The Grazier's Wife Read online

  At first, it looked as if there wasn’t a spare table but Brad quickly established a flirtatious rapport with one of the waitresses – Jackie suspected he slipped her a very generous tip – and she managed to find room for them.

  Happily, they squeezed onto wooden forms on either side of a narrow table and mulled over the menu. Slow-cooked beef cheek or something lighter? The goat’s cheese and walnut salad?

  Selections were made and wine was ordered. A ruby red carafe of rioja promptly materialised, accompanied by a basket of sliced baguette. From where Jackie was sitting, she could see through an open doorway to the basilica outside. It had beautiful, ornately carved doors and, on the wide stone steps in front, several groups of young Spaniards sat, enjoying the evening, sharing a joke, and tossing back their glossy dark heads as they laughed.

  Momentarily distracted by their shining-eyed, youthful vitality, Jackie thought of her own children. Seth at home on Ruthven Downs, caring for the property, mending fences, checking the condition of the cattle, the paddocks, the dams, and ordering in stock feed if necessary. Their daughter Flora was in a very different scene. It still stunned Jackie that her daughter’s years of hard work and endless practice had paid off and she was now a musician, a professional violinist in Melbourne.

  She hoped her children were as happy as these carefree young people appeared to be.

  Abruptly, she was dragged out of her musings by Brad, who was telling the group a story, recounting how he and Kate had first met when they were on a walking trail.

  ‘It was on the Thorsborne Track on Hinchinbrook Island,’ Brad was saying. ‘And I came across Kate balanced precariously on a pebble-sized rock in the middle of a creek, trying to refill her water bottle.’

  ‘And of course I saw Brad and immediately –’

  ‘Fell in love,’ supplied Shelley glibly.

  ‘Fell in the water,’ Kate corrected with a smiling eye-roll.

  Brad’s habitual grin was wider than ever. ‘So then it was a case of a wet T-shirt with no competition.’

  This brought a bellow of laughter from Ian and Hugh and a dig in the ribs from his wife’s elbow.

  ‘I must say,’ remarked Shelley as the laughter died down, ‘that’s much more interesting than the way Ian and I met. We were at a party and a mutual friend introduced us.’

  ‘Boring, boring, boring,’ said Ian with a shrug.

  Shelley laughed. ‘And I turned you down three times before I took pity and agreed to go out with you.’

  Her husband smiled. ‘You were playing hard to get.’

  ‘Clearly,’ said Brad.

  Jackie was intrigued. ‘What made you change your mind?’

  ‘Oh.’ Shelley tucked an elegant wing of silver hair behind one ear. ‘Ian sent me flowers with a note attached.’

  At this point, Hugh joined in. ‘And it was the message in the note rather than the flowers that did the trick?’

  Now Shelley’s smile was coy. ‘Exactly.’

  Jackie was dying to know more and she could sense that the others were as curious as she was about what Ian’s message had said. But the waitress reappeared, her arms laden with their meals.

  People began to eat. No one pushed Shelley to expand on her story and the subject was on the brink of being dropped completely when Brad, with a succulent piece of braised beef cheek poised on his fork, directed a grin towards Hugh and Jackie.

  ‘What about you guys?’ he said. ‘I don’t think you’ve ever told us how you met.’

  Jackie gulped. She glanced at Hugh, who was sitting opposite her and smiling at her over his glass of rioja.

  He sent her a wink, then he told them, ‘Jackie was cutting my hair.’

  Jackie knew it was silly to feel nervous. Being a hairdresser was nothing to be ashamed of, but she’d never talked about her past in this company. Now, as Kate’s and Shelley’s eyes widened with surprise, she felt her face go red.

  ‘Really?’ said Kate.

  Shelley asked the obvious: ‘Were you a hairdresser, Jackie?’

  ‘Yep,’ she said, almost defiantly.

  ‘Our eyes met in the salon mirror,’ said Hugh.

  ‘And the rest is history.’ Melodramatically, Kate pressed a hand over her heart. ‘Oh, I can just picture it.’ She managed not to sound patronising, for which Jackie was grateful.

  ‘It was a very romantic moment,’ Hugh agreed, speaking with the simple sincerity that Jackie had always loved.

  And the truth was that she’d always thought their meeting was incredibly romantic. She would never forget the day the tall and handsome Hugh Drummond strolled into the salon where she worked in Atherton’s Main Street.

  Every detail was clear in her memory. Hugh had sat down in the chair and she’d arranged a cape around his shoulders. Their eyes had met in the mirror and he’d given her a warm, interested smile that made his lovely dark eyes glow.

  Jackie had smiled back at him . . . and their smiles had gone on for far longer than they should have. In a movie there would have been sappy music playing. Eventually, Jackie had blushed and become flustered, but she’d managed to cut Hugh’s hair without making a hash of it.

  ‘It’s no wonder you always look so good, Jackie,’ Kate said. ‘Hairdressers have such a talent for making the most of their appearance. A real flair.’

  Jackie sent her a grateful smile and she decided then and there that it was time to stop worrying.

  After dinner, they wended their way through the narrow streets filled with people, past bars that spilled yellow light onto the stone. Near the edge of the bay they stopped at an ice-cream shop.

  Part of the fun was lingering again over choices. Jackie opted for a dollop of tangy raspberry combined with the smoothness of hazelnut and cream.

  She shared the ice-cream with Hugh, linking her arm through his and offering him bites as they took a path across a park between trees strung with lights. Everywhere she looked, locals were prom­enading, enjoying the autumn evening just as she was. A middle-aged woman pushed an old man in a wheelchair. A stylish young couple were out with a pram. A young girl in a red tracksuit jogged past them with three dogs on leads.

  In the distance, someone was playing a guitar, sending cool, sensual notes rippling into the night. Jackie thought it was quite possible that she’d never felt happier.

  ‘I’m having the best time.’ She rubbed her cheek against Hugh’s shoulder.

  ‘It’s worked out well, hasn’t it?’

  ‘So much better than I thought. And we still have Paris and London ahead of us. Two more weeks.’

  Hugh laughed and, in a moment of uncharacteristic spontaneity, he burst into song. ‘We’ve only just begun . . .’

  An elderly couple walking past, arm in arm, smiled.

  Jackie grinned back at them. She finished the ice-cream and found a tissue to wipe her hands. Their friends were a few metres behind them, lingering to read an inscription on a statue.

  As they waited at a pedestrian crossing for the lights to change, Jackie asked, ‘Do you find yourself thinking much about home?’

  ‘Hardly at all.’ Hugh dropped a kiss on the top of her head. ‘I know the place is in good hands.’

  She smiled. ‘Yes, Seth was dead keen to have the run of the property, to prove how capable he is.’

  ‘He’s more than ready to take over.’

  And then you could retire, Jackie thought. We would have more time to travel. It was an idea she could get used to.

  They were crammed into the lift, which was climbing creakily to the apartment, when Jackie’s mobile phone pinged with a text message. Unearthing the phone from her bag in the tiny space was next to impossible. She waited until they were back in the apartment and had flopped onto the lounge room sofas, as was their habit at the end of the day.

  ‘Who’s for a nightcap?’ asked Ian.

  ‘No more alcohol for me,’ said Kate. ‘I’m putting the kettle on.’

  Jackie put her hand up for camomile tea. Ian began to po
ur whisky, while Kate headed for the kitchen. Jackie dug her phone and tortoiseshell-framed reading glasses out of her bag and then brought up the text message. It was from Rhonda Close, one of her CWA friends.

  I saw Seth and the baby today. Wow!

  What a lovely surprise. Congrats, Grandma! xx

  Jackie blinked and reread the message, but it made no more sense the second time than it had the first. Rhonda must have got her wires crossed. Seth didn’t have a baby.

  Sorry, she wrote back. I think you must have the wrong pers–

  Jackie stopped typing. Rhonda had to be mistaken, but to be on the safe side she would double-check the story with Seth first. If Seth had been seen out with a baby, he would have been minding it for a friend. There was bound to be an explanation.

  It wasn’t as if her son was in a relationship. There was no steady girlfriend, at least there hadn’t been anyone serious in the last year.

  Jackie checked the world clock on her phone. It was seven in the morning at home. With luck she would catch Seth before he headed out to work.

  Across the room, she caught Hugh’s eye. She rose and waved her phone at him. ‘I’m going to ring Seth.’

  Hugh looked surprised, but then he nodded. ‘Give him my best.’

  She went through to their bedroom, which looked out onto a central courtyard above which clotheslines were strung between windows. Earlier that day she’d done a little hand-washing, and her tights and knickers were still hanging alongside two of Hugh’s shirts.

  She unpegged the shirts and put them on hangers, then stowed the underwear in a drawer in the wardrobe. She closed the window, drew the curtains, and sat on the bed. Pulling off her boots and wriggling her stockinged feet, she thought again about Rhonda Close’s message.

  Rhonda was a bit prone to jumping to conclusions. She must have been mixed up.

  The phone rang and rang.

  ‘Hello,’ Seth said at last, a little breathlessly.

  ‘Seth, darling.’

  ‘Mum?’

  ‘Yes, how are you?’

  ‘Fine, thanks. How’s Spain? Are you still enjoying yourself?’

  ‘Yes, it’s absolutely wonderful here. The weather’s perfect and I love San Sebastián.’ Jackie would have expanded on all the things she loved about Spain, but she heard a sound in the background. A cry, a bleat, that might possibly have come from a baby. ‘Seth, I got the strangest text message from Rhonda Close.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘She’s congratulating me on becoming a grandmother. She said she saw you in town with –’

  Abruptly, the noise in the background grew louder. It was a wail. Most definitely a baby’s cry.

  ‘Can you hang on a sec?’ asked Seth.

  ‘Of course,’ Jackie choked out, and she sat in stunned silence with the phone pressed to her ear.

  What on earth was going on? Had a woman moved into the homestead with her baby? A friend in need?

  She tried to think of anyone in Seth’s circle of friends who’d been pregnant or had a baby recently. When she drew a blank, her mind started throwing up other possibilities that she just as quickly dismissed.

  She mustn’t panic. She just had to be patient. Everything would make sense in a moment.

  ‘Hello?’ said Seth’s voice after what seemed like an eternity. ‘Are you still there?’

  ‘Yes.’ Jackie forced false brightness into her voice. ‘Is – is everything all right, Seth?’

  ‘Yes. I mean, well, something’s come up. But I’ve got it all under control. I didn’t want to bother you. There’s nothing really for you to worry about.’

  ‘But there is a baby?’

  ‘Yeah. I’m afraid it’s true, Mum. You’re a grandma.’

  3

  Hugh poked his head around the door. ‘I thought you might have fallen asleep. Your camomile tea’s getting cold.’ He was smiling as he held out a mug, but the smile quickly vanished. ‘Jackie, what’s wrong?’

  She was still dazed and shaken as she told him about Seth and the baby and the English backpacker, who’d already gone back to England. She hadn’t cried until now, but Hugh’s shocked expression sent her reaching for the travel pack of tissues on the bedside table.

  Hugh put the mug down, then sat with his arm around her shoulders. When she had wiped her eyes and taken a sip of tea, he asked quietly, ‘Is Seth sure the baby’s his?’

  ‘That’s the first question I asked him.’ Jackie dabbed at her eyes again. ‘I asked him several times, actually. He got fed up with me. He said what does it matter? His name’s on the birth certificate and there’s no one else putting his hand up to be the baby’s father.’

  Hugh let out his breath in a low whistle.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Jackie added stoutly. ‘As soon as we’re home, I’ll get a DNA test done. I know they can do it from a strand of hair.’

  Hugh frowned rather sternly at this, but he didn’t argue. ‘How old is the baby?’ he asked.

  ‘Three months.’

  He gave a helpless kind of shrug. ‘Well, I suppose the timing’s right. The muster was a little over a year ago.’

  ‘This liaison,’ Jackie said, using her fingers to make air quotes around the word, ‘didn’t happen during the muster. Seth and this girl met up a bit later at the Mareeba Rodeo, after she left us.’

  ‘Oh, I see.’

  ‘I must say I’m relieved about that,’ she added. ‘There’s so much bad press about foreign backpackers and rural workers being pressured into sex on the farms where they’re working.’

  ‘For God’s sake, Jackie. Seth would never –’

  ‘I know, I know,’ she said quickly. ‘Just the same, there’ll be tongues wagging.’

  Hugh shrugged again, back to his unruffled self. ‘I remember the cook,’ he said. ‘What’s her name again?’

  ‘Joanna.’

  ‘Joanna, that’s right. Joanna Dixon. She was a pretty good camp cook. Got on well with the stockmen.’

  ‘Clearly she got on very well with Seth.’

  Hugh didn’t smile. He gave a thoughtful nod and then a small sigh. ‘And now we have a grandson.’

  ‘Yes, and his mother’s high-tailed it back to England to take up a new life without him.’

  ‘That’s a turn-up for the books.’

  Jackie wondered if her husband was thinking, as she was, about the way this should have happened. First a wedding, where a lovely daughter-in-law was welcomed into the family. Later, the happy couple sharing their exciting news. And then months of delightful anticipation while Jackie knitted bootees and made a patchwork quilt for the baby’s cot.

  ‘What kind of girl leaves her baby behind?’ Hugh asked. ‘In this day and age when there’s no stigma attached to being a single mother?’

  ‘A girl who’s going to marry a very wealthy Englishman,’ Jackie told him. ‘A girl who doesn’t want her mistakes in Australia ruining her chances.’

  Hugh’s gaze was serious now as he stared at the carpet with a thoughtful frown. ‘Is that what Joanna told Seth?’

  ‘Yes, she’s got a fiancé back in England. Can you believe it? The poor baby. How could she be so heartless?’

  ‘I wonder what are the chances of her changing her mind.’

  ‘Seth doesn’t seem to think she will.’

  ‘Well, she’s already sprung one huge surprise. I hope to God that she doesn’t deceive him again.’

  ‘I know. That’s what worries me, too.’

  Together, they sat in gloomy silence as the reality of the new family situation sank in. It wasn’t pleasant to know that the mother of their grandson could be so cool-headed and selfish.

  ‘I suppose we should be happy. At least the baby’s perfectly healthy,’ Jackie said after a bit. ‘But it’s all so –’

  She was about to say that it was all so sad, but she stopped herself. Seth hadn’t sounded sad. He’d sounded amazingly calm. Calm and smiling. She was sure she’d heard a smile in his voice, which, under the circumstances,
was quite remarkable.

  ‘How the hell will Seth manage?’ said Hugh. ‘He’ll have to hire a nurse. Has he done that already?’

  Jackie shook her head. ‘You’ll never believe this. He’s hired a couple of stockmen to look after the cattle and he’s looking after the baby.’

  ‘Seth?’ Hugh’s jaw dropped. For the first time in a long time, he looked in danger of losing his cool. ‘You mean he’s changing nappies and getting up for feeds in the middle of the night and walking the floor – everything?’

  ‘Apparently.’

  Jackie had to press her fingers to her lips to stop herself from crying. This was so very, very different from the way she’d expected her son’s life to turn out. Seth was almost thirty, in the prime of his life, a popular and eligible young man.

  Hugh looked stern. ‘He won’t be able to keep that up forever.’

  ‘I know. Seth said it’s just for the first few weeks. He said everything to do with the property is under control and he wants to get to know the baby. He wants to bond.’ She smiled shakily.

  Hugh slipped an arm around her shoulders again. ‘We should be proud of our boy. He’s facing up to his responsibility like a man.’

  ‘I guess.’ Jackie’s voice squeaked, and this time she couldn’t hold the rush of tears. Hugh’s arms tightened around her, hugging her close to his chest, and she cried hard.

  She wasn’t completely sure why she was crying. In her early marriage, she’d known the deep disappointment of several miscarriages, so a part of her welcomed any baby with joy. But she was certainly disappointed that this baby was going to shape Seth’s future, when it should have been the other way around.

  ‘I’m not desperately sad,’ she said, when Hugh released her and handed her another tissue,

  ‘I know. But you’ve had a shock.’

  ‘His name – the baby’s name – is Charlie.’

  ‘Charlie,’ Hugh repeated quietly. ‘Charlie Drummond.’

  She thought she could almost hear a note of pride in his voice.