The Boy in the Olive Grove (12 page)

‘No, it won’t.’

Well, that was a surprise. ‘How do you know? Sorry, I mean …’

She took pity on me. ‘I know quite a bit about your mother. Iris has had to deal with her for years now.’

I wanted to ask more, dead curious about what Iris had said, but Gwennie brought the session to an end. ‘Our time’s up for today. I’d like you to come again next week, if you can. We’ll talk about the interaction between you and your mother.’

I stood up. ‘Okay. Thanks. Will it be another regression session?’

‘We can do that if you want to explore whether there are past life connections with your mum,’ she said. ‘But I feel it would be best to work on this life.’ She handed me her card. ‘My contact details are on this, and a list of charges.’

I felt the blood rush to my face. I hadn’t even thought about costs or payment. I fished in my wallet for my eftpos card, but she waved it away. ‘This session is a favour to Iris.’

I still burned with shame. ‘I can pay. Truly. Mum gives me a huge allowance.’

‘That doesn’t surprise me. Let me know on Monday if you’d like another appointment. No payment today.’ She opened the door, ushering me into the hall.

‘Thank you. And please can I come next Friday? I need help coping with Mum or I’ll never get through a whole year of living with her. Would eleven o’clock be okay?’ That way I could go up and back the same day. I’d never hear the end of it from Mum if I swanned off for another three days next week.

The appointment was arranged, and I walked back down Gwennie’s crazily paved path with much to think about.

Damn it! I’d forgotten to ask her if the images of Iris in flames would come back.

I’D BARELY GOT THE CAR
parked at Clodagh’s when my door was wrenched open and there was Charlotte. ‘Are you okay? Why don’t you answer your phone, for chrissakes! We’ve been calling you for hours.’

I hugged her, coming over all tearful at the sight of her. ‘This is amazing! How come you’re here?’

She moved back to let me out. ‘Came down to see you, dumb nut.’ She grabbed my shoulders and treated me to a searching look. ‘Are you okay?’

‘Pretty much,’ I said. ‘Getting there, anyway. Tell you all about it when we get inside.’

Clodagh strolled down the path to meet us. ‘You see, Charlotte? Behold Bess, all present and in one piece.’ To me, she said, ‘She was sure something evil had befallen you when we couldn’t get hold of you.’

‘Sorry. I turned my phone off while I was seeing the shrink. Forgot to turn it back on again.’ I collected my bag, locked the car and headed for the house, aware that Charlotte and Clodagh were exchanging meaningful looks behind me.

They let me get inside before they pounced. ‘You will tell all,’ Charlotte said.

‘Or we have ways of not feeding you,’ Clodagh said.

I stalled for time. ‘Where’s your gran, Clo? And the boys?’

‘They won’t bother us for another couple of hours,’ she said. ‘Shall we talk here, or in my room?’

‘There’s a choice?’ I asked.

‘Only of venue.’ Clo gave me her wise woman smile as she pointed me at the beanbag.

‘You may begin,’ she said.

‘You’d better begin,’ Charlotte said.

I closed my eyes for a moment. Should I tell the whole lot, or not? Except that I’d kind of pre-empted that decision by mentioning a shrink. ‘Okay. But I’m warning you, it’s a crazy story, so don’t blame me if you can’t swallow it.’

‘It’s all true, though?’ Charlotte demanded. ‘No bullshitting?’

‘Let her tell her story, Charlotte.’ Clodagh sat above me in one of the two armchairs. ‘You’re going to start with the reason you got stuck into the vodka?’

I started talking. ‘I was lying on my bed. Anita was playing her cello.’ Would I ever hear the cello again without remembering Iris burning? I ploughed on, telling them what I’d seen, telling them that I’d been my stepmother’s husband and that I’d burned her alive. It took till I was about halfway through before I realised that the power had gone from the story. There was no horror, no sickness, only regret at what the person I’d been then had done. I finished and, into the electric silence, said, ‘I did warn you.’

Charlotte, with an air of picking her way through a minefield, said, ‘The shrink you saw today — he’s put you on drugs of some sort?’

Clodagh made no comment, but her eyes had that abstracted, computing look.

‘No drugs, and the shrink’s name is Gwennie.’ I reached out for Charlotte’s hand. ‘It’s okay. Really. I know it sounds insane and, well … you can see why I tipped the vodka down my throat.’

She sniffed back tears. I felt like crying too as I saw her withdrawing from me, scared of what I might say next.

Clodagh said, ‘What did this Gwennie have to say about it? She didn’t think you were hallucinating?’

‘I need to go back a bit. Bear with me. It’s all relevant.’ I tried not to see Charlotte sinking further into her chair, curling herself up to get as far from me as she could, but it made the telling hard. I kept any hint of emotion out of my voice — I might as well have been describing an egg carton as I related Iris’s bombshell when she told me, image for image, what I’d seen, the whole lot repeating itself in a dream, my promise to Miss Wilding to get counselling if it happened again, and finally the session with Gwennie.

It was too much for Charlotte. She untangled herself from the chair and sprang to her feet. ‘That woman should be locked up! I’ve never heard such outrageous rubbish.’ She bent over me. ‘You’ve been sucked in, Bess. I bet she charges the earth too. This is just nuts. You need to see a proper psychiatrist. Somebody who won’t pull a fast one over you.’

‘Sit down, Charlotte,’ said Clodagh. But Charlotte kept pacing the room. ‘Please,’ said Clodagh, and Charlotte obeyed. Clo tended to have that effect on people.

‘I can’t believe it,’ Charlotte muttered.

‘But it’s interesting,’ Clodagh said, her eyes still abstracted. ‘Reincarnation — does it exist or is it a comforting myth?’

‘Not too comforting, in this case,’ I said.

Charlotte snorted, but she seemed to be calming down, and I sent silent blessings in Clodagh’s direction.

‘Did Gwennie have any theory about why you saw your stepmother burning?’ she asked.

‘No. She said it was unusual because normally you only see past-life flashes if you go to a place you’d lived in.’ I snuck a glance in Charlotte’s direction. She was studying her fingernails.

‘That proves it’s rubbish,’ she said. ‘Look at the three of us — we’ve all been to heaps of places. London, New York, Paris, you name it, we’ve been there.’ She glared at me. ‘You’ve never
seen
anything when you’ve been overseas. I haven’t, and I’m damn sure nobody else at school has either.’

Clodagh said, ‘No, Charlotte, that doesn’t prove a thing.’ She focused her eyes and bent them on me. ‘Did things change between you and Iris after she told you about that lifetime?’

‘Yeah. I can talk to her now. It’s easy, not like with Mum.’

‘I always liked Iris,’ Clodagh said.

‘She’s too damn spooky for me,’ Charlotte said. ‘That reiki stuff. She doesn’t even drink real tea.’

‘Unfetter your soul, Charlotte,’ Clodagh said.

That earned her a snarl. ‘Don’t you dare do a Hamlet on me. There’s nothing wrong with my philosophy, thanks very much. I don’t care if there are more things in heaven and earth than I’ve dreamt of. It’s not real. You can’t prove it. You can’t—’

‘But you can’t disprove it either,’ Clodagh said. She stood up. ‘That’s enough for now. The prisoner may stand down. She is allowed a drink and chocolate.’ With one hand she pulled me up, tugging Charlotte upright with the other.

We went down to the kitchen, collected Clodagh’s hidden stash of chocolate along with a jug of iced tea — a specialty of her house. She steered the conversation onto topics Charlotte was happy with, and we spent an hour laughing and retelling all the Facebook gossip. I made a bit of a story about meeting Sol at the tennis courts and, as I hoped she would, Charlotte seized it with both hands. ‘What’s he like? Is he a babe? Is he built? D’you reckon he’s boyfriend material?’ Her face fell. ‘He’s not hitched up to that Harriet chick, is he?’

‘Didn’t seem like it,’ I said, thinking back to Harriet’s exasperation with him. ‘Doesn’t mean he hasn’t got a different girlfriend, though.’ I didn’t mention the drop-dead dreamy but unavailable Nick. Nor did I speak of olive grove guy.

Clodagh held her peace. Her mind was clearly elsewhere.

The weekend flew past, helped by swims at the beach, firing up the barbecue in the backyard, singing and keeping out of the way of Clodagh’s twin brothers as much as we decently could.

By the time I left late afternoon on Sunday, we hadn’t mentioned the unmentionable again. It was only when I was in the car, goodbyes all said, that Clodagh leaned in to ask, ‘You’re seeing Gwennie again, Bess?’

‘Next Friday. Can’t stay, though. Mum would slay me.’

‘I’ll be in touch.’ She closed the door, and I drove away knowing that Charlotte would be bending her ear about how she absolutely had to persuade me to see a proper doctor. Fortunately for me, Clodagh wasn’t persuadable if she didn’t want to be. I trusted her, and I trusted too that she’d reassure Charlotte. It isn’t pleasant when one of your oldest friends thinks you’ve lost your mind.

I CALLED IN TO VISIT
Dad but he’d been discharged. I rang Mum to tell her I’d be late because I wanted to see how he was.

‘If you paid me a quarter of the attention you give to That Man, I’d die a happy woman,’ she said, ice spiking from her words.

No you bloody wouldn’t.
‘I’ll see you later.’

‘Well, don’t expect me to prepare a meal for you.’

So, nothing had changed. The odds that Gwennie would ever be able to show me how to get along with my mother weren’t high.

Iris, by contrast, greeted me with an enveloping hug — balm after Mum’s tanty. ‘Come in, love. Your dad’s itching to talk to you. How was your weekend?’

‘Great, thanks. It wasn’t too scary, once I got started. I’ve got another appointment next week. Iris going to help me with Mum.’

Iris squeezed my hand and led me out to the deck where Dad was sitting at the table, podding a basin of peas.

He shoved back his chair and sprang to his feet, all energy and zest, just like the Dad he used to be. I got the breath-depriving hug, then he started issuing orders. ‘Sit down. Sit down. Fill me in on the factory. How was Auckland? You left the men to themselves on Friday?’

‘Charlie! Stop!’ Iris bent forward, arms akimbo, glaring at him.

‘All right, all right. Damn it, woman! No need to go off like a banshee. I’m just asking a few questions.’ He sat down, though.

‘Now listen to me, you big dope,’ she said. ‘Bess is in charge. If she thinks the men won’t destroy the place if they’re left to their own devices for a day, you’ve got no business even
hinting
that she shouldn’t have done it. Understand?’

Dad rubbed a hand across his hair, down his face, tugged his nose a couple of times, grunted and mumbled, ‘Sorry, Bess. It’s hard, letting go the reins after all these years.’

‘You can start picking them up again if you want.’ I shook my head at Iris, knowing how she’d feel about that. ‘There’s a few things it’ll be best if you do. Like this new guy …’

He sat up as if he’d been electrified. ‘What new guy? We don’t need anyone else. God almighty, Bess — I can’t even pay the men I’ve got now.’

‘Dad, shut up and listen.’

Iris sat down beside me so that he was faced with both his glaring women. ‘We’ve got these new orders, so we need a finisher. Bernie’s training up a sulky kid who can’t stand females. We don’t know yet if we’ve got a winner or a dud. But it’ll be best if you do any contract stuff with him. Okay?’

But did my father fall on my neck with cries of gratitude for his wondrous daughter? Nah.

‘Beverly Maketawa will foreclose the second she hears about this!’

‘No, she won’t, actually. She gave me all the
paperwork
. Advised me to take him on for three months, renewable if both parties are happy after that.’

Iris got up, picked up the pea bowl with one hand and swiped the other across Dad’s head. ‘Put that in your pipe and smoke it, Charlie Grey.’ She stalked off to the kitchen.

My unrepentant father leaned back in his chair, grinning at me. ‘Well, well. My little girl. Who’d have thought it, eh? You bring that young lad to see me, Bess. We can settle the business between us.’

‘You need to do it at the factory, Dad. Have a look at his work. Really examine it. Don’t say
anything
at all while you’re looking at it. Then, if you’re satisfied, you do the man-to-man thing, shake his hand and say you’d like to have him on board for a three-month trial.’

I waited while he rolled all that around in his head.

‘Humph,’ he said, after a solid minute of cogitating, ‘you could be right. Young blokes can be sensitive about their manhood. When should I turn up?’

‘Give Bernie a ring. He’ll be able to tell you if he thinks Jason will be a winner or not.’ I went inside for the phone. ‘Here. Ring him now. I’ll give Iris a hand with dinner.’

Iris, though, was banging cutlery onto the table. ‘Stubborn, pig-headed man. And,’ she wagged a fork at me, ‘you know what really gets my goat? You’re saving his ungrateful hide, and he still sees you as his little girl playing factories.’ Thump, bang, slam.

‘Stop! You’ll be having a heart attack next!’ I straightened up the place settings, replacing the tablespoons with dessert spoons. ‘I reckon if you weren’t here, his attitude would bug the hell out of me. But you understand what I’m doing, so somehow it doesn’t bother me. Slightly ironic, wouldn’t you say?’

She burst out laughing. ‘Bless you, Bess. Sounds like we’re keeping each other sane, in that case. Go and tell Charlie dinner’s ready.’

We had to wait while Dad finished his shouting conversation with Bernie. He sat down at the table, looking well pleased.

‘Bernie says we’re onto a winner in young Jason. He’s got the eye. Likes being one of the men. He’s—’

‘You’ve forgotten something, Charlie,’ Iris said.

‘Don’t be daft, woman. I’ve not been near the place for days.’

She did the arms akimbo stance again. ‘No. And who’s been running it for you? Who’s dragging the place out of the mire, inch by inch? Think about it, Charlie.’

I got busy carrying food to the table — a huge salad, lean steak, steamed potatoes with a touch of olive oil.

‘Um, err,’ Dad said. ‘Bess, Bernie says the men reckon you’re the best thing since sliced bread.’

He seemed to think that was enough. Iris pointedly didn’t send any of the food in his direction. I was stoked to have her, gloves on, fighting my corner.

Dad came up trumps, though. He turned square to face me. ‘Bess, I owe you. If the factory pulls through, it’s all because of you.’ He choked up a bit, but ploughed on. ‘You’ve surprised me, got to admit that. But damn it, girl, I’m that proud of you I could bust.’

I leapt at him, almost landing in his lap as I hugged him. Iris calmly served up the meal.

‘Well done, Charlie. Now let’s eat.’