The Road Back (7 page)

‘Not a problem, Mum. Are you using those same old ornaments? They must be getting pretty tatty by now. You don't still have the ones that you used when I was growing up, do you?'

‘I do.'

‘They'd be antiques. Have you made a pudding yet?' asked Chris. ‘I love your grandmother's Christmas pudding, Megan. Do you still put sixpences and threepences in it, Mum?'

‘Most certainly,' Susan nodded firmly. ‘And if you find one, Megan, I'll buy it off you and recycle it for next year.'

‘You really like sticking to traditions, Bunny, don't you? I like the way you do things. My mum isn't like that. Says she's modern. She's not sentimental. And she's a minimalist.'

‘Less to dust, I expect,' said Susan briskly.

‘But I like that everything is always the same in your house. I feel safe here. Is that a funny thing to say? I don't mean like safe from violence or anything, just well, warm,' said Megan.

‘Cosy?'

‘Maybe that's the word,' replied Megan.

Susan stood and leaned over to kiss the top of her granddaughter's head. ‘My bedtime. Yours too?'

‘I'm bushed,' said Chris. ‘That drive is always longer than you think.'

‘I might read a bit. G'night, Bunny, night, Dad.'

‘Night, darling. Love you. I'm so happy you're here.' Susan hugged Megan.

‘Me too.'

After kissing his daughter good night, Chris walked to the guest room, which had been his boyhood bedroom. His mother had left a few reminders of his time there and they made him smile. His cub scout shirt with his
hard-earned badges was framed and hung beside a
collage of boyhood photos. A tennis trophy and a certificate for winning first prize in a short story competition sat on the dressing table beside a clumsy ceramic vase he'd made in a much-loathed pottery class.
At least it doesn't leak
, thought Chris, admiring the fragrant rosebuds his mother had placed in it. He picked up a framed certificate. He must have been about Megan's age when he'd written that short story. He'd been pretty chuffed about winning. He had always loved writing, and journalism had been a way of earning money by doing what he loved. He put the certificate down.
Wouldn't make money out of short stories these days
, he reflected.
Still. It's nice to be home
, he thought and he smiled to himself.

*

Within a day of their arrival, it was known that Chris Baxter was home and his childhood friends began to contact him. Alex Starr rang and made arrangements to meet for a drink, as did Duncan Newman, while Shaun French walked straight in the Baxters' back door as he'd always done.

‘G'day, Mrs B. I hear Chris is home. Is he staying through Christmas?'

‘Hey, hey, Frenchy. I am indeed staying for the festive season.' Chris strode into the room and clapped his old friend on the shoulder. Frenchy was a short, compact man but his personality always made him seem bigger than he actually was. ‘So what are you up to these days?' asked Chris.

‘Helping Dad run the farm. He's a bit past getting up every morning to do the milking, but he's right into breeding. Artificial insemination and all that. Producing better milkers. Karen's up to her elbows experimenting in cheese making. You like haloumi, Mrs B? I'll bring you some next time.'

‘Thanks very much, Shaun. And how are your children?'

‘Going great guns, thanks, Mrs B. Both in high school now. Shame they don't have you teaching them. They're missing out on the best. How old's your girl now, mate?'

‘Megan is fourteen. Interesting times,' remarked Chris. ‘She's about somewhere.'

‘I needed a couple of things from the supermarket, so I asked her to pop down there for me. She won't be long, and then we're off to Coffs Harbour,' said Susan.

‘Is it too early for a beer? Fancy a stroll to the pub?' asked Chris.

‘Sounds good to me. Bet you're glad to be out of the rat race in Sydney. Though I s'pose it's nothing compared to Yankee land.'

‘I wouldn't say that,' said Chris. ‘They both have their pluses and minuses.'

‘I wouldn't live anywhere else but here. God's own country and we plan to keep it that way,' said Shaun as the two of them walked out the door.

*

Chris whistled as he helped unload the bags and parcels from his mother's car later that day.

‘How many people is Santa catering for, Mum?'

‘You have no idea what it was like, Chris. You were wise to stay home instead of coming into Coffs with us. The shopping mall was jam-packed. The carols over the PA were much too loud and the Christmas decorations were all starting to droop. It was festive mayhem,' said Susan.

‘Bunny kept running into her friends and we lost each other, twice,' said Megan cheerfully.

‘Thank goodness for mobile phones, or I'd never have found you and I'd have had to leave you there.'

‘No, you wouldn't have,' laughed Megan.

‘You've bought a stack of things, by the looks of it,' said Chris. ‘Not all for yourself, Megan, I hope!'

‘Only one or two, the rest are for my friends. I just see things I know they'll love. You're really hard to buy for, Dad,' said Megan, hastily changing the subject. ‘But we found something perfect for you.'

‘Oh, this all looks worse than it is. Megan found some crazy gift warehouse that had sprung up and bought a lot of silly fun things. She has a tribe of friends, it seems,' broke in Susan.

Megan took her parcels inside to inspect her merchandise while Chris and Susan walked slowly behind her.

‘How did you go today? Did you get a chance to do any job hunting?' Susan asked.

‘I rang the contacts that Mac gave me, but none of them could help. Told me that they'd get straight back to me if anything came up, but no one sounded very hopeful. Then I got on to my old editor, John, to ask him what the other journos who'd got the flick were doing. See if I could get some ideas. It wasn't very encouraging, either.'

‘Can I ask what he said?'

‘He told me that some of the old ex-Trinity staff were freelancing.'

‘You could do that.'

‘Mum, freelancing only pays about seventy cents a word,' said Chris.

‘A thousand words and you've got seven hundred dollars,' countered Susan.

‘Doesn't sound too bad, I know, but there are all sorts of conditions attached.' Chris explained how freelancers only got paid based on the number of words that actually went to print. And they got paid nothing at all if the paper decided not to go ahead with the story.

‘That doesn't sound very fair to me.'

‘Nor me, Mum, especially when you consider the costs of getting the story like phone calls and travel. I could do a bit, I suppose, but it would hardly support me, let alone a teenage daughter as well.'

‘Well, it's early days yet. You know that new people rarely get hired over the holiday season. No one is looking for staff when they're busy planning their holiday,' said Susan.

‘But on the other hand, this can sometimes be a good time of year to get a foot in the door because the regular staff are on leave. Your work has a better chance of being noticed, but I can't show anyone what I can do if I can't even get a short-term contract.'

‘You're a well-known journalist, for goodness sake! I'm sure that something will turn up after Christmas. Come on, Chris, let's go inside. I need to set up Santa's workshop in my sewing room. And no one is allowed in to poke around,' she said in a warning voice.

*

Later that afternoon, the car wound up the narrow road that twisted around the mountainside. Megan gazed at the rainforest towering above them. At several places rivulets of water cascaded over well-worn rock faces beside the road in picturesque waterfalls. On the other side, the road fell
away sharply towards a tangle of ferns and undergrowth and a lush canopy of trees whose roots were grounded hundreds of metres below in the steep valley.

‘Ooh, I can't look down there. It's too scary. Imagine what it's going to be like coming back down,' Megan exclaimed.

‘Don't look down at the drop, look across the canopy. You can see the ocean in the distance, between the breaks in the trees,' said Susan.

Then Megan squealed as a B-double truck roared past their car on the winding road. Chris took evasive action by swerving close to the cliff face.

‘Those trucks are damned dangerous,' he muttered. ‘There seems to be no end to them. What are they doing here? This road is far too narrow for something that size.'

‘They're taking rocks from the quarry for the highway bypass,' said Susan. ‘But there have been a lot of near misses. And there was talk they are going to increase the number of trucks. According to the authorities, it's all about saving money.'

‘A short cut to disaster. As far as I'm concerned, it's an accident waiting to happen.'

‘
Daaaad
, stop that. It's scary.'

‘It's okay, Megan. Your father is a very careful driver. Don't worry. It won't be long until we reach the top and get to the place where I like to buy something special for my Christmas guests. Then we can have a coffee and look around before we go back,' said Susan soothingly.

When they reached the plateau, Megan soon had her phone out, snapping pictures of the glorious scenery through the window. The road now weaved its way through flat, lush, green paddocks where lazy cows, too fat and sleepy to move, dozed contentedly in the patches of shade cast by luxuriant trees.

‘This is beautiful,' exclaimed Megan. ‘It's all so green. It's sort of like how I imagine England to be.'

‘It certainly is lovely. Quite idyllic,' said her grandmother in agreement.

In less than ten minutes Chris had parked the car in the main street of the town at the top of the plateau.

‘I'm just popping into this shop,' explained Susan. ‘I want to buy some of the local smoked trout. I use it for one of my special Christmas Day concoctions. There's a coffee shop a couple of doors down, but if you'd rather, Megan, there is a great junk shop on the corner. Of course, the owner doesn't call it that, but the number of things he has in there is amazing. I know you'll enjoy a poke around in it. How about we all meet there in ten minutes?'

With her fish safely stowed in the car, Chris and Susan walked into the very large warehouse, looking for Megan.

‘Good grief,' exclaimed Chris. ‘I've never seen so much junk in all my life.'

‘Shhh. Keep your voice down,' whispered Susan. ‘The owner is very proud of his collection of bric-a-brac. He would be very insulted if he heard it referred to as junk.'

Chris looked around him. There were so many collectibles that it was difficult to walk down the aisles to inspect them. The walls of the shop were hung with old commercial metal signs advertising things such as ‘Keen's Mustard', ‘Caltex' and ‘GE Electrics'. On the crowded shelves stood cups and saucers, glasses, old vases and boxes of cutlery. Stacked one on top of another were cheap
reproductions of artworks by the great masters, as well as ambitious but tasteless amateur paintings. Hundreds of books had been set out on shelves, although there appeared to be no particular order to them. In several glass-fronted cabinets stood dozens of ornaments, mostly poorly made, but Chris suspected that if he had time to hunt seriously, he might find some good pieces.

‘Dad, this is so amazing,' said Megan as she manoeuvred her way down a crowded aisle towards Chris and Susan. ‘Look what I've found.' Megan held out a set of salt and pepper shakers in the shape of two pandas hugging each other. ‘Aren't they too cute? And they cost hardly anything. I'm going to get them.'

Chris shook his head. ‘Your money,' he said.

‘Bunny said that she keeps things that mean something to her, so I'm getting these to remind me of this day,' Megan explained.

Chris looked at his mother, but didn't say a word.

‘Do we have to race back home, Chris?' his mother asked. ‘If we have time, we should take Megan to see the waterfall. We've had quite a bit of rain lately, so it should have plenty of water going over it.'

As the waterfall was only a few minutes' drive away, Chris agreed that it was worth taking a detour. They parked the car in the small car park and walked to the edge of the well-fenced observation platform. They could see the waterfall and the river flowing far below. There was certainly a lot of water coming over the falls, which plunged about thirty metres into a large pool beneath.

‘Dad, this is gorgeous,' said Megan. ‘I just love it.'

‘It certainly is lovely. It's not one of the world's great waterfalls, not like Niagara, but you're right, it's very pretty.'

‘There's a path right down to the base of the falls,' said Susan. ‘You can walk down and swim in the pool, but the water is very cold.'

‘Dad, can we do that?'

‘No time today, but maybe after Christmas.'

‘I'd like to come back here,' said Megan. She smiled at Chris. As they climbed back in the car, Chris felt relaxed and happy. Showing Megan around Neverend was proving to be just the bonding experience he had hoped for.

*

On Christmas morning the house was filled with people, as neighbours and friends dropped in to share good wishes and exchange small gifts.

On Christmas Eve, Susan had shown Megan how to flake the smoked trout they had bought up on the plateau and make a dip from it by putting it into the food processor with herbs, crème fraîche, shallots, parsley and lime juice. Now Megan served it to the visitors with tiny toasted triangles of bread.

‘Mmm,' said one guest. ‘Bunny's famous smoked trout dip.'

‘Megan made it this year,' replied Susan.