Promises

by Cathryn Hein

  ‘Everything about you is worth knowing.’

  ‘Stop it, Sophie,’ said Aaron quietly. ‘You’re only making it worse.’

  She wanted to keep pushing but Aaron had that shuttered look, like he was keeping himself from the world. His jawline was rigid and his hands were tight on the reins. What was he hiding that was so bad he thought she wouldn’t love him any more if she found out?

  ‘Can I ask you something?’

  He gave her a guarded look, and nodded.

  ‘What happened in the feed room … did I dream that or was it real?’

  He glanced away into the trees. ‘It was real but it should never have happened.’ Suddenly, he reached out, grabbed her hand and clutched it tight, blue eyes concentrated on hers. ‘Sophie, listen to me. You’re gorgeous and sexy and funny and strong, and I care about you more than I can say, but you have to understand, I can’t be what you want. Not now, not ever.’

  A lump formed in her throat. She tried to swallow it away but it wouldn’t move. ‘I thought —’ She stopped, finding she couldn’t go on.

  ‘I know. I’m sorry.’

  ‘But you wanted to kiss me. You —’

  You said my name like you loved me.

  He squeezed her fingers, eyes filled with sympathy and something her ever-hopeful heart thought might be regret. ‘Friends, Soph. Let us have that.’

  ‘It’s not enough.’ It would never be enough. Not for her.

  He let her go. ‘It’ll have to be.’

  Aaron said he just wanted to be friends, but the evening phone calls kept coming. It was as though he’d developed a habit he couldn’t drop. Sophie felt torn between wanting to tell him to stop and the rising hope that there was a chance for them.

  The calls were never about anything in particular. Mostly, he asked how she was, how her afternoon had gone and then hung up, but occasionally they’d get talking and wouldn’t stop for an hour. Some nights Sophie took the phone to bed and cuddled up under the blankets while they talked. If she closed her eyes, it was almost like having him beside her.

  It amazed her that he could maintain his distance in the yard, when on the phone they’d be whispering their dreams and aspirations to one another. It was as if he lived in two different worlds. In the mornings, they worked the horses together, drank tea in Hakea Lodge’s kitchen, and talked about nothing but horses. Trainer and owner, pretending that’s all they were. In the evenings, Aaron let down his guard.

  ‘Did you always want to be a trainer?’ she asked him one night.

  ‘Not always. When I was six, I wanted to be a fireman.’

  She smiled, imagining a blond, blue-eyed little boy running around in a yellow raincoat and a red fireman’s helmet.

  ‘And when you were older?’

  ‘A trainer.’

  ‘Didn’t it put you off training when your dad was warned off?’

  ‘No. It made me want it more.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I had to set things right.’

  ‘What things?’

  ‘Nothing. It’s late. I have to go.’

  And so it went on. Some subjects remained off-limits, but as long as they were talking, she hoped that one day he’d give away enough so that she could work out his problem for herself – and then solve it.

  Aaron did his fair share of probing too, she noticed. He seemed to like hearing how bad things had been for her, as if knowing what she’d gone through helped strengthen his resolve to keep his distance. If she hadn’t such a pathological aversion to lies, she would have made stories up to confound him. But she could only tell the truth, no matter how much she fretted that it was the truth of what she’d been through that was keeping him from loving her.

  ‘Soph,’ he said one night. ‘Can I ask you something?’

  ‘You can ask me anything.’

  ‘Anything?’ He sounded amused.

  ‘Anything.’

  ‘All right. What colour underpants are you wearing?’ He was laughing when he asked, as if it was a big joke, but he soon stopped when she replied that she wasnt wearing any.

  The silence lasted for ten long seconds.

  ‘Aaron?’

  ‘I wish you hadn’t told me that.’

  ‘Why?’

  He didn’t answer.

  ‘Aaron?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘What were you really going to ask me?’

  His relief could be heard over the line. ‘I was going to ask about your friends.’

  Now it was her turn for silence.

  ‘Soph?’

  ‘I told you, I don’t have any.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘At school, when everyone else was making life-long friends, I —’ She took a deep breath, hating the memory and the pain it evoked. She could still recall the agony of alienation. Teenagers could be unbelievably cruel, especially girls. ‘I found it hard to talk to people. I wasn’t … I was very screwed up after Mum died.’ She gave a small laugh. ‘No one wants to hang with the freaky girl, and believe me, I was pretty weird.’

  ‘Did you really think you were weird?’

  ‘No. I thought I’d gone mad. In a way, I did in the end. Slitting your wrists isn’t a sane thing to do, but you know what? When I did it, it felt good. Like everything was all over at last.’

  ‘Jesus, Soph.’

  ‘You asked.’

  ‘I wish I could have made you happy then.’

  ‘You can make me happy now.’

  ‘No. I can’t. I’ve got to go. I’ll see you tomorrow.’

  The following morning she caught him checking out her bum when she bent over to pick up a bucket. He quickly turned away.

  ‘Don’t worry I’ve got some on,’ she yelled across the yard. ‘They’re white.’

  Aaron stared at her before hastily backing into the feed room. She smiled and strode toward him. Crossing her legs and arms, she leaned against the doorjamb to watch him work, loving the way his long, solid body moved, the concentration on his face as he tried to ignore her, the way his gaze kept sliding to the door and down her body. Why, when what they felt was so huge and undeniable, did he believe anything between them was impossible?

  ‘Are we going to keep playing this game forever?’

  He stopped scooping and looked at her. ‘What game?’

  ‘The game where you keep telling me that you only want to be friends and then perve at my bum when you think I’m not looking.’

  ‘I wasn’t perving.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Just checking to see if I was wearing underpants then?’

  He didn’t answer.

  She pushed off the wall and stepped forward until she was standing in front of him. ‘You nearly kissed me in this room.’

  ‘It was a mistake.’

  ‘I don’t think so. You wanted to. I wanted to. You shouldn’t have stopped.’

  ‘I had to.’

  ‘Why?’

  He looked at her with eyes turned down with sadness. ‘If I tell you, you’ll hate me.’

  She took his hand. ‘I’ll never hate you.’

  ‘We’ve got friendship, Soph. Be grateful for that.’ Then, in a replay of their last feed room encounter, he walked out.

  Thirteen

  Sophie reached over the tailgate of the float and smacked Buck on the rump.

  ‘Cut it out. You don’t know what frustration is.’

  Sophie did, and it went by the name of Aaron.

  Buck twisted his head around to look at her, as if to say ‘Up yours’, and then carried on stamping and kicking his annoyance. Sophie wished she hadn’t bothered wrapping his legs in protective floating boots. He might stop kicking if it actually hurt. She gave him another whack before stepping down.

  In the faint hope that a change of scenery might freshen him up, she’d taken him out to the pony club grounds that afternoon for a run around the cross-country course. The moment she unloaded and tied him to the float, she knew
it was a mistake. His expression turned mulish, his ears turned back and his tail flicked back and forth in annoyance, but in desperation she’d persevered. She saddled him, fixed boots to stamping legs, mounted, and worked him quietly on the flat, trying to use the discipline of dressage to coax out his bad temper before attempting to jump. For thirty minutes he behaved, but as soon as she faced him at a jump, he threw a tantrum. Sophie ended up flat on her back with Buck careering around the grounds bucking and squealing like a bronco.

  She’d cried the whole time it took to catch him, but knew her tears weren’t just for the horse. Frustration with Aaron, anger at Tess and irritation with herself all played their part. A fortnight ago, she’d celebrated her greatest victory. She’d felt strong and ready to take on anyone. Now, she just felt bruised, inside and out.

  Back at Vanaheim, she peered into the old drench drum that posed as the roadside mail drop. The only delivery was a newsletter from the South East Showjumping Club, advertising its coming winter showjumping series, which would conclude with a heavily sponsored three-day carnival in August. A glut of magazines had arrived the previous week but they lay on the kitchen bench still in their plastic wrappers. Usually they were dog-eared and tatty within a week, but Sophie was too distracted to concentrate on articles about equine nutrition or the latest clover varieties.

  Chuck looked up from his grazing and whickered. He’d only been retired for two weeks and already his coat was thickening and his belly expanding. She still brought him in from the front paddock every night to the warmth of his stable, but when the spring arrived, she’d turn him out permanently.

  Ignoring Buck’s increasingly hysteric kicking, Sophie climbed through the rails and wandered through the long grass toward her best friend.

  ‘Hey, superstar,’ she said, kissing Chuck on the nose. ‘Are you enjoying your retirement?’

  Chuck bunted his head against Sophie’s arm and let her rest her cheek against his for a while. She played with his ears and tickled his chin, thinking how much she missed having him in work. He was a horse, but like the dogs, he seemed to know her moods better than herself and was always willing to offer comfort.

  She ran her hands under his rugs, checking to see if he was warm, and then circled him, keeping a look-out for any cuts or bumps. She leaned against his shoulder, stroking his neck, half watching the float as it rocked under Buck’s assault. He needed to learn some manners, but Sophie wasn’t the one to teach him. The decision had been made that afternoon. He was going. She’d given up.

  ‘Listen to that silly bugger,’ she said to Chuck. ‘Anyone would think he’s the centre of the universe. If only he was like you, hey?’ She sighed and kissed Chuck’s cheek. ‘Mum would have known what to do, wouldn’t she, boy?’

  Sophie hadn’t thought much about her mother lately. Her mind had been too full of Aaron and, to a lesser extent, Tess, but for once, she didn’t feel guilty. Fiona Dixon had chosen to leave this world. She’d chosen herself over a daughter who needed her, and left confusion, anger and heartache in her wake.

  It wasn’t just Sophie’s life affected, it was Tess’s too, and, she supposed, her father’s. He hadn’t always been so distant. He’d once loved her, or at least acted as though he had, but her mother’s death had damaged their relationship beyond repair. It wasn’t so bad at the start. He’d tried, in his clumsy way, to be there when she was young and overflowing with hurt and confusion. But the older she grew the less she saw of him, and when he did visit, he struggled to even look at her. Not until she was older did she ask herself the question of who he saw when he looked at her face. She’d resigned herself to never knowing the answer.

  “I’ll take you for a walk later,’ she promised Chuck, then let him get back to grazing. Buck slammed his hoofs into the rubber-lined tailgate of the float. Sophie shook her head in defeat. The horse had to go. She wasn’t strong enough for him. What control she’d once had over the animal was now gone. He’d lost all respect for her.

  An unfamiliar silver four-wheel drive sat in Vanaheim’s yard. Sophie’s jaw clenched at the sight. The last thing she needed was a visitor. At that moment, all she really wanted was to wallow in a black fug as she composed an ad for Horse Deals.

  ‘Damn,’ she muttered when she saw the rental-car company sticker and realised who it could be. Immediately, her thoughts darted to Tess. It wouldn’t do her cause any good if her father found out what sort of state Tess was in, but perhaps it also wouldn’t hurt for him to see what he’d condemned Tess to.

  She pulled the Range Rover to a halt and opened the door. Sammy and Del sat side by side looking up at her. They started to whine.

  ‘I know, I know,’ she told them. From the float, as though sensing her nerves, Buck began yet another hoof-beat tattoo.

  By the time she’d completed her chores, her father still hadn’t appeared and her stomach had almost turned itself inside out with worry. He had to be with Tess. Either that, or he was deliberately unsettling her with his continuing absence.

  A blast of hot air hit her in the face when she pushed open the door of the cottage. The rarely used central heating had been cranked up to maximum. She’d always thought it a waste of energy and made do with the gas log fire, but her father preferred the temperature tropical, as though the tropics was where he really wanted to be. She pulled off her boots and glanced down the hall. Sitting at the breakfast bar, with a laptop in front of him and a mobile phone pressed to his ear, was her father.

  Irritation had her clenching her fists. How dare he waltz in unannounced after weeks of no contact, as if this was a hotel instead of her home?

  ‘Send me the details and I’ll look at it and then talk it over with Gerry,’ he said to whoever was on the phone. Despite herself, Sophie smiled. Ever since she could remember, she’d loved her father’s deep, mellifluous voice.

  She padded into the kitchen, trying to keep her nerves at bay, knowing that the ensuing conversation would be difficult. She had to stand up to him. She was twenty-two years old, not fifteen, and she was strong now. She couldn’t let him make her feel pathetic again. She wouldn’t let him make her beg for his approval.

  ‘Yes. Email is best. CC it to Gerry as well. That will save time.’ He hung up and glanced at her before looking back down at his mobile and dialling another number. ‘Sophie, I won’t be a minute.’ He smiled. ‘Politics.’

  Sophie blinked and then let out a breath. She leaned against the sink, watching him. Ian Dixon was a tall, craggily handsome man with dark hair turning an attractive salt and pepper and eyes the same grey as her own. Despite the years he’d spent in Canberra, his farmer’s body remained trim and fit, free of the flabby paunches of his contemporaries. His looks and good health appealed to his rural electorate, though that would have little bearing on the outcome of an election. The district was blue-ribbon conservative. Ian Dixon’s seat was as safe as they came, but Sophie knew there were some in the branch who would do almost anything to usurp his position and destroy his dream of a cabinet position. A good reason, in her father’s mind, to keep any family skeletons firmly in the closet. Politics was, after all, a filthy game.

  ‘Nathan says he’ll email the report through to you. If you can look at it and then let me know your opinion —’ Ian paused, and then went on. ‘I am aware of that, but this is a major export industry I don’t want to be the one to have to tell the PM that we lost a 220-million-dollar contract because of bureaucratic chest beating … Exactly. Read it and let me know.’ He snapped the phone shut and smiled at Sophie.

  ‘Hi, Dad.’

  He surprised her by walking over to kiss her lightly on the cheek.

  ‘You smell like horse, as usual.’

  ‘I’ve been riding,’ she said lamely, watching him as he returned to his seat. ‘Have you seen Tess?’

  He nodded. ‘She’s in bed with the flu.’

  ‘Mmm. She hasnt been well. Do you want a cup of tea?’

  ‘Thank you. I could do with one.’


  She switched the kettle on, grabbed two mugs from the cupboard and dangled a teabag in each. Her father had turned to his laptop and was reading something on the screen, something that obviously mattered more than his daughter.

  ‘Tess tells me you won the Lake Ackerman event,’ he said without looking at her. ‘You should have told me.’

  ‘I did.’

  He eyed her. ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘I left a message on your machine.’

  An odd look flitted across his face. ‘I should have realised,’ he muttered, then looked directly at her. ‘I’m sorry. It must have been accidentally deleted.’

  Prevarication and lies. How typical of him. And today of all days, when she felt angry and fragile, and when heaping blame for all that was wrong was hard to resist.

  ‘Why do you lie to me all the time, Dad? I don’t deserve it.’

  ‘I don’t lie to you.’

  She smiled sadly. ‘You do. You’ve been doing it for years. Starting with Mum.’

  He sighed, and pressed a finger against his right eyebrow, closing his eyes as though suffering a severe headache. ‘I apologise for not telling you the truth about your mother’s death. It was wrong of me. I should have explained what happened.’

  She leaned across the bench. ‘But what did happen, Dad? Mum just didn’t kill herself for no reason. Something must have happened to push her to do it.’

  ‘She was very depressed.’

  ‘I’m aware of that, but you’re forgetting that I’ve been there. I know what it’s like. Something must have happened. She loved me. I know she did, and I know she would never have left me alone like that without reason.’ She grabbed his forearm and squeezed it. ‘Tell me. Tell me why someone as beautiful as Mum took her life. Please.’

  He snatched his arm out of her grip. ‘Your mother was not a saint, Sophie!’ He looked away, as though disgusted by his outburst before turning back to her and softening his voice. ‘She was a very difficult woman.’

  ‘Why didn’t you get a divorce, then?’

  His mouth compressed into a grim line. ‘Because she wouldn’t let me. She wanted you to grow up in a normal family, but we were never a normal family.’ His eyes sharpened. ‘Or have you forgotten that? Think, Sophie. Think back to what it was like.’