by Margaret Way
In the course of a few days Sarah had become her friend and confidante. A sister in arms. Laura knew from the moment she’d laid eyes on Dr Sarah at the hospital she’d made the right decision finding her way to Koomera Crossing. Simply by talking over her sad situation with someone who seemed eminently qualified to listen and offer strategies for change had made her feel so much better about herself.
Laura felt reasonably normal, though she never lost the feeling of being in jeopardy, or visualizing Colin’s angry face many times a day. She knew with a certainty Colin would have begun tracking her, most probably through some investigation agency, but she’d been surprisingly adept at getting away. How had she allowed him to make her feel so incompetent when all her life up to that point she’d been regarded as very bright? Such was the pain-inducing power of the domineering male.
Now, with Sarah’s help, she was beginning to stop blaming herself for the disastrous failure of her marriage. She was beginning to see Colin had worked so hard to instill in her a sense of worthlessness he had almost succeeded. Sarah’s opinion of Colin as a sociopath, a condition in which he considered himself beyond the normal rules, was that he was the one who truly needed counselling.
Laura was young, inexperienced, grieving for her father, lonely for her mother—ill-prepared to cope with a man like Colin Morcombe with his anger and aggressions.
As soon as she felt stronger and more confident Sarah would encourage her to do something about her situation. Liberate herself from Colin and the bonds he had forced on her. Divorce him and change her life.
It sounded simple but Laura, the victim, like all other victims of abuse, knew it wasn’t. She had suffered far too much emotional damage living with Colin, but she wasn’t beyond repair. Though Colin had tried so very hard to break her she had found the strength to make her escape.
But for how long? Colin would come after her. Hadn’t he near convinced her there was no way out?
All this Laura thought as she drove around the town, looking for the best place to live. Koomera Crossing boasted a picture-postcard town. It was very neat and clean with a lot of picturesque colonial buildings, but the majority of the houses she drove past were humble compared with what she’d been used to.
Her own family home, the house where she had grown up, now sold to family friends who had always admired it, was a gracious “Queenlander”, set in a large garden, a luxurious tropical oasis, that had been her mother’s pride and joy.
Laura and Colin had lived in a starkly modern edifice—she’d never thought of it as “home”—with a commanding view of the river and the city. An architect friend of Colin’s had designed it. There had been much talk of clean, open spaces, energy flow and creative processes—about which, for all the notice they took of her, she knew nothing. When she had attempted to say what she liked both men had shrugged her and her opinions off. The client was Colin. Not his wife. Her needs—warmth, colour, comfort—were just too “precious”. Traditional was out. What they got, to Colin’s delight, was a massive white pile. Geometric and pompous.
“Let’s keep the whole thing white,” Colin had suggested, as though she had any say in the matter. “Inside and out. You have to think modern, darling. Not that Gone With the Wind old barn you came from. Try to look happier. Most women would be very excited about living in our house. If you want a bit of colour you can get it from steel and glass. Glass has a beautiful blue-green edge.”
The houses she was driving past, cottages with tiny porches, would have fitted comfortably into their living room, with its giant sofas and huge abstract paintings—mostly black, silver or charcoal on white.
“Challenging,” Colin had said, the self-deluded art connoisseur.
“Why do we need a living room so big?” she’d been brave enough to ask.
“For entertaining, you silly goose. That’s if you ever become confident enough to try it.”
They rarely had entertained.
“You poor kid, stuck with this!” her friend, Ellie had said, giving the interior a quick, assessing look. “Gee, after what you came from you must be finding all this very different?”
“Challenging.” She’d laughed with good humour, giving an excellent imitation of Colin’s ultra-confident tones.
She knew Ellie wouldn’t have been fooled. Ellie was a very independent person, very sure of herself. She held her own with Colin. Needless to say Ellie had been one of the first to be struck from the list.
Laura wasn’t concerned where she’d be living now, as long as it was clean and safe.
Twenty minutes later she decided where she wanted to live. It was a modest dwelling, by far the smallest in the street. She supposed it had originally been a settlers’ cottage, constructed of timber and corrugated iron with a small front verandah to keep off the powerful glare of the sun and the rain. She had to wonder just how often it rained out here on the desert fringe.
The cottage was painted white, with sunshine-yellow shutters and trim. It was surrounded by a low picket fence hung with masses of Thai Gold bougainvillaea in abundant flower, giving the place a delightful welcoming look. Whoever had lived in it previously had maintained a pocket handkerchief cottage garden filled with bright yellow and white paper daisy flowers and a dazzling blanket of waxy pink flowers with sparkly silver-pale green leaves backed by tall, rather regal-looking lilies, the heraldic cream and orange blooms swaying slightly in the breeze.
There didn’t appear to be anywhere to garage the car. Indeed, the whole cottage wasn’t as big as the six-car garage Colin had insisted upon to house his collection of classic cars and her Volvo. A safe car for a “truly dreadful driver”. She’d soon stopped driving Colin anywhere because he heckled her so much. It had been equally grim in the kitchen, where he’d told her constantly she’d never make a living as a chef.
She remembered the first and the last time she had told him to shut up, and felt instantly ashamed she hadn’t left him there and then.
So what had their marriage been? Sex? For someone who found her frigid he had spent a lot of time taking her to bed.
Laura got out of the car, keys to the cottage in hand. She didn’t look closely at the houses to either side, wondering if she was under surveillance. One was a high-set colonial, far grander than the cottages, its grounds immaculate and studded with palms.
The picket gate swung cleanly without a creak. She closed it after her carefully, looking around with quiet pleasure at the small garden as though it was already hers to put to order. It was beginning to encroach on the narrow paved path up to the two weather-worn steps that led to the verandah.
The key fitted neatly into the lock. She opened the yellow-painted timber door with its old brass knocker and stepped inside, feeling a little Alice in Wonderland full of wonder with her curiosity to explore.
A hallway with a polished floor, pale golden wood with a darker grained border, ran straight through the house to the rear door. She wandered from room to room peering in. Parlour to the left, dining room, to the right. Beyond the parlour a fair-sized bedroom which led to a very quaint bathroom; behind the small dining room an equally small kitchen, somewhat modernized with a curved banquette area. Five rooms in all. No laundry. Unless there was one outside.
There was. It was attached to the cottage by a covered walkway hung with a glorious bridal veil of white bougainvillaea. Laura walked out into the sun. It was so brilliantly golden she needed her sunglasses or she’d be dazzled.
Another cottage garden, even more overgrown. It curved away to either side of a pink brick path that drew her along. Masses and masses of lavender gone wild. She picked a sprig, waved it beneath her nose. The path disappeared into a tunnel of lantana, flowering monstrously, richly blazing orange. There was even a small, charming bird bath, though the bowl was cracked.
This place is mine. It’s wonderful! Laura, who had grown up with every possible comfort, breathed aloud. A doll’s house.
She wandered back along the path to sit down on
the hot stone step, lifting her arms as if in praise of the sun. She was drawing out every moment of the peace and freedom she had been denied living with Colin. The aromatic scents of the garden and the great wilderness that lay just beyond the town were balm to her wounded heart.
“Please God, help me,” she prayed. “I can’t hide for ever.”
There were no furnishings. She told herself she didn’t need much. She even felt a tingle of anticipation at the idea of making the cottage comfortable. And her own. She knew intellectually she was going to ground. Emotionally she felt if she didn’t hide away she was risking her life, and there were frightening statistics to back her fears. A wife-abuser was unpredictable and dangerous.
I’m in the middle of nowhere, she thought with a tremendous sense of relief. Who could find me here in this vast landscape, so stunningly, wonderfully primitive, as though nothing has changed for countless thousands of years?
She had fallen in love with the Outback town, a small settlement on the desert fringe. Beyond the town’s ordered perimeters lay the wild bush. What she had seen of its unique beauty had cast a compulsive spell on her. The amazing colours! The deep fiery red of the earth and the extraordinary rock formations; the breathtaking cobalt blue of the cloudless sky that contrasted so vividly with the blood-red soil; the myriad greens and silver-greens of the wild bush and the iridescent greens of the countless creeks and billabongs that criss-crossed the huge area.
There was such a feeling of space and freedom she was beginning to feel a difference in herself. She was less upset, less disturbed, less fearful. She had taken the first big step to help herself. She could take another if she kept to the fore-front of her mind that a journey of a thousand miles began with the very first step. She could be what she was meant to be—a woman who had confidence in her own ability to look after herself. A woman who cared about others. A woman who took delight in friendships and her once deeply satisfying talent.
She could start again. That meant at some point divorcing Colin, but first she would have to bring about changes in herself. She had to grow and learn, see herself as someone who could handle life’s difficulties. She had to stop for ever looking over her shoulder, as though she expected to see Colin, his arm outstretched to grab her. She had to subdue and conquer her fear of Colin.
She knew one day, perhaps sooner than she thought, she would be free.
Drawing her long hair over her shoulder, Laura walked back inside the cottage. She had already decided she would take it, and her mind was busy with thoughts of exactly how much furniture she would need. What would go where? Her enthusiasm for this little cottage in the back of beyond was infectious. In fact she felt quite jubilant. It was a long long time since she’d felt that.
Laura took a little notebook out of her shoulder bag and began to scribble in it.
CHAPTER TWO
THE sound of a car door slamming broke his concentration. Not that the book was going so well at this point. Memories always made him suffer. Writing kept him sane.
In this little Outback town of Koomera Crossing he was known as Evan Thompson. Loner. Man of mystery. He’d had an ironic laugh at those names. Evan Thompson wasn’t his true identity. It was a cover of sorts for his secret life as a wood worker. He’d had no apprenticeship in the trade. He’d learned in his youth from his diplomat father, who’d channelled his abundant natural skills into an avenue for relaxation.
His father! Christian Kellerman. Killed in a terrorist attack in the Balkans.
In another life he’d been known as Evan Kellerman, respected foreign correspondent, who had earned a reputation for putting his own life on the line to get to a big story. Everything he had written from the war zones where he’d gone searching for truthful answers had had an insider’s knowledge. With a base in Vienna, close to his father, he had covered the war in the Balkans when three ethnic groups had been at each other’s throats. Even after the Dayton Peace Agreement he had stayed on to cover the demilitarisation.
He had had a story to tell. Not the usual coverage of the war and recent political developments, but one man’s day-today existence during that violent time, when he had been plunged into a world gone mad and a journalist’s life was greatly at risk.
The terror had taken his father and an alluring but traitorous woman. Monika Reiner. Evan’s lover. So-called patriot. But Monika, unknown to him and his associates, had had an agenda of her own. Spying for the enemy.
Monika Reiner had used her beauty and her useful contacts to infiltrate the ranks of freedom fighters, leaving behind her a trail of death. All in the name of greed, money and power. And to think such a woman, responsible for passing on his father’s itinerary on that terrible day, had held the key to his heart. The sense of guilt, though irrational, had almost destroyed him.
He stood up so precipitately he sent his swivel chair flying. After a minute he retrieved it, but he couldn’t return to his desk. Restlessly he prowled, like a wild animal in a cage. From a bedroom window he caught sight of the young woman who must have slammed her car door. She was going into the cottage next door.
He shifted the curtain a fraction, looking down into the neighbouring garden. She was walking slowly, almost drifting in the breeze. His heart suddenly kicked in his chest. He sucked in his breath, momentarily overcome by paralysing shock.
From this distance she looked like Monika. Graceful in body and movement. Almost feline.
She was beautiful too, with long flowing dark hair that lifted away from her face as the breeze caught it. Like Monika’s, her hair was center-parted. She was petite, very slender. He could see her luminous white skin. He found his hands clenching and unclenching as he was gripped by the past.
“Close your eyes with holy dread.” The words of a poet sprang instantly into his mind.
He swallowed on a dry throat, turning away abruptly. A passing resemblance. Nothing more. A figure type.
He walked purposefully to the kitchen to make himself some strong black coffee. As soon as he finished his book—he was more than halfway through it—he would try to get back to a normal life. Or as normal as he could manage after the hell he’d been through.
Evan knew he could have his career back tomorrow. To this day he was being pursued by various agencies who well remembered his “meritorious service”—but he didn’t know if he could live that life again, with the sound of gunfire forever reverberating through his head. The Outback, the Timeless Land, had offered solace, a place to write and lick his wounds.
He found himself moving to the rear closed-in verandah, steaming coffee cup in hand, to check on the girl.
There she was again, turned flower child, twirling a sprig of lavender beneath her nose. He could have moved off, but the sight of her halted and held him. She looked so innocent as she walked among the blossoms, admiring the pretty petals.
He knew the cottage was up for rent. His neighbours, the Lawsons, had gone back to the UK for a year or two to be with family. Surely this young woman didn’t intend to live there? Everything about her—the lustrous hair, the trendy clothes, the graceful limbs—carried the stamp of “money”, or at the very least a comfortable background. What would she be doing looking over a modest little cottage in an Outback town?
Very odd! Even odder was the way she was taking such pleasure in the tiny backyard that had run riot since the Lawsons had left. He was disconcerted by his reaction to her beauty and her slightly fey attitude. What the hell was the matter with her? She was treading the path rather vaguely, picking wildflowers, but looking so utterly captivating she might have been modelling for a photo shoot.
I don’t need this, he thought. I definitely don’t need this. Beauty was a bait to lure. Yet he didn’t move, scarcely aware the coffee cup was burning his hand.
He couldn’t put his finger on just why he thought there was something disturbed or disturbing about this girl. Instinct again. His instincts were significant. They had saved his life time and time again—though that made him f
eel guilty he had survived when others so close to him had not.
Butterflies were fluttering around the lantana. A magical sight. She was looking towards it in an apparent trance of beauty. He felt an involuntary hostility well up in him. Simply because something about her had reminded him of Monika? This girl was a total stranger. She could never have witnessed an ugly sight in her life.
She strolled back along the path, taking a seat on the stone step. This wasn’t wise, watching her, but still he remained. Again she surprised him, raising her slender arms gracefully, dramatically, to the blue sky like some sort of ritual to the sun.
Bravo! A would-be ballerina! He kept his gaze focused. Perhaps she’d guessed she had an audience? She certainly couldn’t see him from where he stood.
“There’s more to this woman than meets the eye!”
He was surprised he’d spoken aloud, but the words had flowed irresistibly. He couldn’t believe he was even doing this. Spying on a perfect stranger. Normally he guarded his privacy and isolation.
With one exception. Harriet Crompton, the town school teacher and a character in her own right.
He had taken a liking to Harriet to the extent that he had agreed, after some heavy persuasion, to join the town orchestra, and then make up a surprisingly good quartet. He played cello. Harriet played viola. His mother, a concert artist, had taught him first the piano and then, when his interest had waned, the cello from an early age. He hadn’t wanted to make music his career—he had far too many interests—but that hadn’t prevented him from becoming very proficient. He guessed, as his mother always said, music ran in his blood.
These days it could make him very unhappy. He couldn’t listen to certain great artists for very long. Those who played with great passion, like the tragic Jacqueline Du Pré. It almost brought him to despair. He’d thought he had put his journalistic talents to the advancement of a downtrodden people and their cause. All it had brought about was the death of a father he had rightfully idolized and a profound mistrust of beautiful women.
