Simmering Season Page 34

  The note began: Dear Brian.

  By the time Fiona had read: Regards, Amber Bailey-Blair all those Bs, all those little squiggly knotty curly things, were pulling Fiona’s thoughts into a confusing tangle.

  ‘We going to the movies or what?’

  ‘Noah!’ Fiona leapt off the floor, fumbling with each fold of the letter before jamming the envelope into the back pocket of her jeans and walking back into the living room. ‘Yeah, sure, okay.’

  ‘You two heading out?’ Phillip said on his way past.

  Fiona stood perfectly still, first staring at Noah staring at her, then at Phillip in the open-plan kitchen. She watched as he slipped a lonely mug under the espresso machine, pressed the one-cup button and waited patiently. She looked around the apartment while a flood of memories washed through her mind. It played like the movie of her life—her very lucky life—and she saw good times when she was very young and they were a family. Then she looked at Noah—a seventeen-year-old kid fascinated by something as ordinary as the big screen TV and internet hub.

  Noah had so little and Fiona so much.

  She thought of the barmaid who had told her off, calling her a barnacle, or something. She’d said that Fiona was spoilt and that she didn’t have what Noah had. But not even Noah had it all. He didn’t have a father who loved him like Fiona did.

  ‘Fiona, honey?’ Phillip waved a white tissue in front of her face. She was crying. ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘Nothing,’ she sniffed. Phillip wasn’t her biological father and yet he’d adored her, had given her everything, looked after her, protected her and loved her like a father. It was Fiona’s turn to love him back. He didn’t have to be alone tonight, or ever again.

  He had her.

  He had Fiona.

  He had his daughter.

  ‘You know what,’ she said, pressing a hand to her temple as though she had a headache, ‘maybe, we’ll stay in, if that’s okay with you, Dad? Hope you’ve got soy milk. I’ll have a coffee with you.’

  After an hour of staring wide-eyed at the ceiling in her bedroom, Fiona got up, dressed in track pants, a T-shirt and a hoodie and crept out of the apartment. The drive was short, but it might as well have been the other side of the world.

  Only one thing pounded more heavily than her fist on the front door. Fiona’s heart was like a cartoon character beating with love, only this was not about love. There wasn’t a word she could apply to describe the anticipation. Someone reefed the door wide open, a putrid whoosh of stale booze and smoke assailing her.

  Brian stood in blue-striped pyjama pants and stared at her, his confusion plain to see. ‘Who are you?’

  ‘I think you know who I am,’ Fiona said, steeling herself against the urge to pummel his chest with both fists. ‘Take a good look, ’cause this is the last time you’re going to see me.’

  ‘Are you—?’

  ‘I’m no one to you. I only came over to tell you that. You can’t possibly be my father. I don’t care what my mother wrote in that letter you threw away.’

  ‘Threw away?’ Brian’s head jerked around, his attention drawn to a spot inside the messy living room.

  ‘I only wanted to tell you what an arsehole you are. I knew there was a reason I didn’t want to look for you in the first place. Now I know that reason. Noah is better off without you. We all are. I have a father who loves me. So you can go to hell.’

  And she was gone, in what had felt like only seconds. A storm without warning that hit fast and hit hard. She gave Brian no time to gather his thoughts. He was probably still standing in the doorway reeling as she slammed her car door behind her.

  ‘Good!’ she screamed out from inside the closed convertible. ‘Good freakin’ riddance, jerk-off!’

  And with that, Fiona collapsed in a sobbing heap, her head slumped on the steering wheel. She cried for herself and for Phillip. She cried for Noah, who she’d be delivering back to Maggie in a few hours from now. And, as she cast her mind back to the contents of Amber’s letter to Brian, Fiona cried and cried for her mother.

  41

  Maggie

  The sun was coming up when Maggie walked out of the nursing home. For a while she sat in her car, staring at the red and blue flashing lights as an ambulance pulled up outside the adjacent hospital. She’d never felt so alone. The need to have her son home, to hold him, was overpowering.

  As she passed the Morrison farm, Trevor waved from atop the tractor, his son hitching a tow rope to haul a bogged utility; another heavy rain event in the early hours and Maggie hadn’t even noticed. At Clive Peters’ paddock, the old mare stood, head bent, nose to the ground. Maggie liked the way the horse lifted her head, following the car, as if clever enough to know the sound of the Rev’s old Holden—the one that delivered a bag of vegetable and bread scraps on mornings too wet for Maggie to walk.

  Calingarry Crossing township was still waking, the Hillii fig trees in the main street leaving a mottled pattern of morning gold and shadow on the roadway. The pub stood silent. Too silent for Maggie’s liking. Too early even for deliveries. She crept upstairs, though creeping was not required, and hesitated for a moment upon seeing the door to her son’s room open; not something she saw much these days. The room was empty. Noah wasn’t in there. He wasn’t even close by. She walked over to her son’s bed, oblivious to the odours that would ordinarily have her searching the floor for the offending object, and sat down. Remembering she hadn’t yet turned her mobile phone back on, she dug around the depths of her carryall, the message tone sounding as the device powered up.

  The update from Dan let her know he’d accompanied Noah and Fiona home and met Phillip Blair. ‘Nice bloke,’ he’d said, before telling her to do the impossible: ‘Don’t worry.’

  Tempted to return the call, wanting his voice to comfort her in her sad solitude—maybe even bring a smile to her lips like his message had managed to do just now—Maggie collapsed on her son’s unmade bed and hit replay. Listening to the same thing multiple times was better than the sound of silence where there should have been noise.

  Maggie’s eyes opened. Had she been asleep? Not for long, according to the bedside clock. Not long enough to face another day—a day that seemed to have no familiarity to it at all until certain sounds grew louder. The hotel was waking slowly. Maggie listened to the sounds that shaped her Calingarry Crossing existence: the hum of trucks delivering the day’s fresh produce, Ethne’s trill when the driver told her the latest joke, the clinking of empties from the night before, as chucking them in the recycling after closing was too noisy. There were the constant squeaks and clunks that came with living in a century-old building, like hard-to-open doors, those that closed too easily and too loudly, and walls as thin as paper that had made Maggie worry whether her late-night whispers with Brian could really remain secret.

  Even when the pub was filled with people again, once she reopened after a day of mourning, Joe Lindeman would still be gone and Noah would still be in Sydney. Profound loneliness washed over her, knowing she had yet to break the news to her son. Telling him about his grandfather could wait until he was safely back in Calingarry Crossing.

  Maggie had wanted to sleep the next twenty-four hours away and let Ethne manage on her own. Even though the pub was closed, the entire town—or so it seemed—still called by, leaving cards, flowers and gifts on the table in the courtyard below the residence. Someone even brought her—the local publican—a bottle of wine.

  Who ever knew the right thing to say or do at a time like this?

  Sara did. Of course she did. The woman had lost so many loved ones. Sweet, sweet, Sara found glass-half-full ways to read every situation these days. Either her battle with breast cancer, or the influence of the ever-optimistic Will, had lifted Sara to new heights of happiness that she’d admitted thinking only came with fairy tales. Maybe it was a good thing that the café owner had invited herself to dinner. If not for that, Maggie might have stayed in bed for a week, covered her head with a pillow an
d ignored everyone. Knowing Sara, she’d probably invited herself over for that very reason. When Maggie had tried to duck out of it, Sara had quoted one of Will’s sayings: ‘No one ever got strong by staying in bed.’

  The Rev had thought she was strong. And she would be, if only to get through her father’s funeral the day after tomorrow.

  The day after tomorrow!

  The nursing home’s staggering efficiency in arranging Joe’s funeral did not make his loss any easier to bear. Learning of her father’s wish that there be no fanfare, no church service, no sad farewell, had fanned Maggie’s grief. He’d instructed the home—as well as Ethne, apparently—of his wish that he be buried with little ceremony alongside Mary in the Calingarry Crossing cemetery.

  Maggie needed to do nothing, except be strong while she broke the news to her son. She needed him home, safe and sound, and Noah needed to farewell his grandfather.

  With a groan, she forced herself up, straightened her frame, sucked some brightness into her voice and echoed her father’s sentiments.

  ‘You are strong, Maggie. You are.’

  42

  Maggie

  ‘G’day girlie. How are things?’

  Maggie stopped wiping rain off the old pews on the veranda, looking across to see Charles Ireland standing at the bottom of the steps, fishing tackle box and a rod strapped on an old bicycle, the basket on the front stuffed with a yellow rain jacket.

  ‘G’day yourself,’ she said. How many times had she looked into the man’s face without seeing anything but an old man? This morning all she saw was Dan. ‘Things are getting easier every day.’ Bearable now Noah was back from Sydney.

  ‘Off for a spot of fishing,’ Charlie said in his gravelly voice, the roll-your-own glued by spit to his bottom lip bobbing up and down as he spoke. ‘Thought I’d better get in before the storm.’

  ‘Storm?’ Maggie walked over, trying not to breathe in the invisible cloud of nicotine.

  ‘They’re tracking a big one coming down from the north.’

  Ordinarily, Maggie would see the nightly weather report on the television in the pub. Last night at around news time, however, she’d been on her second bottle of wine and rolling drunk. Not that she remembered being rolling drunk; the pounding in her head this morning told her as much. Sara had dropped around again for dinner. Two bottles of wine might not have been such a problem had her drinking partner not been pregnant and therefore, technically, not a drinking partner. She remembered talking to Sara about Noah, laughing over how she’d almost strangled him with hugs when he arrived with Fiona. She’d wanted to talk to him about so many things, but first she needed to let her son grieve. She probably said a little too much to Sara about Brian, speaking the unspeakable no longer a betrayal, but a release.

  Charlie Ireland hawked up a spit and made a little choking sound. ‘I’m hoping there’ll be some big bastards coming down stream. Happens when there’s a big wet. As long as you know the right spot.’

  ‘Oh?’ For a man in his eighties, Charlie stood tall, but with the kind of hunch a tall person might develop from years of bending over pigs. Even the bike he now leaned on for support would be too big for Maggie. ‘And which spot is that?’

  ‘Ha! You sound like your father, always keen for me to tell.’ He paused. ‘Sorry to hear about the Rev. He was a good man.’

  ‘He was. Thanks.’ Maggie forced a smile.

  ‘Nice wake you put on the other day, too. He would’ve liked seeing the pub so full. People loved him,’ Charlie said, wiggling the knot holding his rod to the bicycle’s frame. ‘I’ll be lucky if someone cares enough to nail my box shut to keep the grubs out.’

  ‘Hey, Charlie?’ Maggie said. ‘If you happen to catch one of those big bastards, you could drop by here, I could dig out the what-a-whopper pan and grill it up in the kitchen for dinner.’

  He looked at her, frown lines scribbling their way across his forehead. She thought he was about to ask her why—why after all this time was she interested in getting to know the crusty old guy who’d managed to chase off everyone in his life? The answer might have had something to do with missing her father. More than likely it was about missing Dan.

  ‘That’s very kind of you, girlie. Doubt there’s a pan big enough.’ His smile wavered, but not the puckish twinkle that brightened his eyes—just like Dan’s. ‘If I do get one, you’d best be planning to share it with me.’

  ‘I’ll look forward to that.’ She waved and went back to wiping the seats, only to feel a strong hand grip her forearm. With a little surprise gasp she straightened up and looked into eyes clouded with glaucoma.

  ‘That son of mine was an idiot,’ he growled. ‘Always was a bit of a no-hoper. You did well to be rid of him, girlie.’

  Maggie was surprised and sad. She wanted to tell him he was wrong. Instead she said, ‘Be careful out there.’

  Sara and Will braved the late afternoon cloudburst to enjoy their regular Sunday after-work treat—a few beers and a meal cooked by someone else. Ethne got a kick out of serving the pair. Maggie would never say it aloud, but she suspected Ethne liked impressing Will with her weekend specials.

  ‘Mmm, what culinary creation have we got on the board for dinner tonight? Ooh, nice!’ Will winked, yelling loudly enough from the main entrance for Ethne, on the other side of the small servery window behind the bar, to hear. He collapsed his umbrella, making a miniature rain shower on the floor around the old milk tin that looked like it had sat in the same spot for a century, and smiled at Maggie. ‘Couple of the usual, thanks barmaid.’

  ‘Back off on the barmaid thing, unless you want to wear your beer.’

  Will and Sara were a welcome gust of good spirits in what had been a bugger of a week.

  ‘A little beer is not going to matter given the drenching we just got. Where did this lot come from? Bloody rain! Not enough one minute, a bucket load the next. I saw some lightning off in the distance, too. I don’t recall them forecasting that.’

  On cue, thunder rolled overhead. That, and Will’s comment about lightning, was enough to send two local farmers on their way. The threat of an electrical storm meant there were cattle to move away from trees and emergency generators to check.

  ‘We’re not long into storm season,’ Maggie said, hoping she’d come to the end of hers.

  Noah was home safe and sound, delivered as promised by a subdued Fiona who had fairly quickly made herself scarce, aftersupporting Noah at the funeral. Even Noah had mentioned to Maggie how serious—his word—Fiona was being. Other than the wake, when Noah, Maggie and Fiona had shared a hug and lots of tears, the trio’s communications remained strained and polite. With so much happening and so many things to talk about with Noah, Maggie was struggling to know where to start.

  Opportunities to broach different subjects came and went, much like Noah’s moods, making it difficult to pick the best time. There had been one occasion when she’d tried, but Noah let her know he wasn’t ready. She could hardly blame him for needing time to get his head around everything. The people he’d trusted had let him down in the worst possible way: Maggie for lying, his father for rejecting him, Fiona for telling his secret—first to Luke, then Maggie. Not feeling particularly strong herself, Maggie had to trust their relationship would weather this latest storm, while giving her son the space he clearly needed.

  She could only assume he’d already forgiven Fiona by the way the girl had stuck by Noah’s side as he said goodbye to his grandfather, and again afterwards at the pub. If someone had asked Maggie to rate on a scale of one-to-ten how changed Fiona seemed since the reunion, Maggie would give a definite eight, if not nine. The look on Ethne’s face at the wake when I’m-too-qualified-to-carry-food Fiona had offered to help with platters of cheese and crackers gave Maggie a reason to smile that day, as did the turnout for a man the town had adored. The small town’s support and adoration for the Rev had warmed Maggie’s heart.

  As both mother and sole breadwinner for a good part of twent
y years in Sydney, Maggie had been too busy to develop close relationships. She’d made friends and enjoyed the social aspects of working various jobs, but any effort required to maintain contact took second place to her family. When she wasn’t working, Maggie’s entire focus had been her son and her husband.

  Things were about to change.

  Maggie’s friendship with Sara was deepening. Sharing in the grief of losing Amber, and spending time together in Sydney for the funeral, had brought them closer. Sara’s news that she was pregnant further cemented their friendship, and for the first time in a long time Maggie was enjoying the benefit of companionship, the kind of friendship that made Maggie feel relaxed and free to shed a few unhappy layers.

  The other night, however, she’d apparently been a little too relaxed, only discovering in the cold hard light of a hangover that she’d shed a little too much, blurting out intimate secrets about her marriage and about Brian’s ridiculous fame obsession. Like the first cloudburst after drought, Maggie had dumped what felt like a lifetime of secrets on poor Sara, with wine like truth serum moving her from happy tattletale to sobbing wreck when it came to sharing her feelings about her son’s sexuality. The next day she’d been horrified. Until she told herself: this was Sara—the person least likely to tell someone’s secret. The woman had still not said anything—other than the standard lines—about the Dandelion House, no matter how drunk she’d been pre-pregnancy. Sara had reassured Maggie that the contents of their Secret Women’s Business meetings would remain theirs and theirs alone. ‘Oh, and Will’s, because he’s an old woman anyway,’ Sara had joked. Maggie had felt such immense relief, knowing she no longer had to keep up the pretence, in front of Sara and Will at least.