‘Mum,’ Tansy said, a little breathless from taking the stairs two at a time. She’d opened the front door cautiously, not knowing what to expect, and found Leo in the kitchen making vegemite and banana sandwiches (his favourite ever since he was a child). He’d waved cheerily as though nothing was wrong and said, ‘Your mum’s down the hall,’ through a mouthful of food, heading out to eat on the balcony.
‘Thanks.’
She went straight to her mother.
‘Hello, darling,’ Enid said, spinning her suitcase around so she could better access the shoes stuffed into the pocket under the lid.
‘Hi. What’s going on?’ Tansy reached for her and hugged her. Shoes still clutched in her hands, Enid didn’t say anything, so Tansy let her go and stared at her, waiting for a response.
‘I’m having a break,’ Enid began, carefully.
‘Okay.’
‘From your father,’ Enid clarified, sighing and dropping the shoes into the bottom of the walk-in wardrobe.
Tansy perched on the end of the bed. ‘Why?’
‘We’ve been arguing. A lot.’ Enid shrugged, as though this was an embarrassing thing to admit to her daughter. ‘And we came to the conclusion this morning that we needed a bit of time apart.’
Them too? ‘So, you’re separating?’ And coming to live with me?
‘No, no. We just need some space to clear our heads, see if we can sort things out without being so much in each other’s faces.’
‘Could you sit down for a moment? You’re making me dizzy.’
‘Oh, sorry.’ Enid flipped the suitcase lid closed and joined Tansy on the bed.
She could feel the heat coming from her mother’s body. Smell her Chanel. ‘What have you been fighting about?’ she asked, then sneezed as the perfume tickled her nose.
Her mother adjusted her weight distribution over her buttocks and kicked off her navy-blue Mary Jane shoes. ‘Church. Your father has decided that . . .’—her voice caught in her chest and she coughed lightly as though she’d breathed in a speck of dust—‘. . . he doesn’t want to go to church anymore.’
Tansy kept waiting for more, but nothing came. ‘Is that it?’
Enid looked at her sharply. ‘Isn’t that enough?’
Tansy wasn’t sure what to say. After what she’d just been through with Dougal, it seemed laughable. But she knew she needed to tread lightly, so she sprang off the bed and busied herself fussing with linen in the wardrobe, pulling out plush towels and bathmats and an extra sham for the bed as the nights had been getting cooler.
‘It’s not just that he doesn’t want to go to church,’ Enid went on, ‘though that’s upsetting enough. He says he’s lost faith.’ She whispered the last sentence as though it was a scandalous revelation.
‘Does he still believe in God?’ Tansy called from the ensuite, laying out guest soap on the basin.
‘He says he does.’
Tansy brightened and returned to the bedroom. ‘Well, there you go. It’s not all bad. It’s not like he’s renounced everything.’
‘You sound just like him,’ Enid said with dismay. ‘And I’m a member of the parish leaders council, for goodness’ sake, hand-chosen by Father Bryce himself. It’s beyond humiliating.’
Not knowing how best to be supportive at this time, Tansy decided to change the topic. She rubbed her mother’s upper back. ‘Has anyone made you a cuppa?’
Enid shook her head, biting back tears, all her resolve suddenly vanished, looking like an older woman than she was. Looking, well, frail wasn’t the word—her mother was far too stout for that—but beaten down, like well-travelled luggage.
‘Come out to the kitchen and I’ll put the kettle on,’ Tansy said, pulling gently on her mother’s arm to ease her off the bed. But Enid pulled back, halting Tansy and making her look at her.
‘Is it . . . I hope it’s okay for me to just drop in like this,’ she said with sudden vulnerability. Tansy felt a twang of fear and sadness.
‘Of course it is.’
‘It’s just that I didn’t want to ask Rose and Sam, they don’t have the space with all their lot. I think they’ve been somewhat stressed lately in the run-up to the school holidays. They’ve been obviously tetchy with each other, and last time I spoke to Rose she sounded awfully distracted and like everything was getting on top of her. You know how much she puts into the kids and their schooling, helping out in the classroom and doing tuckshop duty and after-school activities—’
‘Yes, I know,’ Tansy said, cutting her mother off. She’d tried to call Rose three times in the past two weeks and her sister hadn’t even bothered to reply with a text. Tansy wanted to be understanding—four children must be a lot of work—but it was irritating.
This time last year, she and Rose had been having a regular lunch date up here on the coast once a month. With her three older children at school and just Amy in tow—who was a dream to take out to cafes, happy with a colouring book and an iPad—Rose was free for the first time in Tansy’s adult life to be a true friend. (Did her sister count as a friend?) They’d talked about all sorts of things they’d never had time to discuss before, covering everything from fashion, movies and addictive television to Australia’s future and the ethics of stem cell research. But then the lunches had stopped, with no explanation as to why.
‘Anyway, I thought putting some distance between Finlay and me might do us good,’ her mother said, picking up the thread of her thoughts again. ‘And I knew you had the room, but if it’s too much—’
‘Stop. It’s fine. You’re always welcome. Come on; let’s get you a cuppa and get you settled. This will all work itself out soon enough,’ Tansy said, sounding far more certain than she felt. It was odd having a parent run away from home and land on your doorstep. It was supposed to be the other way around, wasn’t it? Your parents were always supposed to be there as the safety backup plan for when you screwed up your life and needed to start again, when you lost your job or were getting divorced.
Divorced. The idea made her dizzy.
She had no idea what would happen when she next spoke to Dougal. She might well need to flee back to Jordan and Katarina’s herself.
‘Where is Dougal?’ she asked, ushering Enid to the cream lounge suite, then rummaging in the kitchen.
‘He said he needed to pop out for a few things and that he’d pick up something for tonight’s dinner while he was out. That was a while ago. I’d say he’ll be back soon.’
Leo came in from the balcony, put his plate in the dishwasher and went to sit on the lounge chair opposite Enid’s.
‘We haven’t even had a chance to talk yet,’ Enid said to him, smiling. ‘How’s uni? Do you have a girlfriend? A job? You’re not into drugs, are you?’
Tansy rolled her eyes from above the jiggling teabag. But Leo just laughed. ‘I’ve missed you, Enid. It’s been too long since we’ve caught up,’ he said. ‘I might well ask you the same questions.’
Enid tittered. ‘Okay, but you go first.’
‘Uni is tedious. I’m thinking of leaving, actually.’
‘No, no, he’s not,’ Tansy jumped in, waving her arms. ‘He’s working towards his exams right now and then he’s having a holiday at the end of semester, and he’ll see how he feels after that. It’s plenty of time to think things through.’
So many people taking time to think things through. It was as if life had hit the pause button and was waiting for each of them to choose the next scene to go to.
‘Aren’t you nearly finished?’ Enid asked him, taking her tea from Tansy.
‘Yes,’ Tansy said, taking a seat next to Enid, glaring at Leo and willing him to stop talking. The last thing she needed was for her mother to blurt all this out to Dougal tonight.
‘I don’t see the point in spending a moment longer than I have to in the wrong place. All that’s doing is treading water and delaying starting my real life.’
Enid looked from Leo to Tansy’s stony face. ‘Oh.’ That was an unusually
restrained response from her mother.
‘If I wanted to, I could travel the whole world in the six months I would spend slowing dying in that final semester.’
Tansy couldn’t help herself. ‘Dying? Leo, you’ve loved that course. You’ve wanted to write since you were small. Be reasonable. Finish your degree and then go and do whatever you want to. Travel the world for two years, or twenty years, it doesn’t matter. But six months is nothing in the grand scheme of life.’
‘I can attest to that,’ Enid said. ‘Here I am at seventy-one and it’s all gone by so fast. Six months is a blip.’
‘Do you have regrets?’ Leo asked. ‘Things you’d do differently?’
Tansy expected her mother to fold her arms and close the blinds on the conversation. But she gazed off into the middle distance. ‘Yes,’ she conceded.
‘Like what?’ Tansy asked, genuinely fascinated.
‘Well, I think we all have regrets,’ Enid said evasively. ‘You wouldn’t be human if you didn’t. No one’s perfect and you can’t lead a perfect life, unfortunately, no matter how hard you try.’
Then she leaned forward and pointed her finger at Leo in a gesture that only senior people could get away with. ‘But finishing uni, if I’d been given the chance, that wouldn’t be one of them,’ she said sternly. ‘It simply wasn’t an option. I had to work, then I got married, spent my time building a home and raising Rose.’
Tansy arched a brow, registering that she hadn’t even existed for so much of her family’s history. Leo listened politely, but she could tell he wasn’t applying any of Enid’s advice to his own situation.
‘I couldn’t leave my husband and child to fend for themselves,’ Enid said.
Tansy sipped, thinking how much times had changed, how many more opportunities were open to women now. Still, the difficulties of child rearing persisted and did in fact continue to stop women doing what they wanted. ‘What would you have studied?’ she asked, her curiosity piqued.
‘History,’ Enid said, raising one shoulder sheepishly, embarrassed by her confession. ‘The Dark Ages especially.’
Tansy smiled. ‘I never knew that.’
But Enid turned the focus back to Leo. ‘So, next question. Do you have a girlfriend?’
‘No.’
‘Why not? Look at you. You’re a good-looking young man, kind and smart. I’d imagine you’d have girls falling at your feet.’
Leo shifted in his seat and tucked a foot up under the other thigh. Tansy waited, eager to hear his response. As his stepmother (and therefore not a friend), she always worried about asking him questions like that so directly, lest she be branded interfering or prying. But trust the step-grandmother to get straight to the point.
‘There was someone I liked. But she liked someone else.’
‘Oh, shame,’ Enid said, with genuine sympathy.
‘And is she together with that someone else now?’ Tansy asked.
‘No.’ Leo laughed. ‘Because he likes someone else.’
‘That sounds complicated,’ Enid said. ‘Okay then, what about drugs?’
‘No drugs. You?’
Enid squealed with joy. ‘No.’
‘Me neither,’ Tansy said. She checked the time—nearly midday. ‘The best we can do is scotch or a glass of wine.’
‘I’ll get the glasses,’ Leo said, jumping to his feet.
‘White, please,’ Enid said, looking far more jolly than she had in the bedroom earlier.
‘Me too,’ Tansy said. A glass of wine was exactly what was needed to quell the stress of the past twenty-four hours.
Ten minutes ago, Maria had been enjoying herself.
As well as her bees and the daily tending to the garden, her clutch of a dozen chooks provided much opportunity for peaceful meditation in motion. They were a motley crew of black Australorps, Rhode Island reds, a couple of ditzy-looking silkies and another couple of striking black and white Dorkings. She didn’t have a rooster, though. She delighted in their strutting and crowing, and thought they were handsome, but she didn’t appreciate their incessant hassling of the girls, and neither did she fancy eating fertilised eggs. It just didn’t seem right. Only a couple of cells in the egg, sure, but still it was a life just beginning, only to be fried or boiled.
She had a bucket of scraps for them today, crusts of toast, lettuce and silver beet, and quite a few mung beans that she’d sprouted herself, which the girls snatched up with glee. They ran to her the second they saw her coming, their tough, scaly feet making lovely swishing sounds across the green grass, murmuring and gibbering with excitement. Reddish-brown Poppy, with one top of a toe missing, always sounded offended, even when things were going her way. She stood on Maria’s boots and looked at her sideways, groaning as though in pain, which she wasn’t; it was just how she spoke. It always made Maria laugh.
But that was ten minutes ago. Because it was at that moment, when she was savouring the chooks’ company and relishing what a beautiful day it was, that the tranquil atmosphere split open as though heaven itself was being torn in half, with a wrenching, ear-splitting sound. Maria dropped the bucket of scraps and reflexively covered her head with both her hands, spinning at the same time to find the source of the commotion.
An enormous eucalypt was falling from the sky. It was the one that had stood behind White Tara and provided such lovely shade from the western sun. But not anymore. Now, it gathered momentum and paused not even a second as it smashed through the cabin, the earth trembling as it hit the ground.
Maria felt the blow in her body, and stumbled backwards as though winded.
The wooden boards of the cabin shattered as though they were nothing more than kindling and sprayed up in the air before raining down around the trunk. The upper branches extended into the centre of the clearing, knocking over the wishing well, its grey stones clattering as they fell.
The chooks scattered in terrified squawking zigzags. Maria clutched at the shirt on her chest, her mouth opening and closing, her heart pounding like a galloping mob of brumbies.
The sharp scent of eucalyptus flooded the air. The tree lay there, far bigger than it had ever looked while standing, a fallen giant who’d never get up again.
An entire hut had been destroyed in a matter of seconds, and the wishing well too, and the Haven was fully booked with guests for tomorrow. She couldn’t cancel them: the orphanage needed the money. It was Sunday; she was unlikely to be able to find anyone to come and remove the tree today. And even if she did, it wouldn’t solve the accommodation problem. Or the mess of the wishing well or the smashed hut.
Thank God that no one was in the hut.
She crept towards the tree and stood near it, gazing along the length of its body, touching its green leaves. How could this happen? How could a tree just suddenly fall from the sky?
Emotion overcame her and she knelt down to wait for it to pass. It was the fright; it had to be. Of course, she was in shock.
As much as Maria loved to be independent and self-sufficient, it was clear as day that this was too much to do on her own, even if she pulled in extra help from Petrice to manage the bookings. And Trav, great handyman that he was, wouldn’t be able to deal with this alone.
She rose to her feet and half walked and half ran back to the office, knowing she had to call someone. But who?
Tansy.
The thought came to her as though whispered by a friend standing nearby. Tansy—her energetic, enthusiastic niece who’d been offering to help in any way she could.
She flipped open her diary to the place at the back where she’d written down Tansy’s mobile phone number, and dialled it immediately. And as it rang, she had the new but not unpleasant sensation that she wasn’t alone in the world anymore.
13
Tansy took Maria’s phone call and excused herself, leaving Enid and Leo to continue catching up. She stepped out onto the balcony, closed the doors behind her, and leaned as far over the railings as possible to avoid being overheard.
‘No, no, please, go on. It’s been an eventful couple of days, culminating in my mother’s unannounced arrival. She’s here now.’
‘Oh.’ Maria was clearly taken aback.
‘It’s okay. I’ve stepped outside. I’m so pleased you’ve called,’ Tansy said, surprised but delighted to hear from her aunt. Now that she had Maria in her life, however tenuously, she wanted to keep her there. ‘You sound worried, or something. Is everything alright?’
Maria told her about the fallen tree, the smashed cabin and the twenty-four people arriving tomorrow morning for three days, a mix of adult carers and children with special needs coming on their first camp. Her voice wobbled as she stressed that she couldn’t let them down. ‘It’s so important for the parents to have this respite, and it’s important for the children that everything is calm and runs smoothly. I can’t cancel them. And the orphanage needs the booking fees. I just don’t know what to do.’
‘How many people did the white cabin hold?’ Tansy asked, an idea already forming in her mind.
‘Only two. Thank goodness it wasn’t one of the ones that hold six. But still, I simply don’t have any other beds. I could give up mine, of course, but there’d still be one short . . .’
‘You won’t need to do that. I have a plan,’ Tansy said, smiling.
‘You do?’
‘Yes. Just hold tight; I’m coming up there and I’ll be bringing reinforcements. We’ll sort out the accommodation and get rid of the tree and have it looking good again for tomorrow. Maybe not as perfect as it was, but it will be good enough, I promise.’
On the end of the line, Maria was silent for a moment, and Tansy could hear her making small swallowing and breathing noises.
‘We’ll be there as fast as we can.’
‘Thank you. I’m so grateful.’
Back inside, Tansy had only a split second to decide what to do. She always told the truth, but this? This news would be too much to drop on her mother all at once right now, just after she’d left her husband.
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