by Jane Carter
‘Mum, that was not the most politic thing you could have said.’
‘I know. I just had to say it. She’ll calm down, she’s not as unforgiving as you.’
‘I think Rosie just may have her work cut out forgiving the both of you. What is it about being a parent that gives you the right to make these life and death decisions for your child?’
Stella reached out her hand to cover Diana’s. ‘We wanted to do what’s best for everyone, but that may not make everyone happy. I’m sorry, Diana.’
‘I’m sorry too. Looking back, it was all mixed up with Cody’s death somehow. I felt so guilty, and then I felt, or deduced, that you blamed me and were punishing me for not doing the right thing that night. So with a judge and jury of one, it was easy to convict myself. It was only natural I had to take the sentence—banishment.’
‘No, oh no. That was never your fault, Diana. I’m so sorry.’
They sat for a moment in the warm kitchen. The memories were thick and swirling around them. Finally Diana whispered, ‘If I’d only gone in and checked her.’
‘No, I went out that night and I knew she was hot.’ Her mother stopped. ‘We’re doing it again, aren’t we?’
They both laughed, a laugh and a sob at the same time. ‘Cody was such a beautiful child,’ Stella said.
Her mother sat back in her chair, her eyes closed, but Diana could see two tears squeezing through the lids. Hers were burning. She got up and went round to her mother’s side and put her arms round her.
‘I love you and Dad so much. We’ll work it out.’
And much to her astonishment, her mother burst into tears. She put her arms around her and held her. She felt small and fragile and old. Her mother in tears. Never. Well, never before anyway.
‘Why don’t you go and lie down in my room for half an hour? I’ll put the pie that Marnie gave us in the warming oven, and it can just wait for you both to get up when you want and have something to eat. Do you want me to stay tonight?’
Her mother sniffed and shook her head, and looked so like Saskia for a minute, Diana almost smiled. She reached for a tissue.
‘It’s been a big few days. I think I might go and rest for a minute. No, you go, and thank you, Diana.’
Her mother squeezed her shoulder briefly and walked stiffly out of the kitchen, head up, shoulders straight.
* * *
Patrick was waiting for her at Lost Valley, outside on the verandah. She was barely out of the car before he’d crushed her in his arms.
‘I thought if you hadn’t come soon, I was going to come and get you.’
‘I told you not to wait, and I meant it. Patrick, you’re smothering me. You have to give me some space.’ She remembered the last half hour’s confrontation in her parents’ kitchen and tried to struggle out of his arms. ‘Leave me alone.’ The last thing she needed was this.
‘I just want to help.’
‘You’re going to have to give me some room. I don’t need to be rescued every minute of the day.’
‘I just want to be in the vicinity when you do need it then.’ Patrick growled into her neck. ‘Mates do that kind of thing. I’ll be right there, beside you, any time you want me.’
‘Oh Patrick, stop it.’
A small bundle of very aggressive boy came hurtling out of the darkness. Milo.
‘Leave my mother alone. Leave her alone! Didn’t you hear her?’ He was pummelling Patrick with his arms.
‘Hey, Milo, wait.’ Patrick tried to catch him but thought better of it and moved away from Diana to the front of the car.
Milo stood protectively in front of his mother, tears not far away, his hands still fisted. ‘We don’t want you. I told you. We don’t want you.’ And he turned and buried his head in his mother’s stomach.
Aghast, Diana raised her eyes to Patrick, beseeching him to go. She watched him reluctantly turn and go back to the house.
‘Here, get in the car.’ She pulled Milo in on top of her. He was all arms and legs. It had been ages since she’d had him on her lap. He’d grown. She eased the seat back as far as it would go.
‘Milo, you’re enormous.’ They sat silently for a minute in the dark. She smoothed his dark hair and wiped the tears with her fingers before fumbling for the pack of tissues in the central glove box beside her.
‘We need to talk, Milo. Why did you hit Patrick?’
His arms tightened around her neck. ‘You said it was just us, just the four of us. We don’t need him.’
‘Patrick’s been very good to us. He came all the way down to Albury to get me and bring me home. It wasn’t very polite to hit him.’
‘You said stop. I thought he was hurting you.’
‘We, um, he wasn’t hurting me. Patrick wouldn’t hurt me.’ She paused. ‘Don’t you like him?’
‘No.’
Wonderful. ‘Any reason?’
‘He watches us all the time.’
‘I guess he doesn’t know much about kids. Sam and Alex like him, don’t they?’
There was a grunt. That could be a yes or a no, but probably was ‘I’m not agreeing with you even if they do’.
‘Can we go home now?’
‘Not really. Tommo has just got home and needs some peace and quiet for a few days. Then we can go back.’
‘I mean London. I don’t want to stay here.’
‘I know, I mean London too. Just a few days to help Stella and Tommo, okay?’
‘Then we can go back?’
‘Yes.’ She took a deep breath.
Milo was silent. She could hear his breathing. She could see it in the frosty air.
‘Milo, you must apologise to Patrick. Say you’re sorry you hit him.’
‘I’m not sorry.’
‘We are guests in his house. You can’t go round hitting your host.’
‘He was pushing you against the car and you told him to stop.’
Lord, he was a stubborn child. ‘I was only kidding, having fun.’ But she couldn’t make herself go further with an explanation than that. ‘I want you to go inside now and say you’re sorry. All right?’
‘I’ll tell him I’m sorry, but that he must not push you around or I’ll hit him again.’
Milo disentangled himself. Diana didn’t know whether she should laugh or cry. Her wonderful son was going to look after her, by hook or by crook, and so was Patrick. She was totally overwhelmed by all this protection. She’d been so independent all her life.
I totally agree, you are very difficult woman to protect. I learnt that pretty early in the piece.
I am not a difficult woman.
But she couldn’t think of anything that would verify that statement.
Together they walked into the house. Patrick was sitting on a stool in the kitchen. Everyone else, thankfully, had disappeared. It was all very quiet.
‘Have you had dinner, Diana?’
‘No, I’m fine, thank you.’ She gave Milo a little shove.
‘I’m sorry, Patrick.’ His eyes were focused on the ground, and Diana turned him around and went to walk with him back to the bedroom before he could make good the rest of his threat.
‘Milo, wait.’ Patrick stopped them. ‘I’m sorry, too. It must have looked as if I was hurting your mother. You need to know I would never do that.’
This time Milo raised his eyes and looked directly at Patrick. ‘I know because I won’t let you.’
Diana gave a little sigh of frustration and took her son to bed.
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
Diana and Milo parked the quad bike back in the machinery shed. She put both their helmets on the bench, and they walked back to the house.
‘Lunch will be good, I’m hungry. I think you’re getting quite good on that bike, Milo.’
‘It’s good fun. When are we going back, Mummy?’
She wished he’d stop asking her that. The last week had been busy and full but it hadn’t shifted him. Patrick had spent the week in Sydney, their only communication had been o
n the telephone.
‘As soon as Tommo’s on his feet,’ Diana said. ‘He has to take things quietly for a while. Anyway, it’s only July. What’s so important to get back to?’
‘I want to see my other grandparents. And my team is playing cricket now. They haven’t got a wicket keeper.’
When they walked into the kitchen everything was in chaos.
‘Where have you been?’ Stella looked up briefly from the telephone, mid conversation. ‘No, she’s back. There was nothing you could have done, darling. We’ll be there shortly.’
Diana felt the world spin out of control. ‘What’s happened? What’s wrong?’
Stella closed her eyes for a moment. ‘Bad news, I’m afraid. Peg passed away. Rosie just found her on the floor. She must have had a stroke, or it may have been her heart. At least it must have been quick. I hope so.’
‘Where’s Dad?’
‘He’s getting changed. We’ll go in, now you’re back. I’m thinking you don’t want the children involved in all of this.’
‘God no.’
It was happening all over again. Another death. Panic. Breathe.
‘Granny was ninety,’ she whispered to herself. ‘It was what she would have wanted. This is okay.’ Fat, salty tears started to run down her cheeks.
‘Oh Diana, you mustn’t be sad. Peg had a great life and she was hating this, this decline, for want of a better word.’ Stella wrapped her arms around her. ‘Don’t be sad for Peg.’
‘I’m not. I’m sad for me.’
Sienna, her face worried, came in and rushed to her mother and clambered on to her knee. ‘It’s all right, Mummy. Look, Saskia and I have made a book for you—to draw pictures of Granny, and you can write down some of the funny things she said. And look, I’ve already put her name on it for you—Peg Crawford.’
Diana looked down. Sienna had folded three pages of white A4 paper together and tied them in the middle with one of her ribbons.
‘Thank you, thank you so much.’ She looked at her mother, who now had two fat tears running down her cheeks. ‘Oh dear.’ She hugged her child to her. Then she reached for her mother.
* * *
‘You’re the only one, Diana,’ her mother had urged. ‘Peg would so love you to do it.’
Her grandmother had been dead only a day and they were discussing the funeral and choosing the hymns—arguing was probably a better description.
‘Well, not that anyone thinks anything I’ve got to say is important,’ said Rosie, ‘but Granny always loved “Abide with Me”.’
‘Of course she did, Rosie. And Psalm 23, too.’ Stella wrote it all down.
‘I didn’t do Charlie’s eulogy,’ said Diana. ‘Bill Sutton did it beautifully. I think you should do it, Dad.’
They were sitting round the kitchen table—her father, her mother, Rosie and Mal—having a cup of tea. The children were finally in bed.
Her father waved away the teapot. ‘No thanks, Stell.’ He shook his head slowly. Everything he did was a bit slower these days. ‘I can’t, Diana. I barely saw Mum these last few months. It really upset me to see the way she was going and I let it all fall into your hands—Stella and Rosie, and now, since you came back, you, Diana. I’m not one for public speaking. Diana was always special to Peg. We would appreciate you doing it.’
Rosie picked up the cups to put them in the sink. ‘Well, we’re not really needed at the moment. Come on, Mal. Phillipa will be back tomorrow. Just let us know what you’ve decided.’
‘Rosie, don’t be silly, sit. There are two readings, and we wondered if you and Philly could do them?’ Stella put her pen down.
‘Why don’t you ask Milo, I’m sure he’d be up for it.’ Rosie couldn’t help herself.
‘I’m sure he would—if we asked him, but your father and I would love the two of you to do them. I’ll copy the verses out for you. I’ve spoken to the Reverend Keith, and the Church Guild is doing a morning tea and sandwiches for afterwards in the church hall.’
‘I hope there’ll be plenty. Granny will not be happy if there is not an overabundance of food.’ Diana grinned. ‘We might all get struck by lightning.’
‘It had better bring some rain with it,’ Tom grumbled.
* * *
Diana decided to approach her father when he was out of the house. He, of all of them, had to know Peg best, by the sheer number of years. She found him in the machinery shed with a hammer and a cloth and a bottle of WD40, on his back, cleaning the boom spray.
‘Now I’ve got you where I want you. I can’t believe I know so little about my grandmother. This is terrible. Why didn’t I ask her all these things before?’
‘What do you want to know?’ Tom slid out from under the boom spray and handed her the hammer.
‘Where was she born, to start with?’
‘Gunnedah.’
‘Right.’ Diana scribbled on her piece of paper. ‘When?’
‘Ask your mother, she knows dates better than me.’
‘What do you remember?’
‘She loved the horses, riding. Always keen to go out mustering with my father, nothing fazed her, very practical person my mother. On the other hand, everyone rode a horse in those days.’
‘Where did she get her education? She was always reading something. And had an opinion about it.’
‘Gunnedah, I guess. She certainly didn’t back away from an argument. She could argue the hind leg off a donkey.’ Tom grunted and put his hand out for the hammer again. ‘I dunno where she went to school, or even if she went. I do know she ran Mog’s Hill single-handed when Dad was away at the war.’
‘Did she? I didn’t know that. I remember the cooking—she cooked for my school fetes, and for church stalls and the local bushfire brigade. She was always cooking.’
‘Go and talk to your mother. She had a funny relationship with Mum but they ended up friends, I think.’ He disappeared under the boom spray again.
Diana stood and looked at his legs in the old blue overalls for a minute. ‘Peg encouraged me to keep making pots, you know.’
‘Mmm, she thought a lot of you, Diana. I think the two of you were pretty alike.’
‘Really?’
Diana walked back down to the house and found her mother watering the abelia bushes with Milo’s pitcher.
‘What do you think I should be saying in this eulogy, Mum? How did you get on with Peg?’
Stella laughed. ‘I don’t think Peg thought all that much of me when we first met. I’m not sure who exactly would have been good enough for your father in her eyes. It took me a while before I worked that out. We got on a lot better after that. I think what I’ll remember about her is that she never complained. No matter if there were bushfires or droughts or floods, she used to say “What do I have to complain about, there’s plenty worse off than me.” Amazing generation of women, that lot were. We Australians have a lot to thank them for, really.’
‘Thanks, Mum. I think I’ve got what I need.’
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
The church was warm: the familiar white-washed walls, sun streaming in the stained-glass windows and wooden pews filled to the brim with strange faces. Some she recognised. Her dad gave her a wink. Rosie was holding Mal’s hand on one side of her and Philly’s on the other. The kids were unusually restrained and in their good London clothes. The sea of faces before her floated en masse like a cloud of pink balloons. She was usually one of them sitting down there; she wasn’t used to looking down over the congregation. She’d sneaked one look at the coffin. It was so tiny. Why, oh why had she ever agreed to this?
She was going to have to start. Her sheets of paper rattled. That was her hands trembling. She grasped the lectern more firmly. At a nod from the rector she took a breath.
Before she knew it she was nearly at the end. Just two more paragraphs to go.
Her eyes caught sight of Patrick, sitting towards the back. He’d been wonderful these last few days, everything you could wish for in a friend.
<
br /> ‘The way she embraced life leaves behind an enormous legacy to us all. Don’t waste anything. Not time, money, water or food. I think the most valued of Granny’s possessions was the chest freezer where she was able to store huge quantities of food.’
Another sprinkle of laughter.
‘Waste is the greatest sin, and living life to the full, the greatest virtue. That’s what she always said. Not a bad motto.’
Diana looked at Stella, and her dad. And saw the love. That had been there all this time.
She gathered her papers together and made her way down the steps to join her mother and her father, squashing the kids into the pew to make room for her. They knelt to pray. It was time to wake up to herself. Her grandmother was perfectly right—time was wasting away and she had things to do and a life to get on with. The children needed to go back to Gospel Oak. There was healing to be done and it could only be done there.
She had to regain control of her life and her children’s lives.
Well, Granny, time is a-wasting.
* * *
Diana sipped her tea out of the white china cup and looked round the church hall. They’ve done you proud, Granny. The church hall was full. Seventy years her grandmother had been part of this town. The children were clustered around her again. At each introduction, Saskia mostly buried into her groin.
‘Well done, Diana. We’ll miss Peg.’ She turned. Sid and Una Herschel were smiling sympathetically. They were a lovely couple.
‘Thank you. When are you coming over to visit me?’
‘In August. We have your number. Una can’t wait to get to the markets in Portobello Road.’
‘Your family will be sad to see you going.’ Una nodded in her parents’ direction.
‘I’m depending on you two to talk them into visiting. Dad’s so much better now. I think they’ll come.’