‘Threatening? I’ve done nothing of the sort,’ he said, with great dollops of childlike innocence and well-practised sincerity. ‘My visits have simply been a way to remind you of the special bond we share. And the only person who’d lose if the police were to visit would be you.’ He turned to Tansy. ‘Yes, dear, please do call the police and have them come up. I can give my statement immediately, detailing exactly what I witnessed your . . .’ He halted, a hand to his chin. A scholar’s expression. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t catch exactly how you two are connected?’ He waited.
‘Maria’s my aunt,’ Tansy said uncertainly.
His face broke into a wide smile. ‘A niece? Maria, how wonderful for you. I’m sure you’re relishing reconnecting with your family at this time of your life. And I’m equally sure you’d be sad to lose them again.’
‘Who are you?’ Tansy said, gathering some defences now. ‘What are you doing breaking into Maria’s home and leaving a horrid note—’
‘Two notes,’ Maria corrected her.
‘Two horrid notes,’ Tansy repeated. ‘And why are you dressed like—’ Her voice faltered. She clapped a hand across her mouth and gasped from behind her fingers. ‘I know who you are.’
Ian beamed. ‘Always a pleasure to meet a member of the faithful,’ he said, bowing his head condescendingly.
‘Archbishop Ian Tully,’ Maria confirmed. ‘You’ve likely seen his picture.’
‘I’ve seen you preach,’ Tansy said, her voice laden with confusion and dismay.
‘I do hope it was one of my better sermons,’ Ian said.
‘Oh, cut it out,’ Maria said. ‘Get to the point. What do you want?’
‘You know what I want,’ he said. His presence loomed large in her small home. The austere black frock seemed to drain all the light from the room. He radiated arrogance and fearlessness. But he couldn’t be entirely fearless, she reflected, or he wouldn’t be here. ‘You want silence,’ Maria said sadly. ‘You want it now like you wanted it then. I was a fly in your ointment then and I still am.’
‘Very good,’ he said, with a small nod of acknowledgement. ‘But you and I both know this isn’t a one-way street. Is it? You want something from me in return. You wanted it then and, as you say, you still want it now.’
‘What’s he talking about?’ Tansy said.
‘I’m sure spending the rest of your days in jail was never in your life plan,’ he said, still addressing Maria.
‘I had no life plan other than to serve God and the people who needed me. You, on the other hand, were corrupted by the power bestowed on you by—’ Maria almost said ‘God’, because that was what she’d been trained to believe. She lowered her voice. ‘Did you ever care about your people?’
He flicked a finger to the scar above his eye, faded now after many decades but still visible. ‘You know I did.’ His voice betrayed genuine hurt at the suggestion that he was only a calculating yes-man and never a servant of God. He had been one once, she had to admit. The homeless were his particular passion, which was how he got that scar, attacked once with a broken bottle in the streets of Fortitude Valley in the early hours of the morning.
Somewhere deep inside herself she could even admit that he had, in all likelihood, entered the priesthood for the right reasons. But somehow those reasons had long been forgotten in favour of politics, power and notoriety. And those original intentions didn’t make up for everything he’d done since.
Maria looked to the heavens and took a breath. Beside her, Tansy was still standing with the mobile phone clutched in her hand, seemingly struck dumb by the sight of the archbishop here in front of her. Maria spoke quietly but sternly. ‘I’m still serving the people of this world who cannot defend themselves. The most vulnerable, the poorest, the ones others have given up on. Are you?’
He lifted his chin to peer down his nose at her, but said nothing.
‘If it’s in God’s plan for me to go to jail, well, of course I’m only human and I’ll feel . . .’ She trailed off. Devastated was the word that came to mind. ‘But I’ll also know that I’ve been called there to serve my fellow inmates, because that’s what Jesus would do. Can you say the same?’
‘This isn’t over,’ he said quietly.
Maria went to the screen door and opened it wide, stepping out to direct Ian out of her house. He glided out of the room in a sweep of long black robes. He stopped briefly in front of Maria and opened his mouth to speak, but she got in first.
‘I’m prepared to live with my actions,’ she said. ‘The question is, are you?’
Without a reply, he turned and left, his hands clasped behind his back, making his way along the little worn grass path that led to the car park and loading dock. It was only when she heard his car jump throatily to life and the wheels crunch over the stones and begin the long descent down the hill to wherever he had come from that Maria began to shake.
She had to make some big decisions.
But right now, she just let herself melt into the warm, firm embrace of Tansy, who’d come to her side once more and wrapped her arms around her.
‘Oh, Maria, what have you done?’
22
The sun was recently up, but was still gathering its strength. Tansy, Dougal, Leo and Enid stood in a circle in the lounge room. Tansy clutched the car keys in her hand, biting her lip.
‘Well.’ Dougal smiled, addressing Leo and Enid. His bulging suitcase rested near his leg. ‘This is it. I’m off.’ He slid one hand across the other, nervous.
Leo cleared his throat. He still looked sleepy, and his shoulders were slightly hunched. ‘I could come,’ he said. ‘I can get a friend to take notes in today’s lectures and I could see you off properly.’ His mouth twisted into a cheeky smile. ‘I could wave flags and hold up a banner and everything, my nose pressed to the glass.’
Dougal inhaled and clasped his hand around the back of Leo’s neck and rubbed it vigorously. ‘Not a chance. You should be at uni. I’m so proud of you,’ he said, his voice threatening to crack.
‘Oh, come on.’ Leo placed the heel of his hand to the side of his head, not knowing what to do with the emotions so obviously just below the surface.
‘I mean it,’ Dougal said, giving him an I’m serious face. ‘I can’t wait to get the photos from the graduation ceremony. I’m only sorry I won’t be here.’
‘It’s okay.’ Leo shot Tansy a quick glance and she raised her eyebrows in return. None of them had told Dougal that Leo was thinking of quitting.
Do lies of omission count?
‘You’ve turned into such a fine young man,’ Dougal said, as if he couldn’t quite believe it himself. And he pulled Leo to him for a strong, manly hug. They patted each other on the back and then stepped back, neither daring to look at the other in case they broke down.
‘I hope the flight will be safe,’ Enid said. She’d spent much of last night expressing her concerns about the safety of airlines these days, discussing the likelihood of planes being hijacked or shot down from the skies or disappearing over oceans.
‘It’ll be fine, Mum,’ Tansy said, a little prickly. The last thing she needed was to imagine horrible things like that. ‘It’s Qantas.’ She didn’t know why that was supposed to make it all better, but it felt good to say it.
Enid pressed three straight fingers to her lips and drummed them there as though she wasn’t convinced but was trying to restrain herself.
‘Oh, wait, I have this, too,’ Leo said, composed once more. He pulled two long straps of woven leather from his pocket. ‘Hold out your arm,’ he instructed, and Dougal did as he was told. Leo fastened one strap around Dougal’s wrist as he explained, ‘I got them at the uni market day this week. They’re locally made and stamped with starfish. See?’ He turned over his father’s wrist and they all leaned forward to peer at the workmanship.
‘So it is,’ Enid murmured.
Leo then fastened the other leather strap around his own wrist. ‘I thought it would be funky if we both had o
ne, each wearing it on the other side of the world. And you’d be reminded of the beach, with the starfish.’ Even as he spoke, Leo’s face had begun to colour with a wave of doubt. ‘Of course, if you don’t like it, that’s okay too . . .’ he trailed off.
‘I love it,’ Dougal said, and pulled his son into his arms for a final goodbye. ‘I won’t take it off, I promise.’
Tansy eased her nerves by relaying facts about Canada as she drove.
‘Did you know that Canada is the second-largest country in the world? Russia’s the first.’
‘No, I didn’t,’ Dougal said, sipping from his takeaway coffee cup. ‘Mmm, that’s good coffee. I’m going to miss Australian coffee. One thing I don’t know is what Canadian coffee is like, but if it’s anything like American coffee I’m in a lot of trouble.’
‘I should have made you one,’ Tansy said, her nose pinching with threatening tears. ‘Like I used to when I first met you.’
Dougal put his hand on her leg. ‘You’ll always be my barista babe,’ he said. ‘No one could ever make a coffee anywhere near as well as you.’
They both got a little giggly then, as though everything that had happened between them in the past week had simply vanished. A pressure valve had been released and they were suddenly Tansy and Dougal again—best mates, lovers, a perfect pair. Returned to a time before there was any suggestion of children or any alarming thoughts about where their future was going. When it was as simple as that she loved him and he loved her.
She slid him a sneaky sideways glance as she finished overtaking a car on the highway and set the Audi to cruise control once more. ‘Do you think it’s going to rain today?’ She spoke breathily, to alert him to what she was doing. She was going back to the time when he would drop into her cafe in a busy Brisbane street each morning. For weeks, they’d played a game of cat and mouse, and it always began with her asking him if he thought it would rain.
Beside her, Dougal smiled. ‘Not possible,’ he said seriously, playing along.
‘Why not?’ she said.
‘Because of that smile of yours—it’s so full of sunshine it would dry up all the tears in heaven.’
‘That’s quite a line you’ve got there,’ she said, playfully admonishing him.
‘Is it working?’ he asked innocently.
‘Come back tomorrow and we’ll see.’
At this point, she would always hand him his coffee and wave goodbye. And each day they enacted this exchange again, until the day when she asked him if he thought it was going to rain and he said, ‘I don’t care.’
She’d been taken by surprise, and turned off the steam in the milk so as not to burn herself. She’d peeked over the coffee cups at him. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I don’t care if it rains, because I’m prepared for anything. I’ve got an umbrella, snow boots, sunscreen, gumboots, a beach towel, you name it. And come rain, hail, shine or heatwave, I’m going to take you to dinner.’
And so he did, to a classy, softly lit restaurant on the river, the lights of the Story Bridge in the distance and party boats floating on the water. And then she’d gone home with him, on the first date—something she’d never done before. But it felt so easy and natural and she couldn’t keep her hands off him.
Weeks later, Dougal confessed that he’d fallen in love with her that night, the instant she dunked a piece of garlic bread in her red wine. Who did that? When he mentioned it to her, she had no recollection of having done it and was searingly embarrassed. ‘It was totally endearing,’ he said. Then he told her he’d spent most of the years since breaking up with Rebecca alone. He focused on work and his time with Leo, determined to do the best he possibly could in each. It meant he had largely given up on a social life and leisure time, but he was committed to getting at least one thing right. The shame of a failed marriage, broken hearts and upturned lives, was a wound he was constantly healing. Until he met her and unexpectedly felt worthy again.
‘I’m so glad you didn’t turn out to be a cad,’ she said now, exiting the highway towards the Gateway Motorway and Brisbane international airport.
‘I’m so glad you married me,’ he replied.
‘Me too,’ she said.
‘I guess you’ll be doing this drive again soon,’ he said, stretching his arms up and over the back of the headrest. ‘Do you have any idea yet when you might be coming over to join me?’ His voice was tentative, but he still sounded upbeat. Ninety-nine per cent confident she would keep her word and join him. ‘No pressure, of course—I know you’ve still got stuff to work through here with your family and all.’
‘I’m not sure yet. And you’re right. I’m worried about Maria, actually.’ She told him about what had happened yesterday with Archbishop Tully in Maria’s home.
‘This is unbelievable,’ Dougal said, shocked. ‘This story should be on an investigative journalist’s desk. This is not normal.’
‘Yeah, I know. It’s beyond crazy. I asked Maria to tell me what she’d done but she said it was a long story and it would have to wait until I could next get up there.’
Dougal nodded. ‘And when will that be?’
Tansy laughed. ‘This afternoon, I’d say. Could you leave a mystery like that hanging?’
‘No.’
‘Besides, I’m going to need a distraction after letting you go at the airport, something to stop me from falling apart.’
He reached his hand over and she dropped her left hand off the steering wheel to hold it. She waited until the tightness in her chest eased. ‘And the fete’s this evening, so Mum’s got the last bake-athon happening today with her new BFF, Paula. They’ll be taking over the house again.’
They’d reached the turn-off to the airport now, slowed down by traffic but still moving steadily forward. Tansy’s belly began to swirl. ‘Nearly there,’ she said, pulling a sad face.
Dougal began to hum.
‘What are you . . . ? Stop that.’
He was humming John Denver’s ‘Leaving On A Jet Plane’.
‘You know that song always makes me cry,’ she said, slapping him on the thigh.
He laughed and held up his hands in surrender. ‘Okay, okay. Sorry.’
All too soon, they were entering the winding laneways of the entry to the international airport, with planes taking off overhead, multistorey car parks, taxis, rental cars, buses, and the train line above them.
Tansy found a park and they unloaded Dougal’s cases and put them on a trolley from a nearby rack. They stood on the bitumen and looked at each other, the wind buffeting Tansy’s hair, roaring jumbo jet engines on the other side of the terminal. People rushing. Children crying. Trees gusting in the wind.
‘So this is it,’ Tansy said, tears falling now.
‘Not for long,’ Dougal said, pulling her to him. ‘I’ll see you again soon. And I’ll call you as soon as I can.’
She nodded, not trusting herself to speak.
‘You coming in?’ he murmured into her ear.
She nodded again.
‘Okay. Let’s get this show on the road.’
He took her hand and together they walked into the terminal.
This morning’s markets had been business as usual for Maria—a standard amount of money went into the collection tin, sales were decent, people were generally in a good mood. She’d packed up and gotten home easily by early afternoon. And now, she was waiting for Tansy to arrive.
The time had come at last. This afternoon, she would take Tansy to the prettiest spot on the hill, with servings of her homemade mead, and she would confess for the first time—to a human being—what she had done. She needed the practice; it wouldn’t be long before she would be telling her story to the investigating officer—George something, if her memory served, though she’d tried hard to forget.
Maria made one batch of mead a year, and kept a small supply on hand at all times, deep in the back of the pantry in her kitchen. The proceeds of everything she produced went to the children in Cambodia, so
taking honey for mead did seem extravagant. It took four kilos of fresh honey to make a batch, so she only liked to do it once each spring when the honey was flowing like sparkling rivers of gold. She followed as closely as she could the way the monks had traditionally made it, as far as she knew. She blessed the rainwater from the tanks before adding it, and fed the yeast raw sugar and crushed sultanas to get it going. She loved watching the mead move through its different stages, bubbling as the carbon dioxide rose to the surface. She would strain off the sediment from the dead yeast, add more honey and water and brew again. Strain again. Then bottle and seal with cork and hot wax stamped with the Honeybee Haven logo, a bee on a sunflower.
All things changed. Mead was a living product that started as one thing and ended as something totally different, just by putting those separate things in contact with one another. Just like humans. The people and circumstances that touched us changed us all.
She decanted some mead into a glass jug. Rich amber in colour, it had the consistency of port and smelled a little the same, but with more floral overtones. She swirled it around the jug and watched it cling to the sides as a good wine should. She resisted sipping some now and instead added more honey, stirred it with a spoon and placed it in the fridge. She checked the time—about two hours before Tansy arrived, the perfect length of time to chill the mead.
Maria greeted Tansy out in the car park with her basket in hand. ‘How are you?’ she asked, genuinely concerned. Tansy looked pale and her eyes red. She couldn’t imagine how hard it would have been for her to say goodbye to Dougal.
Tansy got out of her car and took a deep breath of the cool mountain air. ‘I’m okay,’ she said. ‘Not ready to party or anything, but okay.’ She smiled heavily.
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