Hello from the Gillespies (31 page)

Victoria was out of breath as she came into the store. Angela wasn’t there. Had she just missed her? She sought out the dark-haired owner. Yes, she said, Angela had just been in. ‘I was serving another customer, so I gave her a wave and said I’d be with her soon. But she was gone before I could help her, sorry.’

Victoria said thanks, excused herself and said goodbye. Outside again, she looked across the road at the old railway station. It was now a museum and tourist information point. Angela thought she was a tourist. Would she —

‘Someone saw her head in there. Come on.’ It was Genevieve, panting beside her.

Their mother was inside, holding a large bundle of brochures.

She smiled at them. ‘Hello, girls.’

‘Is everything okay, Angela? Can we help at all?’

‘No, thank you. I’m just getting some information for when Will and Lexie arrive.’

Genevieve glanced at the brochures. They advertised the attractions of Wilpena Pound, the Angorichina gorges, the Yourambulla Caves, the Wilpena Panorama in Hawker – places Angela had been to many times with her overseas visitors.

‘We thought we’d lost you,’ Victoria said, as they steered her back to the car. They passed a chemist, and exchanged a quick glance with each other. No, this wasn’t the time.

Angela was unruffled. ‘Didn’t I tell you where I was going? I can go for another walk now if you like, while you finish whatever you need to do.’

‘We’re finished, thanks,’ Victoria said. ‘Let’s go home.’

‘Already?’ Angela said.

‘Already,’ Genevieve said.

After Angela went to bed that night – again, straight after dinner – Genevieve called a family meeting and told them what had happened. Nick came the closest they’d seen to losing his temper since the night of the accident.

‘Anything could have happened to her,’ he said. ‘What were you both thinking?’

‘We’re sorry, Dad,’ Genevieve said. ‘It won’t happen again.’

Victoria stepped in, changing the subject. ‘We need to talk about the cooking and the housework too. I think we need to get a bit organised about it.’ With Angela no longer in charge, it had all got very haphazard. The washing was piling up. No one had swept the verandah in days. As for the cooking, they had nearly emptied the freezer. If Joan hadn’t kept dropping over quiches and casseroles, they’d have been eating toast for most meals.

Genevieve offered to draw up a roster. Yes, she assured Lindy, she would do her share too. She was a socialist, not a dictator.

Genevieve took out the notebook. ‘I’m due to ring Ruth on Friday. We need to tell her everything we’ve noticed. Ig?’

He shrugged. ‘I really like her.’

‘We know that. But have you noticed anything unusual about her behaviour?’

‘She says the same thing a lot,’ Ig said. ‘I’ve heard about her daughter’s tree house about ten times.’

Lindy had noticed she’d had breakfast twice one day that week. ‘I just thought she was hungry, but maybe she’d forgotten about the first one?’

‘Dad?’ Genevieve asked. She was shocked by his expression. For a moment, he looked so desolate.

‘Nothing more than you’ve all said. She and I haven’t talked much yet.’

Over the next two days, more items were added to the notebook. One day Angela changed her outfit three times. Her T-shirt was on backwards once. Another day she offered to make lunch for everyone. When it came time, there was no sign of her. They found her asleep in bed. Victoria made lunch instead.

On Friday, Genevieve waited until Angela was out with Ig on their daily after-school birdwatching walk before she rang Ruth.

‘How does she seem, mood-wise?’ Ruth asked. ‘Is she relaxed, happy? Not agitated at all?’

‘She’s fine. We’re not. My heart is still racing after losing her in Port Pirie.’

‘It probably wasn’t a good idea to take her to a new place so soon.’

No, it wasn’t, Genevieve agreed. She lowered her voice. ‘Ruth, is it odd that she’s not talking much to Dad? You read her Christmas letter; they’d had a few issues lately. Would she remember that?’

‘Subconsciously she might. But there’s no anger, no fighting?’

‘No. They mostly just ignore each other. Like they were doing before the accident.’

‘Again, all you can do is let that unfold in its own way too. Just be patient. Stay positive.’

It was back to that again.

Victoria was away for several hours the next day. She told everyone she was visiting neighbouring stations to begin her interviews for the radio series.

That night, she and Genevieve waited until everyone had gone to bed before they met in the bathroom. She hadn’t just been doing her interviews. She’d also gone to Port Pirie to buy two more pregnancy tests. Genevieve didn’t need to do one again. Her period had arrived that afternoon.

Victoria did both tests. Both were positive.

‘Are you okay, Victoria?’ Lindy asked at breakfast the next day. ‘You look pale. So do you, Genevieve.’

‘We’re getting a bit of a bug, maybe,’ Genevieve said.

‘Does that happen between twins?’ Angela asked them. ‘If one gets sick, the other one does too?’

‘Don’t start asking them for their twin coincidence stories,’ Lindy said. ‘You’ll be here all day.’

‘I’d like to hear them,’ Angela said.

For the next hour they took turns telling her their childhood twin stories. The same ones she’d told many times over the years.

By the time Angela had been home a fortnight, they’d developed a routine. Genevieve or Victoria drove Ig to school in Hawker each day and collected him again in the afternoon. He liked being back at his old school, he’d told them. The three girls made sure one of them was always near Angela. They spoke to Ruth regularly. The occupational therapist from Port Augusta visited and observed Angela over several hours. She praised them all, reassuring them that everything was going as well as possible.

Joan visited every second day, delivering meals that she had either made herself or that neighbours had asked her to pass on to the Gillespies. She ate dinner with them and then spent an hour out on the verandah with Angela. Nick and the children left them alone, content to hear the murmur of conversation, occasional laughter. It seemed that New Angela got on with Joan just as well as Old Angela had.

‘Is this getting to be too much for you?’ Genevieve asked Joan as she walked her out to her car after one of the visits. The temperature was rising again – it was forecast to be thirty-plus for the next week – but for now, it was beautiful: the air warm, not hot, with a light breeze too.

‘I’m enjoying it. That sounds strange, but I mean it. She’s different but she’s the same. I like her.’

‘What do you two talk about?’

‘What we always talked about. Life. Our husbands. Our children.’

‘I guess she’s got plenty to say about husbands, seeing as she has two.’

Joan smiled. ‘Will sounds too good to be true, if you ask me. So does Lexie. I prefer you lot, faults and all.’

‘Does she ask about us much?’

‘A little. But I talk about you even if she doesn’t. As Ruth said, the memories are there somewhere. I figure it won’t do any harm for her to hear all your family stories again.’

‘Which ones are you telling her?’

Joan counted them off on her fingers. ‘The one about you two and your pet lambs, Lambington and Lambert. The time Lindy drove off in the ute when she was only seven. I also told her about Ig running away from boarding school. She seemed interested in that one. In fact, the most interested I’ve seen her since she got back. She told me she couldn’t understand how a parent could send such a little kid away.’

‘That’s a good sign, isn’t it? That’s what she thinks? The real her?’

‘Let’s hope so,’ Joan said as she got into her car. ‘See you in two days.’

Genevieve resumed her email updates that night.

If Celia received and read the email, she chose to ignore it. She continued to ring each day, insisting on full reports. She was also dropping hints to Nick about coming to stay while he was in Ireland in late February, apparently to help with the cooking and cleaning.

‘No, Dad. She doesn’t help. We wait on her hand and foot,’ Victoria said.

‘She’s eighty years old,’ Nick said. ‘Please show some respect.’

‘If she comes, I’m going, Dad,’ Genevieve said. ‘She only wants to be a vulture around Mum. Angela, I mean. And Angela’s too vulnerable. I wouldn’t trust Celia around her.’

‘Don’t overreact, Genevieve,’ Nick said. ‘It might be good to have an extra person here while I’m away.’

‘Then let’s ask Joan to stay.’

‘We’ll talk about it later.’

They all knew what that meant. Whether they liked it or not, Celia was coming.

Genevieve tried to keep her father talking. She was getting worried about him. They might have settled into a sort of routine with their mother, but he hadn’t. There was still the strange tension between him and Angela. An awareness of each other, but a deliberate separation. He seemed different too. Quiet. Distracted. Sad. Genevieve asked him often how he was, but he only ever gave her brief answers.

‘I really would be happy to drive you to the airport, you know,’ she said to him. ‘It doesn’t seem right that you’re catching the bus to Adelaide. Your first overseas trip. We should all be there at the airport to wave you off.’

‘The bus is fine.’

‘Are you nervous, Dad?’ Lindy said. ‘I would be if I were you. My first big trip. Being personally responsible for planning a reunion for two hundred Gillespies.’

‘Thanks, Lindy.’

‘I bet it’ll be great,’ Genevieve said. ‘It’ll be good for you to get away from us too. Can you show me the itinerary again?’

‘I haven’t shown it to you at all, have I?’

‘Then show me now. Dad, please, I’m interested. We all are, deep down. It’s just the nonstop Irish folk music that’s setting our teeth on edge.’

‘Lindy told me she liked it.’

‘Lindy is sucking up so you’ll tell her to forget about the cushion money she owes you.’

‘I am not,’ Lindy said. ‘And I will pay Dad back.’

‘When? In 2045?’

‘Thanks so much for your support and belief, Genevieve.’ Lindy stood up. ‘I’ll have you know I got another order this week. Word of mouth is definitely spreading. No thanks to you. So if you’ll excuse me, I have sewing to do.’

Genevieve waited until she was gone before she spoke. ‘She still doesn’t realise most of those orders are coming from Joan, does she?’

‘Joan?’ Nick said.

Genevieve nodded. ‘She said her kids will kill her if they find out she’s spending their inheritance on a range of cushions. Mind you, the one Lindy’s doing now is from me, Victoria and Ig. We clubbed together. It took us ages to come up with a message:
Best of luck with your wisdom teeth extraction
. It worked, though. She’s been sewing it for days now.’ Genevieve smiled at him. ‘Come on, Dad. Please show me the itinerary. I really do want to see it.’

After a moment’s hesitation, he agreed.

Half an hour later, she put the folder down. ‘You’ll be exhausted by the end of this. You land in Dublin at dawn, head straight off to Mayo, Donegal, and then down to Cork. Carol will be exhausted too after driving you everywhere.’

‘Perhaps your mother was right. It’s a ridiculous obsession.’

‘Dad, your research is a good thing. Really. One day we’ll all be interested in Great-Uncle Seamus and Great-Great-Aunt Bridie, I promise. And Mum only said it was an obsession. She didn’t say it was ridiculous.’ She walked over and shut the kitchen door. ‘Can we please talk about Mum? About you and Mum? I know this is harder on you than it is on any of us. And that you don’t like talking about it. But we need to. I just wanted to say I’m here if you need me.’

‘Thanks, Genevieve.’

‘Would it help if we all went away for the day? If the two of you had some time on your own? Maybe that would help bring back some of her memories. You could even show her around the station. Take her for a drive. The way she does with her overseas visitors.’

‘I don’t know if that’s a good idea.’

‘What did you do when she first came here? When you first met her?’

‘I took her on a tour. Lots of tours. She’d never been out in country like this before.’

‘Could you take her on one of those tours again?’

‘She might not want to.’

Genevieve looked at him. ‘Dad, are you shy of her?’

‘Of course not.’

‘What about if I ask her for you?’

He agreed. Five minutes later, Genevieve was back, smiling.

‘She said yes.’

They left at dawn the next day. Genevieve had been right, Nick knew. He was feeling shy. Not only shy, but nervous too. About taking his wife of thirty-three years across a property they’d travelled together hundreds of times. He was nervous about being alone with her. What to say to her. How to be with her.

Genevieve came out, still half-asleep, as Angela was in her room getting her jacket.

‘Have fun,’ she whispered, kissing her father on the cheek.

Angela appeared at the door, jacket in hand. ‘Ready when you are,’ she said, smiling.

She seemed to smile so much more these days, Nick thought. She was different in so many ways – her voice, her personality – but that smile was still the same.

She started asking questions even as they were walking across the yard to the four-wheel drive. About his family, about his parents, about how long they had been on Errigal. Where the name had come from. He gave her a brief history of the Gillespie cousins.

He started up the four-wheel drive and drove out through the gate, feeling as nervous as he’d felt more than thirty years earlier, when he’d first taken her on a tour.

Her questions kept coming. She wanted to know why there weren’t sheep any more. She frowned when she heard about the mining lease. ‘Mining operations, out here? Won’t it spoil things for everyone? I’m sorry, this is none of my business. It must have been a very hard decision to make.’

‘It was. But we had no choice.’ He would never dream of telling a complete stranger what the situation was. She wasn’t a complete stranger. ‘We owed nearly a million dollars. I had no other way of paying it back. I couldn’t do it to the kids, leave them with that debt.’

‘A million dollars.’ She looked genuinely shocked. ‘What went so wrong? What happened?’

‘Me,’ he said. ‘The drought didn’t help. Then the wool market collapsed. But I made bad decisions along the way.’ In a few minutes he told her everything they had been through together as a couple over the past years. The realisation they were spending twice as much feeding the animals than they would ever make selling their wool, or the animals themselves. How he’d taken out loans. How he’d had no choice but to sell most of his stock, keeping just the minimum of breeding stock. Then more loans. By the time the drought broke and the wool market began to improve, it was too late. There had been two years when he’d felt like he was drowning, as he sold off the last of his stock. Then the mining company had approached him. He hadn’t chased them. It had felt like a lifeline, a miracle, when they told him that there was something of value in his land.

She’d stopped asking questions. She was just sitting there quietly beside him, letting him talk. And talk. He hadn’t talked about the past years in that much detail ever. Not even to her. When she had been his real Angela.

‘And none of the children were interested in taking over? None of the girls? I know Ig is still so young, but even him, in the future?’

He shook his head. ‘I thought Victoria might have been, but then she went in a different direction with her career. It’s not for the other two girls. Or Ig, either. I’ve thought about that a lot. All the trouble my Gillespie ancestors went to, that long journey from Ireland, starting the station from scratch . . . And now it’s all over.’

‘Is that why you’re organising your family reunion? To make up for it in some way?’

Old Angela had never asked him that. This Angela had got straight to it.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘That’s exactly why.’

He started up the car.

He drove her to all the special spots on the property. To the Aboriginal rock paintings, a small collection of ochre markings on a cluster of rocks thirty kilometres from the homestead. They had been catalogued by the museum in Adelaide, and all the Aboriginal stockmen he had worked with had been aware of them, but otherwise only the Gillespies knew their location. Angela spent a long time looking at the markings, asking him about the area’s Aboriginal history as she did so. He answered everything he could. Yes, he had employed many Aboriginal stockmen over the years. Yes, there were serious problems of disadvantage in Australia. Yes, he’d see if any of his former stockmen were around when Will and Lexie visited. Yes, if this dry weather kept up, they could have a proper camping night, sleep under the stars.

It felt so strange to say it, but he followed the others’ lead. ‘My wife Angela usually organises all of this for our overseas visitors. They love it.’

‘I can see why. It’s incredible out here,’ Angela said. ‘Your wife’s name is Angela too?’

He went still. Had he made a mistake? Had none of them mentioned this before?

‘It’s such a common name, isn’t it?’ she said. ‘Is she from around here?’

‘No,’ he said. He nearly said she was English too, but stopped himself.

‘What’s she like?’ Angela asked.

Nick hesitated. She’s still in there, Ruth had said. What you say to her will register in some way. Be stored in her memory.

‘She’s wonderful,’ he said. ‘Kind. Warm. Clever. A great mother. A beautiful wife.’

‘Wow,’ Angela said, smiling. ‘She sounds like some woman.’

‘She is,’ Nick said.

‘I hope Will talks about me like that.’

It was his turn to ask the questions, Nick decided. ‘What’s he like?’

‘He’s an architect. In London.’

He waited for more.

‘He’s —’ She hesitated, frowning. ‘He’s tall. As tall as you. He’s one of the kindest men I’ve ever met. We’ve been married a long time. We take a photo on the same day every year.’

‘You do?’

She nodded. ‘I love traditions like that. We have another one. On our birthday, Will and I always give each other the same card. The exact same one. All we do is cross each other’s names out.’ She was laughing. ‘We give each other the same present too. A five-dollar note. The same one every year.’

Nick was choosing his words very carefully. ‘Where did you meet?’

‘In a pub,’ Angela said. ‘A pub in Sydney. He walked in, he was lost – and I know this sounds like I am making it up, but I’m not – I took one look at him and I think I fell in love. We met for lunch the next day and that was that. We’ve been together ever since.’