The Last of the Apple Blossom

by Mary-Lou Stephens

  Mark had no words of reassurance. ‘I’m sorry, mate.’

  ‘And I’m sorry I dragged you into this. Come to Tassie and get away from it all. Relax and enjoy the country life.’ His smile was a grimace. ‘You’d’ve been better off staying away.’

  ‘No, mate. I’m glad I’m here. No matter what.’ He couldn’t tell a grieving father that Lara was finally happy about having another baby. ‘Thanks for looking after Charlie. I’d better head back.’

  ‘I’ll keep an eye on him. Least I can do.’

  Mark felt awkward leaving Charlie there, but Lara was so close now he didn’t like leaving her alone for long. Her refusal to go to the health centre still worried him. He thought she would’ve changed her mind by now, but she was adamant.

  When he got home she was still in bed, the door firmly closed. He opened it gently. ‘Can I get you anything?’

  Despite the heat, she’d pulled the sheet over herself. ‘Nothing.’ Her voice was muffled and tense.

  Mark backed away. He’d learnt to leave her alone when she was like this. He took his guitar out onto the verandah and began composing a new lullaby for little Emily.

  It was some hours later when he heard a low moaning. Lara. He rushed into the bedroom to find her on all fours on the floor, her naked body dripping sweat and her face contorted in a silent scream. He dropped to the floor beside her. ‘Lara, c’mon. Let’s get you to the health centre, now.’

  ‘No,’ she growled.

  His mind raced. Annie was in no state to help and he couldn’t leave Lara, not like this. The only thing to do was get her into the car and drive her to Cygnet. ‘Lara, please. We have to go to Cygnet.’

  ‘I’m not going anywhere.’ She grabbed his arm in a vice-like grip. ‘You got me into this.’ Her grip tightened as a contraction racked her body. ‘Get her out of me,’ she bellowed. ‘Do it now.’

  The stream of abuse that followed was shocking. Mark knew pain and fear were causing the vindictive tirade, but the depth of her anger was unnerving. As the labour progressed he floundered, knowing he was out of his depth. All he could do was follow her lead – walking with her when she wanted to pace, swaying with her as she rocked, and kneeling beside her when she dropped to the floor to push. He rubbed her back, gave her water, and brought hot water and towels although he wasn’t sure why. Mark was astounded by her strength and determination. His wife was an Amazon, enduring an agony he was sure he could never survive. She abused him, bit him and bruised him, but he knew his pain was nothing compared to hers.

  When at last their baby slid into the world, wet and red, he laughed with relief. The towels and water were put to good use as Mark nervously cut the cord and wiped their daughter clean. She filled her lungs with air and announced her presence in the world. To Mark she was beautiful, even with her wrinkled skin and elongated head. ‘Look, darling, our little Emily.’ He held her out to Lara in wonder. ‘She’s perfect.’

  Lara crawled onto the bed. ‘She’s not my baby,’ she muttered.

  Mark joined her, carefully cradling their daughter. ‘Would you like to hold her?’

  Lara turned away.

  Mark didn’t know what time it was. The bedroom was dark and still. They must have fallen asleep; him, Lara and their daughter, all exhausted from the birth. He reached out but the bed was empty. He padded into the lounge room expecting to find Lara feeding their daughter there. Empty. As were the kitchen, the other bedrooms and the bathroom. Charlie would still be at the main house. With the events of the afternoon and evening, Mark hadn’t found time to collect his son. Dave would understand. But what about Lara and Emily? Where were they? The car was missing. Had Lara taken the baby to the health centre to have her checked out? But why not wake him so he could drive them there? He pulled on his shoes and headed towards the main house. He’d pick up Charlie, borrow the ute and head into Cygnet.

  At Dave’s he let himself in the back door and walked up the hallway, checking the bedrooms for Charlie. He spotted him asleep, top and tailing with one of the boys. Best to leave him for now. He heard murmurs from Annie and Dave’s room and noticed a crack of dim light under their door. He knocked.

  ‘Come in.’ It was Annie. Her voice sounded light, not full of sorrow as he’d expected.

  He opened the door. Annie was sitting on the bed, with a beatific smile on her face and a baby nestling against her chest. Dave was the mirror opposite, hovering beside her, his face grey with worry.

  ‘Mate, I’m sorry,’ Dave said.

  ‘I have a daughter.’ Annie was beaming. ‘She’s beautiful.’

  Mark reeled back. He’d buried Annie’s daughter with his own hands.

  Dave took a faltering step towards him. ‘It was Lara. She didn’t seem herself. I tried to stop her. But she insisted. I didn’t know what to do. And Annie …’ He turned towards his wife.

  ‘She’s mine.’ Annie clutched the baby closer. ‘Lara said. She said she was always meant for me. My precious daughter.’ She stroked the baby’s cheek. ‘So perfect.’

  Mark stared in horror. Annie had his daughter. ‘I don’t understand. Where’s Lara?’

  Dave shrugged – a pathetic gesture that made Mark furious.

  ‘Give me my daughter,’ Mark said.

  ‘She’s not yours,’ Annie said. ‘She’s mine. Lara said so.’

  Mark growled in frustration. He couldn’t bear to be in the room any longer. ‘Dave.’ He indicated towards the door.

  On the verandah Mark couldn’t keep still. ‘Tell me what happened. And where’s Lara? The car’s gone.’

  ‘Said she needed to get away. Didn’t say where. Mate, I’m sorry. There was nothing I could do. By the time I realised, the deal was done.’

  ‘The deal?’

  ‘The women made some kind of pact. This is the first time I’ve seen Annie happy for so long. Honestly, I never thought I’d see her smile again.’

  ‘For God’s sake, Dave. The baby’s not hers. She can’t keep her. This’ll only make things worse.’

  Dave slumped like a beaten dog. ‘I know. But just for a little while. Just until Lara comes back. Let her look after your daughter. Please?’ His eyes held a sorrow Mark could never imagine. He realised his friend had lost a baby daughter and his wife too, in a way.

  Mark shoved his hands in his pockets and stared out towards the river. The sun would be coming up soon. He’d have to begin his search for Lara. How could he do that with a young son to take care of and now a newborn daughter as well?

  ‘We’ll take good care of her, you know we will.’ It was as if Dave had read his thoughts.

  Mark closed his eyes for a moment. ‘Only until I find Lara.’

  Dave let out a sigh. ‘Okay.’

  But Mark didn’t find Lara. And she didn’t come back. He realised, too late, that she’d fooled him. She’d planned to give their daughter to Annie as soon as she heard about the stillbirth, maybe even before with all that talk of twins. She’d hidden the signs of her labour until there was no choice but for her to give birth in the house with only the two of them there, and he’d played right into her hands. Had she always planned to give their baby away? Is that why she’d never let anyone know she was pregnant? Just how much of a sucker had he been?

  The change in Annie was dramatic. She doted on the baby and was back to her happy, capable self, whipping the house and the boys into shape. Mark knew she could look after his daughter a lot better than he could, given his circumstances – homeless, jobless, and with a young son to take care of. But only until Lara was back. He wasn’t to know the lengths Annie would go to to keep his daughter.

  38

  May 1972

  Mark

  For the first time the pickers’ hut felt poor and shabby. Mark had never noticed, until Lara sat down, how decrepit the old chairs were. She was like an exotic creature out of place and time; at odds with her scruffy environment. He sat down too and tried to comprehend what was happening. Lara was dead yet here she was, with a Mercedes
, a chauffeur and a slight British accent.

  He watched her warily as she swung one long leg over the other and reached into her handbag, pulling out a packet of menthol cigarettes. ‘Do you have a light?’ She stretched a bejewelled hand in his direction.

  ‘I don’t smoke any more, but I’ve got matches.’ He began to rise, but she motioned him to sit and produced a gold lighter from her handbag with a sly smile. She was testing him. Making sure he was still malleable and compliant. He grabbed a saucer to act as an ashtray, knowing she’d ash on the floor otherwise.

  Lara lit the long cigarette and sucked the smoke into her lungs before releasing it in a steady flow. ‘I don’t remember it being this cold.’

  Mark could offer to light the fire, but didn’t want her getting too cosy. ‘It was summer. I’m surprised you remember it at all.’

  ‘Darling man, don’t be like that. It was a hard time for me. You know how devastatingly ragged I used to get.’ She waved her hand as if batting away a fly. ‘All in the past. Do you have anything to drink?’

  ‘Tea, water. Or perhaps you’d like an orange cordial. It’s Charlie’s favourite.’

  Mark watched her mouth as it encircled the cigarette and took a drag, that luscious, ripe, ridiculous, lying mouth. She pouted as she blew the smoke out slowly. ‘Really, lover. Nothing else? A nice bottle of wine or a finger or two of whiskey?’

  Mark rubbed his hand across his eyes. As always with Lara she never divulged anything easily. Once he was over the initial shock, he’d asked her the obvious questions. She’d been declared dead, for God’s sake! But she’d dodged his queries by asking Annie and Dave about their health and the children, though it was obvious she didn’t really give a damn. Dave had answered in monosyllables while Annie was stiff with anger and fear. Mark had finally suggested that Lara come to the pickers’ hut with him where they could be alone and he’d have more chance of finding out what he desperately needed to know.

  ‘Who was it down in the gully, in the car?’ He’d insist she answer. ‘Clearly it wasn’t you, but the woman was wearing the pendant I gave you. You were listed as legally dead. How can you be sitting here, smoking a cigarette?’

  ‘Quite easily, darling.’ She took another drag. ‘See? You suck on this end and then blow out.’ She exhaled and tapped the end of the cigarette, spilling ash into the saucer.

  ‘Lara.’ He tried to mute the frustration in his voice. He’d have to keep his anger in check if he wanted answers. And he did, badly.

  ‘You really are no fun any more. But then you hadn’t been for a while.’ She twirled a strand of her long dark hair around the fingers of her free hand. ‘How can I be here? I flew in from London. Swung by Mummy and Daddy’s on the way through. They were surprised to see me, I have to say.’ She laughed low in her throat.

  Mummy and Daddy? Lara had never called her parents anything but Mum and Dad before. ‘Why didn’t you call? Or write?’

  ‘You don’t have a telephone, silly. Mummy and Daddy told me that. They wrote you a letter. Clearly I arrived before it did.’

  ‘I mean, ever. Not even a note.’

  She shrugged languidly.

  Mark knew he’d get nowhere so changed tack. ‘Who was it in the car?’

  Lara pouted. ‘I assume it was the woman I sold it to. I threw in the pendant as well since she seemed to like it.’

  ‘What woman?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. Canadian from memory. On a trip around Australia in a Kombi with her boyfriend, but she didn’t look like a hippy. Old money I’d say, indulging in a bit of rough before having to settle down. She and her boyfriend had a huge fight and she’d been desperate to get away. We were driving to Hobart, but when we hit Fern Tree she changed her mind. The stupid girl wanted to go back to her boyfriend. I told her where you were and that you’d pay her back for the car, but I was keeping her dough. She took off, leaving me stranded.’

  ‘But where did you go?’

  Lara stretched like a cat, slow and lazy. ‘I don’t know, darling, it’s all a bit of a blur. There was some hitchhiking, I think.’ Her golden eyes widened. ‘Oh, now I remember. A very nice man picked me up. Turns out he was travelling to Melbourne on the boat so I tagged along. The crossing was hideous and I wasn’t all that well so the darling gave me his cabin and slept in his car.’ She studied her nails. ‘He was extraordinarily kind, but ended up being way too clingy.’

  That explained why Mark hadn’t been able to find any record of her using their return ticket. ‘But none of our friends in Melbourne saw any sign of you. I went over and looked for you. There wasn’t a trace.’

  ‘Melbourne held no appeal.’ Lara waved her hand dismissively. ‘I ended up in Sydney. Now that was a lot of fun.’ Her laugh was low and throaty.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell us where you were?’ He couldn’t help but ask again, the hurt was still so close to the surface.

  Lara dragged hard on her cigarette. ‘Might have been the people I was with or the substances we were indulging in. Both, probably. Honestly, darling, what does it matter? I’m here now.’

  ‘But what about Charlie and our life together? And Angela?’

  ‘I’ll always think of her as Emily.’

  ‘That’s when she was our daughter. You gave her away. I had no say in it.’

  Lara’s eyes went cold. ‘You’d rather put me through the hell I endured after Charlie was born?’

  Mark was amazed at her selfishness. ‘The birth certificate was signed before I could think about what to do – how to cope with two on my own.’

  ‘Talking about certificates. I have a tiny little favour to ask.’

  Of course, that’s why she’d finally turned up, back from the dead. Because she wanted something. She’d never cared about Charlie and had never wanted Angela. Had she ever loved him? Mark said nothing. He’d make her work for a response.

  She leant forward, her bracelets chinking gently against each other. ‘I hardly think you’ll mind, given the circumstances.’

  ‘So, you were in Sydney all that time? Doing drugs?’

  ‘Oh, no, darling. I skipped over to the UK. A British band was touring Australia and we hooked up. One of them couldn’t live without me, naturally.’ She ground her cigarette into the saucer.

  ‘England?’

  ‘Lucky I had a passport. Remember when we both got them?’ There was a glimpse of the old Lara in her eyes, the fierce, combative nature that had made their marriage such a fury. ‘It finally came in handy.’

  She’d never let him forget what a disappointment he’d turned out to be. Mark was supposed to go to the UK with the band and take her with him. He was supposed to be famous and keep her in the lap of luxury. ‘You were pregnant and we had a child. It was never going to work.’

  ‘Children!’ She spat the word. ‘I wasn’t going to get sucked down into a pathetic little life saddled with two brats.’ The cool, elegant woman was gone. Even her accent was less British.

  ‘So you gave our baby away, abandoned your son, and me, and never let us know where you were.’

  ‘I could hardly escape if you knew where I was. And admit it, Emily has had a better life here than I could have given her. It’s obvious Annie dotes on her.’

  ‘Annie was out of her mind with grief. You took advantage of her.’

  ‘Interesting.’ Lara looked at him shrewdly. ‘You’re defending Annie? Did she ever offer to give Emily back?’

  Mark said nothing, his jaw clenched tight with anger. He remembered how furious and how utterly powerless he’d felt when he found out what Annie had done, and there’d been nothing he could do about it, nothing at all. It had been not long after the fires and the world was still in disarray when Dave came to him with a stricken expression on his face.

  ‘I’m sorry, mate,’ Dave said. ‘I didn’t know anything about it. She told me she was going into town to pick up some supplies from the Red Cross. That’s all.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  D
ave shook his head slowly. ‘Annie.’ He paused and took a deep breath. ‘She’s registered your baby as ours. She’s showed me the birth certificate. Angela Pearson, born to Anne and David Pearson on the fifth of February 1967. It’s all signed, stamped and legal.’

  Anger and disbelief exploded in Mark’s chest. ‘What the hell? How? How could she do that? How could you let her?’

  Dave was close to tears. ‘I didn’t know. Honestly. You’ve got to believe me. She even went to the Four Square in Cygnet on the way home, she told me, to show Angela off.’

  Mark began to panic. By now the whole valley would think Emily Davis was Angela Pearson. Everybody had known Annie was expecting and now there was the baby to prove it. No one in the valley had ever caught a glimpse of Lara, let alone known she was pregnant, she’d made sure of it. Mark would look crazy if he declared the baby didn’t belong to Annie, but to him. The realisation slammed into him – first Lara and then Annie had taken advantage of him. The trap had been set and he’d walked right into it.

  ‘She also said—’ Dave’s voice faltered.

  ‘What?’ Mark was almost shouting, his voice high and strained in his head. ‘What else did she say?’

  ‘She said it was Lara’s idea. To register your baby as Annie’s. That Angela had always belonged to Annie, not her.’

  ‘Emily,’ Mark hissed between clenched teeth. ‘Her name is Emily. And I’m going to get her back. She belongs to me. I’ll tell everyone what Annie’s done.’

  ‘Please, mate, please.’ Dave was crying now. ‘It’ll break Annie if the truth gets out, but not only that, it’ll break everything – me, the boys, it’ll ruin us all.’

  Mark felt as though his world was breaking apart – Lara gone, his daughter stolen. He clenched his fists and walked away.

  Eventually though, he promised Dave he’d keep the secret. He would never do it for anyone else and certainly not for Annie, but for his best friend, who’d always been there for him. But part of him had never given up. Annie couldn’t stop Mark from staying in the valley, or from keeping an eye on his daughter. It broke his heart to see the similarities between Charlie and Angela as they grew, brother and sister, but to never be able to tell them, or to be the father to Angela that he wanted to be. He couldn’t deny that Dave was a good dad and Annie, despite his antipathy, was a much better mother than Lara. But the antagonism between Mark and Annie was ever present, a fire that kept burning long after the bushfires were over.