‘Just for a while —’
‘Until we work out our next step —’
‘Until we save some money —’
‘If that’s okay with you, Mum?’ Victoria asked.
‘And if you or Dad don’t mind loaning us some money,’ Genevieve added. ‘Quite a lot of money, actually. Just to cover our debts. We’ll pay back every cent, though.’
‘We promise,’ Victoria said.
‘Of course that’s okay,’Angela said. ‘Of course. I can’t wait to see you.’
And of course she meant it. They were her daughters. This was their home. But how much money? Would she and Nick have enough themselves to cover the twins’ debts? And what did ‘just for a while’ mean? A month? Six months? A year?
Angela also broke the news of Celia’s extended visit to them.
‘She’s staying for a month?’ Victoria said. ‘Mum, no! Quick, build a moat!’
‘Don’t be rude,’ Angela said automatically. ‘She’s family. Your father’s only aunt.’
‘Only by marriage,’ Genevieve said. ‘Does that even count?’
‘Why don’t her own kids ever have her for Christmas?’ Victoria asked.
Genevieve answered. ‘Because they emigrated as soon as they found out she doesn’t like flying.’
Angela had a suspicion she was right. Celia’s two sons had left Australia years earlier. One lived in France, the other in Singapore. They only rarely came home with their wives and children.
‘Can’t you tell her we need some family time?’ Genevieve asked.
‘We never get you to ourselves any more,’ Victoria said.
‘We haven’t in years. Not since you had Lindy, let alone Ig —’
‘Please, Mum. And will you please pick us up at the airport? Just you. Your long-lost daughters —’
‘Your prodigal daughters —’
‘Coming home at last. If anyone needs you, it’s us.’
Angela had been alternating between laughing and telling them off when the line dropped out. Minutes afterwards, Nick had arrived home with Johnny, with the news that Johnny was staying for dinner and the night. The men went straight out onto the back verandah after they’d eaten. They were still out there talking when she went to bed. She still hadn’t had a chance to tell Nick the twins’ news. It was the pattern of their lives now. Ships that passed in the night and day.
She wished she could have rung Joan to talk about all of this. But Joan and her husband had been away on a week-long cruise with their two daughters and their families. She wasn’t due back home until later today.
Lindy, however, knew all about the twins. She’d known for days, it transpired, but Genevieve had sworn her to secrecy. All morning she’d been following Angela around, asking questions and expressing opinions.
‘I think Genevieve sounded too cheery about losing her job. You don’t suppose she’s on drugs, do you? That makes you immune to real emotion, doesn’t it? I talked to her for nearly an hour about it and she didn’t sound upset at all.’
‘For an hour? Lindy, please don’t make long overseas calls without asking. You know how expensive they are.’
‘I needed to talk to her about something else too. Something urgent.’ She paused. ‘About Christmas.’
Lindy was lying. Whatever else she had phoned her sister about, it wasn’t Christmas.
For the next hour, Lindy followed her mother back and forth from the laundry to the washing line, handing over pegs, still asking questions.
‘So where will they sleep?’
‘In their old rooms.’
‘But Genevieve’s room is your ironing room.’
‘I guess it won’t be any more.’
‘But how can Victoria afford to take time off? I thought you said she wasn’t getting a payout from the radio station.’
‘She isn’t.’
‘Genevieve wouldn’t have got one either, would she? Isn’t it irresponsible of her to waste money on an international airfare? Shouldn’t she cash that in and stay there and look for work?’
Oh, shush, Angela thought as they walked back to the line with another basket. You ran home the second you got into financial trouble, didn’t you?
Lindy stopped. ‘Mum!’
‘What?’
‘Did you really mean that? About me running home?’
Angela blinked. She’d certainly thought it, yes, but had she said it out loud too? By the look on Lindy’s face, yes, she had.
‘I was joking,’ she said.
‘It didn’t sound like you were joking.’
‘I was. Pass me another peg, would you?’
They finally finished the washing. The clothes line that stretched from the side verandah right across to the fence was now filled with sheets, pillowcases and tea towels. The wind was hot and gusty. Everything would be dry within an hour.
As they walked back inside the cool house, Lindy looked at her mother.
‘You’ve got very sharp-tongued lately, Mum, if you don’t mind me saying. You’re not pregnant again, are you?’
Angela gave a sudden, high-pitched laugh.
‘That’s why I rang Genevieve the other day, you know,’ Lindy said. ‘To talk about you.’
In the kitchen, Angela filled the kettle, talking over her shoulder. ‘That must have been a dull conversation.’
‘I had to talk to someone, Mum. I hope you don’t mind me saying this, but you really have been a bit, I don’t know, different lately. Weird. Distracted. I’ve been worried about you.’
‘You didn’t think you could just talk to me about it?’
‘No. I thought you’d get cross. Like you are now.’
‘I’m not cross. So, which of my current symptoms did you and Genevieve discuss?’
Lindy counted them off on her fingers. ‘How you’re preoccupied all the time. Talking to yourself a lot. How you and Dad are funny with each other. How you’ve got that sudden new hobby, the pottery, when you’ve never done anything like that before. You’ve been ringing Joan even more than usual too.’
‘And what did Genevieve say?’
‘She just changed the subject back to her being sacked.’ Lindy sat down and sighed again. ‘Life’s not fair, is it? Look at me. I’m nearly thirty years old. I don’t have a career. I don’t have a boyfriend. I know Genevieve and Victoria are in a mess now, but at least they’ve had a taste of success. I haven’t even had that. I ruin everything I touch, don’t I? No matter what I do, it never works out. All that cushion stuff outside, the money I owe you and Dad —’
Here we go again, Angela thought. Blah, blah, blah.
‘Mum!’
She’d said that aloud too? ‘Lindy, of course you’re not a failure. Everyone goes through ups and downs. As you said, look at the twins. Roosters one day, feather dusters the next.’
‘That’s not very nice either.’
‘How about you go and check your website? Maybe you’ve had an order this morning. Wouldn’t that be great? You could get started on that.’
‘I can’t. Dad’s back on the computer again. Shall I tell him to give me a turn? Tell him you insisted?’
‘Good idea. You do that.’
Standing at the linen cupboard in the hallway, Angela heard Lindy ask to use the computer. Nick was midway through watching an online history documentary but she could have five minutes, he said. But she needed ten, Lindy said. Angela wanted to go in, turn off the computer and send them both to their rooms.
She closed her eyes instead and imagined herself far from here. It only took a moment.
She wasn’t on a sheep station in South Australia, in the middle of a hot summer, listening to a family row. She was in London. In springtime. On a deckchair in her London garden with Will walking towards her, smiling, carrying a tray of iced tea.
‘Here you are, darling,’ he said. ‘It’s so good to see you taking a break. You’ve worked so hard lately.’
She took the drink, had a sip and smiled gratefully at him.
‘That tastes wonderful, darling, thank you. What’s in it?’
‘I couldn’t possibly say. It’s my secret recipe. But I may have accidentally added a touch of gin.’
‘Gin? At this time of day?’
There was a whisper beside her. ‘Mum?’
She kept her eyes shut. ‘Yes, Ig.’
‘Are you okay?’
‘Yes, thanks, Ig.’
‘Have you started sleeping standing up? Like a horse?’
She’d just smiled and pulled Ig into a hug when Lindy came running out of the office.
‘I’ve got an order! I’ve got an order!’
Fifteen minutes later, Lindy and Ig were on their way across the yard towards the stack of crates behind the woolshed. They’d come to an agreement. If he helped her dismantle the crates, she’d let him build a cubby out of all the smaller cardboard boxes her cushion material was stored in.
Lindy’s mood had changed completely. An actual order! This could be the start of her brand new career! It was a simple order too, wishing someone well after an operation. The customer had requested specific colours (purple and green) and a brief message (Get Well Soon!).
Ig helped Lindy as she untied the tarpaulin covering the sixteen crates. It hadn’t rained in weeks, but the covering helped keep the dust off. Everything on the station – the fences, the sheds, the homestead – was often covered in a fine layer of red dust this time of year.
Lindy checked through the order again. She’d need a blank cushion cover. Cushion filler. Purple and green thread for the cross-stitching of the letters and the decorative border. She’d ordered those colours, hadn’t she? Yes. She’d ordered every available colour. She untied the last of the tarpaulin ropes.
‘Ready, Ig?’
‘Ready.’
They both tugged. The tarpaulin fell in a shimmer of plastic onto the dirt. The crates, each of them filled with boxes, reared above them like giant Lego blocks. Lindy got a sick feeling in her stomach.
Ig leapt up onto the first crate, still nimble despite his arm being in a sling. Fifteen minutes later, they were surrounded by cardboard boxes and Lindy had all the material she needed.
‘All yours, Ig. Happy cubby-making. I’ll be on the verandah sewing if anyone’s looking for me.’
‘They won’t be. It’s just you and me and Mum and Dad here. We all know where everybody is.’
‘It’s just a saying, Ig. I’m going to work. I, Lindy Gillespie, am Going Back to Work.’
Ig watched her go, talking to herself. What was it with girls and sisters and mothers? They seemed to do so much talking and crying about things. Even his dad was at it these days, talking to his new friend Carol in Ireland all the time.
That was the good thing about his friend Robbie. He only ever said what needed to be said.
‘Okay, Robbie,’ Ig said to him now. ‘Cubby time. No, not heavy at all. It’s just light sewing stuff. I’ll lift them one-handed. You can help me decide how to arrange them.’ He laughed. ‘Exactly. You’re the brains. I’m the muscle.’
CHAPTER SEVEN
The phone in the kitchen rang as Angela was on her way out to her pottery studio. At least, she called it her studio. Her family still called it the toolshed. She waited for one of the others to answer. The phone kept ringing. The answering machine wasn’t working properly any more, nor was the phone in the office, not since Ig had used them to try to record a rap song he’d written.
Angela came back inside and answered. ‘Gillespies, hello.’
‘So, I head off on a cruise for just a week and look what you get up to.’
‘Joan?’
‘Angela, you’re my oldest friend. I thought I knew you, but what got into you? Were you drunk?’
Angela felt a sudden chill that had nothing to do with the temperature. She reached across, shut the kitchen door and lowered her voice. ‘Welcome back. How was it? And what are you talking about?’
‘Your latest “Hello from the Gillespies”. Or, as you should have called it, your “Bombshells from the Gillespies”.’
Angela frowned. What did Joan mean? She hadn’t sent out her Christmas letter this year.
Joan was still talking. ‘I have to say, you shocked me and I’m not easily shocked. Did Nick mind you telling everyone about the mining lease? I’m not sure how Victoria will feel about you telling everyone your suspicions about her affair, either. I’d quite like to have seen a photo of Genevieve with those blue dreadlocks, though. What did you say Ig called her? A feral Smurf?’
Angela felt an unsettling shimmer. ‘Joan, what are you talking about?’
‘Your letter. I have it right here on the computer in front of me.’
Joan started reading from it. Angela went hot, then cold, then hot again.
It was her letter. Her ranting letter. The one she had deleted just as Ig had his accident. She hadn’t even thought about it again until two days later, as she sat beside Ig’s hospital bed reading an old newspaper. The date had leapt out at her: 1 December. The day she always sent her Christmas letter. A combination of exhaustion and worry about Ig had swept over her. She’d decided she wouldn’t send a letter at all this year. See if it mattered. If anyone even noticed . . .
So how had this happened? How on earth had Joan received it?
Joan was still reading aloud. Angela asked her to stop. Joan was her best friend. They’d shared secrets for years. Even so, the thought of her knowing all this – Angela’s headache started up.
‘Joan, I can’t understand it.’
‘You want me to read more?’
‘No, I can’t understand how you got it. Yes, I wrote it but I decided not to send it. I took your advice, wrote the truth for once. I even imagined you there beside me, urging me on —’
That was it! Joan had been on her mind as she wrote it. And in the fuss of Ig’s accident, rather than deleting it, she’d somehow, accidentally, pressed send and emailed it to Joan. Relief flooded through her.
‘It’s okay,’ Angela said, smiling into the phone. ‘I think I’ve worked out what happened. Oh, thank God it was only you. Joan, please, can you delete it? Right now? Every word of it? Then forget you ever read it?’
‘Of course.’ There was a pause. ‘But what about the others?’
‘What others?’
‘The other one hundred people on your mailing list.’
‘What?’
‘Angela, it didn’t just go to me. It looks like it went to everyone you know. All their names are right here on the email.’ She began to read them. Angela recognised name after name. All their neighbours in the Flinders Ranges. Nick’s relatives around Australia. Her old schoolfriends and distant relatives in England. People in Port Augusta. Ig’s school principal in Adelaide. Their local member of parliament . . . Name after name after name.
Angela’s hands were shaking. Oh God, Oh God. How had this happened?
Her voice was just a whisper. ‘Joan, what can I do? Is there a way of sucking emails back to the original computer?’
‘Like putting a vacuum cleaner on reverse? Oh, Ange, I’m sorry. No, I don’t think so.’
‘I’m dead. Nick will kill me.’
‘Not only Nick. I suspect the twins will too. Lindy won’t be happy either. Ig got off the lightest. He just sounds weird. The other three sound demented.’
Angela knew Joan was trying to lighten the mood, but she wanted to cry. ‘What am I going to do?’
Joan’s tone turned serious. ‘You definitely didn’t mean to send it?’
‘Of course not. I can’t even remember doing it.’
‘No matter. It’s done. So you have two choices. You can email everyone again and say it was a mistake and could they please delete it. Instant backfire. Those who haven’t read it will do so immediately. Or choice two, do nothing.’
‘Nothing?’
‘Nothing. That would be my advice. Brazen it out. Do nothing. Say nothing. Hope it just sinks without trace. Most people hate getting these Christmas l
etters and never read them anyway.’
‘You read it.’
‘You’re my oldest friend. Usually I loathe them. They’re nothing but smug lie recitals, in my experience. At least you told the truth this time. It is all the truth, I gather?’
‘Yes, but —’
‘Shush. Don’t explain it to me, either. Just say nothing.’
Another awful thought struck Angela. ‘Joan, is Celia’s name on the recipients’ list?’
‘Let me check.’
A minute passed. Angela crossed her fingers.
‘Yes,’ Joan said.
Angela’s headache started to pulse faster. ‘Oh no. Of all the people —’
‘Let me see what you said about her. Here it is. “Insufferable snob. Interfering old bat.” Beautifully put. You summed her up perfectly. I’ve known her for years, remember. She’s also got the hide of a rhino. This won’t change a thing.’
‘But she’s Nick’s aunt. His only aunt.’
‘So let Nick deal with it. If he can take his mind off his family tree or his Irish girlfriend for long enough. Will they get married in Adelaide or Dublin, do you think? You Catholics are allowed to divorce now, aren’t you?’
‘You’re not helping, Joan.’
‘Yes, I am. You can either laugh about it or kill yourself about it, and you’re my best friend and I don’t want you dead. So we’re going to laugh about it and we’ll get you through this together.’
‘I can’t even go into hiding. Half the people on that mailing list are invited to the woolshed party. I’ll have to cancel it. No one will want to come now anyway, will they?’
‘Are you joking? They’ll all come now. You’ll be turning people away. And you can’t cancel it. My freezer is full of cupcakes for that party. By the way, did Lindy get my cushion order?’
‘That was you?’
‘I used a friend’s credit card. After reading your letter, I thought she needed all the help she could get.’
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