Wildflower Hill (50 page)

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Monica left straight after the concert with her friend. She was going to spend the rest of the weekend in Hobart. I was left waiting for Patrick as he and Marlon saw off excited families and watched over the packing up of the sound and lights.

“I’m sorry,” said Patrick as the last piece of equipment was loaded onto the truck. “You’re going to be home late.”

“I don’t mind,” I said. “Nobody waiting for me.”

He smiled at me. “You talked Mina’s dad into coming.”

“I know.”

“I would have just let it go. But you didn’t. You were right about that one.”

“Right about something. At last.”

“All right, let’s head home.”

The night was soft and cool, with starlight on the river. In the car, it was dark except for the colored dashboard lights that reflected on Patrick’s skin. The radio mumbled too softly to hear. We talked in short bursts about parts of the concert, then fell into long silences. The wide fields, the noble silhouettes of dead trees, the clear starry sky, the magical dark, and us speeding through it to my home.

He pulled up in the driveway but didn’t turn off the car. He was going to make me ask.

“Will you come in?” I said.

“Are you sure you want me to?”

I was glad it was dark so he couldn’t see me blush. “Oh, yes.”

He cut the engine, and we got out and walked to the front door. Closed it behind us. I was in his arms before I’d taken breath. His lips on mine were firm and warm. I wrapped my
arms around his neck, and we kissed like teenagers. His hand crept up to stroke my breast, and my skin seemed to turn to liquid.

“Upstairs,” I said.

“Upstairs,” he answered.

I woke, and the birds were there. Calling and singing and chirping, as rowdy as ever. I opened my eyes and saw Patrick, still asleep. His pale, bare shoulder above the sheets. Patrick, naked in my bed. I could have swooned all over again.

I watched him for a while, and eventually, his eyelids flickered. I snuggled against him and kissed his shoulder.

“Good morning,” he said softly, his fingers in my hair.

“Yesterday’s surprise,” I said.

We lay like that for a while, twined around each other, listening to the noisy birds.

Then he said, “What are you going to do now?”

“What do you mean?”

He extricated himself and sat up, looking down at me. “Now the concert’s over. Are you selling the house? Going back to Sydney?”

“Of course I’m not selling the house,” I said.

“Then you’re staying?”

“I guess I must be.”

He smiled.

“If you want me to.”

“Oh, I want you to.”

Over breakfast, I listed all the things I had been putting
off because I hadn’t wanted to commit to staying. “Buy a new fridge,” I said. “One with a freezer that works.”

“Get the piano tuned. Please,” he said.

“Yes. And I’ll get a television. And a proper washing machine.”

“It’ll be like a home.”

“It
is
home,” I said. I snapped my fingers. “The master bedroom. I’ll move in finally, like Monica’s been telling me all this time. I’ll move in today.”

We finished eating and went upstairs to the master bedroom. He made love to me there, on the dusty covers, sweet and fierce. I opened the curtain afterward and looked out at the cabbage gum and thought about Grandma and Charlie.

“Are you going to buy a new mattress for this bed?” Patrick said as I dressed. “The springs are gone in this one.”

I turned. He was lying, still shirtless, on the bed.

“Probably. I’ll just turn it over for now.”

“Want some help?”

“Sure.”

We pulled the linen off the bed, sneezing from dust, and lifted up the mattress to turn it over.

“Emma.”

“I saw it.” The cardboard folder, squashed flat from years between the mattress and the bed base. While he held the mattress up, I reached for it. He let the mattress go with a thud, and we sat on the bed and opened the folder.

Photos. Dozens of photos. The little girl, whoever she was, in a dozen different dresses and poses. On a horse, playing
with dogs, bent over in the garden, posing by a Christmas tree.

“Oh, my,” I said, leafing through them. Here was Grandma, a young woman, with the little girl, waving to somebody behind the camera. And here was a tall, dark-skinned man, his face obscured by his hat, sitting comfortably on the back of a horse. I flipped it over:
Charlie,
Grandma had written on the back. I showed it to Patrick.

“Mystery solved,” he said.

“There was more than one mystery,” I replied. I started looking on the backs of the other photos. One name appeared over and over again.
Lucy.
“Lucy,” I said. “Her name was Lucy.” I don’t know why this affected me so; I was close to tears.

“I wonder what happened to her.”

Right at the bottom of the folder, I found a letter. I read the address. “She went to Scotland,” I said.

Patrick read the address over my sholder. “Why didn’t Beattie send this?”

“The same reason she never told us about Lucy. An illegitimate child meant something different back then.” The envelope was sealed.

“Are you going to open it?”

“It doesn’t feel right.”

“Open it,” he said.

I handed it to him. “I can’t. You do it.”

He picked open the envelope and pulled out a letter. “You want me to read it to you?”

I nodded, not trusting myself not to cry.

My darling Lucy,

It has been many years now since I saw you and held you. You were only a girl then, and light as a bird when I hugged you goodbye. I know that your father and Molly have done what they thought was right for you, but if I had known that last time I would never see you again, I would have held you much tighter. I would never have let you go.

You are a grown woman now with children of your own, and now that you know how intense the bond is between mother and child, perhaps you judge me for letting you go. I did try to stay in your life, as you know. When you told me to keep out of it, I took you at your word. Of course I should not have. I should have persisted, because you were barely an adult and didn’t know what you wanted. But I had grown ashamed—not of you, never of you—of myself, my past. I married a man with a very public life, and so common sense dictated that it was better to let you go, especially as you were insisting to be free of me.

But we will never be free of each other, you and I. You grew inside me and came from my body, your heartbeat depended on my heartbeat. And when you were born, I needed you as much as you needed me. No matter what happens, that bond cannot be undone. Molly, though she liked to think she was all the mother you ever needed, could never know that primal love. We belong to each other, Lucy, even though we have been far, far apart for many years now.

I do not know that this letter will ever be welcome in your life, so I suppose I will not send it, but it has made me feel better to swear my love for you again, and tell you how devastating the loss of you has been. A piece of me, always missing. My Lucy, my darling soft-skinned child. Do not ever doubt that I loved you, that I continue to love you, and will do so until the stars go out and the silence comes.

Your loving mother, Beattie.

My heart squeezed tight. My beloved Gran had hidden this pain from all of us, for years and years. Patrick rubbed my back gently. I hadn’t even realized I was crying. Finally, wiping away tears, I was able to look again at the photographs. Beattie and Lucy. Grandma looked so beautiful and so happy.

“She looks like you,” Patrick said.

“Everyone says that. Mum looks more like Granddad. Tall and striking. I look like Grandma.”

“No, I mean the little girl. Lucy. She looks like you.”

I picked one of the photographs up and examined it. Lucy, smiling. She
did
look like me. The smile, Grandma’s smile. My smile.

“What are you going to do?” Patrick asked me.

I turned to him. His face was soft, his eyes connecting warmly with my own. “I’m going to do the right thing,” I said.

S
pring had officially come to Glasgow, but it looked to me like the snow was going nowhere. I wasn’t conditioned for the extreme cold anymore, and Patrick teased me as I pulled on extra layers before we left our hotel.

“I don’t know how you’re going to manage a Tasmanian winter,” he said.

“There is actual snow out there,” I said. “Very cold snow.” We walked through the heated foyer and out onto the street. Patrick had the map, and we followed it carefully. It had been surprisingly easy to find Lucy MacConnell’s address—or Lucy Sutherland, as she was now known—but surprisingly hard to work out the right thing to do. If I posted the letter, she could reject it. If I phoned her without the letter to give her, she might reject me. I figured the only way to approach her was in person, with the letter in my hand. The rest was up to her.

I’d asked Mum to come with me, but she’d canceled her flight at the last moment. Not out of jealousy or ill will
toward Lucy; just in the spirit of not overwhelming her with too much at first. If Lucy was willing, there would be time for Mum and Uncle Mike and big noisy gatherings. I saw my role as only to deliver the letter.

“This is it,” Patrick said, coming to stop outside a rundown cottage with a beautifully kept garden.

I looked up at the front door, my breath fogging in front of me. “I’m so nervous,” I said to Patrick.

“You want me to come up with you?”

I nodded.

“All right, then. Here we go.”

We walked up to the front door, and I let Patrick knock because I knew he could do it much more confidently.

“You have to talk, though,” he said.

“Agreed,” I said, checking in my pocket for the letter again.

Footsteps inside. Somebody was coming.
Please let it be her.

The door opened. An elderly woman stood there. Her hair was mostly gray, but there was still a touch of ginger through it.

“Can I help you?” she said kindly.

When she smiled, I almost lost my nerve: echoes of my grandmother. The world held its breath for a moment.

Then I bravely pulled out the letter and offered it to her. “This is for you,” I said. “It’s been on its way for a long, long time.”

I
’d like to thank a range of people who helped me research and develop this story.

Tim and Jane Parsons at Curringa Farm were marvelous, generous with their time and knowledge, and welcomed my family warmly into their wonderful farm-stay cabin. The family at Fonthill Farm provided me with wonderful pictures and footage of their beautiful homestead. Charlotte Nash-Stewart and Kevin Stewart operated as my left brain, wrangling the numbers for me. Sue Williams generously allowed me to read an early draft of her book about the Merry Makers.

Other bits and pieces of research and encouragement came from Julie Hinchliffe, Ian Wilkins, Meg Vann, Robyn Haig, Keely Double, Mary-Rose MacColl, Ron Serduik, and my Facebook cheer squad. Kate Morton, as always, kept reminding me to trust myself. My family put up with all my nonsense with good grace and minimal tantrums. Selwa Anthony continues to provide an endless supply of love and support to me and my career.

Most of all, I want to express my gratitude for my cousin Janine Haig. Not just for helping me understand horses (and for laughing so hard when I asked how to steer one that I could hear her all the way from Chinchilla) but also for her unfailing support, pride, and love. Bless you, cuz.

TOUCHSTONE

R
EADING
G
ROUP
G
UIDE

Wildflower Hill

I
NTRODUCTION

Wildflower Hill
is told as a dual narrative, one story following Beattie Blaxland as a young woman in the 1920s, the other following her granddaughter Emma Blaxland-Hunter in modern day. The two women’s stories become intertwined across the decades when Emma gradually uncovers her grandmother’s history after inheriting her sheep farm in isolated Tasmania.