Daughter of Mine

by Fiona Lowe

  Edwina’s fingers reached for her pearls but, in their absence, touched bare skin. ‘Richard isn’t here to do or say anything. It’s unwise to even suggest what opinions he may have offered.’

  ‘You’ll have to face Primrose. You’ll have to deal with the rest of the town’s comments. If you think they’ll be kind, think again.’ Harriet tapped the jarrah tabletop with a teaspoon; the dull, relentless clunk reinforcing her words. ‘Believe me, this week I’ve learned people can be vicious with their opinions. They can be cruel about a lot of things but they’re merciless about teenage mothers. God, you only have to walk down the main street and linger near the war memorial park to hear the judgemental comments. Hell, they make them in front of the girls and their children. Do you want that for Charlotte, Edwina?’

  ‘I want her to be at peace with her decision.’

  ‘At peace?’ Incredulity streaked across Harriet’s face. ‘How very new age of you, Mother. There’s no peace for her in keeping this baby. She becomes part of Billawarre’s infamous statistic of having the highest teen pregnancy rate in the state. She’s opening herself up to shame and ignominy. She’s adding to the scandal and humiliation James is subjecting us to.

  ‘And you, Edwina. You who gets the—’ Harriet’s fingers made quotes in the air—‘“can’t copes” at the drop of a hat and retreats from the world, leaving the rest of us to deal with things, you’re saying it’s her decision? What happened to family responsibility? How can you let her tarnish the family name you’ve spent a lifetime upholding? How can you sit there and let her take a road to poverty paved with lost opportunities?’

  ‘Fair go, Harry,’ Georgie said reasonably. ‘Don’t make this about your obsession with the past and the Mannerings. It’s about Charlie.’

  Edwina, who’d kept her eyes on Harriet throughout the ruthless blast, turned to her granddaughter. ‘Darling, have you talked to a counsellor about all of this?’

  Charlotte nodded. ‘That night I stayed at Georgie’s. I saw a counsellor that day.’

  ‘Do you want to talk to her again?’

  ‘No. I need to see a doctor now and have a check-up.’

  Harriet cast the teaspoon scudding down the table, pinging against porcelain. ‘If you go through with this pregnancy, Charlotte, you have to move out. I’m not having anything to do with this.’

  Charlotte’s eyes burned bright with defiance but the skin on her face tightened, highlighting her prominent cheekbones and giving her the stricken and wounded look of an animal in distress. Xara saw it was only her niece’s sheer strength of will that kept her head high and tears at bay.

  ‘You can stay with us,’ Xara offered at exactly the same time Georgie said, ‘You can stay with me.’

  ‘I think you’re all forgetting something,’ Edwina said adamantly as she briskly spread Nutella on another pancake. ‘At the moment both Charlie and Harriet are living in my house, therefore I’m the person who decides who moves in or who moves out. Charlie, do you want to stay at Glenora for the time being?’

  Charlotte fervently gripped her grandmother’s hand. ‘Yes, please, Mardi.’

  Harriet made a choking sound, which Edwina ignored, instead concentrating on rolling the pancake with her fork and slicing it into dainty mouthfuls. ‘Harriet, I’ll leave your decision to go or stay up to you. Please know you’re very welcome here as long as you respect your daughter’s decision to have this baby.’

  White with rage, Harriet stood quickly, knocking the table and setting the cups rattling against their saucers. Vibrating with fury, she spat, ‘Tell me, Edwina. Why did you choose today to suddenly grow a pair?’

  ‘Harry!’ Shock rocked Xara, and waves of queasiness pitched the toast in her stomach. ‘Enough. Don’t say anything else you’ll regret.’

  ‘It’s all right, Xara,’ Edwina said, sounding remarkably composed despite the raw antagonism that cut and sliced the air around her.

  Xara struggled to align the here and now with the known world where, for as long as she could remember, her mother had done everything in her power to avoid conflict. Edwina had just willingly thrown herself into the middle of what might become the biggest rift the family had never known.

  Edwina continued, ‘To answer your crude question, Harriet, I’ve grown a pair because it’s time.’

  ‘Well, your timing sucks,’ Harriet muttered bitterly, sounding far more like Charlotte than herself.

  ‘And talking of time, if you’ll all excuse me, I have to go out for a few hours.’ Edwina rose elegantly from her chair.

  ‘On Good Friday?’ Georgie asked, flabbergasted.

  Ignoring her youngest daughter in the queenly way Edwina excelled at when she didn’t want to answer a question, she said, ‘Xara, can you brew me some coffee and put it in a thermos? Oh, and wrap up some hot cross buns, please.’

  Under the fraught circumstances, the perfectly polite request held a surreal quality. Xara took a couple of seconds to murmur her acquiescence.

  As Edwina walked down the hall, Harriet screamed after her, ‘You’ve got to be kidding me! You’re going to see that Doug, aren’t you? Off you go then, Edwina. Put yourself first like you’ve done all of my life. That’s right. Walk away from me the only time I’ve ever asked you for support. I wish to God it was you who’d died and not Dad.’

  Harriet stormed into the garden, slamming the French doors so hard the vibrations shattered a pane of glass. Charlotte, who’d held back her tears during the inquisition, started to sob quietly.

  Georgie gathered her into a hug. She glanced at Xara over the top of their niece’s blonde head and held her gaze. Xara read Fuck almighty in her sister’s bright blue eyes.

  Amen to that.

  CHAPTER

  15

  Edwina changed down into second gear as the four-wheel drive bounced along the corrugated track. She felt the pull of the seatbelt tighten against her chest, holding her firmly against the soft leather seat.

  ‘You have to hand it to the Germans,’ Doug said admiringly. ‘They know suspension.’

  She pulled hard on the steering wheel to avoid a deep rut but the wheel still caught the edge of it. ‘It was a waste on this car. Richard never took it off the bitumen.’

  Doug’s hands gripped the handle above the door to stop his head hitting the roof. ‘And you’re making up for that today?’

  ‘Yes.’ It came out short and to the point. She wasn’t ready to explain her brusqueness so she hid behind her intense concentration on the steep descent.

  ‘Well, you haven’t lost your touch,’ he said admiringly. ‘I remember how well you handled the old EJ long before power steering was invented.’

  ‘That column shift hated me.’

  ‘Yeah, it was a mongrel but that car had other qualities. I’ve got very fond memories of that Holden.’

  He grinned at her and his palm briefly skimmed the back of her hand.

  The look in his eyes rolled the years back in a heartbeat and she was suddenly a girl again, dizzy, elated, high on being in love. She’d spent hours in that car, dreaming about the future. Only there, in the confines of the blue vinyl interior, had she been able to visualise the life she craved. With hindsight, she saw how heavily those dreams had been washed in a rose-coloured tint. Her reality had turned out to be starkly black and white and heavily stamped with duty, responsibility and family obligation.

  Harriet’s words from breakfast regained volume in her head and she lost concentration for a moment, needing to brake hard at a closed gate. Without a word, Doug slipped out, strode to the latch, unhooked it and walked the gate open. She put the vehicle into gear and thudded over the cattle grid before stopping again and watching him through the rear-view mirror. His big hands threaded the chain through the closest square of wire and pulled it toward the knob. It didn’t quite reach so he shoved his boot under the bottom of the gate and lifted the top. He tugged the chain and adroitly hooked it back over the knob, gave the gate a shake and then brushed his hands on
his jeans. She smiled, delight catching her like an unexpected sunbeam. Some things time didn’t change.

  She’d phoned him this morning before the distressing family breakfast meeting, telling him to be outside the motel at ten ready to be picked up. Whether it had been the no-nonsense tone of her voice or the unexpected invitation, or a combination of the two, he’d accepted the crisp direction without question. When she’d arrived, he’d swung into the passenger seat with a smile, leaned over and kissed her on the cheek, fastened his seatbelt and said, ‘A beautiful day, a beautiful woman and a beautiful car. Life is good.’

  She’d tensed. ‘Don’t tempt fate.’

  He’d given her a sideways glance, his kind eyes curious and concerned. ‘Everything okay?’

  Not even close. ‘Fine.’ Her family was caught in the strong and swirling waters of an emotional maelstrom that far outdid the damage James had inflicted.

  Charlotte was pregnant. Overnight, the word had pounded so loud in her head it had become a tattoo, indelibly inking itself on her mind and soul. This morning at breakfast another word had joined it in a curly and flowing script: Baby. Georgie was daydreaming about co-parenting this baby with Charlotte and in the process convincing herself it was the saviour to her heartache over losing Eliza. Edwina recognised the rose-coloured thoughts and knew better than anyone that it wasn’t the answer. Amid the furore, Xara was doing her best to try to keep things rational and reasonable but she was no match for her elder sister. Oh, Harriet. Harriet was spinning in a tornado of fury and the lashing and sucking vortex was centred squarely on Edwina.

  I wish to God it was you who’d died. Her gut twisted every time she thought of those words. As painful and as hard as it was to hear them, some of Harriet’s invective was fair. Deserved even. Theirs was a rocky mother–daughter bond and always had been. From the moment she’d held newborn Harriet in her arms, Edwina had struggled. As she’d gazed into her baby’s slightly frowning face, she’d waited with confident expectation for feelings of love to burst in her chest like the bright white light of fireworks before raining down through her to ignite that intense mother–child connection. They hadn’t come. She’d waited for them, prayed for them, cried for them and desperately craved them, but for a very long time, the place where love should have sprouted and grown was nothing but an echoing and empty void. A nothingness that engendered debilitating guilt. Over time, that space had gradually filled, but the legacy of the void was an integral part of her and Harriet’s lives.

  Doug swung back into the vehicle. ‘That gate brought back memories. There was one just like it with a sticky close on Murrumbeet. Used to cause me merry hell on winter mornings.’

  Edwina shifted the gear stick into first and released the clutch. ‘It’s the same gate.’

  ‘No.’ Doug glanced left and right before shifting in his seat to look out the rear window. ‘Can’t be. The gate I’m talking about had a gnarly old gum growing next to it.’

  ‘It got struck by lightning twenty years ago.’

  ‘So we’re actually on Murrumbeet?’ He sounded bemused. ‘Why didn’t we come through the main gates?’

  ‘We’re on what used to be the southern boundary. My brother sold this land to pay debts when the floor price of wool collapsed.’

  The car crested a rise and Doug smiled. ‘Ah! Now I know exactly where I am.’

  A mob of sheep eyed the vehicle both hesitantly and indecisively. Off to the left and in the far distance was the silver shimmer of the corrugated iron roof of the shearing shed and below them, just beyond another fence line, was the salty lake, shining a dazzling blue in the morning sunshine. The surrounding vegetation was scrubby, low and sparse but for the stand of cypress pines her grandfather had planted to provide shade for picnics.

  ‘Is this the first stop on a tour of revisiting our favourite haunts?’

  ‘Could be.’ It wasn’t. She had no plans to take him anywhere else but he seemed so happy with the idea she chose not to dissuade him. Cutting the engine, she pressed the button to open the tailgate and hopped out of the car. Doug met her at the boot and she handed him the wicker basket containing a thermos of coffee and some hot cross buns. She carried the picnic rug.

  Doug lumbered over the stile and then turned and offered his hand. It wasn’t that she didn’t appreciate the gesture—she did—but she was more than capable of crossing it unaided and part of her yearned to do just that. For years people had done things for her, made decisions for her, and she’d allowed it all to happen.

  She’d let her life roll on without much input from herself but meeting Doug again had been the beginning of her desire to take back control of her life. The party had been her first fledgling step—like a toddler on bare and unsteady feet. The news of Charlotte’s pregnancy had clad those feet in cross-training shoes and brought her out to the lake. Placing the rug in Doug’s outstretched hand, she climbed up and over the stile unassisted.

  He flicked the rubber-backed tartan out under the cool and dappled shade of the old trees. As it hit the ground, disturbing the decades-thick layer of brown needles, the pungent but fresh scent of pine permeated the air. It was the perfume of hot summer nights, the giddy heights of first love, stolen moments that held the world at bay and the intoxication of tantalising hope. He sat down with an affectionate smile on his face and accepted the mug of coffee she’d poured for him.

  ‘You know,’ he said, ‘I remember us swimming here. I remember cooking snags over a fire and …’ his smile widened with the same impish tilt of his lips that had captivated her all those years ago, ‘… I remember kissing you until I couldn’t see straight, but I don’t ever recall us drinking coffee.’

  She lowered herself next to him, feeling the protesting ache of her hips that she refused to acknowledge. ‘I remember you drinking VB but for some reason you always bought me Porphyry Pearl.’

  He winked at her. ‘That’s what I thought rich, cultured and sophisticated girls drank back then.’

  ‘I was barely eighteen, Doug,’ she said quietly. ‘I was hardly sophisticated.’

  ‘Not from where I was standing.’ His dark eyes took on a dreamy look. ‘I’d never met anyone like you. From that first time you walked into the shearing shed holding the smoko tray, I was captivated by your grace and style. It spun around you like an aura. You had it then, you’ve got it now. It’s who you are.’

  ‘It’s not really me.’ She fingered her grandmother’s plump pearls—feeling the roundness of them roll between her thumb and index finger—in the same way she’d been doing since they’d been strung around her neck an hour before her wedding to Richard. ‘It’s who I thought I had to be.’

  A confused expression crossed his face. ‘Who you thought you had to be back then?’

  Who I thought I’ve had to be all of my life. She tossed the dregs of her coffee onto the grass. ‘Do you remember the last night we spent together here?’

  ‘I’ve never forgotten it.’ His hand stroked her back in an intimate and affectionate way and memories lived and breathed in the cadence of his voice. ‘The moon was so bright it reflected silver in your amazing eyes. I spent that night memorising you so I didn’t forget what you looked like. Didn’t forget the soft and silky feel of your skin or your sweet scent.’

  He cleared his throat. ‘I carried all of it with me the whole time I was in Vietnam.’

  For two weeks they’d skirted around the elephant in the room. Both of them had been excruciatingly careful not to mar the wonderful and heady moments reconnecting was giving them after so many years apart. Certainly, that first night they’d stumbled across each other at the car rally and then over the following few days, they’d outlined the bare bones of their lives in the intervening years. Things like the names of the people they’d married and their quirks and interests. They’d talked of his business, her charity work, and the number and names of their kids. They’d exchanged the highs and lows of raising children, discussed the careers their children pursued, and the
y’d shown each other photos of their grandchildren. Eventually, they’d talked of their experiences of losing their spouse.

  Edwina gleaned that Doug missed Sophia more than she missed Richard, and in a strange way that was comforting; it seemed less of a waste than if both of them had spent all those years unhappy. Mostly though, they’d talked about common interests, deliberately giving a wide birth to the time they’d lost each other. They had been almost too eager to accept that despite life having intervened to separate them for forty-eight years, now they were together again, the past didn’t matter. Only it did matter. It mattered a lot. Especially today.

  Being with Doug made her feel like that hopeful eighteen-yearold girl again—confident that all she needed to be happy was the love of this good and honourable man who adored her. Oh, how badly she wanted to believe it, but she wasn’t eighteen anymore. She was world weary and painfully aware that if she gave in to the tempting daydream, it would only end in heartache and tears for both of them. Real life had derailed them once, setting in motion a chain of events that had not only separated them but had changed her life forever.

  ‘That night under the full moon, you knew you were leaving, didn’t you?’ The hurt and pain she’d been certain had fossilised years ago caught her by surprise. ‘You must have known for a month you had to report to Puckapunyal but you never said a word. I’ve never understood why you let me leave for Melbourne knowing you’d be gone by the time I got back. How could you disappear without a word?’

  ‘I’m sorry, Eddy.’ His entire body wore his regret like an old, threadbare coat. ‘I know I should have told you but I was just stupid kid. I had no idea you’d take it so badly. I tried to tell you. Jesus, how I tried, but we were so happy that night. I wanted to take that perfect memory with me to keep me going until I got back. I didn’t want to remember you crying and me scared shitless.’ He rubbed his hands against his denim-clad thighs. ‘And I’m not good with words. I didn’t trust myself to say it right. I wrote to you instead.’