Set In Stone

by Ros Baxter

  The scream that had lain dormant and cancerous in Lou for twenty years knocked at the door and begged to be set free. It wanted to tell Skye exactly what she was. It wanted to roll up all the anger and disgust and bitterness inside Lou and hurl it at her mother, make her own it, swallow it down.

  But to Lou’s surprise, as she imagined doing it, finally doing it, it fell away. When she opened her mouth, the thing that emerged was not a creature of rage and hate. It dissipated on contact with the air, dissolving like ashes. ‘I’ll come with you,’ Lou said, having no idea where the words came from, suddenly filled with a reckless desire to see the place. She walked over to her mother’s chair and placed a hand on the back of it. As she did, Skye froze, and time seemed to slow as Lou watched her hand, small and white against the dark wood. Why was it there? What did she intend to do with it? Was she really going to touch her mother, after all these years?

  ‘Skye.’ Lou’s voice cracked as she said the word and Skye looked up, startled.

  As she did, something else captured Lou’s attention and wrenched it from the altogether bizarre notion that she wanted to take some of the pain away from her mother. A thick red-black trickle of blood slid like a portent of doom from Skye’s left nostril.

  ‘Mum.’ Lou’s voice broke again as she reached across to touch the delicate skin between her mother’s nose and mouth. She lifted the finger to inspect it, detached from the physical act, and Skye gasped as they both inspected the dark red smear.

  Skye quickly wiped at the blood with her sleeve and stood, pushing her chair back and knocking it to the ground. ‘It’s nothing,’ she said, avoiding Lou’s eyes. ‘It happens sometimes.’ But her voice was strained and breathy as she said the words and as Lou watched, she seemed to sway on the spot. Lou’s brain yelled at her to reach out for Skye, but her fall was too fast. Her mother lay tangled on the timber floor, white and bloody.

  Lou fell to her knees beside her and began to scream. The words seemed to come from somewhere else. She screamed for help and to God and at Skye for being so damned sick. She yelled at her not to die; that she wasn’t ready for her to die, not yet.

  But Skye lay so still in her arms that Lou was almost sure she was already gone. She couldn’t summon the wits to check her breathing or feel for a pulse. She could only hear her brain screaming at her that it was over; her mother was gone.

  ‘I won’t go.’ Gage was standing in the middle of the dining room, his hands on his hips in a gesture so achingly male Lou wanted to yell at him to sit down so she could focus on what he was saying instead of thinking how much he looked like some kind of pin-up boy for raw beauty. He was all dressed up, more formally than Lou had seen him since graduation night.

  ‘Nonsense,’ Skye said, curled on the sofa in yet another of her endless array of fluffy dressing gowns. ‘Why not? You heard the doc. I’m fine. For now,’ she added, scrunching up her face and pulling at a thread on her gown. ‘She gave me the shots and I didn’t even need to go to the hospital.’

  Lou wanted to remind her mother this was not quite an accurate representation of events. Dr O’Brien had fought hard to get Skye to the hospital, get a proper check on what was going on. But Skye had held her ground like the knockdown-drag-out fighter she was. And at the end of the day, as the good doctor had explained, this kind of decision was Skye’s to make at this stage of the game.

  Gage ran his hands through his hair in that boyish, exasperated gesture that was becoming so familiar to Lou again that she wanted to offer to do it for him. There was no chance of that – ever since their chat on the day of her concussion, Gage had been politely distant. It bugged Lou more than it should. She knew it was her fault; she had dismissed him. And she had lied to him. But she was also sure something was wrong. Gage had been preoccupied these last few days. The frown lines on his face were deeper, and his mouth wore a permanent scowl. Lou wondered if it was the pressure of all he had taken on. Now that she was through the concussion, she planned to move back to the Welcome Inn to stay out of his way while she wrapped up business in Stone Mountain. But then she looked across at Piper, snuggled up to Bo on the beat-up old leather lounge, looking so much like a child, and Lou’s breath caught. She had been getting closer to the girl these last few days, as Piper had taken it upon herself to cook for Lou, bringing her snacks, and hanging around to chat about any number of topics.

  Lou shook her head to clear it, but the picture her eyes settled on offered no clarity. Gage was still standing tall and devastating in the middle of the lounge room. Well-fitted black dress pants clung to his long legs and sculpted arse. A fine white cotton collared shirt encased his torso, but he had rolled the sleeves almost all the way to his elbows, as though unable to bear the constraint of them, offering Lou an uninterrupted view of strong, tanned forearms. Clearly a tie had been a bridge too far, even for whatever formal event this was, because the shirt was open at the neck, offering a glimpse of brown skin, soft hair and sculpted collar bones. His feet were booted as ever, but Lou had never seen these ones before: they were soft and black, with a slightly pointed toe, and looked expensive. He smelled good too, but different. Whatever cologne he was wearing smelled like spicy butter – musky and rich. He could have been a king or an oil baron or a shipping tycoon, and for a mad moment, Lou wished with every fibre of her being that she could be on his arm as he ventured out tonight.

  ‘Looking good.’ She smiled weakly, having no idea where he was headed and realising belatedly that her attempt at a friendly compliment had come off sounding more like a desperate sigh. She had been distracted since the events of the afternoon. ‘Where y’off to?’

  The room fell silent as Gage’s eyes settled on her and Lou had the distinct feeling everyone else knew something she didn’t. ‘District library dinner,’ he said shortly, turning to grab a jacket from a chair behind him. ‘Annual awards,’ he added.

  Lou’s tummy sank at his words. Of course – the librarian; the one Skye had made sure Lou knew was young and sweet. Chalky green jealousy snaked through Lou’s blood as the realisation settled in her. She forced herself to talk through the claggy bitterness clogging up her mouth.

  ‘Lovely,’ she said, smiling in what she was sure looked like the grimace she was feeling. And then, because something had to give: ‘Didn’t realise you were a reader.’ She could have kicked herself at how pompous and stilted she sounded, like she was putting him down for being some country hick.

  Gage turned to face her, his cheeks a little flushed as he shrugged into his coat. Lou heard the sound of a car pulling up on the drive. ‘I’m not,’ he said shortly, pointing to the door. ‘But she is.’

  ‘I’ll get it,’ Piper said, jumping up and running for the door before Gage could make a counter-offer.

  Lou saw Gage’s face turn to stone as he realised his date was going to be brought into this screwy family tableau: Bo and his unpredictable girlfriend; the teenage daughter with whom things were only just beginning to settle back to normal after he had threatened to shoot her new flame; and the … what? What exactly was she? His once-upon-a-time almost-girlfriend? The girl who’d written cheques with her body that she’d never stayed around to cash? The same woman who was now staying under his roof for some reason that had seemed pretty good at the time but now seemed terrifyingly like a flimsy sham to let herself be closer to this man she couldn’t have.

  Lou wanted to dive under the nearest cushion as Piper ushered the woman into the living room. She had no idea how she might respond to the sight of Gage, dressed to kill, going out to some event with some almost-girlfriend. All she could think, completely unreasonably, was that she wanted to stab this new woman and bury her body in one of the many convenient hiding places on this great big property.

  Until she saw her. Then all she could do was sigh and give up. She certainly couldn’t bring herself to look at Gage. The young woman was lovely: tall, curvy and blonde, all the things Lou wasn’t. She wasn’t beautiful, but she had a sweet, round face, a shy smil
e and an instantly appealing demeanour that somehow made Lou’s fantasies of homicide and dismemberment seem that much worse.

  ‘Hi,’ the librarian breathed sweetly as she stood in the middle of the room in a demure blue cocktail dress, belted at the waist. ‘Nice to meet you all.’

  Lou vaguely registered Gage moving over to greet the librarian with a chaste kiss on the cheek. Lou stood up and knocked over Skye’s coffee cup, her legs weak and her arms even clumsier than usual as her brain instructed her to fake nice with the sweet blonde. Luckily Bo righted the cup quickly, mopping up with a nearby tea towel, and Skye stood and started to do her thing.

  ‘Well hey, sweetheart,’ she enthused. ‘Look at you two, you just look grand. And it’s so nice to meet you.’ She thrust out a hand. ‘Skye Samuels.’

  ‘Beatrice Walker,’ the librarian said, lowering her eyes as she took Skye’s hand.

  Skye affected sizing the girl up. ‘Now let’s see …’ She winked at Beatrice. ‘You don’t seem like Gage’s usual type.’

  Lou finally granted her eyes permission to look at Gage. He was gathering keys, wallet and phone, and his face was closed, his jaw set and the lines of his body so tense Lou thought he might break with the effort of collecting his things. He stopped at Skye’s words.

  ‘I don’t have a type, Skye,’ he snapped.

  ‘It’s true,’ Piper said, also clearly sizing up the new arrival with wide-eyed amazement. ‘He never dates. An emotional cripple.’

  ‘Oh, this isn’t a date,’ Beatrice said, blushing. ‘Gage just agreed to come with me to the thing tonight because I helped him with some research recently.’

  Research? Lou’s ears burned at the bone they had been thrown. Not a date, not a date.

  Then her brain corrected her gullible heart. The two were young and beautiful, dressed to kill, heading out together in a town where people didn’t do such things unless they were comfortable with the fact that people were going to talk. This was way more of a date than French kissing under the old jacaranda outside the pub, or doing the dirty on the mountain.

  It hurt. Oh God, it hurt to watch Gage walk out with that woman.

  But why should it? Who knew what Gage had been doing for the last twenty years? He certainly hadn’t joined a monastery; he had a teenage daughter as proof. And neither had Lou been a nun during the time, although she hated to admit, even to herself, just how sad her love-life had really been. Unless you counted that randy Santa Claus.

  But not knowing what Gage had been up to had nothing to do with how it felt to watch him go out with this woman now. She had no right to him – she had been as clear as she could be with him a few days ago. She had even made up her own lover, just to help it along. He had every right to live his life and do what he needed to do. But did it have to be with someone so different, so utterly alien from Lou?

  Lou worked hard, and in some ways she had become hard. The last time she smiled sweetly and shyly at someone was when she’d needed one of the interns to change a tyre for her. And she had never, ever had killer curves like the girl in the blue dress. The librarian screamed youth and fertility.

  As that last thought landed, brutally accurate, in Lou’s brain, she knew that was the worst of it. Beatrice looked like a girl looking for a husband; a person to marry and have babies with. Lou’s mind raced ahead – seeing the woman walking down the aisle with Gage; then huge with his baby; and then holding sweet sticky fingers as she crossed the road carefully with a mini-Gage in tow.

  Lou had once wanted children of her own. She knew how it felt to love like that. Now it was too late; she knew she was too broken and she never would.

  She moved like an automaton to take the woman’s hand. Beatrice regarded her with polite curiosity. Lou made some feeble joke about being part of Gage’s home for strays and retreated to the couch as they left.

  She watched Gage’s back as they all called out to the pair to enjoy their evening, and she couldn’t imagine a universe in which he might turn to see her, melting into misery and nothingness on the couch. It was wrong, so wrong, of her to want Gage to look back at her. His dark hair curled softly over the collar of his jacket and she imagined again that it was her going out with him tonight; imagined brushing that hair away just for the heady thrill of possession that it would give her.

  Turn around.

  Just as Gage ushered Beatrice through the door to the anteroom and outside, he spun on his heel. ‘Pip,’ he said. ‘It won’t be late. I’ve got the phone.’

  Piper nodded, nose already back in the book about Spanish horticulture she had been perusing.

  Look at me.

  And then, as Gage made to turn back for the door, his eyes brushed Lou’s. A sharp charge sizzled between them as he opened his face to her for the first time in days. He looked weary, and something else – he was looking for something from her but she didn’t know what it was. All she could do was stare mutely back at him, sure all her misery and hopelessness was written there for him to see.

  Chapter

  10

  Heartache tonight

  Lou should be gone; she should have left already. Checked out of Sunset Downs and into the Welcome Inn. Instead, she sat at the table, trying hard to focus on the financials in front of her. It was hard. The pages kept swimming, dissolving and reforming into an image of Gage last night, all dressed up and heading out on the town with a woman who wasn’t Lou. A sweet, curvy, tall woman. A damn Stone Mountain giant.

  Then there was the other thing. Today was the day, the twenty-year anniversary of the night her life fell apart. All day the knowledge had been gnawing at her, fraying the edges of her sanity. Grief loved an anniversary. It was cruel like that.

  Lou thought about the promise she’d made her mother, after Skye had recovered from her episode. Lou had told her she would go with her to the cemetery. She’d bargained with Skye to go at four o’clock, claiming she had some work to get through first.

  She glanced at her sensible black leather wristwatch. Two pm. A hard fist of dread seized her stomach. Somehow, while it had still been morning, she had been able to push the impending date with the devil away, imagining it was not really happening. Now that the hours were shrinking, that was getting harder to do. Every atom inside her rebelled at the thought. Her breath was already picking up, coming harder and faster in her chest. A horrible taste, metallic like blood, coated her tongue. And her ears rang.

  Fear. What a pathetic wimp she was. Afraid of a place; a place she’d never been; a place that couldn’t kill her, or even hurt her.

  She only needed to close her eyes to be back in the dream, the one she always had, standing at the graveside, and then being in the grave herself, covered in earth and blackness – simultaneously glad, relieved, and filled with horror. Why would she actually subject herself to the real thing, go and plonk herself in front of the seat of her nightmares? But she knew why. Because she had thought, in that moment yesterday, that Skye was really going to die there in front of her. And for some time after – after Skye came to and seemed to recover herself – Lou might have done anything for her, just to buy some time to work out how she felt about the whole damn thing. How was she going to put it all in order before Skye really did die?

  Because when she did, that would be the end of things. Lou would really be all alone. And although that was something she had wanted for what felt like forever – to be rid of the bony fingers of regret and responsibility that clawed at her skirts, haunting her – now that it was really upon her, Lou wasn’t so sure. And nor was she sure that she was ready to have her mother die before she had spoken to her.

  Lou’s head started to throb. Too much. Too much to work out. She pushed her square glasses back up her nose and forced herself to focus. The town. The crappy finances. Her dad. There seemed few options for the town beyond doing a deal with the gas company, and few options to do that in the face of opposition from some of the landowners. Lou didn’t get it, would never get it. Why wouldn’t they just
cut a deal? Coal seam gas was clean, at least as far as they knew, and it didn’t need to disrupt the work of the property. Why were these people so determined to contribute to their own demise?

  She looked up from the papers and rubbed the bridge of her nose. She really should talk to Gage about this – some time soon. She should make sure he at least understood how easy it could be to get himself out of the fix he was in and protect the future of Sunset Downs and his family. They hadn’t discussed it, so she wasn’t exactly sure where he fell on all this, but she knew he was smart as hell, and ready to innovate, so surely he would be able to see sense?

  As she tapped her glasses on the table, she heard Piper humming to herself in the kitchen and considered going in to see what the girl was cooking up that smelled so good – something meaty and spicy wafted out into the dining area, where Lou had stationed herself at the table. She heard Franklin’s deep but still boyish laugh rumble out through the open door.

  Lou smiled. The boy had been out to Sunset Downs twice in the last few days. Lou knew she had no right to hope that Piper might be starting to see the sense in hanging out more with Franklin and less with the young man with the bush-ranger beard. Just as she popped the chewed-to-hell pencil out of her mouth and resolved to go and have a taste of whatever was cooking in the kitchen, a metallic ring-tone rendition of the latest Pink song bleated in the kitchen and Piper scurried out, heading for the veranda. The girl was in such a hurry she didn’t seem to notice Lou sitting there, and Lou had to chastise herself for feeling disappointed. There was something about Piper that made you want to be in her attentions. Lou sighed and turned back to her papers.