Climbing Fear

by Leisl Leighton

  There was no way Nat could say no. ‘If that’s all right?’ Barb nodded. ‘Then you go. I’ll unpack.’

  ‘You don’t want to come?’

  Nat almost swore at herself as Tilly’s lips wobbled. She’d let herself become so bound up in everything that had happened, that she’d pulled away from life, including her daughter, something she was now desperately trying to remedy. ‘Of course I do,’ she said, walking forward to brush an errant hair from Tilly’s forehead. ‘But it’s best not too many of us crowd around, isn’t that right, Barb?’

  ‘Your mum remembers well.’

  ‘Oh. Okay. Can the dogs come? Will they frighten the foal?’

  ‘No, they’re already best of friends.’

  ‘They are?’ Barb nodded. ‘What are you going to do, Mum?’

  ‘I’ll unpack and nest a bit.’ She slid her hand down Tilly’s arm to grip her fingers and squeeze. ‘But when you’re finished outside, come back and get me and we’ll go up with Barb to have afternoon tea of scones, jam and cream and pick your bunk together. Sound good?’

  ‘Yep.’

  Nat watched Tilly skip off with Barb and the dogs, the imprint of her warm little fingers tingling on her hand. She had to do anything and everything to make sure that little girl was happy. Tilly deserved at least one parent who wasn’t a disaster zone.

  Chapter 4

  Nat cleaned up the bits of letter and dropped the pieces in the bin before wandering back into the living room where they’d left the bags.

  It was too changed for the ghosts of the past to haunt her, but even so, she still felt something of them, especially those first few months here where she was filled with such resentment and hated everything and everyone. Until Reid burst into her room. There for the holidays, his young boy energy was too great for her to ignore. He pulled her out onto the farm to see the new foal being born and after that, she had fallen in love with everything here. It had been so stupid to have let her mother chase her away and then Andrew keep her away.

  But enough lambasting herself about things she couldn’t change. She was here to work and make things better for her and Tilly and she wouldn’t do that by dwelling on the past. She had to move forward. ‘Tabula Rasa.’ It was her mantra and it helped to say the words out loud. ‘So, first things first. Unpacking.’

  She went upstairs and unpacked Tilly’s things in the attic room she’d chosen as hers. This had been her room when she lived here, but there was nothing the same. It had been repainted and new furniture and fittings had taken the place of the old wrought iron single bed and chipped bedside table and beanbag that had been her only furniture. A round woven mat lay on the polished floorboards, the green matching the spring green of the curtains and doona set. The bed was a wooden framed king single with a matching bedside table and a desk under one of the dormer windows. It was lovely and with a few touches would be just the room for a young girl to grow into her womanhood here.

  Sadness tinged the edges of the thought, so swallowing it down, she unpacked Tilly’s things quickly into the built-in robe in the corner and the chest of drawers on the inside wall near the bed, then ran down the stairs and went to the room that had once been her mother’s but would now be hers. The bedroom was similarly decorated to the other two she’d seen, but this one in blue with splashes of red accents with a queen-size bed and bigger chest of drawers. It was lovely.

  Barb had put her suitcase at the foot of the bed next to an old Chinese wooden chest with stylised dragon carvings. It was a strange piece to have in the bedroom, completely different from everything else there. Lifting the lid, expecting to find extra pillows and blankets inside, she instead found it full of clothing—outdoors gear mostly—a couple of binders, a photo album, a few notebooks and some bits and pieces of metal that reminded her of tack but wasn’t. She picked up one of the notebooks, opened it—it was full of masculine, scrawling writing, letters written in capitals jumping out at her: S, T, R, D like some kind of code. She realised it was a diary of some kind. Not wanting to infringe on someone else’s privacy, she was about to put it back when an envelope fell out of it. She picked it up, was about to shove it back into the diary when the name on the front of the envelope jumped out at her.

  Reid.

  She frowned, shoved the envelope back in the diary and dropped it almost like it was a hot coal. This must be his stuff. Things he’d either sent to Barb to keep for him, or that he’d left here one time. Barb must have forgotten it was all in here. Well, if this was to be her and Tilly’s home, it couldn’t stay. She was trying to move forward, she didn’t need things like this to drag her back into the past. She’d have to get Mac to come down and help her move the trunk to Barb’s house or something. Although, that would be a shame as it was a lovely piece and she could use it to store extra blankets and pillows in. Yes, given Barb left it here, she obviously didn’t mind Nat using it. She went back out to the lounge room and grabbed the wood basket—currently empty as they didn’t need a fire in summer—and took it back to the bedroom, quickly transferring everything from the chest to the basket and then putting it aside to give to Barb later.

  She dusted off her hands on her jeans and stared at the dusty bottom of the chest. She’d have to clean it before she could use it, so she went in search of a little hand vac. Coming back a moment later, she bent over to vac up the dust, putting her hand in the bottom of the chest to steady herself. There was a click and one of the panels at the bottom shifted. Crap, had she broken it?

  She put the vac down and bent to have a look, pulling her phone out to use the light to get a better look. No, it wasn’t broken, but half of the bottom panel was sitting strangely. She edged her fingers under it to see if she could get it up, her fingers brushing against a little nob. There was another click and the panel swung up to reveal a hidden compartment at the bottom. A compartment that wasn’t empty.

  A smile spread over her face as curiosity surged through her—and feeling not a little like she was in one of those black and white noir murder mystery movies her mother used to love—she lifted the wrapped package out of the secret compartment.

  It was heavy, about the length of her arm from elbow to fingertips, almost as wide, but strangely shaped under its canvas wrapping. She stood and carried it over to the bed, laying it down to unwrap. Her brows lifted in surprise at what was revealed—two stylised wooden carvings of a naked woman and man going by the mounds on the chest of one and the huge phallus on the other. There was a place in the female carving where the phallus of the man was supposed to fit, as if they were coupling, so a fertility statue of some kind? The wood was so dark a red that it almost looked black. It looked old. Huh. She wondered how long it had been there and if Barb even knew about it. Probably not, given the chest was full of Reid’s things and didn’t look like it had ever been cleaned. She looked down at the basket and then back at the statues. She really didn’t need Tilly finding these—she wasn’t prepared to explain about the oversized phallus and how the two carvings fit into each other to her eight-year-old daughter any time soon—so she’d have to put them back for now and get Barb to secret them away later.

  She wrapped the carvings up and put them in the secret compartment—she loved saying that in her head. It gave her a little thrill, which was probably silly, but what did that matter when she was here by herself?—and pushed the panel down until it clicked firmly in place. She finished vacuuming the bottom and then stood back to admire her handiwork. She had some blankets and pillows in the car that could go in here until winter.

  She picked up her bag, put it on the bed and opened it. She had this and two other bags, and a box filled with extra blankets and pillows in the car—so few belongings to show for a life lived with too much. But none of it seemed to matter when it had come down to packing. She hadn’t wanted to bring most of it and right now, she was glad she hadn’t. Buying some new things that didn’t have anything to do with their old life but had only to do with their future one seemed anothe
r right thing to do. She was kicking it with the good decisions today.

  She picked up an armful of her underwear and crossed to the maple chest of drawers, smiling at the doilies decorating the top of it—Barb’s handiwork, no doubt. She remembered her making more doilies than she knew what to do with. And crocheted coat hangers. She wondered if she’d find a stack of them in the wardrobe? She hoped so. They were fantastic coat hangers. She opened the top drawer. Men’s boxer shorts stared up at her. Huh. She picked up a pair. Calvin Kleins. Burgundy. Soft to the touch. Expensive. She never imagined any of the men who worked on the farm spending so much money on a pair of undies. It would be kind of interesting to find out whose these were. Or maybe not. She didn’t need any more complications in her life. She folded the undies up and put them to the side and put her things in the drawer.

  She took the few things she’d brought with her that needed hanging to the wardrobe, which, she was surprised to see was a walk-through when she opened the door that led to the ensuite. A grin broke out on her face as she saw the hangers—padded and crocheted—filling the hanging space. More than she could ever use even if she had all her clothes here. No stretchy funny lumps on her shirts and t-shirts with those babies to hang her clothes on, that was for certain. She’d take some upstairs to give to Tilly to use too.

  The bathroom was as promised—new and sleek, the slate tiles lining the walls and floor lifted from dull grey to something interesting and unique because of the swirls of golden bronze and cream running through them. She laughed at the cactus sitting on the windowsill—typical Barb. It was an old joke between them because she’d been so prickly when she got here that Barb had put cacti around the house to remind her some things were supposed to be prickly, but people weren’t one of those things.

  Warmth filled her chest as her laugh rang around the tiled room.

  It had only taken her a half hour to unpack their things, so she went to the kitchen to make herself a cup of tea while she waited for Tilly to come back from admiring the foal. She’d only just sat down when Tilly came bustling in, all noisy energy, more talkative than she’d been for ages.

  ‘Ready to go search out a bunk?’ Barb asked.

  ‘Absolutely.’ She turned the kettle off, happy to forgo her tea, and set off with them, listening happily to her daughter describe the foal, about how soft his hair was, how he’d whiffled into her hand with his soft lips, the velvet softness of his ears.

  ‘I came up with a name too,’ she said, bouncing around to face her mum and walk backwards up the path. ‘Barb really liked it and said I should tell Flynn when he comes back before Christmas.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yep. I thought it would be good to call him Rey—because they like their movie names and there’s Rey from the Star Wars movies, but also he’s so golden like a ray of sunshine.’

  Nat nodded. ‘That sounds perfect. Flynn’s going to love it.’

  ‘I never thought I’d get to name horses. And Barb says, when I’m older, Flynn will probably show me how to take care of him and break him in.’

  ‘One thing at a time, Tilly-sausage,’ Nat said, laughing.

  Barb held open the bunkhouse door. ‘Okay, missy, in you go and have a look around and pick a bunk.’

  The room hadn’t changed much—just different coloured paint job and carpet, and the doonas on the beds were a lovely deep burgundy, instead of the green they’d been when she’d slept in here. Tilly flitted around the room, lying on a few of the beds and finally chose the same one her mother had always slept in after Barb had pointed out the initials she’d carved there to claim it, still visible even through the new coat of varnish.

  Nat bit her lip as memories washed through her, the carving taking her back to a far simpler, happier time in her life.

  She was snapped out of her reverie when Tilly declared she was hungry and Barb said, ‘Well, I better feed you then. We’ll have missed out on the first batch of scones being fresh out of the oven, but we can probably convince Maureen to make another just for us. Perhaps you’d like to help her cook them?’ Barb asked Tilly.

  ‘I don’t know how,’ Tilly said, suddenly quiet again.

  ‘Then it’s time you learned.’ She bustled Tilly across the stone-paved breezeway and into the kitchen, introducing her to everyone there, and in minutes, Tilly was elbow deep in scone dough.

  Maureen had welcomed them both like long lost daughters and then proceeded to ply Nat with tea while Barb instructed Tilly on the best way to handle scone dough.

  Half an hour later, having laughed more than she had in a very long time as Barb and Maureen reminisced about things she’d almost forgotten, she had a taste of her daughter’s first ever cooking attempt. ‘Mmm, these are delicious, Tilly. Better than I remember a scone being. Excellent scone to sultana ratio too. Exactly how I like them.’

  Tilly puffed up with pride, taking Nat’s kiss on her temple as her due, then snuggled down on the bench next to her mother and dug in.

  ‘Iwikescones,’ she said a moment later, cream and jam on her lip.

  Nat didn’t even bother telling her not to speak with her mouth full. ‘So do I.’

  After Tilly had packed away more scones than was healthy for her, and a huge mug of hot chocolate, Barb announced she’d take them on a tour of the place. ‘Your mum hasn’t been here for a while,’ she told Tilly. ‘So, she’ll need the grand tour too, just to remind her where everything is and show her the new buildings. Also, the boys said they’d love to see you before dinner tonight, so we’ll head down to the stables too and see if they’re back yet.’

  Firstly, Barb took them to meet Connie, the new office girl, and Lisa, a local from Rawson who would be looking after the girls on camp before heading off to university in Melbourne next year, and Ben, who was to look after the boys and worked here part-time. ‘Ben comes down in his holidays from Melbourne to help with the camps and around the place,’ Barb said as they left the office. ‘He’s studying to be a vet. Whatever you do, don’t get Mac started on that because he’ll chew your ear off.’

  ‘Hey, wait up.’ Lisa ran up to join them. ‘I thought I’d help with the tour and get to know Tilly a bit, seeing she’s going to be my helper.’

  ‘Wonderful idea,’ Barb said. As Lisa went ahead with Tilly, Barb and Nat following more sedately behind, Barb said, ‘Lisa has been a godsend these last few camps. I’ll miss her when she goes to Uni next year, but she wants to study teaching and I know she’ll be wonderful at it—she’s so good with the girls.’

  ‘I can see,’ Nat said as her daughter’s bell-like laughter echoed back to them from further down the path.

  As they walked past the new sign-in-cum-cafe building towards the corrals, Lisa took Tilly over to look at the horses being prepped for a ride that afternoon. Nat watched her daughter approach the rail, an echo of memory playing on the edges of her mind of her first day here, her first meeting with the horses. ‘So much has changed, but so much is the same.’ She sighed then breathed in deeply, enjoying the rich scent of dust, feed, horse sweat and manure that always hung around the corrals.

  ‘Ew.’ Tilly screwed her nose up as a horse lifted its tail and added to the manure.

  ‘That’s exactly what you did the first time a horse pooped near you,’ Barb said, laughing. ‘Like mother like daughter.’

  ‘I got over it pretty quickly.’

  ‘You didn’t have a choice. And neither will she. She’ll be fine.’ Barb squeezed her shoulder and then looked away. ‘I’m glad you came home.’

  ‘So am I.’ She had to breathe deeply past the sting of tears and the lump in her chest before she was able to ask, ‘So, Flynn is away at the moment?’

  ‘Yes. He took Aaron to Melbourne to visit with Anna’s parents and has gone on from there to a horse breeders conference in Shep and then to a few horse sales in Kilmore and Benalla before picking up Aaron and coming back just before Christmas. I was hoping he’d have a bit of a break—he hasn’t had one since the fi
res five years ago—but you know that boy, never likes to stand still.’

  Nat smiled fondly in memory. ‘You used to say he had ants in his pants.’

  ‘No, I used to say that about Reid, but you’re right, Flynn was never much better.’

  Nat froze a little at the sound of Reid’s name, but covered as Barb sighed and continued.

  ‘I just hope he spends a little time with Aaron while he’s with Anna’s parents. He usually drops and runs. He hasn’t been able to spend time with them since Anna’s death. I told you about that, didn’t I?’

  ‘I knew she’d died but you never said what happened.’ They’d kept in contact over the years but it was usually in stolen moments when Andrew was asleep or out and often the conversations were cut short. As Andrew’s illness had progressed, he’d become more and more aggressively jealous of her spending time with anyone other than him and Tilly, even to the point of monitoring her phone calls, making her give up work, and cutting her off from social media, which had been her livelihood as much as a way to stay in contact with people.

  ‘Did you ever meet her?’

  ‘They’d just got engaged when I came back to look after mum, but I never really spent much time with her.’ Nursing her mother in those final, terrible months had taken up nearly all of her time. ‘She died in the fires, didn’t she?’

  ‘No. We all made it through that. It happened just after.’

  The bleak look on Barb’s face made Nat blanch. ‘Sorry. I didn’t mean to bring up a bad memory.’

  Barb waved away her concern. ‘No. We need to talk about it. It’s not good to keep things bottled up.’ She angled a pointed look at Nat, who had the grace to blush.

  ‘Point taken.’

  ‘Good. Now, where was I? Oh, that’s right, Anna.’ She sighed and then in a voice full of old sadness, said, ‘She was out doing some clearing work for the CFA when a fire-damaged tree limb fell on her. She was killed instantly. Flynn was with her and saw it happen. He tried to save her, but her neck had been broken and there was nothing he could do. It almost killed him. If not for little Aaron, I think my brave son might have given up.’ She let out a shaky sigh and sagged for a moment, but then with a sharp breath, pulled herself upright. ‘He poured himself into raising Aaron and fixing this place back up in the way he and Anna had planned. He even finished the house he’d been building for them to live in, but he never moved in there.’