A Place to Remember

by Jenn J. McLeod

  ‘Things were very different when I was your age, Nina. I didn’t have family support. I did have a plan, though, something to strive for. Your grandfather’s wish was—’

  ‘I know, I know. “Travel far, find your place in the world, love deeply, and be loved in return.” You’ve told me that much a million times.’

  Ava spoke softly: ‘Don’t make do, darling. Make decisions. That way people don’t get hurt.’ Again her mother’s mask fell away to reveal something Nina was not used to seeing. Regret.

  ‘Okay, Mum, I promise to make a choice while I’m still fertile enough to have a grandkid or two – like you need any more of those with Tony and Mariska popping them out. I can’t believe they’re already thinking of having another using a surrogate so Mariska doesn’t have to go through the birth.’

  ‘Mariska and Tony want a big family. They are simply making it happen for themselves. In my experience, Fate cannot be trusted to work in your favour. If you want something, make a decision and make it happen.’

  That was the difference between them. Nina didn’t want to make anything happen. Life was to be lived, not controlled.

  ‘I did settle down,’ her mother added. ‘I made a good home and raised two babies, mostly on my own.’

  ‘And here we go again,’ Nina muttered. ‘Look, Mum, I’m not running. I’m also fine with being Aunty Nina to Tony’s brood.’

  Her mother tired suddenly, which saddened Nina. Ava had been a constant powerhouse in their lives, through good times and bad. She’d been plucky and persistent when it came to protecting her family and running her business, until the first signs that something was wrong showed in her late forties. Illness had come on quickly, forcing her hand rather than allowing Ava to bow out of the business when she was ready. At least, that was how it had seemed to Nina and Tony because their mother had chosen not to tell anyone about the lymphoma, instead enduring ongoing treatment alone. That she hadn’t shared the diagnosis earlier had upset Nina. Perhaps her mother’s decision had related to the uncertainty Ava had faced every day for the last six months of Martin’s life. When the doctors had strongly suggested Ava put her partner of eight years into a hospice to free herself from the hygiene tasks, she’d refused, insisting no hospice would care for Martin as she could. How ironic that when she was arranging her own Advanced Care Directive, she’d informed Nina that she’d go into a hospice if the need arose, rather than move in with her children. Controlling every aspect of her life up to the very last minute. That was how she’d earned the nickname Boardroom Ava.

  They’d all thought any talk of hospices irrelevant when Ava had had the all-clear from the cancer a few years ago, until they’d discovered a heart defect, probably a result of the lymphoma.

  ‘My condition is what it is,’ her mother had said, the day she told the family. ‘Another wretched nuisance that I refuse to let kill my spirit before it kills my body.’ When Nina’s eyes had filled, Ava had said, ‘Don’t cry, darling. Fate sets our course and I’ve had a wonderful life. I’ve known real love and been loved deeply in return. Your father and I sailed oceans and dined with royalty. Then you and Tony surprised us both. Twins! To think what I might have missed had things been different.’

  ‘Hey, Neens, what are you shaking your head about?’ Miriam was back on the sofa, the Thermos on the coffee table with a muesli bar.

  ‘As of yesterday, I know the love of my mother’s life was definitely not my father.’

  ‘That’s bothering you?’

  ‘No, what’s bothering me is that my mother has known real love and I’m afraid I won’t if I say yes to Conrad. I’m not ready to do that and it wouldn’t be right to keep him thinking otherwise. I’ll have to tell him no.’

  ‘You’re actually going to surrender that little beauty?’

  Nina realised she’d been slipping the ring on and off. ‘As soon as Conrad’s back from China. In the meantime I need to hide it somewhere safe. Any suggestions?’

  ‘On your hand is best. Who knows?’ Miriam nudged her. ‘You might form an attachment.’

  ‘You’re hilarious, Miriam.’ And probably right about a finger being the most secure option. ‘I’ll be returning the ring to Conrad next time I see him.’ Nina stood, grabbing the Thermos. ‘Right now I’m desperate to check out the man my mother’s never stopped loving.’

  ‘Be careful, hon. I truly believe a reclusive, weird, napkin-stealing, obsessive old artist living on some isolated country property is not someone you need to know anything more about.’

  ‘Choosing to live alone does not automatically qualify a person for the weird, reclusive, obsessive category. If not for you I’d be living on my own.’

  ‘My case rests,’ Miriam quipped, handing Nina her phone. ‘Now, can you put that photo away? I swear those eyes of hers are following me.’

  They laughed together, Nina a little guiltily. The woman she’d thought of as no more than a mum, her sole purpose in life to be there for her children, had an extraordinary past, and what she’d learned yesterday explained a lot. Like, why their mum had never hit her or Tony, even when they’d deserved it. But neither had she hugged like a mother did, not the full and enthusiastic embrace other kids got at the end of a concert or on sports day. Thank goodness a mutual love of food had bonded mother and daughter, with Nina’s love of pastries stemming from all those three a.m. starts when Ava would tuck her children into the dry store with the cosy warmth of the ovens. On Mondays, when the relief baker worked, Nina and her mother would take the bus to a speciality food shop Ava had heard or read about. Nina missed the togetherness of those early years in the small bakery with her mum. They’d laughed together so much.

  Chapter 37

  Prairie Oysters

  Ava wouldn’t be laughing now if she knew her daughter had arrived in Candlebark Creek and enquired about the Tate family property named Ivy-May. The man at the petrol station had said she’d find the place if she followed the blue and white signs. There was no shortage of them, just as there was no shortage of the seventeen-million-year-old lava plugs Ava had described that made the landscape completely unexpected. Nina had travelled extensively overseas – Italy, the UK, Bali – but in her home state of Queensland she had never ventured further north of the mountainous Gympie region for the annual Music Muster. While not on the same scale as the Glastonbury Festival, the mud bath that only Queensland tropical rain could deliver had been huge. Nina had had an aversion to mud ever since.

  ‘Little chance of mud here,’ she muttered, while scanning the endless paddocks of brown from the driver’s seat of her little sedan. Jurassic-sized mounds of rock at least added some relief to the otherwise barren blanket of the Candlebark Creek plains, although she imagined, with the storm season, they would turn into lush fields of green.

  Nina stopped short of the gate with its painted signpost depicting a misty mountain, overlaid with the words Iron Pot Hill Farmstay Retreat. Having researched the place, she knew that, while still producing quality Brahman cattle, the Tate family had expanded the original B-and-B concept and now offered a function venue boasting private cabins, lodge accommodation with a barbecue deck, and a marquee for weddings and corporate events.

  Nina was already rattled, but her stomach lurched when the car clattered over the cattle grid. Trepidation forced her to brake when she hit a fork in the dirt road. She drove on down the track signposted ‘Private Residence’, prepared to meet the man her mother had loved her entire adult life. Ava’s story might have inspired the trip, but Nina couldn’t help wondering if her need to meet John Tate might be more about an attempt to understand that kind of intense connection. She was certainly curious about what made him so special, even after all these years. From the look of the stocky figure in the distance, Nina guessed she was about to find out.

  As she pulled up behind a ute, he was unloading framed paintings from the passenger seat. He leaned the larger of the two against a wheel and turned towards Nina. Something about his stance, the broa
d brim of an Akubra hat hiding all but the glimmer of perspiration on a five o’clock shadow, suggested he wasn’t old. In the slim-leg denim jeans – worn almost white in all the right places – and a chest-hugging shirt, this cowboy had to be way too young for her mother.

  ‘G’day!’

  ‘Hello,’ she returned, alighting from the car, her once shiny leather boots immediately covered in dust.

  ‘I was about to call the agency and check. You’re cutting it fine. If you can help me carry these paintings as far as the old shed we can get cracking.’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘No need to apologise.’ He shoved one of the smaller frames into her hand and strode away.

  ‘I, ah, wasn’t—’ Nina scurried after him, trying to catch up, but his strides were long, in spite of his stocky build.

  ‘You’ve put me back a bit,’ he called, without slowing down. ‘She’s been a hot one today and I’m pushing to get a couple of jobs done by sundown. There are things I’d rather be doing, so I’ll show you what you need to know to get on with the job. Leave the picture by the door.’ He barely stopped.

  ‘Excuse me, but… You are J. B. Tate?’

  ‘The J.B. stands for John Blair. You can call me anything, just not John. That’s my father. And you are?’ He was walking again, striding towards more sheds.

  ‘Nina.’

  ‘Follow me.’

  Confused, Nina did as she was told, with no choice but to talk to his back. ‘I did wonder. You’re not what I expected.’

  ‘Well, that makes two of us. Not sure why the agency sent me someone so, ah…’ He stopped and took off his hat to expose the bluest eyes framed by lashes too long to be a man’s. He studied her, his gaze travelling the length of her body. ‘You look a little, ah, overdressed. Are you sure you can handle it?’

  Nina flinched. ‘I’m very capable, Mr Tate.’

  Whatever the hell it was, Nina would do the job and do it well.

  ‘Maybe I’ll just get you to work the gates, okay?’

  Gates? Why such an activity was necessary Nina didn’t know, but she was pretty sure she could manage to open and close a few gates, especially if she got to ask the guy a few subtle questions along the way. Her steps quickened, until he stopped at crowded holding pens.

  ‘Holy cow! They’re big.’

  ‘They’re bulls, only not for long,’ Blair corrected her. ‘Follow me.’

  Before Nina could respond, he was hurdling the three wooden rails of fencing and carving a path through the animals, the living lumps of rump strangely compliant. She sprang into action and scrambled the fence, grateful Ava had endowed her with long legs.

  ‘You’re on the crush. I’ll feed them through from the holding yard,’ he called over his shoulder before hurdling another fence. ‘The crush is old and a bit stiff to operate. Nothing a good yank won’t fix.’

  ‘Oh, right, good to know,’ she muttered.

  The crush wasn’t the only old thing. The maze of post-and-rail fencing was so rotten she was silently questioning its strength when an enormous black monster barrelled along the narrow gap between two yards, then another, and another. Within seconds, a dozen bulls, mooing and snorting, had squeezed into the run. She couldn’t see Blair for all the dust, but somehow his voice reached her over the racket.

  ‘Get that gate open, Nina. Get him in the crush, now!’

  Nina scanned the metres of wooden post-and-rail where she stood, muttering through her frustration. ‘Which bloody gate? Where?’

  While panic fired through her body, instinct told Nina to run to the front of the line where she expected to find a gate to release the cattle into the steel contraption – the crush presumably. She found nothing, just a corner in the run and more of the same fencing blocking the beasts’ path. She pushed and pulled; she looked for latches or handles, anything to indicate an opening gate. By now the bulls were bunched in the narrow passage in such numbers they were climbing over each other’s backs. The lead beast had dug its hoofs into the dirt and was snorting and lowing, terrified eyes staring Nina down. What had she got herself into? She needed help, and fast.

  Nina waved her arms at Blair and yelled, but all that did was startle the animals. One tried to turn, only to become stuck with its head twisted back against its body at a painful angle. Another creature had dropped to its knees and was trying to force its way between the wooden rails at ground level. About to throw up her hands in surrender, a flash of navy hurdled the fence to Nina’s left and a dark-skinned man flashed a wide white smile, doffed his dusty hat, and encased Nina’s hands in his. Together they yanked and the gate opened. It slides! With no time for any thank-you, she gladly stepped away from the action, relieved to be an observer and astonished by the carefully choreographed sequence of opening, closing and controlled feeding of cattle one at a time into the metal crush.

  The shrill ring of a mobile phone startled them and Nina thanked the heavens it hadn’t been hers. Blair stepped away and called back to the farmhand to take a break.

  Hero Man, as Nina had nicknamed her rescuer, removed his hat and raised his shirt tail to wipe his face.

  ‘Thanks,’ she ventured. ‘Who knew there was a gate there?’

  ‘Most farmers,’ he said, with a smile so bright that Nina couldn’t help but smile back.

  ‘I’m not a farmer.’

  ‘Figured that already. What the hell’s Blair doing putting an inexperienced slip of a thing to work? I know people like the farmstay experience when they’re here but—’

  ‘Oh, no, no, I kind of let him believe I was a farmhand. He’d been expecting one and I just went with it.’

  ‘In that case, you prob’ly done a better job than the one the agency was sending his way.’ He rolled a wad of tobacco expertly, his thumbs and fingers still nimble, though gnarled by decades of hard work.

  ‘You saw the real farmhand?’

  ‘Real? Don’t go bein’ too generous. I found him a little worse for wear outside the pub. He’d managed to get on the wrong side of someone. Dare say he broke a finger or two while trying to win. Figured I’d better get out here and see what Blair needed doing.’

  ‘I’m so glad you did. I think he was about to explode.’

  ‘Wouldn’t be the first time something or someone erupted out this way.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘If volcanoes were women…’ He nodded at the nearby lava plug. ‘I still call that one Mount Marjorie.’

  ‘Marjorie?’ He had Nina’s attention.

  ‘Woo, yeah, if ever there was a walking volcano – the one you never know when she’s gunna blow – it was old Marj.’

  Nina had to pinch back her grin while silently appreciating the man’s dig at the woman who had broken her mother’s heart. His candour almost made Nina wish she could join in and give ‘Marj’ the roasting she deserved.

  He drew back on the cigarette and let smoke waft from cracked lips. ‘That damn woman used to scare the death out of me more than any bloody lava-frothing lump of rock. Lucky old Blair got his father in him. Speaking of Blair…’ The man dropped the roll-up stub under the toe of his boot. ‘Looks like we’re back into it. You stay put,’ he said, when Nina made to stand. ‘Them hands of yours aren’t strong enough for Blair’s old yard gates. But don’t worry,’ he winked, while adjusting his hat low on his forehead, ‘I’ll tell him you done so good I was afraid you’d show me up.’

  Nina wasn’t going to argue. She scanned the maze of fencing but could see no easy exit that didn’t involve wading through bulls so she had little choice but to stay put, opting to share the shade with a couple of dogs. They seemed content enough, on a kind of high alert even when not working. Hero Man had regained his gate rhythm and was feeding the animals through the chute one at a time. Each bull slammed into the crush and Nina flinched as its head locked into place, while at the rear end Blair reached between the beast’s back legs and within seconds a sorrowful victim was released into a larger yard.

 
When the men stopped for water, Blair strode in her direction. He kind of charged like a bull, making her hold her breath and wish the rickety fence between him and her had been built bigger, wider, taller. But rather than climb over, Blair stopped, whistled, and tossed the contents of a bucket over the fence, shouting, ‘Prairie oysters – the dogs love them.’ Nina’s expression as the dogs snatched up the dirt-covered balls of spongy white flesh resulted in the guy’s one and only smile since her arrival over an hour ago.

  Nina could hardly blame him for being mad at her.

  Mostly he’d focused on the farmhand, the pair’s proficiency needing no words. He had glanced her way a couple of times, maybe wondering why she was still there. Why was she, apart from being trapped by the maze of cattle and fences? Was she waiting to tell him the truth? That she came to meet his father.

  The men repeated the process until the remaining animals joined the others in an adjacent yard. Several bales of hay placated the miserable mob who seemed to have forgiven the men for removing their manliness, but Blair was clearly not so easily pacified. He was standing over Nina, shooting daggers at her, the bright blue eyes from earlier in the day now a steely grey.

  ‘So, Nina, you wanna tell me what you had in mind when you fronted up today?’

  Nina didn’t utter a word, or attempt to walk away. How could she when a kilo of cow poo had turned her heeled boots into wedged soles, and her khaki T-shirt and blue jeans were a mess of cow cud that had turned the dust into a sticky mud? She’d gagged when the testicles had hit the ground and now the man with the good looks and bad attitude expected an explanation.

  He perched on an adjacent bale, tugging off his boots and ranting under his breath about insurance premiums. She could feel his gaze, even though her attention was on his naked feet poking out from the bottom of dusty denim, toes wiggling, probably enjoying the same afternoon breeze that was keeping Nina cool. They were big feet, broad, and very pale, his skin imprinted with a sock pattern. She supposed they were attractive feet, to go with the rather attractive man. If only he’d lose the attitude.