Three Gold Coins

by Josephine Moon

  ‘But can he milk?’

  ‘He’s no expert, but he gets the job done.’

  ‘Then it’s settled. Leave Lara to me.’

  36

  Sunny

  It was going to be one of those October days when the temperature soars into a dry heat that sears the grass brown. Sunny felt the need to get out of the house and to take the kids to the coast for the day, to play in the sand and splash in the waves, get an ice cream, gaze at endless blue sky and soak up the sun. There were several dog-friendly beaches up there to choose from, so Midnight could join them.

  ‘Do you want to come?’ she asked Eliza, shoving sunscreen into the pocket of the beach bag.

  Her mother sipped on her Moroccan mint tea, standing near the door to the front deck, morning sunlight falling across her in stripes from the louvre. ‘Maybe not. I’m not good with sand.’

  ‘Neither am I, these days. But the kids don’t seem to care if they’re smothered in it, have it packed in their swimmers and filling up their shoes. Pretty sure I was the same.’

  ‘You were.’

  ‘I wonder when we grow up and become so precious about sand.’

  Daisy and Hudson had finished breakfast long ago. They’d been up at the crack of dawn demanding pancakes, their Sunday morning ritual, and they’d scoffed them down and ran down the back stairs to play with Midnight. Daisy was coveting Lara’s granny flat, Sunny knew. Her daughter wanted to turn it into a little girl’s ‘she shed’. She’d be having high tea in there right now, pouring Midnight imaginary cups of tea.

  ‘Are you going to check out the business while you’re up there?’ Eliza asked.

  Sunny kept rolling up beach towels. ‘I might drive past and have a look.’

  ‘It’s a good job offer,’ Eliza said.

  ‘It is,’ Sunny admitted, putting the towels down and pulling out a dining chair to sit on. ‘I don’t know what to do. Part of me thinks I should take it to put some distance between us and Dave.’ She had the uneasy feeling, though, that if Dave wanted to find them he would do it no matter where she went. But it might buy them a little time, and according to Martha, time was their best asset. ‘If there are legal battles ahead, having a full-time income will obviously help pay the bills.’

  ‘What a bastard,’ Eliza muttered. ‘How dare he ruin your life and finances just because he can.’

  Sunny nodded.

  ‘But then what if your disappearing antagonises him into action?’ Eliza said, coming to join Sunny at the table.

  ‘It’s possible. He’s unpredictable. And with Lara out of his direct reach, I’m the next best thing.’

  They were both silent for a moment.

  ‘You should change your phone number,’ Eliza said.

  ‘I thought about that. But the absolute last thing we want to do is alarm Lara. We need her to stay away, but if I tell her about Dave she’ll either want to come home or she’ll be trapped over there without us to support her, and we both know she might have an episode of some sort. She has to believe that everything’s okay.’

  ‘Agreed.’ Eliza put her elbows on the table, her hands in prayer position under her nose. ‘You could tell Lara that you’ve changed phone plans and you got a great deal but you had to take a new number?’

  Sunny nodded. ‘That would work. But then if I did change my number and Dave couldn’t contact me, how will I know what he’s doing? If Martha is right and we need to play the mental game with Dave, shouldn’t I have some idea of what he’s doing?’

  Sunny thought back to that day six years ago. Lara turning up in a taxi at Sunny’s house in West End, a pale, disoriented mess, with nothing but the clothes on her back, without even enough money to pay the cab driver.

  Sunny’s urgent phone call to Eliza, who was in the middle of organising a lengthy and difficult diplomatic tour of Indonesia.

  The revelation of the pregnancy, and then the scan that revealed the twins.

  The confessions of Dave’s abuse.

  Lara’s terror that he would find her.

  The late flight to Sydney, back to one of Sunny’s old stomping grounds in Redfern, just the two sisters.

  Sunny’s life-changing decision to become a mother.

  Eliza flying down to visit them in the hospital, and her unexpectedly emotional outburst, which had surprised them all. Eliza, who had spent decades living with an erratic, unreliable husband who’d managed to disappear into the shadows, and whose entire career was founded on her ability to hold it together under pressure, was broken by the sight of two tiny babies swaddled tightly in bunny print sheets and matching yellow caps, sleeping with their faces turned to each other. Their band of musketeers had grown to five.

  Those babies would be heading to school next year.

  Sunny blinked rapidly. It felt as though it had all happened yesterday. ‘You know what?’ she said to her mother.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I think I should stay here with you.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because we’ve all been in this together from the start. We’ve survived and thrived, and breaking us apart and breaking us down is what Dave wants. It’s bad enough that Lara had to go. Besides, I don’t want to leave you here alone.’ She let her fears hang in the air, the words unspoken but the meaning clear to them both.

  ‘I am nervous,’ Eliza admitted. She shook her head, dismayed. ‘The past six years have been hard on you too. You’ve been beyond generous, and so strong. Few people could have done what you’ve done—you’ve held it all together for all of us.’

  Sunny felt embarrassed by her mother’s words, yet also proud. She had given up a lot, and she’d navigated tricky territory with Lara, and somehow they’d both grown stronger over the years. But she wasn’t too old to glow under her mother’s words of praise.

  ‘I wouldn’t change anything,’ she said. ‘I got two gorgeous children that I might not have ever had. Every mother’s life changes once her children arrive. I’ve just done what any mother would do. You didn’t get a dream ride of motherhood either.’

  Eliza’s eyes went bright and her mouth pinched downwards.

  ‘My time will come,’ Sunny said. ‘I’ll talk to Ari. Maybe he’ll hold the job for me a bit longer.’

  ‘You shouldn’t pass it up. This is your chance.’

  ‘I don’t think we only get one chance in life,’ Sunny said, with as much conviction as she could muster. ‘Right now, we just need to get Dave off our backs. Best case scenario, he gets bored and finds someone else to mess with. Until then, we have to stick together.’ Her tone was excessively confident, and she knew it. Dave had just learned he was the father of two children. For an abuser like him, that was pure gold.

  37

  Samuel

  Samuel needed to talk to Lara. He’d waited until she’d come home from Fiotti, weighed down with paper bags that rustled in a way that stirred joy inside him. Decades of paper bags, bringing delicious market foods into his home, had etched the sound into his psyche like the bell for Pavlov’s dogs. He waited until she’d settled into the kitchen before choosing his moment to explain what he needed her to do. Now here he was, suddenly feeling as though he should be wearing something more formal for such an important discussion, not his collared t-shirt and pilled trackpants.

  There was a wooden shelf above the stove that was crammed with decades-old trinkets he didn’t even recognise anymore. Lara had taken it all down and was singing as she wiped down the shelf with a wet cloth.

  ‘I can’t believe it’s taken me so long to get to this,’ she said cheerily, folding over the cloth to cover half an inch of gathered dust and wiping again.

  Samuel picked up a small figurine of a Dutch windmill that one of Assunta’s wealthy cousins had sent during a trip away. He tossed the windmill across the room in an arc and it landed neatly in the bin.

  ‘Wow! What a shot!’ Lara said, and held up her hand for a high five.

  Samuel felt his lips curve in a smile and clapped h
er hand, inordinately proud of himself for making the throw. At his age, any small triumph of a physical nature was rather thrilling.

  ‘You shouldn’t be cleaning; it’s your day off,’ he said, picking out a canister with a rooster on the front containing some type of herbal tea. His granddaughter Aimee must have brought it when she popped in for a surprise visit last year on her way from London to Spain. It had been a delightful few days and he’d been buoyed by her stay. Aimee was into herbal teas, green smoothies and positive thinking. She’d been a breath of fresh air.

  ‘I know.’ Lara lifted one shoulder helplessly. ‘But I actually like it here. It feels…I don’t know.’

  Like home? he wondered, an unexpected—and totally irrational—sense of hope rising inside him.

  He wrestled the lid back on the canister and threw it across the room too. It hit the stone wall and rebounded into the bin.

  ‘You’re on fire!’ she cheered.

  Samuel laughed, soaking up the praise.

  Lara stopped a moment to pull out her hairtie and rearrange her locks into a bun high on her head. Her skin was shiny with sweat. The oven was thrumming. ‘I didn’t mean to start a decluttering party,’ she said, indicating the pile of bric-a-brac she’d collected from the shelf. ‘I just wanted to clean it up a bit and make space for some things I bought today.’

  He looked curiously over to where her market bags were standing on the kitchen table. She followed his gaze and went over to them, opening one bag and pulling out some Fido glass jars with rubber seals and metal hinges.

  ‘I wanted to get some Tuscan herbs.’ She placed the jars on the kitchen bench and dived back into the bags for an array of dried botanicals. ‘I’m trying to improve my cooking while I’m here, learn to make some authentic regional dishes, and I wanted to do something nice for you for, you know, giving me a job and putting up with me,’ she said, self-deprecatingly. ‘I know I haven’t been all sunshine and cheer this past week.’

  Samuel considered Lara, a young woman hiding from something.

  ‘Whatever you’ve got cooking in there smells good,’ he said, suddenly hungry.

  ‘Spinach and ricotta cannelloni. I made the ricotta myself! Well, the goats helped,’ she said, hands on her hips, proud of herself.

  Samuel pulled out a chair from the table and eased himself down onto it. Lara began sorting her dried goods: oregano, sage, rosemary, chilli. He had all of those things growing in the garden, but he didn’t say as much.

  ‘Lara, I have a favour to ask,’ he said, his voice beginning quietly but gathering strength with each word.

  ‘Sure, what is it?’ she asked, pouring garlic flakes into a jar.

  ‘There is a man up north. His name’s Carlo. He is Assunta’s cousin, though they grew up as close as siblings and he was more like a brother to her, especially since she didn’t have any of her own. She was the oldest girl; her two younger sisters are gone now too.’ He paused, momentarily shocked at just how fast time went and how anyone could be taken away at any instant with no warning. He gathered himself and ploughed on. ‘I want you to go and see him.’

  Lara stopped pouring herbs and stared at him. ‘What, up to the north of Italy?’

  ‘Yes.’

  She gave him a bemused smile and wiped her hands on a tea towel, directing her full attention to him. ‘Why?’

  Samuel levered himself to the left so he could fish deep into the pocket of his pants to find the wine-coloured velvet box and put it on the table. ‘Because I want you to give him this.’

  Lara shook her head, confused, and reached out to touch the box. But he covered her hand with his before she could take it. ‘And I want you to tell him something.’

  Her eyes studied his face, serious now. He saw her swallow.

  ‘It’s a long story,’ Samuel said. ‘You might want to sit down.’

  38

  Lara

  Matteo had rented a small silver van. ‘Just in case I f-f-find a goat that needs to come home with us,’ he explained, lifting her bag onto the back seat for her.

  ‘You’re kidding,’ Lara said, unsure whether or not to believe him.

  Matteo merely gave her a cheeky smile and shrugged. You never know.

  He closed the door with a satisfying new-car-sound click and turned to face her. She squirmed under his direct gaze, remembering their night of almost-passion and the upsetting events afterwards, embarrassed that she’d not replied to his messages and now was heading on a road trip with him, something that was always an intimate experience, regardless of whether the other person was your mother, friend, lover or almost-sex-date.

  ‘I’m so sorry about how things ended the other n-night,’ Matteo said, thrusting his hands into the pockets of his cotton cargo pants.

  ‘Yes, me too,’ she said, genuinely sad.

  ‘Maybe we can be friends again?’

  ‘I would like that,’ she said. He looked hopeful and she was pierced with guilt. ‘I’m sorry,’ Lara added, wiping her damp palms down her hips. ‘I shouldn’t have ignored your messages. I just…’ She trailed off, feeling ridiculous, and also deceptive because of what she’d been hiding about her family situation. Also, his presence here in front of her, with the smell of wood smoke in his shirt, was distracting. Without a shadow of a doubt, she was still attracted to him.

  They climbed into the van and waved goodbye to Samuel and Henrik as their wheels bumped gently over the uneven surface of the driveway.

  ‘We’re going to have a great week,’ Matteo said. His huge grin made her smile too, giving her heart a kickstart. She wouldn’t forget seeing him with a gun. But Matteo wasn’t Leonard. These were entirely different circumstances. Sunny was right. It was just possible that he was the hero in the story after all.

  They’d been driving in comfortable silence for over an hour. Things were a bit too stiff and polite, but easing as the time went on and they were bound together on this journey, with their van wending its way over the magnificent Apennines towards Bologna. Lara was simultaneously soaking up the grandeur of the mountain range—the giant backbone of the country—while also feeling the weight of responsibility of the task Samuel had set her.

  ‘I’ll pay you your week’s wage as usual, since you are still working for me,’ he had said.

  ‘But shouldn’t you go and see Carlo yourself and tell him all this?’

  Samuel had simply gestured to his wrist and his legs, and Lara had cursed herself for suggesting it.

  ‘What about calling him, then? Surely he needs to hear this from you.’

  ‘He no longer speaks to me,’ Samuel said. ‘In that regard, he’s like all the others.’

  ‘Maybe if you posted this to him,’ she said, tapping the box, ‘then he’d speak to you.’

  ‘I can’t risk something this valuable getting lost in the mail.’

  ‘Courier?’

  Samuel shook his head firmly. ‘No. It must be delivered in person.’

  ‘Matteo, then?’ she pleaded. ‘He’s a blood relative.’

  Samuel had wiped a hand across his mouth. ‘He is,’ he conceded. ‘But he’s already defying the rest of his family to be in contact with me. I don’t want to burden him with this too.’

  Burden. That was a good word for it, Lara thought now, picturing the claret-coloured box tucked inside her bag on the back seat, thinking of the story she had to relay to Carlo.

  She pushed that thought away in favour of watching the world drift by outside her window. The road passed through many tunnels and they popped out the other side to be greeted by open yellow farmlands with flocks of sheep huddled under oak trees, or huge round bales of hay curing in the sunshine, or dense groves of olive trees clinging to sheer drops by the roadside. A stone house with curls of smoke serpentining into the sky. Ice blue lakes reflecting dazzling light. A lone cyclist resting on the side of the road, her water bottle in one hand and a map in the other. It was all wonderful, luring Lara into a place of calm and wonder.

  Then, Ma
tteo flung his hand towards her.

  She’d been so lost in her place of calm that his sudden gesture gave her a spike of adrenaline. She flinched, pulling herself towards the car door and turning her back to him as she buried her face in her hands.

  ‘Lara, what is wrong?’

  She uncovered her face, immediately mortified. ‘Oh, nothing, sorry!’ She looked up and took a breath.

  ‘I just needed water,’ Matteo explained, holding up the bottle, glancing at her quickly.

  ‘Yes, I know. Sorry. It was just a reflex. I was off in a daydream and got a fright, that’s all.’

  Matteo nodded slowly, but she could tell he knew there was more than she was saying.

  The thing was, Dave hadhit her. And not just during his messed-up sex games. Sometimes she lied to herself and pretended it hadn’t happened. But it had. She may have been able to block it from her mind, but her body still remembered.

  They had been in Bologna for half the day and the beautiful city had worked its magic on Lara, loosening the knots of tension in her body, easing the racing of her mind and heart. ‘I think I’m in love,’ she told Matteo, her words muffled as she gnawed on a rind of parmesan, determined to get every last sliver of cheese she could. The formaggio was smooth and creamy—another class entirely from any she’d ever eaten in Australia.

  Matteo leaned back in his chair and grinned across the table at her, his eyes catching the light from the flickering candles. Any residual awkwardness between them had all but disappeared during several hours of wonderful sightseeing on top of a red tourist bus, Matteo offering her the best seat.

  They saw the Basilica San Petronio, the light-filled, expansive Piazza Maggiore, Neptune’s fountain, and the University of Bologna—the oldest university in the world. They pottered about in the warren of backstreets filled with shops. There were fishmongers with huge white boxes of fish, lobsters, squid and prawns on ice, and fruit and vegetable sellers, and spice merchants. The colourscape in this city was different from the villages in Tuscany. Here the walls were muted orange or lemon, with blue shutters. Her heart was bursting with the beauty of this grand university town with its huge basilicas, its ancient towers, its kilometres of arched stone porticos that wove their way around the city, and its young and energetic vibe.