Simmering Season Read online

  ‘Hello, Cheryl. The garden’s looking lovely.’

  ‘I’m planting a frangipani,’ she said, some of the laughter leaving her eyes.

  ‘Will frangipani grow out here?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said defiantly. ‘They were Amber’s favourite.’

  ‘Of course.’ Maggie remembered the coffin, laden with a massive frangipani wreath. Cheryl’s own special tribute to her daughter, perhaps?

  ‘So, Maggie, what brings you here?’

  ‘I wanted to see Fiona.’

  ‘Yes, I thought as much,’ Cheryl said, almost apologetically. ‘And here I am rabbiting on. She’s inside. You’ll find her either on that telephone of hers or at my computer in the living room. She’s been a bit of a handful, hasn’t she? A bit like her mother. But I admit to being quite spoilt having her here.’

  ‘Oh? Why spoilt?’

  ‘You’re looking at a woman who’s been defragged, had her RAM increased and her firewall upgraded. I feel sixteen again.’ The normally quietly spoken woman laughed, if that’s what you’d call the very restrained part huff, part hum, as if she was still getting used to hearing the sound.

  Maggie saw very little of Cheryl Bailey; recovering alcoholics didn’t frequent the local pub. The woman had lived a miserable existence for many years, not that the town knew how bad things were until recently. A young Maggie only knew what she used to hear in whispers late at night from her room in the Manse, down the hall from the kitchen. The man with the loudest whisper had been the local GP. Dr Wynter had been a frequent visitor to the Manse. Whenever he arrived late at night, Joe Lindeman would close the kitchen door.

  ‘It’s actually Fiona’s computer skills I want to see her about.’

  Cheryl smiled. ‘Then you’re probably in luck. Would you like a cuppa while you’re here?’ she asked as if not really meaning it.

  ‘Not for me. Too hot for tea. This won’t take long.’ She wasn’t planning to make it a bigger deal than necessary.

  ‘How’s Noah?’ Cheryl enquired politely, and Maggie checked herself. Could the woman be fishing? Had Fiona told her about Noah?

  ‘He’s doing fine, thanks.’

  ‘I’m so sorry about that fracas.’

  ‘Fracas?’

  ‘The accident, dear. I’m afraid Fiona takes after her mother when it comes to making the wrong decisions. At least she got rid of that Luke fellow for good.’

  ‘Oh, yes, I heard they’d had a fight and she broke off the engagement. He seemed a less than desirable choice, if you don’t mind me saying.’

  ‘The engagement idea was a one-sided affair. A set-up, I believe is the term used. I’m afraid my ex-husband—Fiona’s grandfather—is still manipulating things to suit his needs.’

  ‘Cheryl?’ Maggie hesitated briefly, contemplating the next question. ‘Did you know Fiona has been asking questions around town about her birth father?’

  ‘Yes. She’s asked me if I knew anything.’

  ‘What did you tell her? Do you mind if I ask?’

  Cheryl’s casual shrug suggested indifference, not so the rueful, well-practised expression. ‘What could I possibly tell her about those days? That I’m not proud about certain times in my life? That I failed miserably as a mother?’ When remorse threatened to spill over into tears, Cheryl thrust out a defiant chin, making her look like she was about to launch into an Alcoholics Anonymous affirmation. In a way she was. ‘I know I failed by not being there for Amber when she was growing up. I was too drunk to know what was going on in her life. My wish now is that I can make up for that by being a good grandmother to Fiona.’

  Cheryl seemed to tire, shuffling to a shady garden bench and tucking her dress into the back of her legs before lowering herself onto the edge. The cautious pose was all very June Dally-Watkins, albeit with dirt-crusted knees and a brown smudge on one cheek. ‘That’s the truth, Maggie dear. I have no idea who got Amber pregnant.’ The wry smile thinned. ‘Oh, of course, that’s incorrect. Amber got Amber pregnant. I don’t know which boy it was, though. To be honest, Maggie, I’m not sure Amber knew either, but I wasn’t about to tell my granddaughter something like that about her mother. Turning a child against their mother is something Jack does, not me.’

  ‘Amber tried putting that right.’

  ‘She did, didn’t she?’ Pride then sadness washed over Cheryl’s face, before she recovered her composure and her faraway look became impossible to interpret.

  The woman was sweet, but stiff like a toffee shard. Brittle, Maggie decided. Three generations—Cheryl, Amber and Fiona—each damaged by the same man. She wondered if Jack Bailey was proud of himself.

  Cheryl had not attended Amber’s funeral. She’d told Sara before she and Maggie left for the drive to Sydney that aside from not being able to face Jack, she wasn’t ready to say goodbye to Amber. She’d not long ago said hello to her daughter for the first time in twenty years. By not going, she could go on believing Amber was still alive. Maggie understood that now. Wasn’t she refusing to say goodbye to her dead relationship, preferring to hang on to the memory of what her marriage was once? And by not acknowledging her son’s sexuality, was she not convincing herself none of that was real either?

  ‘Why don’t you go on in, Maggie. I’ll finish up here. Getting too hot for me already.’

  ‘Okay, thanks.’

  The old flyscreen door squeaked and snapped behind Maggie.

  ‘Hey Gran, I’m almost done. Do you want to—’ Fiona had wheeled the small office chair back and spun around, her heels digging into the rug, stopping her mid-swing. ‘Oh, it’s you.’

  ‘Your grandmother said I should come right in.’

  Maggie found herself looking at a pretty young woman, freckle-faced, hair casually knotted at the nape of her neck. Even the lips, now pouting, were gloss-free and naturally rose-petal pink. What a change from the overdressed and made-up mannequin that had stormed into town.

  ‘Is there something I can do for you?’

  The words Haven’t you done enough? flashed through Maggie’s head. Instead she said, ‘Noah showed me the website. The one with my pictures.’

  ‘He did? I made him promise …’ Fiona stopped short, her expression acknowledging the hypocrisy in her words.

  ‘I wanted to say, Fiona, to tell you personally that I think it’s good and thoughtful, not that I know what to do with a website now I have one. But I wanted to say thank you anyway. You’re a clever girl.’

  Fiona dropped her shoulders and breathed, a cautious but familiar smile twitching at the corners of her mouth. ‘Not really that clever. Pretty basic if you know what you’re doing.’

  ‘Which I do not.’

  ‘Oh, I didn’t mean … Maggie I … I just wanted to do something nice. I stuffed up. I stuffed up pretty bad.’

  ‘Yes, you did.’

  More silence followed while Fiona played out her nervousness by dancing the swivel chair from side to side, not a trace of the pretentious penthouse princess. In fact, Maggie thought the girl looked decidedly at ease and at home in the sun-filled room with its simple daisies in a recycled glass jar, framed needlecraft, and quite a photo gallery on the walls. There were so many pictures that Maggie was tempted to stickybeak.

  ‘You’ll be glad to know I’ve decided to go home to Sydney tomorrow.’ Fiona’s announcement snatched Maggie’s attention back. ‘Luke and I have split up and I’ll be moving back into my father’s … I mean Phillip’s apartment.’

  Maggie nodded to say she understood, and was starting to relax a little herself until …

  ‘I’d like to stay in touch with Noah.’

  The magpie swooped and squawked, No, no, no, never! Not as long as I live and breathe.

  ‘If that’s okay with you,’ Fiona quickly added.

  Maggie remembered when her father had forbidden her from having anything to do with ‘that Dan Ireland’, not that Fiona’s attachment to Noah was, thank goodness, anything other than platonic. If only that was Maggie’s quandary.
Noah infatuated with a stuck-up, slightly older city girl was at least something she’d have an idea of how to handle.

  ‘I’m not going to say no, Fiona,’ Maggie said. ‘Mostly because I appreciate that you actually asked. I also appreciate that between texting, email, Twitter, Facebook and goodness knows what else, I have little hope of stopping Noah from communicating with whomever he wants, whenever he wants. But Fiona, let me just say this—’

  ‘I know, Maggie, I know,’ Fiona gushed, the wave of her hand no longer flippant, more accepting somehow. ‘Believe me. I know and I promise. I’ve learned so much. I’m kinda glad I came to Calingarry Crossing.’

  ‘Kind of, Fiona. Kind of is two words,’ Maggie corrected in the same motherly fashion she instructed her son. And with that, Maggie turned on her heel. ‘Good luck.’

  36

  ‘Good morning, Dad.’ Maggie yawned as she leaned down to kiss the old man on his forehead.

  Last night had been busy in the pub. She’d even dragged Noah off his iPad to help Ethne during food service. Later that night, after locking up, Maggie had crept past Noah’s room and heard giggles and chatter. Something called Skype apparently. Perhaps Maggie would need to do the same if she ever wanted to talk to her son again.

  Today she needed to talk to her dad, and even though he had no idea what she was yapping about most times, saying stuff aloud helped Maggie. Mostly she liked the feel of her father’s hand in hers while she chatted, the way his thumb softly massaged her knuckles even though his eyes remained closed or fixed on some imaginary point on the ceiling. She’d tell herself he was hearing her, but his confusion with words and the glazed stare sometimes told her otherwise. Occasionally he’d surprise her with a laugh, often in the most inappropriate places, like the time she’d relived the horror hospital trip with Noah. Joe had yahooed, cackled and barked out something unintelligible in the middle of her sad story.

  ‘Did you enjoy your lunch?’ she called over the running water in the tiny en suite where she filled a vase. ‘I see you didn’t save me any dessert. Oh well, I hardly need it, I guess. And you know what they say? One minute on the lips, a lifetime on the hips.’ She continued her one-sided conversation while arranging the small handful of white Marguerite daisies Cheryl had given her as Maggie left the house. ‘There you go, Dad. Lovely, aren’t they?’

  She plucked a tissue from the box on the bedside dresser and spat on it before wiping the corners of her father’s mouth. The larrikin publican, the ratbag Reverend, the dutiful father, reduced to this. With so much focus on Joe’s mental health, Maggie was only just starting to notice his physical decline. His loose, almost transparent skin was oddly like that of a premature baby’s, except a newborn’s skin had colour. A baby’s skin had life and hope and a future. Joe’s mottled, greying, wilted flesh held nothing of those things. Last week her father’s voice had lacked its usual vigour. Today sad, jaded eyes stared up at Maggie. He was slowly fading away and Maggie, the protector, couldn’t do anything.

  ‘My Magpie.’ The words rolled out of his mouth with the spitty clickity sound of ill-fitting false teeth, but still Maggie smiled at hearing that name. Maybe today was a good day.

  ‘Yes, Daddy, it’s me. How are you doing?’

  He shrugged his shoulders and his whole body—a mere fifty-seven kilograms according to his chart—shifted in the chair. He’d lost so much weight in the past few months. Doctors reassured Maggie they’d checked everything, telling her again that she’d have to accept that sometimes there are aspects of a patient’s health that medicine is unable to control, especially in lonely old people. ‘He’s not lonely,’ she’d wanted to tell those doctors. ‘I’m here and I’m staying for as long as he needs me.’

  ‘I thought we’d have a chat today, Dad. We can get some fresh air, feed the birds,’ she said, wrapping the bread crusts on his plate into his paper serviette. ‘Would you like that?’

  His shrug suggested she shouldn’t delay, that the glimmer of lucidity she was enjoying might be short-lived.

  Maggie liked getting her father outside and the breezeway between the independent and critical care wings of the nursing home was perfect on a day like today. She liked that from here her father could see the Moreton Bay fig in the furthest corner of the hospital grounds. The tree had prompted so many fond memories of the early days when outside his pretty stone church grew the very same kind of tree, only much bigger—one at the back of the property and one by the front gate, near the bell tower. While those days of reminiscing were gone, along with her father’s memories, for Maggie, every time she saw a Moreton Bay fig tree she thought of Dan.

  With a slight breeze, orange jessamine topiary plants in pots scented the air with citrus, while the grevilleas dotted around the courtyard perimeter were favourites with bossy lorikeets and noisy honeyeaters, all quite unperturbed by the presence of humans, especially those bearing bread crusts.

  ‘Dad …?’ Maggie sprinkled crumbs over the ground, enticing the birds closer to Joe. Then she unfolded the fingers of one hand and placed a crust on his palm so he could do the same. ‘When I was telling you about the reunion, and about Noah’s mishap …’ She called it a mishap now. ‘… you mentioned Dan Ireland.’

  Though the change was too subtle for Maggie to know exactly what had shifted in her father’s face, something told her that Joe recognised the name. Was the memory of what happened to Michael so great that it managed to get through to that place in his brain most other life memories, including his daughter, sometimes failed to reach?

  ‘Dan was at the reunion and we talked.’ Among other things! ‘And Dad, I realised how unhappy I am. How unhappy I was in the city. I’m starting to like it in Calingarry Crossing. I’m enjoying the pub. Ethne is wonderful. I’m even giving my old camera a workout again. You remember how much I used to love taking pictures.’ Maggie drew a deep breath in, hearing the shudder. ‘I’m sorry I didn’t come home earlier. I wish you’d let me know how sick you were.’

  She was squatting beside his chair now, gently unfolding each finger to release the now crushed bread.

  ‘Dad, I’ve been lying to everyone, even you. Worse than that, I’ve been lying to myself. Brian and me … we’re over. I’ve been hanging on for Noah’s sake, or that’s what I told myself. I think I’ve been holding on for me because I didn’t want to be alone. I was afraid. Then I realised I’m already alone. God knows, I’ve been alone for a long time.’

  It took blasphemy to get a reaction from the old Rev, the censorious squeeze of her hand surprising Maggie.

  ‘Are … are you hearing me, Dad?’

  Another tiny squeeze, his eyes shifting to her face, staring as if filled with a thousand unsaid words. Then, using the word he’d invented when Maggie was young, he said, ‘Smuddle?’

  The now predictable stream of tears flowed as Maggie wrapped both arms gently around her father’s shoulders, her ear pressing on his chest, sensing each precious beat of a trying heart inside a tired body.

  ‘Sorry, Dad, it’s just … what’s the sense in being married and feeling so alone?’

  ‘With a child you’re never alone.’

  Maggie pulled back to look at her dad and smiled. How many words was that? The Rev was speaking whole sentences now. Sentences that made sense. So what if it sounded like the beginning of a sermon. Maggie didn’t care.

  ‘I won’t have Noah forever, Dad. He’ll leave me behind, just like I left you.’

  ‘Brian’s child.’

  ‘Of course he’s Brian’s child and that won’t change.’ She patted his hand for reassurance. ‘Noah is his son, always. I wouldn’t do anything to—’

  ‘Not Noah.’ The Rev’s breaths deepened. Maggie didn’t panic. Doctors had warned her about increasing episodes of respiratory distress. ‘Brian’s child.’

  ‘Yes, Dad,’ she sighed, knowing it had been too good to be true. ‘Come on, let’s get you comfy. Time you rested. I’ll bring Brian’s child out tomorrow. How about that?’

>   ‘Ethne, you look frazzled. What’s up?’ Maggie asked the sweat-filmed barmaid.

  ‘I’ve had to move those beer kegs myself.’

  ‘Noah usually helps. Where is he?’

  ‘Good question. Haven’t seen him all morning. Not since Fiona was here. She rocked up before opening, just after you left. They were sitting in the beer garden for a while. Looked like a bit of a deep and meaningful.’

  ‘Fiona was here this morning?’ Suspicion stiffened her tone. ‘Yesterday, at her grandmother’s house, she said she’d be leaving for Sydney early.’

  ‘Sorry, love. I was a bit busy to keep tabs on the pair. I thought you were okay with Princess now.’

  ‘I have to go.’

  Panic, mixed with a mother’s intuition, powered Maggie’s dash to the residence. Dispensing with her customary knock and wait, she burst into Noah’s room.

  ‘No.’ She’d breathed the word as if it was her last, dread threatening to drag her under. Then the fear took hold as Maggie looked around the room. What was it that told a mother her baby had flown the nest when everything looked the same: the dirty laundry in the corner, the school locker smell of rotten socks and decaying fruit, the grating sound of silence without Noah’s fuzzy music leaking out from earphones. She hardly needed evidence of the missing backpack, beloved guitar case and new iPad to know the impossible had happened.

  After a frantic search of the centenary planning file, Maggie located Fiona’s mobile phone number, scribbled on one of Jennifer’s carefully typed meeting agendas. Punching out the number with shaking fingers, she tried keeping a lid on the rage that had been threatening to boil over all week.

  ‘Fiona!’ she shouted over static on the telephone. ‘Turn around right this minute and bring Noah back here.’

  ‘Maggie? Is that you?’

  ‘Of course it’s me,’ she snapped. ‘And I want Noah home immediately.’

  ‘Noah’s not with me. He asked for a lift to Saddleton and I dropped him off earlier this morning.’