by Helene Young
‘No. And both properties would be in better shape if he had. Look at Trethowan’s place.’
‘True. Which leads us back to what the hell’s going on? Mitch has always struck me as a straight up and down guy. Could Ivy really have given him money to put into this development?’
‘I just can’t see him asking for money. He’s no fool.’
‘Remind me again what happened to his wife?’
‘They divorced about ten years after they married. I don’t think she’s been back. Aaron, his son, comes back at holidays, there’s a couple of grandkids now too, but none of them are showing signs of wanting a life on the land. Maddie, his girl, loves the city, apparently. She’s settled with a girlfriend and according to Ivy hasn’t been back in years.’
‘And Mitch never remarried.’
‘It’s not easy to meet women out here, plus he had his dad still living with him until a couple of years ago. Can’t have been easy. His dad was renowned for being a hard man.’
‘His dad’s dead now, isn’t he?’
Felicity nodded. ‘He didn’t go quietly, from what Ivy said. Needed full-time care by the end. Must have been terrible for Mitch.’
‘Old age sucks. I still reckon the Japanese have the right idea. Your parents live with you right till they die. By then your own kids have grown up so you can move in with them.’
‘Ha. Ella might cope for a few weeks but I doubt Sean would like it very much.’ Felicity shuddered. ‘That won’t work for me, thanks.’
‘And yet here we are, in our middle age, doing that for Ivy.’
‘Ironic, isn’t it? Who’d have thought it.’
‘I was always glad that Dad went the way he did. Sure, it was hard for Ivy to find him like that, but he never had to languish in a nursing home, never had to wear incontinence pads, never had to suffer the indignity of being washed by a stranger. I don’t know how I’ll bear it.’
When Felicity didn’t reply, Georgina added, ‘Sorry to be so maudlin.’
‘No, no, don’t apologise. Maybe being a nurse means that level of care doesn’t scare me. It is what it is. I worry more about Mum falling here and dying alone. I couldn’t bear that. I’d feel like I’d failed her.’
‘You’ve come running every time she needed you. It’s her choice to stay here and not move into a retirement home.’
‘Is it really? Or has Ken taken that right away from her? Is it too much of a coincidence that I was leaving brochures around about suitable places, and making progress with her, then, out of the blue, she seems to have an empty bank account and no way of freeing up funds in Roseglen without involving Arran Downs? She had a couple of hundred thousand in her account last year. What happened to it?’
‘Is Ken really that conniving?’
‘I hope not, but . . .’
Georgina’s phoned chirped again and she checked the message. ‘Hopefully Dan will get here before you go tomorrow.’
‘I’ll be back in a week. How long’s he staying?’
‘Not sure. We’ve only caught up for the odd drink or meal in the last twenty years. Having him close for breakfast, lunch and dinner may be way too weird.’
Felicity laughed. ‘The way you two stayed friends is something of a miracle – but weird.’
‘Old friends are hard to come by. Like Mitch.’
‘We’ve been friends since we were toddlers.’
Georgina couldn’t miss the colour in Felicity’s cheeks.
‘And maybe something more?’
Felicity chewed her lip. ‘I’m really not interested in anything more, Georgie.’
‘But if you were? He’s always been good to Ivy. And he looked pretty keen tonight.’
‘He’s always been a gentleman. When he dropped me off at my car after lunch, he said he was sorry to hear about Todd. I had no idea what to say to that.’ Felicity struck a pose with her glass raised. ‘Thanks, Mitch. Todd decided he’d like to try a newer model, one that came with perky breasts and a flat stomach.’ She hurriedly downed her wine. Georgina reached out and touched her on the shoulder, surprised when her sister turned into her and wrapped both arms around her. Georgina had been air-kissing people European style for so long she’d forgotten the comfort of a full-on hug.
‘Todd was an arse,’ she told her sister. ‘You deserve better than that. I hope he catches an STD.’
Felicity shook in her arms and for a horrible moment Georgina thought she was crying, but she straightened and she saw Felicity was laughing.
‘Sometimes I think the embarrassment is worse than the divorce itself.’
‘No point in dwelling on it.’
‘No.’
‘So you’ll know about the new job before you come back?’
‘Hopefully I’ll know tomorrow, before I go. My leave’s approved so I won’t have technically resigned. That gives me an option if this doesn’t work out.’ She waved the wineglass at the front paddock. ‘If I’ve got the job, then I’ll pack as much as I can and see if Paula and Steph are still right to drive up with me.’
Georgina tried to ignore the shaft of jealousy. She had no right to think she could waltz back in and be her sister’s best friend and confidante. ‘Right. Yell if you need a hand.’
‘I’m just so grateful you’ll be here, Georgie. I can stop worrying about Ivy. The worst you two can do is to have a yelling match. And Ivy would probably love that.’
‘She had that “I love playing happy families” smile on her face tonight. And she was very well behaved when she was trounced.’
‘She’ll get her revenge next time.’
‘I’m sure she will.’ Georgina tossed back the last of her port and stood up. It was time for bed. ‘Anyway, the sooner we get the properties split, the sooner we can move forwards.’
Later, as she drew the long curtains and switched on the bedside lamp with its pretty chintz shade, Georgina couldn’t shake the feeling that she was missing something important about her mother’s financial situation. Between Ivy, Ken and Mitch, someone wasn’t telling the truth.
Ivy could hear every word. She might not like her hearing aids, but they did have occasional uses. And the girls had clearly forgotten the way the verandah funnelled voices around from the front of the house and through the side door to her room.
There was no point in Lissie or Georgina going after Mitch. He’d done nothing but help her out last year when she’d had her epiphany. The deal was done before she’d asked him to drive her to Cairns to finalise it. Little Dottie should be remembered and the house in Cairns was a fitting tribute to a woman who’d deserved to live.
And why was it anyone’s business but hers anyway? Felicity was right. She was the one who’d kept everything in line, found the money to pay the bills, kept the banks at bay and when Charlie went she’d decided she’d use her money to make amends.
If Ivy had known then that Ken might try to take Roseglen from her, she may have made different choices, but it was too late. She couldn’t ask for the money back. In a few months everyone would know what she’d done. She knew what the girls would say. Same thing the Denzells would say. That tidy sum would have gone a long way to keeping the properties afloat, to reducing the mortgage.
But she’d been frugal since the drought bit so hard, done without so many of the things that gave her joy. She’d even had to cut back on her charities. That left a bitter taste in her mouth. As a Christian, she had a responsibility to look after the less fortunate. Keeping Arran Downs afloat was a form of penance, she supposed. But no longer. Ken didn’t deserve the love that had been showered on him.
She could hear laughter. Felicity was trying to make light of her divorce. The silly girl still hadn’t worked out that it was the best thing to happen to her in thirty years. Unlike Georgina’s divorce.
Ivy would be glad of Dan’s company. How long could the truce between her and Georgina last? Before long Georgina would want to rearrange the furniture, tell her what to eat, and probably tell her how to run th
e property as well. Ivy stopped herself. She was grateful her daughter was here. She had to keep telling herself that.
Would Felicity have had the spine to do what she did in that meeting today without Georgina beside her? Ivy doubted it. Which reminded her . . .
She slipped out of bed. It was only a couple of steps to the wardrobe. She wouldn’t need her walker. Without slippers, the carpet felt coarse beneath her feet. It used to feel soft, but that was when she spent her days in Blundstone boots and thick socks or high heels and stockings, depending on whether she was a grazier or a grazier’s wife.
She managed to open the blanket drawer at the bottom of the wardrobe. Her wooden writing compendium was too heavy to lift out so she opened the lid. The photographs were mainly black and white.
The first one was her wedding photo. She’d worn a dreadful little pillbox she thought was classy. She should have listened to her mother. Underneath that was the official photo of her in her WAAAF uniform. Blue serge, though of course the photo was tinted. They didn’t have much colour film in 1941. She liked that photo. She wasn’t a pretty girl, but there was optimism in her face and a smile that had been a long time coming. Ivy had started out as the third child of five and ended up the middle of three after that dreadful war. A beautiful older sister who could do no wrong, a cute-as-a-button younger sister and two older brothers she’d adored. How would her life have played out but for that war robbing her of her brothers? But then she wouldn’t have met Charlie, either.
Her mum never got over losing her sons. What mother does? Her dad was a difficult enough man before that. Ivy rummaged through the box and found the photo of the whole family, taken in 1938. She was in the front row, eyebrows straight, hair scraped flat. Next to her sisters, she looked plain. Thank goodness her friends in the WAAAF had taught her about make-up and hair styling, enough that she caught Charlie’s eye.
Her father was scowling. No surprises. She peered at her mother. Her mouth was a compressed line. She was a saint, deserved a medal, for putting up with what he did. Those days nobody spoke of it, but today it would be called what it was: domestic violence. Her mother had cried when her husband died, but Ivy was sure they were tears of relief. Her mother had lived so much of her life at the beck and call of a bully.
She picked up another photo, deliberately redirecting her thoughts. It was of Ken and Georgina at Felicity’s christening. They’d looked so smart and grown up, yet they fought like cats and dogs in the car on the way home. Ivy had Felicity on her lap and by the time they’d arrived back at Roseglen Georgina had drawn blood on her brother’s cheek. Ivy couldn’t remember what they were fighting over, but Georgina was banished to her room for the rest of the day.
She delved a little deeper into the box and there was Felicity with her arm in a cast, proudly sporting signatures. She had the gap-toothed smile of a ten-year-old and suntan from summer holidays. That was the year she convinced Ken to take her to the caves for a swim and Mitch ended up bringing her home on his horse. Ivy never did get to the bottom of that. Or why Mitch attacked Ken and ended up with a bloodied nose himself. Lucky Charlie never found out, but Felicity was distraught for days. She remembered Ken being so impatient with Lissie and telling her to grow up. He was in his final year of uni and home for holidays. The wet season had trapped them all that summer and tempers frayed.
Ivy’s legs were starting to ache and she pushed the photos aside. Where was her notebook? She rifled deeper. It must be here. She touched a yellowing envelope at the bottom and her fingers felt as though they’d been scalded. She piled the photos on top again and the notebook dropped to the floor.
She struggled to bend down and retrieve it, then shuffled back to bed and leafed through it. When she’d finished, she stared at the ornate carving around the top of the wardrobe. She was glad she’d written everything down. Mitch will know what to do with the notebook when the time comes, she thought. It’ll be in safe hands with him.
It would be sensible to go into partnership with Mitch, but Felicity should make that decision herself. Once she was here, settled, Ivy would tell her about the proposal. If anyone could turn the property around, it would be her. Ken was going to fight tooth and nail. She needed to nip that in the bud, pull the rug out from beneath him now she’d found her strength again. And they only needed rain to start the recovery. She’d be glad when Felicity wasn’t flying to and fro and having to do that long drive. Too many dangers on that road. No one was immune from being taken too soon.
She thought about Ken and Mitch’s longstanding animosity. Ken didn’t think it was appropriate that the lad spent so much time at Roseglen. And he’d never approved of the friendship between Mitch and Lissie. Funny how he’d always thought the Dunmores were a cut above the rest of the district, and particularly their hardworking neighbours. He’d scoffed at Ivy’s belief that you could have status in the community without having to proclaim it on every occasion.
Still, the community voted for him and he did serve them well. Until Charlie died. She circled back to her previous thought as she tucked the notebook into the drawer of her bedside table. Mitch was always wary around Ken. She searched her memory. Was Mitch there for any of the explosive arguments? She didn’t think he was. Ken was very good at protecting his image.
Sinbad stirred at the foot of the bed and padded up to curl against her, watching with those inscrutable eyes. Ivy turned. She straightened Charlie’s photo and reached to touch his watch. There was only empty space. She propped herself up and shifted the book she’d been reading, slid the tube of hand cream aside. It must be there. She moved a little closer. Perhaps she’d knocked it onto the floor when she’d opened the drawer.
She heard the toilet flush. The tread on the floor was quiet.
‘Lissie,’ she called, not wanting to disturb Georgina. ‘Lissie?’
‘You okay?’ Felicity pushed open the door. The pyjamas she was wearing had seen better days.
‘Dear, can you check the floor? Your father’s watch must have dropped down behind.’ Ivy gestured at the table.
‘Sure.’ Felicity crouched, patting behind the small furniture, around the side and finally underneath. ‘Anywhere else you might have had it?’ she asked, continuing to search, pulling the table away from the wall.
‘No, it’s spent every night there since I bought it for him.’
‘When I was born,’ Felicity said with a quick smile. ‘It’s the Rolex?’
‘Of course.’
‘I can’t see it. Let’s have a better look in daylight. It can’t have gone far.’
‘You’re right,’ Ivy said. So why was she so terrified that it had vanished too?
‘Night, Mum,’ she reached down and hugged Ivy, rocking her slightly. It was astounding that the comfort from something so small could be so immense. ‘Would you like me to turn out the light?’
‘Please,’ Ivy replied. Felicity closed the door softly behind her and the darkness surrounded Ivy, accusing her. She was a silly old woman jumping at shadows. They’d find the watch in the morning and all would be well. She was sure of it.
Georgina found her rhythm after the first kilometre. She’d woken restless and on edge and laced on her shoes before the sun had tipped the ridge behind the homestead in gold. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to work out why she was nervous. The only man she may ever have loved was turning up to camp in the back paddock.
How long did he plan on staying? Would he expect to eat with them? Leave his laundry soaking in the old stone tubs? Would she have to entertain him?
The old-fashioned idea of ‘entertaining’ a man made her laugh out loud. Talking on the phone and having boozy lunches from time to time was entirely different from living under the same roof or in the same backyard, even if the yard was a few thousand square kilometres.
He’d sent photos of the caravan when he first bought it, but it was not her cup of tea. If she wasn’t sleeping in a five-star hotel, then she was very happy to roll out her swag and rough it
. What she wasn’t prepared to do was be cooped up in a mass-produced box of fibreglass, living cheek-by-jowl with a bunch of boomers, no matter how interesting they might be, in van parks with shared ablution blocks. Either camp properly or don’t do it at all.
She’d got that from Charlie, not her mother. Ivy hadn’t been into the rougher side of country living. She loved her gracious homestead, her pressed linens and her permanently smouldering Aga. The year she’d had to step in when the mustering cook tripped and broke a leg, the ringers had dined like kings. But Ivy had refused to sleep in a swag on the ground and had ended up on an air mattress in the back of a ute.
A car drove up behind Georgie and she headed onto the grass verge. It passed her in a cloud of dust, with a toot, an arm waving out the driver’s window. Mitch. She coughed to clear the taste of the dust from her mouth. Everywhere she looked drought had stamped its mark. Hillsides, empty of stock, were dotted with trees whose bare silver branches reached towards a pitiless sun. She could see the telltale signs of dieback as limbs were sacrificed to save the tree. Gum trees weren’t called widow-makers for nothing. She remembered a jackaroo being injured one year when a limb fell on him without warning.
Unless they had winter rain, the first of the summer storms would bring lightning strikes and the wildfires would devour everything, leaving blackened earth and devastation. Too many years without rain, too many seasons without relief. Too many towns crumbling under the weight of it.
Not for the first time she had a twinge of guilt. If she cashed in one of her investments, she could bankroll Roseglen. If it was just for Ivy, she would have done it in a heartbeat. But propping up Ken? Not a chance.
The lazy little shit never worked from sun up to sun down for a day in his life. For him, working was walking around with a phone plugged to his ear. ‘Networking’, he called it. Bullshit. It was grandstanding and she had no time for it. Or him. It wasn’t about the lack of love she’d felt in the family. It was to do with the fact that Ken had deceived everyone and lied to his mother. He’d taken the very money that had been put aside for Ivy’s retirement and squandered it on his own personal ventures.