Hello from the Gillespies (12 page)

In the years since then, she’d never googled Horrible Jane or looked her up on Facebook. She’d followed Genevieve’s advice: ‘Wipe her out of your life. You never have to see her again.’ Her sister had been right, for years. Until Horrible Jane came crashing back into her life in Melbourne, three months ago.

Lindy still hated thinking about it. The evening had started so well: a night out with her two flatmates at a band venue in Prahran. She’d dressed up for once, pulling her long hair out of the two bunches and into a sleek ponytail, borrowing her flatmates’ clothes, urged on by both of them. They’d known she needed cheering up, after her latest bout of unemployment. They’d been listening to her moaning for weeks, after all. As they walked into the bar, she had felt pretty, confident; as if she were in costume. The night sped by. By ten p.m., they were on their fourth cocktail each. She’d gone up to the bar for their fifth ones, feeling even prettier, even more confident, ready for anything. She’d got talking to the man standing beside her. She introduced herself by her full name, Rosalind. He told her his name was Richard.

‘And what do you do?’ he asked.

She couldn’t tell him the truth, that she was currently between jobs. She often was between jobs. ‘I’m a lawyer,’ she said. She named a well-known Melbourne firm.

‘Snap!’ he said. ‘I’m a final-year law student. I’m looking for work experience. Do you think they’d have me?’

‘If they wouldn’t, I would,’ she said, thrilled with her own cheekiness.

Over her shoulder she saw her friends grinning and giving her the thumbs up.

Twenty minutes later, she and Richard were still talking. Forty minutes later, they were in a dark corner of the bar, kissing. He was there with his flatmates too, he told her. They were in the next room, listening to the band.

He was very cute, she realised. Tallish. Sturdy. She liked his hipster T-shirt, with its picture of Big Bird from
Sesame Street
. In the haze of five cocktails, she suddenly decided she had met the man of her dreams. After a five-year boyfriend drought, here he was at last! It was fate that they’d stood next to each other at the bar! And all right, he was pretty drunk, but so was she.

They were still kissing, very passionately by this stage, his hand on the bare skin under her top, right there in the bar, when the lights flickered on, signalling closing time. They blinked at each other in the sudden bright light. Then he smiled. A sweet, shy smile. Or maybe just a drunken smile, but it was still sweet and shy. ‘Can I please have your number, Rosalind? I have to go now, but I’d really like to see you again.’

She was just about to key it into his phone when she heard a familiar voice.

‘Oh my God! Lindy Gillespie! It is you, isn’t it?’ It was Horrible Jane. She didn’t look happy, either. She frowned as she seemed to notice how close Lindy and Richard were sitting to one another. ‘Do you two know each other?’

‘We’ve just met,’ Lindy said. ‘Tonight.’

It was as if Jane hadn’t heard her. ‘Richard, let me introduce you. This is my neighbour and old school pal from South Australia, Lindy Gillespie. Lindy, this is Richard, my —’

Lindy waited, expecting the worst. My fiancé. Richard was Horrible Jane’s fiancé.

‘— flatmate,’ Jane finished.

Lindy glanced at Richard. He was smiling at her. ‘It’s lovely to meet you, Lindy. Or should I keep calling you Rosalind?’

‘Rosalind?’ Jane said. ‘No one calls her that.’

‘I like it,’ Richard said. ‘Rosalind’s a great name. Not only that, she said she might be able to get me some work experience at her law firm.’

Jane laughed. It wasn’t a nice laugh. ‘Law firm? Lindy a lawyer? Well, I suppose it’s the one career Lindy hasn’t tried, if my memory serves me right.’ She turned to Richard. ‘Lindy’s mother sends out the most detailed Christmas letter every year. You should see it. My family absolutely loves it. We act it out, it’s become a family tradition for us. It’s so bad it’s hysterical. So I can tell you for a fact that since we both left school, Lindy has worked as a nurse, a nanny, a waitress, um, a barmaid . . . What have I missed, Lindy?’

Lindy was struck dumb. She could only stare at Jane.

‘Ah, I remember now,’ Jane said, laughing. ‘You worked in a petting zoo for a while, didn’t you? Until you got bitten by a galah, or was it a parrot? In front of that kindergarten group? That one made me laugh til I cried. I can’t wait for this year’s letter from your mum. She does know about your law career, doesn’t she?’

Lindy had gone beyond embarrassment. It was one thing to realise Horrible Jane now lived in Melbourne, another thing to be outed as a lying non-lawyer. But to have all her career failures reeled off like that? To hear she was a laughing stock among Jane’s family? Not just her, but her whole family the brunt of the Lawson family’s jokes? It was awful. Awful.

She stood up, mumbling something about having to find her friends. She left the bar with them minutes later, without talking to Richard again, without giving him her number. If he was a friend of Horrible Jane’s, then she wanted nothing to do with him. The next morning, she rang her mother and begged her not to do the Christmas letter this year.

‘But I always do it,’ her mother said calmly. ‘I’ve done it for thirty-two years.’

‘Then can you please take the Lawsons off the mailing list?’

‘But I always send it to them,’ she said just as calmly. ‘Why, Lindy?’

She couldn’t tell her.

That incident had led to the cushions website. Humiliated, Lindy had stayed home for the next two weeks, spending too much time browsing craft websites, filling her shopping bag with items she couldn’t afford and wouldn’t take to the online checkout. Why didn’t she try this craft business herself? she thought one night. She was creative, wasn’t she? And best of all, she wouldn’t have to actually deal with any customers face to face. There was no chance of public humiliation.

One of her flatmates worked in IT. Lindy had some IT experience herself. Between the two of them, they set up a website. It was so simple. That same night, over a bottle or possibly even two of wine, they downloaded photos of pretty cushions and wrote an almost-true biography, making Lindy sound so creative, approachable, friendly. All she had to do now was wait for the orders to pour in. Oh, and buy some cushion material. After her flatmates went to bed, she stayed up, googling suppliers. The Chinese companies were definitely the cheapest. After five glasses of wine it had seemed like such a good idea to buy in bulk, too. And put it all on her credit card.

Now here she was. Back home, humiliated, broke and just metres away from the fruits of her mistake. Dozens upon dozens of boxes of cushion material. Wait until Horrible Jane saw them on the night of the woolshed party. Because she would see them. She was the nosiest person in Australia. She’d see them and she’d find out what was in them and why they were there. Lindy didn’t think she could bear more mockery from Horrible Jane, or any of the other Lawsons.

Lindy suddenly put down her needle, recalling the night of Ig’s accident. The date of Ig’s accident. She ran inside, still holding the cushion. ‘Mum?
Mum?
’

‘In here, Lindy.’ Here was the old governess’s quarters, the guestroom off the verandah that her mum only used for her overseas visitors or when Celia came to visit. She had just finished making up the bed.

Lindy was breathless. ‘Have you sent out your Christmas email this year? Can I read it?’

Angela looked at her. There was a long pause. ‘No.’

‘No you haven’t sent it, or no I can’t read it?’

‘No, you can’t read it.’

‘Why not?’

Another pause. ‘It’s too boring.’

‘Boring? How can it be boring? It’s about us, isn’t it?’

‘Not this year. I only did a quick one this year. Mostly about the weather. All about the weather.’

‘Can I read it anyway?’

‘You never usually want to read it. Why this year?’

‘Just because.’

‘Lindy, “just because” didn’t work when you were six and it doesn’t work now.’

Lindy spoke in a rush. ‘I need to see what you wrote about me. So I can prepare myself for what Horrible Jane Lawson will say to me at the party. I ran into her in Melbourne. She told me that her family acts out your Christmas letter every year and makes fun of us. Of me, especially.’ It was an edited version, but it was the truth. ‘Please, Mum, can I see this year’s letter? Just to prepare myself?’

Another hesitation. ‘Your father’s on the computer.’

‘He won’t mind me interrupting him. This is important.’

‘He might be in the middle of something important himself. Did you hear the reunion’s going ahead? In a place called Cobh. It’s where the Irish emigrants sailed from, apparently, where —’

‘Mum, are you all right?’

‘Yes. Why?’

‘You seem a bit agitated.’

‘I’m fine. I’ll get the letter for you later, I promise.’

Nick passed by the doorway. ‘Computer’s free if anyone wants it.’

‘Mum does, don’t you, Mum?’ Lindy said. She held up the cushion. ‘Look, Dad, I’ve nearly finished the first one. I’ll be able to start paying you back soon. Here, take a look.’

Angela took her chance. ‘Back in a minute.’

She practically ran down the hall and into the office, where she shut and locked the door, then logged onto her email. Another twenty replies had come in, all with the same subject heading.
Re: Hello from the Gillespies!
She clicked on the first one.

Best Christmas letter ever, thanks! Talk about letting it all hang out!!

She didn’t need to re-read it to remember what she’d said about Lindy. Phrases leapt into her mind.
Debt-ridden mess. Floods of tears. Was she always so needy? Such a drama queen?
She couldn’t possibly show it to Lindy. But she had to show her something. Buy herself some thinking time.

It was wrong but she did it. She had no choice. She clicked on her template letter with its cheery border of Christmas trees. She typed as quickly as she could. It only took her a few minutes. She pressed print. Deleted the file. Double-checked she’d deleted it, and double-checked she’d closed down her email account too. Only then did she go back to the guest quarters and hand Lindy the piece of paper.

‘There you go. Short and sharp this year. Nothing for you or Horrible Jane to worry about at all.’

Before Lindy had a chance to read it in front of her, Angela went out to her pottery studio to hide again.

The day before Celia was due to arrive, Angela woke up at dawn. She knew what she had to do today. Tell Nick about the letter. Then tell the children. It was now urgent. She needed to deal with the fallout while it was just them, without Celia’s presence or interference.

It was Murphy’s Law that now she’d decided to tell Nick, he wasn’t there. She was alone in the bed. He and Johnny had camped out overnight on the far side of the station, chopping trees – or was it fixing fencing? She’d been too distracted to take it in when he told her.

In the past twenty-four hours, she’d received forty new emails about her Christmas letter. They varied between concern or amazement about the mining lease to sympathy and amusement about her other troubles. Joan said she’d been getting lots of calls too, from people in the area wondering if Angela was all right. They hadn’t dared to phone the Gillespies themselves. There had also been a flurry of new RSVPs to the party. Joan had been right about that too. From worrying whether anyone would come, Angela now wondered whether they’d have enough room or food for everyone.

The day passed slowly. Nick finally arrived home at four p.m. She had a pot of tea ready for him after he’d showered and changed out of his work clothes. Sandwiches. Cakes. He looked surprised but drank and ate everything she’d prepared. He was always ravenous when he returned from an overnighter. She asked the questions she’d asked so many times over the years, feeling like she was playing the part of the dutiful station wife. Was that what she’d been doing all those years? Playing a part? No. She had always loved hearing all the news of station life. Theirs had been a good marriage. A great marriage. There hadn’t always been this tension between them.

A tension that was about to grow worse.

She waited until he’d taken a last sip of tea.

‘Nick, I need to tell you something. Something serious.’

‘Is it about the kids? Ig?’

‘No. They’re all fine.’ She hesitated. ‘It’s about me.’

He waited. She began to talk, then stopped. They had the kitchen to themselves, but she knew that wouldn’t last. At the back of the homestead there was a wooden bench that caught the last of the sunshine in winter and was shaded in summer. It had a perfect view of the rose bush Nick had planted for her. It was one of their talking spots. She asked him to come there with her.

She waited until they were sitting down, trying to delay the moment for as long as possible. She turned and gazed at him, at that tanned, lean face, the dark hair only touched with grey. His face was so familiar to her. So handsome to her. Again, she felt that longing for him. The feeling of homesickness.

‘It’s about something I’ve done. Something that happened the night of Ig’s accident.’ She paused. ‘I was writing my Christmas letter, and I was having trouble with it. So I started a kind of stream-of-consciousness letter instead. I poured out everything that was on my mind. I wasn’t going to send it, but then Ig had his accident, and I still don’t know how it happened —’

‘I do.’

‘What?’

‘I know what happened. I’ve been waiting for you to notice.’

Why was he smiling? ‘Notice what?’

‘That it was sent out. To everyone. Right on your deadline, midnight, December the first.’

‘But, Nick, that’s just it. I don’t remember sending it. I’d never have sent —’

‘You didn’t send it. I did.’

‘You what?’

‘I sent it out for you. After you’d left with Ig, after I cleaned up. I saw your letter on the computer. I knew how much it meant to you to send it to everyone on the first of December, so I sent it out.’

She stared at him.

‘I was going to give you until the weekend to realise and then tell you.’ He was still smiling.

‘Oh,
no
. Oh, Nick. Have you got any idea what you’ve done?’

His smile disappeared. ‘I thought you’d be pleased.’

She stood up, walked away, came back, trying to take this in. Another thought struck her. ‘Did you read it before you sent it?’

He looked uncomfortable. ‘Sorry, no. There wasn’t time.’

She knew it wasn’t because he hadn’t had time. ‘I wish you had.’

‘Why? It was just your usual letter, wasn’t it? “Here’s what we all did this year”?’

‘Not exactly. Nick, you need to read it. It wasn’t meant for anyone’s eyes, but lots of eyes have seen it. Everyone on my mailing list. And more, I think. People keep forwarding it on.’

She’d printed it out that morning. She gave the copy to him. Her hands were shaking.

As he took it, they heard a voice.

‘Mum?’

It was Lindy, calling from the side verandah. ‘Mum?’

‘Go,’ Nick said. ‘I’ll read it while you’re gone.’

She shook her head. She needed to be here, trying to guess how he was feeling as he read it.

‘
Mum?
Where are you?’

‘Go, Angela,’ Nick repeated.

It felt wrong to leave him, but Lindy was coming closer. Angela met her halfway.

‘What’s wrong? Do you need some help?’

‘How much stuffing do you think I should use? So the cushion is flat or plump? I didn’t ask in my order form and when I ring the customer’s number I can’t get any answer. Can you help me decide?’

‘Of course,’ Angela said.

It took longer than expected. More than fifteen minutes had passed by the time she returned. Nick was still sitting on the bench. He was holding her letter.

He looked up at her. She was shocked at his expression. He wasn’t angry. He looked desolate.

‘It’s that bad?’ he said. ‘You hate your life here that much? You wish you’d never met me?’

‘Nick, it’s not true, none of it —’

‘I read every word, Angela. Three times. I recognised everything you said about Ig. About Genevieve. About Lindy. Victoria too, even if I didn’t know she and that bastard were having an affair. If everything about them is true, then what you say about me has to be true too. About how you feel about me.’

‘No, Nick.’

‘It’s all there. Everything you think. That I’ve made a big mistake leasing the station. That I’m having an affair —’

‘No —’

‘Who is Will?’

‘I knew him before I met you. I told you about him, when we first met. He was my first boyfriend. Years and years ago.’

‘Are you in touch with him now?’

She shook her head.

‘You’re not? So what’s this about your house together, your life with him, your daughter. In all this detail?’

‘I haven’t seen him since I first left England. I promise. I made it all up.’

He picked up the letter. He started to read out a section about her fantasy life with Will, Lexie —

She couldn’t listen. It was too personal, too humiliating. She had to stop him. ‘What about you and Carol, Nick? I’ve heard you talking to her every day. Laughing with her. All the plans you’re making together, under the cover of a family reunion, family research. You’re going to Ireland to meet up with her, aren’t you? Early next year. She’s organising your itinerary. I overheard you talking about it with her. Were you ever going to tell me about that?’

‘Yes, I was. The same day I was going to ask you if you’d come with me. Once I’d had the chance to ask Victoria if she’d look after Ig and your website while you and I were away.’

Angela went still.

‘You really thought that I’d make my first overseas trip without you? I’ve been planning it for weeks. I’d worked it all out. I thought we’d start with a week in Ireland, then you and I would go on to London. Maybe Italy or France after that. Wherever you wanted to go.’

‘But I thought you and Carol —’

‘That we were what? Going to run away together?’

‘I’ve heard you talking to her. Her flirting with you.’

‘It’s just her way.’ He picked up the letter again. ‘Who else has read this?’

‘Joan. Everyone on the mailing list.’ She wanted to say, ‘Because of you. Because you sent it out.’ She couldn’t. She didn’t.

‘How many people?’

‘One hundred. At least.’

He looked down at the pages again. She knew what he was seeing. That she thought he was a failure. An adulterer. That she didn’t want to be married to him.

It felt impossible to even begin to explain. All she could do was apologise. ‘I’m so sorry, Nick.’

‘So am I,’ he said.

He stood up. For one moment, one hopeful moment, she thought he was going to come close, take her in his arms. Perhaps even smile at her. Say, ‘It’s a mess, but we’ll sort it out together, don’t worry.’ Instead, he walked away; not towards her, not into the house, but away, across the yard.

‘Nick . . .’

He didn’t answer and he didn’t look back.

By nine o’clock that night, he still hadn’t returned. Ig and Lindy both asked where he was. She said he was out working on the station somewhere. He wasn’t working; he was walking, she knew that. It was what he always did when he needed to think. Walked for miles under that big sky.

The three of them were in the living room watching TV when they finally heard him come in. He stopped at the doorway. ‘Angela?’

She turned, trying to read his expression. His face was in shadow.

‘Would you come over to the chapel with me?’

His quiet request nearly broke her heart.

‘Ooh,’ Lindy said. ‘A romantic walk under the stars. Dad, you smoothie.’

Neither of them answered her.

As they crossed the paddock they didn’t speak. They reached the chapel and took a seat on the one remaining pew. They were both silent at first. Out of sight, a windmill turned, its iron sails clinking rhythmically. In the darkness, Nick’s voice was low, quiet. Sad.

‘Why, Angela? Why didn’t you say any of this to my face?’

‘We never seem to talk any more. About anything.’

He turned and looked at her. ‘Is it that bad being married to me?’

‘No.’

‘I always thought you’d leave me, did you know that? That you’d decide you hated it here and would go back to England. When you first came, and it was so hard and you were so lonely, I used to pray, and I don’t even know if I believe in God, but I would come here and pray that you wouldn’t find it too hard. And then when we found out you were having twins, I thought it was a sign, a double sign, that you would stay. And then Lindy too. And then Ig. I almost thought there was something mystical at work. Because whatever problems you and I might ever have had, I always thought you loved the kids.’

‘I do love the kids.’

‘I thought you loved me too.’

‘I do love you.’ But did he love her any more? Ask him, a voice in her mind said. She couldn’t find the words.

‘Do you want to leave now?’ he said. ‘Leave us all? Go back to London? Is that what this is about?’

His question shocked her. Did she? She must have thought about it, to have been able to write that letter. But no. She didn’t want to leave. Her mentions of London had been just one more detail of her fanciful thoughts about Will and Lexie. It all seemed shameful now. She couldn’t bear to see him so hurt, so serious beside her. She shook her head.

There was a long silence. He broke it again.

‘Have you ever been happy here?’

‘Of course, Nick. Of course.’

‘But not for a long time. And not now. I annoy you. I disappoint you. Not just me, the kids too. You want a break from us, is that it?’

‘It’s not that. I just need a break from myself. I’m sick of myself. Sick and tired of everything about myself.’

‘So I gathered from your letter. As everybody who got it now knows as well.’

Her hackles suddenly rose. ‘We’re both to blame for the letter. You were trying to help me, I know, sending it out, but —’

‘I’m not talking about how the letter got out. I’m talking about our family. Our marriage. What everyone now knows about us. It went to all our neighbours? Everyone coming to the party?’

She nodded. ‘We can cancel it.’

‘We can’t cancel it,’ he said.

‘So do you want to leave me?’ she said.

‘What?’ he said.

‘Do you want a separation?’

‘We’ve got more to worry about than that at the moment. This party: how many are coming?’

She told him about the increase in numbers in the past few days. ‘Ghouls, Joan called them.’

‘Joan knows about all of this?’

She nodded.

‘Do the kids know?’

‘Not yet. They don’t read my letters any more. And I don’t think they’ve heard about it from anyone else.’

‘Has Celia read it?’

‘She’s on the mailing list. I don’t know if she’s read it yet.’

‘We say nothing to any of them for now. Only if someone asks do we mention it. Otherwise, we ignore it.’

It felt like he wasn’t asking her, but telling her. Something bridled inside.

‘Please don’t talk to me like that. You’re the one who sent it out.’

‘You’re the one who wrote it.’

They sounded like children.

He continued. ‘We have to at least appear united, in front of the kids and at the party. And while Celia’s here.’

‘And after that?’

‘After that, we’ll talk about it again.’

He stood up, waiting for her.

She needed time on her own. Time to think.

‘I’ll follow you in,’ she said.

Again, she saw that expression in his eyes. Not anger. It was hurt.

Twenty minutes passed before she stood up too, and started walking back across the empty paddocks towards the light of the homestead.

She finished the dishes. She swept and washed the kitchen floor. She cleaned the bathroom. She put Ig to bed. When that was all done, she joined Lindy in the lounge room, as if it were a normal night together. Angela knew Nick was in the office. As they finished watching their TV program, she heard his steps in the hall. She didn’t turn off the TV until Lindy had gone to her room too, until the house was quiet.

For once, he was the one asleep by the time she came to bed.