Season of Shadow and Light

by Jenn J. McLeod

  Alice didn’t object.

  Colin Foster did not sit, decidedly uncomfortable about the unannounced arrival, yet Alice noticed him glance on more than one occasion towards the family room where Paige peered at a cartoon program, clearly mesmerised by the biggest television screen she’d ever seen.

  ‘What age is the child?’ her father asked.

  ‘Paige . . .’ Alice said the name with emphasis, ‘turned ten a few months ago.’

  ‘And you’ve been . . . ? You and she are . . . ?’

  ‘I’ve been caring for her since Nancy . . . ’ Oh why was he making her go over all this, as though he was suddenly interested in her life? ‘ . . . since her mother died. I nursed her at home until the end. It’s where Nancy wanted to be.’

  ‘And you lost your job in the process and now need money.’

  Was that a question? Was her father making this easy by asking? Was he offering?

  Alice gulped down the lump of humiliation and pride. ‘A small amount, to get us going again. I have a part-time job but the unit we’re renting, well, I’m a month behind, and the medical expenses were . . .’

  Paige came to the door of the living room. ‘I’m thirsty. Can I have a drink?’

  ‘May I have something to drink?’ Alice instructed, the echo of her mother’s voice from years ago making her cringe, until she noticed the faint smile on Faye’s lips. Was there a chance Faye Foster felt a tiny sense of pride and achievement knowing her daughter—the lesbian—was displaying such motherly traits?

  ‘Let me,’ Faye said. ‘Come, dear, I’ll show you where you can get some nice ice-cold water.’ Faye scurried over, shooing Paige into the kitchen like a mother duck flapping around a wayward duckling, her voice fading into the distance. ‘Next time I go shopping I can get some cordial. Do you like green, or red, or . . . ?’

  Her mother’s exit left Alice with Colin and a room reverberating with silence. Or was that the pounding of Alice’s heart against her ribcage? With the blood pulsating so hard her ears throbbed, it sure did feel as though her chest would burst any minute.

  ‘I’m sorry, Dad,’ she said, the silence unbearable.

  ‘For what? Taking on a young girl in need? I would not have expected anything less from my daughter.’

  An alien spacecraft could have beamed Alice up right then, conducted hideous experiments on her body, and dropped her back to earth on her head; she would have believed that more than her own throbbing ears. She opened her mouth to speak, but no words sounded. A low growl rumbled out, followed by a gulp, that in her head sounded more like a muffled detonation inside her throat.

  Colin seemed to be staring right through Alice, his eyes wide with surprise. He ground his cigar out so frantically that the ashtray slipped, stopping just short of spilling over onto the Persian rug.

  ‘Good God, Faye!’ He glared. ‘What is it, woman? What on earth has got you crying?’

  Alice turned to see her mother standing in the centre of the formal living room, tears streaming down her face, a scrunched up hanky stretched between the fingers of two fidgety hands busily strangling it to death.

  ‘The girl . . . Paige . . . She . . .’

  Fear catapulted Alice out of the armchair, stopping only when she spotted Paige still in front of the TV, ‘Countdown’ playing a current hit while she swayed back and forth with a make-believe microphone, blissfully unaware of the angst-ridden adults in the next room.

  When Alice turned back she witnessed something new. Colin Foster had a soft side.

  ‘There, there.’ He embraced his wife. ‘What’s all this silly crying about?’

  Faye’s sniffle turned to a small smile. ‘The girl, Paige, asked if I was her grandmother. So I asked her. I said, would you like that? She smiled and said, “Yes, please . . . Grandma!”’

  Colin’s face was the picture of a man fighting with his pride and losing. He patted his wife’s back and let her bury her face in his chest to muffle the sobs. He lowered his own face, shielding it from his daughter.

  That moment struck Alice with such force. She couldn’t remember a time when she’d seen her parents display anything close to intimacy. Now here they were shedding a tear together. That was when Alice realised she’d denied her parents the love of a grandchild.

  ‘Well then.’ Colin was back to being the formidable father Alice remembered. He tipped his wife’s face up to let her eyes meet his. ‘What do you say we get cracking on the Christmas shopping early this year and dust off the tree? We do have one in the garage, don’t we? It’s been a long time.’ There followed the start of a small smile for his daughter and more sobs from Faye.

  How sad that it had taken the loss of Nancy to bring a family back together. How Alice would have loved them to know her. At least now they’d get to know her daughter.

  Alice’s daughter.

  Alice knew then she’d do everything she could to strengthen that fragile thread and allow Colin and Faye to enjoy the grandchild she’d deprived them of for too long. Every birthday and Christmas that followed they showered Paige with presents, as if making up for the years they’d missed, until the phone call came that woke Alice and Paige in the early hours of the morning. The Italian Polizia, with accents as thick as the fog outside Alice’s apartment, informed her of the accidental death of tourists in a coach crash near Lake Como.

  Although Paige had known her grandparents only three years, Alice once again had the task of helping the young girl through the grieving process. How different might things have been had she not kept Paige a secret? How many Christmases might they have clocked up as a family had Alice let her parents become part of Paige’s life? Her mother had tried so many times over the years, meeting without her husband’s knowledge, begging Alice. She only had to agree to be “normal” in front of her father and his friends and keep her lifestyle a secret. The irony was, society back then and her job had demanded the same of Alice, but the stubbornness that had seen her move out of home as soon as she could support herself had kept her away. She’d chosen to keep Paige’s existence to herself, perhaps to silently punish her parents. Now here she was keeping Aurora’s existence from Paige. Had she not learned her lesson?

  35

  Aiden

  Aiden’s phone had rung out under his pillow about an hour ago. He could have answered had last night’s pub session not made him too drunk to drive himself home, too stirred up by Paige’s admission to sleep, and now feeling like crap. But the damn thing was ringing again so he squinted at the screen.

  ‘Not you. Not this morning, me old Pommy mate,’ he muttered, terminating the call without answering, this time shoving his head under the pillow and the phone on the bedside table.

  No conversations these days with his mate, Matt, were ever good ones, especially the one at Finnegan’s pub the week before Aiden left Sydney.

  ‘That’s the bottom line, yeah?’ Matt had said on that occasion. ‘I can only tell you as it is.’

  Aiden had grunted at the time, listened, grunted a few more times and cursed under his breath a whole lot more at that bottom line, which was about as pathetic as his bank account.

  ‘There’s a bright side, Aiden. I’m here for you and not going anywhere.’ Matt raised his glass in a toast. ‘And at least you know I don’t want you for your money. Must be your charm and wit.’

  ‘Bugger off, you moron.’ Aiden elbowed his friend in the ribs and ordered another round from the Mr Muscle barman with the over-gelled hair and professionally whitened teeth. ‘Would you look at me, starting from scratch and at my age? It’s bad enough I picked the wrong career to become a millionaire. Should’ve become a bloody ambulance chaser. Bloody thieves, you lot.’

  ‘Like a dog with a bone, I keep going back for more, no matter how rotten,’ Matt raised his glass and winked. ‘One other thing about us dogs.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘We don’t crap in our own yard. You’d do well to follow suit, me old mate.’

  ‘What’s
that supposed to mean?’

  ‘I think you should take that copper’s advice and get away for a while, cool down.’

  ‘I’m out of here next week as a matter of fact.’

  ‘Where to?’

  ‘Back home.’

  ‘What the blazes are you going to do there? Milk bleedin’ cows? When someone says “get out of town” they usually mean another capital city, at least. Somewhere you can lay low.’

  ‘My uncle runs a pub and I can probably get some extra work. They’re starved for good, reliable cooks out that way.’

  ‘Cooks? Mate, you were one flippin’ food critic away from a being the number one chef in a hatted restaurant and you’re going to be a cook in a country pub?’

  ‘That was before. Beggars can’t be choosers, and from the sound of it I’ll be begging on the streets and working twenty-four-seven to pay for a city lifestyle if I stay here.’

  ‘Man, what a bitch.’ Matt skolled his Guinness. ‘You sure you don’t want me to dig a little deeper, see what else you can maybe do? Mate’s rates.’

  ‘In that case, go crazy. But don’t waste your time. The only thing you’ll be proving beyond a shadow of a doubt is that I was stupid and got sucked in big time.’

  ‘Don’t be too hard on yourself, yeah? We’ve spent a bit of time to together, yeah? And at each other’s houses with our other—I was going to say better—halves. Believe me, mate, Jilly and me never saw nothin’, or ever imagined that Rene was a two-faced—’

  ‘Yeah, yeah, don’t rub it in. I never saw it coming either.’

  ‘Occasionally I praise the guy upstairs for sending a good one my way.’

  ‘You were punching above your weight when you met Jilly, that’s for sure.’

  ‘I got lucky.’ Matt swilled his glass and drained the remainder. A sigh and a belch followed. ‘Some women sure know how to twist the truth. First they lure you in with all their pretty smells, or in your case cute kids. Then they yank your bleedin’ chain until you’re well and truly hooked, or in your case stuffed. You flounder around all goo-goo-eyed and breathless before they kiss you on the mouth and SPLAT! They’ve chucked you back in the water. Turns out you weren’t big enough. I mean, not what they wanted,’ Matt clarified. ‘Size has never been an issue for me. You know what I’m sayin’, Aiden?’

  ‘Whatever, Matt. Now, about buying your soon-to-be-totally-skint mate another beer.’

  Remembering Matt’s fish analogy at Finnegan’s had Aiden thinking about dropping a line in the river later today to clear his head. The idea, however, was short lived as his mind wandered back to his last fishing adventure by the river—with Paige.

  Fishing alone suddenly lost its appeal.

  Aiden’s phone beeped on the bedside table. He cursed, reached across and picked it up. An email from Matt-pain-in-the-backside-Boyle.

  The man is not giving up? Must be important.

  His friend normally hated emails and text messages. He had once told Aiden why.

  ‘A lawyer thing,’ he’d explained. ‘Unlike a person’s voice, there’s no detecting a lie in an email.’

  A quick tap on the phone’s screen and the words reached out and slapped Aiden fully awake.

  ‘Well, well,’ he muttered, followed by a short, satisfied snort. ‘Maybe every dog does have its day.’

  What did he do now?

  Giving in to the urge to talk the news through with someone, he decided to head over to Nevaeh, hoping to find Sharni in the yards with her horses so he could steer clear of the main house, unless he wanted to bump into Paige. And he didn’t think he wanted to today—not yet. He also didn’t know what sort of reception he’d get from Alice this morning. The woman had not been overly friendly prior to last night. She’d warmed a little over time, but there was an animosity that Aiden hadn’t understood. Perhaps, now he knew Paige was married—he assumed not happily—he could appreciate a mother’s protective instincts.

  Unsure about the prospect of seeing Paige, as he drove through the falling-down gates to Nevaeh the sight of Rory on the small porch of the cottage decided for him and he turned the steering wheel sharply to the right.

  ‘How about some company?’ he called from the driver’s window.

  Rory squinted, shrugged and resumed painting her toenails a red colour so bright Aiden could see it even before he reached the porch.

  ‘You can make your own coffee,’ she said as he approached.

  ‘You always were a great hostess,’ Aiden quipped. ‘I’m right for coffee.’

  ‘Sure? You look like crap. Coffee might help.’

  ‘You look pretty bad yourself.’

  Rory didn’t bite, lowering her face to finish the paint job while Aiden stretched out along the swing seat, one toe tipping the boards, setting the seat in a gentle motion.

  ‘I missed us,’ she said without looking away from the task at hand.

  ‘Which us is that?’ he asked, genuinely curious.

  ‘The old who-gives-a-fuck us.’ Her head jerked up, eyes alight. ‘Wanna do something stupid? You know, the way we used to do?’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘I dunno, maybe a mad pash in the doorway to the pub to get the gossip going? Remember we used to chuck bungers in the concrete toilet block out the back and watch the place empty? We could do something like that.’

  ‘I’m trying to avoid making an arse of myself these days.’

  ‘That’s not what I hear. Can’t say I remember Sharni too well, but she’s been good enough to fill me in on everyone’s comings and goings.’ She squinted up at him with a silly grin. ‘She couldn’t wait to tell me yours.’

  ‘Best I fill you in with the unexaggerated version then.’

  ‘I listen better with a drink. There’s a couple of cans of Coke in the fridge.’

  ‘That stuff will eat your guts away,’ he said.

  ‘Just get the Coke, will ya?’

  The sun was overhead when Aiden stood to stretch. Rory had listened to his life story, interrupting only when it prompted questions. She’d spent most of the time looking out over the property, leaving Aiden to examine her and wonder about her appearance, especially the hair. As a hormone heavy teenager he’d imagined her long, luminous hair, smelling of roses and cascading over his body. Aside from sex, his fascination with her was further fuelled by Rory’s bad-girl attitude and antics. The present day pink hair thing only reinforced that memory.

  ‘What?’ She was staring at him. ‘What was that noise you made? Were you sniffing me?’

  Aiden shuffled to his feet. ‘Yeah, that’s right, I was sniffing and you stink of horse, same as I remember. You and Sharni make a good team.’

  ‘You and me made a good team once.’

  I thought so, he wanted to say, stopping when a noise from the house on the hill startled them both, the sound increasing when the front door opened and Sharni, followed by two scurrying youngsters, clambered into the car. The vehicle pulled away and headed down the long, tree-lined drive towards the road, tooting as the dilapidated Datsun speared between the towering pine trees.

  ‘Sharni’s got the right idea getting out of the place. Been a bit of yellin’ last night and early this morning. Something’s not too good.’

  ‘What are you doing here, Rory?’ Aiden said, keen to deflect the conversation, and his thoughts, from the occupants of the main house. ‘Are you selling up?’

  ‘Dunno what I’m doing. Could do with some money in the bank. I also needed some space and a little peace and quiet. The city was becoming too expensive, too loud—you know?’

  ‘Sure do.’

  Despite the layer of makeup, there was no concealing the violet-coloured crescents under her eyes and the dry, thin skin stretched over prominent cheekbones. Combined with the wig, Aiden thought she looked a lot like Debbie Harry, the lead singer of Blondie. Come to think of it . . . What was that hit song? Was it . . .

  ‘“Strike me Pink”?’

  ‘What on earth are you on about, Aiden?
’ Rory was staring at him. ‘And quit gawking at whatever you’re gawking at. You’re creeping me out.’

  ‘Then tell me, what’s with the wig?’ Aiden remembered her with long plaits and ponytails that always got in the way mid-rescue. When the team did back burning she’d tie the plaits to the top of her head in little Dutch girl fashion. The Rory he remembered hadn’t bothered with ‘girl stuff’, like the foundation she was wearing today—too thick, too unnatural, as if she wasn’t used to wearing it at all. Aiden knew little about such things, except that demarcation lines on the neck weren’t a good look.

  ‘If you must know, I like the wig. I have several. Looking at the same face in the mirror gets boring. You blokes can choose cute, clean cut or gritty grunge guy simply by shaving—or not. My wigs are my mood metres. And a word of warning. Watch out if you see me wearing a black one.’

  ‘Thanks for the heads up.’ Something in the way she avoided his stare spoke reams, but Aiden let it go, his attention drawn back to more yelling at the main house.

  ‘On second thoughts, maybe the city would’ve been quieter,’ Rory said.

  There was loud thud and the yelling stopped.

  ‘Uh-oh, stand back, I’m going in,’ he announced, half-joking, half-concerned. With Sharni and the kids—the rowdiest of the quintet currently occupying Rory’s old house—having disappeared in the car a short while ago, Aiden couldn’t imagine who, or what, might be responsible for the loud bang. ‘If I don’t make it out within the hour I may need back up?’

  ‘Ha! Don’t look at me. You’re on your own, big boy. I’d single-handedly tackle a one hundred-hectare blaze before I go near family conflict. Had enough of that to last a lifetime.’

  Aiden heard something in those last few words. He stopped, looked at Rory. ‘Are you sure you’re okay? You’re not sick or anything?’

  ‘Go rescue a damsel that needs rescuing, Aiden.’ She grabbed the empty cans and walked inside the cottage, slamming the door behind her.

  ‘Not now, Aiden,’ Alice said the minute his rat-a-tat-tat on the screen door stopped.