by Cathryn Hein
Callie shook her head in confusion. ‘Arthur confirmed what?’
Deep sympathy darkened Deb’s eyes. ‘The deal Wal made with Matt. That if he kept you at Glenmore like Maggie wanted, Wal would leave him Amberton.’
Callie swayed and Deb grabbed her arm.
‘I’m so sorry. I didn’t think he was like that either, I really didn’t, but owning a farm here is his dream. He’s made no secret of that.’
‘No,’ said Callie faintly. ‘He hasn’t.’
‘I’m really sorry. Anthony told me to keep out of it but the moment I saw you in the street I knew I couldn’t. It’s too unfair.’ Deb peered at her. ‘Are you okay? Do you need to sit down?’
‘No.’ Callie cleared her thick throat. ‘No, I’m fine. Look, I really have to go.’
Deb appeared on the verge of tears. ‘I’m so sorry. I really thought he wasn’t like that.’
Although her skin felt so icy any movement might crack it, Callie forced a stoic smile. ‘Neither did I. But you did the right thing, telling me.’ She glanced at the twins. ‘You’d better get the girls into some shade and I’d better get to the bank.’
‘Callie?’
‘It’s okay, Deb. You did the right thing. I’ll see you.’
She strode away, determined to show nothing was wrong. Callie was good at this. She’d done it for years, holding her mouth just so, her shoulders and back straight, striding confidently and carefree when inside she was near collapse.
Confusion churned. This wasn’t the Matt she knew. Nor was this the kind of mean scheme she’d expect from Wal. He might be gruff and liked to get his own way, but he wasn’t cruel. But both of them also possessed strong desires. Matt to own his own farm, have a family, capture what he believed really mattered in life; Wal to fulfil his promise to Nanna.
Powerful desires, no question, but enough to do this?
Forgoing the bank, Callie walked back up Patterson Street to her car, legs like concrete blocks. She climbed stiffly behind the wheel and stared blankly at the tail-lights of the car parked in front.
She’d been searching for signs since her arrival. How ironic that on the morning she’d decided to believe in herself, another had appeared. The fire, Beauty and the toreador, poor darling Patch and now this. All signs in a sequence of many; omens that she would never find happiness at Glenmore. Except the last sign couldn’t be true. It just couldn’t.
How convenient that Matt was on his way to Perth. Callie couldn’t even confront him. But she could talk to Wal. And if what Deb revealed was true, then the world really had signalled its imperative. And this time, no prevarication, no doubts, Callie would obey its call.
Callie pulled up near the house and quickly alighted. A high-pitched yap revealed Wal’s location. Dolly’s pup – now christened Dash – guarded the front verandah step, yapping madly, its fuzzy, soft body rocking with ecstatic welcome. Her step faltered as memories of Patch and his happy bark crowded her mind. She thrust them away, determined to get this done.
Dash bunted her legs as she knocked on the screen door and yanked it open. She let him inside and followed his trail to the kitchen. Wal looked up from his papers and steaming cup of tea to regard her before frowning at the dog.
Callie planted her feet and set her hands to her hips. ‘Did you make a deal with Matt over Amberton?’
‘What?’
‘You. Matt. Amberton. He convinces me to stay and you leave it to him. Well? Did you?’
‘Yes, but . . .’ Wal’s brow lowered, mouth disappearing in a maze of wrinkles. ‘Who’s been telling stories?’
Callie didn’t reply. She had her answer. Now there was work to do. Throwing him a last, filth-laden look, she stalked out of the kitchen, leaving behind the sound of Wal’s chair scraping across the lino.
‘Don’t you turn your back on me, missy! Don’t you dare!’
Callie slammed the screen door shut and kept walking.
‘He’s a good lad!’ Wal’s cane thumped across the timber. He yanked open the door. ‘You dump him and you’ll be no better than your sister!’
She spun around. ‘What?’
‘She didn’t know a good bloke when she had one either. The lad loved her and all she did was spit in his face.’
Matt and Hope? Impossible. Except it wasn’t, and she knew it. He’d called her Supercallie.
The pain in her chest worsened. Her sister. Always her sister. The person who everyone Callie loved wanted her to be. And now even Glenmore had joined the chorus.
Well, it and everything else could go to hell. At least in Airlie people accepted her for who she was.
Wal stretched an arm out. ‘Come inside. Have a cuppa and we’ll get this sorted properly.’
Callie shook her head. ‘I have work to do.’
Back like iron, she walked to the car, leaving Wal leaning on his cane, frowning and sucking in his mouth.
At the end of Amberton’s lane she braked, leaving the car to idle as she fumbled for her phone and scrolled through her contacts. Finding Tony’s number, she hit connect. The receptionist put her straight through.
Tony’s voice was polite but wary. ‘Callie, how are you?’
‘Fine, thanks. Look, Tony, I want you to list Glenmore.’
‘Maybe you should wait a few days. Deb just called me and—’
‘On the market today, Tony. I want it sold.’
‘Callie, please, I know this business with Matt is upsetting—’
‘This has nothing to do with Matt. This is about me. Understand? Me. I want that property sold. Today if possible. You must have contacts?’
‘I do,’ he said, tone now businesslike, much to Callie’s relief. She wanted his real estate expertise, not his personal advice. ‘I’ve already sounded a few people out about Glenmore, suggesting it might come on the market. They certainly made all the right noises, and only last Monday we had an enquiry from a person interested in purchasing a property just like it.’
‘Call them all. Get an offer. I’ll be around in half an hour to sign the sales authority.’
She hung up then placed another rapid call to Doug, citing a family emergency as the reason for cancelling her shifts until further notice. Throwing the phone on the passenger seat, she put the car into drive and skidded off in a hail of stones toward Glenmore. A few clothes and toiletries, the animals cared for, and she’d be away.
Thirty-five minutes later she was in Tony’s office, ignoring his worried looks as she double-checked the sales authority. Several times he’d tried to talk to her and each time she cut him short with a cold stare or curt response. She was like a robot. No feelings, no expression. Existing only to get this done.
‘This affects us too, you know,’ he said. ‘What Wal does with Amberton.’
‘Then I’m sure you’ll have a great deal to discuss with him.’
‘I do. Look,’ he said, clasping his hands and leaning forward, ‘I’m aware of Sally’s and Arthur’s claims, and I know Deb believes that neither has a reason to lie, but you know what this place is like. Maybe they misunderstood. Wal has his faults but this?’ Tony shook his head. ‘He mightn’t care much about me but I know he cares about the kids, and it’d be them he’d be cheating if this went ahead.’
‘I checked with Wal. The deal’s real. He admitted it.’ She shoved the paperwork his way and stood. ‘Call me when you have an offer.’
Business complete, she strode back out to her car. A hastily packed overnight bag sat in the ute’s tray. She’d wanted to clear up properly but that would have taken too much time. The compulsion to face her parents over-rode her desire to pack and bolt, so she’d left the rest of her things at Glenmore, the back door locked for the first time since her arrival. After an infuriating chase, she’d hunted a loudly protesting Honk into his run, leaving him well stocked with water and enough prepared feed to last a couple of days. Morton scored a quick once-over, his trough the same. Satisfied the animals would survive her absence, she’d left, not once look
ing back.
Just as she wouldn’t look back now.
Forty kilometres from Dargate, where the winding forest road reconnected with the Princes Highway, Callie called her father.
‘Callie, honey. Thank god. I’ve been so worried. You didn’t return my call. Is everything okay?’
‘It’s fine, Dad. In fact, I’m on my way to see you.’
‘You’re coming home?’
‘Just for tonight.’
‘That’s great. Really great. Your mum will be thrilled.’
The comment left Callie feeling even more hollow. Her mum’s visit to Glenmore had revealed all too poignantly how much Jacqueline Reynolds still agonised for Hope.
‘So when can we expect you?’
‘Later this afternoon. I’m not even at Heywood yet, so I’ll be at least four hours, probably more by the time I get across town.’
‘We’ll be here. I’ll fire up the barbie and burn some sausages. Get Jacq to make a couple of salads. Sit outside on the verandah like we used to.’
‘Sounds good.’
And perhaps it would be for a while, but after dinner they were going to have that talk her father wanted. Clear all the muck out before it clogged their lives any further.
‘Drive safe, honey.’
‘I will.’
Callie hung up and turned on the radio, tuning into a local commercial station and its mind-sapping programming of adverts, banter and easy-listening music. Determinedly flushing Matt from her mind each time he crept into her thoughts, she zoned out to the rumble of the road and radio noise until, on the outskirts of Port Fairy, her phone buzzed. After checking the screen, she pulled over.
‘Tony.’
‘We have an offer. A reasonable one, but if that’s their starting point I imagine we can push for more, especially once the others I’ve spoken to come back.’
‘Take it.’
‘Don’t you want to know what it is first?’
‘Fine. What is it?’
He relayed a figure that made her breath catch. ‘But given their interest I think we can get more.’
‘Didn’t you hear me? I said take it.’
Tony didn’t like it and said so, but the commission on a property of Glenmore’s value was a powerful persuader. He argued then capitulated, as she knew he would. Twenty minutes later it was over.
Only when Callie passed through the new housing developments of Melbourne’s far western suburbs did her stomach begin to roil. Where once cattle and sheep grazed, houses and bitumen ate into the land, stealing it block by block in a massive sprawl of endless roofs, tiny backyards and Hills Hoists. They weren’t Dargate’s hobby farms but the result was the same. A fate soon to be shared by Glenmore.
‘What have I done?’ Callie whispered, her nausea rising as the housing sea sprawled and rolled to the left and right. Exactly what she should have done from the start, that’s what she’d done. The right thing. For Hope, for her parents, for her.
She had to believe that.
Because to countenance anything else would destroy every remaining scrap of self-regard she had left.
Twenty-three
Phoebe Hawkins didn’t stuff around when it came to accommodation. Although this was Perth, where a man wearing work clothes and coated in rust-coloured dirt could be a billionaire, Matt couldn’t help feeling self-conscious when he approached the Sanctum’s front desk. The boutique hotel’s receptionist didn’t blink at his casual attire and ragged backpack. She simply checked him in before politely indicating the way to the business centre where his mother waited.
He checked his watch and mobile for the umpteenth time and compared them. Quarter past six Perth time, which meant nine fifteen Victorian time. Callie should have been home.
He dialled again, and again the call went straight through to voicemail. ‘Me again. Can you call? I’m worried.’ He hesitated then went on. ‘I love you.’
He hung up, feeling dumb. Doug had probably offered her an extra shift. He was stressing over nothing, but that didn’t stop the churning apprehension that had settled in his stomach since landing, when he’d turned his phone back on and found not a single missed call or message from Callie.
The lift’s lurch did nothing to ease his anxiety. He thought again of the weird phone conversation he’d had with Wal during his Adelaide stopover. If nothing was wrong, why had Wal called to ask if Matt had spoken to Callie? It wasn’t like him to chase up like that. As if Matt didn’t have enough uncertainty prickling his back, Wal’s mutter about having to go into Dargate to talk to Tony only made the prickles spread further. By the time he’d hung up, Matt was so full of worry he’d thought about cancelling the entire trip, but with one flight a day between Dargate and Adelaide he’d had no choice but to stick to schedule.
The lift doors slid quietly open. Matt followed the plush, immaculately carpeted hallway to the Hancock Room, where he’d been told Phoebe was working, and knocked. When no one came to the door he pushed it open anyway and found his mother at the back of the room, a laptop open in front of her and a mobile phone pressed to her ear. She glanced up, waved him inside, and went straight back to what she was doing – talking in Mandarin while tapping a pen against a notepad.
After dumping his backpack on one of the black leather chairs, Matt made his way around the jarrah meeting table and planted a dutiful kiss on his mother’s cheek. She looked up and quirked her mouth before nodding at whoever was on the phone. It was a look he recognised all too well from childhood, when he’d walk in, heart leaping with hope that today would be the day she dropped everything and smiled just for him. Except that day never happened and never would. He’d learned not to mind but today her distraction irritated.
‘Mum?’
Green eyes flashing, she frowned and sliced her hand through the air, continuing the conversation.
Matt checked his watch again. Six twenty-three and still no call, no text, no nothing from Callie. He strode to the window and stared out. Past Perth’s verdant parkland, the city sprawled like a Lego set. Heat shimmer rose from a landscape made entirely of angles, making him long for the soft, calm edges of home. What the fuck was he doing here? He hated it. This concrete, heartless mess that pulsed money. He wanted Callie and Glenmore. He wanted what mattered.
Lost in worry, Matt didn’t notice his mother had stopped talking until she said his name.
‘Matthew,’ she said, rising from her chair and approaching. ‘You’re looking very rural.’ She hugged him in that uncomfortable way she had, as if she didn’t know where her arms and body belonged.
Now she’d returned to her version of a normal person, he studied her. Despite cool green eyes and symmetrical features, she was more nice looking than beautiful, but it was her elegance that made passers-by look twice. Phoebe was tall, almost Matt’s height, and slim with it, her figure accentuated by expertly tailored clothes. Her blunt cut, shoulder-length hair hung silky and straight. Thin, shaped eyebrows widened her eyes, her long, pointed nose lengthening her face. A severe mouth was disguised with lip liner and lipstick. The only frivolity appeared to be a platinum and diamond drop necklace, but even that, nestled against her pale skin in the V of her jade-coloured silk blouse, appeared as classy as the rest of her.
Wal’s sisters once described Phoebe Hawkins as being like an old movie star except they hadn’t meant it as a flattering comparison. She was, they agreed, lovely to look at but her ambition destroyed all warmth. They were right, but that didn’t stop Matt loving her. For all Phoebe’s frailties, she was still his mother.
‘And you’re looking very bankery.’ He held her at arm’s length. ‘But I mean that in the best way.’
‘You always were excellent at stating the obvious.’ She glanced over her shoulder at the computer as it made a pinging noise. ‘Ahh, that’s probably your father. We’ve been having quite a conversation.’
His mum and Kieren in conversation? Now that was something new.
‘How is he?’
> Her mouth tipped a little. ‘Rather furious with me at the moment.’
‘Don’t tell me you’ve beaten him to some major deal?’
‘Not quite.’ She held out her arm, indicating a seat, as if he was a client instead of her son. ‘Best get settled.’
Matt waited for his mother to reveal more but she merely took her seat and turned the computer toward her, mouth quirk heightening as she clicked and read. Matt studied her, his confusion growing. It wasn’t like Phoebe to play games, she was always business like. The only moment of foolery she’d ever had – that Matt believed – occurred the night she and Kieran had sex.
The enigmatic expression stayed as she clicked the mouse, making her appear young and very pretty, like the girl she must have once been before ambition steeled her edges. Finally she closed the laptop lid and folded her hands in her lap.
‘All right, Mum. What’s going on? The last time I saw you look this smug was the night you signed Mr Zhao as a client.’
‘Do I really look that pleased?’
‘You do.’
She smiled again. ‘Well, I have organised something special. And, I must say, with perfect timing. It’s rather pleasing to be able to tell you this in person.’
‘Tell me what in person?’ said Matt, unable to stop impatience from entering his tone. He loved his mother but right now he wanted to be back at Glenmore, with Callie, not watching her gloat over some business deal in a posh hotel.
‘Your father and I have bought you a property.’
Matt blinked, unsure if he’d heard correctly. A property? Did she mean a farm?
Phoebe smiled. ‘You were never going to get one on your own and your father owed you. And I owed you too.’
‘You don’t. Neither of you do. I’m doing okay on my own.’
‘Living with Uncle Wal?’ She shook her head before sitting up very straight and regarding him steadily. ‘Look, we – Kieran and I – both appreciate we haven’t been the ideal parents—’
