Outback Sunset (43 page)

Vanessa blinked several times, her spine went ramrod stiff and for several seconds she was speechless. Staring at him, her dark eyes wide, she eventually found her voice. ‘What? Are you out of your mind?’

It took a lot to shock her but this time he had managed to. She moved to stand in front of him and as Bren looked up at her from under his lashes he noted that she wasn’t bothering to disguise the fact that she was stunned. ‘Amaroo is becoming a bloody hard grind. I’m pretty fed up with — everything. The year-to-year struggle to stay in the black, the wet, the dry, the whole scene. Maybe it’s time for a change.’ He gave her a tentative smile. ‘We could have a good life in Broome. Live in a mansion like my uncle’s, have prestige in the community. Kyle could go to a regular school, have other kids to play with.’

‘Your mother would kill you, so would Curtis,’ she said, tight-lipped. ‘What about tradition, Bren? A Selby has run Amaroo for three generations. And, what about Kyle? Amaroo is his birthright.’ Her eyes glinted with disgust, her temper, often close to the boil these days when they ‘talked’, rose a notch, ‘You want to sell out, to take the soft option. I thought Selby men were made of stronger stuff.’

‘Not all of us, look at Stuart. He was born here but he’s made a life for himself elsewhere, a bloody good life too.’

‘So that’s it, you want to copy Stuart, be his … clone.’ Her gaze narrowed on him. ‘Has he suggested this?’

Bren looked away, his answer quick, defensive. ‘No, it’s my idea. Besides, properties in the Kimberley, in fact all over the country are bought and sold on a regular basis. Some times people are ready to move on.’ He ignored the angry shake of her head, how it made her blond hair sway
attractively from side to side. ‘And that’s what I’m thinking, it’s time for me to move on, to try something else.’

‘Well, frankly, I think it’s a terrible idea. It’s … it’s defeatist and unworthy of you.’

He winced at her harsh tone but in particular at the words she used. Vanessa wasn’t bothering to couch her words diplomatically and that showed how much their relationship had deteriorated.

‘I’ll fight tooth and nail to keep Amaroo for Kyle. So will Hilary, Curtis and Lauren.’

Stung, Bren turned nasty. ‘Well, you won’t get far. I own Amaroo and I’ll do what I like with it.’ He got up, tossed the empty beer can on the sofa and walked towards the hall. ‘I’ll sleep in the guest room tonight,’ he threw back at her grumpily as he marched off down the hall.

As soon as he was gone chain reaction set in. Vanessa’s legs began to shake, then her torso, and after that her whole body. She reached for the side-arm of one of the loungers and collapsed into it.
Bren was serious about selling Amaroo!
He wasn’t baiting her in retaliation for her lack of enthusiasm towards his development project, she realised. She sat very still, listening to her rapid heart beat, her panicked breathing. He had been thinking about this for some time, she knew it from the look on his face, the tension in his voice. She cast her mind back over the year; it hadn’t been a good one.

There had been a marked depression in the Asian cattle market which had caused Bren and Curtis to fly to Perth and search out new markets. Quite miraculously they had returned with a contract for a
shipment of stock to the Middle East where trade had returned to normal after the Gulf War. And, soon after that she had miscarried. Her eyes misted as she recalled Bren’s remarks — they had shocked everyone on the station
and
had qualified Kerri’s long held opinion of him.

Her friend was right, though it hurt to admit it, her husband was not a sensitive man. And now, with a decision looming on Amaroo, which would be catastrophic for the family, she could no longer delude herself about their marriage. She accepted that most marriages went through bad patches but theirs wasn’t going through a bad patch it had sunk into an endless quagmire of unhappiness. She had begun to lose respect for Bren long before Kyle had his health problem but his behaviour then and since, the fight with Curtis, his petulance regarding his project, her miscarriage and now, wanting to sell Amaroo! As far as she was concerned, to coin an oft-used phrase, it was the last straw.

Vanessa tilted her head to one side as she thought of something. What had Kerri whispered to her the day she had left Amaroo.
‘A wise woman knows when it’s time to gather her courage and move on.’

She had tried to make things work. Given ground, made allowances, believed that the grievances she had weren’t important, that being together as a family made up for his shortcomings, and as the years passed, a successful marriage could become a series of compromises, on both sides. However, there came a time when compromises and excuses no longer worked because the resentment
and the feeling of being let down became too strong until it overwhelmed all else.

Dry eyed, her expression serious as she stared at the blank television screen, she came to accept what she had known deep down for quite a while, that the love had gone, evaporated, died for want of emotional nourishment some time over the last few years. She couldn’t pinpoint the beginning of its demise — it wasn’t one situation but more a series of situations, hurts, each piling on top of the other and smothering the affection she had once felt for Bren until the flame of love was no more.

Despairing of the decision she knew she was about to make, she pressed her fingertips against her closed eyes. Amazingly, she couldn’t cry, she was too empty for that, beyond tears. She had to concentrate on what she was going to do, how to broach her decision with Bren. In a way, she didn’t think he would be too surprised or that he would fight too hard to make her stay.

Vanessa sat in the armchair for … she didn’t know how long, with little awareness of time passing as she mentally reviewed the last seven and a half years. From sublime happiness and joyful expectations, to disappointment, pain and … desolation. The grieving process had already begun, she admitted — months ago — for what they’d had and for what no longer existed and for what she had to do. End it!

Dawn was still a speck on the eastern horizon when Vanessa, who’d barely slept, went to the guest room Bren was occupying at the end of the house, well
away from Kyle’s room. She wanted to get the pain over with but first she had to know if he’d changed his mind about selling Amaroo.

As she flicked the light switch on she saw that he was awake, propped up in bed with his hands behind his head. He refused to look at her as she sat at the end of the bed.

‘Can’t sleep?’ he asked moodily.

‘About as well as you, I guess. Last night you gave me a lot to think about.’

‘I know. I’ve been lying here thinking about how great it’s going to be. Stuart’s keen to have me come in as his partner. Eventually I see us sharing the business fifty-fifty. Kyle will see more of his cousins, and their kids. He’ll love that, and being able to go to a proper school. And now that Lauren and Marc are buying Curtis’s share of Cadogan’s Run, he’ll have a big enough deposit to purchase Amaroo.’ He grinned, confident that he had worked the problem out. ‘Which means that Amaroo will stay in the family.’

She stared at him despite his own inability to make eye contact. If he thought she would be placated by his spiel he couldn’t be more mistaken. She had grown up in a tough environment in Brixton but with the dream that one day she would be able to give something to her children. Now he wanted to take away Kyle’s entitlement — Amaroo. How could he expect her to be happy about that? ‘You’re still firm about selling Amaroo?’

‘Yes. Once I make up my mind about something I don’t usually change it. You should know that by now,’ he said testily. ‘It’ll work out well, you’ll see. We can have a very good life in Broome.’

She arched an eyebrow. ‘I thought we had a good life here.’

‘It will be better in Broome. Kyle can grow up near the sea; he loves the water. I can teach him how to fish, to snorkel, to sail. We’ll have plenty of money too.’ He said, throwing that in because he thought it might tempt her. ‘Vanessa, you won’t have to work, not even do stage work if you don’t want to. And, let’s face it, Curtis will manage Amaroo better than I ever could. He’ll jump at the opportunity to buy it.’

‘Maybe, but what about tradition? Kyle won’t inherit Amaroo. If Curtis owns it, Regan will.’

‘Shit, Vanessa,’ he shook his head in frustration, then his arms moved, folding aggressively across his chest. ‘I’ll build our son a business empire in tourism, he can inherit that.’

‘But I enjoy acting, and the work keeps coming in,’ she reminded him. She thought she had become accustomed to his self-centredness but while he talked about how good it would be for Kyle and herself, really, he was only thinking of how good it was going to be for Bren Selby. ‘I can’t imagine myself not acting, no matter where I live.’

‘Fine, do all the acting you want to,’ he replied. But then the last part of her sentence aroused his curiosity and made him ask, ‘What do you mean by “no matter where I live”?’

It was the opening she wanted, the right moment to tell him. ‘It means that even if you change your mind and decide to stay on Amaroo, or whether you sell and go to Broome, I won’t be with you.’ She saw his confusion, but didn’t wait for him to absorb
what she’d said. Taking a deep breath she went on. ‘It’s over, Bren. Our marriage is over. I think we’re both aware that it’s been teetering on the brink of collapse for some time. I believe we have to face facts, that what we once had, our feelings for each other, have gone,
died.’

‘Jesus!’ He jerked upright in the bed as if something had bitten him. ‘What the hell are you talking about, Vanessa? Is that your idea of a threat, to stop me from selling Amaroo?’

She shook her head emphatically. ‘No, my decision is the same whether you sell Amaroo or not. What you said last night forced a sense of clarity to what I’ve been thinking for a long time. It’s sad but, we’ve drifted apart, Bren, and it’s clear that the things we each want out of life are quite different. We’re both to blame, I suppose, but neither of us should point the finger of blame at each other.’ She stared at him. ‘I don’t believe things, us, can go back to being the way we were.’

Visibly shaken, he ran a hand through his dark hair. ‘You’re my wife, we belong together.’

‘If you’re honest with yourself, you’ll admit that we haven’t been “together” for some time.’

‘You’re right.’ Still, Bren sought to apportion blame and his gaze narrowed on her.
‘You’re
the one who has made that difficult, flitting around, off doing movies, working on the stage,’ he accused. Then he grinned as he thought of a solution. ‘What we need is a holiday, together, where we’ll have plenty of time for each other. Let’s go back to Hayman Island. We can make things right between us, Vanessa, I know we can.’

That he wasn’t prepared to take any responsibility for the demise of their marriage, that it was all her fault, was typical. She had expected it. She shook her head. ‘A year ago that proposal might have worked, but not now.’ She paused to reflect. ‘I’m sorry, I don’t have anything left to give.’

He leapt out of bed and began to pace the room, and when he spoke his tone was belligerent. ‘So we become a bloody statistic? Another broken marriage. People will snigger and whisper behind our backs, you know. They’ll say, yes, we knew it wouldn’t last.’

‘Is that what concerns you, what people might say? I don’t give a damn what anyone says,’ she said, tossing her head proudly. ‘Their opinions aren’t important to me.’ Her disappointment with him and her anger were growing. Why couldn’t he accept what was clear to both of them, that it was over, instead of trying to shift any blame for the breakdown away from himself,
and
worrying over the image their break-up might project. His reaction wasn’t winning him any brownie points with her!

‘I don’t want you to go,’ he said, and there was suppressed anger in his tone. He continued to pace, touching ornaments, pushing the curtains open to show a lightening sky. ‘We’ve had a lot of good times together, Vanessa.’ He looked at her again. ‘We could try … counselling. See if we can work things out.’

She noted that not once had he said ‘because I love you’. But she understood why he’d mentioned counselling. Bren was a possessive man and in a way he saw her as a possession, an ‘ornament’ he was loath to part with because her celebrity status
allowed him to bask in her reflected glory. Kerri had said that about him once but she hadn’t believed it then. She was becoming less and less impressed, and if he thought that could win her back he was as wrong as a man could be.

‘I’ve gone beyond that. As far as I’m concerned, counselling would only prolong the agony for both of us because I don’t …’ she knew his feelings would be hurt but it had to be said, ‘love you anymore. And, like your decision on Amaroo,
my
decision on us is firm.’ She was silent for maybe thirty seconds, allowing her words to sink in. ‘However, for now, I believe we should keep our problem to ourselves until we work everything out.’ It was going to be hard telling Kyle. Naturally he loved his dad, but she hoped that he was young enough to adjust and not be emotionally scarred by their separation. There were financial matters to work out too.

‘Do you agree?’ She watched his shoulders slump with defeat, and listened to his sigh. He was, finally, accepting that she would not be changing her mind.

‘So, we go our separate ways. I presume you’ll take Kyle?’ His tone was cool, the anger inside him tightly controlled.

‘That would be best for Kyle, don’t you think?’

‘I guess. I’ll want to see him regularly though.’

‘Of course.’ Her smile was gentle, and tinged with sadness. ‘You’ll always be his father, Bren. I want him to grow up knowing you and loving you.’

His expression glum, Bren nodded and without another word, left the room.

Nova’s movements were sluggish as she dressed in her usual day wear of shorts, a midriff top and boots. She picked her hat up off the dresser as she left her bedroom, leaving the bed unmade, the room a mess. She was a mess! Her head throbbed from the cocktail of pills she had taken last night to assuage her anger, then her grief. She could hardly get her brain into gear, even first gear. Bleary-eyed, she glanced over at the hangar as she walked towards the homestead’s kitchen. The chopper was gone but the Cessna still stood there so Curtis hadn’t left yet.