didn’t know whether to be relieved or sorry. ‘Oh, Gran,’ she said softly, with tears in her eyes, ‘I wish there was something I could do.’
‘You’re doing it, sweetheart.’
She turned to see Molly at the door behind her, a soft smile on her face. ‘I’m about to clock on. Is it okay if I come in for a minute first?’
Pip wiped at her cheeks and nodded and she felt Molly come alongside her on her soundless shoes. The older woman leaned over and stroked Violet’s hair. ‘You know, we’re not allowed to have favourites, but it’s hard not to. Our Vi is a special woman. How’s she doing?’
She shook her head. ‘Struggling at times, and then . . . I don’t know. I don’t know how she keeps going.’
‘It can be like that. People can hover on the edge for hours or days, and I sometimes think it’s harder for those of us watching on than it is for them. But just know that she’s not suffering, Pip. She’s just taking the time to sort things out in her mind,’ and she looked at the woman in the bed and smoothed her covers and said, ‘Aren’t you, Vi? You’re getting everything in order before you go.’
Pip laughed a little then, remembering being instructed on how to dry up the cutlery and place the knives and the forks in the right compartments, just so. ‘That would be Gran. She was always dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s.’
‘There you go then. She’s still got a little work to finish up, that’s all. So don’t you go wearing yourself out. There may be a way to go yet.’
She smiled up at Molly. ‘Thank you. And I’m glad you’re here because I wanted to ask something. Tracey’s asked me to be godmother to her baby, Chloe, but the christening is this Sunday. I’m not sure what to do. I mean, I’m not sure if I should leave Gran.’
Molly looked over at Violet. ‘Well, I don’t think your gran is the kind of person who’d expect you to miss something as special as a christening of a new baby on her account, especially when you’ve been asked to be the baby’s godmother. Do you?’
Pip thought about it. ‘I guess not.’
Molly patted her hand. ‘But why worry now? Let’s see if we get that far and work it out then. Now, can I get you a cup of tea or coffee?’
Pip looked at her watch, surprised to see how much of the afternoon had slipped by. ‘Thanks, but no. I have to go visit a friend before five. I’ll be back tomorrow morning. But you’ll call me if . . .’
‘Of course,’ Molly said, giving the younger woman a hug. And she sniffed like she wasn’t completely unaffected and picked up the book Pip had left bookmarked on the bedside cabinet. ‘In that case, I might just read a few pages of this to Vi myself before I officially clock on.’
The main streets of Kadina were wearing their Christmas best. Bunting had been strung between the poles, which were also decked with bright Christmas banners, big gold stars and Christmas trees. Pip had been away so long, it seemed almost wrong to have Christmas in summer, with the sun so bright and hot in the sky. It felt strange not to be dressed in a down coat and boots.
She pushed open the door to Arrangements by Betty, the florist shop Fi’s late mum had established decades ago in the ground floor of a building that had once been one of Kadina’s grand hotels before being converted into a row of posh shops. A cafe held pride of place on the corner, right next to Arrangements, and next door to that was the bridal store that had served the Copper Coast’s bridal needs for more than a decade. Alongside that was the studio of Kadina’s finest wedding photographer.
It was like a one stop shop for brides-to-be, with coffee and cake on tap to recuperate.
Either side of the door to Arrangements by Betty sat buckets of brightly coloured flowers and a table of Christmas poinsettias shaded from the summer sun by the verandah above, while the inside of the shop was filled with more flowers and potted lilies and a fridge full of arrangements.
A girl who looked no more than fifteen stood behind the counter, making up a mixed bunch. Pip looked to the door leading out the back, waiting for her friend to appear. ‘Can I help you?’ the girl said brightly after the door jangled open.
‘Yes, I was looking for Fi.’
‘She’s not here.’
‘Oh. Has she gone home already?’
The girl cocked her head. ‘Did you want to order flowers? Only I can do that.’
‘I really just wanted to see Fi.’
‘She’s not here.’
Ri-ght. ‘So is she at home then? Should I should try her there?’
The girl frowned. ‘You’re a friend?’
‘Yes. My name’s Pip. I heard she had to go to Wallaroo for a procedure yesterday, but I was told she’d be back at work today. I was hoping to catch up.’
The girl’s heavily lined eyes bugged open. ‘You’re Pip? That Pip? The one who orders flowers for the nursing home every week? All the way from America?’
‘That’s me.’
‘That’s why you sound American.’
‘I didn’t realise.’
‘Oh, you do. You really do. I really love your accent. You sound just like AnnaSophia Robb in The Carrie Diaries.’
Pip blinked. ‘Um, about Fi?’
‘Oh.’ She shook her head, looking conflicted. ‘What did you ask again?’
Pip wanted to scream. Any minute now she’d reach over the counter and shake the girl until her brain dropped out. She wondered if Annasophia Robb had ever done that. ‘Is Fi okay? It was just a day procedure, wasn’t it?’
‘I thought that’s what she said, but she called me last night and said she needed to have more tests and could I work in the shop all day and maybe tomorrow too.’
‘More tests for what?’
‘She didn’t say. Only that she had to go to Adelaide for them.’
Oh god.
But then she checked herself. Just tests, the girl had said. It didn’t have to mean anything. Just because of what had happened to Fi’s mum, it didn’t have to mean anything.
‘Did she say when she’d be back?’
The girl shook her head. ‘She wasn’t sure.
The only thing was –’
‘What?’
‘She sounded really upset.’
Oh double god!
‘Thanks,’ Pip said, and turned and was halfway to the door when she remembered. ‘Um,’ she said, looking at the bunch the girl was still making up. ‘Is that bunch meant for anyone?’
She blinked and shook her head. ‘No.’
‘Then I’ll take it.’
Chapter Ten
As much as she tried to rein in her fears, the questions plagued Pip as she drove the fifteen or so kilometres to Moonta. Why would someone need to have tests in Adelaide unless the hospital here had found something it couldn’t deal with? Unless they’d found something entirely more sinister?
Otherwise surely Fi would have been in touch, even just to send a text saying she’d been delayed a while, especially given that she and Tracey had been expecting to catch up tonight.
But maybe she’d texted Trace.
That was it. She was probably worrying about nothing. Fi was probably just upset about the inconvenience of having to go to Adelaide and what to do with the shop and the twins.
She parked the car outside the cemetery under the shade of a scrubby ti-tree and dug in her bag for her phone.
‘Hey Pip,’ Tracey answered on the third ring. ‘Everything okay?’
‘Yeah, no news. Just wondering, has Fi been in touch at all?’
‘No,’ she said, and the fears Pip had been trying to calm bubbled and churned some more. ‘Didn’t you see her at the shop?’
‘She wasn’t there. The hospital sent her to Adelaide for more tests apparently.’
There was silence on the end of the line. And then, ‘Crap. You don’t think it’s what her mum had? You don’t think it could be ovarian cancer rather than fibroids, do you?’
Pip squeezed her eyes shut. ‘I don’t know what to think,’ she lied, because that’s exactly the fear that had been uppermost in her mind. ‘But from what the girl in the shop told me, she was pretty upset.’
‘Oh god, poor Fi! That would be so unfair. What about the twins? They’re still practically babies.’
‘I know,’ Pip said, feeling helpless. ‘What can we do?’
‘Tell you what, I’ll text her and say we heard she had to rush off down to Adelaide, but we’re wishing her all the best and we’ll be here whenever she needs us. In all the excitement she’s probably just forgotten we had a date tonight.’
‘And if she doesn’t answer?’
‘Then I guess we just have to wait. And hope.’
Pip slipped her phone back into her bag before scooping up the flowers from the passenger seat and taking a deep breath, grateful for one thing. At least thinking about Fi had stopped her thinking about what she was doing here.
She stepped from the air-conditioned car, the white painted stone pillars and gates of Moonta’s cemetery bright under a late afternoon sun that still packed a powerful punch. Today’s maximum was supposed to be around the mid-thirties and the temperature was still hovering somewhere near that mark. Nowhere near the low to mid-forties she knew summer was capable of delivering, but hot enough for someone fresh out of the northern winter, the dry summer air smelling of dust and harvest time.
Just inside the gates, the quaint old curator’s office was as pretty as it had always been, looking like a miniature church with its white painted quoins and green roof, and she wandered past the cemetery bell that had long ago stopped mournfully tolling at every funeral, and through the vast section where babies and children who had succumbed to fever and sickness in the nineteenth century were buried.
Far too many babies and children. Far too much heartbreak to linger on.
But trees cast shade and muted the sounds of the traffic passing on the nearby highway, and there was a kind of peace here too, along with the tragedy. She felt that peace unexpectedly wrap around her as she followed the path through the old cemetery towards the new, and she figured there must be worst places to spend your final rest. The perfume from the bouquet in her arms coiled sweetly in the air and the song of birds in the trees reminded her that this was not a place solely for the dead.
It was a place, also, to remember and reflect.
On a sudden whim she took a detour and found the grave of her grandfather, who had died more than fifty years ago – long before she was born – a grandfather she’d never known other than from photographs and family lore.
She stood there a moment, wondering about this man her gran had married, a man she’d spent only twenty years with before enduring the last half-century of her life a widow. She’d talked of him, while she could still remember, with love and with a fondness that transcended the years. Death couldn’t be all bad, Pip mused, if it reunited lovers torn apart too soon.
‘You’ve waited a long time, Grandad,’ she said softly, tugging a single red rose from her bunch and placing it on the grave where Violet would soon join him. ‘Soon you’ll be together again.’
And then she turned back to the main path to the new cemetery and found the wide plot beneath which her family lay. She stood there a while, looking at the granite stone with its humble but heartfelt message that they would be forever missed. And she looked at the first two names and ages and dates. Her mother, Deirdre Mavis Martin, and her brother, Trent Gerald Martin. Both dated the twenty-second of December.
Trent, aged eleven, just a boy. Forever a boy.
Her mother. Thirty-five years old. A scant three years older than she was now, and already a wife, and a mother of two. And Pip shivered, because she’d always thought of Dee as her mother first and foremost, her age irrelevant, and suddenly age wasn’t irrelevant, as never before had she been so struck with the concept of her own mortality.
Thirty-five was way too young to die.
Her fingers tightened on the bouquet in her hands as her eyes lingered on the third name.
Gerald William Martin, aged forty-six, dated one week later.
Gerald Martin. The man she’d sat beside for seven straight days – holding his hand, willing him strength while he’d teetered between life and death.
The man she’d grown up believing was her father.
A man who’d been a father to her, and yet . . .
She sniffed and raised her face to the sky. Was it any wonder Christmas wasn’t her favourite time of year?
A crow cawed loud in the scrubby trees nearby, shattering the peace and reminding her of that day with her old great aunties, shrunken and bent and lining one side of the hall in their black funeral weeds, and an old familiar ache pulsed hard in her bones as she placed the bouquet of flowers by the headstone. She’d been talking to Gran at the wake, the poor woman already confused and struggling even then, already on the long road to nowhere. And she’d overheard the old crows behind her talking in their stage whispers, and the words that were as deeply carved in her psyche as those names and dates on the stone.
‘The end of the Martin line then,’ one had said with a sigh.
‘Such a shame.’
‘There’s always Pip, of course,’ someone else said. ‘But then, she was never really a Martin, was she? It’s not like Gerald was her father.’
And the old crows had cawed their agreement as Pip’s already fragile world had shattered into tiny pieces.
Luke finished the final bit of the paddock he was working on and sat for a moment in the cab, looking out over the pattern of even lines the harvester had left on the stubbled earth, feeling satisfied with what he’d achieved today. He’d started early, with the rising sun, and the day and the harvester had been good to him, the new fuel filter behaving itself and no other running repairs required. And best of all, no unexpected encounters with former girlfriends.
There was something to be said for not leaving the farm. Another few days like this and the bulk of the crop would be in and he could afford to ta
ke a couple of hours off on Sunday for Chloe’s christening.
He curled his fingers around his dog’s ears before turning the header for home. ‘Okay, fella. Let’s go rustle up some dinner.’
Turbo sat up at attention while Luke told himself what a good job he was doing. Yes, sir, he thought. Another good long day like this and he could probably handle seeing Pip again without missing a beat too.
She’d taken him by surprise yesterday, that was all. But he’d been thinking about it all day, thinking about the sheer dumb luck that had seen him going into the cafe in the very same moment she was coming out, and now he was almost grateful it had happened that way.
Now there would be no need to be surprised come Sunday. Now there was no need to dread that first meeting.
Not that he dreaded it anyway, mind. It wasn’t like he even cared. Not really.
It’s just he’d have preferred not to run into her if he had the choice. Because Pip was his past. His long forgotten past.
And he was definitely over her.
Chapter Eleven
Violet Eliza May Cooper passed away a few minutes after seven o’clock the next evening. There were no more twitches of her lips that day, no more smiles that morning when Pip had kissed her hello, no warmth in her gnarled fingers and no hint that her gran was still with them, if you could discount the gravelly snore of an occasional, troublesome sounding breath.