Check out the miracle that would solve all her problems in an instant? ‘No, of course it isn’t.’ The smile twitching the solicitor’s thin lips brought her to the edge of her chair. ‘Wait—where is this property?’
‘Ah, well, that is one of the interesting factors. It’s on the edge of the wheat belt in South Australia. Reasonably marginal farming land, I believe, large properties for mediocre return. Though I have the documentation of the yields, I can’t pretend the information means much to me. However, Matthew Krueger will be able to assist you with that.’
‘Hang on.’ Roni half rose, curling one leg on the seat beneath her. ‘Wait up. South Australia? But I can’t go there—it’s two thousand kilometres or something ridiculous, right?’ Well out of both her comfort zone and her financial means. ‘My job is here. My life is here. And who is Matthew Krueger?’
The solicitor waved the envelope. ‘Your aunt left a sum of money, which I am to disburse. She stipulated it was to be used for fares to South Australia and expenses for an extended stay. And Mr Krueger is the farmer who maintains your aunt’s property. Well, your property, if all the requirements are met.’
Rafe had set her up. She glanced around for a hidden camera, her gaze sweeping the gleaming black bookcase behind the solicitor’s plush leather chair, the framed certificates and hand-blown glass ornaments, artfully spaced, one to each shelf. The ceiling-to-floor window looked across the city to the Opera House, beyond which an airliner skimmed the blue horizon like a child’s toy.
Rafe couldn’t afford this prank.
So, both her aunt and the solicitor were barking. No way would she give up her apartment, her job, pretty much everything she knew, to trust her existence to an undisclosed sum of money from an unknown person. She hadn’t worked so damned hard to take control of her life only to give it up now. ‘This is ridiculous.’ Her cup screeched across the desk and she made to rise.
Stopped.
Damn. How the hell could she take a stand when she was ankle-deep in quicksand? Single, pregnant and practically homeless, in truth only her minimum-wage job tied her to Sydney. That and a need to remain within her comfort zone. Everything about Sydney was familiar. The sights, the sounds, the smells, the people. The dichotomy of overt consumerism and poverty, the well-heeled and beggars sharing the same streets, the ugliness of the back alleys and beauty of the harbour. That familiarity promised a degree of safety. Yet she was trapped by circumstance and income, forced to consider the solicitor’s mad proposal.
That her unknown aunt could so easily control her through the promise of money was infuriating and humiliating, but she couldn’t afford pride. Greg was gone, her apartment would soon be gone and, once Rafe heard about the baby, her job would go too. If her aunt wanted to fund her while she arranged to sell the property, she was in no position to argue. Her eyes were now glued to the envelope in the solicitor’s hand. It was inconceivable the little packet held enough money to pry her from the security of her routine. To change her life.
It didn’t.
Prescott took a silver letter opener from his drawer and slit the package, pouring the contents onto the desk. Several sets of keys on various fobs; a copper initial M, an estate agent’s promotional plastic tag, a Toyota key ring. And another envelope, her name written across it in spiky yet elegant lettering.
Prescott pushed it toward her. ‘So, Veronica, would you like me to book your airline tickets?’
Chapter Five
Dear Veronica,
I owe you an apology for the manner of our meeting, although I must point out you have the best of the deal; if you’re reading this, you’re alive and I’m dead.
I can’t imagine what it’s like to receive a letter from someone who’s dead, but there you have it. In fact, I’m not certain even which tense I should use to construct this missive. Do I write in the present, as though I’m speaking with you, or do I adopt a sonorous voice full of wisdom from beyond the grave? Seems there is no instruction manual for this.
Anyway, to our meeting—or lack thereof. Due to circumstances I could not control—and you have no idea how much admitting that such a thing can happen irritates me!—I was unable to be a part of your life while I was alive. I shall endeavour to explain why such circumspection was necessary, although before I do so, I must try to yet again persuade myself it was the right course.
Had I been allowed contact I would have wished to guide you, perhaps provide an additional perspective you might have been missing. In fact, as Derek Prescott, my solicitor and lifelong friend, has no doubt by now explained, I made tiny overtures into your life where I thought I could safely do so without breaching promises I had made. It seems I was never discovered, either by you or by those who forced me to keep the secret. Yet even now, safely dead, if there is such a thing, I’m uncertain how much of the story is mine to tell.
Perhaps I shall invoke the unfairness of my premature passage as my right to share with you what I wish. My disclosure can be the final grand tantrum of a spoilt woman accustomed to getting her way. In truth, you are one of only two things I’ve been forced to keep hidden in my life, and I rather fear the resentment from harbouring these secrets has broken me. Perhaps now I shall shatter the trust because, though I know it cowardly, the repercussions can no longer affect me. Whether I go up or down, this is one journey on which my sister will not hound me.
My second apology is for the manner in which I explain the circumstances of your inheritance. I’m unsure whether this one-sided storytelling makes the recitation easier, or if I would have welcomed questions to prompt me. However, I did discover long ago that a cup of tea and a lamington ease every disclosure—although the cake tends to have an adverse effect on closure when it comes to one’s clothing!
As Derek will eventually inform you of the legalities and financial convolutions, I shall endeavour to supply the hard facts. Except hard is precisely what they are. Hard to relay, even this long after the event.
See, I ramble like an old woman, yet I’m not. I only recently turned sixty-nine, but the doctors threaten I’ll be fortunate to see seventy, a possibility that leaves me melancholy as I sit on the verandah, gazing out across this land that I so love. With the bees searching through the lavender bushes and the heads on the roses so full they droop with soporific beauty, it hurts to look beyond at the gum trees bordering the home paddock, wondering if I’ll see the delicate pink-and-red ballerina tutus of their spring flowering one more time. It saddens me to imagine that perhaps the lamb in the wooden crate at my feet, his chin damp with dribbled milk, the tip of his tiny pink tongue twitching as though he suckles in his sleep, may be the last one I will ever bottle-raise.
Perhaps I’ll survive spring, hazed by the fluffy yellow balls of wattle pollen, and live until summer to smell the air heavy with sweet hay and wild honey. Or, at the most extreme end of my wishes, dare I hope to once more witness the magnificent forty-year flood? The floods actually occur every three-or-so years now, so surely that’s not such a big ask? Maybe there is something in all this talk of climate change, though it now seems I shall never find out.
Despite knowing me better than most, even Derek was bemused by my desire to stay on the land after I was diagnosed and advised by doctors to move to the city to seek regular treatment. Treatment for what, I asked? Once cancer has slithered her evil black tentacles into your spirit, twisting and winding through your vital organs, life can be measured in minutes. More for some, less for others. But minutes, nonetheless. So I choose to enjoy those minutes where I feel at peace, instead of being made miserable by chasing extra time that would only be squandered wishing I were at home.
Anyway, I digress and still I’ve not started on your story. Yes, I’m procrastinating, reluctant to recall the events that led to your birth. But that is foolish, as it is neither your birth nor even your conception that I regret. My remorse is for the manner in which I behaved both before and after the event.
Regardless, I’m going to pause for
a moment and brew a cup of tea. Liberate another of the lamingtons Tracey brings me by the dozen each week. That’s the sole benefit to this god-awful disease, but one no one likes to mention, as though we can’t admit there’s actually an upside; there’s no longer any point in counting calories, is there? Wonderful as that is, it does make me question the decades of denial, the abstinence that took so many forms. And to what end? Our human commonality, it seems, is that we all must die, regardless of how we have lived our lives.
I’m back. I did consider bringing two lamingtons and pretending one was for you. But though I would happily eat both, Tracey won’t bring more until after the CWA meeting on Friday. Rationed! How harsh can this life be?
I have wolfed my cake, licked my fingers clean, and now must put my feet up on the wooden box where the lamb sleeps, or the bull ants will make off with my toes, along with the desiccated coconut they’re foraging from the floor.
The lamb’s name, by the way, is Goat. I know, graziers should never name their animals. I drive Matt, the sharefarmer, quite mad. Each time I rescue one of the orphaned lambs, I insist he keep it separate from the flock, to be used for wool only, and never mixed with the animals that must be sent to the abattoir or butchered for our own use. Matt keeps telling me that if I live much longer we’ll be imbalanced, producing too much wool and not enough meat.
All right, onward. Doubtless it will be an understatement to say you must be wondering why I chose to leave my estate to you.
My parents had only two daughters; in fact, for twenty-three years, they had only one. Then Denise, your mother, came along. Our mother liked to refer to her as a miracle, though that was probably because she didn’t care to admit she still had relations with Dad at a quite unseemly age.
I prefer to think of Denise as an accident.
My father—well, no one would ever know what he thought, unless it were about stock or crops. A man of few words, he could nevertheless share his intent with the steeliest of grey glares you could ever fear to witness.
I admit I was glad he had little time for Denise. She was useless to him; a snotty, squalling baby, then a whiny child underfoot. Undeniably a girl, afraid of getting her hands—or feet—dirty, she would rarely be in the farmyard. It would paint a nice picture to say she spent her time with Mum instead, but if I am to be honest—which I have learned, somewhat belatedly, to be the best policy—once she hit fourteen she spent her time chasing anything in trousers.
I, on the other hand, delighted in helping Dad. It suited both my deep love for the property and my avoidance of anything that hinted at that dreaded horizontal tango. Yes, I mean sex. You no doubt use the word comfortably, but I prefer the euphemism—particularly fitting, as I also refused to dance.
With no sons, Dad made it clear, in his largely nonverbal fashion, that he needed someone to run the farm. It has been in our family for one hundred and fifty years and he didn’t intend to see the property change hands, much less have the owners’ name changed. He settled on leaving the farm to me, to pass to my children, providing I kept the family name.
So eventually, at thirty-seven, and after years of delaying, I accepted a proposal of marriage. Not that I’d been waiting to be swept off my feet by some grand passion, but rather I was hiding from the fear that perhaps I could never love a man. In that regard, I was correct; I could never love a man, not as a husband, though I have many male friends. However, I foolishly believed that by marrying I would learn to fit with a man as a woman should.
I didn’t.
But I needed to secure the farm, and Andrew was happy to have a wife who was—barely—young enough to bear children, and who brought money, land and, almost as importantly, a pair of willing hands to work the properties. It has become increasingly difficult to source farm labour as the young men move to the city in search of an easier lifestyle, with an income unaffected by the caprices of our climate. This is why Matt Krueger has become invaluable to me over the years.
Obviously, there were certain problems inherent in my father’s stipulation that I should provide the next generation of Nelsons, but it was hardly something I could discuss with him. Despite more than two thousand years of rumours of immaculate conceptions and virgin births, I was wise enough to realise they would be unlikely to apply to me. I would never conceive a child of my own. But I was desperate to continue the heritage of the property, to retain the bloodline that ties the Nelson family to this land.
This is where you enter the story. But although I had planned to share all the family secrets in this letter, I think perhaps that will burden you with too much information, so those details can wait until a later conversation. Instead, we’ll skip to the present. Your present, given that I am now the past.
The problem is, although I like to pretend to know you, I don’t. Are you someone who will appreciate the gift of this property I have so loved, or will you see it only for the financial benefit it can bring? I realise this shouldn’t matter to me, because I will be feeding the worms by the time you inherit. Actually, I’m not sure that’s right. How long does it take for insects to crawl into a coffin? Or do they wait for it to decay? Morbid thought.
Anyway, before this inheritance can proceed, I need to know if you have any love for the property. Derek has been directed to provide you fare to travel to Peppertree Crossing. I wish you a safe journey.
Your aunt,
Marian
Chapter Six
The plane lurched in what Roni assumed was a pocket of turbulence. She could only hope that the sedatives that had made Scritches weave around his pet carrier like a drunk meant he wouldn’t feel the bumps in the bowels of the aircraft.
The slight crinkle of paper as she squeezed the pocket of her cotton jacket was reassuring. She had reread Marian’s letter countless times over the last week, trying to make sense of it. Although the woman’s deep affection for the property came through in her writing, Roni kept returning to the same question: why did it matter whether she also loved it? As Marian suspected, she would sell it as quickly as possible to return to Sydney and continue her life.
Such as it was. Rafe said he would hold her job for a while—obviously he also liked familiarity. But she hadn’t yet told him about her pregnancy.
Greg had been sorted with a text message, telling him to pick up his Xbox and TV. Of course, getting his physical possessions out of her life didn’t truly terminate her involvement with him; at some stage, she would have to let him know about the baby. But she had months to worry about how to do that. With a call to the power company to arrange disconnection, another to the estate agent to let them know the keys would be locked inside the flat, and a stack of books piled near the front door, ready to haul back to the library an armful at a time over the course of the week, her life in Sydney had been erased. Proving she’d never been of any importance.
The plane lurched again and she gasped, gripping the arm rest. The woman alongside patted her hand. ‘First time up?’
She nodded, her mouth suddenly dry. Taking off had been bad enough. She wasn’t looking forward to landing, but at least the ground was safe and familiar.
‘Get yourself a glass of wine,’ the woman advised. ‘That always does the trick for me. Had a couple before we even took off.’
Great, one of the few times she would actually like a drink, and she couldn’t. Wouldn’t. Her baby would have every advantage she could provide. The letter had fuelled a dream, a hope that she would be able to provide a future for the baby and for Scritches.
That wasn’t the only dream it had awoken, though; the knowledge that she was flying toward her mother was unavoidable, even though she tried not to dwell on it. She drummed her fingertips on her faded jeans, thinking. The letter was bizarre, not only in terms of her unexpected inheritance but Marian’s preoccupation with secrets and promises. Roni could only assume that her mother, Denise, had been a teenager when she fell pregnant. Possibly, given Marian’s cloak-and-dagger routine, she had also been unmarried. B
ut surely, less than three decades ago, being a single mother hadn’t carried much more of a stigma than it did now? A frown creased her forehead and she stroked her belly.
‘Queasy?’ her companion said with a nod at her hand. ‘Here’s the trolley now.’ She dragged on the headrest of the seat in front to heft herself up so she could catch the cabin crew member’s attention. ‘Two chardies, please.’
‘Oh, not for me. Thanks, though.’ Roni glanced up at the flight attendant. ‘Do you have the time?’ She wasn’t game to turn on her phone, even in flight mode. She wasn’t going to be responsible for making the plane go down.
‘Certainly.’ The attendant glanced at her wrist. ‘It’s two fifty-nine. We’ve crossed onto Central time, now.’ She nodded at the other passenger. ‘I’ll be back with your chardonnay in a moment, ma’am. Final service for this flight as we’ll commence our descent shortly.’
The woman alongside tilted her chin at the envelope Roni tugged from her pocket. ‘You made that appear like a magician.’
Right now, that magician had stage fright.
After driving her to the airport—although she wasn’t sure whether it was because he suspected she wouldn’t go, or to be courteous—Derek Prescott had escorted Roni through the check-in procedure. As her flight was called and he ushered her toward an attendant standing near a ramp, he handed her an envelope. ‘Some reading material for the flight,’ he’d said. ‘I’ve arranged for a driver to collect you in Adelaide, so you won’t need to concern yourself with that end of the journey.’
Now Roni gnawed at her lip, staring at the envelope. She was running out of time to open it, but what if it changed everything? What if it proved the whole thing was a mistake, that Marian had her confused with someone else? She’d been stupid to allow herself to dream, to imagine, even for a few days, that maybe somebody actually cared about her existence.
The Farm at Peppertree Crossing Page 4