The doctor took it, read it. ‘I would like to do this for Annie. I respected her, held her in great affection. But what about you, what will you be doing while all this is going on?’ Dr Jones’s eyes were sharp, piercing. ‘I don’t approve of posteriors on chairs while others are busy.’ She poured more coffee.
Sarah smiled as she lifted her cup. ‘I could do anything you like to help. I was going to go round the markets and retail outlets, to see what gaps there are in the markets, see what possibilities there are for Wassingham Textiles. Mum and Dad haven’t an outlet and Australia’s growing, isn’t it? But I can do that later. I’ll do anything, Dr Jones.’
The old woman stirred her coffee and smiled. ‘I think you are doing quite enough my dear. Let me use my contacts, it is more efficient. You do what you know most about.’
As Sarah left Dr Jones said, ‘Give me a week – I won’t tell your mother you are in Sydney. But Sarah,’ Dr Jones added, ‘don’t get your hopes too high, Sophie will be elderly, she might be dead.’
For the rest of the day Sarah walked around the shops, stopping at the small outlets, the kitchen shops, talking to the managers, making lists. She stayed on at the hostel and that evening a boy brought his guitar on to the steps where they were all sitting and they sang. He handed it to her and she played Curry Afternoons and then more gentle ones, for Betsy. Now there was a calmness in her that she had never known before.
All week she toured the city making notes, thinking of the fabrics she had seen in India, telling the traders of these, writing down their comments.
In the late afternoon, she would stand and look at the incomplete Opera House. Yes, it would one day be as wonderful as Davy had said. She watched the yachts in the harbour, the bridge, the blue of the sky and wished that he were here with her, but knew that part of her life was over, there were some things that love could not survive and her behaviour had been one.
At the end of the week she talked to the market traders, then rang Dr Jones, scarcely able to breathe with tension.
‘I have the address you want, my dear,’ Dr Jones said and read it over the phone. ‘But remember, Sophie is old, she might not have her faculties, she might be ill, oh, any number of things. Good luck.’
That afternoon Sarah wrote to Yerong Creek and took the train two days later to Wagga Wagga where she hired a taxi and drove along a straight road with red parched earth either side, and now there was dust again. In places there were gum trees that hung limp, their bark stripped and loose. The taxi turned left over railway lines into the small township with a garage on the left, a Post Office on the right. They drove on until they reached a small bungalow with rose trees in circular beds.
Prue had grown roses. Did the English abroad always do so? Her hands were trembling. Why was she thinking of roses? Sophie had to be the same, she had to remember Annie. Sarah tried not to rush. She closed the taxi door and paid the driver. She walked up the path hearing the cicadas, feeling the warmth, seeing the corrugated iron roof.
There was a fly door on the verandah. Her pace quickened but before she could reach the wooden steps the door opened. An elderly woman came down on to the path, her face tanned to leather. An older man came after her, his leg stiff.
Sarah said, ‘Sophie? I wrote to you. I’m Annie’s daughter, she’s been trying to find you for years.’
Eric was beside Sophie now and it was he who pulled Sarah to him, holding her so tightly that she could hardly breathe. ‘You’re the image of your mam,’ he said and his voice had all the flavour of Wassingham in every syllable and so too did Sophie’s when she touched Sarah’s cheek. ‘I never thought this would happen,’ she said, holding the girl’s arm, then kissing her forehead as she had kissed Annie’s when they had left for Australia so many years ago, unable to bear living without that lovely child.
She held Annie’s daughter in her arms now and Sarah smelt lavender as her mother had done.
‘You must come and meet our own Annie,’ Sophie said. ‘She’s a bonny lass, with grown bairns of her own.’
Sarah returned to Sydney that night, but sent a telegram to her mother before she left Yerong Creek, telling her Sophie’s and Eric’s address, knowing they would come, knowing it would complete her mother’s life and that was the least Sarah could do for her.
The next day, and the next, and the next, she went to see the Opera House, to stand and stare at the ferries ploughing through the water, the boats, their sails so white. Would they come? She had left a message with Sophie, telling her mother she would be here each day, if they wanted to see her. Would they?
On Saturday, six days after she had left Yerong Creek she watched the sun cast long shadows across the water. The ferries were crowded, carrying people who would one day buy clothes and furnishings made by Wassingham Textiles, and Indian cotton and silk printed as Davy would wish. Yes, one day, whether she was there or not.
She turned and walked away from the water. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, moving out past the people who stood behind her, brushing the hair from her eyes.
‘You have no need to be, my love,’ her mother said. ‘No need at all,’ and all the flavour of Wassingham was in her voice.
Sarah looked now, and there was Annie, her face older, thinner, her hair grey, but the smile was so wide, the eyes so full of love. How could she not have seen her? Then Annie’s arms were round her daughter, holding the thin body as close to her as she could, never wanting to let her go, feeling Georgie put his arms round them both. ‘Oh Mum,’ Sarah said and that was all. There was no need for words, not any more.
Annie kissed her daughter’s forehead, stroking her hair, her poor shorn hair and now they walked, their arms around one another until Annie stopped, laughing. ‘Oh God, I’ve left my bag where we were standing.’
Sarah squeezed their arms. ‘I’ll go.’
They watched her run, their arms around one another, and saw her stop when she saw Davy standing where they had been, saw him walk towards her and Annie felt her breath tighten as he put out his hands, and then she breathed again as her daughter took them.
Davy said, ‘I love you, Sarah, I always have. I love you, I’m in love with you. I can’t stand life without you. Will you come home now and swing from the bar?’
Sarah looked at his tanned skin, his strong face, felt the pressure of his hands. She turned and looked at her parents, at the smile on her mother’s face, her father’s too. ‘I’ve never wanted anything so much.’
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Copyright © Margaret Graham 1993
Margaret Graham has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.
This novel is a work of fiction. Apart from references to actual figures and places, all other names and characters are a product of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
First published in Great Britain in 1993 by
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Annie's Promise Page 41
