She grieved the Evan she knew – her husband, the boys’ father, her best friend, her lover, her lifelong mate. But then she hated him too. For what could he have possibly been doing in the streets of Sydney? She didn’t even know if it had been the first time he’d gone to Sydney without her knowing. He worked long hours in the restaurant; it wasn’t unusual for him to be gone eight hours or even twelve, coming home in the early hours of the morning. How many other times had he flown to Sydney without tellng her?
By the time Evan died, she no longer worked in the restaurant. She didn’t work anywhere outside of the home. She had a one-year-old and a three-year-old and could barely keep track of the days of the week, let alone worry about keeping track of Evan. He’d taken advantage of her commitment to their family.
In her most optimistic moments, she told herself he was there for something wonderful, organising some sort of marvellous surprise for her birthday or a long-overdue holiday. But she knew in her gut that wasn’t it.
The most logical conclusion was that Evan had a mistress in Sydney.
Then, sometimes, she went to even darker places. She wondered if he’d had links to organised crime. In her more hysterical moments, she even wondered if maybe he’d had a secret he was ashamed of, like being a drag queen or something.
All of this not knowing tainted their whole relationship; every single thing she’d thought was real between them was brought into question. Had their life together been a lie? She’d gone over everything again and again, trying to recall a conversation or hint that would have alerted her to what was going on. There must have been a clue there somewhere; she’d just missed it, too buried in the depths of child-rearing and sleeplessness. She’d phoned the police many times in the past two years, hoping for an update or a breakthrough in their search for the hit-and-run driver. But they’d had next to no leads. It had been late. The street was dark. It wasn’t the first time a driver had panicked, sped off and never been identified, and it wouldn’t be the last.
She checked the time and climbed back into her car, already counting the hours until she could go home and go to bed.
‘Shh!’ Margie pulled Krystal into the kitchenette of the school office.
‘What’s going on?’ Krystal whispered, already smiling because Margie had a glint in her eye that was as bright as a diamond.
‘We’ve got a new toaster,’ Margie said, nodding to the unopened box on the bench, then pushed the kitchenette door closed behind them. The hot water tank on the wall ticked as the thermostat kicked in, and the strip light above their heads buzzed aggressively.
‘Okay,’ Krystal said, trying to work out the catch. Margie’s amusement was electric in the air. Her straight blonde bob and demure work clothes were a total ruse; Margie was bad to the bone.
‘Quick, get it open before Janice comes back.’
Krystal did as she was told, ripping open the box and extracting the appliance from its plastic wrapping while beside her Margie carefully wrote a note with a thick black marker. Then she whipped out a roll of sticky tape and broke off a piece with her teeth. Krystal plugged in the toaster and Margie spun it around so that the lever and controls were hidden at the back against the wall, then taped her note on the side facing outwards.
Please note: Toaster is voice activated. Speak loudly and clearly.
“Toast!” to begin toasting.
“Pop!” to end toasting.
~ Thank you ~
‘Oh, you’re terrible, Margie.’
‘I know!’ Margie agreed gleefully. Then she placed a fresh loaf of bread right next to the toaster, ready to go. ‘Let’s get out of here.’ She opened the door and checked both ways for Janice. Finding the coast clear, they hurried to their workstations and assumed postures of industrious labour, each occasionally breaking into body shakes as laughter rippled through them.
Soon enough, Janice returned, carrying a fistful of jangling keys and oozing self-importance. Krystal and Margie stared at their screens, tapping away in silence.
‘Nice to see you both hard at work,’ Janice said.
‘Thank you,’ Margie said sweetly. She had totally missed her calling in the theatre.
Krystal admired her so much. Like Krystal, Margie had come from a small town in Victoria – Marysville – but almost ten years ago, ninety per cent of her town was wiped out in the Black Saturday bushfires. She lost both her parents and many friends. She and her brother relocated to Melbourne to start over with nothing to their name and their lives shattered. Yet here she was, alive and smiling and fizzing with humour. She was inspiring.
The clock at the bottom of Krystal’s computer screen said ten minutes to one. Janice took her lunch at one on the dot, leaving whoever else was in the office to deal with kids coming in during the lunch break looking for lost property, or injured and needing sticking plasters, or wanting someone to call their parents to pick them up because they were sick. For the next ten minutes, Krystal focused her attention on typing up the swimming carnival heat lists for each age group for this coming Friday.
Ten minutes later, Janice pushed her chair back from the desk. ‘Right. Lunch.’
Krystal glanced sideways at Margie, whose lips were firmly pressed together, showing only the slightest hint of dimples.
Janice exited to the kitchenette. There were a few moments of silence. Margie kept typing. The seconds dragged on in taut anticipation. Krystal’s nerves twanged.
Then they heard the unmistakable rustle of the bread bag and the sound of heavy slices being dropped into the toaster.
‘Toast,’ Janice said, tentatively.
Margie began to laugh and covered her mouth to hold it in.
Janice cleared her throat. ‘Toast!’ she said again, with more authority now.
Krystal bit down on giggles, her cheeks heating up. Margie doubled over, her body racked with silent guffaws.
‘I said, Toast! Toast! Toast!’ Janice growled and stomped a heel on the linoleum in fury.
Margie leapt up and scurried from the office towards the toilets.
Janice burst out of the kitchenette, her face puce. ‘What the hell’s wrong with the new toaster?’ she demanded, and as Margie was nowhere in sight, Krystal was forced to reply.
‘Um, what do you mean?’ she asked, trying for innocence, but there must have been a waver in her voice because Janice narrowed her eyes and her lips twisted into a sneer. She turned and went back to the kitchenette. Krystal heard her rip off the note and spin the appliance around. A second later, she was back.
‘Who did this?’ she demanded, her voice low and menacing.
Krystal was about to guiltily admit that it was Margie – and herself, too, she supposed – when she felt a rush of solidarity towards Margie and contempt for Janice’s stronghold over their workspace. She wasn’t that superior.
‘It was just a joke,’ she said, as lightly as she could. ‘It was a bit of fun, that’s all.’
‘Well, I’m not laughing,’ Janice said, and screwed up the note in her hand. She went back to her desk, reached under it for her crocodile leather handbag and stalked from the office.
Margie returned a moment later. She caught sight of Krystal’s dismayed expression. ‘What happened?’
‘She wasn’t too impressed,’ Krystal said. ‘I told her it was just a joke but she’d already lost her cool.’
Margie grimaced. ‘Is she very mad with us?’
Us? Krystal opened her mouth to correct Margie, to remind her that it had had nothing to do with Krystal at all – she’d just been an unwitting accessory – but she knew Margie hadn’t meant any harm. She’d been trying to bring a bit of fun into their dull little desk jobs. She gave her friend a smile. ‘Don’t worry about it. I’m pretty sure she thinks I was responsible.’
‘Oh, sorry,’ Margie said, clutching her hands to her chest.
‘Really, it’s not a big deal.’
‘Thanks, Krystal. You’re a good mate.’
13
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�Your project is due tomorrow?’
‘Yes, so I need an audience to practise in front of,’ Summer said, setting up her slideshow presentation in the television room, connecting her laptop to the screen with a cable.
‘Didn’t you only just start this on Monday?’ Gabby asked. On the carved chest in front of them sat six glass jars containing a combination of potting mix and coffee grounds with lovely fat green herbs growing from them. Obviously they hadn’t been grown from seeds.
Summer shrugged. ‘Yeah.’
Gabby decided not to voice her disapproval that this last-minute effort might actually be cheating. Her daughter was a great student and her ability to pull things together quickly had worked for her so far through school, but she was bound to trip up at some stage if she didn’t get more organised. Gabby would have a chat to her about that after she’d handed in this assignment; now wasn’t the time to upset her.
Gabby, Monty and Celia huddled together on the couch and gave Summer their undivided attention. Charlie was upstairs in his room studying. She could hear the wheels of his chair rolling around above them. Summer cleared her throat. She was wearing a grey Lorna Jane tracksuit and looked gorgeous. Just the sight of her made Gabby want to cry.
That was how she was these days. Cracked open. Cracked open from the actual, very real, cracking open of her chest. The genie had been let out of the bottle and with it had come a tendency to weep: at a yellow daisy struggling to grow between pavers; at her youngest daughter’s fierce love for the dog; at the dog’s devotion in return, lying across Celia’s legs as she slept at night; at her son’s broadening shoulders and the fluff on his upper lip; at the slackening in her dad’s jowls; and at the homeless girl who sometimes slept outside the entrance to the cafe at night. It was as though when they sewed and stapled her back up, tiny holes had remained. Emotions simply kept rising like water, finding their way through.
‘Each year, Australians throw away about one billion takeaway coffee cups,’ Summer began, using her most serious voice, the one that Gabby always thought would serve her daughter well in the political arena. Summer clicked a button on the keyboard of her laptop to move the slideshow on to a picture of a garbage dump. ‘These cups end up in landfill, where they contribute to methane gas production and an increase in greenhouse gases.’
Gabby shifted uneasily. She did have some knowledge of the environmental cost of takeaway cups, but the hectic pace of building her business had involved so many other practical and financial needs to be met that she’d put the whole environmental thing on the backburner for the time being, till she felt she had more time to deal with it.
‘An average cafe throws away three and a half tonnes of used ground coffee each year.’
‘Really?’ Gabby asked, horrified. This was terrible. She did see it. There was no way she could miss the huge bags of waste that went out the door each day. Again, it was one of those things she’d just blocked out, intending to get to it once the critical phases of business building were done, but now she could see she’d let it go too long. She was practically an environmental vandal.
‘Shh!’ Celia said, looking at her mother earnestly, leaning on Monty’s shoulder. ‘Go on, Summer.’
But, as Summer’s presentation showed, there was some hope, with new business ideas and research happening around the world, focusing on profiting from recycled spent coffee. ‘Options include pelleted garden fertilisers that smell like coffee rather than animal manure, laundry detergents, biodiesels and even road base material.’
‘That’s fantastic,’ Monty said.
‘Shh!’ Celia said again, enthralled by her big sister’s presentation. Gabby smiled at Monty over the top of Celia’s head.
‘Unfortunately, while the research is promising, we haven’t even scraped the surface of the business opportunities for spent coffee grounds,’ Summer said.
Monty stood up and thumped his right fist into his left palm. ‘Eureka! Summer, you’re a genius.’
Summer stopped. ‘I am?’ She beamed, flashing her lovely white teeth beneath the clear braces.
‘Yes! Gabby, this is a wonderful opportunity for you to diversify your business portfolio,’ Monty said, rubbing his chin.
‘Here we go,’ Gabby said, smiling. She knew a flare of business passion from a McPhee all too well and it was a welcome sight in her father, who seemed sad more often than not these days. A project would be wonderful for him.
‘Your business is a veritable goldmine,’ Monty went on, running his hand across his mouth and beginning to pace. He pulled up his trousers under his small pot belly.
‘Erm, maybe,’ Gabby said. The information Summer had shown them was fascinating, but Gabby already felt at maximum capacity running one business. She didn’t feel anywhere near ready to start another one yet.
‘Don’t worry,’ Monty said, holding up his hands as if reading her mind. ‘You just let me and Summer take care of it.’
‘Really?’ Summer said. ‘We’ll share the profits, right?’
‘Of course we will,’ Monty said. ‘But only if you share the risk too. That’s how it goes, my girl.’
‘Oh, all right,’ Summer said, sighing.
‘I’ll get the Ideas Book.’ Celia got up, her pink track pants and matching top making her look like a young, miniature version of a cool old granny who went out power walking along the river with hand weights.
‘Here, show me that pie chart again,’ Monty said to Summer.
Gabby congratulated Summer on her project then left them to it, warning Celia that she should be in bed in ten minutes when Grandpa said so, and urging Summer not to stay up too late even though she still had to print labels for her jars. She then retired to her room, hoping for a good night’s sleep free of unpleasant visitations.
But it didn’t go that way. Around midnight, she woke gasping from a terrible nightmare of being lost in blackness, unable to feel her body, unable to talk, being trapped in limbo, hearing voices from a distance but not able to connect. She opened her mouth to call for help, to ask someone what had happened, but nothing came out. It was as if she’d been put in a dark bubble somewhere and no one knew where she was. Almost as though she’d died but had nowhere to go, lost in unending emptiness.
She pulled herself from bed at five-thirty in the morning, sleep-deprived and groggy, and staggered to the shower. She couldn’t go to work, she was certain of that. Luciano was opening the store, and while she’d planned to be there to go through stocktake with him, it would just have to wait. She was in no condition to play the role of leader today.
Instead, she pulled on her soft, tattered jeans and a long-sleeved tee and messaged Pippa to see what she was up to. She needed company. A few messages later, they had a plan.
It was the smell that greeted Gabby first as she stepped out of her small, red, long-in-the-tooth Barina – manure, hay, wood shavings and eucalyptus. Pippa’s horse Hercules was kept at a private agistment property at Kilsyth, about twenty minutes’ drive from Pippa and Harvey’s house, and it was here that Pippa had convinced Gabby to meet her, saying they could go for a ride to blow away all the stress. She pulled her denim jacket around her and released her long, unruly ponytail from being tucked inside the jacket. The time on her phone was a quarter past nine. They’d agreed to meet after the school run.
While she was waiting, she checked to see if any messages had come through to her blog overnight, and found two responses.
I think you might have my father’s heart. He died after a car accident in the outback on the thirtieth of September two years ago.
Gabby shook her head. Hearts only lasted six hours at the most.
My sister died from head injuries after she fell from her rooftop while cleaning the gutters. She was thirty-five. She has two young daughters and was a high school teacher. She lived in Adelaide and died on 5 October 2017.
That one was more feasible. The woman would need to have died just past midnight, as Gabby’s operation was early in the morn
ing on the same day. But she still wasn’t certain they could have done the retrieval and flown the heart the hour and a half from Adelaide in time. It could be it, but she had her doubts.
She put her phone away and looked around the property. She’d pulled up near the stables and tack room, under the shade of a gum tree. It was beautifully quiet, with just bird chatter in the air. A horse let out a loud snort and she went to the white wooden railing of the nearest paddock to see if she could find Hercules. She didn’t have to look far. As soon as she approached the fence, the big black horse in the yard looked up from where he was chewing, pricked his ears, whinnied at her and trotted to the fence.
‘Oh, aren’t you handsome!’ she said, holding her hand out over the railing. He came straight to her and she closed her fist for him to sniff – a horseman’s handshake – which he did, his warm breath caressing her skin. She leaned to the side to peer past his huge bulk, just to check she had the right horse before she fell completely in love. Finding no other black horses in sight, she let her heart be swept away by his huge dark eyes, long thick forelock and mane, shiny coat and calm presence. Until this moment, she’d had her doubts about Pippa’s sanity in keeping a secret horse, but now she was head over heels for him too.
Pippa’s old and shabby blue Corolla wheezed up alongside Gabby’s car – no one in the McPhee family had ever put much value in cars – and her sister jumped out, her fierce frown disappearing as soon as she clapped eyes on Hercules.
‘Isn’t he gorgeous?’
‘Yes, he really is!’ Gabby hugged Pippa, noting the squinty flesh around her sister’s eyes that suggested Pippa had been crying.
Hercules gave a throaty nicker to Pippa.
‘I’m coming,’ she said, releasing Gabby to open the passenger door of her car and fish in her handbag. ‘The kids have been getting a lot of cut-up apple and carrot in their lunchboxes,’ she said, opening a sandwich bag and pulling out treats for Hercules. He took them delicately from her outstretched hand.
The Gift of Life Page 12
