Wildflower Hill (40 page)

“Sheep,” he said.

“Beyond that, I mean. Her personal life. Did she live alone?”

I heard a faint scratching noise and surmised this was Uncle Mike rubbing his stubbly chin: a good sign. He usually did this right before he revealed something he shouldn’t. “Well,” he said slowly, “I don’t really know. Why do you ask?”

“I’m finding bits and pieces in the boxes down here that make me wonder if she had a special . . . friend.”

“Look, I wouldn’t be surprised. Not that I know anything for sure, but when I was about sixteen, I eavesdropped on an argument between your nana and granddad.”

“And?”

“I just remember him saying to her, ‘You’re not telling me something, Beattie,’ and she was completely silent. Then he said, ‘If something you’ve done in the past is going to come back and bite us on the bum, I need to know.’ But she said nothing; wouldn’t answer him.”

My granddad never would have said the word “bum,” so that was an embellishment, but the rest of it pricked my interest. “Really?”

“Can’t remember the exact words, but it was definitely that she hadn’t told him something about her past, and he was worried. He was tense. That was just before the 1966 election, and his seat was pretty marginal. He only just hung on that year.”

“So, what did you think he meant?” I asked.

“Don’t really know, Em. Earlier that year, Mum had gone away for a while. Just off on her own, down to Tassie. Dad didn’t tell us what was going on, but Louise and I kind of understood that it was a trial separation. She came back, and they seemed fine and got on okay. Haven’t really thought of it much since.”

I turned this over in my head. Granddad accusing Grandma of past secrets. A photo of a child in her arms and a collection of children’s dress patterns. A lover. A farm given to her for free by minor English nobility. For the first time, I realized I wasn’t involved in idle speculation. Grandma really did have a secret past in this house, but I couldn’t pin all the pieces together.

B
eautiful weather came. Clear, clear skies, sunshine, warm breezes, and wildflowers everywhere. God’s own weather, if you believed in that kind of thing. All at once it seemed a crime to be inside. Patrick had come by to take more things to the dump and help shift all the remaining unpacked boxes into the front storeroom. He’d been tense, and he said it was because the school where the Hollyhocks practiced had said they couldn’t have the hall for the next two weeks, and this was going to make their rehearsal time for the concert much shorter. I wondered if Monica had said something to him, if he couldn’t meet my eye because he knew that I was in love with somebody else.

The house was almost completely cleaned out; it was certainly in salable condition. It looked like somebody lived there. Monica was in the process of cleaning up the cottage properly. A few boxes still remained in the little front storeroom, but the weather was too glorious to be inside during the day. I saved sorting them for nighttime and made a start on the gardens instead.

The garden beds around the front entrance were my first project. I had almost zero gardening abilities but had watched Josh tend to his pots on the terrace and had gotten the basic idea. I trimmed and weeded with the sunshine in my hair, thinking about nothing for long stretches of time. A pile of green waste piled up behind me, and I wished I had a cat or a dog to lie on the path in the sun and keep me company. I heard the phone ring somewhere in the house, but with my knee, I couldn’t rush about for phones anymore, so I let it go.

I was contemplating clearing up the deadfall under the cabbage gum when a car eased up the driveway. I stood and stretched my leg, recognizing Penelope Sykes’s car. Another unannounced visit. Or perhaps that had been her on the phone. Immediately, I felt ashamed of myself. Why did I always think the worst of everyone? Why couldn’t I just be friendly? I overcompensated.

“Hello!” I said, waving as she got out of the car.

She smiled cautiously as she approached. “I did try to call.”

“I’m just about to have a cuppa. Would you like one?”

“I won’t stay.”

I was determined that she
would
stay, that I would make a better impression on her. “I insist,” I said, taking her elbow.

Penelope allowed herself to be brought inside and seated at the table while I made tea.

“I’ve got something for you,” she said, sliding a book across the table to me. “I was putting away all those records you gave me in my prewar file, and I found this. Had forgotten I even had it.”

I picked up the book. It was printed on thick, shiny paper,
with a slightly crooked cover. Self-published. The title was
Life of a Godly Woman.
I winced.

“It’s as boring as it looks,” Penelope said, carefully pouring milk into her teacup. “But you should read between the two Post-it notes I’ve put in there.”

“What’s it about?”

“A woman named Pamela Lacey wrote it. Her aunt Margaret Day lived in Lewinford from 1929 to 1945. She kept a diary and passed it on to her niece when she died. The niece wrote it up like a biography. Fictionalized it a bit, I’m sure: names changed to protect the innocent . . .” Here she raised her eyebrows dramatically. “I had a quick skim with your grandmother in mind and . . . Look, I don’t know, but there’s a character in there who sounds like she might be based on Beattie. Young Scottish lass comes up from Hobart, desperate and poor, winds up owning a big sheep farm.”

My blood electrified. “Yes! It must be Beattie.”

“I can’t tell you how much of the story has been embellished, Emma, and Pamela Lacey is no longer around to ask. If it is Beattie, she’s a pretty minor character . . . dealt with in a few pages.” Penelope sat back, sipping her tea. “And it’s not a flattering portrait, I should warn you of that.”

I was sorry I’d encouraged her to stay. I really needed to sit down and read the book that instant, not make small talk—something I wasn’t particularly good at anyway. Still, we spoke about the house, my plans, the weather, and she was soon on her way. I saw Penelope to her car, the book tucked under my arm. Then I found a patch of soft, overgrown grass between the poplars. The breeze had picked up, and the clouds were
racing across the sky. The whole world seemed to be moving, but I sat very still as I read.

The Scottish lass, as she was known, arrived one evening soaking wet with a tiny red-haired child in tow, asking for help. The book did not make it clear whether the child was Beattie’s, but her father came for her two pages later, so perhaps she wasn’t. Or was. Depending on my mood. The Scottish lass was involved in alcohol, drugs, illegal gambling, and possibly orgies—the word was never used, but “the worst imaginable congress between desiring adults” was referred to—before she seduced the owner of a local farm to sell it to her cheaply.

Well, the author got that bit wrong. Beattie didn’t get her farm cheaply; she got it for free.

I didn’t know what to make of it. The writing was so overwrought and sanctimonious that the events didn’t sound real. It did make me wonder if the man who gave Beattie the farm was the lover referred to in her letter, but the dates didn’t match up: Raphael Blanchard went back to England in 1934; the sexy letter was probably written in 1939. So did Grandma have more than one lover? Was the little girl in the photo her daughter? Who was the man who came for the little red-haired child? I wanted to believe, like Mum, that Granddad was the first. The only.

But the worst mistake we can make about old people is to forget they were young once.

I read the same seven pages again and again, looking for information between the lines and letters that simply wasn’t there. I started to understand that I might never know what
Grandma’s secret was. That bothered me. I should have been around more when she was alive. I shouldn’t have taken her for granted. But I was off in London having my Terribly Significant Career, and even if she’d said she wanted to tell me something important, I might not have listened.

I was listening now, that was for sure.

Patrick came by Wednesday afternoon after school to pick up Monica. She usually walked, but there was a thunderstorm brewing somewhere behind the warm horizon. I was glad to see him but cautious about showing it.

“Wow, you’ve done great things with the garden,” he said. “It’s therapeutic,” I said, showing him the mountain of branches and weeds.

“You’ll need somebody with a trailer to help you with that. Do you want me to ask around?”

“It’s fine. I have to get better at that stuff. Looking people up, sorting out problems.” I noticed he hadn’t taken off his sunglasses. “I wanted to talk to you about Mina, anyway,” I said, “so I’m glad you’re here.”

“What is it?”

“Two weeks without a rehearsal. She might forget it all, and time’s running out. Do you think her father would drop her off up here on the weekend? She could stay the whole weekend if she wanted to . . .” I trailed off, realizing I didn’t know the first thing about taking care of somebody like Mina. “If that’s not a mad idea.”

Patrick smiled, pushing his sunglasses up on top of his
head. It made a piece of his hair stick out at a right angle to his face. “I think it’s a lovely idea. But her dad won’t drive this far. I might be able to convince him to let me pick her up and drop her home, though.”

“That’s hard work for you.”

“I don’t mind. I’m quite used to driving the distances.” He slid his sunglasses back on. “Can I call you back about this? I’ll see what I can do.”

“Certainly, let me know.”

I was growing to love gardening, which surprised me, as I’d never been outdoorsy at all. The long garden bed that ran down from the driveway to the laundry was my latest project. I’d started with the grass and weeds, careful to avoid the thorns on the overgrown roses. I found it hard work, physical work, and didn’t mind at all. I lost myself in it, and I liked the way it made me stop thinking. I didn’t think about my knee or Josh or my mother; there was just me and the sun-warmed soil.

Monica came to find me around three o’clock. “How’s it going?” she asked.

I surveyed the heap of weeds behind me, then looked back at the garden bed. “Feels like I’m getting nowhere.”

“Do you want to come and see? I’ve finished in the cottage.”

I climbed to my feet and peeled off my gardening gloves. “Really? Finished?”

“Come and see.”

I hadn’t been into the cottage since it had been emptied of boxes. I remembered a dark, cobwebbed space. Monica threw open the door, and I didn’t recognize the place. It was clean from floor to ceiling, mold scrubbed away to reveal golden floors and walls.

“This looks fantastic,” I said.

“Come in farther, there’s something interesting to show you.” Monica tugged my sleeve lightly. It was the first time since I’d told her about Josh that she’d been her usual friendly self.

I followed her to the biggest of the rooms, and she crouched down under the tiny window to show me.

“Look,” she said. “All the shearers who came here have carved their initials.”

I bent to look. She was right. A collection of initials. It made me smile. “Are they in every room?”

“Just this one and the one across the corridor. Some are in love hearts with a sweetheart’s initials.”

This pricked my interest, so I went to the other room to look. But there were no BBs for Beattie Blaxland. Still, it got me thinking. Was Grandma’s secret lover one of the shearers? That would account for her talking about the opinions of the township.

“You know what you should do,” Monica was saying, thumbing a smudge she’d missed off the window. “You should spend a little money decorating the cottage, then let it out for holidays. Farm tourism is big.”

I was already shaking my head. “I’m going to sell the whole lot in March. That can be somebody else’s problem.”

“You’re definitely going to sell?”

I looked back at her and laughed. “Definitely. Probably. I don’t know. I can’t stay, I’ll have to get on with my life at some stage.”

“In Sydney? Or back in London?”

I took a moment to answer.

“With Josh?” she continued quietly.

I decided to tackle this issue head-on. “Why does it upset you so much that I have an ex-boyfriend in London?”

“Whom you still love?”

I spread my hands, not elaborating. Waiting for an answer.

Monica sighed. “I’m sorry, have I been obvious?”

“Yes.”

“It’s just me being silly. I thought you liked Patrick. You know,
liked
him. And I was quite invested in that thought, so . . .”

“You were jealous on his behalf?”

“I guess so.” She smiled. “Sorry.”

“It’s all right.”

“It’s just . . .” She trailed off. I waited. “I shouldn’t say anything . . .”

I waited again. I had discovered over the years—accidentally—that silence made people talk more.

“It’s just that Patrick likes you.”

“Likes me? Or
likes
me?” I asked, feeling like a teenager.

Monica shook her head. “He’s going to kill me.”

“I won’t say anything.” Okay, that was weird. A little thrill ran through me. Patrick, with his exotic eyes and his straight back. I was right: he did find me desirable, enough so to tell
his sister. The thought sparked off all kinds of unconscious reactions in my body. I actually laughed softly, like a giggling schoolgirl.

“Anyway,” Monica said, “forget we had this conversation. I’m sorry if I’ve embarrassed you. Do you want a hand with that garden bed?”

“I’d love it,” I said.

We worked through the rest of the golden afternoon together in silence.

Mina’s father insisted on meeting me, so I drove down to Hobart with Patrick to pick her up. We pulled up outside a huge, glassed mansion at Battery Point.

Patrick frowned, checked the address on the piece of paper, then turned off the car. “That’s a big house,” he said.

“Is it just the two of them?”

“As far as I know.” He climbed out of the car, and I followed. We went up to the front door and rang the bell. I stole glances at Patrick in the yellow midday light, but he seemed oblivious to them.