by Anna Jacobs
Aaron had followed her downstairs and came across to see what she was looking at. ‘Was that Peggy’s salad?’
‘Supposed to be.’
‘Is she eating anything at all?’
‘Not that I’ve seen. I can’t let this go, Aaron. Anorexia can be a life-threatening illness. Can you two go out somewhere this morning and leave me to have a quiet chat with Peggy?’
‘Yes, of course. Good idea. We’ll go out for a drive.’
But before he could invite Mara to do that, they heard someone coming down the stairs. There wasn’t even time for him to get out to the patio without being seen.
‘Oh, hi, Peggy. Excuse me, I’m expecting an important message from the UK.’ He went across the hall into his home office.
Peggy stood by the door, rubbing her forehead as if it ached and frowning at her mother.
Emma waited, watching her daughter realise she was standing near the open waste bin. ‘Was something wrong with the meal I left for you yesterday?’
‘Of course not. I just – wasn’t hungry.’
‘Then why waste it? You could have put it in the fridge for someone else to eat.’
‘I didn’t want to upset you. A group of us had been to a café and I had something to eat there.’
Emma folded her arms. ‘I can still tell when you’re lying to me. Did you have anything at all to eat?’
Peggy shrugged. ‘No one else was eating and I wasn’t hungry. Food makes me feel nauseous lately.’
‘No wonder. You’re hardly eating enough to keep a cat alive. Talk to me, Peggy. Come and sit down. Tell me what I can do to help.’
Her daughter stiffened visibly. ‘I’m not going to force food down just to please you when I’m not feeling hungry. And I’m twenty-five, thank you very much, not five, so I’ll manage my own food intake.’
‘You’re acting more like a five-year-old at the moment.’
‘Being fat isn’t healthy.’
‘Being skeletal isn’t healthy, either. Nor is it attractive to normal men. You’ve lost a lot of weight lately.’
‘Well, Mike prefers slender figures.’
‘You’re going back to him?’
Tears filled Peggy’s eyes. ‘I thought – he said he’d missed me, so we went back to his flat. Then later, he said he was sorry, it still wasn’t working for him and I should go home.’ She gulped back a sob, struggling not to weep.
Emma’s voice was flat. ‘So he took you for a sucker. It was just sex he wanted.’
‘I wanted it too.’
‘Ha!’
‘OK, I wanted him. You’ve no need to pull all the grubby little details into the open and hang them out to dry. I shan’t give in to him again, believe me.’
‘I should hope not. At least show a bit of pride.’ She waited and then as the silence continued, she said, ‘Could you just have something small to eat? Please.’
‘I’d throw up if I tried. I’ve thrown up once already this morning.’ She whirled round and yelled over her shoulder, ‘Leave me to sort out my life myself.’ She ran out of the house and shortly afterwards there was the sound of a car door slamming.
When Peggy had roared off down the street, Aaron came out of his office. ‘I heard what she said.’ He put his arms round his wife, who sobbed against him.
He pulled her towards the stairs but she resisted and gestured towards the patio. ‘You have a guest.’
‘Come up and sit on our balcony. No one will bother us there. Mara won’t take offence if you and I take some time for ourselves, I’m sure. She’ll have overheard your quarrel with Peggy, just as I did. You need me much more than our guest does at the moment.’
He looked towards the patio and Mara made a shooing gesture, so he guided his wife towards the stairs, holding her hand.
A few minutes later he came out onto the patio to tell Mara he and Emma were going for a walk on a nearby beach. ‘Do you mind us leaving you? There’s nothing as relaxing as the beach when you’re stressed and it’s going to be thirty-four today, too hot for you to spend long in the sun. That’s centigrade, not Fahrenheit.’
‘Of course I don’t mind.’ When they’d gone she pulled out the soft toy and tried to get on with the sewing, but found it hard to settle.
The neighbour came out, saw her and looked as if he wished she wasn’t there. He hesitated, then raised one hand in a brief greeting and turned away as usual.
She didn’t respond in any way.
This wasn’t at all what she’d expected from her visit and she was beginning to wonder whether she’d upset her mother unnecessarily.
She reminded herself that it wasn’t anyone’s fault, had just happened, but it didn’t make her feel any better.
Shortly afterwards Rufus came home and joined Mara in the kitchen where she was about to make herself something to eat.
‘Hi! I’m spending the night at Jenn’s so I came to pick up my night gear and my clean work shirt for tomorrow. I see Dad’s car has gone. Has Mum gone out too?’
‘Yes. They went to walk on the beach.’ She hesitated.
‘What’s the matter?’
‘There’s been some more trouble with your sister. She really needs professional help.’
‘Oh, damn. Well, she’ll go her own sweet way; she always does. Mind if I join you? I’m going to grab a quick sandwich.’
When he was sitting at the table with her, he asked, ‘What actually started off today’s row?’
‘Peggy threw the meal Emma left for her last night into the kitchen rubbish bin, covered it up and pretended she’d eaten it.’
‘She’s getting worse.’ He took a bite of the sandwich and followed it with a swig of water. ‘It’s all because of that scumbag she used to live with. I’ve been working over in the eastern states for the past year, so I’ve only seen or heard about her big love affair intermittently from a distance, but I wasn’t happy about it being him and I guessed she was heading for a fall.’
Mara murmured encouragingly, wanting to find out more, waiting for him to chew and swallow another bite. ‘Go on.’
‘He’s treated other women the same way: all over them for a few months, then suddenly dropping them. I did warn her, but you can’t get through to someone with stars in their eyes, can you? The dazzle gets in the way of the real picture.’
‘It’s hard to see clearly when you first meet someone because you’re both on your best behaviour.’ She glanced down at herself. ‘I could never give up eating to please a man, though.’
‘What did your guy do to upset you?’
‘He pretended to be interested in me partly because I got on well with the boss, I reckon. Then he realised I was writing a computer program and assumed it was to do with work. It wasn’t. But he must have used it to score over me and told lies about me stealing work I’d done in company time, because he got to stay and take over my revamped job and I got made redundant.’
Rufus let out a soft, low whistle.
‘If Darren’s claim that I’d been writing the program at work had been true, the rights would have belonged to my employer. They took his word for it without even asking me and sent me a lawyer’s letter claiming ownership. Only I hadn’t done any of it at work and what’s more, the program had no connection with my job. I heard yesterday that my dad and his friend George have sorted it out for me. Dad says my old manager was very upset about me being accused falsely. But Darren still has my job.’
‘Tough on you. What was the program about?’
‘It was to help me market luxury toys, the sort adults sometimes buy or collect. And kits to make better quality toys yourself. It’s nearly finished but I can’t use my savings to start up the business, as I’d planned, not until I have another job to earn my living with during the early days. I need a roof over my head and, as they used to say in the old days, I need to put bread on the table.’
‘You don’t seem to be languishing about losing your partner, though, like Peggy is about Mike.’
She shrugged. ‘I’m older than her and I’ve got a bit more sense than to languish over anyone I only went with for less than six months. I’m angry with Darren, more than anything, and my biggest worry now is him bad-mouthing me so that I get a bad reputation in the industry.’
He shot her an amused glance. ‘You look really fierce when you talk about him. Remind me never to make you angry.’
‘Actually, I didn’t enjoy living with him nearly as much as I’d expected, because he was a lazy slob and I wasn’t going to turn into a housemaid after I got home from work. I don’t think I’m cut out for marriage and all that stuff. I’ve seen too much of the downside.’
His voice grew more gentle. ‘With your mother? I heard Dad say she had certain, er, problems.’
‘Yes. You can’t blame her exactly. Mental problems are an illness just like any other. But I’ve never seen signs of love between her and Phil, like I see all the time with your parents.’
‘Yeah. I love seeing those two together.’ He smiled into the distance for a few moments, then glanced at his watch. ‘I’d better get going. I have an appointment in Mandurah this afternoon.’ He studied her, head on one side. ‘You know what?’
‘What?’
‘I thought I’d dislike you, but I don’t. Jenn told me to look at your eyes and you haven’t got mean eyes. In fact, yours seem to smile gently out at the world most of the time. It’s nice to see.’
And with that unexpected compliment he went out to his car. It had been the sort of compliment she really appreciated.
As she stood up to put her plate away she noticed he’d dropped some papers which had wafted under the table, so she picked them up and ran after him.
She caught him just as he was opening his car door. ‘You dropped these.’
‘Wow! Thanks. I’d have had to come back for them.’
There was the sound of a garage door whirring open and a car starting up nearby. Both of them looked round.
‘It’s our new neighbour going out,’ Rufus said.
She thought the man driving the car was still looking sad from the way he was slumped in his seat. ‘Must be awful to have to clear out your dead mother’s house.’
‘Mum says he hasn’t made any attempt to chat, even to comment on the weather. He seems to be as aloof as his mother was. She didn’t mix socially, just chatted occasionally to my parents.’
‘Well, perhaps she was already ill when she got here. What a waste of talent for her to die so young! She was a brilliant poet.’
He looked surprised. ‘Was she? Come to think of it, Ma said something similar, but I’m not into poetry so it went in one ear then out the other.’
He got into the car, dropped the papers on the passenger seat and left with a cheerful wave.
She went back into the house, glad she’d had a proper chat with Rufus. It had been nice to be told he liked her, but she wondered how Peggy might take that news. She might have preferred her brother to take a dislike to Mara, as she had done, for no reason that anyone could figure.
Mara got herself a peach with some cheese and biscuits. She’d only had a light lunch because of chatting with Rufus.
Perhaps it’d be a good idea to hire a car, then she could go out on her own and not be such a burden on a family which had such serious problems happening. It was nice sitting out on the patio looking at the water, but she didn’t want to spend all her time down under doing that.
She wanted to see something of Western Australia as well as getting to know Aaron. The tourist guides she’d seen online mentioned a wine growing district not too far south from Mandurah, then there was the capital city itself and Fremantle, its port. Oh yes, lots to see.
Chapter Twelve
Hunger satisfied, Mara lingered to finish the chapter of the book she was reading, forgetting where she was and reading on till a slight cramp in one leg made her suddenly realise she’d been sitting there for a long time and needed to move her body. Good books could do that to you, make you forget your surroundings.
She picked up her plate and took it inside to the dishwasher. When she heard the sound of an engine outside on the canal she couldn’t resist turning to see what sort of boat it was. Such sights were still a novelty to her.
A smallish motorboat containing two men cruised slowly past and turned round at the end of the canal, slowing down and pulling up by the sea wall of the house next door. The one who stood up in it gave a furtive glance round – yes, definitely furtive; there was no other way to describe it. That caught her attention.
He stepped up onto the edge of the boat and clambered up the jetty. To her surprise, he immediately began to take photos of the house and garden. His companion kept the boat in place by holding on to the ladder with a boat hook, but made no attempt to tie up properly.
What on earth was going on? She’d seen the guy next door go out earlier, so what was this chap doing here? A little worried, she waited till he was looking in the other direction and moved quickly across the room to a closer vantage point behind a huge potted plant near the window.
He took a few more photos then looked towards her house as if checking that no one was around. Once again the word ‘furtive’ came into her mind. Slinging the camera round his neck, he moved forward to peer through the nearest window.
After staring into the house, he glanced from side to side yet again, before edging across to the sliding door and trying it. When it moved easily, he grinned and raised one thumb to show the man in the boat things were going well.
As he tugged the door fully open she knew she had to do something. She couldn’t just stand by idly and watch an intruder break into a neighbour’s house.
She crossed to the door leading out onto the patio and slid it open as noisily as she could, pretending to call to someone in the house, ‘I’m just going to sit outside for a while, Aaron.’
She was ready to jump back into the house and lock the door if they threatened her in any way. But by the time she got outside the intruder was running back towards the boat.
He kept his face turned away from her, calling to the man in it, ‘No one at home. We’ll come back another time.’
Who did he think he was fooling? Any watcher could tell he’d been about to break in. He must be totally stupid. Well, she’d seen his face clearly and she’d remember it.
Within seconds of him clambering down into the boat, it set off, both men still trying to hide their faces. Unfortunately she hadn’t seen the face of the one driving it but he looked from the back like a much older man.
She’d seen the boat’s name as well and wished she’d had her mobile phone with her to take photos of what was going on.
As the boat had now disappeared into the main canal, she felt safe to clamber over the low wall to the next house and shut the door the intruder had left open.
What the hell was going on? Had she really just foiled a burglary?
‘You’re a heroine, Mara Gregory,’ she told herself, smiling.
This was proving to be a very strange sort of day. In fact her whole visit so far had not been at all what she’d expected. Clearly not what her birth father had expected them to be doing, either. Poor Aaron.
What on earth would happen next?
She made herself a mug of coffee and sat down outside. She’d shut the door for the neighbour but his house was still unlocked and she was worried about leaving it open to another invasion. Surely the sight of her sitting here would put those two off if they did think of returning?
The trouble was, she couldn’t settle to reading and there was nothing else to watch. These side canals could be very quiet sometimes and dimly lit when the houses weren’t occupied. There was much more to-ing and fro-ing along the main canals. She could often hear boats because sound carried further on water, but she couldn’t see them very clearly from here.
It was over an hour before she heard the sound of a car in the street and then a garage door whirring open.
Surely that was – yes, it
was. She saw lights come on and the owner moving about next door, so clambered over the low wall dividing the two properties and walked across to the sliding glass door, rapping on it.
He spun round, looking surprised when he saw who it was.
‘I’m staying next door,’ she said.
‘Yes, I’ve seen you.’
‘Look, did you book someone to take photos of your house tonight?’
‘What? No, definitely not.’
‘Well, about an hour ago, a boat stopped and a man got out and started taking photos of your house, or maybe he was just pretending to. Then he went to look in through the windows, and since the sliding door wasn’t locked, he opened it and was about to go inside. So I came outside, pretending to be talking to someone in our house, and he ran back to the boat, which took off.’
He gaped at her as if he couldn’t believe what he was hearing.
‘I thought I’d better warn you to be sure to lock your doors next time you go out. And if you have a security system, switch that on too. I should think these houses are more at risk of break-ins since they can be approached from the water or the street side.’
‘Good heavens! How could I have been so careless? Thank you so much.’
‘That’s all right. I’ll leave you in peace now.’
‘No, don’t go. I’m really grateful to you for intervening.’
‘It’s what neighbours do.’
‘The good ones. Can I offer you a glass of wine as a thank you?’
‘You don’t have to.’ But she was tempted. He had such a nice smile and she was fed up of being alone.
‘Actually, it’d be good to have some company for a change. Like me, you seem to spend a lot of time on your own. If you’d rather not join me, just say so. Otherwise, I have a very nice Australian Chardonnay I’d be happy to share with you.’
She’d love some company too.
As if to emphasise her lack of social interactions, there was a sudden chorus of voices yelling ‘Surprise!’ and an outburst of laughter and applause. It came from near the far end of their canal and people had suddenly crowded out of the house onto the patio after a boat pulled up. A huge sign saying ‘60 Years Young’ had been unfurled from an upstairs window.
