Other Side of the Season Read online

The man had been delighted to see Nat, even taking her to the café in the lobby for a drink. The coffee had been ordinary, the conversation anything but.

  ‘Nat? Nat! Natalie!’ Matthew was grinning at her. ‘You really are going to have to get used to that name change. I was saying it’s a shame the kids couldn’t make your grand opening tonight.’

  ‘Oh, yes, well you know Jake.’ Just thinking about the bright-eyed and bushy-tailed boy who’d brought such joy to her life warmed Nat’s heart. ‘Getting him into an art gallery has always been an effort. He takes after you on that score. Of course, when I asked if he’d come he said he would, only he pulled one of those if-I-have-to expressions. Then before I left the house tonight he gave me a hug and said he was proud of me for “kicking arse”. Whatever that means, I don’t know.’ Nat laughed lovingly. ‘As for Sidney? Getting her to do anything I say is becoming increasingly difficult. I’m sure I wasn’t that contrary when I was twenty. She can’t possibly take after me. Do you agree?’

  Matthew didn’t answer, instead acknowledging a passing stranger with a nod of his head and a forced smile.

  How stupid, Nat!

  If only it was possible to take things back, like those few careless words–the throwaway line a result of too much champagne, too much euphoria, and too little thought. The look on her husband’s face broke her heart.

  ‘Matthew, I . . .’

  ‘It’s fine.’ His smile wavered and he drew the wine glass to his lips. ‘Tasha is waving you over. Best do your thing. I’ll see you at home.’

  It was as if Nat had thrown a pebble in a pond. Her question had disturbed the tranquil surface, and now other, bigger questions radiated out from it, like ripples in the water.

  • • •

  The happy times didn’t last long, and Natalie and Matthew soon started finding fault with one another again. She even argued about him not being around to argue with. He seemed to spend more time with his colleagues on a remote mining site in Western Australia than he spent at home. His job was consuming him–either that or he was avoiding his wife and family responsibilities. A midlife crisis maybe? Hence the need to call in on Leo.

  ‘You just happened to drop into my work and Leo just happened to see you? Just like that, eh?’

  ‘I was on my way to a client, I needed a coffee, and I found myself at the café under your offices. And there was Leo, who promptly informed me you’d been offered two roles, two separate opportunities back here at headquarters, and you’d declined on both occasions. Why would you do that, Matthew?’

  ‘I’m in charge of a great team where I am,’ he explained. ‘We’ve worked hard and the rewards are starting to show. Leaving before the job’s done will look like I’m abandoning them.’

  And yet, in the meantime, he happily abandoned his family every fortnight.

  ‘Leo did mention you were very popular and that your team loved you.’

  Leo had astounded Natalie, regaling her with tales of her husband’s exceptional paintball skills.

  ‘Paintball?’ Natalie had asked him, eyebrows raised.

  ‘Good for team building and strategising,’ Leo told her. ‘Gotta give the lads–and the ladies–plenty of entertainment and things to do. There’s no shortage of space out there, so I let them set up a couple of courses. Matt’s idea. It’s a sport that men and women can compete in equally, at any age. Even old buggers like me have a chance. I wasn’t a bad shot, either,’ Leo spluttered. ‘Physical strength and size aren’t as important as intelligence and determination, which is why your Matthew is hard to beat.’

  ‘He is?’

  There’d been more new information about her husband–lots more–and that easy feeling, that closeness and fond familiarity she’d been experiencing of late, exploded–like one of those brittle bags of dye fired from a paintball gun–right in Nat’s face.

  Most interesting was her husband’s apparent ability to retain staff. An example was his mentoring of a Janet Hobbs, Matthew’s 2IC.

  ‘The first woman we’ve recruited to such a role,’ Leo had announced proudly. ‘She’s particularly bright and eager to learn.’

  And always accompanying Matthew on field trips?

  ‘Together they get things done, all right,’ Leo said. ‘For a while the team was taking the micky out of poor Matt and his funny ways, until they got to understand him. They even have team time they call Chat With Matt.’

  ‘Chat?’ Matthew didn’t just chat, especially in a work situation. Her husband had always been serious and studious, happiest behind his laptop–and he hated the name Matt.

  Clearly, Leo mistook her question as one that needed clarifying. ‘Yeah, a casual natter with the crew. Great to see the management and workers connecting.’

  He was connecting at work, and yet increasingly antisocial at home. Even on those nights when Natalie stopped by the study in a flimsy nightgown, knowing the light from the staircase behind her would illuminate the long and still lean legs underneath, Matthew would tell her, ‘One more email, hon.’ She would go to bed alone, waiting for him to creep past the hallway light that streamed under the bedroom door, his shadow letting her know he was on his way to bed. Sleep usually came before.

  She was losing him again.

  One day at the gallery, in between serving customers and taking delivery of pieces for an upcoming ceramics exhibition, Nat had confided in Tash, telling her about Matthew’s growing obsession with his laptop, and how she’d been suspecting for some time that her husband might be having an affair.

  ‘Something as simple as a secret can seem like an affair.’ Tasha’s words, intended to be reassuring, hadn’t made Natalie feel better. In her experience, no secret was ever simple. Thank goodness Leo had promised her he’d clip Matthew’s wings.

  ‘I’ll make you a deal, Natalie,’ Leo had said with a wink after slurping the dregs of his coffee. ‘By this time next year the project he’s been working on will be over and Janet Hobbs will have earned her stripes. By that I mean she’ll need her own project and her own team. Between you and me, I’ll actually be glad to have that husband of yours kicking butt here in the home office. There’ll be one more overseas trip–a conference in New York I’m keen for him to attend–but after that, he’ll be all yours. If you’re sure that’s what you want.’ He raised an inquiring eyebrow. ‘Most wives, mine included, are glad to be rid of their men on a regular basis.’

  ‘I’m sure.’ Natalie had laughed along with Leo, all the while making plans in her head. Having her husband at home more often would be a good thing for their relationship. With Sidney and Jake needing their parents less, Nat and Matthew would be able to start a new phase of their marriage.

  Twelve months from today, she said to herself, checking the date on her watch. That will be September 11, 2001.

  30

  The Blue Mountains, 2008

  ‘Your Dad would be proud of us,’ Natalie told her daughter a week after Sid’s twenty-eighth birthday. ‘It’s not perfect, but there’s potential.’

  Natalie had been quick to act when she saw the Blue Mountains property listed. Besides interest rates being on the increase, a move away from a city that gave her nothing but memories of life with a husband was well overdue. Sidney had taken time out of her busy life–assisting her boyfriend to achieve his dream–to visit Natalie and help with the relocation. Now, mother and daughter loitered on the narrow, tree-lined street, united in a common cause–the making of Brushstrokes in the Bush from the grand old house on the other side of the road. They cocked their heads to one side, then the other, as though inspecting a fine work of art–or perhaps a puzzle, which was what Natalie’s chaotic list of things to do was starting to resemble, starting with a phone call to find out where those damn removalists were.

  Her daughter was good at puzzles, although not in the obsessive way Matthew had been. Sidney was a thinker, which was what had prompted her million-and-one questions growing up, often driving Natalie to distraction. Mother and daughter had
drifted apart over the years. After Matthew’s death, Sidney had taken out much of her hurt and anger on her remaining parent. No one could replace her father–Natalie had watched her daughter date half a dozen men trying. Then came Damien–ambitious and hardworking like Matthew. He was a man with big dreams: his own design studio, the big house, the flashy car. Natalie could relate to having goals, telling herself she should feel reassured that her daughter wasn’t getting involved with a no-hoper. She could even admire Damien for his indefatigable spirit. Then again, Natalie knew a lot about the impact such determination could have on the people you loved.

  She stared across the street at her own dream and the work ahead of her and then, glancing down the road, she squinted into the setting sun.

  Where are those damn removalists?

  When Sid had announced a few months ago, after barely two years working with Damien’s start-up company, that she was following him to Melbourne to help relocate his business there, mother and daughter had fought terribly.

  ‘I thought you’d be happy for me, Mum,’ Sidney had said that day. ‘You’ve always said Melbourne is the place. The creative and cultural hub, you used to tell Dad.’

  ‘Did I?’

  ‘Didn’t she, Jake?’ Sid sought agreement from her brother, who was doing his best to avoid involvement in the conversation by turning up the TV. ‘Look, Mum, it’s just Melbourne, not the other side of the world.’

  ‘We talked about this venture of mine before I decided to buy, Sid. I thought you might take some time off and come home. I thought you were excited about us working together to get Brushstrokes up and running?’

  ‘Of course, I was. But it will be your venture, Mum. You don’t really need me. You’ve always been more than capable. In fact you’re better working alone and I have this fabulous opportunity in Melbourne. I’m sorry. I can’t put your dreams before mine.’

  ‘This business idea is Damien’s dream.’

  ‘His dreams are my dreams, Mum. We’re in love.’

  Natalie didn’t know what to say to that, so she said nothing. Unfortunately, Sidney misread the silence.

  ‘Surely you’re not going to hold this against me? I said I’d fly up to help you pack and unpack. I’ll be back and forth between Melbourne and Sydney several times a year.’

  Natalie still said nothing.

  ‘Well, Mum, I’m not going to fight with you about this. My life has to be in Melbourne for now. Even if there was no Damien, the Blue Mountains are too isolated and too far from everything.’

  How could Natalie argue with that when her daughter sounded so much like a young Tilly?

  ‘This opportunity with Damien is a once-in-a-lifetime thing, Mum.’

  ‘But what about your dreams, Sidney? What do you want?’

  Sid started shouting, sending Jake scurrying for cover from his prostrate position on the sofa. ‘What right do you have to question me? You’ve never wanted to know what my dreams were before now. Life with you has always been about you and what you want.’

  Natalie gasped. ‘Sidney, every decision I made was–’

  ‘It was for you! For your dream, Mum. The rest of us were dragged around behind you.’

  ‘What on earth does that mean?’

  ‘I couldn’t even be sick in my own bed. You’d never take time off work, even for a daughter who needed you to stay at home for a day. Instead, I’d be left in a back room in the gallery and told it was a special place with a secret door where little girls were silent and invisible to the customers.’

  ‘I would never, never say that to my child.’

  ‘You did, Mum.’ Sid was holding back tears now. ‘I know you worked hard. You were so determined Jake and I would have it all. The irony is, we had everything but you. Then we lost Dad.’

  Mother and daughter fell silent, Natalie fossicking in her pocket for a tissue, which she waved at Sidney, a form of white flag.

  ‘Truce?’ She placed her index finger beneath her daughter’s quivering chin and lifted her face. ‘Oh, Sidney.’ Oh, David. She has your face. ‘Forgive me, darling.’

  Sid hugged Natalie back–a short, sharp squeeze–before swiping the tissue under her nose and stepping away. ‘I said I’d help you settle into the Blue Mountains, Mum. Tell me when you’ve booked the removalists and I’ll be there for you. But I won’t be staying long. I’m really not an isolated mountain hideaway kinda girl.’ Sid kept her tone light. ‘I’m actually a little surprised that you are.’

  Natalie had smiled ruefully. Sid had no idea, of course, that her mother knew exactly what it was like to be hobbled to a little town in the mountains, far away from the life of her dreams.

  True to her word, Sid had arrived for the big move-in day and so far they had managed, mostly, not to fight–both of them on their best behaviour and still on the footpath waiting, with Natalie growing more irritable by the second.

  ‘Where the hell are those damn removalists?’ she said. ‘I’ve a good mind to dock them for every minute they keep us waiting. I have a headache from squinting into that sun.’

  ‘Let’s give them ten minutes more. Come on, smile,’ Sid said. ‘You know, Mum, I really love the address. Forty-eight Wagtail Lane sounds idyllic. Wait until you see the business cards I’ve designed.’

  ‘Business cards?’

  ‘And a website,’ Sid added. ‘It’s what Damien and I do for a living, remember?’ She smiled. ‘Damien suggested I didn’t say anything until the job was done, but I’d rather we didn’t keep secrets.’

  ‘I look forward to seeing the finished result,’ is all Nat said. ‘And, Sidney, thank you for being here to help. I do understand you need to return to your own life soon. When you’re ready to head back to Melbourne, just say so.’

  ‘You’re welcome, Mum. It’ll be nice being together: you, Jake and me. A kind of new start. I’m secretly looking forward to some of Jake’s culinary concoctions while I’m here, but don’t tell him I said so.’

  ‘Speak of the devil,’ Nat nodded, ‘there’s Jake’s car now.’

  • • •

  It was dark by the time the jam-packed removalist’s truck huffed and puffed its way to a stop, loaded to the gunnels with Natalie’s vast and eclectic art collection. Natalie went to turn on the lights inside the house and Sid followed her, pausing inside the wide front door. ‘This is a great space. You could turn that old bar into a guest check-in counter.’

  In the sizable lounge room, Nat turned a three-sixty circle on the spot. ‘There’ll need to be a bit of tradesman-wrangling.’

  ‘This is what you’ve wanted, Mum. You’ll make it perfect. I pity those tradies, though. You definitely have a way of getting people to do what you want.’

  ‘You make that sound wrong, Sidney. Like I harass and hurt people.’

  Sid sighed. ‘Forget it, Mum. I wasn’t looking to start an argument.’

  The removalists started filing in with boxes and Natalie looked at them, distracted. ‘Oh, no! No, no, no!’ She lunged forward. ‘Not there. Not there. Can’t you see the label? This room is not the main bedroom.’

  Sid shot a sorry glance at them and beckoned. ‘Come on, guys, I’ll show you.’

  Alone for a moment, Nat thought about what Sid had said. Did she hurt people to get what she wanted? She’d worked hard, fought harder. Maybe she’d manipulated others on occasions, even cheated when necessary. To get by, Nat had lied. In the very early days she’d even stolen. But she hadn’t set out to hurt people. Ralph had got what he wanted, and the others did too. The glamorous gallery manager might have lost her job, but she’d found a better one. Nat still saw Miss Look-Down-Her-Nose several times a month in the social pages, only not so naturally glamorous these days. On the other hand, Pretty Penny probably didn’t deserve the bloody nose that day, and for that Natalie was eternally sorry.

  As for Albie . . .

  ‘Mum, are you listening?’ Sid was slicing open the glossy tape on the box of kitchen goods.

  ‘Sorry, dear, wh
at was that?’

  ‘I said, did you know Dad’s life policy was so big?’

  ‘Your father wanted to provide for his family. That’s the kind of man he was. He would have hated that the payout took so long to come through.’

  ‘Hey, Mum, where do you want this?’ Jake had drawn a face–big eyes, a nose and a mouth–on the front of the box he was lugging. With only legs and arms, he looked like SpongeBob SquarePants, making Natalie smile.

  ‘What’s the label say, Jake, darling?’

  ‘There’s no label. I think it’s the stuff from Dad’s work–that box you had shoved in the hall cupboard.’

  Nat sighed. ‘Oh, that.’

  The box of personal belongings had arrived, via courier, just before the Christmas of 2001, with a very formal note in an envelope sticky-taped to the top:

  Dear Natalie,

  Leo Pelakanigos has asked me to, once again, convey our sincerest condolences and deepest regrets for your loss. As instructed by Leo, I am returning Matthew’s personal belongings. You will also find I’ve included Matthew’s company laptop. In the process of picking up where Matthew left off, I found numerous folders of a personal nature, including emails, photographs and financial information. We’ve removed the company files we need and, with the greatest respect for your family’s privacy, Leo wanted the computer returned to you and your children.

  Your husband was a very special person to whom I will be forever grateful.

  Yours sincerely

  Janet Hobbs

  General Manager–Logistics

  P.S. Should you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact me on my direct line.

  As Natalie’s gaze lingered on the office extension number she knew by heart, she’d wanted to cry. Matthew’s 2IC, the woman she had once thought was going to take her husband away, had taken his job instead.

  ‘Ahh, anytime you’re ready, Mum.’ Jake sounded pained. ‘Sometime today would be good, though. This box weighs a tonne.’

  ‘Right, yes, how about in the corner–over there, so I look at the damn thing every day until the job’s done.’ For seven years she’d let the box sit, untouched, in the linen cupboard, in the house she’d shared with Matthew. On those rare occasions that she’d delved into the dark corners of the cupboard, usually when putting away the doona at the other side of winter, she’d thought about hauling the carton into the light and sorting through its contents, but such a task would require wine, and she inevitably spotted the box in the early morning, so there it had stayed. ‘Actually, Jake, maybe you can ask your sister to set up your dad’s laptop in my new office.’