by Lilian Darcy
‘I don’t want Sandie coming up with objections I haven’t got an answer for,’ Caroline said. ‘In situations like this, people tend to say a vague, open ended sort of, “If there’s anything you need…” and that doesn’t really help. It has to be a concrete offer, with all the objections already ironed out.’ He saw her blink back tears. ‘If I’d spent more time out here over the past month or two, I might have seen that something was wrong. I won’t let Chris and Sandie down again.’
Declan wanted to tell her not to be so hard on herself, that she put herself down too often, but he held it back. He was starting to feel as if he was wearing an emotional strait-jacket today.
They drove through Cargoola and, yes, he could easily have laughed at how small the brightly painted school buildings were. Ten kilometres beyond the town, a line of trees loomed larger, getting closer and closer on their left. The big eucalyptuses marked the river, whose course would converge with theirs as they reached the McLennans’ farm. The place was much prettier than Declan had expected, an oasis of quiet, lush beauty in this uncompromising landscape.
The homestead and outbuildings were set just beyond the slope that would mark the furthest reach of the river in all but the most severe floods. Chris and Sandie had worked incredibly hard here, and obviously took pride in what they’d achieved. Climbing from the car, he took in as much as he could.
The buildings were all painted cream, with dark red roofs that contrasted with the green of the surprisingly lush gardens around them. Wide verandas on three sides of the house were set with cane furniture, potted palms and children’s toys.
Declan recognised Australian native shrubs and South African proteas, some of them in flower, a small orchard, vegetables and herbs, some huge pine trees that must have been here for a century, and two sloping beds of fussy, thirsty European plants such as roses and petunias just below the front veranda.
A row of large rainwater tanks, fed by run-off from the roof, explained how they’d managed to keep the garden going without significant rain for so long. He also saw something that might be a pump-house, bringing water up from the river.
Before he could take in anything more, a side door opened and a thin, fair woman who must be Sandie McLennan came towards them, with her boys frisking ahead of her, along with a pair of black and white sheepdogs. In a state of high excitement, boys and dogs immediately latched onto big cousin Josh, who quickly shook off his drowsiness and allowed himself to be taken off to see some boy thing of enormous and urgent importance. Focused on Sandie, Caroline broke into a fast stride that was almost a run, and hugged her, tears streaming down her cheeks.
‘We hardly talked the other day,’ she said. ‘It’s so good to be here. I’m sorry. We haven’t been since January…’
‘Well, it’s been so hot till recently. You’ve had school, work…And we’ve seen you in town.’
‘That’s no excuse, Sandie.’
Caroline’s brother appeared, and she hugged him, too, then took his face between her hands and searched it for the signs of strain she must have known she’d find there. ‘Ugly mug,’ she said. ‘The beard’s good. Covers you up a bit.’
Declan stifled a smile, feeling a little out of place. The boys and the dogs had disappeared completely. He could hear barks and shouts coming from behind a couple of sheds. Caroline had forgotten to introduce him. She’d forgotten he was there, in fact. Remembering, she looked remorseful.
‘Oh, I’m sorry! Chris, Sandie, this is our new—’
‘Chauffeur,’ Declan said, stepping forward. ‘And tourist.’
‘Pathologist. And godsend,’ Caroline corrected. ‘Only he’s temporary.’ She smiled her warm, lovely smile. ‘That’s the only thing we don’t like about him.’
Chris came up and gave him a hearty handshake—the kind of handshake a protective brother gives when he’s wondering if this is his divorced little sister’s new boyfriend.
‘My…uh…partner—girlfriend—is in Sydney,’ Declan explained. ‘I can’t get a position there until I’ve sat some exams.’
I shouldn’t have come, he realised as Chris nodded and said, ‘Right. I see.’
It’s the wrong time, the wrong circumstances and I’m the wrong person.
Too late to reach that conclusion. He’d hold back as much as he could, try not to get in the way. Maybe he’d play with the boys, keep them out of the way, too, so that Chris and Sandie and Caroline could talk about plans.
‘Declan seems nice,’ Sandie offered, as she and Caroline washed the dishes together, following a barbecue lunch that they’d somehow managed to keep relaxed and pleasant.
‘He’s great. We wish we could keep him. Tom is torturing himself with an unrealistic hope that it’s possible.’
‘Why isn’t it?’
‘The girlfriend. She’s very Sydney. So’s he, really. He was living in London before. Not a country person.’
‘Hmm.’
‘What’s that for?’
‘You don’t like the girlfriend, do you?’
‘Nope. Totally unfair of me, I’ve only met her once. I should have met her more! She was supposed to come down, but she hardly has, and I can tell he’s disappointed.’
‘Hmm,’ said Sandie again.
There was a silence, and Caroline knew exactly what she was thinking. Her resistance crumbled at once. ‘OK, I admit it,’ she said.
‘Yeah, I thought so.’ They’d known each other for more than ten years.
‘Is it obvious?’
‘Only to me, I should think.’
‘I’m trying to hide it. I thought I was. I hate it.’
‘Chris wondered at first, but once Declan mentioned the girlfriend, any suspicion was lulled. It wouldn’t occur to him that you could feel something if the man was attached.’
‘He’s right. I shouldn’t.’
‘But you can’t help what you feel, of course you can’t, and I know you wouldn’t act on it. Your brother is so…’ Sandie sniffed, and sobbed and laughed at herself ‘…faithful.’ She broke down completely, and had to reach for the tissues on top of the fridge. ‘I’m so lucky, Caroline! I love him so much, and the boys. If this treatment doesn’t work…I just can’t bear the thought. And I haven’t got time for the treatment!’
‘Listen, this is what I’ve worked out.’ Caroline’s throat ached, but she forced herself to speak steadily. ‘Don’t worry about time. You’ll be able to give everything you need to, to the treatment and to getting well, eating right, getting enough rest, because that’s what we all want.’
They talked for half an hour, finished the dishes, made a cup of tea and got it all sorted out. The boys would come to Caroline during the week for the next two school terms and longer if necessary, with weekends split between Glenfallon and the farm. Sandie could get her six week-long cycles of treatment and her three weeks of rest after each one, and Chris would handle the farm.
‘I don’t want to be parted from any of them for even a day,’ Sandie said, ‘but I know that’s not realistic. They’ll have a great time with you.’
While they talked, Caroline assumed that Chris was entertaining Declan, and that the boys were entertaining themselves, but then Chris wandered in and announced that he’d got the tractor fixed, and she asked him blankly, ‘With Declan?’
‘No, he’s with the boys.’
‘I thought you were showing him the river.’
‘Well, I was going to, but then he said could the boys do that, and they were keen so I let them and got on with a couple of jobs. Seems nice. A bit…not standoffish, but…’
‘Reserved,’ Sandie suggested, shooting a quick glance at Caroline, who bit her lip.
Declan’s keeping out of our way, she realised. He thinks he has to.
She heard voices and thumping footsteps at that moment, and the three boys arrived in the kitchen in a noisy heap, with Declan just behind them. The dogs were left by the steps—callously abandoned, their barking whines insisted. They begged unsucces
sfully to be let inside.
‘Declan doesn’t know anything, Mum,’ Mattie announced. ‘He asked if we rode the sheep.’
‘He said they looked lovely and comfortable!’ Sam giggled.
‘He said did we have a pig for a sheep-dog like in Babe.’
‘He said did the sheep have saddles!’
‘He was just kidding, you know,’ Josh came in, but he was grinning.
‘He’s hilarious!’
‘You’re a hit, Dr McCulloch,’ Sandie said. She touched Declan on the arm and handed him a cup of tea, as if he were family. Caroline’s heart lurched.
Almost two weeks passed.
Sandie went to Canberra with Chris for her first debilitating cycle of treatment and returned, exhausted and nauseous, to the farm. Meanwhile, the boys came to Glenfallon and seemed to slot into their new lives with reassuring ease. The two-week Easter school break ended.
Mattie and Sam knew their mother was sick, but they didn’t know how sick, and they believed, one hundred per cent, that the treatment would make her better. It would have been cruel and pointless, at this stage, to shatter their beautiful, heart-nourishing faith by telling them that there was any other possibility.
At the end of Mattie’s and Sam’s first week of school and child-care in Glenfallon, Caroline and Josh had to go to Sydney for the open day at Woodside. With her working hours now limited to mornings, she could pick Mattie up from school early and drive him and Sam out to the farm to spend the weekend, and still get back in time for a four o’clock start to Sydney.
All the same, the three-hour round trip—three and a half, really, once Caroline had unloaded the boys’ overnight bags and talked to Chris and Sandie for a few minutes—added considerably to the driving time she’d have to put in today. It couldn’t be helped. She’d handle it.
What she couldn’t handle, and what nearly had her in tears, was the sudden death of her engine five kilometres out of town on the return journey. She smelled the hot odour of oil, and knew something was seriously wrong.
A passing traveller responded to her signal and stopped to help. He had a mobile phone, so she could call the motorists’ association road service. The mechanic showed up within half an hour, and told her she had no oil left. The car was on its second trip around the mileage clock and must have developed a slow leak. The engine had seized. Possibly she’d cracked the engine block. She’d have to get towed to the garage in Glenfallon for investigation and repair, and there was no question of getting to Sydney today in this vehicle.
‘But I have to get to Sydney!’ she told the mechanic.
He shrugged, and gave an upside down smile. ‘You could stick out your thumb, hitch a ride.’
She nodded. ‘I will. I’ll have to. Not literally, but I do know someone else who’s driving up today.’
She phoned Declan at the pathology department within ten minutes of getting home, relieved to find he hadn’t yet left. Josh had his overnight bag packed and waiting in the hall, and was eating a banana in front of the television. It was already after four-thirty.
‘And I’m only asking because I’m really desperate, Declan. The two flights are full. The bus has already gone through, and the train would have, too, by the time I could organise someone to drive us the fifty kilometres to—’
‘Shush, look, it’s no problem.’
‘But I feel I’m…’
Tricking you into this.
Doing it because I want to spend time in your company.
And being way too obvious about it.
None of that was true, but it was how she felt.
She gave Josh his motion sickness pill and threw her own gear together, which she hadn’t had a chance to do before, and they waited for Declan on the front porch because she didn’t want to delay him for a second longer than necessary.
He was very good about it. Polite and cheerful and relaxed, dressed casually in jeans that made her aware, as always, of his capable, masculine body. If this was a nuisance, he didn’t let it show, even when he discovered that the motel where she and Josh were staying was in Pymble. It was close to Woodside and Robert’s and Gail’s house, but well north of the Harbour Bridge. Declan himself was headed for Coogee, almost as far from the bridge in the opposite direction.
For the first two hours or more, Caroline pretended to be asleep, as Josh was, then she felt the car slowing, opened her eyes and saw that Declan was pulling into a fast-food place just off the highway. They ate spicy chicken burgers and fries, washed down with soft drinks.
‘Lord, but junk food can taste good in the middle of a long drive!’ Declan said. ‘I’m not sure if it’s the fat, the additives or the salt.’
Josh grinned at the statement, and took a big bite of his own burger, nodding his head in fervent agreement. With Josh so sleepy until now, the two of them hadn’t spoken very much, but they seemed relaxed with each other.
Caroline had noticed this two weeks ago on the farm, too. Declan seemed to have very clear memories of what being a pre-teen boy meant, and males didn’t always need a lot of conversation to establish common ground.
‘Would you like me to drive for a while, Declan?’ she offered.
‘If you don’t mind. Between the microscope, the computer and the car, my shoulders are ready for a break.’
Again, nobody talked much. Caroline could see that Declan was tired, although he insisted on taking the wheel again after she’d driven for two hours. They didn’t get to Pymble until nearly midnight, which meant it would be close to one in the morning by the time Declan crossed back through the Harbour tunnel and through the eastern suburbs to Coogee.
‘What time shall I pick you up on Sunday?’ he asked her.
‘Oh, don’t,’ she told him. ‘I mean, we’ll make our way to you, if you’ll give me the address and tell me what time you want to start.’
‘Three? Is that too late?’
‘Whenever you want.’
‘We’ll eat on the road again.’
‘That’s fine.’ She took down the address and phone number quickly, and didn’t delay him any further.
The next day, touring Josh’s potential future school with his father, she had to agree that Woodside was beautiful, and luxuriously endowed with every facility and every extra-curricular programme an ambitious parent could want.
Josh quickly disappeared with a crowd of other boys his age to submit to the tests that would determine whether he met the necessary threshold of academic excellence. In that area, Caroline wasn’t concerned. He wasn’t a brilliant student, but he was bright enough. As soon as he’d gone, she took a deep breath and prepared to cover the same territory she and Robert had already been through.
He couldn’t be swayed, however. He hadn’t asked for much over the past ten years in the area of their son’s upbringing, he pointed out, and it was true. He’d never failed to pay child support, never reneged on a holiday visit. This one thing he wanted for his son. It would help them to build a better bond.
‘He’s not going to enjoy boarding, and being so far away,’ Caroline argued. ‘He’s not someone who likes big groups of kids and organised activities every minute. He likes time to himself. He’s behaved so responsibly since he’s started coming home from school on his own. Jenny Hollis, next door, is so impressed.’
And he’s all I’ve got.
She was wise enough not to let this particular argument slip out. She’d have sacrificed her own feelings if she’d sincerely thought boarding at Woodside would be good for Josh.
‘That’s not the point,’ Robert said. ‘It’s the opportunities he’ll get, the time we’ll have, the contacts he’ll make.’
‘I don’t want him to have contacts. I want him to have friends. Ranleigh is—’
‘Please, let’s not talk any more about Ranleigh, Caroline. It’s not in the same class as Woodside, even if a comparison of schools was the only issue. As I’ve said, I haven’t asked for much. This is important to me.’
She fell
back to a more conciliatory position that still had her stomach tying itself in knots, in anticipated loss. ‘Then couldn’t he live with you and Gail? I know he’d like that better.’
Robert didn’t answer for some seconds. Caroline watched him, trying to read his face. He’d put on weight in recent years, and had begun to look a little jowly. He parted his hair further to the side now, in an attempt to hide the fact that it was thinning. She was surprised Gail let him get away with it. Didn’t all women prefer frank balding to an obvious comb-over of inadequate strands?
‘Well, yes, I’ve considered that, but I don’t think it would be appropriate, Caroline,’ he said finally.
‘Not appropriate? What do you mean?’
‘I think it would be…difficult. With Amelia. There’s too much potential for problems. You hear about cases of abuse by older siblings in blended families. It could be disastrous. At minimum, it would be unfair on her. And on Gail.’
Too shocked and angry to speak, Caroline felt her blood pressure build and her scalp muscles tighten. Yes, there’d be extra work for Gail, but this was Gail’s husband’s child. No one said a second marriage was an effortless bed of roses when there were children from the previous marriage involved. And was Robert seriously suggesting that his precious young daughter wouldn’t be safe with an older half-brother around? Not safe with Josh, sweet-natured Josh, Robert’s own son?
She couldn’t believe it, and she wanted to yell. More rationally, she thought about sketching out to him how well Josh had handled Mattie and Sam, who were darlings but who could both be less than angelic at times, and had already broken a couple of Josh’s old toys. She wanted to say how great it would be for the half-siblings to actually get to know each other and build a relationship. Robert himself had claimed that building relationships was important, after all.
Oh, hell! There was no point! She looked across at her ex-husband, and saw a gap she’d never be able to bridge. If he could speak as if he considered his own son capable of bullying a baby sister, or worse, then there was no point attempting to communicate on the issue.
