by Cathryn Hein
It should have been peaceful, amiable, but their extended silence soon became noticeable. Digby had a million things he wanted to ask yet nothing to say, and Jas seemed in no hurry to talk. He patted his palms on the arms of his chair several times, then gave a final push upright. She wasn’t going to ask him back again or for help.
‘I’d better leave you to it,’ he said.
Jas at least accompanied him to the car, which was more than he expected, but with every step the feeling he was walking away from a chance of something special tugged at his temples. He kept glancing at her, hunting for a sign of the friendship she’d promised, but Jasmine’s expression remained as coolly inscrutable as when he’d arrived.
He opened the car door and stood drumming fingers on the frame as he had on the chair only minutes before.
Jas observed him a moment before squinting at the house and back to him. ‘It was good to see you, Dig.’
‘And you.’ He hesitated, then leaned down to kiss her cheek. The feel of her skin, the scent of her, was like a surge of opiate in his veins. Gritting against it, he forced himself not to let his lips linger and instead put his feelings into his gaze. ‘I’m proud of you, Jas.’
‘Most of it’s thanks to you. If you hadn’t started calling in, I’d probably still be mooning over Mike. And locking my gate.’ Her gaze softened. ‘You caught her, didn’t you? Brenda Morrison, the woman behind all the harassment. You made her stop.’
Digby glanced at the village lights. ‘You didn’t deserve what she was doing.’
‘Thank you for that.’ She paused and scuffed an ugg boot. ‘For taking care of me.’
‘I could have done better.’
The softness faded and she crossed one arm over herself to rub her shoulder, her ‘Yes, you could have’ lingering unsaid but loud.
Cursing his stupidity and suppressing the urge to hold her, Digby indicated the car. Time to get out of here before he screwed things up any further. ‘We both have work tomorrow.’
‘We do.’
Another silence fell. Jas stared at her feet, Digby at the empty driver’s seat. Then it seemed like they were both talking at once.
‘Jas—’
‘Dig—’
They shared a shy smile.
Digby indicated towards Jas. ‘You first.’
‘It wasn’t anything.’ She scraped her teeth over her bottom lip and rubbed her shoulder some more. ‘I just thought perhaps you’d like to check out the garden in daylight one day.’
The relief made him want to cheer. ‘I would. Maybe over the weekend sometime?’
‘Sure. I have work Saturday morning but I’ll be home in the afternoon. Sunday I’ll be at pony club.’
Digby tried not to let his jealousy show at the mention of pony club. ‘Okay, good. I’ll call in later in the afternoon, when I’ve finished at the farm.’
‘I’ll look forward to it.’
Digby swung into the car, closed the door and started the engine. With a wave he put the car into gear, only to stop when Jas tapped on the window.
‘You didn’t tell me what you were going to say,’ she said when he’d lowered the window.
‘Nothing important.’
‘You sure?’
He glanced at the house, at the friendly glow from her kitchen, at her. To hell with his pride. He wanted her, and being bashful about it wouldn’t get him anywhere. ‘I miss our friendship, Jas.’ He looked at her squarely. ‘I know I probably don’t deserve it but I’d like it back.’
For a few seconds she held eye contact before switching focus to the front gate. Her lips were rolled together, the protective arm over her chest tight. ‘Would this friendship be with or without benefits?’
Digby considered a lie and abandoned it. Yeah, he wanted to sleep with Jas again, but right now, as long as it meant seeing her he’d take anything she had to give. ‘Whatever you want.’
‘That,’ said Jas, dropping her arm, ‘is something I’ve yet to figure out.’
CHAPTER
28
Digby took a swig of beer and placed it back on the mat, staring at the few mouthfuls remaining as he rotated the glass with his fingers. Finally he sighed and looked at Josh. ‘I need to visit the hill.’
Josh lifted his eyebrow slightly then nodded slowly. ‘Okay. Whenever you’re ready.’
Digby gave the glass a full rotation before answering. It was late on Sunday afternoon. He should have been at Tyndale. Where he wanted to be was at Admella Beach but it was one of Jasmine’s fortnightly pony club rally days where she was no doubt laughing with that Simon the sign-writer bloke. Like she hardly did with him these days.
It had been a month since he’d started seeing Jas again. If you could call it that. Though she was thawing, their relationship was nothing like it had been. Digby helped her with the garden, lugging materials, digging holes and turning compost, showing her how to tend the young plants, what diseases to watch out for. Jas was thankful and full of praise for his expertise, but that was all. Any time Digby even hinted at getting close, her expression would shut down and she’d make some excuse to escape.
He didn’t know what he’d expected from their resumed relationship but it wasn’t this.
Digby looked up from his glass. ‘How about now?’
‘Em’s home.’
‘Doesn’t matter.’ He downed the last of his beer and picked up his keys. ‘It’s time I did this.’
The journey out to the turnoff proved uneventful. Leading the way in his ute, Josh drove slowly, as if giving Digby a chance to change his mind. He needn’t have bothered. Digby’s problems with the main road had ended the night he’d driven Mike to Levenham from Admella Beach—another change in himself he had Jas to thank for. But when Josh’s brake lights lit up as he slowed for Bradley Road, Digby’s stomach lurched and he wondered if he was truly ready to face the last and worst of his weaknesses.
He gripped the wheel and indicated. He was ready. His pointless hatred and broken relationship with Em had gone on too long. Rocking Horse Hill wasn’t evil, it didn’t wish him or anyone else ill. It was an eroded extinct volcano that his family had once managed and quarried without incident until the land was forcibly annexed by the government back in the eighties. If anyone was to blame for the quarry’s collapse it was bureaucracy.
Still, he took the gravel surface slowly and kept his eyes averted from the menacing form that was the jagged volcanic vent marking the T-intersection of Bradley and Stanislaus Roads.
Josh was leaning on the passenger door of his ute with his arms and ankles crossed when Digby pulled up alongside. Digby alighted, pausing a moment to take in the western slope rising steeply above him. The crater’s sharp craggy rim was alight with the falling sun. Digby tried not to imagine the rocky edge as teeth.
‘You sure you’re up for this?’ asked Josh.
He wasn’t sure of anything but Digby nodded anyway. ‘Yeah.’
‘You want me to come along?’
‘No. Thanks.’ He glanced at Josh and caught his brother-in-law’s concern. Understandable given the landslide that had crashed through their lives, the consequences of which they were still dealing with over eighteen months later. And might always continue to. ‘I’ll be all right.’
Josh looked unconvinced but nodded. ‘Whatever you do, don’t go past the stabilisers. That last dump of rain’s weakened the edge again. The rest of the path is safe enough.’ This time it was Josh’s turn to glance at the slope and the dark scar that was the quarry. ‘As safe as it can be.’
‘I won’t.’ Digby gripped Josh’s shoulder, the touch more to reassure himself than Josh, and with a last squeeze let go.
Snatching a wool beanie from the back seat, Digby tugged it on and trudged up to the hill paddock gate without looking back. Cattle lows drifted on the air. A hawk released an eerie cry. From a further paddock one of Em’s donkeys wheezed a hee-haw before falling silent. Pausing at the gate he searched for Em’s horse and found him grazing
in the far reaches of the road paddock. With the animals elsewhere, Digby swung the gate open and left it that way, and with a leaden tread began his pilgrimage to the place where he’d lost the woman he’d loved, and almost lost his own life.
An old wooden stile allowed easy access over the boundary fence and onto what was State Heritage land. He climbed over and stood for a moment, taking in air before walking on. For years this had been Em’s favourite route up the hill, and though flanked by tall grass and weeds, a worn trail still existed. Wet grass flicked his legs and soaked his jeans but Digby barely noticed; his gaze was fixed ahead on the ugly stabilisers spiking the slope like giant knives.
He was nearing the quarry when the tall grass disappeared abruptly. Someone had cleared a small opening and wilted vegetation blanketed the space. Digby stopped and frowned at it, then his heart began to stutter. On the far side, just in front of the spikes and the quarry lip, like Eden at the border of Hell, lay a carpet of carefully tended blue and white pansies.
Felicity’s colours: blue eyes, angel white.
He stepped closer, his breathing hoarsening, then staggered and dropped to one knee as he saw the stone and realised what this was: a memorial, for Flick. One he had no idea existed.
And it was beautiful.
Emotion threatened to undo him. Digby bent his head and dug the heel of his palm into his forehead as his throat choked and his eyes stung. After several heaved breaths, when he was sure his painfully thudding heart could take it, he looked up to absorb the scene properly.
Felicity’s commemorative marker was simple: a large, unpolished piece of blue dolomite with a single planed face, onto which a small brass plaque had been attached. The engraving was equally simple—just Felicity’s name and the date of her death. What made it extraordinary was the location.
The rock was positioned near the quarry edge, a breath in front of the ugly steel spikes. Viewed from standing height it appeared safe, but from his knees the collapsed slope gave the illusion that the dolomite teetered at the edge of a void.
Digby stayed on his knee for a long time. Finally he stood and gazed across the landscape, thinking about Felicity, about his sister, about the mistakes they’d all made. So many. So very, very many. If not for the sounds of someone making their way up the hill, he probably would have stayed lost in reverie until dark.
The footfalls stopped a short distance behind him.
‘You did this?’ asked Digby, not turning around.
‘Yes.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I lost her too, Dig,’ said Em, moving parallel but a careful arm span away. ‘Because we failed her. Because she should have been part of this family.’ Her voice turned husky with emotion. ‘Because you loved her.’
Digby had no response to that.
‘I keep getting notices to clear the site. The management committee say the flowers don’t fit in with their revegetation plan, not being native. I toss the notices in the bin. If they want it gone they can dig it up it themselves. They won’t though, not after all the finger-pointing that went on. Even if they did I’d replant. There are tulip and iris bulbs below the pansies, for the spring.’ Em’s voice dropped to almost a whisper. ‘She liked tulips.’
Digby tilted his head back and stared at the bleak winter-grey sky, blinking hard. What a fool he’d been. ‘There’s so much I wish I could take back.’
‘Same here.’
For a while they stood in silence, buffeted by the frigid wind.
‘Dig …’
He swallowed, wishing the roughness in his throat would ease. They needed to talk this through, but it had been so long and Digby had been so wrong, and seeing this place, what she’d done, made everything hurt again.
Em’s words came quiet and careful, her watchfulness a weight on his skin. ‘Josh said that the thing that cuts you most is that you think she died believing you didn’t love her. But she did know. She knew it more than any of us.’
Digby shook his head. If she’d known, she’d be with him, living and breathing and loving, and not some fucking rock in the ground.
‘It’s why she let go.’
He regarded her with disbelief and anger. Her hands were cupped together and anguish twisted her face. He quickly looked away. He didn’t want to fight, not about this, not here.
‘Dig, she sacrificed herself for you. Surely you know that.’
He didn’t. He didn’t know anything except the crush in his chest and the lack of air in his lungs as the memory of that night bore down on him. The groaning, trembling earth. The wind. Muffy’s barks. Felicity’s huge eyes as the light of her faith in him flickered and went out.
Em stepped closer, urgency lifting her voice. ‘Think about it. The ground was heaving, about to give way any moment. She knew you had no chance of reaching her but would try anyway. From Josh’s yells she knew I was safe, that he had me. She could see the cracks deepening in the quarry wall and knew it was only seconds before it collapsed. Felicity had to let go. Right then. Any longer and she would have taken us all with her.’
He could barely breathe. None of this sounded right. ‘No. I could have saved her. All she had to do was swing towards me. One lunge. Just one.’
‘There wasn’t time. She didn’t have the chance and neither did you. She didn’t want you dying for her, Dig. She wanted you to live.’
He nearly hadn’t. When the edge gave way and she plummeted, momentum carried him too. Somehow he’d survived that plunge and it was only through Josh dragging him to safety that he’d lived through the second collapse.
The idea that she’d let go to save him refused to sit straight in his brain. He rubbed his forehead hard. ‘It’s because of the fight we had, isn’t it? I doubted her and it broke her. But it wasn’t like that. I told her and told her. If she had hurt Gran then we’d work it out. It wouldn’t have mattered what she’d done, I’d have still loved her.’
‘I think she thought it was too late,’ said Em sadly. ‘I think she believed that no matter what you said, how you supported her, things would never truly be the same again.’
Digby was barely controlling his grief. ‘I would have made them right.’
‘I know you would have. We all would have, but Felicity’s background meant she had no experience of kindness without strings. So she did what she thought was best for you.’
‘I didn’t care about me. I only cared about her.’ He blinked and a tear leaked from his eye. ‘I screwed up so bad, Em.’
‘We all did,’ she replied in a voice sodden with tears. ‘Me more than anyone.’
Digby stared at the grey pit of the quarry and felt the truth settle over him. What happened to Felicity was a collision of fate and human error. Every one of them, including Felicity herself, shouldered some of the blame for her death, but in the end it had been her choice to turn her face to his and smile, before loosening her grip and snapping the last fragile thread of hope they had in her survival.
Em touched his arm. ‘I’ll leave you.’ She took a few steps and stopped again. ‘She wanted you to live, Dig. That’s why she let go. Because she loved you and wanted you to live. That was her gift to you. Please don’t throw it away.’
‘Yeah,’ he said, breathing shuddery breaths. ‘Yeah.’ He coughed and rubbed his wet cheeks and mouth. ‘I’ve seen enough.’ He indicated the memorial. ‘Thank you.’
She stared at the plaque. ‘I wish I could do more.’
‘So do I,’ said Digby.
And this time he would. For her. In honour of the sacrifice she’d made.
When they’d crossed back on to Wallace land, Digby placed one hand on Em’s shoulder. Startled, she glanced at him and gave a hesitant smile. It was the most companionable he’d been with her for a long time, even before Felicity’s death. Today they’d found a kind of peace between them.
He glanced back to the quarry and its flash of blue and white and felt a strange wash of closure.
Peace in his own heart too.
29
‘It’s hard work trying to get pregnant,’ Em complained, making Jas laugh.
‘Sure it is.’ Jas pointed to Em’s sliding glass door and the garden beyond where Josh was hefting a plank of timber onto a couple of sawhorses. The man was strong, capable, and stupid with love for his wife. And he’d begun building her a new greenhouse without her even asking. ‘Yes, I’m sure sex with Josh is a terrible chore.’
Em plucked a sultana from the fruitcake batter she was mixing and threw it at Jas. She dodged the missile with another laugh and bent to pick it from the floor before it could be forgotten and trodden into the slate.
‘All right, so it’s not that bad. But it’s been months. I’m so desperate I’ve turned into one of those women who take their temperature and measure their cervical mucus to check how ripe they are, for God’s sake. I even do it in the shop. Last Wednesday everything matched so perfectly I phoned Josh straight away and ordered him over.’ A pink flush spread across her cheeks at the memory. ‘I had to lock the door and put the “Back in five minutes” sign up.’
‘Five minutes? Now that’s a quickie and a half.’ At the sight of her friend’s crestfallen expression, Jas stopped teasing. With her study and pony club commitments, and endless tooling in the garden, she hadn’t spent much quality time with Em lately. Now Jas wished she’d scrounged the time. For all her stoicism there was no hiding Em’s low spirits. ‘It’ll happen. You’re both young, healthy and mad for each other. It hasn’t been that long.’
‘It has. We’re closing in on eight months. That’s a long time when you’re the wrong side of thirty and I’m not getting any younger.’ She sighed and resumed her mixing. ‘Mum said it took her a year to get pregnant. Gran reckons she fell on her wedding night.’
‘Knowing your grandmother, that’s probably because she crammed a year’s worth of sex into one night.’
