The Painted Sky

by Alice Campion

  Nina turned her back and leaned two hands on the verandah railing, struggling to control her emotions.

  ‘So many times Mac and I questioned whether we did the right thing,’ Kathryn continued.

  ‘Well it’s a bit bloody awkward, isn’t it?’ Nina said, turning on Kathryn. ‘What were you thinking, keeping a secret like that for 26 years? It’s not 1950 anymore. It’s probably not even legal.’

  ‘I know.’ Kathryn took a step towards Nina. ‘But it wasn’t really up to us. We didn’t think so, anyway. If Hilary, or you, had come and asked us, of course we’d have answered honestly. But it wasn’t our place.’ She broke off as Nina shook her head in disgust.

  ‘Please, Nina. Please. Hear me out. I know you’re angry, but believe me, we thought it was for the best.’ Kathryn glanced at Heath.

  Heath took the hint by putting his arm around Nina’s shoulders and dropping a kiss on the crown of her head. Nina relaxed against him. At least Heath was real.

  ‘Let’s go inside,’ he said. ‘We’ll light the fire.’

  Kathryn and Nina sat while Heath put a match to the fire, opened a bottle of red and poured three glasses. When Nina and Heath were seated together on the couch holding hands, Kathryn began, staring into the fire.

  ‘It wasn’t 1950, but it was a different time,’ she said.

  ‘God – how different could it be?’ said Nina. ‘Dad and Hilary? In what parallel universe did that happen?’

  ‘I know, I know. The Hilary of today is different from the Hilary back then. She was 16 when she met him, 17 when you were conceived. And she never had any love in her life. She was starved for love.’ Kathryn sighed. ‘Mac and I – we did what we could, sending her to boarding school – but it wasn’t enough. She was so bright but so – bitter. And then she met Jim.

  ‘Hilary waited until she was over three months gone before she told him. He left her in no doubt that he was not interested in her. What’s more, he left the next day to join Julia in Sydney and within weeks, they were married. Hilary came to us – there was no-one else, with her mum long gone and her dad no use. She needed help. She was determined not to keep the baby … you.’

  In the long pause that followed, Nina’s anger died down. She’d had pregnancy scares herself. It was only luck that she hadn’t been in the same boat.

  ‘Mac and I arranged for Hilary to go away to the coast to have the baby.’

  ‘Did Dad help her?’

  ‘Well, he told Julia about Hilary and the baby straight up. No pretence.’

  ‘Honesty. That makes a change,’ said Nina bitterly and took a deep gulp of red wine. ‘How could he lie to me like that?’

  Kathryn gave a grim smile. ‘He didn’t have much choice, the way things turned out. Mac and I brought up the idea with Jim and when he put it to Julia, she immediately wanted to adopt you. When she was staying with us, I’d heard her crying one night. She told me she could never have children. In her early 20s she’d had ovarian cancer. I don’t think she’d thought too much about it at first, but by then, she’d just hit her 30s and had also met Jim.

  ‘So, adopting Jim’s child seemed the perfect solution. Jim wasn’t sure at first, but he came around. As soon as he saw you he fell in love with you, Nina. You were his girl first, last and always. Whenever Mac and I saw the three of you together, so happy, we thought we’d made the best of a bad situation.’

  Heath topped up the glasses, looked at Nina and then at the fire.

  ‘You know, Mum tried to tell me so many times about my birth mother, in the last few years, but I wouldn’t let her,’ said Nina, regretful. ‘Stupid. Dad made me promise not to bring it up, and I took that to mean I wasn’t allowed to be interested. And with Dad gone, it was one last thing I could do for him – a kind of connection. And truly, I didn’t want to know anything about her, beyond what Dad had told me. It seems strange now. But I should have listened to Mum. Should have let her speak before she died.’

  Heath squeezed her hand. Again, Nina was glad of his ability to let her know he was listening, but to let her have her own reaction, and not jump in with advice.

  They breathed the smell of wood smoke, comforting and calming. The crackle of the fire cast a spell of the past, so that they all three were together in that desperate time so long ago.

  ‘Jim was terrified of what would happen if Hilary found out,’ said Kathryn, softly. ‘Everyone loved Jim, but sometimes he had trouble facing up to the unpleasant things in life.’

  Nina nodded. This was the Jim who had emerged in her painting. A man with a spirit as ephemeral as a soap bubble.

  ‘So he kept it a dark secret,’ Kathryn said. ‘What did he tell you about the adoption?’

  ‘Not much. Just that rubbish about Norway.’

  Kathryn raised an eyebrow. ‘Norway? That sounds like a Jim story.’

  Nina wiped her eyes. ‘I just can’t believe Hilary is my birth mother. When did she know?’

  ‘Once Jim rejected her, Hilary wanted a closed adoption, and she never budged from that. So the first time she heard about it was when we visited her in the hospital after the accident. We felt it had all gone too far. With you back in the district, the truth had to come out.’

  Nina took a moment to absorb this. ‘Do you think I’m … that I’m like her at all?’ she asked.

  Heath put his arms around Nina. ‘Look, so what if Hilary gave birth to you? You’ve got nothing in common with her except genes.’

  ‘That’s what I mean!’

  ‘Remember, Nina,’ continued Kathryn, ‘this is a shock for Hilary too. She tried to forget you existed all this time, only to find that her baby and her lover were taken by the same woman. So she’s having a hard time too.’

  ‘Yeah but I should be the one who’s angry – angry with her for abandoning me! Where does she get off with blaming me for being alive?’

  A pained expression came over Kathryn’s face. ‘Well, it’s always been about Hilary, for Hilary,’ she said. ‘I daresay you’ve heard the stories?’

  Nina nodded.

  ‘That house. Her parents. You know, her mum, Bridget, worked for us. By the time she’d finished primary school, Hilary needed guidance. She was exceptionally bright but headstrong and was already going off the rails. We thought it best she get away to boarding school and we offered to pay. She spent a lot of time with us in the holidays too. We were very fond of her. I’m sorry it worked out this way, Nina.’

  They gazed into the fire together and sipped their wine.

  ‘Well, I think I deserve some sympathy too,’ said Heath, with a smile. ‘Just when I thought I’d escaped Hilary’s clutches, looks like I’m back in the family.’

  Nina punched him lightly on the arm and Kathryn smiled into her wine glass. Then she sighed and spoke again.

  ‘It all turned around when Hilary met Phillip. After the birth Hilary went off to Tamworth and got a bookkeeping job for Flint Harvesters. Phillip was the heir to the Flint Harvesters empire and Hilary was very pretty in those days. I’m sure the knowledge of his fortune didn’t harm his chances with her. So, they married. The wedding was … as you’d imagine. Deborah was born within a year – and they lived in Tamworth for about ten years. Hilary didn’t want to remember the past.’

  ‘So Dad was free to bring me here on holiday without worrying,’ added Nina.

  They gazed into the fire again.

  Nina had no more words.

  ‘Well, I’m driving,’ said Kathryn, putting her wine glass down.

  ‘Thanks for coming,’ said Nina as they stood up. ‘I’m sorry about – before.’

  As they walked outside, Kathryn said, ‘No, I’m sorry.’

  In reply, Nina embraced her and took her hand as they walked.

  ‘I can’t get my head around it,’ Nina said. She lay on a picnic rug in the shade of the fountain at Durham House, her head on a cushion, eyes closed. ‘It’s just too weird.’

  In the three days since she’d been summoned to Paramour, Nina hadn
’t been able to stop obsessing. She’d obsessed about the recent past, the distant past and the future, but none of it had fully unravelled the tangle of stories and emotions that held her captive. Poor Heath had escaped in the end, mumbling excuses about drenching his Senepols.

  Nina’s new mother and sister had taken up residence in her head ‘rent-free’, as Julia used to say. To Nina, everything about them – appearance, gestures, words – had become evidence of how they were related to her. Nina noticed wryly that in Deborah, she looked for similarities, but in Hilary, for differences.

  In an effort to stop thinking, Nina had spent the morning slashing at the long grass around the house with a whipper-snipper. The noise and destruction was gratifying. Moira had been busy leading a tour for a subcommittee from the university, but this morning she’d turned up with a cake and suggested a picnic.

  Once they were seated on the grass under the scarred magnolia tree, the whole sorry story spilled out. Had all these things really happened? Jim, her beloved father, had lied. There was no way around it. Her trust was broken, and now she doubted everything about him.

  ‘Don’t blame ya, love,’ said Moira, shaking her head. ‘Just goes to show, secrets always hurt people. But look at it from his point of view. He was probably doing it to protect you. At least he brought you here, to know your place. No wonder Julia stopped coming once Hilary moved back. And it’s so like him to make up a fancy story – the imagination on him! A dead Norwegian artist! It’s almost like he’s having a joke with you from beyond the grave, isn’t it?’

  Nina lay down, closed her eyes and sighed. She was having trouble absorbing all of the contradictions that were Jim, but the hurt in her chest eased a little. ‘And the other thing,’ she said. ‘Hilary.’

  ‘I know,’ said Moira, sipping her billy tea. ‘Of all the people …’

  ‘Exactly,’ said Nina.

  ‘I never told you about Hilary and me, did I?’

  ‘Tell me,’ smiled Nina, as she rolled over and took a slice of cake.

  Moira poured herself another cup and blew on it. Mistress of suspense, Nina thought, nibbling her cake.

  ‘Way back when, I was teaching at Wandalla Area School and coached the netball team. Hilary was at DDAGS by then, and not above parading around in her uniform at home to show off to the state school kids. Well, anyway. Hils played in my team in the school holidays. Not much to do around here. I knew her from when we used to help out with her little brothers and sisters, take them rabbits and stuff, but she’d never really talked to me. Didn’t like charity, specially from our mob.’ Moira slurped her tea. ‘Didn’t take me long to realise that her snobbishness was just bravado. I’d always liked her.’

  Nina choked on a crumb.

  ‘I know. But in those days, she was just another kid whose dad was drinking every night. I admired her guts and wanted to help her, if I could. She was a natural at netball, deadly.’

  Well, that’s not like me, Nina thought. I’ve always been crap at ball games. Better at yoga. Hilary would hate yoga.

  ‘Then one day in her third season, her game went off. Right off.’ Moira’s hair floated in the autumn breeze, though her face was as still as a rock, her eyes gazing into the past.

  ‘And?’ prompted Nina.

  Moira blinked and came back to the present. ‘After the game, I took her aside. She didn’t want to say what was up, but that night, after tea, there was a knock at the door.

  ‘We went for a walk and she told me she was in the family way. I’d already guessed. She was desperate. Wanted to adopt the baby out, but keep it a secret from everyone, especially her mum and dad.’

  Moira glanced at Nina, who was helping herself to a second slice.

  ‘You can imagine,’ Moira said. ‘Not many options. Only seventeen. I didn’t think for a moment that Jim was the father. He couldn’t stand her. I didn’t know the first thing about how to arrange an adoption. I told her she’d have to tell Kathryn Blackett. Well, you should have heard Hilary go on about how much trouble she’d get into, as if she was the first girl it’d ever happened to.’

  Moira shook her head.

  A magpie carolled into the silence.

  ‘Then what happened?’ asked Nina.

  ‘Well, we never really spoke again. Years later, she comes back with husband and daughter, buys Deadman’s Downs, knocks it down and calls the place Paramour.’

  ‘Deadman’s Downs!’ said Nina. ‘I remember now! There was that old shack that was haunted, the boys always told me.’

  Moira shook the drops from her cup into the grass.

  ‘I never even knew that Hilary and you –’

  ‘No,’ said Moira. ‘Hilary puts the past behind her. Of course, I’d never say anything. Till now. It was only when you told me that Jim was your dad but Julia wasn’t your mum that I wondered if you were Hilary’s. It wasn’t my place to suggest it.’

  ‘But I went back to Sydney! I was never coming back! I might never have known!’

  ‘But you did come back,’ said Moira with a smile. ‘Something told me we hadn’t seen the last of you.’

  Nina sat back on her heels. Her return did feel inevitable now. ‘Did you put a spell on me, Moira?’ she smiled.

  ‘Might have,’ said Moira, plumping a cushion with dignity.

  ‘I still don’t know how to be this … daughter to Hilary and sister to Deborah. I know what Deborah’s like. She’ll expect me to go over there on Sunday nights for dinner.’

  ‘Maybe. Doesn’t mean you have to go. Thing about Hilary is she’s always striving. She’s like a nervy horse. She’s kept so many secrets all these years that she snaps at you if you look at her sideways.’

  ‘Tell me about it,’ said Nina, rolling her eyes. ‘But what should I do about Deborah? She was so excited, and then I just ran off. I should have called her. I don’t know what to say. It’s doing my head in.’

  Moira looked at Nina. ‘It’ll all come out in the wash, love.’

  Nina stood in front of her easel. Her painting was almost finished. The creamy white of the magnolia blossoms contrasted well with the brooding shadow of Durham House. And the fountain was good too. Her picnic that morning with Moira had inspired her. Water splashed over the lip of the top bowl, sunlight catching the drops. It had taken her ages to get the highlights right. She had captured Cupid, and Nina was pleased to see how the delicate weave of the canvas behind had given his rounded body the texture of stone.

  Her father’s face still needed finessing. But as she rolled the hairs of her finest brush between her fingers, there was a knock at the door.

  Saracen was tied to the corner post and Deborah, subdued and anxious, stood well back from the door. Nina bit her lip and stepped out to greet her. In seconds, they were embracing. She could feel Deborah’s body shaking with delicate sobs.

  ‘Hey, you, what’s all this about?’ said Nina, conscious that she was somehow talking like a big sister.

  Deborah shook her head, and sniffed.

  Nina led Deborah into the kitchen, sat her down and turned on the kettle.

  She sat beside Deborah and took her hands in her own. ‘I’m sorry I haven’t called,’ Nina said. ‘It’s all a bit too much for me at the moment.’

  ‘That’s okay,’ said Deborah in a small voice. ‘I get it. Mum was just – she’s not well. Dad says we need to give her time. Lots of time. But, I just hope whatever happens, that we can be sisters. Can we?’

  ‘Of course!’ Nina smoothed the hair from Deborah’s eyes. ‘You’re the only good thing … Well. It’s not that …’ Nina noticed for the first time how Deborah’s upper lip, a cupid’s bow, was exactly like her own. Deborah was tall, like Phillip, and blonde, where Nina was medium height and dark-haired, with Jim’s olive skin.

  Deborah was tired, that was clear, however, she sat upright and graceful, with a horsewoman’s posture. Putting the milk back, Nina became aware of how she too stood tall, though she was no horsewoman. Though hadn’t Heath said she was a
natural that day they took Rapid and Jet to the creek? And hadn’t she enjoyed the ride a lot more than she’d expected, once she got over her nervousness?

  Nina took the teacups and set them on the table. As she sat, Deborah spread one hand flat on the table.

  ‘See the shape of my fingernails?’ she said.

  Nina not only saw them, she recognised them. Trying to smile, she took a sip from her coffee.

  ‘And our big feet,’ said Deborah. ‘Remember, at the party?’

  ‘It’s not that I’m not happy to have a … to find out you’re my half-sister,’ Nina said. If only Deborah wasn’t so heartbreakingly eager to claim her.

  ‘It’s Mum, isn’t it?’ said Deborah, frowning. ‘She’s not that bad, really. I swear. You’ve seen her at her absolute worst.’

  ‘It’s not even that.’ Nina sighed, aware that she wasn’t being completely truthful. ‘It’s just hard for me to process all this. I come here looking for one parent, and I find another. It’s making my head spin.’

  They sat, each lost in their thoughts.

  Nina realised how, just by turning up, she’d smashed Hilary’s dreams of rising to her rightful position in the district, secure and respected. ‘Hilary must really hate me. She blames me for ruining her life, for making Dad run away from her, and she must blame me for you and Heath breaking up. It’s hard to know how to move on from that.’

  ‘Nina, no. You did nothing wrong. Harrison said Jim and Mum would never have worked out, and Heath and me … That was never meant to be, either. I would have got together with Matty anyway, in the end. It was just lucky Heath and I didn’t go as far as getting married. We should be thanking you, if anything.’

  Nina smiled. ‘You make it seem so simple.’

  ‘That’s because it is. Come on.’ Deborah rose and dragged Nina by the hand into Nina’s bedroom, to the long mirror. Holding hands, they stood together gazing at their reflection, searching for similarities – body shape, the curve of the cheek, even the way they stood.

  ‘Okay,’ said Nina after they’d looked long enough. ‘You win,’ she grinned.

  Deborah shrieked and gave Nina a sideways squeeze. ‘Can I look in the bottom of your wardrobe? I need to borrow some sandals for a barbie at the Inchboards’,’ Deborah laughed.