Families
Not ten minutes ago, Blair had collected Nina from the cottage and walked her up the hill to the back veranda of the main house. He’d let himself in through one of the three bi-fold doors and pointed to a massive timber table at the centre of a pretty, sun-filled room.
‘Take a seat, Nina. Coffee or tea?’
‘Either is fine,’ she said, her mind too occupied for the simplest decisions. For the same reason she didn’t offer to help Blair, instead slipping into the carving chair at the far end.
‘Here comes Dad now.’
Nina had no idea why Blair didn’t notice her next shaky breath. She’d held it for as long as she could, then exhaled slowly as the man her mother had loved blustered into the room.
The man Mum still loves, Nina reminded herself.
‘G’day, son.’
‘Morning, Dad, wondered where you were.’
‘Walking. Trying to keep the old bod in shape to keep up with my strapping heir apparent.’ He slapped his son’s back, opened the refrigerator and stuck his head inside. He emerged with an apple in his mouth. The crunch reached Nina’s ears where she sat, relishing the warmth of the morning sun on her back. Perhaps its glare through the wall of windows had prevented John from noticing her, or the large vase holding a dozen bird-of-paradise flowers with enormous orange crowns.
‘Did you get my text message last night about morning tea, Dad?’
‘Yes. Where is this guest?’ John turned around, a hand shielding his eyes, his gaze locking on Nina’s face. ‘Ah, there you are, and in my favourite morning chair. No, no, stay put,’ he added when Nina made to stand.
‘Dad, this is Nina. She wanted to meet you and, no, she’s not after an interview or anything.’
‘Hello.’ Nina’s nerves pinged like plucked elastic. She looked everywhere but directly at John, fearing he’d see her secret. When she did find the courage to look him in the eye, his brow was creased, and his smile frozen. ‘Blair’s right, Mr Tate. I’m not here for a story.’
With his head at a curious tilt, John Tate stepped sideways around the far end of the table, perhaps to put his back to the window. ‘A buyer? A budding artist? Ah, I know,’ he quipped, ‘an interior stylist. Prints of my works are popping up in display homes around Yeppoon, so I’m told. A designer with impeccable taste, I’d suggest.’
He was as charming as she’d imagined he must be. ‘My purpose is of a more personal nature.’
‘Oh?’ Blair and his father spoke in unison. They looked at each other, then back at Nina.
‘What I mean, Mr Tate, is…’
‘If it’s personal you’d best call me John.’ While a youthful spark emerged from among the lines gracing an otherwise unreadable face, the timbre in his voice, the way he considered each word, let Nina know the man remained wary.
‘Nina’s mum spent time here at Ivy-May back in the eighties,’ Blair said, busying himself in the kitchen. ‘I’m making coffee, Dad. Want one?’
‘I’ll settle for fruit.’ John raised the apple. ‘You know what they say about an apple a day.’
‘Keeps anyone away if thrown hard enough!’ Nina laughed, but with John still staring at her she felt about as welcome as a worm poking its head out through the green Granny Smith skin. A worm could at least shrink back into the hole and disappear. For the second time in two days Nina wished she could.
Blair came to her rescue. ‘Never met anyone else who knew that line, have you, Dad?’
‘One of Mum’s favourites, actually,’ Nina dared. ‘She had an arsenal of corny cooking jokes and when we were kids she shared them with a little too much enthusiasm when customers came into our bakery.’
‘Hang on.’ Blair’s phone was beeping a message. ‘It’s Mum. She’s driving up to the house now and she’s going on about something to do with photos, Dad.’
John grunted. ‘Hasn’t she got that conference?’
‘Yeah, but I told her about Nina and suggested she call by on her way.’
Nina stiffened. ‘What about me?’
‘Don’t look so worried.’ Blair grinned. ‘It was a quick text message, not a dissertation. I didn’t include detail. And don’t let the fact she’s the local mayor worry you. That text is probably lost among the dozens she racks up daily. Mum’s a human dynamo, hey, Dad?’
John grunted again, but hadn’t yet sat down, his focus shifting from Nina to the apple stalk he’d twisted off and now rolled between his thumb and middle finger. ‘Hmm, yes,’ he said, ‘one of many nicknames.’
‘Dad calls her K-K-K-Katie because it sounds like a motor starting up. Once she gets going, or has a bee in her bonnet about something, there’s no stopping her. And here she is.’
The squeak of an opening door echoed through the old house with its nine-foot ceilings, fancy cornices and picture rails.
‘We’re out back, Mum.’ Blair’s voice bounced off the wooden floor and walls. He shifted to one side of the sink so his father could wash his hands.
‘Good morning, darling.’ She sailed down the two steps into the sunroom just as a cloud covered the sun, the warmth on Nina’s back replaced by a chill. The entrance reminded Nina of a fly that whizzes in an open door and buzzes each nook and cranny within seconds, eager to take everything in before deciding to settle. ‘Kettle on, I hope?’ She kissed her son’s cheek. ‘I bought muffins from town, but I can’t dilly dally today.’
‘Mum, why do you buy muffins when you know I have—’
‘Supporting local business is something we all need to do more, and besides that I’m peckish.’ As Katie tipped the contents of a bag onto the kitchen’s bench Nina prepared a smile, but the woman was yet to notice her sitting at the table on the far side of the room. ‘No time for breakfast – the airline texted a change to my flight time. Wish I didn’t have to go at all. Local government conferences are a waste of good money if you ask me. Hello, John.’ A perfunctory peck on her ex-husband’s cheek looked like a bug ricocheting off a closed window. John swatted her away. ‘Speaking of wasted money, I thought you had these kitchen tiles re-grouted recently.’
‘Stop inspecting the place, woman, there’s nothing wrong with the tiles. For eight years you’ve been coming here and telling me something needs fixing. You have a new husband to boss around. Did he get the parcel I sent?’
‘The industrial ear-plugs?’ Katie smiled, while fussing with John’s shirt collar. ‘Yes, thank you, that wasn’t very funny.’
‘Us husbands have to stick together.’ John made a grab for her, but she was too fast, buzzing back to Blair.
‘Pour my coffee now, please, Blair. Then I need those boxes of memorabilia for the museum collection. Clive’s meeting me at the highway so I can transfer them. I see the boxes on the front veranda, John, but not the envelope of photos.’
‘Oh, right, I forgot.’
‘Of course you did,’ Katie muttered, loud enough for all to hear, even the seemingly invisible Nina.
‘They’re all in one parcel in the study,’ John said. ‘I’ll get it now.’
‘Here you go, Mum, take your coffee and come meet—’
‘Thank you, darling, and, John,’ Katie hollered, ‘be quick. Oh, Blair, thank goodness you don’t take after your father. I honestly don’t know what I’d… Oh!’
Nina checked she was still smiling. Noticed at last. Hoorah!
‘You look familiar,’ was the woman’s opening line. ‘Have we met before? Sorry if I can’t recall where or when. Being mayor means I come into contact with a lot of people.’
‘Nina’s come up from Noosa for a visit,’ Blair butted in. He put down his father’s coffee cup, then straddled his own chair and mouthed something Nina didn’t understand. ‘Her mother spent time here in the eighties.’
‘Here? In Candlebark Creek?’ Katie blew on her coffee. She hadn’t yet sat down. ‘Doing what, exactly?’
Did the woman really not remember, or was she feigning ignorance in front of her son? Nina couldn’t be sure. All she was thinking about was Ava’s distress at the hospital when she’d mentioned Katie-from-next-door.
‘No, her mother was a cook at Ivy-May in the eighties,’ Blair said.
‘Cook?’ Had a fly been buzzing around the room, Katie’s dropped jaw would have made the perfect landing place. Her hand stopped sharply part way to her mouth and coffee slopped onto her shirt. ‘Mother?’
Yep, Nina told herself. She remembers!
‘Whoa, watch out.’ Blair took charge of the mug as his mother plucked at the coffee-stained shirt. ‘Did you burn yourself?’
‘I need the bathroom.’ A not so cool and collected Katie hurried out, calling, ‘And I need a white shirt of some sort from your father’s wardrobe, Blair – without paint stains if you can find one. Quickly, please.’
‘Good luck with that, son.’ John strolled unhurriedly back to the table. His calm was such a contrast to Katie’s agitation. Nina liked him.
‘Welcome to Ivy-May and to my life,’ he said softly, with surprising candour. ‘Chaotic mostly, then prosaic. That is until I discover a guest in the old cottage late at night.’
‘That was you outside in the dark?’ Nina asked.
‘Sorry if I frightened you. I’m certain Blair could have found you more comfortable accommodation, or at least told me you were there.’ John explained about the trespassers so Nina would understand the reason for the late-night snooping.
‘The cottage was kind of my idea. Blair suggested it would’ve been the one my mother stayed in. Her name is Ava,’ Nina said, ‘Ava Marchette, and she speaks fondly of her time here.’
‘Oh, Ava,’ John said.
Nina wanted to squeal. What he’d written in the note was true. He remembers! ‘That’s right, my mother, Ava.’
‘No, no, Ava didn’t stay here.’ John’s matter-of-fact response stamped Nina’s excitement flat. ‘She was never in the cottage. We met recently about a portrait, although portraits were never my thing. Self-portraits, yes. I painted myself about a trillion times as I tried working out who the hell I was during the early years. But I forgot, Nina, you aren’t here for my story. You’re Ava’s daughter.’
‘Yes.’ Nina had wanted to say more, but she could hear Katie’s returning footsteps and Blair was back in the kitchen. She had to wait and ease into the conversation with John later.
Katie came in, and John whispered, ‘Enjoy your stay down there on the creek. That cottage was my escape once.’ His head and eyes flicked in his ex-wife’s direction and he mumbled out of the side of a crooked mouth. ‘Wish it still was.’
Katie flitted around the room, picking up her car keys and slipping her khaki jacket on over a plain white shirt.
‘Nice look,’ John said. ‘Maybe if you turned the collar up a bit.’
Katie smacked away his hand. ‘Since when did you become the fashion expert?’
‘I know when a man’s shirt looks good on a woman.’ John caught Nina’s eye and she could have sworn he blushed.
‘Well, this old thing will do until I get to my hotel. And, John, when I’m back from the conference I’ll come over and help you sort through that wardrobe. You’ve got stuff in there from twenty years ago. No wonder you wear the same few things all the time. Finding anything else would be impossible. Blair, darling, I need you to phone me later. We have to talk.’ She turned her back on John and Nina at the table. ‘Later, and in private.’
John rolled his eyes in Nina’s direction, ending with another wink.
‘And you, John Tate,’ Katie continued, ‘rather than sitting there muttering to yourself, you can help Blair load my car with those boxes. I’d like a moment with the very special visitor who warrants such a text message from my son.’
‘Nice to meet you.’ Nina lied.
‘That text was tongue-in-cheek, Mum. We’ve only just met, although I must say the circumstances were—’
‘Blair, darling, the boxes, please!’
‘Righty-ho, Captain Katie.’
‘As you can see,’ she said to Nina, once they were alone, ‘my son inherited the joker trait from his father.’
‘Yes, and I’m not sure what Blair said in his text, but I’m certain that—’
‘Nina, is it?’ Katie planted both palms flat on the table and leaned close enough for her to smell the strong concoction of musky perfume and hair product. ‘I’m not sure what you’re hoping to find here. I assume your mother is no longer with us, which makes you a daughter wanting to fill in the missing pieces of a life, or feel closer to her mother by coming out to a place she spent some time. I can understand that.’
‘My mother isn’t dead.’
An expression Nina couldn’t work out crossed Katie’s face. She pulled back. ‘Oh, I’m sorry.’
Nina’s first instinct was to ask what she was sorry for. Instead she remained silent to watch Katie climb out of the gaff.
‘I’m afraid I assumed…’ Katie stood tall again, her gaze focused on something beyond the bi-fold doors. The cook’s cottage, Nina suspected. ‘Is… is Ava here with you?’
Nina shook her head. ‘No, Mum isn’t very well. But you’re right that I want to piece together some things from her past. I’m keen to put our family history in order while I can still get answers, and I’ve only recently found out Mum spent time in Candlebark Creek. That’s why I wanted to see the place.’
‘All loaded into the boot, Mum, ready for lift-off whenever you are.’ Blair winked at Nina as he walked back into the kitchen and took a glass from the cupboard. He really was very much like John.
‘I need your father, Blair. Where is he?’
‘Last seen heading to the Ivy-May yards, muttering to himself as usual. I’ll have him call when you land, if you like. Don’t forget the roadworks and the detour. They could add about thirty minutes to your airport drive.’
‘Damn, you’re right. I’ll call you as soon as I can, Blair. Goodbye, Nina.’ The back of Katie’s hand slapped the air.
Nina hoped her coming here hadn’t been a mistake, and that failing to tell Ava about the trip hadn’t been a bigger one. She’d call Miriam and remind her to not say anything to anyone. This trip was to satisfy Nina’s curiosity and that was all. Perhaps she’d explain it to Ava one day.
Probably not.
Some things a mother never needs to know.