by Di Morrissey
Sally gave him a hug and he squeezed her to him, whispering in her ear, ‘I like the nightie you’re wearing.’
Hal pumped John’s hand and embraced Lorna and thanked them for the fact they were responsible for their meeting. ‘Mr and Mrs Tsouris are thrilled. They’re planning a big reception for us when we go to visit my aunties.’
‘We’ll go up there before we start house hunting,’ said Sally.
‘Well then, you’d better come to Barra Creek,’ exclaimed John Monroe, and Sally and Lorna exchanged a quick glance. They both knew it was far too soon for Sally to return.
Lorna managed to take Sally aside and said quickly, ‘Sally, this is right. This is how it should be for you. You made the right choice. I’m truly happy for you.’
Sally nodded, her eyes downcast, her heart full. Seeing Lorna and John had brought back jumbled feelings.
Doctor and Mrs Lee spent their wedding night at the Clarendon and the next day they drove to Picton to catch the inter-island ferry to Wellington. Hal had promised they’d spend the following Christmas in Europe, so Sally decided she’d show her husband the North Island on their honeymoon.
When they went out fishing in Paihia Hal was dreadfully seasick, but Sally caught a decent swordfish and another tourist on their boat caught a striped marlin that weighed almost 300 pounds. Sally told Hal stories of fishing for barramundi with the Monroe boys.
In Auckland they stayed at the Grand Hotel opposite the gates of Government House and the next few days they went shopping. Sally delighted in taking her husband into Smith and Caugheys on Queen Street, decking him out in a Viyella shirt, tweed sports coat and woven woollen tie. Sally bought herself beautiful nightgowns at Bennett and Bains, a hat with silk petals on it at Kay Marie Millinery and a pair of lizard shoes at David Elmans. Pleased with their buys they lunched at the kiosk in Parnell Rose Gardens. Driving down the Waikato, Sally admired the thoroughbred horse studs. After a stop in Wellington they caught the ferry back to the South Island.
The honeymoon was a blissful time for Sally. Hal spoiled her and promised she could go to town decorating their home in Sydney. ‘We’ll be doing a lot of entertaining, so you should get the best,’ he said. ‘I will be working long hours, darling, so you’ll be in charge of the house. But every year we’ll go to Europe, I promise.’
And they did. They led a glamorous social life as a popular couple in Point Piper. As the years passed Barra Creek became a distant memory Sally tried not to dwell on.
Chapter Eighteen
Kiama, New South Wales, 2003
THE ROOM WAS QUIET, outside the winter rain eased but the ocean was rumpled and cross. Sally topped up their cups of tea and Kate passed the milk. Lorna sat stiffly.
Finally, the young Director of Nursing and the former governess sat still and looked expectantly at her.
Lorna moistened her lips and asked, ‘Were you happy, Sally? With Hal?’
‘For many years, yes,’ said Sally and she smiled at Kate. ‘I married a lovely doctor and we have two great kids, grown up now, of course. But after ten years of the eastern suburbs social scene and constant entertaining and European holidays, I longed for the simple life.’
‘It doesn’t sound so bad,’ said Kate. ‘It’s hard to find a nice single bloke these days. All the doctors got snapped up in med school.’
‘You’re still very young, Kate,’ said Lorna. ‘Don’t rush into anything.’ She turned her attention back to Sally. ‘You and Hal didn’t have a long courtship.’
Sally stiffened. ‘I recall you telling me I had done the right thing at the time. I don’t regret my marriage, we just grew apart. We had different interests and finally we divorced. I have a couple of thoroughbreds on acreage in the hinterland, about forty-five minutes from here,’ she said to Kate. ‘And the gallery is a nice sideline.’
Kate nodded and looked again at Lorna. Where was this small talk heading?
‘Kate can explain things better than I can. These days I lose the thread of my thoughts every so often. I suppose I’ll lose the plot eventually,’ Lorna said. ‘But just the same I feel resentful that Ian has shuffled me into a home.’
Sally gave Kate a questioning look.
‘Lorna could manage in her own home with some monitoring, someone checking on her regularly. Her son wants to sell her house.’
‘Ian wants to sell? Isn’t he running Barra Creek? I suppose Tommy is still in England. I’m sorry I lost touch with them,’ said Sally.
‘Ian is running Barra Creek . . . into the ground. The bank is threatening to foreclose, but he won’t discuss it with me. He wants the money from the sale of my house to help cover the overdraft. Thomas is doing very well and doesn’t need any money from me, nor does he have any interest in the property; you know that, Sally.’
Sally explained to Kate. ‘He went off to England as soon as he finished school, went to Oxford and stayed there. He writes for a magazine and he’s also become quite well known on radio, I believe.’
‘Does he have a family?’ asked Kate.
‘A wife and two stepchildren. They came to visit me some time ago,’ said Lorna. ‘He doesn’t get on with Ian so he doesn’t care about Barra Creek.’
‘It’s difficult to believe two brothers could grow apart, be so different . . .’ Sally’s voice trailed off. The conversation was bringing up painful and bittersweet memories.
‘Why? What happened, why did you lose touch?’ asked Kate.
Sally sighed. ‘We were all so close but then, as happens, we got on with our lives, got busier, wrote less often, lost contact.’
‘You and Hal were there for me when I needed help with Jilly. Hal was wonderful . . .’ Lorna stopped and looked down at her hands.
The silence lengthened, then Sally spoke quietly to Kate, ‘Lorna’s had more than her share of tragedy.’
Kate nodded. She had heard snatches of Lorna’s life when the older woman was rambling during her ‘lost’ times, but they hadn’t made much sense to Kate.
Sally looked out of the window at the garden. Poor little Jilly.
When Sally gave birth to their first child, Jeremy, they had moved from the plush home unit into an elegant house with views across Sydney Harbour. Sally’s parents had been impressed when they’d visited, although Garth Mitchell thought the fashionable harbour suburbs were too crowded. ‘I need a couple of hundred acres round me so I can breathe,’ he declared.
Sally had a gardener to tend the walled gardens around the house, a cleaning lady and a babysitter. When Yvonne asked her what she did all day, Sally was embarrassed to confess that the days flew by with preparations for entertaining, giving and going to parties, and social events. Hal worked long hours and when they weren’t dashing out to that evening’s function, he liked to relax at home.
Jeremy had just started preschool when Sally received a note from Lorna saying that she and John were coming down to see their boys, so she invited them to stay. Lorna wrote to thank her but said they’d prefer to book into a hotel near the hospital as Jilly was going in for tests.
Sally rang her immediately, the days of calling on the old wireless had long gone. ‘What kind of tests? What’s wrong with her? Can Hal look at her?’
‘Thank you, Sally, but I don’t want to impose. The doctor in Townsville has referred us to a specialist. We’d love to see you both, though, and little Jeremy of course.’
‘I’d love to see Ian and Tommy. Can you bring them over?’
‘Ian will be busy with a cricket match and studying, but I’m sure Tommy would love to come.’
Tommy rang Sally occasionally, he was now caught up in his studies and too busy to write long letters. She was happy he’d adjusted so well. Neither boy had deviated from the plans they’d had when they were younger – Ian to go back to the property, Tommy to go to England.
Lorna and John arrived with Tommy, a tall teenager, and five-year-old Jilly. Sally was overjoyed to have them in her home. She’d set the dining table for a formal lunch
and Lorna glanced around at the beautiful carpets, rosewood furniture, silver and glassware and two Chinese screens, which were old, valuable and the only touch of Hal’s Chinese heritage.
‘You have a lovely home, Sally.’
‘Thank you, Lorna. You taught me well.’
Tommy was invited to go for a swim in the pool before lunch, and Jilly walked slowly around the room, touching each piece of furniture before sitting down on the carpet and entertaining herself by tracing her fingers over a woven rose pattern.
John Monroe leaned in the kitchen doorway with a drink in hand and watched Sally take the beef wellington from the oven. He talked about Barra Creek – Fitzi was doing the work of three men, the lubras were still trouble, the goats had eaten the kitchen garden, Betsy’s child Daisy was a bright little thing but a handful – Lorna had banned her from the house and gardens. Rob had gone north. ‘The bugger took Jasper with him. Both horse and rider are still working bloody hard, I hear. Snowy is still on the piss but manages to bring in enough cleanskins to keep us going. No one wants to hang around and work these days. We’re getting city people coming up to fish, shoot pigs and crocs. Times are changing, Sal.’
‘And Ian?’
John Monroe waved a hand. ‘Full of big ideas for a teenager. How’s your young fella? Are you going to bring him up to see us when he’s old enough?’
Sally laughed. ‘I’d love to take Jeremy up there, but I don’t know if Hal would enjoy it, he’s a skier.’ She refrained from asking about Jilly who looked so frail and pale, and was so quiet it was unnerving.
After lunch Hal joined Lorna and Jilly. Sally and John sat by the pool as Tommy swam and Jeremy thrashed around in the clean blue water.
‘Come on in and race me, Sally,’ called Tommy.
‘Not this afternoon, I have to go out tonight.’ She patted her hairdo, which the Double Bay hairdresser had styled that morning.
‘Struth, I never thought you’d turn into a social butterfly, Sal,’ said John, taking in her red manicured nails, immaculate clothes and expensive jewellery. ‘What do you do for fun when you’re on your own? Not this social rounds stuff?’
‘I was thinking I’d like to get a horse, keep it at Centennial Park. I miss riding,’ she said, surprising herself at articulating the idea. Until then it had been a vague thought in the back of her mind. John’s question made her think, she didn’t do anything that she enjoyed. The fleeting mention of Rob had caused a pang as she recalled their riding adventures. ‘What happened to Dancer?’
‘Ian has commandeered her, but she’s still your horse. She’ll be there for you when come back.’
John went inside to join Hal and Lorna, leaving Sally on the patio with Tommy and Jeremy.
‘So, you’re still on track for England?’ she asked Tommy.
‘You bet. I’m going to try for a scholarship to Oxford in a couple of years. My English master said he’d help me.’
‘Don’t you miss your home?’
He shook his head. ‘It was a good place to grow up and holidays there are fun. I take friends from school with me, but I don’t want to live there any more. Mum doesn’t like me to say that. Ian doesn’t want me there, he’s got his own ideas.’
‘Your dad says it’s changing up there.’
‘Yeah, the black stockmen get proper money now, the old ways are going, that kind of stuff. Ian can have it. ’Course, you know Dad doesn’t agree with any new ideas. I hate the way they argue all the time.’ His face creased. ‘Ian hasn’t forgiven him for Jasper . . . lots of things. I’m glad Rob took Jasper with him.’
‘He bought him from your father,’ said Sally tightly. ‘What is Rob doing?’
‘He said he wanted to make more money, work for himself. He left when you got married and hasn’t come back. Until then I think he thought you were going back to Barra. He said he missed Ian and me. The place isn’t the same any more, Sal.’
‘Things never stay the same. We have to look back and think we were lucky, we had lots of good times.’
He climbed out of the pool. ‘I’ll remember that when I’m in England.’
Later, after the Monroes had gone and Hal and Sally were dressing for a cocktail party, Hal said what had been worrying him all afternoon. ‘That’s one sick little girl, I’m afraid.’
‘Jilly? What is it?’
‘She has a degenerative mental and physical problem, a form of autism, but her main problem is a hole in the heart. She has a good specialist but –’
‘She’s not going to die! Oh, poor Lorna, after Marty . . .’
‘Put it this way, she might do well for a while, but it requires major surgery and it’s a congenital problem. I promised Lorna I’d stay in touch, check out treatments overseas. She needs a lot of emotional support at the moment.’
‘John’s not very good at that.’
Sally didn’t see the Monroes again before they went back north. Lorna was in touch less and less although she occasionally spoke to Hal on the phone at his rooms. A year later Sally and Hal gave Jeremy a sister, Trisha. Sally sent the Monroes a birth announcement and Lorna sent a gift of embroidered linen from David Jones.
Hal and Sally and the children were in Austria on holidays when Sally called their housekeeper to check that everything was okay at home and the message was relayed that ‘Mrs Monroe rang to say her daughter had passed away peacefully’. Sally phoned Barra Creek from Austria but Lizzie answered the phone and when she realised it was ‘Miz Sally’ all she could do was wail ‘bout dat piccaninny all pinish’.
Later Sally learned that Jilly was buried beside Marty on the hill, John Monroe was drinking heavily and Lorna had gone to Cairns for a rest.
She next saw the Monroes when they went to Ian’s graduation from King’s, and she was shocked at how the tragedy of Jilly’s death had aged them. Ian refused to go to university, instead he enrolled in a management course by correspondence and returned to Barra Creek. When Tommy left school the following year he was awarded the Oxford scholarship he had hoped for.
Sally had a full life, too full. The children were involved in school activities and the demands of their social life had increased as Hal had been appointed to the hospital board. Sally wondered how she’d come to be trapped in an existence that was neither fulfilling nor stimulating. Hal was considerate and generous but there was little passion between them. This, she supposed, was how married life turned out, but it wasn’t how she’d hoped it would be.
Gradually the lifestyle became intolerable. When she discussed it with Hal, he looked baffled and faintly irritated. Sally had thought about her life carefully. She cherished her two children and knew she had a devoted husband even if their interests had diverged. She was finding Sydney claustrophobic and one day she jumped in the car and drove down the south coast. That was when she discovered Kiama, a pretty seaside town nestled around a harbour with a rugged shoreline and dramatic blowhole, cliffs and headlands. She explored the hinterland and decided she would look for a small rural property where she could escape to now and again.
Hal agreed that if it would make her happy, he would give her the money to buy it. In fact money was the least of their worries; there was a waiting list for appointments to Hal’s rooms in Macquarie Street.
Sally toured around the Jamberoo and Kiama area until she found a restored old house on one hundred acres that had been a dairy farm. The land was fairly close to the beach and was only a short distance from the main road. She built stables, a barn and fenced in a large paddock, then bought three horses.
She began to spend more and more time down there and Hal started to go to social functions on his own. She attended to her children’s needs but she fussed less about her clothes, her weekly hair and manicure appointments, the social things she’d always done, the rush to keep up with the latest plays, music and movies. Sally didn’t miss the coffee klutches, fashion shows, bridge parties and charity luncheons. Instead she was spending time with reps from feed and grain outlets, agricultur
al specialists, horse breeders and trainers, and the small, active business community of Kiama. The only cultural interest she pursued was discovering a network of local artists who hung their work in restaurants and coffee shops in the town. This started her thinking about opening a gallery. Her world began to dramatically split from Hal’s. Their common ground was Jeremy and Trisha, but they were locked into their school world and family times were spent on shopping expeditions, catching up with friends or energetic holidays.
It was difficult for Sally to maintain close ties with her old friends, even her family in New Zealand, as they had little in common. When Lachlan and Yvonne and their children came to visit, Sally rushed them around all the tourist attractions in the city, as she found they ran out of things to talk about if they sat at home or lingered over restaurant meals.
She and Hal found some of their old affection for each other when they returned to Darwin for a week for the funeral of Aunt Winifred. But Hal couldn’t wait to get back to Sydney, claiming pressure from patients, and refused to visit Barra Creek as Sally had hoped. Their closeness disappeared again and, inevitably, they drifted further and further apart. Eventually they separated, relatively amicably. Sally moved into the south coast farmhouse, the children were in boarding school and Hal stayed in the family home. It was as civilised as these matters could be. Hal was disappointed their relationship had faltered and hoped a short time apart might rejuvenate their marriage. Their friends were shocked, they’d seemed the perfect couple and they were both devoted to the children.
Once Sally was living on her own, struggling with small domestic problems in an old house, having the freedom to make her own mistakes and choices, she realised what she had been missing. She felt alive in a way she hadn’t felt in years. Sad as she was at the breakdown of her marriage, she didn’t suffer too many pangs of guilt. Her children were healthy and well adjusted. They accepted the division of their parents’ lives – it was not an unusual situation among their friends’ families – and they appreciated the stability of their father maintaining the home as it had always been.
