She pulled on her swimsuit and topped it with shirt and shorts. Minutes later she left the shack and padded bare–foot out of the yard and down the street. It had been some time since Olivia had taken the same path, and it was unlikely they would bump into one another. Yet Maggie didn’t want her to think she’d followed her, and deliberately turned off the main road and followed the track between the beach houses.
Her bare feet made no sound on the sand as she passed the silent, dark houses. The scent of flowers was heady in the heat, the shadows cast long by the moon as she came to the end of the row. She wouldn’t have chosen to come this way if Olivia had not gone for her walk – but in a way she was glad she had. For it was time to put the ghosts of yesterday behind her. Time to embrace this new life and forget what might have been.
She looked neither to the left or right as she picked her way through the sharp–edged sea grass that grew beneath the palm trees. The sea was spread before her, glittering with thousands of diamonds of light beneath the full moon, laced with fringes of white foam as it splashed on the sand. Maggie stepped away from the shadows of the palm trees, her gaze fixed on the sight before her.
‘So, you couldn’t sleep either,’ came the voice from the shadows.
‘Bloody hell,’ gasped Maggie. ‘You frightened the bloody life out of me.’ Her pulse was racing as Olivia moved into the light. Then she noticed the tracks of tears on the other woman’s face before they were hastily rubbed away. ‘Sorry,’ she mumbled as she backed off. ‘Didn’t mean to intrude.’
Olivia stood up and brushed the sand from her legs. ‘Good thing you did,’ she said briskly. ‘I’m sick of my own company.’ She linked her arm through Maggie’s. ‘Let’s walk.’
Maggie’s gaze flitted over the houses as they ambled along the gentle dunes. ‘Something’s obviously upset you,’ she said softly. ‘Want to talk about it?’
‘It won’t change anything,’ replied Olivia. ‘The memories will still be there wherever I go – whatever I say.’
Maggie felt a chill of unease. ‘Memories?’ she asked. ‘Memories of what?’
Olivia’s smile was sickly as she faced Maggie. ‘Don’t let’s talk about it now. The night’s too beautiful.’
Maggie couldn’t let the moment pass. ‘Are these memories something to do with that house?’
Olivia stopped walking and eyed her for a long moment. ‘It was my childhood home,’ she said finally. ‘Of course there are memories attached to it.’
Maggie stared at her, aware of how the colour must be bleached from her face. ‘Of course,’ she breathed. ‘Hamilton. I should have known – should have realised.’
Olivia frowned. ‘I made no secret of my name. Why should it come as such a shock?’
Maggie swallowed and shook her head in an attempt to clear the swirling thoughts and possibilities. ‘That’s why you went out to Deloraine,’ she said, hardly aware she was voicing her thoughts.
‘I went out to see my sister, Irene,’ Olivia said flatly. ‘Though what on earth it has to do with you, I can’t imagine.’
Maggie’s legs gave way and she sank on to the sand, her hands covering her face as the dark clouds swirled in her head. ‘Your sister,’ she breathed. ‘Oh, my God.’
Olivia’s arm went round her shoulders as she knelt beside her, and she could feel her warmth, her concern, the trembling in her hand. ‘Maggie,’ she said urgently. ‘Maggie, what is it? For goodness sake, talk to me. You’re frightening me.’
Maggie shook her head. ‘It can’t be,’ she whispered. ‘It’s impossible.’
‘What’s impossible?’ Olivia grasped her shoulders and forced her to look her in the face. ‘What are you trying to tell me, Maggie?’ she asked firmly.
Maggie shivered as she sat back on her heels and stared out to sea. The heat of the night could no longer touch her – for the only reality was the chill that struck mercilessly to her very core. ‘You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,’ she muttered. ‘You just would not believe it.’
‘Try me.’ Olivia’s hands were still on her shoulders, her face grim in the pale moonlight.
Maggie swallowed as she rubbed her hands over her arms in an attempt to bring back the warmth. Her thoughts were in turmoil. ‘I don’t know where to start,’ she said finally.
‘Try the beginning.’
‘I don’t really know the beginning,’ she said softly, her focus fixed on the tiny island out to sea. ‘Only the bit I discovered a few years back.’
‘It’s as good a place as any,’ encouraged Olivia. ‘Go on, Maggie. Tell me.’
Maggie hugged her knees as she told Olivia about her escape with Mia, and the long weeks the two of them spent wandering in the outback before they arrived in the tiny settlement of Quilpie. ‘Mia needed to get back to her tribe, and I needed to find work.’ She sighed. ‘We both cried when we had to say good–bye. It was hard, because we’d come to really like and depend on one another.’
‘Did you ever see her again?’
Maggie shook her head. ‘I don’t even know if she’s still alive,’ she said softly. After a moment of silence, Maggie scrubbed her face with her hands and squared her shoulders. Her voice sounded strangely calm, even though her thoughts were in turmoil.
‘Quilpie lies in the heart of Queensland’s outback. It’s about as far from the sea as you could get, and the men who work the vast sheep stations that sprawl across the blood–red earth are amongst the toughest. They live most of their lives on the back of a horse, or bent over a sheep in the enormous shearing sheds.’
Olivia remained silent as Maggie collected her thoughts.
‘Quilpie boasted a hotel on each corner of the one crossroad in town. I lied about my age and experience and managed to blag my way into a job in one of them.’
Her smile was wan as she remembered the heat, the dust, the flies, the tough, rough men she saw every day. Quilpie hadn’t only been a grazier’s town, she remembered. For beneath that cinnamon earth lay riches beyond a man’s dreams. Hidden from sight, waiting like precious eggs to be cracked open, some of the boulders littering the vast landscape held a wondrous secret. For once split, they revealed opal. This opal lured the diggers, the prospectors and fossickers, as well as the dealers and buyers. Quilpie was doing a roaring trade, despite the Depression.
‘I had a room at the back of the hotel and forged a good relationship with the middle–aged owner and his wife. I worked in the bar sometimes, but mostly I waited table in the dining room or helped in the kitchen.’
‘Must have been hard,’ murmured Olivia. ‘You were very young.’
Maggie shrugged. ‘I enjoyed the rough and tumble, and although the fights could sometimes get out of hand they were soon sorted out over yet more beer.’ She hugged her knees more closely and rested her chin on her arm. ‘Matt Foley came into town almost a year after I arrived. I was sixteen when we sort of got married.’
‘Sort of got married? That’s a bit like ‘’sort of being pregnant.’’ What do you mean?’
Olivia’s eyes were wide with surprise, and Maggie noticed how she glanced at the bare finger of her left hand. ‘I had no papers. They were still at the convent, and as I’d never had the nerve to go back and get them, I was stuck.’ She sighed. ‘We all make mistakes,’ she said flatly. ‘Mine was to fall for a curly haired, dark–eyed Irishman with a swagger in his walk and a laugh to make you tumble into bed.’ She sighed. ‘He was a gun–shearer, the nobility of the shearing shed who could lift a fleece faster than any man. There was stiff opposition that year from a bloke out at Eromanga, and he was determined to keep his reputation. He won, and in the heat of the moment proposed to me.’
She grinned. ‘I jumped at the chance, of course, didn’t have another thought in my silly head, despite Mrs Banks trying to warn me off – and the fact that no preacher would formally marry us because I had no papers.’
>
‘So what happened?’
Maggie shrugged. ‘We held our own ceremony – flew in the face of respectability – but of course, it didn’t work. I was too young – he was used to the freedom of being single, and of course eventually realised in truth he still was. The marriage was a sham, really – a game of pretend.’ She blinked and tried to focus on the scenery. The hurt was still there, a reminder of youthful foolishness. ‘We left Quilpie with a horse, a covered wagon and two bedrolls. Over the next two years we travelled from one station to another, and I spent most of the time in the shearers’ kitchen cooking enormous meals.’
She heard the bitterness in her voice and tried to temper it with a laugh. But even that sounded hollow. Although they couldn’t be formally married, being with Matt was exciting at the start, and Maggie had enjoyed the sense of belonging. Had loved listening to his stories and watching the sparkle light up his eyes. And at night, when he held her, she almost purred with the pleasure of feeling his skin brush against hers as they made love beneath the stars. Yet the adventure of being free, of roaming endlessly across the empty land began to pall. She began to long for a permanent home, their own land and sheep. Children.
‘Matt refused to discuss any plans for settling down,’ she said finally. ‘His dream was to become very rich, and I realised I was all a part of his plan to do just that. I worked hard in those bloody kitchens, but I never saw a penny of my wages.’
Olivia rested her hand lightly on Maggie’s. Her touch was sympathetic, but she said nothing.
Maggie shifted in the sand. ‘It was tough, but not nearly as tough as when I found out he’d been unfaithful in almost every town we passed through, and that most of my hard–earned money was gambled away.’
‘As he’s not around any more, I assume you left him?’
‘It didn’t quite happen like that,’ she murmured. ‘We were down near Dirranbandi. Work had almost dried up because the graziers were cutting back on stock and not hiring that many shearers. Matt had begun to get the reputation for fighting and drinking too hard, and although he never laid a finger on me, I was beginning to wonder how long it would be before he did.’
Maggie took a deep breath and stared ahead, not really focussing on the night sounds. ‘Tensions were growing between us, and the lack of work was eating away our savings.’ She fell silent. The sky was lightening. It would soon be dawn.
‘I woke up one morning to find he’d gone. He’d taken his stock horse, his bedroll and the last of our savings.’
‘Bastard.’
‘Yeah. Too right he was a bastard,’ agreed Maggie. ‘But he was within his rights. At least he left the wagon, the old horse and most of the food and water.’
‘So, what did you do?’
‘I hitched up the wagon and drove out to the convent. It was only a few miles away, and I thought I might find out what happened to Dad.’
‘And did you?’
‘No. But I found out something far more interesting than that.’ She turned and looked at Olivia, her gaze steady. ‘It was that something that eventually brought me here to Trinity.’
*
‘I didn’t hear you come home last night,’ said William as he buttered toast. ‘Must have been very late.’
‘It was,’ Irene replied. ‘I slept in the spare room so as not to disturb you.’
‘Thoughtful of you,’ he said as he poured them both a cup of coffee.
His sarcasm wasn’t lost on her. She lit a cigarette and knowing how much he hated her smoking at mealtimes, deliberately blew smoke across the table. ‘Not at all. It’s cooler in there and your snoring keeps me awake.’
He eyed her for a moment then resumed his breakfast. ‘I wish you’d warn me when you’re going to disappear for days. I needed you here last night to discuss this year’s stock sales.’
‘That would have made riveting conversation, no doubt. I’m sure you managed,’ she replied. The coffee was hot and strong, and chased away the cobwebs after a restless night. If only William would shut up and finish his breakfast, perhaps she could have a bit of peace before she went to the stables. There was still a lot to think about despite the journey north. Too many things that could still go wrong.
William put his knife down and wiped his mouth with the napkin. His eyes were cold, his expression grim. ‘We need to talk, Irene.’
‘I’m not in the mood, William,’ she said as she stubbed out the half–smoked cigarette in the saucer.
‘You never are,’ he retorted. He threw the napkin on the table and leaned back in his chair, arms folded tightly to his chest. ‘Why did you marry me, Irene?’
The question came as such a surprise she didn’t know how to answer him. ‘What on earth’s the matter with you this morning?’ She knew she sounded flustered, but so what? That was a hell of a question to ask anyone first thing in the bloody morning.
‘I asked you a question, Irene. And I’d appreciate an answer.’
Irene’s thoughts whirled. She’d married him because he was rich, respected and easily manipulated – but she couldn’t tell him that. Neither could she tell him he had been her way out – her escape from Eva and Olivia and that stifling little house in Trinity. ‘Because I loved you,’ she replied.
‘Ha!’ He shoved the chair back from the table and stood up. With his hands in his pockets he stood there and looked down at her. ‘You don’t know the meaning of the word,’ he said softly. ‘The only person you’ve ever loved is yourself.’
‘I love my son,’ she shouted.
‘Your son?’ His face was ashen beneath the weathered tan. ‘You seem to forget he’s also my son.’ He paused. ‘Or is he?’ He leaned across the table, his eyes hard with dislike. ‘Is he my son, Irene?’ he shouted.
Irene swallowed. This William was a stranger. He’d never raised his voice to her before, never questioned her fidelity or her honesty. ‘Of course he’s your son,’ she hissed. ‘How dare you suggest otherwise.’
He cocked his head and stared at her. ‘You’ve had many lovers over the years. How could I be certain?’
Irene pushed back from the table and faced him. She was taller by several inches, but she still felt at a disadvantage. ‘Because I say so,’ she snapped.
He shook his head. ‘Means nothing. You wouldn’t know the truth if it bit you.’
‘Justin is your son,’ she said coldly. ‘You only have to look at him to see that.’
He eyed her for a long moment before he glanced at the photograph on the dresser. He seemed satisfied, but was obviously not done with this argument. ‘You say you loved me – so why did you take a lover only weeks after our wedding, Irene?’
She swallowed. William knew more than she’d thought, and she wondered just how comprehensive that knowledge was. ‘If I don’t get what I need at home, then of course I’ll look for it elsewhere.’ Her tone was hard, the need to hurt overwhelming. ‘You’re boring, William. Tedious beyond belief. Both in bed and out of it. I needed some fun for God’s sake. A bit of life other than the endless rounds of cattle shows and stock bloody sales.’
‘Then you will have no objections if I tell you to leave,’ he said coldly.
‘Leave?’ The shock was numbing. ‘What are you talking about? Deloraine is ours – yours and mine. I’m not going anywhere.’
‘Deloraine is mine,’ he said flatly. ‘Lock, stock and barrel. It is in trust for Justin should he want it, if not, then to my brother’s son. You can’t touch it, Irene. It’s about the one thing you can’t steal from me.’
She frowned, her thoughts in turmoil. ‘This is getting silly,’ she said in an attempt to jolly him out of this dangerous mood. ‘What on earth have you been doing over the past couple of days to get you all steamed up?’
‘Coming to my senses,’ he replied. ‘Making plans that don’t include you.’
‘But …’
She didn’t know what to say. No–one had ever talked to her like this before and it felt strange and oddly unsettling. ‘What plans?’ She snorted in derision. ‘Don’t tell me you’ve got some woman tucked away.’
William was silent. His gaze slid to a distant spot over Irene’s shoulder.
‘That’s it,’ she breathed. ‘You have the nerve to accuse me of all sorts of dreadful things and all the while you’ve been fucking another bloody woman.’ Her voice had risen to a screech as she flew at him with her nails poised to gouge out his eyes.
He was strong, his hands like vices around her wrists as he held her from him.
Irene struggled for a while and gave up when she realised she was no match for him. ‘Who is she?’ she gasped, her temper white–hot and ready to boil over again.
‘Someone I care for,’ he replied. ‘Someone who loves me, who doesn’t find me boring, and who will never lie to me.’ He let go of her wrists and pushed her away.
‘And is this paragon of virtue planning to move in here?’
‘In time. Yes.’
‘Over my dead body,’ snarled Irene. ‘You’ll have to get me out first, and believe me William, that won’t be easy.’
‘I never doubted that,’ he retorted.
‘You’ll pay for this, you bastard. I’ll make sure you won’t have a pot to piss in when I’m through with you.’
He winced. ‘Your talent for being coarse is not attractive. Neither is your greed.’
‘Greed has nothing to do with it. I’m entitled to at least half of everything – and you know it.’
He stood there, his face a mask of dislike. ‘You’ll get a fair settlement,’ he said finally as he threw two documents on the table. ‘That is the report from the private investigator I hired. The other is the divorce paper. Sign that and our solicitors can discuss terms.’
Irene snatched up the report and quickly scanned it. She felt the colour drain from her face as she realised William’s knowledge of her affairs and business dealings was far more extensive than she ever could have imagined. She ignored the divorce petition and shoved it back across the table. ‘I’m not signing anything,’ she said.
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