CHAPTER FOURTEEN

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Rosie, dressed in demure grey skirt, pink blouse and kitten heels, didn’t even stop to pat the dogs as she flew up the front steps and followed the smoke plume around the veranda.

“I knew it. I knew it,” Iris said to her, holding out an official-looking envelope. “It’s all coming to a head. Jupiter’s in retrograde.”

Rosie, who had received an urgent phone call from Daisy at three o’clock, snatched the offending letter off the table and sped through the official jargon.

“Those fuckers,” she said, flopping into the nearest chair as if she’d been hit with a taser.

“They were so smug when they left here yesterday,” Daisy muttered, pouring Iris and herself a healthy splash of sherry.

“A week? A week to address all these things?” Rosie pressed her coral-coated lips together as she read down the list. It was extensive.

God, they were living in a death trap.

Iris nodded. “Or they’ll condemn the house.”

“Evicting us in the process.” Daisy took a swig of her drink.

A lot of the things wouldn’t require much money or effort but a full re-stumping was major. “They can’t do this to us,” Rosie wailed. “This is our home.”

“They’re evicting us over my cold, dead body,” Daisy muttered, draining her mug. “Might be time to bring out the old 303.”

Rosie blinked in alarm. “We have a gun?”

“Course.”

“And you know how to shoot it?”

“Of course I know how to shoot it. I’ll have you know I hold a duck-shooting record.”

“Daisy,” Iris said softly, worrying the back of her cards with her thumbs. “Metal ducks do not count.” She turned and looked at Rosie. “There’ll be no more talk of guns.”

Rosie glanced at a suitably chastened Daisy. Iris might be the flaky one but when she stepped up to the mark, no one disobeyed her.

She stared at the letter in utter disbelief. Ella was going to be devastated. If it was possible, her best friend was more attached to this old house than any of them. And Ella certainly had enough to worry about without having to plug one more hole.

The dogs, who’d been lying at the women’s feet, perked up their ears and then lumbered off in a pack, racing around the side of the veranda, barking like the Dementors had arrived at their door.  

Even Cerberus, who was investigating his favourite spot under the wattle tree, joined them.

A voice floated around to them. “Rosie?”

“Simon?” She leaped up from her seat and raced around the veranda, meeting him halfway and throwing herself into his arms.

Everything felt better when he held her close.

The dogs mulled around for a bit and Cerberus even scored a scratch behind the ears before they decided no food would be forthcoming.

“Hey,” Simon said as he prised her arms from their boa-like hold on his neck. “What on earth’s the matter?”

Rosie’s hands moved to his shirt. The fabric was rich beneath her fingers. Like a tapestry. Had it been sheets, it would have had a thread count.  “You didn’t get my message?”

“No, I rang your extension to chat and they said you’d al- ready left for the day.” He shrugged. “I wanted to see you.”

Rosie gave him a hug, burying her face in his collar, which was stiff with starch.

Simon held her for a while longer. “What’s up, Rosie?”

She pulled back from him slightly, her fingers finding the perfect Windsor knot of his beautiful tie. It felt luxurious, like she was stroking a silk worm. “Daisy and Iris got a letter from the council with a list of repairs to attend to in seven days or they’re going to chuck us out of our home.”

“Ah. I see.”

Rosie pushed out of his arms and leaned against the railing. It wobbled a little and she eased some of her weight away. “How can they do this to us?” she asked him.

He shook his head. “I don’t know.”

Rosie started to pace. “There has to be a way though.

There just has to be.”

“What about heritage listing?” Simon asked. “How old did you say this place was?”

“Nah, the previous owner apparently looked into it years ago. The place wasn’t old enough or of significant enough historical importance.”

“Rosie.” Simon took a step toward her, placing his hands on her waist. “Have you ever just thought of...selling? The developer is offering good money. Your aunts could live in the lap of luxury.”

Rosie’s breath caught as her insides churned like a washing machine. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing.

Sell up? Sell out?

Was he serious?

“It’s a viable option,” he pressed.

She shook her head and wiggled her hips so his hands fell away. “These four walls, those two old ladies,” she hooked her thumb over her shoulder in their direction, “Ella and Cam... they’re my home, Simon.”

She could see the vacant look in his eyes and knew that to Simon, a guy who lived in the family mansion by the river purely because of its convenience would never get her almost pathological attachment to this run-down old house. Never had she felt the gap between them yawn wider but it was suddenly vitally important that he understand.

“I never had a home — not one that wasn’t mobile anyway. I was dragged from pillar to post all my life. Three or four months in one spot, trying to fit in at another school with the same old bunch of stereotypical kids where I was the freaky carnie chick. An outsider. And then we’d be rolling again.

Rosie hugged herself, the loneliness from that distant time as palpable today as it had always been.

“What’d I have to look forward to? My dad’s biggest ambition for me was to inherit his hoop stand. And hey, maybe if I got knocked up by the greasy Bartlett kid I’d inherit the carousel as well. And Ella? Sure, she had a house but she’d never had a home — a place where the people in it made her the number one priority in their lives.”

Ella had been as lonely and dispossessed as Rosie had been.

“This place has been our sanctuary. Daisy and Iris have been our saviours, a couple of old spinsters throwing their home open to two teenagers, feeding us, educating us, encouraging us to reach for the stars.” She gave him an imploring look. “You can’t put a price on that, Simon. And if you think you can, then you’re not the man I thought you were.”

Simon held up his hands in surrender. “Okay, okay,” he said, then rested his hands on his hips.

His shirt pulled enticingly across his flat abdomen and Rosie took a step toward him. “What about the media?” she asked.

“Oh, whoa there.” Simon took a step back. “I think that’s a bad idea.”

A prickle ran up Rosie’s spine. “For who? You? Your mother?”

Geraldine had not been backwards in expressing her disapproval of the picture of her and Simon kissing at the footy final. She did not approve of public displays of affection. Or having the family name dragged willy-nilly into the media.

Simon massaged his temples. “Rosie, please...I know she’s paranoid but she never really got over the scandal that ousted her father.”

Somewhere in the back of her mind, Rosie was thinking that the old man shouldn’t have been sticking his dick in everything with a pulse but her gut was tumbling as the bottom fell out of her world and it just didn’t seem important.

Not when Simon was choosing his family over her.

The thing with going out with seven-foot bearded bikers was that she really hadn’t expected anything lasting from any of them. She certainly hadn’t expected the finer qualities like loyalty and integrity.

But Simon, with his suits and his pedigree? She’d been building a whole future in her head with him. Being without Simon was going to hurt more than all her break-ups combined.

She stiffened and held herself painfully erect, determined not to cry. “Fine.”

He frowned. Took a step back towards her. “Rosie.”

She held out her hands, warding him off. This was her line in the sand. If he couldn’t understand that then there wasn’t a future for them. A pain tore through her chest as her heart broke in two.

“Just go, Simon.”

“Don’t do this.”

“Why not? I was a fool to think it would ever work in the first place. That I could ever fit into your world.”

He ruffled his hair. “I thought you were okay with that.”

“I was.” And then I grew some self-respect. “But I’m losing myself. Look at me,” she said, inspecting her god-awful blouse. “I’m dressed in pink, for fuck’s sake.”

“I never asked you to change,” he said quietly.

“Yeh, but you never said, don’t change, did you? You never said, babe, what the hell are you doing in that Jackie O shit?” His brows creased. “And you can stop frowning at me. I say fuck — get over it.”

He ignored the profanity. “But you look beautiful.”

Rosie felt a white-hot rage start to broil her stomach juices. It seeped acidic loathing through her system. Her fingers went to her buttons and before she knew it, she was undoing them.

“I look like frickin’ Barbara Walters,” she hissed, rage building as she peeled the blouse off and throwing it on the ground.

“Okay,” he said calmly, holding his hands out as if her head might suddenly start to spin around. As if she was a mental patient who needed placating.    

It made her even more furious, her pulse pounding, her breathing agitated.

She kicked off her kitten heels. “This is not me. I’m the freaky Goth chick. I wear black. I have my eyebrow pierced. That’s who I am. And I don’t want to be looking over my shoulder every time I kiss you in public in case we cause some scandal. So just turn around now and walk away — I have a house to save.”

Rosie didn’t give him time to comply. She couldn’t bear to see him go. She turned on her heel and marched in the opposite direction, tears stinging her eyes.

Turning her back on Simon was the most difficult thing she’d ever done. And she wanted to be mad at him — at the world, at his mother, at his philandering, long-dead grandfather. But she couldn’t, because the further away she walked, the more she knew she had only herself to blame.

He was right, he’d never asked her to change. She’d done so voluntarily. It had been her choice. And if she was angry with anyone, then it should be herself.

She returned to Daisy and Iris in her skirt and bra, her hands shaking, blinking back tears, refusing them an outlet. She’d been stupid — she wouldn’t compound it with a fit of girly tears. Not yet anyway.

“What happened to your shirt?” Daisy asked after a moment.

“I got rid of it.”

Daisy poured a slug of sherry into her glass and handed it to Rosie. “Thank God for that. It was hideous.”

Rosie smiled and flung the contents of the glass down her throat. It burned but at least it made her feel alive inside, not like a part of her had just died.

“Where’s the laptop?” Rosie asked.

“In the kitchen,” Daisy said. “Why? What are you doing?”

“I’m going to find a journalist. Any journalist. Surely there’s a story in this?”

Daisy raised her mug. “I reckon.”

Rosie nodded. “Me too.”

And she intended to tell all.

When Ella arrived an hour later, her head and heart heavy with the information she’d gleaned about Jake with just a few easy clicks, the three Forsythe women were on their third sherry.

Daisy took one look at Ella’s face and poured a decent slug into a clean mug for her. “You look like you could do with this,” she said.

Ella nodded, taking her inclusion into the Forsythe family for granted. These women may not be her blood but they’d opened their doors and their hearts to her unconditionally, and Ella had felt loved and accepted from the moment she and Rosie had walked through the front gate of this creaky old home.

She looked out over the backyard, still a little dazed from what she’d learned. A riot of fluffy yellow buds caught her eye, the middle wattle still flowering despite the advanced season and the decline of the blossom on the other trees.

Cerberus was, as usual, firmly ensconced beneath the yellow-speckled, silvery-green canopy.

“Are you okay, Ella?”

She dragged her gaze from the colourful display to Rosie — a red-eyed Rosie. A dressed in black again, red-eyed Rosie. It was just the impetus she needed to snap out of her inertia. “Oh my God.” She reached across and grabbed for Rosie’s hand. “Are you okay?” Rosie shook her head. “What happened?”

Rosie filled Ella in on all the sordid details. “I’m so sorry,” Ella murmured when Rosie finally ran out of steam, pulling her dearest friend close for a hug.

“He’s a fool,” Daisy muttered, not so quietly.

Iris nodded. “The cards don’t lie.”

Rosie sniffled as she shook her head and pulled out of the embrace. “No, I’m the fool. But it’s okay,” she said. “I’ll be okay.”

Ella squeezed her friend’s hand. “Of course you will.

You’ve got us, right?”

“All of us,” Daisy said gruffly.

Rosie smiled. “Right.” And let Ella hug her again. She pulled away a moment later, blinking back tears. “Enough about me, why are you here and not at practice?”

Ella looked back at the wattles, suddenly not able to look any of them in the eye. Where did she even start? “Jake’s quit and it’s all my fault.”

Daisy glanced at Iris and topped up everyone’s drinks.

Rosie reached out and squeezed Ella’s hand. “Jake wasn’t impressed with the media coverage?”

Ella gave a half-laugh, half-snort as she pulled her gaze back to the three women watching her, ready to dispense their special brand of tea and sympathy.  

Well, sherry and sympathy, anyway. 

She shook her head. “That’s putting it mildly. And I couldn’t figure out why someone who’s had his picture in the paper more often than bloody Kim Kardashian would be so rabidly media shy. Then I Googled him.”

“Ooh, that doesn’t sound good,” Rosie murmured.

Ella gave her friend a grim look. “It seems he was involved in a rape case a couple of years back.”

Rosie gasped. “Jake raped someone?”

“No,” Daisy interrupted, “Tony Winchester did.”

Ella blinked. “You knew?”

Daisy nodded at all the newspapers strewn around the table, great holes hacked into their pages. “We don’t just cut competitions out of these, you know?”

“Why didn’t you say something?” Ella asked.

Daisy shrugged. “Wasn’t any of our business.”

“Who’s Tony Winchester?” Rosie butted in.

Ella shook her head to clear it of the exasperation that had formed. “A footballer. Used to be a teammate of Jake’s when he played for the Sydney Seals. He was accused of raping this woman and protested his innocence, then Jake came forward to say that he had evidence that Tony had raped another woman eighteen years ago when they were both playing for the Seals.”

Rosie whistled. “Wow. Gutsy.”

Ella nodded. “But his evidence was disallowed because Jake refused to name the first woman.”

Rosie leaned forward. “What happened to Tony Winchester?”

“He pleaded to some watered-down charge, got a good behaviour bond. He’s some hot-shot footy commentator now.”

“And the Heroes sacked Jake,” Daisy said, completing the story.

Ella looked at her. “It sure would have been handy to know.”

Daisy shrugged again as she lit a rollie. “You spend your life as a circus freak being judged and misunderstood by everyone outside of that world you soon learn not to judge others.”

“I’m not talking about judging him,” Ella said testily. “A heads up would have been nice.”

“It’s Jake’s story to tell,” Iris said, intervening in her quiet yet commanding way.

Ella’s exasperation boiled over. She opened her mouth to protest but knew it was futile. Daisy and Iris had always kept their own counsel; it was just their way. Even if asked directly they were cautious in their opinions but otherwise they accepted things the way they were.

Like Rosie turning into Ita freaking Buttrose before their eyes. And Ella’s inept attempts at raising Cam.

After coming from a small town where nobody could keep their mouths shut and everything you did and said and everywhere you went was gossiped about and judged, Daisy and Iris’s quiet support had been a welcome relief for Ella.

It was a bit rich to chafe against it now.

“I know,” Ella sighed. “I’m sorry.”

There was a moment’s silence where Ella stared morosely into her drink, Rosie drummed her fingers on the table and the aunts smoked.

Daisy squinted at Ella through the haze. “Something arrived for you today,” she said, jerking her head sideways to indicate the television cabinet.

Ella turned, her gaze falling on the long, cylindrical package, knowing instantly what it was. She leaped up, pleased for the distraction, tearing open the lid. Nestled in tissue paper inside was a bronzed glittery kewpie doll head. She pulled it out, revealing the full fairy perched atop its bamboo stick.

She smiled as the golden, glitter-encrusted bodice caught the rays of the slanting afternoon sun. She twisted it around, the bright golden wings and yellow tulle tutu sparkling as if they’d been impregnated with drops of diamond dust.

It was perfectly, awfully, garish. “I love it,” Ella said, and beamed.

“It’s from old Uncle Clem,” Daisy said. “They got a new batch in and he didn’t think you had a gold one yet.” Uncle Clem was in his eighties, dentally challenged and partially deaf from running the dodgems his entire life, but his memory was rock solid.

Ella sat, twirling her gift, remembering the first one that Rosie had given her almost two decades before. She felt absurdly like crying. She looked at Daisy and Iris. “What am I going to do?” she asked.

Daisy looked at her directly through a curling nicotine wisp. “You askin’?”

Ella nodded. “I’m asking.”

Daisy crushed out her cigarette and reached for another. “There’s two sides to every story,” she said.