Novels 01 Blue Skies (17 page)

Chapter 40

‘Hi, Aunty Di, it’s Amanda,’

There was a pause and Amanda knew her aunt was probably taken aback by this call out of the blue. ‘Well, well, Mandy. How are you? It’s been so long since we saw or heard from you.’

‘I’m okay. How are you both?’

‘We’re fine. James is out working in his shed and I’ve been keeping busy in the garden. We’re both enjoying being retired.’

‘That’s great.’ There was an uncomfortable silence; no doubt Diane was wondering what had prompted this unexpected call.

‘Um, Aunty Di, I’m ringing to apologise for my behaviour – for cutting off you and Uncle James.

‘Oh, dear girl, there’s nothing to apologise for. You and your father were so alike in lots of ways – and not being able to deal with your emotions is one of them. We thought it best to leave you be until you came to us. And now you have! It’s wonderful to hear from you, my dear.’

Amanda swallowed, feeling moved by the affection in her aunt’s voice. Why hadn’t she done this sooner? She berated herself. ‘I was wondering if you and Uncle James would like to come to tea on Friday night. It would be lovely to see you again – and I also want to ask you a few things about my parents.’

‘Ah.’ Diane’s tone was guarded. ‘What sort of things?’

‘Perhaps it would be better to talk about it when you get here, just so we don’t start something we can’t finish now,’ Amanda suggested.

‘That might be best,’ her aunt agreed. ‘Friday it is.’

Amanda hung up the phone, took the crumpled photo out of her pocket and stared at it. ‘Well, little one, in a couple of days’ time, I’ll finally know who you are.’

Amanda watched the lights of her aunt and uncle’s car come up the driveway. Mingus, asleep in the kitchen, barely stirred at the sound of the strange car. Amanda looked down at him fondly. Aunty Di would probably disapprove of her letting a working dog inside, but that was tough. Mingus was her only comfort when Adrian and Hannah weren’t around. She smiled as she thought of the message that Hannah had left on her answering machine that morning.

‘Hope tonight goes well, Mandy. Remember, whatever Di and James tell you, don’t get angry with your folks. Love you! Oh, and I was talking to Jonno this morning. He sends his love too.’ Amanda had felt a warm glow at the mention of Jonno. She’d let it sit there for a moment and then banished it to the back of her mind, where all the other emotions that she didn’t want to touch were.

With a pang of guilt she thought about Adrian. She really should have told him what was going on tonight, but she’d found that she just couldn’t. She hadn’t even told him about the photo. Perhaps it was his mother’s comment about the Greenfields being below the Majors, or maybe she just couldn’t completely open herself up to Adrian. Whatever the reason, she was keen to find out what the family secret was. Then she could decide if she would tell him or not. Fortunately he was away in Perth. He’d been invited to the footy by a chemical company he spent a great deal of money with. A weekend with the boys was just what he needed, he’d told Amanda.

As her visitors reached the bottom step, Amanda opened the door and smiled.

‘Hello, Aunty Di.’ She gave the grey-haired woman a kiss on the cheek and gestured for her to go inside. ‘Uncle James, how are you?’ She accepted the bottle of wine he proffered with a thankyou before following him inside.

After dinner, Amanda ushered her aunt and uncle into the lounge and brought coffee. After a few minutes of general chat Amanda brought out the photo and laid it on the coffee table.

‘I was looking through an old photo album and found this,’ she said. Diane leaned forward and picked it up. Immediately, tears formed in her eyes. ‘I took it out of the plastic pocket so I could hold it a bit closer. I just wanted to be able to hug Dad. I don’t really ever remember him looking at me like that.’ She watched her Aunty Di.‘Then I turned it over.The birthday on the back isn’t mine . . .’ She left the sentence hanging.

‘No,’ said Diane. ‘It wasn’t your birthday.’ She was still staring at the photo, shaking her head. ‘Oh, it’s such a sad story, Mandy. Your mother never wanted you to know and as for Brian, well he just flatly refused to talk about it – about Michael Junior and the accident. I had a feeling that this was what you wanted to know about. I thought you must have found a birth or death certificate – I wasn’t sure if there were any photos left. Such a sad story,’ Diane repeated.

‘Your mother had trouble falling pregnant. Well, not so much falling pregnant, but staying so. She miscarried four times before she fell pregnant with Michael – Mikey we used to call him. Your grandfather Michael – my Dad – was still alive then you see. Mikey was a beautiful baby, quiet, not at all demanding. He’d sleep all the time! I could remember Helena having to wake him for feeds. He slept, fed, burped, Helena would change his nappy and he’d be back to sleep again.

‘But as soon he was able to walk, he was a regular mischief-maker! He was always escaping from the

house. Brian put up barriers around the verandah so he couldn’t get out, but he was such a little climber that he was over the top and gone the moment your mother turned her back!’ She took a sip of her coffee and drew a shaky breath.

‘One day, a Tuesday it was, Mikey was playing on the front lawn while your parents were having morning tea. Helena had just found out she was pregnant again and they were making plans. Brian had gone out twice to check on Mikey, who was playing in the sandpit. Then Brian received a phone call saying there was a fire on one of the neighbours’ farms. He raced outside and jumped in the ute, not realising that Mikey wasn’t in the front yard anymore. Brian felt a bump as he backed out – just as Helena discovered Mikey wasn’t on the lawn.

‘There was nothing anyone could do. The wheel had gone right over the top of him. He died in your father’s arms.’

Amanda felt tears slip down her cheeks as she took in what she had just learned. Her father had killed her brother. She shook her head – she couldn’t even imagine what her parents had suffered. Then she thought of something.

‘You said Mum was pregnant?’

‘Yes. But given the shock and emotional upheaval, she lost that baby too. Two days after Mikey died.’

‘Bloody hell,’ Amanda gasped.

‘Oh, it was a terrible time. Not long after the funeral, Brian drank himself into a stupor and gathered up all the photos of Mikey and burned them. He couldn’t bear to see anything that reminded him of Mikey. He didn’t stop at the photos either. He destroyed Mikey’s toys, his teddy bear. Helena was devastated. She found this photo in the pocket of Brian’s shirt. It seemed that he was taking it everywhere with him but couldn’t look at it. She must have hid it until they were both strong enough to bring it back out again.’

The silence in the room was deafening. Amanda was too shaken by her aunt’s revelations to speak. After a while she said, ‘Obviously I came along after that.’

James leaned forward. ‘Well I think your aunty and I can take the accolades for you coming into being.’

Amanda stared at him, shocked.‘What do you mean?’ she asked. ‘You’re surely not my . . .’

Diane gave a small laugh as she guessed what Amanda was about to say. ‘No, no, dear, we’re not your parents! No, we paid for Brian and Helena to go away on a holiday. They’d worked themselves into the ground once Mikey died. They hadn’t spoken to each other properly in such a long time and I got to thinking that they were going to . . . oh, I don’t know. But we were both very worried about them, weren’t we?’ She looked at James for confirmation.

‘Yes. Helena had lost a lot of weight, wasn’t sleeping well, so caught up in her grief that she couldn’t see, and Brian, well, he wasn’t that much different to when Helena died, I guess.’

‘Anyway,’ Diane picked up the thread, ‘we bought them a holiday on a cruise ship. James and I offered to look after the farm, but when Brian finally agreed to go, he asked Adrian Major to keep an eye on things. He wanted someone who knew a bit about farming, not an accountant. I don’t think he knew Adrian at all well at that stage – they’d met at some sort of field day and struck up a friendship. But they certainly grew closer after that.

‘When Brian and Helena arrived home, they were like different people.They were in love again, they didn’t blame each other – I think that before they went they each secretly blamed the other. I guess that’s normal, but Mikey’s death was a tragic accident. Nothing more. And even though you could still see they were sad after the holiday, they had each other again and that made all the difference in the world.

‘I guess the long and the short of it was they were away for two weeks and sometime after they came back they told us they were pregnant. After nine blessedly uneventful months, you were born.

‘You were adored by your mother, but it took Brian some time to allow himself to love you. He was frightened that you would be taken away and he would have to go through all that hurt again. I know he loved you though, Amanda. He really did. And I know you’ve questioned his love for a long time. But you needn’t. He just couldn’t let himself show you. He was protecting himself.’

Amanda picked up a cushion and hugged it to her chest. She wanted to cry but felt too tired, too drained. Yet, in a funny way, she felt happy too. She could finally understand why her father had acted the way he did towards her. Aloof but overprotective – it all sprang from the loss of that first child: the child he’d killed.

Amanda smiled at her aunt and uncle. ‘Thank you,’ she said quietly. ‘Thank you so much.’

Chapter 41

‘C’mon, Mingus, get up here,’ called Amanda, opening the front passenger door of the ute. Mingus came flying from around the side of the house and leapt in. He turned himself in circles a couple of times then settled himself in a tight ball on the floor.

Amanda jumped in the driver’s side and threw the ute into gear. She swung out onto the main road and headed towards the beach.

After the draining night with Diane and James, she had spent the week doing a lot of thinking as she worked. Her plans for the future were at the top of her list, which meant Adrian was there as well. She still hadn’t quite worked out what to do about Adrian. She appreciated his steadiness and dependability, but the fire she felt for Jonno just wasn’t there with Adrian. There was the small problem that Jonno didn’t know how she felt – and was she prepared to risk their friendship by telling him? Amanda thought not; it wasn’t like he’d ever given any kind of sign that he had feelings for her. She tried to think back, to remember if her mother had ever given her any advice when it came to love. She knew there was something, but for the life of her, she couldn’t remember what it was. Adrian was so dependable, but, but – oh, it was all too hard! And could she leave Kyleena after all the work she’d put into it? More importantly, would Adrian move to Kyleena? No! Could she live at Paringa? She wasn’t sure.

She pulled up on the beach. Mingus pricked his ears up as he realised where they were and got up, craning his head over the dash of the ute to see. His tail began to wag.

‘Yeah, I know you love it here.’ Amanda reached down to fondle his ears. ‘So tell me, Mingus,’ she continued as she opened the door, ‘commercial stock or stud stock? Do you think we can do both well enough? And what do you think about Adrian and would you like to live at Paringa? Think of the comfy kennel that we could build you there – it would be the Ritz of dog kennels!’

Mingus listened to the sound of his mistress’s voice, his ears cocked. He hadn’t been given permission to get out, yet, so he stayed where he was.

‘C’mon then, get out! Go for a run!’ Amanda laughed out loud as Mingus shot over the driver’s seat and out the door. He pranced around the beach, sniffing the air, then took off as fast as he could across the white sand to the water.

Amanda slipped off her boots and socks, rolled up her jeans and zipped up her thick jacket. She stood at the water’s edge, then gasped as the waves rolled around her ankles – the water was glacial!

Looking around, Amanda realised that she was the only person on the beach – that was the thing she loved about Esperance beaches; a crowded beach was one with two people on it! The isolation and wildness were a tonic, just what she needed to clear her head. Tonight she and Adrian were going to Sharna’s birthday party, and she’d wanted to get her life into some kind of perspective before she saw him again.

Finally, Amanda called Mingus to her side and they walked back to the ute.The bitter wind and chilly water had blown the cobwebs away.

‘Hey, Sharna, where do you want this?’ Amanda called, lugging the stereo into the shearing shed.

Sharna finished giving instructions to a couple of her other friends and ran over. ‘This is going to be so great! I can’t wait until tonight!’ She bounced up and down on the spot, grinning.

‘Yeah, me too, but where the hell do you want this? It’s heavy!’ Amanda exclaimed.

‘What about here?’ Sharna pointed to an empty forty-four-gallon drum that sat in the middle of the shed with an empty wool pack draped over it. Amanda plonked it down gratefully.

She glanced around the shed. ‘Tell me again how you managed to con Scotty into letting you have the party here?’ Sharna was using the shed of a young local farmer for her birthday bash tonight.

‘My womanly wiles,’ Sharna said, flicking her blonde hair over her shoulder and batting her eyelashes.

‘Yeah right,’ Amanda snorted. ‘I can’t think he was silly enough to fall for that! What did you really do?’

‘Offered him a couple of hundred dollars.’

Amanda raised her eyebrows, wondering if that would seem like such a good deal to Scotty when he saw the mess tomorrow morning. Native flowers had been collected and shaped into decorative arrangements which now hung from rafters. Small lanterns lit up the darkest corners and the mallee-root piles for the bonfire had grown since people had begun to arrive. A couple of large eskies hired from a local bottle shop sat underneath the wool table and a spread of wonderful food was warming in a bain-marie.

As darkness fell and the cars began to roll in, Sharna went over to the stereo and turned it on. Cold Chisel boomed and a few blokes took it as a signal to crack a beer. The bonfire was lit and threw hot flames into the darkness.

By teatime, there were kids running everywhere and most people had rosy cheeks, not only from the fire, but from the alcohol. Adrian, who had arrived a short time ago, appeared next to Amanda and held out a plate full of food.

Amanda was deep in conversation with another stud breeder, who was selling his ram pens. Amanda had been toying with the idea of holding an on-property ram sale instead of trucking her precious rams to Esperance, and so was considering buying them.

Absently taking the plate, she asked Rob how much he wanted for the pens.

‘How about you come and have a look at them? They haven’t been used for a while – I haven’t had a sale in four years. I know they’re still in great shape though.’

‘Why do you want the pens?’ Adrian interrupted.

‘On-farm sale,’ Amanda replied.

‘Excuse me . . .’ A lady with a camera around her neck broke into the conversation ‘Could I take your photo for the social pages, please?’

Adrian placed his arm around Amanda’s shoulder and all three smiled at the camera.
Snap
.

‘Thanks so much.’

‘Why do you want to do that?’ asked Adrian, picking up where the discussion had left off.‘It’s so much work, everything around the property has to look pristine. It would take a lot to get Kyleena looking like that. All those piles of wire and ring lock would need to be shifted, the shearing shed painted. Amanda, I’ve taken you to stud farms and you know what they look like – Kyleena doesn’t present like that.’

Amanda willed her face not to betray the anger she felt.

Oblivious, Adrian went on, ‘But you know, Amanda, Paringa presents well. You could have your sale at home.’

Amanda breathed a sigh of relief; it was only the way Kyleena looked he was objecting to, not the fact she wanted to hold a sale. Realistically she knew Kyleena could do with some tidying up and she was working on it, but these things took time – especially when the stock came first.

‘Well that’s not a bad idea,’ said Amanda thoughtfully. ‘Although,’ she fixed Adrian with a steely stare, ‘it’s not like Kyleena hasn’t improved since I -’

‘Of course not,’ Adrian said hastily. ‘You’ve done a marvellous job. But it couldn’t possibly be ready for a sale this year, or even next. But I know you’ll get it there. Paringa, meanwhile, doesn’t need any work. Just walk in, set the pens up and organise the auctioneer.’

‘Adrian, you’re impossible!’ Amanda said, laughing. ‘You bag my farm, tell me how good yours is and expect me to not be angry or upset with you! It’s a good thing I understand you.’ She leaned forward and gave him an awkward one-armed hug, trying not to spill the plate of food.

Surprised, Adrian hugged her back and then kept his arm around her.