Another half-hour and she’d be finished in time for Paul, when he came in, to look at and hopefully approve the alterations. This would allow her enough time to go and watch Sam at football practice before he finished. He had just started training after school and was in the local under-sevens’ rugby team. It was a joy to watch his intense expression as he listened to the coach and went through various exercises and ball passing.
The second Friday in March was Sam’s sixth birthday and he woke at 6.30 am to open his presents, which meant everyone else in the cottage was woken up too. The new football boots and jersey were enthused over, as was Angie’s gift of a set of G.I. Joe action figures. If he was disappointed that he didn’t get the push-bike he’d hoped for, he didn’t show it, and as soon as the hour was decent he rushed off to the Loongs’s caravan to show Su Lee his goodies before they went to school.
‘It’s going to be a long day,’ Carla murmured, stifling a yawn.
‘And a longer night seeing that we’re taking him and the Loongs into town for a birthday dinner. I thought it very grown up of Sam to want dinner instead of a kid’s party,’ Angie said.
‘That’s because he doesn’t know the kids at school that well, and I think he’s overheard us talking about expenses. He knows money’s tight.’ Carla shook her head, her expression mirroring her frustration at not being able to give Sam everything she wanted him to have. ‘One day I’m going to be able to give him what he wants when he wants it.’
‘Oh, I don’t know. It’s character building to wait for what one wants. My parents used to tell me that. Unfortunately, when I was seven and eight, I didn’t quite understand what the phrase “character building” meant.’
Carla chuckled. ‘I know what you mean. There wasn’t much spare cash in our house either, especially after Mum and Dad separated.’ She glanced past Angie to the kitchen window. The sun was bright, the sky cloudless—another hot one on the way. ‘What’s on the agenda today?’
‘Tran and I will be doing random checks on the grapes for sugar content—the Baume test. We keep a close watch on the sugar content using a refractometer, to see if it’s on the rise. That tells us it’s close to harvest time, and we’ll also check the acid levels.’ She then added, ‘We depend on the weather reports too. A severe storm or hail now, or in the next week or so, could be disastrous for the harvest.’
‘I’ve noticed quite a few backpackers coming into town. Word must be out that the Barossa will be harvesting soon.’
Angie nodded. ‘They have an effective verbal grapevine, if you’ll pardon the pun. Soon the place will be lousy with tourists as well as pickers.’
Carla got up, gathered the breakfast plates and cups and washed them. ‘I’m going to jump in the shower before Sam comes back. Tonight, will you bring him and the Loongs into town?’
‘Sure,’ Angie agreed. ‘What time?’
‘Make it 6.45. Paul and I will meet you at the restaurant.’
‘Oh, Paul’s coming.’ Angie wiggled her eyebrows. ‘Not Josh?’
‘I couldn’t not ask Paul, when he’s been so…helpful. Josh has something on tonight,’ Carla said, knowing the excuse sounded lame. She loved Angie but she wished she would stop trying to matchmake. She was perfectly content with her life the way it was and she did not need a man to be…complete.
With Sam’s birthday cake and candles ensconced in the restaurant’s kitchen, Paul and Carla waited for the Loongs, Angie and Sam to arrive. They were sitting in an outdoor section of the large restaurant that had a covered pergola for warm evenings.
Paul ordered a bottle of white wine and, sitting opposite Carla, grinned at her growing nervousness. ‘You’re more excited about Sam’s birthday than he is.’
‘It’s his first birthday without his grandfather. I’m hoping he won’t be upset. He’s a sensitive kid, you know,’ Carla responded. She noted how nice Paul looked in his suit and tie, and that he’d ‘dressed’ because it was a special occasion.
‘Like his mother,’ Paul quipped, watching her rearrange the cutlery on the table.
Retaliating, she poked her tongue out at him, seconds before the drink waiter brought and poured the wine.
Lifting his glass in a formal salute, Paul murmured, ‘To a pleasant evening.’ Then, surprisingly, his features became serious and his tone thoughtful as he remarked, ‘Lisa and I used to come to this restaurant on special occasions, you know.’ Then he corrected himself, shaking his head. ‘No, how could you possibly know that.’
‘Brings back sad memories?’
He breathed in deeply and reflected for a moment or two: ‘Some sad but mostly happy ones. We had a wonderful relationship. Lisa was a strong-minded woman though,’ his eyebrow lifted meaningfully, ‘like someone else I know. I didn’t want her to go to Botswana for a year but she insisted that she had to, because people needed her. She said she would be fine.’
‘I understand,’ Carla commented and then revealed, ‘I didn’t always like Derek going to sea but he loved what he did and he told me that accidents at sea rarely happened.’ She looked away and said, ‘He was wrong.’
Paul nodded understandingly. ‘After Lisa left, I got stuck into building the house. I intended it to be finished by the time she came back.’ His tone quietened, almost as if he were thinking out loud. ‘And, well, after…you know, it gave me something to concentrate on.’
Carla gave him a gentle smile. It was rare for Paul to talk about those who’d played an important part in his life. Not that he was a secretive person, she believed it was because he didn’t think people would be interested. Angie was the one who had the knack of being able to get him talking about himself. They knew what had brought him to the Barossa: his uncle’s illness; that his parents had died when he was a young man; that he had a sister living with her husband in Denmark; and that once he had nurtured the dream of becoming a professional basketball player, until a not totally successful knee operation had put him permanently out of the game.
He could still be emotionally involved with his dead fiancée, Carla realised, all of a sudden. Oh, yes! Love, she knew, wasn’t something one could turn on and off like a tap. But then she had no more time for mentally ruminating about Paul’s past because the Loongs, Sam and Angie arrived and the following minutes were busy with getting them settled, ordering drinks and surveying menus.
Sam looked grown-up in his long trousers, white shirt and striped tie with his hair combed and neat. Carla’s throat tightened as she looked at him. He was growing up so fast, too fast! His baby days were way behind him and he really was the little man now. Her father would be as proud of him as she was, she thought, as Derek would be.
Kim, sitting on Carla’s left, leant towards her. ‘Main courses very expensive. Yes?’
‘You’re not to worry about the price, Kim. It’s my treat.’ Carla smiled at her. ‘My way of saying thank you to you, Tran and Su Lee for the support you’ve given Sundown Crossing. Order whatever you fancy. I insist!’ And she made sure that everyone did.
‘One day we have restaurant, not like this, but we have one,’ Kim said to Tran and Su Lee.
Tran, quiet when in mixed company, was moved to add cockily, ‘Ours will be better than this, Kim.’
‘What type of restaurant do you envisage, Kim?’ Paul asked with interest.
‘I like to cook Vietnamese food for customers. What I know best, and some English dishes too.’
‘Well, with what I’ve seen of the Barossa there’d be more scope for your kind of establishment in Gawler or Elizabeth because of their larger population,’ Angie said.
On the other side of the restaurant a party of five were tucking into their entrées. The Stenmarks rarely dined out and were only doing so because Greta had ordered a new kitchen for Stenhaus and it would be another twenty-four hours before their cook could work in it.
The Stenmarks, all immaculately and expensively dressed, made an imposing tableau at their table which overlooked the garden. Lisel stood out in her p
ink, shoestring-strap frock. On arrival Carl insisted they have the best table in the restaurant and had, naturally, considering the Stenmarks’s importance in the Valley, been given it.
From his seat near the outdoor section Luke was the first to notice Carla and her entourage. He deemed it wise to say nothing, deciding that ignoring the potential awkwardness of Carla being in close proximity to his grandfather was the best way to go. His mother, he knew, was more eager to see and speak to her younger brother’s offspring but she hadn’t been game enough to approach Carla because she knew that Grandfather would be annoyed if she did.
‘You seem preoccupied tonight, Luke,’ John Michaels said. ‘Something on your mind?’
‘Sorry. Just thinking about the harvest, how close it is.’
‘It’s going to be a bumper year. Josh reckons we’ll exceed 1993’s production,’ Lisel chimed in.
‘That was a very good year,’ Carl agreed. ‘The best ever in the Valley, though some growers might dispute that.’
Waiters brought the main course and the conversation around the coming harvest continued.
‘All the growers are optimistic about this year’s harvest,’ John passed on what he’d heard at the most recent Winegrowers Association’s meeting. ‘Conditions have been perfect for all grapes, table grapes included.’
Greta Michaels, bored with talk about the coming harvest, rolled her eyes. She put her knife and fork together and pushed her plate away. Glancing towards Lisel, she said, ‘I’m going to powder my nose before dessert. Coming?’
Lisel nodded. ‘Why not?’
The women left the men to their discussion.
On the way back from the ladies’ room Lisel, always on the lookout for an attractive, unattached male, happened to glance into the outdoor section of the restaurant. She came to an abrupt halt on seeing Carla Hunter, Paul van Leeson and others at a table near the back wall. Greta, following close behind, cannoned into her.
‘Heavens, what’s the matter?’ Greta queried as she righted herself.
Lisel stared expectantly at her sister then at the table where Carla sat. Her features tightened with annoyance, her mouth twisting into a derisive line. ‘Over there,’ she whispered, pointing towards the table. ‘It’s Carla and,’ she saw the boy sitting next to the subject of her ire, ‘her bloody son. Eating with Paul van Leeson and the help, by the look of the other guests.’
‘Don’t be such a snob, besides, you couldn’t say that Paul is hired help,’ Greta chided. She moved around the side of Lisel to look at the table Lisel had pointed out. There was a sharp, indrawn breath then, ‘My God…It is true.’
‘Don’t say it,’ Lisel hissed crossly. ‘She does look like Mutter. So what! Wouldn’t need a paternity test to tell that she was related to us, would we?’ Lisel’s tone was sarcastic.
‘It’s a remarkable likeness and…she’s beautiful,’ Greta’s tone betrayed that she was impressed. ‘I didn’t expect her to be so…No one, neither you nor Luke said she was…lovely. And the boy, he’s so much like,’ her voice became softer, more emotional as her gaze met Lisel’s dark, unfathomable eyes, ‘Kurt.’
‘I know.’ Lisel’s eyes, almost black in the subdued restaurant lighting, stared intensely at her sister. ‘We’re not going to tell Papa,’ she said decisively. ‘He’ll want to leave if he knows Rolfe’s daughter is enjoying herself on the other side of the restaurant. We know how he feels about her.’
‘But…’ Greta frowned. Clearly she was not in favour of their father not being told.
‘Papa will get upset, Greta, you know he will.’ Lisel’s mouth pouted impatiently. ‘It’ll bring back the memories, of Kurt, of Marta, of what Rolfe did.’
Greta glanced again at the table where Carla and Sam sat, then across to their own table. Her expression implied that she wasn’t in total agreement with Lisel’s logic but, with a sigh, she let herself be persuaded. ‘All right.’
Had Lisel not been wearing the eye-catching pink frock, perhaps Carla would not have noticed her, but as she looked up, she did. Recognising her immediately, her gaze was then drawn to the woman walking behind Lisel. She was shorter and had different colouring but there was enough of a resemblance for Carla to assume that she was Lisel’s older sister, Greta. Still, she would like to be sure…she touched Paul’s sleeve to get his attention. ‘Over near the door, that’s Lisel Stenmark. The other one, is that her sister?’
She watched Paul nod that she had guessed correctly. How interesting. She reached for her wine glass and took a long swallow, trying to diffuse the anger, the sense of injustice that all too quickly began to take hold. They were her flesh and blood relatives, and they wouldn’t acknowledge or speak to her. Squinting as she concentrated, she followed the women’s path back to their table. Luke was there and his father—she knew John Michaels by sight though she had never spoken to him and another man, a man with pure white hair. A big man with squared shoulders who, why, yes, he looked as her father might have had he lived into his eighties. It was her grandfather. Carl Stenmark. The shock of seeing him for the first time made her grip the stem of the glass so hard she almost snapped it. Recovering, she drained the liquid and held it towards Paul for a refill.
‘I didn’t think you were much of a drinker,’ Paul commented as he filled her glass again.
‘I don’t normally but with them being over there, I have a reason to.’
Angie, her attention caught by Paul filling the wine glasses, followed Carla’s gaze. She saw the Stenmarks. Oh, no! Warning bells jingled inside her head as she summed up the situation. Carla was onto her third glass of wine and she was only a social drinker at the best of times. That fact, combined with dealing with the Stenmarks and their hostility was a recipe for what? Disaster. Even before she glanced at Carla’s face and recognised the gleam of battle in her eyes, she knew there would be trouble. Carla didn’t have red hair or a percentage of her mother’s hot Italian blood for nothing and she had railed more than once about the injustice and stupidity of the Stenmarks’s attitude towards herself and Sam. Now that sense of unfairness, inflamed by a little alcohol, could make a frustrated Carla do something she might later regret.
Licking the taste of wine off her lips, Carla rose from the table. ‘Think I’ll go and say hello to the rellies.’
‘That’s not a good idea,’ Angie shook her head at her friend. It was a decidedly bad idea! Having known Carla since she was twelve, she knew her moods and her passion well. She could read the signs of Carla’s growing anger. The flicking back of hair from her forehead, the squaring of her shoulders, the clenching of her hands into fists, the way her gaze narrowed in concentration. Oh, yes. Rolfe’s daughter was working herself into a straight-talking frenzy, and God help the Stenmarks if she really let fly.
‘The waiter is about to bring Sam’s cake,’ Paul told Carla. He was intuitive enough to latch on to Carla’s mood. ‘Look, it’s coming now.’
People at surrounding tables smiled, as did the Loongs, oohing and aahhing as a waiter brought the cake with its six lit candles to their table.
Distracted by the presentation of Sam’s cake Carla sat down as ‘Happy Birthday’ was sung. An excited Sam had no trouble blowing the candles out—he even allowed Su Lee to help—the cake was then sliced up and pieces put on plates and passed to everyone at the table.
Angie allowed herself a sigh of relief. Carla appeared to have forgotten about the Stenmarks. Her sense of serenity was short-lived. As members of the Stenmark family rose from their table, preparing to leave, Angie realised that Carla had only been biding her time. Jumping up before Angie could say a word to distract her, Carla began to move through the aisles between tables towards her objective. Angie and Paul exchanged glances.
‘This will not end well,’ Angie prophesied, helpless to change the course of events. Months of hard work, of putting up with Valley people’s attitudes towards their vineyard, the slights and the annoyances, had built a mountain of grievances in Carla’s mind and like it or
not the Stenmark family was about to be castigated.
‘If you like, I’ll run interference,’ Paul offered, ‘but I must say I have some sympathy for what you’ve both been put through.’ After getting Angie’s agreement he stood up and followed Carla but he wasn’t fast enough to reach her before she attracted the Stenmarks’s attention.
Lisel was first to see Carla bearing down on them. Her hands rose dramatically and she exclaimed as if she was only just aware of Carla’s presence. ‘Goodness, look who’s here! Must have a word with the maître d’. He’s lowering the restaurant’s standards by letting just anyone in to dine.’
‘And a good evening to you too, Aunt Lisel.’ She wasn’t going to let Lisel’s sarcasm rattle her. Inside she was buoyed by the wine she’d consumed, by her rising anger and the Stenmarks’s attitude towards herself and Sam. She turned to Luke. ‘You too, Luke. I see that the Stenmarks are out in force tonight.’
‘Hello, Carla,’ Luke replied quietly. His gaze became fixed on her, his expression betraying that he was concerned by what she might do or say.
Lisel moved so that she stood directly in front of Carla, as if protecting her father who was behind her, and following John Michaels to the restaurant’s front door. Her malicious gaze ran over her niece, cataloguing the value of the clothes Carla was wearing. ‘You might look like a Stenmark. Some people might have told you that, but that isn’t going to make you one,’ she sniped.
‘From a legal point of view, you’re wrong,’ Carla returned. ‘You know, I know, in fact everyone in the Valley knows that the same blood runs through both our veins, and that what happened between my father and yours, so long ago, has nothing to do with me or my son.’ She turned to her other aunt. ‘My father kept a journal and in it he wrote good things about you, Aunt Greta. He said you were a fair-minded, reasonable person. If that’s so, surely you see how outdated and foolish this,’ she sought a suitable word, ‘feud is.’
Clenching her jaw against Lisel’s bitchy look, Carla held out her hand to Greta. ‘Aunt Greta, I’m Carla.’ She smiled when a startled Greta, reacting spontaneously, shook her hand in return but wasn’t surprised when Greta remained mute. Her challenging gaze moved from one Stenmark to another until she locked onto her grandfather’s back. There was an obvious appeal in her voice as she addressed him, ‘Grandfather…’
Sundown Crossing Page 16
