Spring Clean for the Peach Queen

by Sasha Wasley

  I picked up the container of eggs and made my way back to the house.

  Mrs Brooker was pleased to see me when I arrived at my mother’s place at midday. I found her sitting on the back porch, her feet in the sunshine.

  ‘I was starting to feel like I’ve intruded on Penny and Richard far too long,’ she said – a gentle chide.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I slept in.’

  ‘No matter.’ Her eyes were bright on me. ‘How did the ball go?’

  ‘It turned out pretty good,’ I said. ‘Everyone looked great, it all went well and Becca Batich got Peach Queen. What about you – did you have a nice night?’ I added as Mum stepped outside to join us.

  ‘Oh, yes.’ Mrs Brooker was not interested in discussing her evening. ‘And Angus? Did he have a good time?’

  ‘He enjoyed it, I think. He even got up on the dance floor, can you believe it?’

  Mum laughed but Mrs Brooker gasped and clutched her hands together at her chin. ‘He danced! With you?’

  ‘Yeah, with me,’ I admitted, and she looked even happier to see my blush.

  ‘I’ve been on Facebook this morning.’ My mother had a peculiar expression on her face. ‘It looks like it was a busy night.’ She glanced at Mrs Brooker and for a second I panicked that she would spill the news about the Olde Peach Tree, but Mum’s gaze came back to me. ‘There’s a lot of buzz about this new Peach Ambassador role.’

  ‘Do you like it?’ I asked.

  ‘Obviously I prefer it to the thinly disguised beauty contest that the Peach Queen always was.’

  Mum’s tone was as arch as ever but she was still watching me. I shot her a smile and said nothing.

  Mrs Brooker took my hand and looked me in the eye. ‘Tell me, love. Did you have a good night?’

  I met her gaze and answered honestly. ‘I had an amazing night. Unforgettable.’

  She was satisfied. Mrs Brooker picked up her bag and Mum walked us out to my car. We got in and wound down the windows to say goodbye.

  Mum hesitated, then called, ‘Lottie – do you want to come for a meal this week?’

  I’d been slowly backing out and now I jammed on the brakes. ‘Um, yes? What night?’

  ‘How’s Tuesday?’ she asked, her expression taut.

  I wasn’t sure if she wanted me there or not. But she wouldn’t have asked me if she hoped I would say no – not Mum’s style.

  ‘Tuesday’s great,’ I gabbled. ‘Let me know what I can bring.’

  She nodded. I pulled out, heart beating like I’d just been selected for the biggest role of my life.

  Mrs Brooker was almost giddy for the rest of the day. Angus’s absence didn’t throw her off and she seemed to suspect nothing. Every time the phone rang I was quick to answer it, and when people asked for Mrs Brooker I told them she was busy.

  Pris would not be stymied, however, and she turned up mid-afternoon while Mrs Brooker was napping. I caught her before she made it up the porch steps.

  ‘Pris,’ I said. ‘Don’t tell her.’

  ‘That’s ridiculous. Of course I have to tell her.’

  ‘No, Angus wants to do it himself.’

  Pris stopped and glared at me. ‘So it’s not just gossip? He did cut it down?’

  I said nothing. For a second Pris deflated, as if all the blustering righteousness had been sucked out of her. Then she reinflated with fury.

  ‘I’ll wring his jolly neck,’ she muttered, attempting to barge past me.

  ‘He’s not here. He’s at the police station. You can’t come in – Mrs B’s asleep. And you’re not allowed to tell her, anyway. That’s Angus’s job.’

  ‘Don’t you try and tell me what I can and can’t do, young lady! After last night’s shemozzle, you don’t have the right to tell me to do anything!’

  ‘I didn’t plan that,’ I said. ‘It was spur of the moment.’

  ‘Perhaps you should learn some self-control, then. What’s wrong with making a quiet suggestion? Tendering an idea to a committee? Moving a motion? Now it’s been announced, it’s as good as decided!’

  ‘Apparently lots of people like the idea,’ I said.

  ‘Is that right? Well, at least as many hate it, but there’s nothing we can do about it now, is there, Charlotte Bentz?’

  We eyed each other. I was sick of Pris’s provincial dictatorship, and determined not to let her disturb Mrs Brooker. Pris looked like she was sizing me up – ready to fight.

  ‘It’s not happening,’ I said. ‘Go away, Pris. Come back tomorrow when Angus has had a chance to break the news to Mrs B.’

  She looked past me. I adjusted my stance. Pris’s eyes narrowed.

  ‘Unbelievable,’ she declared. ‘Not letting me see my own sister-in-law. This is elder abuse.’

  It wasn’t clear who exactly I was abusing but I didn’t budge.

  Pris gave a sigh so sharp it was almost a shout and turned on her heel, her gait as stiff and upright as her bad back would allow. She let herself out of the gate and closed it, but before she got into her car, Pris turned back.

  ‘We tried to give you an opportunity to redeem yourself, young lady. Obviously you’re too far gone for that.’

  She swished into the car as fast as possible to prevent any chance of a comeback. I didn’t have one anyway. For once I didn’t fear even for a moment that I was doing the wrong thing.

  When Angus got home at around two pm, he gave me a questioning look, his eyes searching the house for his mother.

  ‘She’s fine – having a nap,’ I said. ‘How did it go?’

  He came close. ‘It was okay. I’ve got to appear in the magistrate’s court on Monday. I think they’ll call you for a chat in the next day or two, but they believed me, I reckon. They think I was alone.’ He pushed some hair back from my cheek and moved closer.

  Mrs Brooker emerged from her room and we executed a rapid change of position and subject. Angus went to kiss his mother and she hugged him as if she hadn’t seen him for months. She had her top on backwards but neither Angus nor I mentioned it.

  ‘How’s picking going?’ she asked. ‘You haven’t even been back for lunch yet.’

  ‘We had a big brekkie,’ he said, and although he’d meant to reassure her, it sounded like he was declaring us a ‘thing’ and we both went red.

  Mrs Brooker couldn’t have been happier. ‘That’s good, but you still need lunch.’

  ‘The crew have a few questions,’ he said, pocketing his phone and grabbing a work shirt from the clean washing basket. ‘I’ll go sort them out first.’

  ‘Have you been out, love?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes, I’ll tell you about it later.’

  ‘How many pickers are there?’ she asked.

  ‘About half a dozen,’ he said. ‘Why?’

  ‘I’ll make a big batch of scones,’ she said, patting down her hair. ‘Lottie and I will bring them up for you all.’

  ‘That’d be great,’ he said. ‘They’ll love that.’

  He seized some water bottles from the fridge and headed back outside to drive up to the orchards. Mrs Brooker got a big bag of flour out of the pantry and heaved it onto the bench before I could help.

  ‘You get the butter and milk,’ she said, puffing slightly. ‘We’ll take some jam up as well, when we go. I used to always make afternoon teas for the picking crews, but I haven’t done it in recent times. It got a bit tiring. But I think with you here, Penny, it will be easy. A job shared is a job halved.’

  ‘I’ve wanted to see the picking crew in action,’ I said.

  We made scones together. When they were baking – oven on – Mrs Brooker made up a basket of conserves.

  ‘I ought to give Pris a call. She always loves a scone for afternoon tea.’

  ‘Oh, no – let’s not. She’s busy all afternoon,’ I said, and it probably wasn’t a lie. ‘I spoke to her earlier.’

  ‘Ah, all right.’ She gave me a mischievous smile. ‘Perhaps it’s for the best. It’s never quite as relaxed when she�
�s around, especially for Angus. And he looks like he’s having such a nice day.’

  I went red again.

  When the scones – two dozen of them – were wrapped in a giant linen tea cloth and we’d loaded up all the toppings, I got Mrs Brooker to turn her top the right way around and put her in my car.

  ‘Think happy thoughts,’ I said as I pushed my little vehicle up the rough track, avoiding the soft patches, and she laughed as if she knew what I meant.

  Angus whistled for the pickers and they all wandered down from ladders and out of orchards. They were all backpackers on working holidays – two from Malaysia, one from the Philippines and three college friends from Hungary. They’d signed up with an agency, a woman called Miriam told me in excellent English, and had been moving from farm to farm for a few weeks now. After fruit-picking season was over, they would go back to the city and look for work in bars and cafés.

  They loved Mrs Brooker and her scones. They assumed I was Angus’s partner and he didn’t correct one of them when she called him my husband. Mrs Brooker told a story about a picker they’d had once who was on the run from the law for stabbing someone and how he’d been such a nice fellow. She did say it happened in 1895, which seemed a bit out, but otherwise the story was feasible, and I was proud of her. I sat in the shade of the big shed, looking at my handsome pseudo-husband, and ate a scone and felt ridiculously content.

  Mrs Brooker seemed tired again when we made our way back to the house. I suggested some TV and before long she nodded off in front of a gardening show. I prepared dinner. She was quiet and vacant over the meal and ate little, then went to bed early, calling Angus ‘Ted’ and me ‘Penny’. Angus and I sat together on the couch, his arm around my shoulders like we’d been together for years.

  ‘She must be a bit thrown out by her night away,’ I said, thinking about Mrs Brooker. ‘She was up and down all day – happy one minute, exhausted the next.’

  ‘Hopefully she’ll have a better day tomorrow,’ he said, rubbing his thumb on my shoulder.

  ‘You didn’t tell her about the tree, or court on Monday,’ I said, checking his face.

  He grimaced. ‘It was never the right moment. I’ll tell her tomorrow.’

  ‘Make sure you do it early,’ I said. ‘Pris is busting to badmouth you and there’s only so many times I can pick up the phone before your mum gets to it.’

  ‘I will,’ he said. ‘First thing. I’ll tell her the good news and the bad news. She’ll be so damn excited about you and me that she won’t even care about the Olde Peach Tree.’

  I woke in Angus’s bed to the sound of Blue and Bundy barking madly. Must be the pickers arriving. I blinked awake in the darkness. Angus stirred beside me and, a few moments later, we both started up into sitting positions when a firm knock sounded on the front door. There was a sliver of dawn light coming through the curtains – it must have been barely five. Angus was on his feet, stumbling into a pair of jeans. I sat in bed and waited, listening, hoping Mrs Brooker wasn’t frightened. Was it Pris? Just like her to turn up at the crack of dawn and make a scene.

  ‘Mr Angus Brooker?’ It was a male voice and I didn’t like it at all. There was something deeply familiar about his tone, gouging at part of my soul.

  ‘Yes,’ Angus said. ‘Yeah, it was me. I already went in and gave a statement yesterday.’

  ‘Mr Brooker, could we come in?’

  ‘I’d rather do this at the station,’ he said. ‘My mum’s asleep and I don’t want her to get upset.’

  There was a pause. ‘It’s about your mother actually, Mr Brooker. May we please come in? I’m sorry to say we have some bad news.’

  They’d found her beside the lake on the corner of Brooker Road, sitting against a tree. She’d been dead for a couple of hours when a fruit-truck driver caught sight of her in his headlights and thought something didn’t look right. He stopped to check on her and called the local police.

  Neither Angus nor I believed it at first. We had to go to her bedroom and see her empty bed in the lamplight, her missing dressing gown and slippers, her absence. I took Angus’s hand and it lay limply in mine, his eyes baffled and wide. He gazed around her bedroom for a long time, as if he thought she must be there and he would spot her if only he looked hard enough.

  The police took Angus to the hospital to formally identify his mother’s body. I stood alone in the house, staring at the sunrise through the open front door. My heart was fluttering like a moth caught in a jar and I felt peculiarly fragile all over. I stared at the peach-coloured wisps of cloud scattered across the dawn sky. The beauty of it made no sense. A cool breeze blew into the hall and, from my bedroom, Angus’s windchime clinked. The hairs on my arms rose and for a moment it seemed the wind might pick me up and carry me out over the orchards until I got caught in the reaching branches of a stone-fruit tree.

  There was an old phone index on the hall table. I slid the plastic marker down to H for Humboldt and flipped it open. There was Toby’s mobile number. I called him and, when he picked up, explained what had happened.

  There was a heavy silence, then a long, slow, ‘Farrrk.’

  ‘What’s wrong?’ That was Jo’s groggy voice in the background.

  ‘I know it’s early, but he might need you,’ I said.

  ‘Yeah. Yeah, thanks, Lottie. I’ll go meet him at the hospital.’

  I felt my way through the fuzziness in my head, attempting to form a plan. ‘I’m going to tell my parents. Will you call me when you bring Angus home so I can come back and be with him?’

  ‘Yeah, shall do.’ Toby coughed, then recovered. ‘Mrs B. Farrrk.’

  I went out to the chicken yard and let the girls out of their night cage. Chooky watched me – sadly, it seemed – but that was probably me once again crediting them with more knowledge than they had. The pickers arrived and I told them what had happened, asking them to keep working and contact me at my parents’ place if they had any problems. It was probably the most useful thing I could do for Angus.

  I drove to my parents’ house in the warm morning light. I still felt strange: unstable – disembodied. My father was watering the front garden and waved as I pulled in. I got out of the car.

  ‘You’re here early,’ he said. His smile faltered. ‘Everything okay, Lott?’

  I gave him the news. I didn’t have a lot of information but answered his bewildered questions as best I could.

  ‘Oh, God,’ he said for about the sixteenth time. He rubbed his thinning hairline. ‘Your mum’s going to be …’ Dad looked at me. ‘What about you – are you all right?’

  I shrugged. ‘I’m not sure it’s sunk in yet.’

  ‘Had you got to know her much?’

  ‘Yeah. We’d become quite close.’

  He gave me a sympathetic grimace. ‘I’m sorry, Lott. Come on. We’d better go and tell your mum.’

  Toby somehow got hold of my parents’ landline number and called to say he was with Angus. They were on their way to break the news to Pris. I put the kettle on again and Dad went back outside, leaving Mum and me together at the kitchen table. Mum’s face was pale and her eyes puffy, one hand clutching a soggy tissue. I still hadn’t cried and was starting to think my tear ducts were malfunctioning.

  ‘I feel so guilty.’ My mother choked out the words.

  Pain seared my throat. ‘Don’t, Mum. How could any of us have known this would happen?’

  She wrung the tissue in her hands until it fell apart. ‘I could have known.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘The other night – when she was staying here, she woke up in the night and I caught her trying to leave the house through the front door. She barely seemed to know where she was or who I was. I felt terrible. I should have locked the front door properly and couldn’t stop thinking about what might have happened if I hadn’t caught her. God, Lottie – I should have told you. I should have told you and Angus it happened but I was too embarrassed – mortified that I could have put her in danger. I hate myself.’
She attempted to blot her running nose with a scrap of tissue. ‘I shouldn’t have been so proud.’

  I went over and put my arms around her, and she wept against me. ‘Mum, no. Angus told me he’s caught her wandering before. She hurt herself at home, too. Burned her hand, ruined a pot. She was getting confused with the oven and stove, cooking ingredients. It’s not your fault – we knew the risks, too. It’s just, we didn’t think she would do this.’

  She looked up at me, then her face crumpled again. ‘I’m so sorry, Lottie. You watched a friend die not long ago and I showed you no understanding at all. I’ve been horrible. I’m so ashamed.’

  I blinked with shock, then my own grief unexpectedly burst its banks. I sobbed with my mother, our arms around one another, tears dripping into each other’s hair. I cried until I couldn’t breathe. When I could physically take no more, I got up and blew my nose until it burned, then brought the tissue box over to the table for Mum.

  ‘Have you had breakfast?’ I asked her.

  ‘No,’ she said.

  ‘I’ll make us something.’

  Tears still ran down her face as she stared absent-mindedly at the glass sliding door and pot plants beyond. I found a loaf of rosemary sourdough. Mum never bought white bread.

  ‘I hope she wasn’t scared,’ she said. ‘Or lost.’

  Another wave of pain rose inside me. ‘Me, too. I don’t know how she died but they said she was sitting down. Hopefully it wasn’t …’ It was hard not to picture Mrs Brooker shivering, lost and cold, huddled against a tree. ‘She told me some stories about how she used to go night-swimming with Ted when they were young,’ I said, shoving those images out of my head. ‘It was a beautiful memory. It was warm and clear last night – I wonder if she went to the lake to think about Ted.’