The Lawson Sisters

by Janet Gover

Of course, there was the problem of the young horse eating its breakfast on the other side of the campsite. Mitch was being paid to ride that horse in this competition. Its owner was a good customer, but he wouldn’t be pleased. He might take the horse back, but that was a risk Mitch was prepared to take. That left just one question. Did the rules allow a change on the morning of the competition? There was only one way to find out.

  Decision made, Mitch set off in the direction of the stewards’ tent.

  The group of competitors clustered near the tent parted to make way for him.

  ‘How’s Liz doing?’

  ‘Sorry to hear about what happened, mate.’

  They looked at him with sympathy. Strange that even after all this time, the people of their town, their friends and fellow horsemen and women still linked Mitch and Liz, as if those intervening years had never happened.

  The head steward nodded at him as he entered the tent. ‘Any news?’

  ‘Her sister Kayla came up from Sydney. She’s with her now.’

  There was nothing more to say. The steward shuffled through the papers in front of him and pulled out the list of competitors. Even upside down, Mitch could see Liz’s name on the sheet. The man took a pen and drew a line through her name. That seemed so very final.

  ‘While you’re there, I need you to make another change,’ Mitch said. ‘My horse. Scratch Farwell Commander, owner Jack Tate, and replace with Willowbrook Deimos, owner Elizabeth Lawson.’

  The steward raised an eyebrow. ‘I’m not sure that’s—’

  ‘Just do it. Please.’

  After a moment of hesitation, the steward drew another line on his paper, and wrote the name of Mitch’s new mount above it.

  ‘Good luck.’

  CHAPTER

  60

  Liz woke slowly. She ached all over and didn’t know why. She tried to move, but her limbs didn’t want to respond. Slowly, she opened her eyes. The light was far too bright and she closed them again.

  ‘Liz?’

  That was her sister’s voice. What was Kayla doing here? Was there going to be another wedding?

  She tried opening her eyes again, and this time the light didn’t hurt quite so much. She also saw the figure next to her bed.

  ‘Kayla?’ Her voice came out cracked and harsh.

  ‘Liz. You’re awake.’

  Was it her imagination, or was her sister close to tears? ‘What …’

  ‘It’s all right. You’re in Tamworth Hospital. You were bitten by a snake and hit your head. But the doctors say you’re going to be all right.’

  As Kayla spoke, Liz’s eyes began to focus on the room around her: the off-white walls and the machinery. Everything was unfamiliar and a little frightening, except for Kayla. She struggled to remember what had happened. The last thing she could remember clearly was arriving at Murrurundi for the King of the Ranges. She had no idea what had happened next. But she did remember one thing—Mitch. His face and his voice were the only real thing in the fog of her memory. They’d fought. She remembered that.

  ‘Mitch was …’

  ‘That’s right. He found you and called for help. Don’t worry about the horses, he’s looking after them.’

  Liz was relieved to hear that, but strangely enough, she hadn’t been thinking about her horses. Only about Mitch.

  She tried to sit up and managed on her second attempt, with Kayla’s help. Her left leg was enclosed in a splint. Her head hurt and when she went to touch it, she felt a bandage.

  ‘My head hurts.’

  ‘You hit it on something when you were bitten yesterday.’

  ‘Yesterday? But—’

  That’s when the nurse arrived, followed a few moments later by a doctor, and for a short time Liz had to suffer the indignities of being a hospital patient. Apparently her temperature and blood pressure and eyes were all looking good. The pain in her head would no doubt fade when the painkillers arrived. The leg was to remain in a splint for now, but the general consensus seemed to be that she was going to be fine in a few days.

  When she was alone with Kayla again, Liz was feeling more alert and able to think.

  ‘Exactly what happened?’ she asked.

  ‘Don’t you remember? Any of it?’

  She thought very hard and began to remember, but not clearly. And not all of it.

  ‘It was a king brown, I think?’

  Kayla nodded. ‘That’s what the doctor told me. They ran some test on the bites.’

  ‘Bites?’

  ‘Yes. Apparently it bit you three or four times. There was a lot of venom. You’re lucky Mitch found you.’

  ‘I was walking the cross-country course.’

  ‘That’s what he said. Do you remember how you hurt your head?’

  She thought very hard, but no memory came.

  ‘Don’t worry, it doesn’t matter. The doctor says you probably hit it when you fell. There were splinters.’ There was a sound from a bag sitting on the table next to the bed. Kayla fished her phone from its depths and read the message.

  ‘From Pascale,’ she said. ‘Asking how you’re doing. I’ll go and let her know you’re okay. Back in a minute.’

  During what seemed like a very long minute, Liz began to wonder just how close she had come to dying. Snake bites were not rare, but deaths from snake bite were rare enough to make the news. Anti-venom worked, but only if it was given promptly. If Mitch hadn’t found her when he did …

  ‘Pascale sends her best.’ Kayla had her phone in her hand as she walked into the room. ‘I texted Mitch as well to tell him you’re awake. I’m a bit surprised he’s not here. I thought he’d come after he’d seen to the horses.’

  Those words forced Liz to face an uncomfortable truth. ‘He won’t come. The King of the Ranges started this morning and he’s got to compete. It’s important to him. Besides, he knows I don’t want to see him. We had a fight yesterday.’

  Kayla sat down. The no-nonsense look on her face was becoming familiar. Liz knew what was coming.

  ‘I don’t get it. You and Mitch were so close. A blind man could see he still cares for you and I know you still have feelings for him.’

  ‘He’s seeing someone,’ Liz whispered.

  Kayla snorted. ‘Well, I wouldn’t blame him. Not after the way you’ve been treating him all these years. What the hell happened? Everyone was so sure the two of you would get married someday.’

  ‘We did.’

  She hadn’t intended to say that but the words just slipped out and as they did, Liz felt as if the Sydney Harbour Bridge had been lifted off her shoulders. It was time to stop hiding.

  ‘You what?’ The shock on Kayla’s face was almost comical. But Liz wasn’t in a laughing mood.

  ‘We got married.’ It was a little harder to say it the second time, because this time it was deliberate. But the words cracked some of the ice around her heart.

  ‘When?’

  This wasn’t going to be easy, but it was well past time Kayla knew the truth. ‘The day after his birthday. 2002.’

  Liz watched Kayla’s face as she made the connection. ‘But … that’s the day …’

  ‘Yes. That’s the day of the accident. Dad and Mum—and you too—were coming after us when the crash happened.’

  ‘I—no. I don’t understand. Why were we coming after you? And why don’t I know anything about that? I know I lost my memory of the crash, but why don’t I remember anything about a wedding?’

  ‘Because you never knew anything about it. We were running away. Mitch’s parents were moving north and he didn’t want to go. I knew Mum would say we were too young to be married. And I know Dad didn’t want us to. So we ran away. We’d arranged for a priest in Merriwa to marry us. Somehow Mum and Dad found out and they were on their way to stop us when the car crashed. It might have been a roo on the road. Or Dad might have been driving too fast. It was foggy and there could have been ice. We’ll never know exactly what happened, but it’s my fault Mum and Dad died.’
/>
  ‘And I was in the car with them.’

  ‘Yes. Kayla, I am so sorry. I will never forgive myself for what happened.’

  ‘No. That can’t be …’ Kayla’s shock was evident on her face as she raised her hand to touch the small scar under her fringe.

  Seeing that unconscious movement brought home to Liz how much her head wound was hurting, but the pounding there and the ache in her leg were nothing to the pain in her heart as she watched the horror spread over her sister’s face. It was too late for regrets now. And it was too late to stop. Now that she had started, she had to finish.

  ‘A policeman found us just as the ceremony ended and told us about the crash. You were hurt pretty badly. You were taken to … well, here, I guess. You know Mum died in the crash. Dad was really badly hurt and flown to Newcastle. He was …’ This was so hard. She could hardly bear to say the next words. ‘He was alive when I got there, but the doctors didn’t have much hope. I saw him. He was—’ She swallowed and forced herself to continue. ‘He was conscious. He told me he was trying to stop me. He didn’t want me to marry Mitch. Then he died.’

  ‘You saw him before he died? Why didn’t you ever tell me any of this?’

  ‘You were so young. When it became clear you didn’t remember anything at all, I decided it was better not to tell you why you were all in the car that morning. Then, when you were older, it was too late.’

  ‘No-one else knew?’

  ‘Mitch and his parents—but they moved away, so it was easier just to pretend it never happened.’

  ‘But it did happen, Liz—and it happened to me. I was the one in that car—not you. I lost my parents that day just like you did. And all because of …’

  Kayla’s voice trailed off. She shook her head as she got to her feet and left the room.

  Liz watched her go, forcing her eyes to stay open, because she didn’t want to see the images that, for all these years, had seemed burned into her eyelids. She could not stand to watch her father die one more time.

  CHAPTER

  61

  Kayla didn’t know where she was going, she just knew she had to get away from Liz.

  Liz was to blame for their parents’ deaths.

  The very words seemed impossible, but she did believe Liz had finally told her the truth about that terrible day.

  Liz and Mitch were married? In all these years, Liz had never so much as hinted at it.

  Her shocked mind tried to link the two facts. The echo of her footsteps in the hospital’s empty corridors added to her feeling of detachment and disbelief. If only she could remember what had happened that day …

  Her first memories were of waking up in this hospital, her leg in a cast and a bandage around her head. Just eleven years old and in pain and alone. She had cried for her parents, but they never came. Only Mitch’s parents were there for her, and she had learned that she was an orphan from Mrs Saunders, not Lizzie. Her sister had been too busy to spend time with a terrified child. Strangers had comforted her when she woke screaming in the middle of the night. Kayla hadn’t even attended her parents’ funeral. It had all been done by the time she was released from hospital. And then Liz told her she was going away to boarding school.

  Force of habit directed Kayla’s fingers to trace the small white scar on her forehead. It really wasn’t a big deal, and she’d always kept it hidden by hair or make-up. Now it was Liz lying in bed with her head swathed in bandages. Kayla hadn’t seen the actual wound, but a small part of her, the part she hated, wanted the scar forming under those bandages to be too big and too ugly to hide. Liz deserved it.

  Kayla kept walking along the corridor and went through a door. She barely noticed the steps down to another level and yet another long corridor. Her head was spinning wildly, and her knees suddenly began to shake. She dropped into a nearby chair and buried her face in her hands. When she finally raised her eyes, she looked across the room to see a huge, colourful mural covering most of the wall, too bright to be ignored. The painting was a vista of rolling hills dotted with deep green trees. The blue skies were filled with colourful birds, while ponies frolicked in the grass. Brilliant butterflies flitted through flower gardens, and black swans floated serenely on a pond.

  She had seen that mural before.

  She sat there and stared at the mass of colour, while in her head images began to form: a kaleidoscope tumbling so fast she could barely breathe.

  ‘Excuse me, miss. Are you all right? Do you need to see a doctor?’

  Kayla looked up into the concerned face of an elderly nurse, but struggled to focus on the woman. ‘No. Thank you. I’m just a bit upset. There was an accident.’

  ‘I’m sorry, dear. Do you need help finding anyone here at the hospital?’

  ‘No. No, thank you.’

  ‘All right. I hope everything turns out all right.’ The nurse started to walk away.

  ‘Wait!’

  The woman turned back.

  ‘I’m sorry, but I have to ask. That mural … it’s been here a long time?’

  ‘Yes, it has. This is part of the old hospital. The children’s ward was here. The mural was for the kiddies, you see. When they redeveloped the hospital they were going to paint it out, but so many people argued against it, they decided to keep it. It’s rather fun for the kids. It helps them when they are sick or frightened.’

  ‘Yes, it does. Thank you,’ Kayla whispered.

  ‘Are you sure you’re all right?’

  Kayla nodded and the woman walked away.

  Closing her eyes against the colours that suddenly seemed almost too bright, Kayla shivered. A darkness seemed to engulf her and her hands gripped the chair tightly. Then there was a light in the darkness behind her eyes. The hospital smells around her became more and more intense, and she remembered lying on her back, calling for her mother. A woman, a nurse, was holding her hand as she was wheeled along a corridor past a mural … a large, colourful mural of ponies running wild in green fields.

  Kayla opened her eyes, but she couldn’t stand to look at the mural any more. She wanted nothing more than to walk—no—to run out of this hospital and get in her car and drive to the safety of the city. The city had no memories to haunt her.

  The wheels of her sports car spun in the gravel as she roared away. That sound too was terrifyingly familiar. She was driving on autopilot, her eyes and hands and feet kept the car on the road, but her mind was absent. The car raced south, past Murrurundi, where Kayla didn’t even glance at the horse arena. Without giving any real thought to what she was doing, Kayla turned right just before Scone, flashing past the sign that pointed to Merriwa. As the road began to climb, she suddenly pulled over and got out.

  This was the place. She hadn’t driven this road since the accident, but she knew in her heart that this was the place.

  Her knees felt weak as she leaned against the bonnet of her car and looked around. There was nothing to see. No mark remained from the morning that had changed her life. Changed many lives. She gave up the fight against the images swirling at the edges of her mind, closed her eyes and let herself remember.

  CHAPTER

  62

  ‘Get dressed, Kayla,’ Kath says. ‘Wear something pretty.’

  ‘Mum?’

  ‘Not now, sweetie. I’ll explain everything later. Just go and get dressed.’

  This is something to do with Lizzie being gone, but Kayla doesn’t know what. She has no idea where her sister might be, nor why she has taken her prettiest dress. But she does know it has something to do with Mitch. Everything Lizzie does these days is about Mitch.

  She comes downstairs wearing a dress like her mother said, and a coat, because it’s cold and foggy outside, with frost on the grass. She hears her father’s voice from the kitchen.

  ‘I think they’ve gone to Merriwa.’

  ‘How do you know?’ Her mother is in the kitchen too.

  ‘The rectory in Scone says Father Michael left a while ago for an early wedding. That
has to be them.’

  ‘Have you called the church there?’

  ‘There’s no answer. Mitch’s dad is going to keep trying. I just want to get on the road.’

  They all get in the car and set off. Sam Lawson is in such a hurry to get away that he revs the cold engine too hard. The car tyres spin, sending gravel flying across the driveway. His wife mutters a protest, but not too forcefully. Kayla peers out the window at the thick fog. It’s daylight, but she can barely see the trees on the other side of the road.

  ‘Where are we going?’ Kayla asks her mother.

  ‘We’re going to Merriwa to meet up with Lizzie and Mitch.’

  ‘Why?’

  The older Lawsons share a glance. Sam nods.

  ‘Mitch and Lizzie want to get married,’ Kath says.

  ‘We all know that.’ Kayla’s voice is petulant. ‘But why do we have to go out today? It’s cold.’

  ‘I know it is, honey, but your dad has turned the heater on. The car will warm up soon.’

  Just outside of Scone, the car suddenly swerves violently. Kayla hasn’t put her seatbelt on, and is flung across the back seat, bruising her arm against the door.

  ‘Shit!’ Sam rarely swears, and his vehemence adds to Kayla’s distress. ‘Put your seatbelt on, Kayla. You know better.’

  ‘It’s all right, honey.’ Kath turns to her daughter. ‘It was only a roo. Your dad’s a great driver. Everything is fine, but you really have to put your seatbelt on.’

  Despite the reassuring words, Kayla is shaken, as much by the fierce look Kath flashes at her husband as by the near miss.

  ‘Where are Lizzie and Mitch?’ she asks as they reach the outskirts of Scone.

  ‘They’ve gone to Merriwa. To get married.’

  ‘Are you going to stop them?’

  Once more Kath and Sam share a look as Sam brakes and turns onto the Merriwa road. The road goes over the hills, and is shrouded in fog. The car’s headlights are on, but visibility isn’t good.

  ‘No, Kayla, we’re not. They are very young, and we’d like them to wait for a while, but if they are determined, we just want to be there with them.’