Willow Tree Bend

by Kaye Dobbie

  ‘See how you go,’ Estelle had said, as she handed the bird over. ‘You might like a few more hens, too. That chicken farm I was telling you about closed, so I have plenty. They’re not very pretty to look at, but they’re the sweetest-natured girls.’

  I had five already so I said I’d think about it and told myself there was no reason to feel guilty.

  My grandmother was unimpressed with Gobble. The last night I had caught her eyeing him as if she was imagining him in a baking dish surrounded by vegetables.

  After her cleaning frenzy I’d thought she’d gone home, but it turned out there had been a bus trip booked and she was off for the day enjoying herself with her friends. Now she was back at my house and, when I’d tentatively asked her why, she’d just smiled serenely.

  ‘You really don’t have to stay, Gran. I’m used to being on my own.’

  She’d given me one of her looks. ‘I’m on my own, too, Sam. That’s why we should keep each other company.’

  I wasn’t sure what to say to that, apart from thank you, and then return her hug. Which was in itself rather disconcerting because Gran was not normally the hugging kind.

  I wished I knew what was going on, and I was sure that Gran did know—she just wasn’t going to tell me.

  Hope would be at the Willow Tree Bend cottage at eleven o’clock this morning—that was where Dad and I were meeting her. She’d have the film crew with her, all ready to film us as we welcomed her home.

  I frowned every time I thought of that—after I’d snorted in amusement. What did they want? Tears? I was looking forward to seeing my aunt, or at least I thought I was, but I resented being asked to perform for the camera. I’d wanted to say no, that I was too busy, but I couldn’t do that to my father. And then there was the question of my mother. Had Hope bothered to tell the show that her sister had taken off for Queensland? I knew Dad hadn’t said a word.

  It was going to be awkward but, really, it wasn’t my problem. They’d just have to sort it out between themselves.

  My smile turned slightly malicious. Lincoln Nash. How on earth had they managed to get him to agree to them using his place for their program? They must have offered him a wad of cash.

  My father had offered to pick me up and take me, but I’d said no, that I had things to do and would make my own way and meet him there. It wasn’t strictly true, but I figured that at least it would give me an escape if, after five minutes, I’d had enough.

  I glanced again at my watch and saw with annoyance that it was barely nine o’clock. I really couldn’t sit around waiting for the next two hours. Then I remembered I had been planning to put some seedlings into the garden at the front of the school, and I thought I may as well do it now as hang about. As long as I left enough time to come back and change into clean clothes, everything should be fine.

  I called out to Gran to tell her where I was going.

  ‘Make sure you put on a bra when you get back,’ she said, giving me the sort of look that made me want to cross my arms. ‘Why aren’t you wearing one now?’

  ‘It’s too hot.’

  Gran was a strong woman with a will of her own, but she wasn’t liberated when it came to underwear. We’d had this conversation before.

  I went to collect my work tools and stacked them in the back of the ute, and Mitch hopped in, too. I had thought he might stay home, despite Pompom’s presence. My grandmother had cooked a large pan of lasagne last night and there were plenty of leftovers, and she had been known to cave in to Mitch’s doggy pleading. Lasagne usually tipped the balance for Mitch so I tried to call him out, but he sat down and wouldn’t budge, and I didn’t have the heart to refuse him. I told myself I could bring him home when I changed. There’d be plenty of time.

  But in the end there wasn’t plenty of time.

  Planting the seedlings took longer than I’d expected because some kids who should have been enjoying their holidays turned up and wanted to help. Their parents thought it was a good learning experience, so I couldn’t really get all grumpy and say no. They were very enthusiastic—it was sweet really—but they weren’t quick. By the time I’d finished it was well after ten-thirty and there was no time to go home and shower, despite my sweaty state. Oh well, I thought with a grimace, too bad. What did it matter anyway? No one would be looking at me.

  I wiped my grubby palms down the legs of my jeans and climbed into the ute.

  ‘She’ll just have to take me as she finds me,’ I excused myself to the kelpie. ‘I don’t care if I’m not in the show.’ In fact, I wondered if, subconsciously, that had been my plan all along.

  Mitch wagged his tail in response.

  ‘You don’t mind how grubby I am, do you, boy?’

  The kelpie agreed he didn’t.

  I wondered if Lincoln Nash would notice my boots this time. I promised myself that if he stared I would do a little tap dance, just for him.

  The old cottage at Willow Tree Bend sat on a rise at the end of a long dusty road. The elevation gave it an advantage when it came to cooling breezes, and a view over the surrounding countryside, including the winding creek and the old willow tree.

  I was always surprised how small it appeared from the outside, especially as my mother and Hope had shared the front bedroom. They must have been treading on each other’s toes the whole time.

  As an only child I’d never had to share. I could remember going through a stage where I’d longed for a sibling, had begged my parents to have another child so that I wouldn’t be alone.

  ‘Not gonna happen,’ had been Faith’s response. ‘We had enough trouble getting you.’

  But being the only child had its advantages. I might have been lonely sometimes, and being the sole focus of my parents’ attention could be exhausting, but I couldn’t complain too much about my upbringing. Mum and Dad had been loving but strict, although I could always try to persuade them to my point of view, and sometimes I succeeded. Dad was the softy, but Mum made up for that with her strict guidelines and the lists of chores I had to finish before she would hand over my weekly pocket money.

  Yes, my mother was a strong person, not prone to sentiment, but the odd thing was that, occasionally, if I happened to look up when she wasn’t expecting it … she would be staring at me as if she couldn’t believe her luck.

  I slowed the ute on the unsealed road with its centre strip of old bitumen. Either side was bush, consisting mainly of the hardy stuff that seemed to proliferate in the gold-rush country around here. Trees which, with their thin, weedy trunks and grey, drooping foliage, gave the impression that they were only just hanging on until the next rains. It wasn’t true. In actual fact, the indigenous vegetation was very hardy—it had to be.

  As I pulled up I saw to my dismay that the film crew had already arrived. That shiny grey four-wheel drive must be theirs. They’d parked in the patchy shade of one of the gum trees, and the vehicle was empty. They must already be in the cottage.

  No sign of Dad yet.

  Damn! My stomach knotted and my hands tightened on the steering wheel. I’d been hoping he would be here, then at least there would be two of us to face Hope and her entourage.

  I turned off the engine and took a deep breath, slipping my keys into my pocket. There was a smudge of dirt on my arm, and I rubbed it off as best I could. A quick look in the rear-view mirror showed my face was flushed and my fair hair was flattened on the crown by the hat I’d been wearing to protect myself from the sun. Half-heartedly I tried to fluff it up, then abandoned the attempt and tucked the lank strands behind my ears.

  Was it too late to change my mind? But I knew I couldn’t, not if I wanted to get this over and done with. Otherwise Hope and her crew would probably pursue me all over the countryside. And what did it matter how I looked or what they thought? Surely the worse I looked the better my famous aunt would appear in comparison?

  Still feeling optimistic, I climbed out of the ute and Mitch joined me. I grabbed his leash and called him to my side as we starte
d up the worn track towards the gate. I could hear voices coming from outside the cottage, and one of them was definitely the carefully modulated tones of Hope Taylor.

  ‘Are you going to be good, Mitch?’ I asked my dog.

  It was a rhetorical question. He was usually well behaved in company.

  I stood there and, whether it was the sound of Hope’s voice, or this being the place where the sisters had grown up, I suddenly missed my mother. Here I had been resenting her absence and all of the complications it had caused, when really I was missing her terribly.

  She was the unflappable one, the one who would have taken charge and refused to allow us to be talked into doing anything we didn’t want to do. Without her … well, I was very much afraid that anything could happen.

  HOPE

  14 January 2000, Willow Tree Bend

  Prue had arrived to collect her on the dot of seven, just as she’d promised, and the journey out of Melbourne had been reasonably smooth. Ken, the camera operator, was young and scruffily dressed—or maybe that was just his idea of fashion. After Prue’s cool introduction—‘Remember Ken?’—he didn’t seem keen to chat and spent the time reading a book and frowning, although Hope noticed he wasn’t turning many pages. Perhaps he was a slow reader, but she thought, if the strained atmosphere between him and Prue was anything to go by, it was more likely they had had a tiff.

  Which suited Hope because it meant she could sit in silence and relax. Or at least try to. She hadn’t slept well. After her visit to the Angel, and her medical—which she’d flown through—she’d gone out to dinner with a couple of old friends.

  She’d expected to enjoy reminiscing, but by nine she’d pleaded jet lag and had returned to her hotel. As she’d walked past the eclectic collection of photographs in the lobby, those wane and hopeless faces, she’d wondered again about the homeless man and what he knew of Faith. Funny, but she’d thought her sister, if not quite an open book, wasn’t really that complicated. How wrong she had been!

  There were shadows in Faith’s past. How had it happened that they had never talked about what had made Faith so sad after she came back from Melbourne? It was true that when Faith went away, Hope had found it difficult to forgive her. Did it really all stem from something as childish as that? Could a festering resentment have turned them into strangers? Only, she told herself, they weren’t strangers, because Faith had rung her that night in New York to tell her … something. She had reached out to her sister, and Hope was damned if she was going to let her down.

  The only problem was Looking Back. She didn’t want them poking about into the past—especially, frustratingly, in Faith’s case—because she didn’t know what they might find.

  Her dinner friends had been quite vocal when it came to the program, telling her some worrying stories about their style of investigative journalism. Evidently one ‘guest’ had tried to sue them, but it was all hushed up—no doubt payments were made to ensure silence. To change the topic to something less disquieting, Hope had asked them about the state of the local film industry—they ran a small production company, so she thought they should know. They were upbeat and the situation sounded more encouraging than she’d imagined.

  They’d thought she was sussing them out because she was planning to relocate. It occurred to her that she could find work here in Australia, carve out a niche for herself, as other expatriate actors had done over the years. Until she remembered the reasons she had left in the first place.

  On the journey they stopped for takeaway coffee, and Hope sipped hers in silence, pretending to be engrossed in the scenery because she didn’t want to go over the schedule yet again. Prue was speaking to Ken, their voices too low to make out the words, but the tone was plain enough. They’d definitely had a tiff, and Hope was beginning to think it was personal. She could give them a lecture on the perils of mixing work and pleasure, but she doubted they’d want to hear it.

  The sun kept ducking behind clouds, so it wasn’t nearly as hot as it could be this time of year. Prue had told her it was forecast to be around thirty degrees in Golden Gully and Hope thought her outfit—dark slacks and a cream-coloured silk blouse—would be perfect, but she had a jacket, just in case. The idea was to look smart but not intimidating.

  Looking Back wanted it raw and real, but that didn’t mean one couldn’t look one’s best. Over the years, she’d modelled her appearance on a quote made by Vogue when her career in the US was just taking off. ‘Hope Taylor has the cool, blonde good looks of a Grace Kelly, only more approachable.’

  When they reached Golden Gully Prue drove straight through. It happened so quickly that Hope barely got more than a glimpse of Faith’s new Cantani Desserts shop. She did notice the old milk bar though, and the pub, and the park where the teenage kids had hung out, the boys eyeing off the girls, and vice versa. Not that Faith had ever done that. She’d preferred to set her sights on the city and the future she was planning, which was amusing really when it had been Hope who had set off to find fame and fortune, and Faith who had crept home and made do with Joe and a life in the country.

  That was unfair.

  One didn’t simply make do with the Cantani men. Hope found her gaze blurring and blinked hastily, several times, until the tears had gone. This wasn’t the time or the place to let her emotions escape the tight control she had on them. She glanced surreptitiously at Prue, to see if she’d noticed, but her PA was too busy shooting black looks at Ken.

  Willow Tree Bend cottage was around five miles from the centre of Golden Gully, but these days there were plenty of new houses trying to fill the gap. When they turned into the long driveway and the old cottage was finally in sight, Hope found herself remembering bits and pieces of the past as if it was yesterday, and with a clarity that astounded her. The day she decided she wanted to be an actress and her mother had said that was vanity, and she had some verses from the Bible to back it up. The day Faith left in Joe’s car, and without her the room they’d shared all their lives had seemed so big, so empty. The hot afternoon the big black car had stopped and the man behind the wheel had offered her a lift.

  ‘Here we are!’

  Prue’s voice made her jump. Hope managed a smile, telling herself once again this wasn’t the time to lose focus.

  ‘Tell us about the cottage,’ Prue suggested as they slowed, and Hope realised Ken had his camera trained on her face, waiting to capture whatever emotions might be fermenting inside her.

  She was too much of a professional to freeze up or turn away. Instead, she began to speak in a slightly breathless voice, as if she was a little overcome by the moment.

  ‘Well … I’ll try.’ Hope pretended to gather her thoughts, but in reality this was a speech she’d had prepared for some time. ‘The cottage was actually a two-room kit home. It arrived by ship from England around eighteen sixty, and was put together on site. Kind of like old-world Ikea. The Taylors, my father’s great-grandparents, were a family of seven by then, so I imagine it was extremely crowded in those two rooms. Later on they added another two rooms, with the sleep-out at the back. The kitchen used to be separated from the main house in the early days, in case of fire.’

  Prue smiled at her, looking inordinately pleased, so she carried on, talking about when she was a child and how she used to imagine those five Taylor children from the early days.

  ‘And did you ever see any ghosts?’ Prue asked, a twinkle in her eye.

  Hope lost her thread. She opened her mouth to answer, but unexpectedly she couldn’t think of anything to say. It was as if the synapses between her brain and her mouth had been cut, and there was a moment of total and complete panic, before yet again her training came to her rescue.

  ‘I think when a place has been in your family for so long, with that much history, it’s easy to imagine all those people still living there, along with you.’

  Prue opened her mouth to ask more, and there was a searching look on her face, as if she was aware that Hope was holding back, but lucki
ly she was distracted by Ken.

  While they murmured together, Hope narrowed her eyes against the sun’s glare. There was the window of the bedroom she had shared with Faith. Occasionally, when they were reduced to it by their mother’s strict rules, they had climbed out of that window and gone off to meet friends. Sometimes they climbed out just so they could sit on the creek bank, under the willow tree, and enjoy the cool night air.

  The willow was still there, older and more gnarled. If only those branches could talk, what tales they could tell.

  Prue had slowed right down. ‘Nice garden,’ she said. ‘Was it like that when you were here?’

  Hope tried to picture the garden, but she found it a blur. She was fairly certain it wasn’t as well tended and pretty as this. Lincoln Nash, the current occupant, must have a green thumb. There were a number of ornamental metal sculptures set among the shrubs—she noticed the silhouette of a crow that rocked gently on the breeze and would no doubt spin with a stronger gust of wind.

  She’d been told that Lincoln Nash was a musician, one of those flash-in-the-pan ones. Evidently the band had imploded, as so often happened with young men thrown together day and night, touring, tired and probably high on alcohol or drugs. They’d gone their separate ways.

  According to Prue, Lincoln was trying to resurrect his career, and had only agreed to allow them inside to film if they played one of his songs over the end credits. Hope had never heard of him, but she had no problem with that. To her mind, it showed entrepreneurial acumen and she had always admired someone who knew how to strike a good deal. She’d done it herself once or twice when pushed into a tight corner.

  Outside the car, the air felt warm and dry, and somehow … she recognised it. Those hot days of her childhood, she and Faith sitting under the pendulous branches of the willow, throwing pebbles into the creek, and talking. What had they talked about? She couldn’t remember exactly. Silly stuff mostly, dreams and their future, and which boy they were interested in this week. And then the day Faith had told her she was leaving. Hope hadn’t believed her at first, because they were supposed to be leaving together, but Faith was in earnest. She remembered jumping up and running back to the cottage, and her sister letting her go, not trying to stop her or comfort her. When Joe came to pick Faith up in his car, Hope had stayed away, refusing to say goodbye, she’d been so hurt and upset, so angry.