She walked out onto the veranda and absorbed the view.
Brett Harcourt had built a house at Yorkeys Knob, a northern beach suburb of Cairns dominated by a small, steep and wooded headland—the Knob. He’d built his house on the Knob to take in spectacular views of the ocean, as well as the cane fields, of which he owned a large slice, that stretched inland to the range. Sugar cane was not his only investment. He owned banana and avocado plantations, as well as mango farms—for that matter, so did she.
But it was not the injustice of having her inheritance in someone else’s hands until she was twenty-three that was on her mind as she gazed at the view, it was only how lovely it all was that preoccupied her.
Out to sea there were magic reefs and cays, not visible at this distance, but once you’d visited them they stayed in your mind whenever you looked out. Michaelmas Cay, Upolo—a lovely little hoop of pale gold sand in a turquoise sea studded with coral—Green Island, Arlington Reef, and to the north Batt and Tongue Reefs, the Low Isles, Agincourt Reef and many more as the Great Barrier Reef rose from the depths of the Coral Sea.
Closer to home to the north was Trinity Beach and Palm Cove on the mainland, then Buchans Point—the venue for lunch today. And the Range, cloaked in its dense, dark green foliage, rose majestically behind them to Kuranda and the Atherton Tablelands.
The other advantage of having a house on the Knob was the wonderful privacy. The road was actually above their roof level, and their neighbours were hidden by a glorious tangle of tropical shrubbery: pink, purple and white bougainvillaea, yellow allamanda and scarlet poinsettia. There were palm trees and causurinas on the front lawn, and beyond, a sheer drop down to the sea.
She breathed the clear, sparkling air deeply and turned to look at the house. Built on two levels in a mixture of stone, timber and glass, it blended well with the hillside and made the most of the wonderful views. The upper level, containing the bedrooms and where she was now standing, had its own deck around the front of the house, whilst the lower level opened onto a paved terrace with an in-ground pool and a thatched open barbecue pavilion. There were big terracotta pots scattered about, in which Nicola grew flowering perennials, and some flourishing pandanus palms.
Louvred doors onto the deck and terrace, as well as simple cotton blinds, let the air flow through the house as well as giving it a slightly Oriental air. The floors inside were all sealed timber or polished slate, and the rooms were uncluttered to minimise the heat but furnished beautifully, with a mixture of modern and colonial. Curiously, the fact that some of it had been Marietta’s doing didn’t offend Nicola.
There was also a garden for the children, a shed and a kiln for her pottery, and a shady, secretive courtyard outside the front door that was definitely Oriental in design and a delight to Nicola. More of her pottery pots and most of her statues ended up in it, and she grew herbs, lemon trees in tubs, impatiens, and miniature capsicum and chillies beneath a magnificent tree that was at present a blaze of bloom and spreading a pink carpet on the uneven tiles that surrounded it.
The sight of a small face at her bedroom doorway, which was instantly whisked away, alerted her. She waited a couple of moments, then padded back to her room silently and sneaked up to the bed that now had two still mounds beneath the covers. She fell on the bed, causing screams and loud gurgles of laughter to emanate as the mounds wriggled joyfully and they all ended up in a heap.
‘Who’s been sleeping in my bed?’ Nicola demanded, feigning utter surprise.
‘You knew, you knew!’ Chris, short for Christian, chanted.
‘How could she know?’ his sister contradicted, coming up for air. ‘We didn’t make a sound. We didn’t even breathe!’
‘I bet you she knew—’
‘OK.’ Nicola gathered them on either side of her and plumped up the pillows. ‘Let’s not start the day with a fight. How about a song instead? Let’s see…’
They sang ‘The Teddy Bears’ Picnic’, then, because The Wiggles were such a hot topic, embarked on one of their songs about a dog that barked all day and night. They sang the chorus with great gusto and much hilarity, alternating from basso profondo to a shrill, scratchy falsetto.
‘All right, all right!’ Brett Harcourt appeared at the doorway with his hair hanging in his eyes, wearing only a pair of sleep shorts and with blue shadows on his jaw. ‘Doesn’t anyone in this house believe it’s Sunday?’
Nicola said through her laughter, ‘Sorry, but they both have perfect pitch, you know!’
Sasha and Chris leapt off the bed to besiege their father, and presently to partake peaceably of a late breakfast, and then get through the whole traumatic business of being dressed and groomed for an outing without one squabble.
‘There.’ Nicola slung a large bag into the back of the BMW between the children and stood for a moment with her hand on her hip.
She wore a filmy beige and white paisley overshirt and white linen drawstring pants. Her hair was in a simple knot and she had beige canvas rope-soled espadrilles on her feet. She held up a finger for each item. ‘I’ve got two spare sets of clothing, sun-cream, hats, togs, buckets, spades, toys in case they get bored, books—I’ve got the lot.’
She swung herself into the front seat and exchanged a wry glance with her husband, who said, ‘It’s like moving an army.’
‘You’re not wrong. Now listen, kids,’ she said over her shoulder, ‘we’re going to visit Mr and Mrs Mason for lunch. Don’t forget your manners, will you?’
‘I never do,’ Sasha said proudly and pointedly.
“Course you do,‘ Chris responded. ’Who threw a plate of jelly at—?‘
‘That was because he pulled my hair! And don’t forget the time you spat at—’
‘Kids,’ Brett said, mildly enough, but they subsided—as they always did for Brett, Nicola thought ruefully.
‘Wish I had you around more often,’ she murmured with a faint grin, and glanced at him expressively.
Gone was the dishevelment of earlier. He was shaved, his brown hair was orderly and he wore a brown and white striped T-shirt, off-white thin cotton jeans and white deck shoes. The hairs on his arms, she noted, glinted chestnut in the sun.
‘I might not be so effective then—familiarity could dull the edge.’
‘I doubt it. They’re always good for you.’
‘Do you find them such a handful, Nicola?’ he asked after a moment. ‘By the way, I presume I’m forgiven?’
‘For last night?’ She shrugged. ‘Yes. You know I don’t find them a handful,’ she added with more warmth. ‘And on the odd occasion that I do,’ she said honestly, ‘I’ve always got Ellen to fall back on.’ Ellen doubled as housemaid and babysitter, and had been with the children since birth.
‘I just wondered,’ he said slowly, ‘whether they had anything to do with your seeking counselling. Whether you felt tied down, were yearning for a career or something like that,’ he said, before she could speak.
Nicola paused. ‘I never could decide whether I wanted to be a potter, a pilot or a musician—that’s strange, isn’t it? No. It’s not that, Brett.’
‘But what would you do if you left us?’
The question hung in the air—air that rushed by as they drove up the highway past Palm Cove towards Buchans Point with the roof down. And it was a question that affected Nicola suddenly and curiously. Was it because, she wondered, it was the first time Brett had actually asked her? Not in the context of pointing out her lack of purpose in life, or her unwisdom et cetera, but just as a simple, genuine enquiry?
And it came to her with a little stab of shock that perhaps he was entertaining the idea of her leaving…
‘I…I could start my own gallery,’ she said at random. ‘A lot of people are very taken with my pottery.’
‘Anything else?’
She cast around in her mind a little desperately. Before anything presented itself, she remembered suddenly that Brett had gone out the night before, alone, and come home very lat
e. Well after midnight, in fact, as she’d seen on the luminous dial of her bedside clock when the opening and closing of the garage doors had woken her briefly—something she hadn’t recalled until now.
Not that there was anything particularly unusual in it. She often went out with girlfriends, and he didn’t always include her in his socialising, but…had this been a different kind of socialising, with a woman? she found herself wondering. A woman he was serious about? Serious enough to be contemplating putting an end to this marriage of convenience. But what about Marietta? she thought. And…
‘Nicola?’
She jerked her eyes to his to find his gaze narrow and probing, but all he said was, ‘We’re here.’
‘Oh, sorry.’ She shrugged, but it was a long moment before she could tear her gaze away from his. Then she got out of the car and helped the children out.
‘Now, let’s see.’ She straightened Sasha’s pretty sun-dress and smoothed her red-brown curls. ‘You look gorgeous, darling,’ she said, and turned to Chris. ‘Whereas you are very handsome, young man!’
Both children exuded gratification and put their hands into hers, leaving their father to deal with the large bag.
And that was what the Masons, Rod and Kim, as well as their resident guest, saw advancing up the garden path as they opened their front door, causing Kim Mason, in her forthright way, to say, ‘Nicola, dear, welcome! But how can you possibly be old enough to have two children this age?’
‘Oh, she’s not our mother,’ Sasha piped up with a world-weary air. ‘She’s our aunt.’
‘Sasha.’ Nicola frowned down at her. ‘I’m not your aunt, I’m your stepmother. Where did you get that idea?’
‘Excuse me—how silly of me,’ Kim murmured, but Sasha was not to be denied.
‘I ’scussed this with my friend Emma, and we decided you can’t be any kind of a mother, Nicola, because you don’t do the things mummies do.’
“Course she does,‘ Chris said witheringly. ’Who makes us clean our teeth three times a day and washes our ears and makes us eat our crusts?‘
‘That’s not all mummies do,’ Sasha replied with a superior air. ‘They look after their kids’ dads as well. They kiss and cuddle them, and they sleep in the same bed with them—’
‘Sasha,’ Brett said from behind a frozen Nicola, ‘that’ll be enough, thank you.’
‘But what would Chris know about it? He’s only a silly little boy who doesn’t even go to school yet—and that’s why we decided, me and Emma, that she’s got to be an aunt!’ Sasha finished triumphantly.
Instead of falling into a convenient hole that might magically open up at her feet, Nicola had no alternative but to proceed with the day. To pretend as if Sasha had never spoken and ignore the bemusement in their hosts’ expressions, until they hurriedly masked it, gracefully acknowledging the introduction of the other guest—a man of about thirty who was visiting the Masons from Sydney and was in some way related to Kim. His name was Richard Holloway.
Brett did the same, and before long they were seated on a shaded terrace beside the pool, with Ellis Beach below them, stretching northward beside a sparkling sea, sipping aperitifs as the children splashed happily in the water.
As if to make up for the incredible revelations she had unwittingly unleashed, Kim talked non-stop to Nicola while the three men talked cricket.
Then, to Nicola’s relief, Kim drew her husband away to deal with the barbecue and commanded Richard to replenish everyone’s drinks.
Brett said into the sudden silence, ‘All right?’
‘Yes. No. I had no idea…’ Their gazes locked and Nicola found herself going hot and cold again as the truly mortifying thought of people wondering whether she did or didn’t sleep with Brett crossed her mind.
‘No, Nicola, it’s not anything you might be thinking,’ he said, and he scanned the tense way she was sitting. She looked lovely enough to tempt any man, he thought, and then also thought, They’re probably wondering if I’m mad… ‘Because it’s not anyone’s business but our own,’ he added.
‘How…how do you know what I was thinking?’ she asked.
He smiled a little wryly. ‘You looked intensely embarrassed.’
‘I felt it—didn’t you?’
He shrugged philosophically. ‘I’m older and probably tougher. It was also out of the mouths of babes, so to speak.’
‘Isn’t that a euphemism for an uncanny ability to see the truth? I told you she was no fool.’
‘Obviously not,’ he said dryly.
‘You mustn’t be cross with her,’ Nicola responded swiftly. ‘She doesn’t understand the implications of what she said. It’s simply something she noticed and found strange.’
‘I’m not cross with her. Or only for inheriting her mother’s ability to lack any sense of tact or diplomacy.’
Nicola found her lips twisting involuntarily. ‘It’s the kind of situation Marietta would enjoy. By the way, when’s she due home?’
‘When she suffers some pangs of maternal longing, probably,’ he said cynically.
Nicola said nothing for a time. Marietta swooped in and out of her children’s lives like a brilliant bird of paradise. And, unnatural as it might seem, they adored her when she was around and appeared to accept her absence with equanimity. She had a unit in town, where they went to stay with her to be shamelessly indulged, but they cast it all off like a second skin when they came back to their father.
That they’d only been two and one when the breakup of the marriage had occurred might account for it, Nicola sometimes thought. But it was hard to see why Marietta had bothered to have children, unless Brett had insisted…
Yet, so long as she didn’t have to be tied down by them, she was genuinely fond of them. She wrote to them often, rang them from strange places and brought home marvellous exotic gifts for them.
But that’s Marietta for you, she thought as she accepted another drink from Richard Holloway. Kim and Rod did not return, so, while the men started discussing politics this time, she was able to think her own thoughts.
She remembered her father’s bemusement at Brett’s decision to marry Marietta Otway, daughter of his best friend. Brett had been twenty-five, Marietta the same age; Nicola herself had been thirteen.
‘Why?’ she’d asked her father.
‘Well, it’s obvious why. She’s talented, spirited and very beautiful,’ he’d said with some irritation.
‘So why don’t you approve?’
He’d shrugged uneasily. ‘You know her. She was babysitting you for pocket money from the time she was sixteen. She’s—obsessive, wouldn’t you agree?‘
‘About her music, yes.’ Nicola had smiled reminiscently. ‘She gave me my first piano lesson when I was four. But—’
‘And now she’s obsessive about Brett. But I just can’t help wondering how marriage is going to fit in with her main obsession—her music.’
Nicola had said slowly, and with no acrimony, ‘You look upon Brett as the son you never had, don’t you, Dad?’
Her father had ruffled her hair. ‘I’m very fond of him and very proud of him. When you think how he had to battle his way through school, let alone law school, despite the Rotary Scholarship—’
‘Which you were responsible for.’
‘Yes, well, I’d never encountered such a sharp mind before, such a determination to succeed. When his father was lost in a yachting accident at sea he was only twelve, and the oldest of five children, but the support he gave his mother and his younger brothers and sisters was amazing. He was picking mangoes and avocados in his spare time, sorting prawns and so on—but I have only one child dear to my heart, and that’s you.’
Two weeks later they’d gone to Brett and Marietta’s wedding. At the reception, at a smart restaurant, Nicola had found herself observing the bride and groom with her father’s misgivings in mind.
Marietta had been married in a lime-green figure-hugging Thai silk suit that had set off her glorious red hair adm
irably. She’d glowed, obviously radiantly happy, but, Nicola had noticed, she and Brett had almost steered clear of each other, and Nicola had wondered why.
Then, when they had come together to cut the cake, they’d looked into each other’s eyes, and to her teenage eyes it had been as if something white-hot existed between them in that brief glance, something almost dangerous that couldn’t be allowed to be exposed in public.
Not long after the wedding Nicola had been sent to boarding school in Brisbane, a thousand miles away, and her dealings with Brett and Marietta had been limited. But she had noticed, when Sasha was born, that Marietta seemed to be obsessive about motherhood in her unique way. Then Chris had arrived, only twelve months later, and after another twelve months had come the bombshell that Brett and Marietta were separating.
‘I knew it,’ her father had said exasperatedly.
‘But Chris is only a baby! How can she?’
‘They’ve come to an agreement. The children will spend the bulk of their time with Brett, allowing her the licence to get her career back on track,’ he’d said sardonically.
‘But I thought she liked having children.’
‘It was a novelty, that’s all.’
Nicola had thought deeply. By then seventeen, she’d had more of an understanding of that strange, searing little look she’d intercepted between Brett and Marietta on their wedding day, but she’d found herself understanding this turn of events even less. ‘So don’t they love each other any more?’
Her father had sighed. ‘They may do, but she’s determined to have it on her terms or not at all, and Brett…Well, he didn’t get where he is without his own kind of iron determination.’
By this time Brett had been made a partner in her father’s law firm. Indeed, he was the active partner, whose expertise had brought some big and prestigious clients to act for, and her father was coming to rely on him more and more as his health failed.
At eighteen Nicola had left boarding school, and, because of her father’s poor health, she insisted on spending the last six months of his life as his constant companion, instead of starting a Bachelor of Arts degree as she’d planned. This had brought her into close contact with Brett and his children—Brett had been marvellous, right up to the end and beyond.
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