Absolution Creek (52 page)

‘War, honour, revenge, love.’ Cora lifted horn-rimmed glasses. ‘You should read it one day. You might learn something.’

‘I don’t know where you find the energy to read in the evening.’

Cora removed her glasses. ‘Next year when the girls go away to school you’ll have more time.’

‘Go away to school?’

‘Why, yes. There are no decent primary schools around here. I suggest one in Brisbane. Absolution Creek can contribute a little.’

A shower of sparks sprayed out on the tiled hearth as Meg poked the burning log. Her aunt might be in control of their work life but the twins’ futures were not under her jurisdiction. She sat cross-legged before the fire.

Cora closed her book, fingering the tasselled bookmark. ‘I’m sure you would have appreciated a better education, and obviously you want the best for your girls.’

‘There was nothing wrong with my education.’

‘No, of course there wasn’t.’

Meg knew she was being handled, placated. What worried her was that her aunt spoke as if Meg’s future was here on Absolution Creek. It was true she’d been excited when Ellen insinuated the property would be left to her, but Meg hadn’t yet thought beyond that point. Her thoughts flitted back to their Sydney apartment, her regulated yet strangely comforting existence there and the life she now led. . .

‘What are you thinking about?’

‘Primrose Park.’ Meg cleared her mind of images of a blue-green sea merging with a narrow strip of sand and parkland. ‘You can see it from a side window in our flat. It’s so beautiful with its expanse of green lawn and wavering trees.’

‘I’m sure it is.’

Meg rested her chin on her knees. ‘When I was a child I played along the foreshore. I even have a little hidey-hole filled with oddments from my childhood. It’s on the side of a hill that leads to the water’s edge. I used to wander down to the park every day. When you sit close to the little harbour, which spills up to the park’s edge, you feel like you’re nestled in a frill of trees ringed by plants and water and energy.’

Cora placed her novel on the side table. ‘It’s very different to here, then.’

‘Oh yes. When there’s a full moon in Sydney you don’t feel as if you’re at the beck and call of the elements. Out here the moon, the sun, the weather controls everything, from the length of the days the men work to the vegetables we grow, to the feed the stock eat. We don’t seem to matter. People don’t seem to matter. The men go out every day and still they are never done, never finished. I feel that the bush is encroaching on us. That we’re in a continual battle with it.’

‘Well, this house does sit in the middle of a paddock.’

Meg turned to her. ‘It’s more than that. I always feel as if the bush is the stronger of us, with its secrets and its long history and its ability to –’

‘Survive?’

‘Yes,’ Meg agreed. ‘Survive. In the city, at least where we live, you’re never alone. It feels like a living, breathing entity, yet I’m not competing with the city to exist like we seem to out here. The place is a fairyland at night with its hillside dwellings, tiny boats on the water and the people and places, the things you can do. Why, I could fill up every evening from now to Christmas telling you about the grocer’s shop where I work, my favourite shops and cafés . . .’

Cora lit another cigarette then snapped the lid of the lighter shut. ‘And I wouldn’t be interested in hearing about it, Meg. Distance makes people romanticise about the past, a place, and we both know that your beloved city didn’t hold you enough to stop you from coming here.’

Meg wondered what circumstances moulded a person’s character; whether her aunt’s matter-of-fact attitude was an inherent part of her or a characteristic formed by life experience. She took the hearth brush from its stand and swept up ash and dirt, gathering it into a neat pile. There was still the kitchen table to be set for breakfast, the dough for their bread to be mixed and the dinner plates to wash, which would be sitting in the sink untouched.

‘The way you feel about the city is how I feel about the bush, although I don’t understand your love for such a manmade environment, and I’m sure that beyond your fond descriptions there are many people living in the city who don’t feel like you do. There would be those who feel adrift amongst a sea of strangers, bereft and alone; those that look beyond the brick square feet that contain their lives and wish for something better, greater.’

‘And have you found that something, Cora?’ In the flickering light her aunt’s profile was determined, youthful.

Cora lit another cigarette. She was in the habit of using a porcelain ashtray with a perforated edge, which was decorated with an interweaving narrow velvet ribbon. ‘How are you and Sam getting on?’

‘Good,’ Meg answered carefully. ‘Although James Campbell suggested you think otherwise.’ The words came out in a rush.

Cora frowned. ‘Did he now? James can be overly enthusiastic when it comes to women. He took it upon himself to make a couple of well-placed telephone calls regarding your husband.’ Cora lowered her voice and glanced towards the door. ‘Sam’s been involved in some nasty altercations in Sydney and it’s all around town he’s a drinker.’

‘I see,’ Meg said flatly. ‘Small-town gossiping. Life must be boring out here.’

Cora tapped her finger on the arm of her chair. ‘You’re the new blood in the district. People talk.’

‘But we’re family.’

‘
You
are,’ Cora reminded her, ‘and you should have told me Sam’s predicament was a good part of the reason for you coming here. I never wanted another male on the place. I’ve enough problems trying to keep Harold under control.’

‘Well, maybe you should be paying a bit more attention to him. Sam seems to think he has some good ideas. And it sounds to me like it’s just as well he organised all that work stuff without your knowing about it. The property needs it.’

Cora’s mouth tightened. She took a long puff of her cigarette before stabbing it out in the ashtray. ‘Really?’

‘Yes,’ Meg continued, ‘and I also think Kendal would be a lot happier if he were paid for the work he did.’

‘Do you?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well, you seem to have developed some strong opinions for someone whose life barely takes her twenty feet beyond the back gate. I didn’t realise you were so knowledgeable on the workings of the property or understood the set of circumstances that sees Absolution lumbered with the likes of Harold’s nephew and constrained by costs. I don’t want to know who’s been feeding you such tripe, but someone has been rolling the bullets and you most obligingly are firing them.’ Cora lit another cigarette. ‘Now that we’ve covered that topic let’s move on to what I wanted to discuss with you.’

Meg tried to calm her breathing.

‘I’ve noticed a change in both you and Sam. For the better,’ Cora explained. ‘You’re both more settled, happy – especially Sam – which is to be expected, I guess, a couple of months down the track.’

‘I sense there’s a
but
coming.’

‘I just want you to be sure about the direction your life is taking. Let me put it this way: I can put up with Sam if you can.’

Her aunt certainly didn’t believe in prevaricating.

‘And I want you to write to your mother. Again.’

Meg glanced about the room with its picture rail of watercolours.

‘It’s only fair to let her know what your intentions are, and that Absolution and not Sydney is your future. If you hold out the olive branch you’ll have a far better chance of reconnecting with her and paving the way when it comes to approaching her for assistance with the twins’ education.’

‘Gee, maybe she can come and visit and we can all sit around and have a friendly chat like old times.’

‘Meg, I’m being serious. And yes, it would be easier if she did visit.’ Cora’s need for a final confrontation with her stepsister had firmed in the months since Meg’s arrival. The retelling of ‘Squib’s’ story was the catalyst. Cora needed Jane to admit her part in the Hamilton family’s demise. She needed Jane to admit to her face that she’d purposely let her fall from the back of the dray and that in her desperate need to have Matt Hamilton to herself, Cora’s brother Ben had eventually died. Cora wanted Meg to hear it from Jane’s mouth. All of it. It was simply wrong for Meg not to know about the past.

‘Why has it taken so long for you and Mum to tell me that you were stepsisters?’ Meg asked.

‘So you
have
heard from her.’ Cora twirled her reading glasses. ‘I guess I figured your mother would do the honours, but then I suppose you would have asked questions and Jane wouldn’t know how to reply.’ Her eyes darkened. ‘That’s part of the reason you’re here. I want your mother to admit what she did to me and my brother. I want you to know the truth.’

Meg was beginning to feel a little uneasy. ‘About what?’

‘You know what, Meg, about me. What she did to me.’

Meg’s eyes were drawn to a particularly fetching watercolour of blue-green hills hanging above a marble-topped table. A crack ran from floor to ceiling behind the painting, a jagged reminder of the unstable foundations beneath them. She took a breath, saw the tears glistening in her aunt’s eyes and visualised the young girl falling from the rear of the dray some forty years ago. Meg knew Cora’s words to be true. It was the story of Cora ‘Squib’ Hamilton, her own mother’s stepsister, the child who’d been lost as a young family ran from the law in the dead of night.

‘Cora, I –’

‘It’s probably hard for you to hear but your mother was the catalyst that made me what I am today, good and bad. But I think we’ve talked enough tonight.’

‘Are you all right? You look a little peaky?’

Cora closed her eyes for the briefest of moments. ‘It’s been a struggle all this remembering, Meg. That’s all.’

Beneath the carpet the timber floorboards creaked as Cora left the dining room. Meg sat the mesh guard across the fireplace, banging it into place. A small chip appeared in the mahogany surround and she rubbed a finger over the indentation, glancing over her shoulder before walking around the room to turn the lamps off. Through the casement windows the moon illuminated the garden. The fence and trees were thrown into relief by the white light. Meg could almost see the dam bank from this angle. It was a crisp, clear night, a night for the lonely. Meg shivered. She knew her aunt didn’t ride out at night to be with a dead lover, but all the same, some nights at Absolution Creek anything did seem possible.

‘So, what was the old girl on about tonight?’ Sam was sitting up in bed reading a book.

‘You’re reading?’ Meg couldn’t even begin to explain her aunt’s life. Hers had been a gradual realisation that Cora and Squib were one and the same, and that the nasty stepsister was in fact her own mother. Tonight had confirmed Meg’s suspicions.

Sam folded down a corner of the page and closed the slim volume. ‘Don’t sound so surprised, I do know how to read.’

‘Sorry, it’s just that I’ve never seen you read a book before.’

Sam grinned. ‘Well, you know it’s really not that big of a step to go from reading the form guide to –’ he showed her the book’s cover ‘–
The Farmer’s Handyman
, or whatever it is. Thought I’d better do some research before I embarked on fixing Lady Cora’s feeder tomorrow.’ He gave a cough. ‘And the gate.’

Meg screwed her nose up. ‘Sorry about that.’

‘Hey, no problems here. I guess the old girl had to rub off on you eventually. Just don’t go getting too independent.’

‘Cora said the girls would have to be sent away to school next year, probably Brisbane.’

Sam’s eyes widened. ‘Well, that’s a bit of a windfall. We never could have afforded a boarding-school education for them.’

‘She didn’t offer to pay for all of their education, Sam. In fact, she suggested I ask my mother.’ Meg changed into her flannelette nightgown and began putting the day’s folded washing away in the tall chest of drawers. ‘Apparently there are no decent schools around here.’ It took some time for her to notice that although the room was as cold as usual, there was no lingering scent of cigarette smoke, no laden ashtray on the bedside table.

Sam gave a grimace. ‘I hadn’t thought about schools.’

‘If the girls left I don’t know what I’d do.’

‘We’ll keep you busy.’

Sure, Meg decided, cooking meals and cleaning the house. Next door one of the girls gave a dreamy whimper. The little mites were exhausted by the end of every day and, while their childish arguments continued, there certainly wasn’t the bickering that had seemed to rule their daily existence in Sydney. They were happily thriving in their new environment. As of today, surprisingly, so was Sam.

‘I might not want to be separated from them.’

Sam patted the bed. ‘Well, let’s just wait and see what happens. So, who is this Jack Manning, anyway?’

Meg hunched her shoulders. She didn’t want to go into this with Sam tonight. The conversation would weave through her dreams and Meg couldn’t bear to be haunted by little Squib, not when the grown-up version lay a wall’s width away. Nor did she want to know any more about her own mother’s part in Cora’s childhood, for Meg had a terrible feeling that Squib never did find her father. Outside, a dog barked. Meg tucked the remainder of the clothes in the drawers. A pair of pantyhose caught her eye. They were in her sock drawer and appeared to have been stretched out of all proportion. Huge ladders ran down each leg.