The Quilt (18 page)

Leslie
would never replace this man and that thought gave Angela an immense feeling of satisfaction. 

Sean looked up sharply from behind his newspaper. 

“Jean
, calm down.”

“Half o
f the women that visit me are bringing their daughters with them.  The other half does not have daughters to bring!”

It wasn’t unusual for the local ladies to gather around cups of tea and scones. 
They congregated to discuss recipes, books, grass growth, children and husbands.  Twin Pines was a favourite location because of its homely large kitchen, comfortable chairs, huge open fire and Jean’s fluffy lemonade scones. 

Months had passed
since Leslie had left the farm.  It was considered more than a respectable period of time for such an eligible bachelor to remain single. 

“I no longer have friends that have daughters.  I have friends that have daughters that want them to marry my son!” 

She was bristling and Sean struggled to stifle a laugh.

“We meet for cups of tea and gossip.  Why would girls in their twenties want to accompany their aged mothers to join in!  Why would they make up their faces and style their hair to sit around
with old ladies and eat cake?”

Sean couldn’t contain himself any lo
nger and his laughter escaped. He ducked behind the paper in an effort to hide his amusement.

“How can you think this is funny?  He is being eyed like a fat lamb at the works
.” 

Jean was furious.

“Don’t take it too seriously.  Paul isn’t stupid enough to treat their attent
ion seriously.  If he was interested in anyone I am sure he would be more than capable of making it known without the help of meddling mothers.” 

Jean stood with her hands on her hips glaring at the amused face of h
er husband.  He made one more attempt to pacify her.

“They are well meaning
, Jean.  It’s harmless and really a compliment when you think about things.”

S
ean glanced up hopefully.

“I’d better go and let those dogs out again.  I don’t think Paul took them all
with him today.” 

He retreated to the safety of the kennels.

Debbie was a pretty young girl with dark wavy hair and liquid brown eyes.  Her
father was the local GP and the family had lived in the area for most of her twenty three years.

She worked as a nurse and
receptionist in the family’s medical practice.  Her older brother had recently graduated as a doctor and joined the business and her mother operated as a physiotherapist at the rear of the building.

When Paul Clarke
entered holding a bloodied towel around a deep gash in his hand she drew an involuntary gasp.  His agitated mother fussed along behind while both Paul and his father looked on in amusement. 

“I probably need a couple of stitches
.”

Paul smiled and rolled his eyes towards his mother.

“Has the bleeding stopped?  Can you remove the towel?” 

Debbie
held the glacier blue eyes. 

“Probably not withou
t making a mess on your floor.”

H
e laughed.

“It’s deep.  He wasn’t e
ven going to come in.  He didn’t even think about tendons.  Neither of them did.”

Jean
rounded on her husband who was hovering in the doorway.

Debbie looked at the red soaked towel and then glanced at the children sn
iffing in the waiting room with wide, horrified eyes.

“Sorry about this
.”

“Would you like to come through?
  I’ll take a look at your hand and then call the doctor if it needs stitching.”

The bleeding had stopped but the gash was long and deep.  The open grinning edges were dirty and small fragments of what looked like bark clung to the edges.

“It will need stitches.  You certainly have made a mess of yourself.”

Debbie
looked up and felt her pulse quicken.  Embarrassed, she dragged herself away from the depths of those eyes and found herself admiring Paul’s strong square hand and heavily muscled forearm.

“I’ll get the doctor to come through and see to you.  He should only be a few minutes
.” 

She excused herself a little too abruptly
and returned to reception. 

Sunday evening roast was a family tradition for the Clarkes and not uncommon for many rural families.  Jean busied herself marinating the lamb leg in garlic, mint and rosemary.  She peeled new potatoes and kumara to roast and cut fresh broccoli, green peas and cauliflower out of her garden.  A plump pavlova sat on the bench waiting to be lavished with cream and summer berries.

Sean had been furious when she
had invited Debbie to dinner.  He had sat silently in the waiting room listening to the receptionist eagerly accept.  

“It is only dinner
, Sean.  There was a definite attraction and he needs to move on.  He has no social life and is locking himself away on this farm rather than getting out and meeting new people.”

Sean didn’t respond
.

“That young girl is from a good family, has a good c
areer and, at the least, they can talk over dinner.”

“You
, my darling, are interfering.  If Paul wanted company he would seek it out.  I don’t think he is as damaged as you and your friends imagine.  All he needs is time to find his own road again and the peace to do it.”

“Debbie from the surgery isn’t it?”

Paul walked forward with a smile that masked his annoyance.  He had taken a minute to stand in the door and gather his composure.
Paul looked at the vacant chair and then sat down heavily next to her.  He looked across the vast expanse of oak to Sean who hunched uncomfortably, glanced up and then looked down at his hands.

Silence blanketed the table.  Debbie was
pretty; slim and classy but Paul felt no attraction.  They had spoken briefly when he had made an appointment to have the stitches removed.  Even then the conversation had been stilted and Paul had found her slightly boring.

Jean struggled to break the silence before giving up and falling silent.  The tortuous evening finished and Debbie politely excused herself. 

“I know you are only trying to help.  But please don’t interfere in my personal
life.  I do not want to get into another relationship especially at a time when I am evaluating my own damned life.” 

Jean smarted at the unaccustomed harsh words.  She turned to Sean for support after Paul had left.

“Even the local women have given up their matchmaking.  I was told he was damaged beyond repair by that Mrs Seddon last week.”

“
He is not damaged but he is wary and reassessing his life.  You asked for a disastrous evening and you got it.  Now please, Jean, let Paul figure things out for himself and let’s start looking at what we want.”

Sean took out two small glasses from the china cabinet and walked to the sideboard.  He poured a sweet sherry for Jean and filled his own glass up with port.

“It is a hard time for any parent,” his face was full of concern as he spoke, “children grow up and suddenly you are not needed in their life to provide all the answers.  You have to trust in what you have taught them and leave them to find their own way.” He placed his arm around his wife, “you have done a great job with that young man.  He may tread water for a few months but he will recover and hopefully be a little wiser for the experience.  Now there are a couple of things we need to think about that do not have anything to do with our son or his situation.”

Chapter 16

”Changes
”

Paul sat turning the document over in his hands.  His divorce was finalised, his marriage was over and the Decree Absolute he was holding formally confirmed it.   Leslie had not contested anything and, therefore, the process had been quick and relatively painless.  Would she ever find what she was looking for?  Somehow Paul doubted it.  Rumours were already circulating that she was engaged and intending to marry a Wairarapa farmer early in the New Year. 

In the same week
that Paul had received the Decree Absolute, an envelope was delivered advising the dates for final enrolments at the University.  The decision to enter veterinary medicine and specialise in large animals had seemed logical and attractive during the later months of his school years.  Now, with a wealth of change, he was no longer sure.

Sean was also a minor consideration.  His father had once relished the long hard days o
f physical work and the challenge of Twin Pines.  Recently, he seemed content to take a back seat, still contributing but equally happy to relax with a newspaper or book.

Five years of study was a long
term commitment especially when, on reflection, his qualification would lead to a career he was not sure he wanted.  How would he have coped with fatherhood when he looked back at his immaturity and the decisions he had felt ready to make? 

It was now a matter of repairs, maintenance and the day to day running of the property.  The generations that had moulded Twin Pines into the property it was today had had the challenges.  Paul was grateful.  He knew they had sacrificed their youth, struggling in conditions much harder than he had ever known.  But it left him feeling like a tenant living someone else’s dream.

The traditional Sunday roast was replaced by long summer evenings cooking prime steak and lamb fillets on the
barbeque.  The Clarkes were often joined by neighbouring families but, regardless of the company, the conversation always revolved around lamb and meat prices, wool prices, the price of fertiliser or the growth of pasture. 

Paul stood listening to the local men.  The sun filtered through the oak trees and threw a dappled light on the neat grass.  There were three families congregated around the BBQ, cold beers in hands and eyes slit against the glare of the afternoon sun.

He found himself drifting away from the conversation.  He was tired from the days fencing; drained from the strenuous lengths in the family’s swimming pool and sore from the punishing game of rugby he had played the day before.

“Paul?” 

He looked up sheepishly.

“Sorry
.”

“Well
, young man, I hear you are doing most of the work at Twin Pines now.  The old man getting turned out to pasture.” 

The
men laughed appreciatively.

“You might as well retire
, Sean. From what I hear, this son of yours has achieved the highest lamb and wool prices again this season.  Paul, are you another generation of Clarkes to take over the reins?”

A burly hand slapped him on the back.
He felt suddenly uncomfortable at the direction their beer-fuelled conversation was taking.  No one in the Clarke family seemed ready to initiate talk about the future of Twin Pines in private let alone around an informal gathering of this close knit community.

“I can’t take credit for years of Sean’s work and his insistence on only buy
ing the best quality ewes and replacements at the beginning.  He put in the program to cull all poor producers, bad dams, flystrike and eliminate facial eczema ewes.  I just followed his and Cliff’s example.”

“You’re far too modest young man.  Sue was just telling me about Jean and Sean’s plans
.”

There
was an uncomfortable silence. Paul looked towards his father but Sean seemed to be studying his feet.

“
You know how those woman gossip.  Now, how about a game of cards?”

The first domino had been pushed.

The warm
, long afternoon had faded into a cool, still evening.  Jean had retired into the lounge.  She had been slightly on edge all evening and now sat behind a newspaper, not reading, but sipping on a sweet sherry and straining to hear the men’s conversation.  Whoever cooked did not do the dishes.  Tonight, she would have gladly cleaned up to be involved.

“Italy
!” 

Paul’s
voice was raised and carried clearly through to where Jean sat.

She eased herself up and walked through to where Paul stood
, tea towel in his hand and jaw slack.  His parents considered a day’s shopping trip to town a major adventure.  Neither had really travelled outside the King Country and neither, as far as he was aware, had travelled in a plane. 

“We want
to see some of the world before we get too much older.  We are in good health at the moment but you never know what is around the corner.” Sean placed an arm around Jean’s shoulder.

“
We have been considering this for a while.  You are more than capable of running the farm.  We plan to spend six months in Europe.  We thought if you are happy we would book flights and make travel arrangements around the middle of January.  That way we have seen in the New Year here and the weather in Europe will be improving.”

“You are
happy to look after things here, aren’t you?  If you have other plans there are a couple of alternatives including employing a manager.”

“
I have discounted university and haven’t thought much about my other options.  Go and enjoy yourselves.  You will be considered rebels locally.  I know you wouldn’t be happy employing a stranger to run Twin Pines and I’m not doing much else.”

Paul walked over and put his arm around his mother.

“I am proud of you both.”

Paul stood in the terminal and watched Jean and Sean Clarke disappear through the departure doors.  He then turned and walked into the warm February sun.  He didn’t stay to watch the plane take his parents on the first stage of their journey.   He had a long drive back to Twin Pines and work waiting for him when he got there.

The months leading up to their departure had been exhausti
ng.  Sean had insisted Paul carry a note pad and write instructions on every aspect of the day to day running of Twin Pines.  His mother had insisted he carry a notebook and write instructions about preparing the meals she had packed into the freezer, the gardens she had pulled up and their emergency contact numbers and detailed travel itinery. 

Paul
shook his head, turned up the radio and drove towards the motorway.

Exactly fourteen days after they had landed at Heathrow International Airport Paul received his first postcard.  Jean and Sean had never understood the concept of the computer age and so communication was limited to the occasional phone call or regular postcards. 

Paul purchased an album
with the intention of presenting it to them when they were settled back at home. He placed the first postcard that showed London’s Big Ben carefully in the transparent slip.

Initially
, the cards arrived at least three times a week.  They travelled through Cornwall and Devon, took a bus tour into the Cotswolds and sent postcards of chocolate box villages and desolate moors. His mother described the places they had visited and people they had met.  His father initially added on each and every card a reminder of what needed to be done on Twin Pines, what needed to be ordered or who needed to be contacted. 

By the second
month, his mother was light heartedly threatening to leave Sean in the in the Lakes District of the United Kingdom, and head to Italy by herself.  By the time they had arrived in Rome, Paul found himself looking forward to their colourful updates and enjoying the light-hearted accounts of their experience.

The traffic in R
ome had horrified his mother to the extent that she had refused to use public transport or take tours.  They had been forced to walk around the highlights and sent cards from Vatican City, the Colosseum and the Spanish Steps. Their journey took them by bus to Sorrento and onto the Amalfi Coast where they described colourful buildings that clung to the vertical cliffs.  They sent postcards of Mt Vesuvius and Naples. 

The small island of Capri seemed to captivate
his mother and held them spellbound for over a week.  She talked about the frightening hairpin bends and steep narrow roads, the colourful seascape and mountain tram that took them to a point where the boats looked like small dots against the turquoise sea, of a blue grotto accessed by gondola through changing hues of vivid blue water, of tiny stalls selling delicious Limoncello and tiny restaurants preparing fresh local seafood and handmade pasta.

They
returned to Rome for a few days and Paul assumed it was to walk the attractions that were missed on their first visit.  A postcard showing the Trevi Fountain arrived with a description of Jean tossing a coin into the water.  They had visited the catacombs and eaten pizza beside the Tiber River.

They travelled across to Monte Argentario
, an area gaining popularity with both tourists and locals wanting to escape the city.  From there they had ferried to the island of Giglio, before returning to the mainland and basing themselves in Porto Santo Stefano.  Jean described exploring the neighbouring fishing village of Porto Ercole before driving the cliff edge road and stopping to eat plump, pink, local watermelons.

They had stopped in the city of Siena before travelling through the hills of Tuscany to the tiny medieval walled town of San Gimignano. 
Jean described the rolling countryside and tiny towns tucked into their folds.  She talked about gelato in every imaginable flavour and of fairy tale towers with terracotta coloured walls that were covered in bright red, pink and purple bougainvillea and huge pots spewing scarlet flowers on to the cobbled streets.

Meanwhile, Twin Pines was suffering one of the hardest winters for decades.  A series of storms created havoc throughout the central North Island stranding motorists, blanketing the pastures with snow and ice and toppling trees and power lines. 

With the winter chill
gripping the farm, Paul moved Jess from the kennels into the warmth of the Shearers Quarters.  The old dog was favouring her rear leg and showing increasing symptoms of early arthritis. She had always been a favourite, even as a puppy. The litter had been exceptional and Sean had retained a larger, more compact dog, named Rogue.  Sadly both Rogue and Jess suffered injuries before they had reached their prime. 

He remembered them as young dogs; fast, agile and tireless controlling stock and staying close.  Jess was small for her breed with sad, knowing eyes that looked like a window to an old soul. 

Sean and Paul had travelled the district competing
successfully in Sheep Dog Trials for several years.  But that had been ruined after a freak accident had claimed Rogues life.  Paul still remembered the warm summer’s day Rogue had jumped from the back of the quad bike and misjudged the tyres.   The dog had yelped and rolled coming to rest against an old tree.  There was nothing they could do for him except end the poor creature’s misery.  Sean had never bonded with another dog after Rogue.

Six months after the accident Jess b
roke her cruciate ligament.  The injury eventually healed but left her slightly unsound and Paul suspected this was the cause of her recent arthritis.

Jess had gone on to whelp two litters.
  Three of the pick puppies were retained as working dogs on Twin Pines but Sean had refused to start another dog for himself to trial. 

Jess was no longer young.
  Her muzzle had a distinguished grey fleck that ran into white under her chin and formed a blanket on top of her paws.  She was unable to keep up with the younger dogs and recently she had been unable to finish the day’s work.    

Often Pau
l would put her on the bike if she started to fall too far behind.  But, no matter what the conditions were and how strenuous the day was, she always came with them.  To stay in the kennels would have been to admit she was getting close to retirement and neither of them was ready to accept that.

Jess had settled at Paul’s feet.  Her tail wagged lazily when he picked up the guitar. The snow had started to thaw but a crisp icy wind had been blowing in from the mountains all that week.  Disruptions to the mail had delayed postcards and Paul had spent the evening arranging the pile into date order, before reading and placing them in the bulging album.

Sean and Jean had travelled out of
San Gimignano and onto the old wine route S222 that weaved through the Chianti wine growing area.  They described rolling countryside and gentle slopes of green vines laden with plump, purple grapes.  Their words painted pictures of narrow winding roads and quaint local restaurants serving bowls of fresh pasta and lashings of mellow olive oil good enough to drink from the spoon.  They spoke of the vineyards that were all open for tastings and the oak rich red wine. Their travels had taken them off the main road and into villages not often frequented by tourists.