The Midsummer Garden

by Kirsty Manning

  Kirsty Manning grew up in northern New South Wales. She has degrees in literature and communications and worked as an editor and publishing manager in book publishing for over a decade.

  A country girl with wanderlust, her travels and studies have taken her through most of Europe, the east and west coasts of the United States and pockets of Asia. Kirsty’s journalism and photography specialising in lifestyle and travel regularly appear in magazines, newspapers and online.

  In 2007, Kirsty and her husband, with two toddlers and a baby in tow, built a house in an old chestnut grove in the Macedon Ranges. Together, they planted an orchard and veggie patch, created large herbal ‘walks’ brimming with sage and rosemary, wove borders from chestnut branches and constructed far too many stone walls by hand.

  Kirsty loves cooking with her kids and has several large heirloom copper pots that do not fit anywhere easily, but are perfect for making (and occasionally burning) jams, chutneys and soups. With husband Alex Wilcox, Kirsty is a partner in the award-winning Melbourne wine bar Bellota, and the Prince Wine Store in Sydney and Melbourne.

  This a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  First published in 2017

  Copyright © Osetra Pty Ltd 2017

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The Australian Copyright Act 1968 (the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or 10 per cent of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to the Copyright Agency (Australia) under the Act.

  Allen & Unwin

  83 Alexander Street

  Crows Nest NSW 2065

  Australia

  Phone:(61 2) 8425 0100

  Email:info@allenandunwin.com

  Web:www.allenandunwin.com

  Cataloguing-in-Publication details are available from the National Library of Australia

  www.trove.nla.gov.au

  ISBN 978 1 76029 474 8

  eISBN 978 1 92557 652 8

  For Alex,

  who always points to the horizon and says, ‘Go for it.’

  It is the Romance of the Rose,

  In which al the art of love I close.

  The mater fair is of to make;

  God graunte in gree that she it take

  For whom that it begonnen is!

  Roman de la Rose

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Acknowledgements

  Resources

  Chapter 1

  Tasmania, April 2014

  It was an odd engagement present. Heirloom or not, such gifts were not usually covered in grime and dust. Pip sneezed as she started unpacking four boxes of antique French pots: copper boilers, streaked and mottled with watermarks, so when the soft morning light reflected off the pots and hit the white walls of the tiny worker’s cottage, they rippled with rainbows. Some of the pots were so large Pip had to brace herself to lift them out of the boxes. When she pulled off the lids, their blackened insides were etched and lined with age.

  The pots had sat at the top of her parents’ kitchen dresser, steadfast. They had been there when her mother Mary had shown her how to roll pasta and make batches of apple chutney and, later, when her father coaxed her through her maths, chemistry and biology homework.

  ‘Are you sure you don’t want to leave them in the boxes till we get the rest of the cottage sorted?’ Jack asked as he bit into an apple.

  ‘Trust me, these pots will make it feel like home,’ Pip replied as she stood on her toes to plant a goodbye kiss on his lips. ‘Everything will be unpacked today—Megs is going to help.’

  Jack almost choked. ‘Good luck with that,’ he said.

  Pip was making a start on her first home with Jack by organising their tiny galley kitchen—a tricky task considering the limited number of pale green plywood cupboards available and the unlimited supply of advice her big sister (who was currently dusting the living room) would dispense freely.

  Pip tugged open the kitchen window and glanced outside at the tall row of bushy macrocarpa pines that stood proudly between their old weatherboard cottage and the grand Ashfield House. The Georgian homestead’s second storey towered over the trees, cream cast-iron gable and flag mast jutting high into the crisp blue autumn sky. A quartet of wide bay windows looked out across the gentle slopes of the vineyard—neat rows of red, crimson and yellows—to the sweep of the grey D’Entrecasteaux Channel below. Jack’s parents lived in the big house and Jack’s plan—with Pip’s blessing—was to slowly buy them out of the vineyard and move digs across the paddock when they felt ready.

  Pip lifted a small skillet out of the box with a grin. Right now she was happy to be moving in to this tiny cottage with Jack.

  Jack had proposed last month after a long, windy day helping Pip collect native clam and sediment samples at North West Bay. He’d gently folded a shivering, muddy Pip into his arms and asked her to move in to his simple cottage immediately. Pip preferred waterfronts to wallpaper swatches and he promised to hold off on the wedding and any new projects until she’d finished her PhD in November. He’d built a shelf on the verandah for her sampling equipment and put up a line of hooks for her dive gear so she didn’t have to lug it to and from the university. Anything to help her over the finish line.

  But this week Jack had changed his tune. Their plan was tripped up when the Rodgers walked over with the news of a fantastic offer from a consortium of neighbouring vineyards that wanted to buy Ashfield House.

  Pip dusted the skillet, held it up to the light to admire the sheen before she plonked it on the benchtop with a sigh. She shivered as a chilly gust slipped through the window. Autumn had tumbled early into winter. Outside, almost-bare fruit trees skirted the sagging verandah. Green Granny Smith apples lay strewn across the lawn, sheltered by a layer of yellowing leaves. The old pots would come in handy for some chutney and stewing. She’d have a full shelf in a single batch!

  Beyond the fence, neat lines of pinot noir vines were turning gold.
She could see Jack walking between two rows and she took a moment to admire his broad shoulders and the long tanned legs emerging from his favourite navy work shorts. Despite the chill, Jack insisted on wearing shorts to work. He’d do the same in winter, too, when the mornings barely snuck above zero. Pip felt a surge of warmth and love flood through her as she watched Jack stride down to the deep grey water surging up the channel, occasionally tucking a branch back into wire or plucking a leaf that hid a fat bunch of grapes.

  She smiled, then let out a huge sneeze, her nose irritated by plumes of dust from the boxes that filled every corner of the kitchen.

  As if on cue, Megs came to stand in the doorway, a green surgical mask firmly in place, tsk-tsking and shaking her head as she observed the pots Pip had unpacked. ‘This is ridiculous. Some of these pots are bigger than your bathroom. That one—’ she gestured from a distance at a large pot with a slight green tinge ‘—is a cauldron. Are you planning on cooking for a local village fair? What was Mum thinking?’

  What indeed? Pip jammed a lid in place. Megs had been married to fellow surgeon Will for four years and their parents had never given her as much as a teaspoon. But when Pip had Skyped her parents to announce that she and Jack had finally set a date for their wedding in December and they were moving in together, Mary had sent the pots.

  Megs read out the card on the bench beside the box: ‘Congratulations, Pip and Jack. I thought these pots were the perfect engagement gift. Something old to watch over you. Love, Mum.’

  ‘I think the pots are beautiful,’ Pip said, removing a skillet from a box. ‘I always have. Even if they are a little, um, impractical.’

  Megs raised her eyebrows then rearranged the mask more securely over her nose and mouth before returning to her dusting in the living room. Anyone would think the weatherboard cottage was a hazard zone. Pip was glad she and Jack had given the inside a couple of coats of white paint last week after patching up hundreds of cracks in the plasterwork. It made the place feel fresher, despite Megs’s paranoia. The smell of paint had been overtaken by armfuls of the blackwood and bluegum branches Pip had harvested along the back fence and placed in stainless-steel specimen buckets to cheer the room.

  Pip rubbed her finger around the rim of the smallest saucepan, creating a hum, then leaned against the island bench Jack had crafted from old woolshed floorboards. When Jack had first showed her the pile of wood stacked behind the shed, Pip couldn’t imagine how these rough, thick grey slabs could transform a kitchen. But he’d sanded the planks until they were smooth, and then polished them with a bit of linseed oil on a rag until they coloured the deep brown of leatherwood honey. Now, as she traced the lines and curves of the grain absent-mindedly, her thoughts turned to everything she needed to do this month.

  She had no time for reading the piles of bridal magazines Megs bought her—finishing her data collection was more important than hunting for a dress. But it was hard to avoid the menu put together by her excited boss, Dan. He’d handed it to her on soup-stained paper during her break at Zest last Tuesday.

  ‘Might have to give me a pay rise, Chef. Can I afford this on a kitchenhand’s dime?’ she’d joked.

  Pip glanced up at the wedding menu sticky-taped to the tired fridge spruced up with blackboard paint:

  WEDDING MENU FOR PIP ARNET AND JACK RODGERS

  C a n a p é s

  Pacific oysters

  Peking duck pancakes, hoisin sauce

  Smoked eel crostini with fig paste

  Crepes with sugar-cured salmon or ocean trout

  Provençal vegetable tartlet with parmesan

  E n t r é e s

  Pan-roasted blue eye trevalla

  Scallops and saffron

  Chilled tomato soup

  S i d e d i s h e s

  Glazed seasonal greens

  Roasted potatoes, rosemary and sea salt

  M a i n s

  Crispy-skinned duck breast, spinach, potato puree, mushrooms, port jus

  Slow-cooked Ashfield House lamb shoulder with fennel, braised lentils, roasted garlic and rosemary jus

  Galantine of chicken and hazelnuts, cress salad, olives, radish, hazelnut vinaigrette

  Baked mushroom tortellini with Gruyère

  D e s s e r t

  Wedding cake plated and served with fresh berry compote and cream

  So far, so standard. She hadn’t chosen a wedding cake yet—Jack was keen on chocolate mud. Everyone loved chocolate, he argued. She’d annotated the menu, noting changes to local seasonal fish, like line-caught couta or hapuka, and some herbs to dress it up like thyme, basil and fennel. She’d asked Dan to drop the scallops, Pacific oysters and salmon. Barbecued local clams and pipis would be nice for a starter. She could harvest a few buckets herself down near North West Bay. Were clams wedding-ish enough?

  Pip glanced across at the big table strewn with waterproof data sheets. On top of the wedding preparations, she had her work to think about. After two and half years, she felt she was poised on the cusp of a breakthrough. The pristine Tasmanian environment and waters were prized for their precious seafood, but they were under threat from pesky invaders, the European clam among them. Pip’s project was to identify why this was happening and find solutions to prevent it. She needed to nail down the perfect environmental conditions. Find balance.

  But just last week there had been discrepancies in her data and now she’d need to re-test before the winter rain set in. Extra tests meant a funding blowout and delays. Pip was determined to finish on time. Her PhD swam through every cell in her brain and it took far more energy than she cared to admit. Wedding cake would have to wait.

  The day before, her supervisor had explained over a flat white and half a blueberry muffin in her spartan university office that funding for environmental and climate change research was being axed.

  ‘I’m sorry. No more extensions, Pip,’ said Imogen, blue eyes apologetic.

  ‘But Jack’s booked this work trip to Italy—and it looks like we have to try to buy out the vineyard now, even though we hadn’t planned to do it for ages …’ Pip looked up at the ceiling and blinked. She didn’t want to lose it in front of her supervisor.

  ‘I know, I know,’ Imogen said, nodding. She gave a sympathetic smile. ‘And you’ve got a wedding to plan.’ Her long fingers picked at the edges of the muffin. ‘I’ve tried talking to the heads, even the dean.’ Imogen shrugged and shook her head. ‘They just don’t know yet which positions will be funded for the next three years. They are making cuts across at IMAS too.’ Imogen worked with both the Institute of Marine and Antarctic Studies and the university.

  Imogen continued, ‘If you want a shot at a post-doc research job, you have to get that thesis in by November. Okay?’

  ‘But—’

  ‘No excuses! You’re bright, Pip. Your research is a game-changer. We might be able to clean up this patch of the channel. But I can’t do anything else—’ she tapped a pile of documents with her index finger ‘—until you prove you can finish. We’ve already given you extra time because your prelim results were outstanding. There’s no more.’ Imogen ducked her head and peered over the top of her glasses. Her voice was warm, but firm. ‘C’mon, Pip. Just knuckle down and get it done. I understand lab work is tough—God, we’ve all been there.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘And Italy’s not going anywhere!’

  Pip nodded and slumped back in her chair. What kind of future could she promise Jack? There was no guarantee she’d get a job or funded research position once she finished her PhD. If. But Jack had other plans for the rest of this year and she needed to collect more data. How would she find time for both?

  Even if she and Jack offered to match the consortium’s bid for Ashfield House right now, Pip’s current employment mix of casual teaching and kitchenhand work wouldn’t cover the ridiculous mortgage repayments and her student loan. What about the much-needed repairs for crumbling walls, keystone archways and the ove
rsized cast-iron lace on the verandah? Not to mention new vineyard plantings. Pip felt dizzy—it all felt too rushed, too forced. Too uncertain.

  Between her paperwork and the beautiful old pots, there was no surface left on which to put anything. Jack probably thought she was an invasive marine pest.

  Megs followed Pip’s gaze to the floor of the living room, and the stacks of graphs labelled with black marking pen in capitals: LI, HARRY and TAJ. ‘What are these?’ She pointed to the TAJ pile.

  ‘Honours students. I’m mentoring three to help with their sampling.’ Pip loved watching undergrads picking their way through buckets of clams, cockles and pipis, trying to classify each species by the size and hue of the shell, counting basal threads dangling like silk, or holding a limpet up to the light and running their fingers over tiny yellow ridges skirting the shell, marvelling at the perfect grey and white logarithmic spiral of the elephant snail. ‘I’m bringing Taj around your way next week, before we have dinner next Sunday. I’m going to help her collect some sediment cores in the intertidal zone—that’s the mudflats along the front of your place.’

  ‘Brrrr. It’ll be freezing.’

  Pip glanced at her paperwork and shrugged. She wasn’t outside enough since she started writing up the data.

  ‘Pip,’ Megs said carefully, ‘don’t you think you have enough on your plate?’ She glanced around the room at the boxes before letting her eyes rest on the piles of graphs again. ‘Seems crazy to take time out to help undergrads with their theses when you’re struggling.’ She paused. ‘I don’t mean struggling academically. Sorry! It’s just that you seem to have spread yourself so thin this year. Helping Jack in the vineyard, tutoring undergrads, planning a wedding, helping me with babysitting—which I’m very grateful for, by the way!’

  Megs was spot on, as usual. Pip glanced up the hallway to the spare room where baby Chloé was sleeping in a portacot and being watched by her nanny, Eva. No noise. Perhaps they were both asleep.

  ‘Megs, I’m going to finish my PhD. Don’t worry—that’s top of my list.’ Pip swallowed traces of an uneasy guilt as she unwrapped a medium-sized pot—perfect for boiling waxy pink-eye and kipfler potatoes. She held the pot up with both hands to show her sister. Megs shook her head.