Promise (22 page)

‘Hi Macky. You want some sugar?’ Her voice was flat.

He stood. ‘Yes. Is Pat-Pat home?’

‘No.’

Sabine avoided eye contact with Anna and turned back into the kitchen. ‘Come in and I’ll get you some.’

Macky stood, and Claudy took his place on the bench beside Charlie. ‘Would you like to see the frog I found?’ she asked.

Charlie nodded.

Claudy pulled a silky blue pouch from somewhere under her cape, and carefully tipped a small bronze-coloured frog onto her palm. She prodded it gently with a dirty fingernail. ‘See. It’s got green on its legs.’

Charlie bent her face close to the frog, one hand resting on Claudy’s bare thigh. ‘Is it dead?’

Claudy nodded. ‘Mmm. But it just died, just . . . today. Probably. Because it doesn’t stink yet. Dead things
really
stink, did you know?’ She grinned. ‘Do you want to have a hold?’

Charlie didn’t respond, then it seemed they came to an understanding because Claudy took hold of Charlie’s hand and tipped the frog onto her palm. Claudy delicately flipped it so it sat the right way up.

‘It’s got another bit of green just here,’ she said. Their two heads touched as they inspected the frog.

The boy wandered back onto the verandah eating a piece of cake, a jar of brown sugar in one hand.

Sabine appeared. ‘Does anyone want pecan cake?’

Charlie handed the frog back and Claudy slid it into the pouch.

‘No cake,’ said Claudy.

‘Me,’ said Charlie.

‘Come and get it then,’ said Sabine.

The boy swallowed a mouthful of cake and said to Anna, ‘Mum wants you to bring your daughter for morning tea.’

Charlie glanced at Anna and frowned.

Don’t say I’m not your mother.

Anna said, ‘Thanks, anyway, but we’re . . . about to leave. This afternoon. We’re leaving.’

‘Are we?’ said Charlie.

The boy said, ‘Come this morning, then.’

‘Oh, thanks anyway, but . . .’

His face fell then he shrugged. ‘She said you were friends.’

Charlie stood in the doorway. ‘I want to go.’

‘Oh –’

‘And that’s why we’re making lemon cake,’ said Claudy. ‘For you.’ She stood and swirled her cape about.

Anna took a breath. The sooner she and Charlie got to the cottage, the better. She remembered Beatie as tremendously practical and quite shy, and imagined she would understand if Anna said she didn’t want to talk about why she and Charlie were there.

‘I want to go,’ said Charlie.

‘Okay. What if we come in about an hour and a half, Macky? Is that enough time for you to make the cake?’

The boy nodded. ‘And you can come too, Sabine. If you want.’

Sabine shook her head. ‘I’m tired.’ She glanced at Anna and offered a weak smile.

The boy said, ‘See ya later, then.’

He took the steps in one leap, broke into a jog and disappeared into the forest, his sister trailing after him.

B
eatie’s kitchen windows looked onto an expansive lawn that sloped down to the forest, and by the look of the grass clippings on the kids’ feet as they played badminton, the lawn had just been mowed. In the middle of the cleared area was a fire pit, surrounded by old timber benches.

At the kitchen bench, Beatie refilled the teapot with boiling water. ‘The first time Macky broke his arm, it took us three days to realise.’

Anna said, ‘Oh, this is just a nasty bruise. The only reason for the bandage is to remind her not to bump it.’

The tea made her perspire even more. She wiped her top lip and forehead.

Beatie fitted the lid on the teapot and lowered her voice, ‘Did your husband hurt her arm?’

‘You know . . . I’d rather not talk about all that. If it’s okay.’

God, how Anna hated lying, especially to Beatie, who’d turned out to be the same warm woman Anna remembered.

Beatie nodded energetically. ‘Oh, sure. Sorry.’ She carried the teapot over to Anna at the table. She’d lost the sprite-like quality that Anna remembered – she’d put on weight – but she still seemed to move lightly through space.

Over Beatie’s shoulder, Anna saw a laptop on the kitchen bench and wondered if Beatie or her husband read newspapers online. There was no television that Anna could see. Instead, the living room was dominated by the stone fireplace that Beatie was building when Anna was here seventeen years ago. The house was an unfinished two-room cottage back then. Now, the living area – filled with couches and woollen rugs – opened onto a long hallway that seemed to have a dozen rooms off it. When Anna and Charlie first arrived, Macky took them on a tour, and one section of the house – the kids’ big bedroom, festooned with paper streamers and twig mobiles – was reached by steep wooden steps, like a ladder, which had delighted Charlie.

Beatie wiped her hands on her shorts. ‘Anyway, I’ll go and tell Macky to make sure your girl doesn’t bump her arm. They can get pretty wild, my lot.’

Charlie had drifted off to one side of the badminton game and stood with her back to the chook house, a racquet tucked under one arm.

Anna knew well that solemn watchfulness. That’s how she’d been in the days after her mother’s death. She’d seen the pity it provoked in the eyes of the grown-ups around her, and in the way her friends’ mothers patted her arm, as if any old mother’s touch would do. The pity was a wet, suffocating cloud around her. On her first day back at school – third class – Mrs Edwards hugged her for too long, and gave her a watery-eyed smile. Anna hadn’t felt solemn inside, it was just the best way to keep a watch on her edges, to make sure that nothing spilt out. She could hardly bear the thought that it might be the same for Charlie, that the girl was simply enduring things, making the best of it, while longing for her mother.

Anna poured herself another cup of tea. She watched Beatie cross the lawn towards the kids and thought of those mothers who’d tried to comfort little Anna. They were kind women like Beatie, but no one could have eased Anna’s pain. She poured milk into her tea and told herself that taking Charlie away from her mother
was
the lesser of two evils. She hoped that it wasn’t becoming a self-justifying mantra.

The kids’ play came to a sudden halt and Macky held out his hand to Charlie. They walked over to where his brother and sister crouched on the grass. All four kids squatted, looking at something on the ground, their heads close, then they all stood at the same time, smiling. From where Anna sat, it seemed choreographed, a short, sweet dance. Charlie still held Macky’s hand, and gazed up at him while he explained something with emphatic nods of his head.

How could Anna remember so well that first day back at school, and also the moment her dad told her that her mother was dead, but not remember a thing about the last time she saw her mother? Was it so awful that she’d blocked it out? The last memory she had of her mother was from way before she went to hospital; she was sick but still had her hair, and Anna had woken her from a nap by running her fingers over her mother’s face. She’d thought it would amuse her mother, but she had swatted at Anna and sat up in fright. The look on her mother’s face was scared. That was the last memory Anna had.

Beatie reached Macky and rested a hand on his shoulder. After a moment, the kids returned to the game of badminton, Charlie holding a racquet and swatting at the shuttlecock when it came near her.

Beatie returned to the kitchen and topped up her own cup.

‘Anyway,’ she said, ‘by the sound of it, your girl’s safer here, even with my wild kids, than she’d be at home.’

‘Yes.’ Anna’s voice croaked and she cleared her throat. ‘You’re right.’ She wanted to talk about something else. ‘Pat said you home-school your kids.’

‘Unschool, we call it.’ Beatie smiled.

‘
Un
school?’

‘Not many formal classes. We do a bit of maths but mostly they do projects. They’ve built a raft by themselves. And a treehouse.’ She tilted her head towards the garden. ‘They have a kids-only veggie bed where they’ve planted everything they need to make a curry.’ She smiled. ‘Except the coconut.’

‘Sounds blissful,’ said Anna. And it did sound idyllic, although she wondered how well unschooling would prepare them for living in the big world out there.

‘Most of the time it’s bliss.’ Beatie smiled and pressed a finger to a few cake crumbs on her plate. She had thick fingers with very short nails: a gardener’s hands, a potter’s hands. She’d made the white-glazed plates she served the cake on. ‘I oversee it. Will works in town, at the council. So, have you worked? Or been a full-time mum?’

‘I’ve been a graphic designer.’

Anna knew someone else would come up with something witty here to ease the discomfort she knew she was emanating, despite Beatie’s best efforts. Anna was used to feeling awkward with people she didn’t know well, but having to lie made it so much worse. Could Beatie tell that Anna was not telling the truth?

‘Oh. What kind of things do you design?’

‘Websites mostly. Logos. Branding.’ Anna thought of the fancy, expensive websites she designed, and how they weren’t remotely necessary or functional like the plates Beatie made, or Pat’s furniture. Websites were not even
real
, for god’s sake.

The kids ran down the yard, towards the forest, Charlie close behind Macky.

‘Look at your girl. She’s joined in now.’ Beatie smiled.

You’re not my mother!
Charlie could so easily undo it; she might be telling the kids right now who Anna really was.

Beatie gazed at her and smiled tentatively. ‘You look worn out, Anna.’

She laughed and ducked her head. ‘Yeah. I look old. I looked in the mirror this morning and this is how I remember my mother looking.’ She couldn’t see Charlie outside. She should go and find her.

‘She died when you were young, didn’t she?’

Anna nodded. Beatie remembered. Anna didn’t recall anything that Beatie might have told her about her parents.

‘How old were you?’ asked Beatie.

‘Eight.’ The kids appeared and ran across the lawn to a small corrugated-iron shed.

‘Cancer?’

‘Yeah.’

‘God, how agonising it must have been for her to know she was leaving you.’ Beatie shook her head. ‘I’m less worried about something happening to
them
than something happening to
me
and taking me away from them.’

Did Anna’s mother let herself think what it would mean for Luke and Anna to be motherless? Had she any inkling of how badly their dad would cope?

Claudy’s red cape disappeared around the corner of the shed. Anna stood up. ‘Where do you think they are going?’

‘Maybe the orchard, or the waterhole.’ Beatie stood. ‘Does Charlie swim?’

Anna didn’t think Charlie knew how to swim, with or without a sore arm. ‘Not really. I’d better go with her.’

Beatie carried the plates to the sink. ‘Yeah. Let’s go down for a swim. Macky will look after her until we get there. He’s super responsible.’ She smiled. ‘We call him the Health and Safety Officer.’

‘Beatie, can you
please
not tell anyone we’ve been here? Not anyone. I’m afraid of . . .’

‘Oh, don’t worry. I won’t mention you to anyone, although Will knows you’re here.’ She slotted the plates into the dish rack. ‘And feel free to come over for a visit any time.’

Anna handed Beatie her cup. ‘Thanks but we’re moving on later today. Heading off . . . I think us turning up has been a bit unsettling for Pat and Sabine.’

‘Oh. Where are you going?’

‘North.’

Beatie nodded. ‘I think things have been pretty unsettled at Pat’s since they found out she’s pregnant.’

‘Oh?’ So the tension at Pat’s was not just about Anna and Charlie turning up.

‘Well, they only found out about the baby a couple of months ago.’ Beatie laughed lightly and shook her head. ‘Tell me, is there any way on earth you could have missed being four or five months pregnant?’

Anna looked out the window. Beatie was waiting for a response. ‘I guess not.’

‘Jo said she met you.’

‘Jo.’

‘Sabine’s midwife. She’s one of my good friends. She was my midwife for the youngest two.’

‘Yeah. I met her. Briefly.’ Anna shouldn’t have come to see Beatie; her first instinct was right. Everyone knew everyone here. Although it sounded like Jo hadn’t told Beatie the whole story.

‘Shall we go and find them?’ said Anna. ‘We have to get home soon to meet Pat.’

It was so quiet out there now. Something fluttered in Anna’s chest whenever Charlie was out of sight.

As Anna and Beatie crossed the lawn, the kids ran from behind the shed, four abreast. ‘Getting towels!’ called Macky then he stopped near the badminton net and pointed to the sky. He hollered, ‘Chopper!’

Anna heard the distant
thwack thwack
of a helicopter.
Where was it? Where was it?
The cloudless sky was empty but the rhythmic sound grew louder.

She ran to the cover of a tree at the side of the lawn. The sound was so loud now that the helicopter must be right over them.

Her breath tight, she called to Charlie, ‘Come here, come over here, Charlie!’ If the chopper came from the south, whoever was on board would be able to see her where she crouched, her back pressed against the tree trunk.

Charlie stood beside Macky, her shoulders hunched, peering up at the sky. The boys danced on the lawn and waved at the sky. Anna still could not see the helicopter.

‘Charlie!’ she called again.

Then the sound faded, and Macky ran to the verandah and picked up an armful of brightly coloured towels.

Beatie stood watching Anna, her eyes narrowed. ‘Loud, eh?’

Anna nodded. She straightened up and stepped out into the sun. ‘Yeah.’ She steadied her voice. ‘Loud, alright.’ Her heart still thumped. ‘Did you actually see it?’

Beatie pointed behind her. ‘It was over there. I only got a glimpse. It was probably the cops looking for dope crops, although it’s not really growing season. Or it could be a rescue chopper. Maybe something’s happened further up or over Uki way.’

‘Right,’ said Anna. ‘I’m just a bit jumpy about . . . being tracked down.’ How ridiculous to suggest that a violent husband would hire a helicopter to find his wife and child.