‘A palomino.’
Bianca nodded.
Jackson raised his eyebrows, mirroring her seriousness. ‘So she’s pretty but why so expensive? After all, sounds like she’s only a little squirt like you.’
Bianca’s hand captured her giggle, covering teeth that would need braces before long.
Christina placed a hand on Jackson’s thigh, drawing his attention. ‘Beginners’ ponies are worth the money if they are genuinely bomb-proof and have the good looks to go with it,’ she said. ‘Plus if we buy Sugar, once Bianca outgrows her we’ll make our money back selling her on.’
Bianca gripped Christina’s arm. ‘No, Mum! You can’t sell her. I want to keep her forever.’
Christina stared down at her hand. A cut sliced a red line from thumb to knuckle. From the look of it, it was days old. Bianca didn’t run to her with ‘owies’ any more and for some reason this made her sad.
She turned to Jackson. ‘I’ve looked around and I can’t find another pony comparable to Sugar that’s within easy distance. There’s a nice little gelding north of Noosa but then we’ve got the hassle of floating it down from Queensland.’
Jackson turned to Bianca. ‘When’s your birthday again?’
Christina rolled her eyes. Unlike a lot of men she knew, Jackson never forgot any of the children’s birthdays. Hers he always forgot, but he knew full well that Bianca’s birthday was 21 March.
‘I’ll make you a deal, Busy Bee. If you promise Mum and me that you’ll look after her properly and ride her every day, I will buy Sugar for your birthday, but under no circumstances is she to be left in a paddock to rot. Do you understand?’
Bianca’s face crumpled and Jackson’s eyes widened in alarm. Christina opened her arms and a grateful Bianca slid into her embrace.
‘Do you promise, Bee?’ Jackson reiterated, although with less conviction than moments earlier.
Her face pressed into Christina’s shirt, Bianca nodded. Christina stroked her hair, feeling the excitement bubbling inside her small frame. Jackson mouthed, ‘What’s wrong?’ and she whispered, ‘She’s happy.’
‘Oh,’ he mouthed and said, ‘Well shake hands then, Bee. It’s not a deal unless we shake on it.’ Bianca pulled away from Christina, dragged her sleeve across her face and offered Jackson her left hand. He laughed and said, ‘The other one, Bee. You shake with the other hand.’
Bianca blushed and swapped hands. They shook twice and Jackson released his grip.
Jackson’s face cracked into a giant smile. ‘Looks like you’ve got your first pony, Busy Bee.’
Bianca burst into tears and hugged Jackson so hard he had a bruise on his arm for a week.
First term at school was still fresh and optimistic when Bianca began her love affair with Sugar the Welsh Mountain Pony. Christina sat on a battered milk crate in the middle of the ring, singing out, ‘Up, down, up down, up down.’ Jackson straddled the fence and watched Bianca’s wobbly rising trot around the small arena. They both laughed when Sugar shook herself from head to tail and unseated a surprised Bianca.
The language of ponies made for easy friendships at Valley View Grammar School. Lead by Phoebe Kennedy, a gaggle of girls encircled Bianca. She was still her shy little self but at least she wasn’t alone and Christina counted that as a blessing. Bianca spent every second Sunday at the showground practising her flatwork and learning to jump under the penetrating eye of Mrs Pryde. She took instruction well and since she promised Jackson she would ride every day, she made quick progress. Her whim quickly developed into an obsession.
Jackson’s interest became obsessive too. He asked endless questions about pony club and what competencies Bianca needed to move from E to D grade. A number of times Christina caught him sizing up Sugar against the more stylish ponies of the older children.
The thing that made Christina laugh was that this man, who stepped around puddles rather than risk mud on his shiny RM Williams, loved helping groom and rug Sugar, even if it only meant holding the lead rope whilst Bianca or Christina did the dirty work.
‘It used to be that I could never find you, Jackson,’ Christina said one day on discovering Jackson sitting in the stable corridor with Bianca cleaning tack, ‘but these days the first place I look is the stables.’
Jackson laughed, threading the bridle back together as if he had been doing it his whole life. ‘I’m beginning to see why little girls like ponies, CC. They provide endless hours of distraction.’
Christina elbowed him in the ribs. ‘For Bianca yes, but you? Maybe it’s time you got your own pony. Then you’d have a decent excuse for hanging out here. Isn’t that right, Bee?’
Bianca gave her a watery smile and slipped away to the feed room to fetch hay. Christina watched her go, wondering at the sudden change in mood. Maybe she should have a chat to Jackson. He was very competitive, always on Bianca’s case about excelling at everything she did. Maybe he should just relax and let Bianca enjoy herself. She’d have to find the right time to talk to him though, he got a bit snakey if he thought she was interfering.
Jackson hung the bridle back on its hook and wrapped his arms around Christina’s waist. ‘I can just see myself on a stockhorse riding around the farm. Then Bee and I could round up the cattle together.’ He slipped away and stood in the doorway of the feed room. ‘You’d like that, Busy Bee, wouldn’t you?’
chapter twelve
Obtaining heritage listing for Bartholomews Run was proving much more complex than Christina had anticipated. She hated to think how many months of her time she’d invested in the project. And after today’s phone call, how many more it would take. Christina slammed down the phone and stomped into the kitchen. As she waited for the kettle to boil, she replayed the conversation.
The man from the Heritage Council told her she was welcome to nominate Bartholomews Run for heritage listing but whilst he appreciated the house had once been home to a minor, okay yes, he was prepared to concede, an important Australian painter, in order for her nomination to be successful, they needed a story.
‘What story?’ Christina asked. She already knew they needed a story. She wasn’t some local yokel who thought great- grandpop’s garden shed was historically significant. ‘What could be more substantial than the fact this was once Bartholomew Rivers’ house?’
‘Verification is the key word,’ he said. ‘For instance, which years did Bartholomew Rivers reside at the property? What significant alterations or additions did he make to the house and/or its surrounds? Which of his better known works can be proven to have been painted there? Supposition isn’t good enough. We need facts.’
Christina took her coffee out onto the terrace. The sandstone flagging was covered in yellowing leaves as the garden shed its summer coat and prepared for the bitter winter ahead. She usually found it soothing to look out over the pool and listen to the whipbirds calling to each other across the valley. Not today though. The man from the Heritage Council said that the physical buildings were an important time capsule to attach stories to, but it was the actual stories that brought a building to life and created that sense of interest and intrigue about what might have happened there in the past.
‘That is what prospective visitors want,’ he continued. ‘If you can find the story, Miss Clemente, then you can expect to see visitors by the busload.’
Christina tossed the dregs of her coffee over the garden. Like a petulant schoolgirl, she had wanted to shout, ‘But I have the story!’ However, she had to concede there were many, many gaps. There was an intriguing entry in that tombstone of a book on art history Australian Art of the Twentieth Century she had found at the Mitchell Library on a visit to Sydney. In the biography, it mentioned that Rivers was rumoured to have a penchant for sexual adventures with his models. A couple of lines in an old Sotheby’s catalogue said it was the model featured in Rivers’ painting The Ravishing of Sophia who was Mary Rivers’ bȇte noire. It was impos
sible to build a credible story when there was so little correspondence beyond the odd receipt for materials or a bill of sale. As far as establishing provenance for the house or the man, Christina had fallen far short of the man from the Heritage Council’s final stipulation: ‘It must capture the cultural imagination.’
She had managed to track down some pencil drawings and the odd charcoal sketch. The Ravishing of Sophia was in private hands but The Wallbuilders had vanished altogether. And either way, there was no proof Rivers had painted them here.
Although The Wallbuilders gave Christina an idea. What if the gardens were the key? She found a website that said listed gardens had to be an early or representative example of a style employed by a landscape architect of national importance. Constance Sutton may not have garnered the fame of a Paul Sorensen, but she was a protégée of Edna Walling and Bartholomews Run was an early example of her work. Plus she was a woman and there were few women represented in the ranks of landscape architects at the time. That had to be worth something. Reinvigorated, Christina determined she’d track down Sutton’s family and see if they had records of Constance’s plans for Bartholomews Run. Perhaps the way to unearth the true history of Bartholomew Rivers was via the women in his life. After all, they were his weakness, so Constance Sutton might be the key.
Her thoughts were interrupted by the sound of the front door opening. Christina checked her watch. Goodness, four-thirty already, where had the day gone? She shut her laptop and wandered out to find Bianca.
‘Hey, sweetheart,’ she sang out as she came down the hall.
Bianca stood at the pantry door with a guilty look on her face. Christina frowned then realised she’d caught Bianca red-handed with the chocolate biscuits.
Christina smiled. ‘Yes, you can have one. Here, pass them to me, I’m starving.’ Again she had forgotten lunch. They sat at the kitchen bench, the packet between them, munching away. Christina made herself a coffee and fetched Bianca a glass of cold milk.
‘Anything exciting happen today?’
Bianca went to say no but then her face lit up as she remembered she did in fact have news to share. She fumbled about in her schoolbag and retrieved a crumpled note.
Christina smoothed it out. ‘So Phoebe’s invited you for a sleepover. Is it her birthday?’ although as soon as the words left her mouth she remembered that Phoebe had had her twelfth birthday in the school holidays.
‘No, Mum. See, it says this is not a birthday party. So can I, pretty please?’
Sleepovers were a bone of contention in their household. Christina knew other parents were far more relaxed about their children staying over at friends’ places, but apart from Izzy’s and Maddy’s, Christina had never let Bianca go to anyone’s place overnight. It was all very well knowing the mothers but she rarely met any of the dads. It didn’t seem right to let a young child stay overnight in a stranger’s house. Bianca knew this, and the fact that Jackson agreed with her mother.
Seeing the hope written all over Bianca’s face made Christina feel bad but that wasn’t going to change anything. ‘Sweetheart, I know it’s Phoebe but it’s the rules.’
Bianca’s face went an angry red. ‘The other girls are going. I’ll be the only one who isn’t there.’
Christina presumed she meant the other girls from pony club. Not that that changed anything.
‘What other girls?’
They both spun around at the sound of Jackson’s voice. He’d appeared as if from nowhere, although he’d been locked in his office most of the day. Often their paths barely crossed. Not like the old days when Bianca being at school allowed for hours of unadulterated fun. On occasions Christina tried tempting Jackson into bed for some afternoon delight, but if and when he did say yes, it lacked the passion of their early days. She hoped it was age or familiarity and not that he no longer found her desirable. If she let it, it worried her, but she tried not to let it. He was with her, that’s what counted.
Christina looked to Bianca, waiting for her to explain, but Bianca seemed intent on studying the biscuit packet.
‘Phoebe’s invited Bee for a sleepover tomorrow night. I explained she couldn’t go.’ Christina knew she sounded defensive but she didn’t want Jackson thinking she was saying yes when they both knew the answer was always no.
‘Bad luck, Busy Bee.’ Jackson tousled her hair and reached into the fridge.
Christina wasn’t sure, but had Bianca flinched? She shook her head. The pair of them used to be the best of mates but the Bianca who couldn’t wait to go surfing or who cried with joy when Jackson bought her Sugar was a distant memory. Bianca was so prickly now and not just with Jackson. She often gave Christina a look of such sullen animosity that Christina wondered what on earth she’d done wrong.
Jackson drank the milk straight from the fridge, left the carton on the bench as he grabbed a handful of chocolate biscuits. ‘Do you want to go for a drive, Bee?’
Bianca looked startled. ‘I’ve got homework to do.’
Jackson laughed, ‘On a Friday night? C’mon Bee, live a little.’
Bianca frowned at her hands. Christina shook her shoulder gently. ‘Yeah, Bee, c’mon. Maybe you could drive us down to the bottom paddocks and we can check on the cattle. Lulu might have had her calf by now.’
Jackson shook his head. ‘No can do. I’ve got a mountain of crap in the ute. There’s not enough space for the three of us.’
Christina sighed. ‘I may as well get started on dinner then.’
Seeing Bianca’s downcast face she added, ‘It’s all right, Bee. You and I can go for a drive tomorrow instead. Just the two of us.’
Bianca slid off the kitchen stool, mumbling that she’d better get changed.
‘Don’t bother, Busy Bee. We won’t be that long.’ Jackson herded her out the door, saying, ‘We’ll feed the horses when we’re done.’
They didn’t return until darkness had well and truly descended. Bianca rushed past Christina straight for the bathroom and locked herself in. Jackson sauntered in after her.
‘What’s wrong with Bee?’ Christina asked him.
Jackson shrugged. ‘Buggered if I know. Ask her yourself.’
After watching Bianca pick her way through dinner, her head resting on one elbow, Christina knew there was definitely something wrong. When Bianca excused herself, Christina followed her into her bedroom. Bianca’s eyes were squeezed shut, Bluey Baa-Baa clasped to her chest, but Christina could tell she was not asleep.
‘What’s wrong, Bee?’ she asked, sweeping a curl from her face.
Bianca swatted her hand away. ‘Don’t, Mum.’
Surprised, Christina nursed her hand. ‘There’s no need for that, Bianca. I just wanted to know if you were all right.’
Bianca rolled over. ‘Why won’t you let me stay at Phoebe’s tomorrow night? Her parents are really nice.’
Christina sighed. They had had this conversation so many times and each time it ended with Bianca either in tears or screaming at her that it wasn’t fair. But despite all the arguments, Christina was not prepared to back down on this issue. ‘You know the reasons, Bee. I don’t know Phoebe’s parents from diddly squat. I’m sorry that you disagree but if that’s what’s upsetting you, I’ll say my goodnights and hope you wake up in the morning in a better mood.’
She switched off Bianca’s light and pulled the door shut. Jackson had already gone to bed so she finished loading the dishwasher and joined him. Jackson rolled over and spooned her from behind. ‘Did you talk to Bee?’
Christina snuggled into his lap. ‘She wouldn’t talk to me.’
Jackson chuckled. ‘Welcome to the next six years of your life, CC.’
She turned to face him. ‘Meaning?’
Jackson pulled a pained expression. ‘Teenagers.’
Christina sighed. He was probably right. He’d been there before, after all. She reache
d for his hand and pressed it to her breast, hoping for a response.
Jackson yawned. ‘God, I’m knackered,’ and rolled over to the other side of the bed.
Clutching the spare pillow to her chest, Christina waited for sleep to overtake her.
Through the winter and well into the following summer, Christina scrutinised the bones of the garden, sketchpad in hand. The dry-stone walls arced and spanned the acreage closest to the house, a rib cage to the house’s sternum. The Great Depression had led to legions of unemployed men labouring to first dig out the ironstone and then build these distinctive walls at sites across the Blue Mountains. She examined where the walls met the gateways, searching for a mason’s signature in the rock, hoping for a symbol akin to the convict arrows found all over early Australian buildings. But it seemed this particular army of dislocated men had disappeared without leaving their mark, much like the painting they had inspired.
Constance Sutton’s garden gave her nothing that satisfied the criteria of ‘capturing the cultural imagination’. But as she documented the garden, Christina did find other curiosities, hangovers from the Edwardian era – a grotto, a folly and a rather wonderful garden theatre.
‘In Rivers’ artistic circles,’ she enthused to a reluctant Jackson, dragging him around the overgrown hedges of the theatre, ‘there must have been plenty of would-be thespians to grace the garden stage – especially the pretty girls that Rivers was so fond of.’
‘What man isn’t fond of pretty young girls?’ Jackson said, pulling her close.
Christina slapped him away, laughing. ‘I didn’t say young. Well, maybe, as in, not illegal, but certainly too young to be having relations with a much older man.’
‘It didn’t stop you.’ Jackson snatched her back and kissed her. Christina squirmed with delight. Yesterday Jackson had knocked on the door of the room she used as an office. Not really an office but a quiet space beneath a window with a view of the garden. Taking her hand, he had lead her down to the cabana by the pool. There on the pool lounges he had done things to her that reminded her of their early days.
The Making of Christina Page 13
