Nina took a deep breath. She hitched up her jeans and settled her new Akubra on her head. Ben had given it to her to celebrate her status as a real landowner. She took Heath’s hand and they mounted the marble steps together. Nina pressed the bell and waited for Dolce and Gabbana’s hysterical barking.
Before the dogs reached a crescendo, Deborah opened the door and flung her arms around Nina. ‘I’m so glad you’re here.’ Deborah held Nina’s shoulders and gazed into her eyes with a broad smile. Blonde tendrils danced around her face and her eyes shone. Nina had never seen her look so beautiful.
‘Hi, Heath,’ Deborah said, barely glancing at him. She grabbed Nina’s hand and hurried her along the tiled hallway to the formal lounge, leaving him to trail behind.
Outside the closed door, Phillip paced up and down. He glanced at them sharply as they appeared, his eyes settling curiously on Nina. He opened his mouth as if to speak, but Deborah swept him aside.
‘Dad, Mac’s out on the verandah,’ said Deborah. ‘Why don’t you take Heath out there and have a cup of coffee or something? Off you go, Heath, shoo. Secret women’s business.’ She winked at Nina and turned the doorknob.
Nina looked over her shoulder at Heath. What the –? He shrugged as Phillip ushered him down the hallway.
Hilary sat dead centre on one of the white silk sofas, her back rigid, her hands clenched in her lap, gazing unseeingly. Kathryn stood near the fireplace, tapping a rolled magazine against her leg. She gave Nina a tiny nod. Deborah led Nina to the sofa opposite Hilary. She sat down beside her, kneading Nina’s hand between both of her own, barely able to sit still.
‘Thank you for coming, Nina,’ said Kathryn formally. ‘Deborah’s asked you here because of … some family business related to … I’ll let Hilary speak.’ Kathryn stepped away from the inner circle and took up a position near the French windows, looking at her toes, as if to distance herself from the conversation.
Nina felt a gathering dread. Kathryn discreetly avoided her gaze, Hilary was far away, and Deborah was acting like all her birthdays had come at once. It was all too weird.
‘Mother?’ said Deborah.
Hilary sat tight-lipped, white-faced. She’d aged ten years since Nina had last seen her, staying in bed most days, according to Deborah. Phillip and Deborah had been trying to persuade her to see someone, a therapist, but Hilary had refused.
‘Mum?’ said Deborah, springing across to the sofa opposite and taking her mother’s hand. ‘Mum. Nina’s here. Remember what we talked about? Mother?’
‘You have no idea what it was like.’ Hilary’s voice was so low she seemed to be talking to herself. ‘Walking to school in a filthy dress with knots in your hair because your mother’s gone off again, there’s no tank water left, and even to get out of the hut you have to drag your father away from the door because he passed out there the night before.’ Hilary’s voice rolled on, tonelessly and without pause. ‘And when you did, you got shit on yourself because he’d lost control in the night and now you stank, you stank and people didn’t want to go near you.’
‘Hilary …’ Kathryn warned.
Nina saw that Deborah’s face had frozen. Hilary looked up at Nina abruptly and the fierceness in her eyes set Nina’s heart pounding.
‘When I got to that snotty boarding school, those spoiled graziers’ daughters looked down on me. I guess they smelled the shit. They pitied me and that made me angry. Anger is a much better weapon than tears.’
Nina shot a glance at Kathryn. Her eyes were fixed on Hilary, in condemnation, or was it fear?
‘I had never been to a dance, never owned a record, never done just about anything,’ continued Hilary. ‘The only thing I knew was how to survive. I’d fall and get up, fall and get up again and again and kept coming back for more. I wanted their life and I was going to get it.’
The room fell silent, apart from the resonant ticking of the grandfather clock in the hallway.
‘I started with the most popular girl and I gradually broke her down, broke her like you break a horse. They’d never had to guard themselves, that lot. They left their weak spots undefended. She liked girls, I could tell from the way she stared at me. So I gave her what she wanted. Then I took it away again. Then I gave it. And then I took it away. By the end of the first term she was doing whatever I told her.’
‘That’s quite enough, Hilary,’ commanded Kathryn.
‘Oh no, Mrs Kathryn Blackett, not nearly enough,’ sneered Hilary. ‘Patronising me so you could big-note yourself. Well, you got more than you bargained for, didn’t you?’
Kathryn’s face was white.
‘This … this isn’t what we wanted you to hear,’ Deborah said to Nina, swiftly crossing the room to sit beside her. ‘You’d better go.’
Nina looked at Hilary cautiously. Her body was hunched over, her hands clasped between her legs. Maybe she just wanted understanding for the things she’d done.
‘It’s okay, Deborah, really,’ said Nina, glad to her very marrow that she was not in Deborah’s position. ‘Let her say it. I think she needs to.’
‘And then in Year 10 we had a dance with St Andrews,’ continued Hilary, standing up. ‘They were lining up to dance with me. It was the first time I realised the boys liked me. Wanted me. It was fun leading them on.’
Hilary paced rapidly now, her arms wrapped around her body. ‘Those holidays, I met your –’ Her gaze flicked towards Nina. ‘I met Jim.’
Nina noticed beads of sweat on Hilary’s upper lip and remembered her deluded outburst at the wake. Was she going to have to listen to those fantasies about her father again? ‘It’s okay, Hilary, you don’t have to –’ she began.
‘I’d seen him around when he was younger, but then he was away at art school, so it was like seeing him for the first time,’ said Hilary, oblivious to her audience. ‘He was sitting on the wharf, fishing with Russell. His brown curly hair long to his shoulders, his shirt off and one of those leather thongs they used to wear around his neck. That was it for me. A weight of bitterness dropped off my shoulders, and it was like I could float away. I loved him. That’s all.’ Hilary came to a stop and faced the girls.
In the pause, Nina saw the young girl that Hilary had been in the sudden gentleness of her face and the tears swelling her eyes.
‘I deserved him.’ Hilary’s voice was loud now and trembling with emotion. She looked across at Nina. ‘After all I’d been through, didn’t I deserve just one beautiful thing? Just one? And he took my virginity. He wouldn’t have done that if he didn’t care about me. Not Jim.’
Nina froze. Surely it was a fantasy. But something told her it was true.
‘Mum!’ Deborah took a step towards her.
But Hilary turned to Nina. ‘And then you ruined everything. It would have been perfect without you,’ Hilary accused.
‘Me?’ Nina sputtered.
‘Nobody knew what we had. He was an artist. I was his muse. Not many people understood that. But he didn’t want a baby. At least, that’s what he told me.’
Baby. What baby?
‘Jim couldn’t have a baby, because of his art. I understood that. But …’ Hilary seemed bewildered, as if she couldn’t make sense of something. Then she seized on some new thought.
‘And there was no way, no way in hell I was going to bring up a baby on my own. A baby would have dragged me back to that shack by the river. People sneering at me. I’d strangle it before I let that happen.’
Nina felt the breath whoosh out of her lungs suddenly as if she had been punched in the belly.
‘And here you are again, doing the same. Ruining everything,’ shouted Hilary. ‘I never wanted to know where you were all these years. That’s how I wanted it.’
‘Nina, please, don’t you see what this means? We’re sisters!’ Deborah pleaded above her mother, trying to drag Nina away from the spectacle.
Nina gazed at Deborah, her mind racing.
The doors to the verandah opened and the men entered cautiousl
y. Phillip went to Hilary and took her in his arms, where she sobbed uncontrollably.
‘It’s all right, my lovely,’ he murmured, stroking her head as though she were a frightened animal. ‘The worst is over now.’ Over Hilary’s head, he gazed at Nina with concern.
Nina fought the urge to run out of the room to somewhere she could hunker down with her hands over her ears.
‘Debs?’ Matty stopped short at the doorway, scanned the silent room and went to Deborah. ‘I ran half the way, the ute broke down …’ he faltered.
Hilary’s crying rekindled.
Nina stood fixed, feeling a strange burning wave move from her head to her feet and back again. The noises around her were muffled. Deborah broke away from Matty and approached. Deborah seemed to be apologising, pleading. Her lips moved but Nina couldn’t hear.
Through a fog, she saw Heath push his way to her. He guided her back onto the couch and sat beside her, taking her hand in his. As Deborah approached again, he held up a hand and warded her off.
‘All right, everyone.’ Kathryn’s voice was authoritative but weary. ‘I think we need to take a break – take some time to process this.’ She sighed. There was no sound apart from Hilary’s whimpering and Phillip’s murmured words of comfort.
‘I just want to say Mac and I made some terrible mistakes back then. We tried to help Hilary and Jim – to do the best for everyone, for you too, Nina. That’s why we arranged for Julia and Jim to bring you up. In retrospect we’d do it differently.’
Nina nodded dumbly and glanced at Hilary – the woman she now knew to be her mother. Hilary returned her gaze but her expression was unreadable.
All eyes were pinned on Nina, waiting for a reaction, a speech, some kind of response. The room was closing in on her. ‘I need some air,’ she heard herself say.
Heath rose with her. ‘Come on. I’ll take you home.’
No more, thought Hilary. She shook off Phillip’s arm and hurried upstairs to the sanctuary of the bedroom.
There was no keeping back the worst of it now.
All that summer after the portrait, she had followed him. As other girls laughed at his jokes, got drunk with him, moved close to him, she was still. Watching. Waiting for her chance.
Often she’d ‘turn up’ at his haunts. At first they laughed together at the coincidence. Then she started to follow him as he went about his daily business. Twice she turned up at The Springs unannounced. Gradually she became one of the gang – kind of. Though she had to admit this often meant being pawed at by Russell, tolerated by Harrison and sadly, often ignored by Jim.
She flinched.
It had been so hard. Jim had been so beautiful that she sometimes found herself staring intently at his back, his shoulders, his strong yet delicate brown hands. She’d felt she knew every detail of his body yet they had never really touched. Even now she could see him – the way he walked, the way he threw back his head and laughed, the way he got carried away by an idea, by beauty, by the way the clouds happened to form. So many times she had just wanted to run her hands over his distant face, to put her head on his chest … Being near him was agony yet she couldn’t bear to be away from him.
And then towards the end of that same long summer, it all came to a head.
At The Springs one day, she heard him ask Harrison to go with him to the Gungee Picnic Races. Make a weekend of it. They’d stay at The Grand and he’d meet him there that night. There had been no invitation for her or Russell. Stupid Russell didn’t seem to mind. But she was hurt, disappointed as usual, and this time there was a new emotion. Anger. How was it that Jim didn’t get it? She wasn’t hanging around just to have a few laughs. She wanted more. She had told Harrison that Jim had changed the plan and she sent him to the wrong hotel.
It was dark by the time Hilary let herself into the small, dingy hotel room. It hadn’t been too difficult to grab the key from behind the big oak desk in the foyer.
The room was stuffy, and mosquitoes buzzed near the flyspecked light fitting dangling from the middle of the room. She quickly turned it off. The room was light enough thanks to the flashing yellow signs from the grim car park outside.
Hilary pulled the stained orange bedspread from one of the twin beds and stuffed it into the wardrobe. She stripped naked and helped herself to some of the warm champagne that she’d brought with her and then slid between the musty sheets.
An hour, two hours passed and then the door opened and Jim’s silhouette stood in the doorway.
‘Harrison, where were you? I …’ Jim’s words were slurred. ‘I’ve been waiting half the night in the fucking bar for you. You? What the –’ He was drunk.
‘Jim, don’t be angry.’ She had to keep him there.
‘I’m not angry. I’m … I’m … where is bloody Harrison?’
She looked at his beautiful, puzzled face. The dark hair, damp with sweat, formed little tendrils of curl near the neck of his white t-shirt. Stubble was starting to form on his brown face. His wiry muscles showed through the fine cotton as he shut the door and grabbed the champagne bottle and gulped. Those hands. He was so close she could reach out and touch him.
And then he was looking at her. Really looking at her.
Hilary shivered at the memory.
‘Harrison’s not here,’ she had said boldly. ‘But I am.’ And with that she threw back the sheet, revealing her naked body, which almost glowed in the neon light from the windows.
‘What is this?’ he had laughed. ‘An ambush?’
‘You could say that,’ she said.
Then he was in bed with her, pouring her more of the warm, sticky champagne. She took both glasses and put them on the bedside table. She pulled his t-shirt over his smooth shoulders, eager to feel his bare skin under her hands. And at last she was touching him, her hands and mouth running over his chest, his muscular slim body, his broad shoulders, his neck.
He had been passive at first but then his mocking tone fell away as his resistance disappeared. He fumbled with his belt and then swore as he pulled his locket from his neck after it became tangled in her hair. And then his hands took charge, searching, urgent, insistent and then he was inside her. She gasped as a sudden pain tore through her body. His breath, sour with alcohol and stale smoke, enveloped her. His stubble scratched her skin yet she grasped him closer. His tongue was against her throat when she heard him cry out. He was hers now. This was Jim and Jim was here. With her.
The next morning she woke dazed, hungover and happy. Until she saw he had gone sometime in the night.
She had waited for him in the hot room for about an hour. There was no sound, save the regular butting of a blowfly against the window. Finally she was certain he wasn’t coming back. She splashed herself in the dirty bathroom and dressed quickly, grimacing at her shirt, which smelled of sweat and spilt champagne. She steeled herself and peeked out the door into the dank hallway. Nothing. Then she heard the buzz of a vacuum cleaner. She had to leave. She grabbed her bag, her keys and then bent to pick up the champagne bottle by the bed. At least she could have this as a memento. As she reached down she saw it – its smooth mango surface glowing in a ray of light on the floor. Jim’s locket. She picked it up and cradled it in her hands. He must have dropped it and didn’t realise.
No, she told herself as she opened the door. He must have left it on purpose. For her. She put it in her bag and left.
Heath walked back and forth along the verandah, rubbing his hands through his hair.
‘You’ll wear the boards out,’ Nina said from the wicker lounge where she lay cuddling a cushion. They were her first words since Heath had rescued her from those faces, those voices. Thank god he had known not to ask questions. Instead, he’d held her and then helped her into the car as tenderly as if she were a newborn, all without speaking.
‘You okay?’ he asked now, crouching next to her. ‘Can I get you something?’ He took hold of her hand. ‘Mac gave me the short version on the verandah, but I couldn’t believe it.’
>
‘I feel like such an idiot,’ Nina said. ‘Here I am blundering around asking questions when half the district must have known. Probably having a laugh at the dumb city girl. I mean, who else figured it out – Russell? Harrison? Maybe they had a sweep on down at the Royal for when Jim’s bastard baby was going to surface.’ Her anger pushed her up off the lounge and to the verandah railing.
‘No way,’ said Heath, coming up close beside her. ‘Mac and Kathryn never said a word. No-one knew.’
‘Those two. Lying to me every time I saw them. I thought they were such good people! What gives them the right to interfere with people’s lives like they’re god? They’ve gone way down in my estimation. Way down.
‘And Dad was the worst. Norway! I could almost laugh it’s so ridiculous. And he even told me not to talk about Thora to Mum. It would upset her. Our secret. I was so excited to have a secret with Dad. How could he lie to me like that? I trusted him and he lied. It’s like … it’s like a kind of abuse.’
‘Whoa there,’ said Heath putting an arm around her shoulders and tilting up her chin. ‘He adored you. What about all those hours he played with you? He was always organising games and that. Maybe he wasn’t great at handling some things but you were everything to him. No question.’
‘But Hilary. Of all people. She hates me. And I hate her.’
‘She’ll come round. Says a lot of things she doesn’t mean.’ Heath paused. ‘And Deb’s stoked.’
‘Deborah. Oh, god.’ Nina put her hands to her cheeks. ‘She’ll be so hurt that I took off, but – it’s all too much.’
A cloud of dust signalled the arrival of a Land Rover at the front fence. Kathryn stepped out, shading her eyes in the late afternoon light.
‘Go easy with her, Nina. She’s a good person,’ said Heath.
Nina stood and crossed her arms. Kathryn stepped onto the verandah as if she was unsure of her welcome. She wet her lips and said, ‘My dear, I can’t tell you how sorry I am.’
The Painted Sky Page 34