His Other House

by Sarah Armstrong

  At the bottom of the valley, a causeway took them over a fast-flowing, boulder-strewn creek, then they passed a dirt road to the right and too late she saw a small sign for Mill Road. That was it.

  She turned the car around and drove up Mill Road. A creek ran right beside the road and the steep opposite bank was lined with palms. Dust coated the roadside weeds and every second driveway was signposted Lot 1. Then she saw the red letterbox with R. GORDON on it, just as Bill had described.

  ‘Is this it?’ Adie sat up in her seat, straining against the belt.

  ‘I think so.’ Her foot was shaking on the accelerator again.

  There was no house in sight, only a long gravel driveway disappearing up the hill into a dense forest of trees and underbrush.

  Marianna steered the car to straddle one of the two deep ruts running down the driveway, but still the car scraped. She stopped and pulled on the handbrake. ‘We’ll have to walk from here.’ She reached back to unbuckle Adie, who flung the door open and stood looking around her.

  Marianna picked up her handbag and the tin of biscuits and locked the car. Could this eroded track really be a driveway? Sun slanted through the trees and a trio of magpies perched on a branch above them, watching. Heat radiated from the bush and the place felt abandoned, uninhabited. Maybe they were in the wrong place, after all.

  Adie started up the hill, small puffs of dust rising from her sneakers, and Marianna felt a spurt of panic. What had she done, bringing Adie here without telling Quinn they were coming? Was it just some stupid game of tit for tat she was playing? She hurried after her girl and took her hand. She couldn’t turn back now. ‘What did you put in the tin?’ she asked.

  ‘A bit of everything.’

  ‘Good. I bet Ned will like the cupcakes.’

  They walked on and a house came into view through the trees: an old timber cottage perched high on stilts. Small and painted white. This couldn’t be it, surely. Then she saw his car. And him. He was standing on the high-set verandah, with his back to them, doing something to a window.

  For a moment she couldn’t breathe, watching him move about the verandah, bending to pick up something and starting down the steps to the lawn. How long would she keep feeling, as if for the first time, the wrenching realisation that she had never known him at all? That she hadn’t known love, after all.

  ‘Daddy!’ Adie ran up the hill.

  He looked up and stopped. Even at that distance she saw the shock pass over his face. Then he hurried down the steps to the wide mown lawn.

  Marianna stopped walking. The trees were too close, too tall. She put the biscuit tin down and tried to slow her breathing.

  Quinn reached Adie and picked her up, then carried her down to where Marianna stood. ‘Hello,’ he said and looked squarely at her. He was unshaven and wore a torn red t-shirt and the board shorts she’d bought him in Hawaii.

  Adie twisted in her father’s arms to look at Marianna, and gave her mother a tentative smile. Marianna said, ‘Adie wanted to come and see where you live.’

  Adie turned back to her father and buried her face in his neck.

  Quinn said, ‘Well, I’m glad you’re here.’ But his face was tight.

  Adie wrapped her legs more tightly around her father as a door banged at the house and a woman came to the top of the steps. She was slim and tall and wore shorts and a singlet. Quinn didn’t look back to the house, although Marianna could tell he’d heard the door. He ducked his head to look into Adie’s eyes. ‘Well then, can I show you around, Adie? There are chooks and a cow . . .’

  Adie looked over to Rachel, her face blank.

  Rachel started over the grass towards them; she was definitely the woman Marianna had met over the fence all those years ago. She was thin and plain and as she got closer Marianna saw a yellow bruise stretching from Rachel’s eyebrow down to her jawline. Did he hit her? No, she thought. But then anything was possible now. Anything.

  ‘Why don’t you come inside and have a cup of tea, Marianna?’ said Quinn.

  Adie wriggled from his arms onto the grass and took his hand, leading him away from Rachel, who was approaching. ‘Come on, Daddy. I want my tour.’

  ‘You take Adie on a tour.’ Marianna smiled at Adie. ‘Sweetie, I’ll just be here.’ Talking took such effort; she just wanted to lie down in the shade, her body stretched on the grass, and close her eyes.

  Quinn nodded and took hold of Adie’s shoulders to turn her to face Rachel. Rachel smiled brightly and squatted on her haunches. Adie leaned away from her into Quinn’s leg and looked over at her mother, a strained expression on her face.

  Marianna strode over to them. ‘Hello!’ she said cheerfully to Rachel. And she reached her hand straight out like she was meeting a colleague for the first time.

  Rachel looked surprised and stood up. ‘Hi.’ She sounded nervous. She shook Marianna’s hand, her thin fingers strong and palms calloused. Marianna dropped Rachel’s hand and rested her hand on Adie’s sun-warmed head.

  Adie looked up at Marianna and Quinn, her eyes wide. ‘Where’s Ned?’ she said.

  Rachel turned and looked towards a big rambling vegetable garden. She had a fuzzy knot at the back of her hair. ‘Playing,’ said Rachel. ‘Somewhere down there.’ She waved her hand down the hill and turned back to them. She had such fine bones, it gave her a sharp appearance.

  ‘Will we go and find him?’ Quinn asked.

  Adie nodded. Quinn looked at Rachel and hesitated. He spoke quietly. ‘Will you be okay if I take Adie for a walk?’

  She nodded and smiled at him. ‘Yes. Absolutely.’

  Quinn walked towards the shed and Adie skipped along beside him, her new purple sneakers bright on the grass.

  Marianna wanted Adie to look back, she must look back before they disappeared around the corner of the shed. Adie turned and waved at Marianna.

  Rachel’s voice was quiet. ‘Would you like a cup of tea?’

  ‘Not really.’ She looked around at the place, frankly examining it. In the cavernous space under the house, among all the piers, was a wooden boat, and by the entry to the fenced vegetable garden stood an adobe oven. She picked up the biscuit tin. ‘Here. Adie made these for Ned. Keep the tin. I don’t want it back.’ She shoved it at Rachel. Adie’s voice floated over from behind the shed.

  ‘Thank you.’ Rachel looked down at the tin, her mouth working. ‘If you don’t want tea, will you come on the verandah and have a glass of water?’

  ‘How did you get that bruise?’ Marianna slipped her shoes off. She needed to feel her toes on the earth.

  Rachel ran her fingers down the red raised scar at her eyebrow. ‘Car accident.’

  ‘Into a creek?’

  Rachel nodded.

  ‘You wrote off Quinn’s old car? The silver Subaru.’

  Rachel looked straight at her with those dark eyes. ‘That’s right.’

  Marianna gave a small laugh and shook her head. Maybe everything about him was a lie. Maybe he hadn’t grown up on a Pacific island. Maybe he wasn’t even a doctor.

  Rachel said, ‘Listen . . .’ She swallowed. ‘I’m sorry for my part in this.’ She fixed her eyes on Marianna.

  Marianna crossed her arms. ‘Bill says you did nothing wrong but fall in love with the wrong man.’ She turned to look at the shed where Adie and Quinn had disappeared from sight. ‘And he’s still the wrong man, you know. You can’t lie like he has and not do it again.’

  ‘Well, I’m sorry for my part in it.’

  ‘I’ll have that glass of water,’ Marianna said and followed Rachel across the grass and up the long set of stairs. Rachel’s bare feet trod firmly on each grey wooden step. It looked as if she went barefoot a lot; her feet were broad and her heels cracked. Up on the high verandah Marianna looked down on Quinn and Adie, who followed a path down the hill, Quinn waving a stick in the air, Adie trotting beside him.

  She stepped into the gloom of the house, straight into a small kitchen dominated by a big old Kooka woodstove. Bunches
of herbs and roughly plaited garlic hung on the walls.

  Rachel stood at the sink holding a glass under the slow-flowing tap.

  Marianna laid her hand on the table, the table Quinn must have sat at so many times while carrying on this other life. ‘At what point did you find out he was married?’ she said. ‘Before you had sex?’

  Rachel passed a glass to Marianna and sat down. ‘I knew before we even kissed.’ She looked down at her own glass.

  ‘Ah. And have you had an affair before? Are you used to screwing other women’s husbands?’ She was gratified to see Rachel flinch.

  ‘No. I haven’t. And he hasn’t either, you know.’

  ‘Ahh, but you did have it off with Bill, didn’t you? But then maybe that was you cheating on Quinn . . . ?’ There was the smell of marmalade cooking, that familiar sharp smell from her grandmother’s kitchen.

  ‘Look, if you want to hurt me, I understand. If you want to have a scream at me, go ahead.’ Rachel stood up and put the kettle on the gas stovetop, beside the jam pot. She struck a match and lit the gas. Marianna headed down the short hallway.

  Rachel followed her. ‘Do you want the bathroom?’

  ‘I want to have a look around.’ They faced each other in the dim hallway. Beside them, Marianna could see through an open door into a child’s messy bedroom. ‘Do you want me to ask your permission?’ Marianna said. ‘Does this feel a bit impolite?’

  ‘Go ahead. Have a look around.’ Rachel turned back to the kitchen.

  Marianna needed to see their bedroom. She passed a slate-floored bathroom and a big window to the garden, then found their room. The unmade bed was tucked into a bay window.

  She stepped into the stuffy room. His clothes were draped over a yellow-painted chair in one corner, his t-shirt inside out. His familiar smell had lingered in her room until a few days ago. How well they had slept together, moving in unison, naked limbs sliding and brushing together in the night and waking curled around each other. She missed him. She hated him and she missed him.

  The kettle whistled in the kitchen and she heard Rachel take it off the heat. She crossed the room and laid her hand on the rumpled bottom sheet. Was this his side of the bed? Had they made love here last night? Rachel’s footsteps came back up the hall. Marianna turned and they met in the doorway.

  Rachel said, ‘You know, I’m very sorry you have been so hurt by this. I really am. But I’m not sorry I met Quinn and I’m not sorry we had Ned.’ It sounded like a speech she’d been preparing in the kitchen. ‘You should have known long ago, but I’m not sorry it happened.’

  Marianna was tired of batting words back and forth. She was hot and dizzy and this house was too high up in the air. She looked back at Rachel and shrugged.

  Rachel shrugged back at her. ‘I need that cup of tea.’

  From the verandah, Marianna looked for Adie, but the bush and shimmering paddocks were quiet. Where the big paddock met the forest was a scattering of white and pink beehives. A boy emerged from the trees near the hives and picked his way across the paddock towards the house, carrying something on one shoulder. He was dark-haired and as he got closer she saw how like Quinn he was. How like Adie. She had an unexpected rush of maternal feeling for him, and sadness. Quinn had two children and she did not.

  The boy waved at her and she waved back. She descended the steep stairs and met him on the grass. He was tanned and barefoot. His hair was straggly, the tips bleached to a light brown. The thing on his shoulder was a cow’s skull.

  ‘What’s that?’ she asked.

  He spoke as if he knew her. ‘Oh, it’s from one of Clarrie’s cows. She died having a calf last year. It was too big.’ He cradled the skull in his arms. ‘They pulled the baby out with a rope. It was dead too.’ He ran his finger down the bony nose to the jagged tip. ‘See how big the holes for the nostrils are?’

  ‘Yes, I see that.’ His face was so like Adie’s. The same pointy chin, the same fine nose. He had a red star sticker in the middle of his forehead.

  He furrowed his brow at her. ‘Have you ever seen a quoll scat?’

  ‘What’s that?’ From the corner of her eye she saw Rachel lean on the verandah railing and look down at them.

  ‘Quoll poo.’

  ‘Oh. What’s a quoll? An animal?’

  He blinked at her, a smile spreading over his face. He sounded delighted. ‘Don’t you know what a quoll is?’

  ‘No.’ She smiled back. He had a transparency and openness about him that Adie didn’t have. She wondered if he’d known all along about his father’s two lives.

  ‘Well,’ he said. ‘I have some pictures I can show you. Come with me.’ He set off towards the house.

  She called after him. ‘You know, actually, I want to find my daughter. She’s here somewhere.’

  He looked over his shoulder. ‘What’s her name?’

  ‘Adie.’

  ‘Oh.’ He turned back to her. ‘Oh. She’s here?’

  ‘Yeah. She’s with . . . your dad.’

  ‘She’s with Daddy?’ He spoke quickly. ‘Where?’

  ‘I don’t know. I think they were looking for you.’

  He cupped his hands to his mouth and his high voice rang out. ‘Cooee!’

  A distant cooee came back. Then two more.

  Ned placed the skull gently on the grass and beckoned with his whole arm. ‘Come on. They’re down here. What’s your name?’

  Chapter Forty-six

  Quinn slashed his stick at the high grass and used his boots to flatten a path through the weedy orchard. Adie was right behind him. ‘So how many snakes are there?’ she asked.

  ‘Most of them aren’t poisonous, you know . . . but we just need to keep an eye out.’ He stopped by one of the bigger avocado trees. ‘This one?’

  ‘Okay.’ She slipped her sneakers off and he lifted her into the tree. She gripped the bark with her feet and clambered up, sure-footed, to straddle a high branch and look around her at the grove of fruit trees. She’d been carefully examining everything he showed her, every so often narrowing her eyes as if recording some important detail. She climbed higher up the tree and reached for a hanging avocado. ‘Something’s been eating them.’

  ‘Bats, probably.’ God, he missed her. He watched her gripping the branch with strong fingers and felt again the anguish of missing whole swathes of her life. And fear for how she would fit in here, into his other life, or whether she would even want to.

  ‘Are there mangoes?’

  ‘No. Mandarins, oranges . . . all sorts of citrus, pawpaw, kiwifruit . . .’ He couldn’t remember what other fruit trees there were, but she didn’t seem to be listening anyway. Chin up, she surveyed the orchard, the avocado in her hand. If he’d known she was coming he might be handling this better, helping her feel more at ease. Why on earth had Marianna not warned him they were coming?

  He heard a distant cooee. ‘That’s Ned,’ he said and cooeed back three times. ‘I just told him where to find us.’ He hoped that Ned hadn’t found Rachel and Marianna at the house.

  Adie looked in the direction of Ned’s voice and then down to the avocado in her hand. ‘It’s not ripe.’

  ‘No. But take it home. It’ll ripen. Want me to carry it?’ She dropped the hard fruit into his hand, then swung down and hung from the branch, her body dangling high above the ground. He stepped close to help her but she kicked at him, her foot banging his chest.

  ‘No, don’t,’ she said and dropped. She landed heavily, falling over into the long grass, and lay there for a moment on her back.

  ‘Ned will be here in a minute.’ In the distance a mower or chainsaw buzzed.

  She took his hand and pulled herself up. ‘I’m thirsty.’ She brushed grass seeds off her shorts.

  ‘Let’s go down to the waterhole. You can drink the water there.’

  ‘Will he still find us?’ She slipped her feet into her sneakers.

  ‘Yes. Let’s go.’ He wanted Ned and Adie to meet somewhere they could do something: play or swim
, be engaged but in a side-by-side way, not face on. Marianna had forced Adie and Rachel to meet head on. It could have been so much better.

  They reached the track. ‘You are always welcome to come here, you know,’ he said.

  ‘But when I ask to come, you say Not yet.’

  ‘You are welcome here. Always.’

  I want to sleep here tonight, with you and Mummy.’

  ‘Oh, Adie . . .’

  ‘I want to stay tonight.’ She stopped walking and her mouth wobbled. ‘Why does Ned get to sleep here with you and I don’t?’

  He squatted on the path. ‘Darling, I know you want things the way they were before. But things are different now. We’ll have a different-shaped family but just as much love as before.’

  ‘But you don’t love Mummy anymore. So there’s not as much love.’

  ‘I love you as much as ever and Mummy loves you as much as ever. Here, climb on my back.’ He wanted to get to the waterhole before Ned caught up with them.

  ‘I’ll race you. If I win, I can stay tonight.’

  They ran down the track, jumping down the rough steps that Rachel and Ned had built the year before. She was ahead of him, light on her feet, bounding over rocks and dips in the track. He was surprised how much power she had in those skinny legs. They ran along the narrow shaded section of the track then across a sunny clearing that the wallabies kept mown and at last down onto the rocky beach. He let her win.

  They stood looking at the oval waterhole, both of them breathing hard. The trees cast afternoon shadows over the water. She bent forward, hands on her knees. ‘It’s big,’ she panted.

  ‘And deep.’

  ‘Cooee!’ Ned was close.

  Quinn turned and called back.

  Ned and Marianna appeared from the bush, on the rougher, northern track that looped down through the rainforest. Ned was gesticulating as he explained something to her and stopped still when he saw Quinn and Adie. Then he marched over and stood right in front of Adie. ‘Hello,’ he said, the red sticker on his forehead shining.

  Adie nodded, still breathing heavily. ‘Hi.’

  They stood looking at each other, their faces so similar, so beloved to Quinn. They were undoubtedly brother and sister, and seeing them like that – unguarded, solemn, taking each other in – made Quinn’s heart want to burst.