Catherine
When the dreadful news rocked the valley, part of Catherine wasn’t surprised. England joining the Common Market meant the collapse of their main export market and their primary source of income. It spelt ruin for the valley. To Catherine it was yet another catastrophe in a long line of disasters. The past months had been hell. Lies had created more lies. After everything he’d said and done to keep them apart, Catherine couldn’t bear to admit to her father that he’d been right about Mark all along. When he’d asked why she wasn’t wearing her engagement ring, Catherine had told him she didn’t want to lose it in the orchard. The lack of a wedding was explained away with another lie – Mark had a contractual obligation to do an extended tour of the mainland with his band. In reality, after the divorce proceedings in Sydney, he’d spent time with Lara’s parents in Melbourne trying to figure everything out, including what to do with the ashes buried under the plaque with Lara’s name on it. Once again Lara’s lawyer had stepped in and taken care of it all, with everything hushed up by whatever means necessary. It had added to the layers of deceit and disrespect that Catherine hated.
Poor Charlie had been kept in the dark about everything. He’d stayed with Annie and Dave while Mark was away but shielded from what was actually going on. Catherine was forced to lie to Charlie too, because of decisions she didn’t agree with. It created a tension whenever she saw him. Would Charlie ever know he had a sister? And would Angela ever be told? Annie still refused to consider it. The birth certificate named her and Dave as the parents. Angela should never know any differently. To anyone who asked, Lara was explained away as an eccentric aunt of Annie’s. Everybody knew how rich her family was, and there’d been no hiding the expensive car with a chauffeur cruising through Cygnet that day.
Mark’s lies were the worst. She’d been uncertain of him from the beginning, thinking he was waiting for Lara to come back. Then, after Lara’s ‘death’ and Mark’s return to the valley, she’d foolishly believed it was for her. But it was because of his other child. A daughter he’d given away. A secret he’d kept from her all this time. If he was capable of lying to her about something so important, what else was he capable of?
Catherine knew some of this mess wasn’t Mark’s fault. He’d honestly thought Lara was dead. But he’d gone along with so much deceit; the lies Lara wanted, Annie wanted and the lawyer wanted. There was no room left for what Catherine wanted. Charlie was the one who suffered most. He was looking forward to being the ring bearer at the wedding, and part of a whole new family. Instead, Mark and Catherine were like strangers. Since Mark had returned to Wattle Grove they had spent Sunday afternoons together, either at the river or the pickers’ hut, but only for Charlie’s sake and she never stayed long. She missed the afternoons and evenings she and Mark had spent in her bed, hungry for each other’s touch, and afterwards lying tangled together, unwilling to let each other go. But she couldn’t give herself, body or soul, to a man who’d lied about so much for so long. When people asked about when the wedding would be now Mark was back, Catherine gave vague unconvincing answers that never assuaged the doubt in their eyes.
And now, more bad news. Catherine trudged through the orchard towards her parents’ house, pausing to touch a few of the growing apples. But what was the point of tending to them now? The heaviness in her heart filled her days with despair. She could see no glimmer of hope. The fire in 1967 had been devastating, and Peter’s death heartbreaking, but she’d had something to fight for – getting the orchard back up and running. Then Charlie had given her joy and Mark’s love had transformed her life. That had ended in deceit and pain. And now England had perpetrated the greatest betrayal of all.
Her father sat at the kitchen table, the orchard ledger in front of him along with assorted files and papers. His mouth was a grim line. ‘We’ve got the Hong Kong market for the Red Delicious, but that’s not enough. We could try to increase our sales to the mainland, but everyone’s going to be doing that, and even when times were good those sales hardly paid enough to cover costs. The Jonathans, the Golden Delicious and Sturmers are dead in the water, I reckon. I was counting on the Brits to take all of them.’
There’d been rumblings about what might happen if England joined the Common Market, but no one had planned for this. With the stroke of a pen Tasmania, along with the rest of Australia, had lost its favoured nation status. The orchardists used to joke that England would buy every variety Tasmania chose to grow. Now England would be taking very little. Instead, a committee in Brussels would dictate which markets Britain would buy her apples from. Tasmania was a long way down the list. No longer would the apple ships wait three deep at Port Huon. No more would the trucks packed with boxes of apples line up through the streets of Hobart on their way to Constitution Dock. It was over.
Catherine’s mother placed a teacake and two plates on the table next to the teapot and cups.
‘Not having any cake, Mum?’ Catherine asked.
‘No appetite, darling. It’s all a bit of a worry.’ Her face brightened. ‘Is Charlie going to come over today?’
‘Not today.’ Catherine was glad, in a way, that her mother didn’t know about Lara. At least Charlie had one adult in his life who wasn’t lying to him. But even so, with everything that had happened, Catherine kept his visits to a minimum.
‘Oh.’ Her mother sighed, her face contracting again. ‘I might go and have a little lie down.’
Catherine’s father waited until his wife was out of earshot. ‘She’s taking this pretty badly. As we all are. I can’t believe Britain would do this, after all we’ve done for her.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Helping in her darkest hour. Sending our young men over to fight in their thousands. Many never returned. Our best helped her win not one, but two wars, and now she’s turned her back on us. It’s a disgrace.’
Catherine’s father had been born here, as had his father and grandfather, but there was still an enormous attachment to the ‘Mother Country’. So many of the older generation referred to England as home, even though they’d never been there. And now their mother had abandoned her children.
‘Doug Anthony is furious,’ her father said.
‘I’ll bet.’ Doug Anthony was the leader of the Country Party. Her parents were dyed-in-the-wool Country Party supporters, as were most farmers and orchardists.
‘Been a monarchist all his life, but now he reckons he’s going to join the Republican Movement. Don’t blame him. Not the Queen’s fault though. It’s the bloody British Government.’
‘Our government knew this was going to happen. I can’t believe they didn’t put anything in place.’
Her father shook his head. ‘I reckon the Libs were too busy worrying about winning the election. Lot of good that did them.’
‘The new government might do better.’ The Labor Prime Minister, Gough Whitlam, had only been in power a little over a month, but already Catherine was impressed by how he was shaking things up.
‘Bunch of radicals. Where’s the money going to come from to fund all their promises? Anyway, the horse has bolted. I can hear the Argentinians cheering from here. They’ll be shipping their cheap fruit into Europe holus-bolus. It was hard enough to compete before, but now?’ He turned up his hands in a gesture of defeat.
One good year, Catherine thought. That’s all they’d managed despite the endless work, season after season, with early mornings, late nights and no holidays. It had seemed worth it with a goal in sight. But now the goal posts had been moved. They had no hope of scoring, let alone winning.
Her father patted her hand. ‘You’re lucky you have a profession to fall back on. Me and your mum? What have we got? Worked all our lives for nothing.’
Tears sprung to her eyes, unbidden and unexpected. Her father had always been a figure of resilience and certainty. Yes, she’d battled against him, both of them being so stubborn in their own way, but he’d been her rock, no matter the circumstances. To see him crumbl
e now, beaten by a political decision in a distant country, was too much. ‘We’ve been through worse than this. We’ve got to keep trying. What about the stabilisation scheme? That can keep us going until we figure it out.’
Her father dropped his eyes to the ledger. ‘The scheme won’t last. Not now. It’ll cost the government too much. There was a point to it when there was a market but it’s gone.’
‘But the Red Delicious – the Asian market. We still have that.’
‘And it’ll be a good selling point.’
‘For what?’
‘We have to get out now, before the rush. We’re too small to survive. One of the bigger mobs might find our Red Delicious an attractive option.’
‘What are you saying?’
‘I’ve decided. Your mother’s never been the same since Peter’s death and being here is a constant reminder. The fire. Costs going sky-high. The competition from other countries. And now this.’ His shoulders slumped. ‘It’s time to let it go.’
A hard cold band clamped her chest, restricting her lungs and stilling her heart. ‘Dad?’
‘I’m selling up.’ He nodded his head slowly. ‘I’m selling the orchard.’
41
January 1973
Mark
She came striding through the orchard towards him. The sight of her made the breath catch in his throat. She was angry, that much was clear – her hands were clenched and her jaw tight – but he was grateful to see her. Even though she had closed her heart to him, he was still at his happiest when they were together. He longed for her touch and the secret places he used to kiss her, but that was lost to him now. The joy he’d felt at their upcoming wedding was a torn shred of a memory blown away in a relentless wind of hurt and lies. He slipped the pruning scissors into the pouch on his belt and wiped his brow. The day was hot and still, the only sound was the drone of the ever-present flies. There were so many of them since Dave had started running more cattle – another reason to prefer apples as far as Mark was concerned.
‘Annie told me I’d find you here. Don’t know why you’re bothering with the thinning. Might as well let them all grow wild.’ She threw out a hand indicating the entire orchard.
‘The Common Market.’ He’d heard all about it from Dave.
‘I’ve just been to see Annie, but she’s too busy to talk. Worried about her own problems. And besides, she agrees with my father.’
Mark had no idea what she was talking about but didn’t interrupt – he was thankful she was talking to him at all. She’d been so cold since his return from the mainland.
Catherine paced restlessly in front of him between the rows of trees, her hands shoved into the pockets of her shorts, kicking at stones and creating little puffs of dust with her work boots. ‘Sell the orchard! How can he sell the orchard? It’s my orchard too. Did he ask me? Did he ever talk it over with me, see if there was another solution, or something we could do together to fix this? Nope. He decided, just like that.’ She clicked her fingers. ‘If I was a man, I would have been consulted. If I were his son, he’d pass the orchard on to me. He wouldn’t sell. If I was a man. If I was Peter.’ Her eyes were wild with grief and anger, shards of blue swimming in unspilled tears. ‘But you know what the really crazy thing is? Peter never wanted it. I was the one who always wanted to run the orchard. Peter’s dream was to be a vet. He was always saving the possums from the traps, and rabbits. Drove Dad wild. He’d spend more time with our house cow and the chickens than any other of his chores. And then when Benno came along—’ Catherine pressed her lips together and looked up into the flat blue sky. ‘I told him I’d take over the orchard and he could be a vet if he wanted to be. I told him I’d help him. But Dad was right; it was a pipe dream. Peter’s dead and Dad’s going to sell the orchard. I don’t know what to do. I really don’t.’ She sunk to the ground, burying her face in her hands.
Her despair was awful to watch. Mark knelt beside her, avoiding physical comfort since any touch from him had made her recoil in recent months. ‘What does your heart tell you?’
‘My heart?’ She spat the words at him. ‘My heart! I can’t trust my heart. It trusted you. And my father. My heart trusted the orchard, and this land. My heart is an idiot. It’s the last thing I should be listening to right now.’
‘Okay, well, what do you want?’
‘I want Peter to be alive. I want the orchard to be successful, with me running it. I want – to be loved.’ Her face crumpled. ‘To love you. But it hurts too much.’ She shook her head. ‘My heart is an idiot and so am I; believing in happy endings, in love, in England, believing in anything. It’s all ruined. And I tried so hard.’
He reached out to help her up from the dirt, but she pulled away.
‘I’m so sick of being angry all the time. With you, my father and Annie,’ she took a shuddering breath, ‘and I’m angry with Peter. Why did he have to die?’
‘I’m sorry, Catherine, I truly am. For everything.’ Mark’s words were inadequate, he knew, but he felt helpless in the face of such distress. He’d never seen her like this.
‘Sorry? Hah!’ The rage was back in her eyes. ‘You’re to blame for so much of it. You lied to me. You, who stayed here for Lara and for Angela, not for me. It was never for me.’
He was grateful for her anger. For months their conversations had been polite and perfunctory, with Catherine putting up a wall of ice he couldn’t penetrate. Now, at least, they were getting to the truth of things. ‘You’re right, to a point. I stayed, at first, because I was waiting for Lara to return and because of my daughter. By the time it became obvious that Lara wasn’t coming back, it was too late. I’d fallen in love with you.’
Catherine looked down, her fair hair falling around her face. She stared at her hands and rubbed a callus on her index finger.
He spoke gently, not wanting to be shut out again. ‘I was grateful for how you helped Charlie. He was so lost, and you brought him back. I will never be able to repay you for that.’
Catherine’s voice was softer. ‘He reminded me of Peter, when he was little. It felt as though I’d been given a second chance.’
Mark nodded. He’d always suspected as much. ‘I fell in love with you, Catherine, and it tore me apart that Lara had disappeared and left such a mess. I couldn’t be with you because I was married. I couldn’t tell you about Angela because I’d promised Dave. He was hurting too. His daughter had just died. And all Annie did was shut herself away and cry until the day Lara gave our baby to her.’
Catherine nodded. ‘She wouldn’t see me, or even come to the door. I didn’t know what was going on. Certainly not that her baby had died.’ Despite the summer heat Catherine wrapped her arms around herself, as if cold. ‘But you didn’t tell me. You didn’t trust me. You kept the lie alive.’
‘I tried not to, truly. In the letter I wrote to you when I went away for Lara’s funeral, I said I didn’t want any secrets between us and when I came back I was going to tell you everything.’ He sighed. ‘But I never heard back from you, and you wouldn’t take my calls—’ Catherine went to object but he held out a hand. ‘I know it wasn’t your fault, but think about it. There I was in Melbourne, not knowing what you were feeling. I’d written you a letter saying there was something I needed to tell you, and you never responded. The moment you called me – you remember?’ His fingers gently touched hers and she nodded slowly. ‘I immediately set the wheels in motion to return, to you. I didn’t come back for Angela. After Lara was declared dead I knew there was no chance. I came back for you.’
‘But you stayed away so long.’
‘Yeah, I did and I’m sorry. If I’d known …’ He risked taking her hand and to his relief she let him nestle her work-roughened one in his. ‘The band’s success was unexpected, but it happened and then I had obligations to them. And to Charlie. His mother was dead but his grandparents adored him. But all my thoughts were of you.’ He stroked the back of her hand with his thumb. ‘You are the seed, grown where you were
planted, strong and true, reaching deep down into the soil and finding the essence of life. Me? I’m just the graft.’
She frowned and withdrew her hand. ‘Have you learnt nothing? The graft is the bearer of the fruit. Without the graft there’d be no crop, no livelihood. Seed can never produce an apple that’s true to type. The fruit is unpredictable, inconsistent. Is that how you see me?’
He laughed softly in exasperation. ‘Here I am trying to be poetic and you bring me back down to earth. That’s exactly what I’m talking about. You are my solid ground. I need you.’
‘And yet you hurt me. So badly.’
‘Yes, I did.’ Mark shook his head. ‘It was stupid of me to give that letter to Dave. I should’ve known Annie would read it. That’s why she never told you about the letter or my calls. She was desperate to keep the truth about Angela hidden.’
‘And you played along.’
‘Not for her, for Dave. He’d seen his wife break apart, helpless to do anything about it. He was terrified of what would happen to Annie if I tried to take Angela away. I made a promise to him. Not to Annie, but to him.’ He rubbed his eyes. He’d been conflicted, wanting to tell Catherine the truth but also wanting to keep his promise to Dave. Had his intentions been honourable or had he just been a coward?
Catherine sat quietly, and Mark held his breath, waiting for her next words.
‘What’s it been like? Watching Angela grow up, knowing she’s yours but never being able to tell her the truth or spend real time with her?’
A wave of grief he was powerless to resist crashed through him, a pain he’d carried since the day Lara had given their baby away. How could words describe how it felt to lose his daughter and yet see her every day? To watch with love and sadness as she grew and changed. And Annie there, every minute, keeping Angela from him and never letting his daughter out of her sight. To never be able to tell Charlie he had a sister and to see them grow up together and yet so far apart. Embarrassed, he dashed a tear away.
The Last of the Apple Blossom Page 28