The Family Tree (17 page)

Shelley sat down again, staring angrily across the table at her youngest brother, who blithely ignored her.

Silence fell as everybody concentrated on their meals and the hum of the airconditioner seemed even louder. Kate surreptitiously glanced around at her family, glad to be there but also glad that she wasn't going to be there for too long. The knowledge that the unit was waiting, with its tidiness and peace and
stillness
, transformed any flickers of irritation into a wry amusement. It was like watching a play, without having to actively play a part. Or even stay till the end.

‘So what did you want with Grandpa's stuff?' asked Jacob suddenly.

Kate blinked, caught by surprise. ‘Um, just some bits I needed. For research.'

The others were now staring at Kate too, each wearing an identical look of surprise. Sam was the first to speak: ‘You went through your father's boxes?'

‘Not all of them,' said Kate, feeling inexplicably defensive. ‘Just a couple.'

‘What for?' Sam paused as he made an effort to school his expression
towards indifferent curiosity. He pushed some fettuccine around his plate and shrugged. ‘I'm just interested, that's all.'

‘Me too,' added Shelley.

Caleb grinned. ‘Me three.'

‘She got a shoebox and a folder thing full of papers and a whole box. I dunno what was in that,' said Jacob helpfully.

‘For goodness sake!' Kate fanned her defensiveness into annoyance. ‘Do I have to explain my every move around here? If you
must
know, I'm just doing a little family history research. And I needed some of his papers. Is that okay with everyone?'

‘Shoot, Mum, calm down.' Shelley put up a hand as if to ward off her mother's psychopathy.

‘Do you mean like genealogy?' asked Caleb.

‘Something like that.'

Caleb looked interested. ‘Show me when you're done, okay? That stuff's great.'

‘And let me know if you discover I'm adopted,' said Shelley, staring at the ceiling as if bored with the whole proceedings. ‘I'd really like to know.'

Sam sent her an irritated glance. ‘I think your mother would have already had an inkling, don't you?'

‘Yeah, but we live in hope,' said Jacob.

‘That's
it
.' Shelley stood up, thinning her lips almost to the point of absence, and hefted her surprised daughter out of the highchair. Emma immediately began to struggle, reaching a chubby, orange-smeared hand down for a piece of vegetable.

Sam looked at her wearily. ‘Come on, Shell.'

‘No, I've had it with him. And you
never
tell him off. It's bloody ridiculous.' Shelley glared accusingly at her father and then stalked across the room to the sliding door, which she wrenched open with a force that sent it shooting back on the tracks after she passed through. Jacob got up and helpfully closed it all the way.

‘Why do you have to do that?' asked his father evenly.

‘Coz otherwise the flies'll get in.'

‘You know what I mean.'

Jacob shrugged an answer and then stood behind his chair, staring down at his near-empty plate. ‘Okay if I go now?'

‘You might as well,' replied Sam sardonically. He watched him leave. ‘And thanks very much.'

Caleb, who had taken no notice whatsoever of the preceding events, laid his cutlery across his plate with a clatter and then beamed at his parents. ‘That was
delicious
.'

‘My pleasure,' replied Sam, looking at him rather nonplussed.

‘And lovely to see you here, Mum. Been missing you.' Caleb stood up and leant forward to drop a kiss on the top of his mother's head. She felt her hair part softly under his breath. ‘I'll have to come round and visit soon, won't I?'

‘Absolutely. Whenever you like.'

‘Cool. I'll be in my room if you need me.'

Kate watched him as he walked off, and then turned to her husband. They looked at each other for a few moments and then both started laughing at the same time.

Sam shook his head. ‘Maybe they're
all
adopted.'

‘No such luck. I'm afraid we're totally responsible.'

‘Bugger.'

‘And it's probably too late to adopt them
out
, as well.'

‘Double bugger.'

Kate grinned across at him, warmed by their rapport. ‘Listen, Sam. This was lovely, really lovely. Thank you.'

‘Even with the entertainment?' He sighed and then shook his head. ‘I don't know what's up with those two. They just can't seem to get on, can they?'

‘Not at all,' replied Kate pensively. ‘I think it's because they're both frustrated at the moment. Shelley with her job and Jacob with where he's going. So they take it out on each other. Easy targets.'

‘What's wrong with Shell's job?' asked Sam with surprise.

‘She's been telling us that she hates being a waitress for years!' Kate smiled, rather amazed. ‘Don't you ever listen?'

‘Not when I can avoid it.' Sam continued to push the fettuccine
around his plate and then looked back at Kate. ‘So what about Jake then? If he's so unhappy, why doesn't he just get a bloody job himself?'

‘Because he doesn't want a bloody job himself. He wants a career.'

‘In
computer
games?' asked Sam, his voice husky with disdain. ‘Well, good to see he's got his feet firmly planted. Why the hell can't he be more like his brother?'

‘Ssh!' Kate automatically glanced behind her to make sure that Jacob hadn't heard this last exchange, and then she turned back to Sam with a frown. ‘That's half the problem, dimwit! He'd
love
to be more like his brother!'

Sam nodded slowly and then sighed again. ‘Yeah, I know. It's just frustrating, that's all. And don't call me dimwit.'

Kate smiled with casual apology. She looked across the table, which was scattered with plates and cutlery and errant pasta and garlic bread crumbs. ‘Shall we?'

‘We shall.' Sam pushed back his chair and stood. Then he paused as he glanced across at Kate. ‘You staying here tonight?'

‘Do you want me to?'

Sam shrugged. ‘I just thought it'd be easier. You know, if we wanted to take a bottle of wine out onto the decking and continue the evening.'

‘That's true.' Kate pretended to mull this over. ‘But you still haven't said if you
want
me to.'

Sam laughed and rolled his eyes. ‘God, woman, you make it hard!'

‘Ah! Then in that case it
would
be easier if I stayed.'

Grinning, Sam reached across the table and grabbed Kate's hand, raising it up to his mouth and giving it a quick kiss. ‘Then it's settled. You're staying.'

‘Seems that way.' Kate reclaimed her hand, feeling the skin cool quickly where the kiss had landed. They started to gather the dishes together in companionable silence and Kate realised that she wasn't just doing Sam a favour by staying, she was also doing herself one. She
wanted
to stay for the night, to enjoy his company and his partnership, but the choice was made easy by the fact that it
was
a choice. And escapism was only twenty minutes away.

I
t was the following Monday before Kate was given the chance to start sorting through the things she had reclaimed from underneath the Lysterfield house. But even then, with the unit to herself, she hesitated. The main problem was that the purloining of her uncle's shoebox had reawakened her worm of doubt, now swollen with guilt as well. Because this had belonged to
Angie's
father, not her own, and she knew
that by taking it she had stepped over an invisible line. She soothed the worm by assuring it, and herself, that her appropriation of the shoebox was more in the nature of a
loan
, so temporary that it barely counted. Besides there would probably be no need to even open it; instead she'd find what she needed elsewhere.

Nevertheless, even after she decided to ignore the shoebox for now, Kate sat on the couch and simply stared at the cardboard box and concertina file on the coffee table before her. It occurred to her that this little trip into history might be like driving slivers of bamboo down behind her fingernails, into the puckered mass of nerve endings, and then lighting them and letting the flames cauterise what feeling she had left. Or like childbirth, which was even more painful. And maybe her search might net her some facts she didn't really want to know. Like maybe there never was a Sophie Painter, maybe Angie had been adopted. Or even stolen.

Kate grinned and then lifted up the concertina file before she could analyse the moment any further. She flipped open the plastic catch so that the compartments all fell open, forming a semicircle across her lap. Each section was alphabetised and it did not take her long to realise that the contents all related to vegetables. Receipts for fertiliser and insecticides, instructions for assorted grafting methods, newspaper clippings showing ridiculously large produce, flyers from rural shows, accounts from nurseries for various purchases.

Smiling again, but this time at the irony, Kate went through each section methodically, just in case something important had slipped in amongst the vegetable-related matters. But her father had been meticulous and, unless she wanted to start her own vegetable patch, the concertina file was basically useless.

She pushed the file back together and put it down next to the couch, then turned to the cardboard box. Dust sprinkled around like fine powder as she opened it. She peered inside, confused for a moment at the expanse of maroon leather, and then her breath caught as she recognised it. It was her father's leather desk set. A rectangular mat with brassy-gold corners, a matching envelope vice and a cylindrical pen
holder. She lifted each object out and placed them gently on the floor, resisting the memory of her father sitting at his desk, accounts spread before him as he reached for a pen.

Underneath the desk set was a metal tin that had once held assorted chocolates. It rattled interestingly as she lifted it out but, when she prised the lid off, held only a large assortment of biros and pencils, some still in their packaging. Kate put it down with the desk set, returned to the box and took out the gilt-framed black and white photograph of her parents that had always sat by the lamp on her father's desk. She wiped the glass down with an edge of her T-shirt. They were standing on the steps of the courthouse after their wedding, her mother in a full-skirted white dress and holding a bouquet of long-stemmed lilies. Standing close, but not quite touching, was her father, and he seemed so impossibly
young
, squinting in the sunshine with one hand in the pocket of his baggy, high-waisted trousers.

Kate blinked, and then squeezed her eyes shut for a second. Photos of her mother at around this age brought a dull sense of loss, but no great sense of nostalgia. Because Kate had no real memories of her, she always perceived her as if frozen in time and, as such, photos like these seemed rather apt. But her father was different,
these
drove the bamboo slivers in further. Especially when her mind juxtaposed this image of youth and health and hope with the man he had become at the end. The expression on his face.
That
was shocking.

Nevertheless she was going to place this photo where it belonged, back on her father's desk. She reached over and laid it carefully against a couch cushion so that it was facing her. Then she turned her attention back to the box, and hit paydirt. Layer upon layer of papers filled the bottom half. Some loose, some stapled, some in large, mustard-coloured envelopes with addresses crossed out and her father's fine cursive script printed over the top.

Before she could change her mind, Kate started with the envelopes. She plucked each out, straightened them into a pile on her lap and then started flicking through. Irrelevant ones, like
Petrol receipts: 1971 – 1979
and
Gas & Fuel: paid accounts
, she placed with the desk set and soon
she was left with just one envelope
Certificates: assorted
, which she tossed over onto Angie's armchair. Next were the loose papers.

Three-quarters of an hour later, Kate had checked each paper in the box and still had not come up with anything that would help with her research. She found plenty of personal items, like her own childhood drawings, report cards, and even letters that she had written from overseas. After the first few of these, when she felt her emotions begin to swarm uncomfortably, Kate forced herself to adopt a purely clinical approach. Check for relevance but ignore detail, then put to one side. Over and over. When she finally finished, Kate collected everything together, except the framed photo and the envelope of certificates, and repacked the box. Then she sat back and stared at it with a frown.

Where were all the private papers? Like letters to and from her mother whilst they were courting, or cards from special occasions, or her mother's own papers. Diaries, or postcards from relatives, or even the death notices from the newspaper when she died. Instead it seemed that her father had religiously kept every article regarding deformed vegetables that he could possibly find, and yet not one single newspaper clipping mourning his wife's death.