When Grace Went Away

by Meredith Appleyard

  Tim went to the fridge, taking out a two-litre bottle of Coke. Grace passed him a glass, knowing he’d prefer a beer, but alcohol of any kind was banned in this house, except on special occasions. It had been a long time since there’d been one of those.

  ‘Bread,’ her father said, already seated at the table. She dashed to the pantry, cursing under her breath for forgetting it, and then for rushing to get it.

  There was no conversation while they ate.

  Pushing food around her plate, Grace startled when her father spoke.

  ‘Tucker not good enough for you?’

  Heat rushed to her cheeks. ‘Of course it’s good enough, I’m just not very hungry. It’s late, and my stomach’s a bit upset.’

  ‘I’ll have your chops if you’re only going to play with them,’ Tim said. She scraped the meat onto his plate and he drowned it in tomato sauce.

  She made tea, taking it to the table before serving tinned peaches and ice cream for dessert. It was expected that she’d wait for them and on them, and clean up afterwards.

  Pushing aside the familiar twist of resentment, Grace comforted herself in the knowledge that she was only in Miners Ridge for a week. It was her choice to be there, and after the visit she wouldn’t be back for a long, long time.

  2

  ‘Where’s your car really, Grace?’ Tim said the following morning, right after the back door slammed signalling Doug’s departure for the sheds.

  They were finishing breakfast, Grace still in her dressing gown. Tim was clean-shaven, and his damp, dirty-blond hair brushed the collar of his work shirt. There was a family resemblance, but you needed to look hard for it.

  ‘When you didn’t show I had a few glasses of wine. That butch-looking copper told me not to drive.’

  ‘Sonya? Sounds like her. Sorry I didn’t make it, but the tractor, and Dad …’ He trailed off. No more needed to be said. ‘Did Faith bring you home?’

  ‘No, a friend of yours drove me. Bloke called Aaron.’

  ‘Looks a bit like a surfy?’

  ‘That’s him,’ she said pouring herself more tea. ‘He was very decent about it.’

  ‘Yeah, decent is a word you’d use to describe Aaron Halliday. We went to school together, and then he took off to uni or someplace. Didn’t see much of him for years. When he came back to Miners Ridge it was like we’d only seen each other yesterday. Beats me why anyone would choose to come back here.’

  ‘How did he know who I was?’

  ‘I probably told him.’

  ‘He knew I was older than you, and alluded to the fact I was stuck up …’

  Tim stopped chewing. He stared at Grace. ‘You are older than me,’ he said. ‘And you have always had this air about you, with your university degrees and hundred dollar haircuts. It’s always pissed me off, and I know it does Faith as well.’

  ‘Faith has a tertiary qualification. You have a trade.’

  Tim laughed, the sound harsh in the quiet kitchen. ‘I’m a diesel mechanic and she’s a nurse at the local hospital, Grace, not a corporate suit on a six-figure salary like you.’ He shook his head, nostrils flaring as he went back to shovelling in the bacon and eggs she’d cooked him.

  Grace dumped her tea in the sink and flung the remaining toast into the chook bucket. Finishing either was out of the question. She turned around and jabbed a finger at her brother.

  ‘You know what? You ought to lose that giant chip on your shoulder, Tim, or you’ll end up as mean and grumpy as Dad.’

  He glared at her. ‘And you know what? Dad gets meaner and grumpier when you swan in once in a blue moon, acting all la-di-da.’

  ‘That isn’t fair, Tim, and you know it. I’ve worked bloody hard to get where I am. You and Faith—and Luke—you were all given choices. They just packed me off to boarding school before I was old enough to have any say in it. And since Mum left, I haven’t been made to feel exactly welcome here. When I do visit I’m treated like the unpaid help.’

  Tim’s jaw tightened. He sat back, crossing his arms, breakfast forgotten. Mentioning anything to do with their mother leaving was taboo. As for Luke, no one ever mentioned Luke.

  Grace folded her arms, mirroring him, not breaking eye contact. ‘It’s eleven years since Luke died, and eight years since Mum left, and Dad still barely speaks to me. He’ll always hold it against me for taking Mum’s side.

  ‘Not to worry,’ she said, trying but failing to keep the years of hurt out of her voice. ‘After this week you won’t have to tolerate my company very often at all. The bank offered me a transfer to the London office. I’ve accepted. I go at the end of the month.’

  Tim’s jaw went slack. ‘London? Just like that? What about your townhouse? And who’s going to look out for Mum?’

  Grace snorted. ‘I’ve leased the townhouse, and Mum’s really well now. You know, it’s almost a year and a half since she was diagnosed, and she’s had surgery and chemo, Tim. Bit late to act like you care.’

  ‘I care. You think I don’t wish she never left? You think I wasn’t worried when she got cancer?’

  ‘You didn’t visit her when she was sick.’

  ‘I rang. Faith visited with the kids.’

  ‘Once. You rang once. Faith brought Mum’s only grandkids to visit once, and only because I rang and begged her to bring them. They stayed twenty minutes. And I’m sure Faith only agreed to come because she had to take Amelia to the paediatrician and Mum’s place was on their way past.’

  Tim looked away, his bottom lip jutting the way it always did when he’d been backed into a corner. ‘You know how it is with Dad, and Mum never visits us.’

  ‘She doesn’t have a car anymore, Tim. And where would she stay? Faith has never volunteered to have her stay, and I can just see Dad offering her the guest room.’

  ‘You could afford to put her up in one of the B&Bs in town a couple times a year. Buy her a bus ticket. It’s the least you could do for Mum – for us.’

  Grace collected the dirty plates, stacking them into the sink when she really wanted to smash them. Tim had no idea what she did for their mother, or for their Nanna now that she was in care. Telling him was unlikely to change anything.

  She put the plug in the sink, turned on the tap and squirted in detergent. ‘Now, can I get a lift into town when you go in to pick up the parts for the tractor, or not? Do I need to ask Faith if she’ll come out and get me?’

  He gave his eyes an exaggerated roll and went back to his breakfast.

  Tim grudgingly dropped Grace off at Aaron’s place after lunch. He hadn’t spoken to her since breakfast, except to tell her what time he was leaving. Grace wondered if he realised how much like their father he sounded.

  Aaron’s home was a surprise—an Art Deco–styled bungalow, in Miners Ridge of all towns. Painted a stark white with a beautifully landscaped front garden, it was unlike any of the other houses in the modest street. Grace resisted the impulse to press her nose against the windows to see how it looked inside.

  Her car was in the carport beside the house, the keys under the back doormat where he said they’d be.

  ‘Oh,’ she exclaimed to herself, when she noticed the child’s swing and other toys in the backyard. Why hadn’t it occurred to her that a decent, attractive man like Aaron would be partnered up, and with children?

  She scribbled a brief note of thanks and slipped it into the letterbox.

  Then she found herself at a loose end. The farm meant housework, and that was the last thing she felt like. Faith was working a day shift at the hospital and her kids were at school, the last day before end of first-term holidays.

  Ben, Faith’s husband, was a fly-in-fly-out worker in the Cooper Basin, and Grace could count on her fingers the number of times she’d seen him when she’d been back in town. He was always away working. For all intents and purposes, her sister was a single parent.

  There were two cafes in the main street and Grace chose the one with tables set out on the footpath. The lunch rush, such as
it was, was over. She’d sit, drink coffee and people-watch for a while. Something she rarely found the time to do.

  Grace had been twelve when she’d been bundled off to boarding school, thirty years ago. Miners Ridge and the farm had long ago ceased to be the place she called home, becoming instead a destination she visited in an effort to maintain the tenuous connection with her other parent and two remaining siblings.

  If Faith’s cool reception yesterday and Tim’s resentful diatribe that morning were anything to go by, chances were she was wasting her time and energy maintaining that connection.

  Then there was their father. He’d never been what you’d call a participatory parent. And while he’d always been distant, he now seemed to take satisfaction in putting her down at every opportunity. Grace wondered, not for the first time, why she bothered. For her mother, that was why.

  Resting her elbows on the table and her chin on her hands, Grace watched a succession of work utes, sedans and shiny 4WDs towing flash-looking caravans pass by.

  Not so much a tourist destination in its own right, Miners Ridge was located between the Clare Valley and the Flinders Ranges, two well-known tourist hot spots.

  ‘Just passing through?’ the pretty, red-haired waitress asked when she brought the coffee.

  ‘Sort of,’ Grace said. The girl hovered briefly, waiting for more, but there was nothing else Grace was prepared to give.

  The coffee was surprisingly good, the afternoon drowsily warm. Autumn had settled in. The ash trees on the nature strip were on the turn, golden leaves swirling in the slipstream of passing traffic.

  ‘If you’re looking for something to do, you could visit the regional art gallery while you’re in town,’ the waitress said when she came back to collect Grace’s cup. ‘There’s an awesome photography exhibition by Walt Bancroft. He takes amazing pictures of local stuff. Scenery, old buildings, that kind of thing.’

  ‘Sounds lovely,’ Grace said, politely. She’d never heard of Walt Bancroft and didn’t even know the town had an art gallery.

  ‘Yeah, it is, and the gallery’s open this arvo. It’s just around the corner and it’s free. They like you to make a gold coin donation,’ she said, blushing. ‘Sorry, I tend to go on. But it is such a great gallery for a small town like this. I hope to exhibit my photography there someday.’

  ‘Good for you,’ Grace said, standing up and hoisting her bag over her shoulder. ‘If I get time while I’m in town, I’ll take a look.’

  ‘You should,’ the young woman said earnestly, wiping the table.

  After wandering the aisles of the pharmacy, the newsagent and then the supermarket, Grace thought, ‘What the hell,’ and made for the art gallery. It had to be better than browsing through the hardware shop or going back to the farm early.

  The old two-storey building was stone, but the paint on the woodwork was fresh. Several slate steps led up to the wooden double doors, black and glossy. A sign detailing gallery opening hours and after-hours contacts was fixed to the stone wall outside.

  Grace wandered in, struck by how cool it was. In the foyer, all manner of brochures and tourist information were stacked in neat piles on an antique wooden bookshelf.

  ‘Hello, darl! You’re looking one hundred per cent after last night. Did Aaron get you home all right? He’s a real honey. If I was ten, maybe fifteen years younger …’

  Grace spun around, her eyes widening in surprise. The woman she now knew to be Carol Claremont was perched on a stool by the reception counter. She was wearing navy slacks and a crisp white blouse with a name badge pinned to the pocket, peering at Grace over the top of red-framed reading glasses. Her hair was still in the updo of the night before.

  ‘He did, thank you.’

  ‘He’s a good lad, is Aaron.’

  ‘So I’ve been told. Do you work here?’

  Carol laughed, and Grace remembered the smoky sound.

  ‘Volunteer is the word. The gallery can’t afford to pay anyone. I’m on the desk Friday afternoons, and I help set up and take down the exhibitions. What can I tell you about?’

  Grace moved from the foyer into the gallery proper. ‘A young woman at the cafe suggested I come and have a look …’

  ‘Ah, that’d be Mel. She volunteers here on weekends. I reckon that girl’s got a crush on the photographer, although he’s old enough to be her grandfather. It’s the father figure thing I reckon. Her dad did a runner, same as her granddad before him. Some women just can’t keep a hold of their men. Haven’t decided if that’s a good or a bad thing.’

  Grace’s astonishment must have shown on her face because Carol laughed again.

  ‘No secrets in this place,’ she said, and then her brow puckered. ‘But for the life of me I can’t place who you are and where you fit in. You sure do look familiar though.’

  ‘Probably because I look like my younger sister, Faith.’

  ‘Ah,’ Carol said slowly. ‘You’re Doug and Sarah Fairley’s eldest. The one who went off to boarding school.’

  ‘That’s right. I’m Grace.’

  Carol’s features softened. ‘Such a tragedy what happened to your brother.’

  ‘Yes, it was.’

  ‘As a parent I don’t know how you’d ever get over something like that.’ Carol leaned forward. ‘Tell me, how is your mum? Haven’t seen Sarah since she, you know, left.’

  ‘Mum’s good, she manages,’ Grace said, sounding defensive to her own ears. ‘But like you said, as a parent, I don’t think she’ll ever get over my brother’s death. None of us will.’

  ‘No, I don’t suppose you will. But we all move on in our own way, or not.’ Carol shifted on the stool, like she was regrouping, and Grace tensed.

  ‘Speaking of, I never see Doug about these days. How’d he cope with it all?’

  ‘Who’d know what Dad thought about anything,’ Grace said, spewing out the words and the bitterness that went with them.

  Carol laughed but this time without humour. ‘Men. Can’t live with ’em, can’t live without ’em.’

  Grace made what she hoped was an appropriate response, backing away from the reception desk. ‘Nice to see you again, Carol. I’ll take a quick look around, if you don’t mind.’

  ‘Take your time. We don’t close until four.’

  Cursing the red-haired waitress, Grace sped from one display to the next, not really taking in the images—all the while regretting ever stepping over the threshold into the gallery; ever stepping back into Miners Ridge.

  3

  Sarah

  Whenever I found myself slipping into that dark place that could swallow me whole, I purposefully counted my blessings. The home unit I lived in since Mum went into care was comfortable, close to anything and everything. There were friends, acquaintances, and busy things to do. Mum needed me, although she was past realising that she did.

  And there was Grace. Or there would be for another two short weeks before she would jet off on the adventure of a lifetime. Grace had been there for me always. But never as much as in the last eight years. From the day I’d arrived on her doorstep, almost catatonic with shock because I’d left my husband, she’d looked out for me in every way.

  Privately, it irked me that she’d chosen to spend a number of those precious remaining days on a pilgrimage to the farm at Miners Ridge. And it frustrated me tenfold to know that when she came back I’d suck up any of her news like a thirsty sponge.

  I would miss Grace. It would be like losing a limb. I’d come to depend on her company and her counsel so much.

  Underneath her excitement about the transfer to the London office of the international bank she worked for, I sensed real apprehension. They’d chosen her for the senior financial advisor vacancy and their expectations would be high.

  She was capable of meeting the challenge, but was it the best move for her? I wasn’t convinced, but then I was already having phantom pains and she hadn’t even left yet.

  Bearing down on seventy, my plans had never included li
ving like I was, alone, in the shadow of my eldest daughter and estranged from the people and places that had come to mean the most to me.

  Getting old had always conjured up images of Doug and I taking in the sunrises and sunsets at the farm together, hopefully content, with our children and grandchildren never far away.

  How had I made such a muddle of being a wife, a mother and then a grandmother? I’d had such ambition to be the best. In hindsight, things began to unravel after Luke died. But if I was totally honest with myself, there’d been signs almost from the very beginning.

  Douglas Fairley had been a good catch. And so I’d been told by my mother, and his mother and anyone else who’d had an interest in our relationship. When I hit twenty-five, Mum was convinced I was on the cusp of spinsterhood. Left on the shelf, she used to say. It mattered more to her than it did to me. Then I met Doug.

  I’m not certain who Doug swept off their feet first, Mum or me. It was the mid seventies and I’d been invited to the hometown of a nursing friend I’d trained with at the Royal Adelaide Hospital. She was a country girl and had always known she’d return to Miners Ridge and work at the local hospital.

  The weekend I visited Miners Ridge, there was a dance in the town hall with a band and live music. Supper was served and copious amounts of tea was poured from huge aluminium teapots; tables were laden with every cake and slice imaginable; and there was a bar with no shortage of booze. This was back in the days when everyone who drank still drove.

  Doug Fairley was tall, blond and handsome. A farmer. Single, and persistent at my heels. I’d relented and by the end of the night we’d danced until I had blisters on my feet, and Doug had my home address and phone number.

  A month later, when I’d given up on him, Doug rang, saying he was in town and would I like to go out to dinner with him. He’d apologised for not being in touch sooner, but life on the land was unpredictable, he’d said, and if I was going to go out with a farmer, I’d better get used to it.

  I was working at the RAH and still living at home with Mum since Dad’s unexpected death the previous year. As much as it annoyed me that he’d taken so long to get in contact, an invitation to dinner was not to be treated lightly.