Yeah, sure. If it was truly up to her, she and Scritches would be on a plane back to Sydney.
Roni rubbed her forehead, gazing out over the yard and beyond, the kilometres of undulating green-grassed paddocks stretching to the far-distant horizon. No, she wouldn’t be going back to Sydney, because there was nothing there for her. Nothing but Greg, who still had to be told about his baby. Told so he could ignore it, like his other children.
She closed her eyes. ‘Baking it is, then. Do I have to make something specific?’ Like, packet-cake mix would be really good. Surely she had improved since her last attempt?
‘The lamington drive’s one of our Christmas fundraisers, but the competition to decide whose recipe will be used is judged next month. Mind, everyone still bakes to their own recipe, regardless of the winner. Who’s to know once the lamingtons are all packed up? But we never have any complaints.’
‘Lamingtons. Like these?’ She took a bite, the chocolate coating dissolving on her tongue. ‘This is incredible.’ Screw love, they were made with a touch of heaven.
Tracey looked pleased, nibbling her own cake. ‘Promise not to tell anyone, but I add a drop of orange essence to the sponge. Makes all the difference. It’s not so much that you can taste it but it freshens the cake and adds a tartness to counteract the chocolate dip. Anyway, once you’ve mastered the sponge, lamingtons are really not hard to make. Just a tad messy.’
Roni nodded, her mouth full. She knew all about messy. Messy summed up her life. ‘You tasted my bread yet you really think I can make these?’
‘Your aunt used to say anything’s possible if you make a plan. No, wait, that’s not right.’ Tracey held up a finger, bottle-blonde ringlets juddering as she shook her head, trying to work a memory free. ‘Wait, I have it. What she actually said is that an idea without a plan is no more than a dream. That’s what she’d tell your mum whenever she turned up here, wanting money to pursue one of her fantasies, which always revolved around chasing after some wealthy man.’
The fork fell from Roni’s nerveless fingers. ‘You know Denise?’
‘Small town, love. Of course I do.’
Chapter Sixteen
Scarred by her experiences with borrowed families, she’d long ago buried any dream of finding her parents, but since she’d spoken with Derek Prescott, the possibility of really belonging had dared to resurface.
Each day, the need to discover where she had come from had grown—like the child inside her, who would at least now know of its grandparents. She pressed a hand to her belly, as much to calm the baby she couldn’t yet feel as to settle her fluttering nerves.
‘I take it Denise hasn’t lobbed up here yet, then?’ Tracey quartered her lamington with the edge of a fork.
Roni glanced guiltily at her own plate, where only scattered shreds of coconut evidenced her greed. ‘No. Do you think she will?’
‘Unfortunately, yes.’
Roni watched Tracey carefully. ‘Why unfortunately?’
‘Knowing Marian, I doubt she held anything back in her letters. You know she and Denise were never close? And she told you about your father?’
Roni nodded, though her head jerked as the final sentence registered. All she knew of her father was that his identity seemed to be an even greater secret than her birth.
‘I must say, Marian saw more in that man than I ever did. Of course, she didn’t tell me the truth of the story for many years, but how she forgave him after what he did—’ Tracey sat up straighter and shook herself a little, like a disturbed bantam. ‘Anyway, water under the bridge, isn’t it, love? The fact is, she did forgive him. Denise, however, is an entirely different kettle of fish. She’s never taken any blame. Though, to be fair, a child can’t be held responsible for that kind of promiscuity. But you see, she never changed.’
Roni thrust up her hand. ‘Wait. Marian forgave who for what?’
Tracey waved her fork in circles, as though rewinding the conversation. ‘Forgave your father.’
Roni lifted one shoulder. ‘What was to forgive? He knocked my mum up. Shit happens.’ She sure knew that. ‘How was it any of Marian’s business?’
‘Oh. Oh, no,’ Tracey flustered, half rising. ‘Oh, I didn’t realise you didn’t know. Marian said she intended to tell you all the secrets.’
All the secrets? God, how many could there be?
‘Oh, I wonder …’ Tracey’s fingertips drummed agitatedly on her lips. ‘The letter … I have a letter for you from Marian, but I can’t remember when I was supposed to give it to you …’ She cast around the verandah as though either the letter or perhaps Marian would appear to exonerate her. ‘It’s at home.’
‘It’s okay. You can give me the letter later.’ She was torn between wanting the letter now and terror at the thought of what it might contain. ‘Maybe just tell me the secrets?’
Tracey shook her head adamantly, her cheeks flushed, though she sat back down. ‘Oh, no, I can’t tell you, it’s Marian’s secret. Well, hers and Denise’s and … Anyway, it’s not mine to share.’
‘Tell me more about my mother, then,’ Roni said. ‘Why do you say “unfortunately” she’ll visit?’
Tracey relaxed back into her seat. ‘Oh, yes, I can tell you about her. The way she and your aunt fought! Like oil and water, those two, you’d not think they shared the same parents. Though they didn’t so much share, from what I understand, as battle for them. Eventually, Marian accepted that Denise was their mother’s favourite and she gave up trying to find approval. She’d always been closer to her father, in any case. But that wasn’t enough for Denise. It seemed she wanted anything Marian had.’
Tracey traced a fingertip around the delicate rim of her teacup, shaking her head. ‘Truth to tell, they both had their faults. They were practically a generation apart, and Marian should have known better than to allow Denise’s constant taunts that she would live to take the property from Marian’s dead hands to get under her skin.’
‘No! She didn’t actually say that?’
‘I assure you, she said that and so much more. That’s why she’ll turn up here,’ Tracey rapped the tabletop, ‘like the proverbial bad penny. There was no love lost between those two. But you mustn’t blame Marian for that. Despite their differences, she would have been a sister to Denise if Denise had only let her. But Denise was determined to thwart Marian in every way she could, from—well, from things you’ll discover, to hiding you away, to trying to claim Peppertree Crossing, both then and now.’
Okay, maybe Denise did sound every bit as bad as Marian had made her out to be. Perhaps Roni needed to reassess her desire to provide her child with grandparents. ‘She’s contesting the will?’ That wasn’t going to make for any kind of happy family reunion.
‘I’m sure Marian has it tied up so carefully, Denise won’t have a leg to stand on. Not a sober one, anyway.’ Tracey dropped her gaze to her lamington, as though she feared she’d said too much.
Roni leaned forward. ‘Then why would she come here?’ ‘Well, you are her daughter, so it would be nice to think that may have a little bearing on it.’ Tracey flashed faded blue eyes up to Roni, regarded her solidly for a moment, then grasped her hands. ‘But promise me you won’t fall for her tricks. You’re her only child, but you also stand to be an exceedingly wealthy child. Wealthy enough to stir maternal affection within her frozen heart, I’ll warrant.’
Roni withdrew her hands. ‘It’s okay, I don’t fall easy.’ Or ever. ‘Tell me more about this CWA thing. When’s the meeting?’
Tracey clapped, her pink fingernails flashing in the sunlight creeping beneath the curved iron sheets. ‘Wonderful! There’s one Friday week. I’ll come by to get you so you can meet the girls. Well, most are old ducks, really, but there are a couple around your age. Taylor and Fiona. It’ll be nice for you to have some friends here.’
She wasn’t planning on sticking around long enough to need friends. In fact, twenty-nine years hadn’t been long enough for her to require anyone but Greg.
And she had been a long way from needing him.
Tracey’s revelations stayed with her, along with the promise to deliver the missing letter within the next few days. While she processed what she had learned, she turned her energies to clearing the remaining garden, tugging out tall, juicy weeds attached to odd-shaped, dark purple, lumpy roots.
Hands on hips, she surveyed the freshly churned earth. With the weeds pulled, the dark rectangles looked inviting—for a vegetable, anyway. Fencing the beds would be the perfect finishing touch and, thanks to her earlier reconnaissance, she had an idea of how to do it.
She dragged pallets from the sheds, hauled them up the yard, then spent the rest of the day trying to build an enclosure. It proved far harder than it had in her imagination, and Goat insisted on helping, either leaning against each pallet until it toppled or leaping on them to prove the instability of her structure.
Exhausted, she eventually gave up. It was probably safe, early in pregnancy, to work hard, but she didn’t want to take chances. Propping the pallets on one another, she would wire them together later. She headed back into the house, pretending not to hear the domino cracks as Goat destroyed her hard work.
The next morning she baked the loaf Tracey had helped her prepare. Hard, heavy and dry, it obviously was not feeling the love she had tried to direct toward it. Maybe because, busy in the yard, she’d let the dough rise for too long? She mixed another batch, left it on the windowsill, fed the starter and carried the failed loaf down to the chickens. Having survived their first experience of her cooking, they greeted her enthusiastically. Goat bleated piteously, leaning over the orchard fence to watch, so she retrieved a few chunks of bread from the ground and took them to him. He nuzzled into her hand, searching for more, and she took a little comfort in knowing she had plenty of mouths to hide her culinary disasters.
In the afternoon she cleaned the house and unpacked her three suitcases, hesitating only a moment before hanging her clothes in one of the massive closets.
Early in the evening she took a book from the library and curled under the light doona with Scritches. Her body ached, but it was a good ache, a sense of achievement, of physical labour that actually produced a result. She read for hours and slept better than she could have imagined.
By Thursday the fowl house haul was more mud than egg, and Roni knew she would have to do something about the coop. She’d not moved beyond the yard for five days, though, and first she wanted to explore a little further afield.
She picked her way across the cattle grid nearest the house, balancing carefully on each rung. Squeezing between the strands of the fence might have been easier, but she didn’t like the look of the barbed top-wire. Crows cawed raucously, strutting along the edge of the paddock as she followed the great sweep of driveway which circled the outer perimeter of the sheds. Solid stone, with neither doors nor windows on this side, the ten-metre high fortresses looked invincible, the labour required to erect them unimaginable.
As she reached the last shed, she pinched at her lips with one hand, shooing tiny flies with the other. She could strike out through the long, green crop toward one of the belts of scrub, but there was the risk of the snakes Krueger had mentioned. The driveway offered greater safety and less chance of getting lost, though it was a damn sight longer than it had seemed in the car; by the time she reached the dry creek bed parallel to the main road she was huffing.
She scaled the white-painted fence rail and straddled it, gazing back at the property. Her property. The crop willowed like an inland sea in the slight breeze, the hill behind the house dotted with dirty grey sheep. Sheep that Goat refused to acknowledge, never looking up at their strident calls.
A hawk keened above, and she tipped her head back to watch it spiral against the achingly blue sky. An inexplicable melancholy gripped her. What would her life be if she’d grown up in this freedom? What would it have been like to spend her childhood here? To gaze across endless paddocks, not another house in sight? To breathe deeply of air that hadn’t already been circulated through a million lungs?
As a child she would have explored the deep, tangled scrub the birds darted through, would have spent hours walking without facing the cold accusation of shop windows, embarrassed by the lack of money in her pocket. She would have had pets, every kind of animal she could name. And she would never have been inside a dark lounge room, with a TV throwing monsters onto the walls.
She dropped from the rail and wandered back over to the rock levy across the creek. Hands shoved into the pockets of her jeans, she frowned at the boulders that had rolled from the track and scattered across the sand. Another of her tasks. She sighed. Though Marian’s scheme made no sense, she couldn’t help but think of the whole not-looking-a-gift-horse-in-the-mouth thing. Plus, her anger would be better directed at the parents who’d dumped her. The mother she should want nothing to do with. Yet she had wandered the house, looking for photographs. Tracey had told the truth, though; Marian didn’t keep photos of people, only of animals. There was nothing in the house to tie Roni to her past, and nothing to help create her baby’s future.
So it was up to her to take care of that herself.
She raked her hair back into a ponytail, securing it with a band from around her wrist, then clambered down into the creek bed. Here she could see that cement drainpipes pierced the rocks on several levels, from one side of the bridge to the other.
She selected one of the smaller rocks and lifted it using a combination of a dead jerk to her knees, precariously balancing it there, then rolling it up her thighs. Then she stood like a gorilla, staring up at the bridge. It hadn’t seemed particularly high two minutes ago, but from here it was well over two metres. There was no way she could lift the rock, the only way to get it up there was to somehow scramble up the side of the creek carrying it. Maybe she shouldn’t have shut Krueger down when he offered to help. His height, not to mention muscle, would have been a godsend. But why had he offered? If he had half a brain he could give her an instant fail on the task.
Cursing, she thanked the state care system for her extracurricular education in profanity. She needed all those forbidden words right now. She staggered a few steps, then lowered the rock onto the sandy bank. Hefted it and staggered a few more. Her knees jelly, her sneakers slid on the treacherous slope. Maybe if she put the rock down and shoved it up the side?
The rock ploughed into the sand, then refused to budge.
Sweat poured down her face, pooling between her breasts by the time she got the boulder to the path and placed it among the others. Swiping aside the wisps of hair stuck across her cheeks, she surveyed her achievement.
The bridge looked no different than it had a litre of sweat ago—but her hands did. Her already short nails were scratched and splintered, the base of her thumb grazed. She frowned at the rocks in the creek bed. Dozens of them. Maybe hundreds. Marian’s tasks weren’t only mad, they were impossible.
Still, with the rain months away, maybe Krueger would forget about the bridge. In the meantime, she needed to head home and concentrate on the jobs that were actually achievable.
No, not home. This property was nothing but a meal ticket.
Lunch and a cup of tea made everything seem a little better. She pushed her plate aside as Scritches, who had long since finished his food, sat staring at her with all the wide-eyed pathos he could muster.
‘Okay, Scritch, how about some Vitamin D?’ The tasks could wait. She had no rent to pay, no bills to fund, so why rush? With no trains, no buses and no work, her deadlines were self-imposed.
Actually, there was plenty of work. But, with a tangible outcome—feeding the chickens to collect eggs for the CWA, pulling weeds so she could plant vegetables—the chores were more … fulfilling than working in the takeaway shop. She nodded decisively. She would damn well tackle that bridge again, to prove it couldn’t beat her. But maybe only a rock or two a day, though, so the baby would be safe.
She refused to do the math on how many d
ays that added up to.
Scritches rushed to the pond as she took her seat nearby. He sniffed around, then patted a timid paw at the water to see if the fish were better behaved today. It didn’t take him long to decide that exploring the small courtyard was exhausting, and he curled in the sunshine near her feet.
He looked so content, and he’d been denied freedom for so long. For his whole life, in fact, much like her.
Careful not to disturb him, she went inside to retrieve her book. What did it matter if she spent an hour reading in the sun? Completing her tasks would take a little longer than the schedule she’d set, but still not ten years’ worth of long.
An hour became several, and she was halfway through the book before Scritches yawned and stretched to his full sixty centimetres, from crooked tail-tip to banged-up nose.
‘About time you woke.’ Roni also stretched, her backside numb from her perch on the rock, though she’d been too absorbed to notice. ‘Time for you to go safely inside and for me to earn our keep.’
For nearly a decade ‘our’ had meant her and Scritches, and she had never wanted more than that. Now she pulled up her shirt and ran her fingertips over her belly. Unsurprisingly, Marian’s library hadn’t yielded any books on pregnancy. Not human pregnancy, anyway, though if she were about to lamb, she was pretty up there with all the info. Tomorrow, finally, she would head into town, where among other errands she would find a public library and borrow some books. Something with pictures, although she could already imagine her baby, tinier than the Polly Pocket doll she’d had when she was five, curled safely within her.
She would also pick up seedlings for the garden and, though she’d not fancied the vegetables in the fridge, some fresh fruit, something healthy for the baby—who needed a name, she couldn’t keep thinking ‘the baby’ about the child safe inside her.
The Farm at Peppertree Crossing Page 12