Morgan's Law (7 page)

Too restless and emotional to return to the pub, her mind a jumble of thoughts and questions, Sarah found herself turning the car in the opposite direction to town and driving along the road with no destination in mind.

She slowed the car as she passed a faded sign on a wide gate.
Negallan Gin
. Curious, she pulled over and stared thoughtfully at the entrance before her.

It was hard to see anything from the road, but in the distance, behind a row of dense scrubby trees, she spotted the roof of a large building. After checking the road was empty and there was no one in sight, she climbed the metal fence, swinging her legs over the top before dropping neatly onto the other side. Although the track leading into the property was overgrown in parts, it was still passable and she picked her way along it to discover massive sheds and storage bins which had been hidden behind the thick, bushy scrub.

It was easy to envisage the hive of activity this place would have been not too long ago. From what Sarah could gather, the gin had once been a profitable venture. It had been the thriving hub of Negallan and the surrounding area, one of the largest employers in the district, until things went sour and it closed down.

At her feet Sarah spotted a small dirty grey puff. She bent down to pick it up and rubbed it between her fingers. Cotton. There was so much history in this place, she thought as she carefully avoided the cobwebs to peer through a window into one of the large, silent sheds. Turning, she slowly made her way back to the front gate, savouring the warmth of the sun on her shoulders.

As she drove back towards town lost in thought, a flash of something shiny in one of the paddocks caught her attention. Two four-wheel drives were stopped on a dirt track that ran from the main road through two fenced paddocks.

Three men were standing at the rear of one of the vehicles, and something about their body language made her do a double-take. She slowed the car, wondering if she was imagining things. There was something vaguely familiar about them. Maybe she recognised the men from the pub, but she was certain the darker, stockier one had been the same man she'd seen at the feed store earlier.

The sound of her car slowing caused the men to look up and one of them lifted his hand in a wave.

She'd been positive there had been a menacing feel to the scene before the men had realised she'd been approaching. It had looked very much like an argument, but she couldn't be sure as the sun was low in the sky and made it hard to see.

Sarah chided herself for overreacting. She was still getting used to how different things were here. Apparently people just pulled over to chat wherever and whenever they felt like it! She glanced nervously at the sinking sun. She didn't want to be out here when it got dark—it was hard enough finding her way around in daylight, and besides, she wanted to get back to the pub. There was a phone call she needed to make.

Five

It was quiet on the verandah outside her room. It was also the only place she seemed to be able to get mobile phone reception.

She'd barely said hello to her mother before the interrogation started.

‘Where are you?'

‘I'm still out here.'

‘I wish you'd just forget about all this and come home.'

Sarah had had this conversation before—many times in the lead-up to her departure—and she bit back a tired sigh. ‘Mum, have you ever heard of Rose Morgan?'

‘Who's that?'

Sarah paused. There was just no easy way to break this kind of news. ‘I think it's Gran.'

‘What do you mean, it's Gran?'

‘I've shown the photo of her to people out here and all of them know her as Rose Morgan. There's never been any Joneses out here. I don't know why, but it seems that Gran changed her name.'

‘Don't be ridiculous. Why on earth would your grandmother change her name?'

‘Are you sure you haven't heard the name before? Seen it anywhere?'

‘Sarah, I don't like this at all.' Her mother sounded concerned and Sarah realised her mistake too late. She didn't want her mother getting any more worked up over her decision to come out here alone.

‘I know, Mum,' she sighed, rubbing her fingers against her temple wearily. ‘I don't understand it either at the moment. I met her brother though, and his family. They seem like nice people.'

Before she'd left Sydney they'd discussed the possibility of her finding lost relatives on this trip. It had seemed inevitable that there would be some kind of family link to this place if Gran had wanted to be returned here. But to go from having no family to suddenly finding uncles and cousins was a little daunting, especially for her mother.

‘Just come home. This doesn't sound right. I don't like you stuck out there in the middle of nowhere.'

‘It's hardly some dangerous third-world country, Mum.

I'm fine. It's quite nice actually. You should come out and have a look. Why don't you and Frederick come out for a few days?'

‘I don't like travelling long distances in a car—you know that, dear.'

No, but twenty-six-plus hours in a plane to Europe was manageable, Sarah thought sarcastically. ‘Aren't you even the tiniest bit curious about Gran's life? About these people we're related to?'

‘We don't know anything about them. This could all be some big misunderstanding. Besides, I have all the family I need already.'

Sarah knew she shouldn't have hoped for her mother to have done a complete turnaround about this whole situation. Ever since Sarah had told Jocelyn she was coming out here her mother had been trying to change her mind. Every conversation always seemed to end in an argument whenever Gran was mentioned—even after she was no longer alive.

It had taken Sarah most of her life to understand the complex relationship between her mother and her gran. As a child, she'd worried about the tension that hung in the air between the two women. It wasn't until she was an adult and could see them both through adult eyes that the picture had become clearer.

For a long time Sarah had thought she had very little in common with her mother, but she'd been wrong. The same yen for excitement that had driven Sarah to pack up and move to London all those years ago had been exactly what drove Jocelyn to resist her mother's traditional ideas and old-fashioned values and leave home at a young age.

Gran had tried her best to make a good home for Jocelyn and she wanted desperately for her only daughter to find the love and security she herself had never found. But Jocelyn was not the homebody Gran had hoped she'd be. She didn't want to settle down and raise a family. She wanted drama and travel. She wanted to party and meet exciting men, and she'd gone out and done it all, leaving Gran to feel as though she'd somehow failed in her attempt to raise her daughter alone. Had it not been for meeting Sarah's father, and loving him enough to give him the one thing he desired—a child—Sarah had no doubt that her mother would never have had children.

Gran had never hidden the fact she'd been disappointed in Jocelyn's choices, but she had also never put her mother down in front of Sarah, and for that Sarah was grateful. She would have hated to have been forced to take sides between the two women, both of whom she loved very much. But not for the first time in her life, Sarah wished her mother wasn't quite so exhausting to deal with.

‘Come home.'

‘Not yet. I want to do this for her, Mum.'

The silence on the end of the phone spoke volumes. It was heavy with disapproval and disappointment.

‘Look, I'll talk to you later. Give my love to Frederick.'

She disconnected the call and gazed down at the street below. She and her mother were complete opposites in so many ways. Her mother was tall, creamy-skinned and red-headed, while Sarah was short and dark-haired. Her mother had never been the doting type, she'd been far too busy with her business when Sarah was little and then once she married Frederick she was busy playing the jet-setting wife. Sarah guessed it had probably been a tough decision—accompany executive husband on business trips to places like Paris and Italy, or stay at home and go to a P&C meeting. Sarah had long ago given up feeling sorry for herself. Jocelyn was who she was and there was little point crying about it now. Even so, she knew her mother loved her. But it was Gran who had always provided the hugs and the gentle touches, who had always been there for her, and somewhere along the line Sarah had forgotten that.

Taking her drink out to the small courtyard, Sarah sat down and tipped her head back to stare up at the endless black of the sky above.

‘Did things go well today?' came Tash's voice as she stepped out into the courtyard.

‘That depends on your definition of “well”.'

‘You better elaborate,' said Tash.

‘Then you better grab a glass and I'll pour you some wine first,' said Sarah and waited until Tash had sat down. ‘Well, I'm no closer to finding the wishing tree, but it looks like my grandmother's real name
was
Rose Morgan and she's Albert Morgan's sister. He was really affected by the photo of her. Once some of the dust settles I want to visit the Morgans again to see if I can find out more about Gran's younger life, and the tree. I didn't want to hang around for too long today because Albert was pretty emotional.'

He wasn't the only one, Sarah thought with an inward sigh. This had started out as a simple gesture in memory of her gran, but it was rapidly turning into something much more complicated. She felt very uncomfortable about the underlying current she'd detected from Ruth Morgan this afternoon. The way Ruth had been staring at her, the hint of suspicion she'd detected in her voice and the polite distance she'd kept. She couldn't blame her, of course—it wasn't every day someone appeared on your doorstep with a photo of a missing relative they claimed was their grandmother—but Sarah felt as though Ruth had been waiting for her to slip up so she could catch her out at something.

‘So I guess you've found what you were looking for,' Tash said, touching Sarah's glass with her own in a toast.

Had she? Tash was right, this time tomorrow she could well have located the tree, returned the ashes to their final resting place and be heading out of town.

So why, then, did she suddenly feel so disappointed?

By the next evening, Sarah figured she had to be doing something right. She might not have won over Ruth but it seemed she might be finally making progress with Edith. For the first time she'd got a small smile from the cantankerous waitress when she'd said good morning, and when she'd ordered she'd noticed a new addition to the menu— a steak . . . and salad!

It had to be the country air playing havoc with her appetite because she was famished and eating her evening meal at six o'clock in the evening. Her iron levels must be off the charts by now; she couldn't remember the last time she'd eaten this much red meat.

The downside to eating so early was that by seven she was finished and there was really nothing else to do but go up to her room and stare at the ceiling. So she'd decided to have a drink at the bar and chat to Tash some more, in order to kill a few hours before she went to bed.

‘You must be the pommy sheila.'

Sarah glanced up and recognised the man who'd spoken as the guy from the altercation in the paddock, as well as at the feed store loading supplies into a ute her first day in town.

‘Excuse me?' said Sarah.

‘Find what you were looking for out at Burrapine?'

Sarah frowned. Clearly this man was making some kind of point, although she didn't know what it was, and his carefully controlled expression sent a trickle of alarm through her body.

‘I'm trying to track down my grandmother's family.'

‘You're a long way from home just for a bit of family research, aren't you?' he said.

‘I'm sorry, I didn't catch your name.'

His tight smile did nothing to ease her alarm. ‘Trent Morgan.' Her surprise must have registered on her face. ‘What? You honestly expect me to believe you hadn't done your homework before you arrived here? This big sob story about your gran? I reckon it's a load of crap.'