The Grazier's Wife Read online

  Her mobile phone pinged again. Cautiously, she picked the phone up and put on her reading glasses. ‘Seth’s sent us a photo.’

  She tapped the screen and together they stared at the tiny picture. It was a selfie of Seth in a grey T-shirt, with two days’ growth of beard, his thick, dark hair tousled as if he hadn’t combed it in days. But he was grinning as he held a baby in the crook of his arm. The baby was incredibly cute, with a splash of golden hair and huge blue eyes.

  ‘Oh, he’s gorgeous, Hugh.’

  ‘Yeah, he’s certainly a cutie.’

  The photo had been taken in the kitchen. Jackie could see an empty baby bottle with a teat and a tin of formula on the stone-topped bench behind Seth. She could also see, through the back doorway, a glimpse of gum trees and sun-lit paddocks.

  Without warning she was hit by a rush of homesickness.

  ‘I think he looks like his mother,’ said Hugh.

  ‘Well, she is blonde, isn’t she?’

  ‘Sort of, but then so are you.’ With a fond smile, her husband ruffled her hair.

  Jackie’s natural colour tended towards mousy and she’d been lightening it for many, many years, since her hairdressing days. She might have commented on this, but she was distracted by a new, alarming thought.

  ‘Hugh, should we go home?’ The question burst from her.

  ‘Break our holiday?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Dismay washed over her husband’s face. ‘I – I don’t think that’s necessary.’

  ‘I just thought Seth might need us.’

  ‘Does he look like he needs us?’

  Jackie had to admit there was no sign of strain in Seth’s smile. ‘He didn’t tell us about Charlie’s arrival, so I don’t suppose he expects us to come rushing back.’

  ‘I think he’d be upset if we did.’

  ‘Yes, probably.’

  ‘He’s doing the right thing. We should let him get on with it,’ Hugh said proudly.

  ‘But eventually –’

  ‘Eventually, we’ll work something out. Once we’re home, we’ll tackle this as a family.’ He sent her a questioning glance. ‘Does Flora know about the baby?’

  ‘I’m not sure. I’ll send a message back to Seth to tell him we think Charlie’s wonderful, and I’ll ask him if he’s been in touch with Flora.’

  When this was done, she nodded towards the lounge room. ‘Should we tell the others?’

  ‘There’s certainly no need to tell them tonight, not when they’re all unwinding before bed.’

  Jackie accepted this with a shrug. She wasn’t looking forward to sharing this news. Becoming a grandparent was an important rung on the ladder of life, but she had hoped it would be a joyful occasion, not one wreathed in question marks and foisted on her out of the blue. She remembered how relaxed and incredibly happy she’d been a mere half hour ago, before she read Rhonda’s message. Now she doubted she would sleep at all.

  4

  To: Seth Drummond

  From: Flora Drummond

  Subject: Go Daddy!

  Hi Seth,

  What amazing news! I can’t believe I’m an aunty. I adore the photos. Charlie is sooo cute. But I’m still trying to wrap my head around the fact that he’s yours! Even harder to credit is that you’re going to look after a baby all by yourself! Wow, that’s sensational. Truly heroic, big bro. I wish I could help – not that I know anything about babies.

  Do you know about wind? Veda, a friend who plays cello, had a baby last year and his colic became the bane of her life. She has all sorts of theories about burping babies, but I suppose Mum will be able to set you straight with that when she gets home. Oh, and did you know it’s good to play Mozart to babies? It’s supposed to boost their brainpower.

  On the music front here: we have a new conductor who’s come over from Europe on a secondment. Enrico Pauli. He’s a young hot shot and we’re so privileged to work with him, but he’s really hard to follow. At the first rehearsal I couldn’t get the hang of his beat. Even James, the concert master, was having trouble.

  We had another rehearsal yesterday and that was better. And Enrico’s energy is rubbing off. He’s got the musicians enthused. Even the older, stodgier members of the orchestra are lifting their act. Usually they’re checking their watches and muttering about going over time, but there wasn’t a murmur from them last night.

  I’m going to have so much fun shopping for Charlie.

  Love,

  Aunty Flora

  To: Jackie Drummond

  From: Flora Drummond

  Subject: Huh??

  Hi Mum, thanks for passing on that pic of Charlie. What a cutie he is. It must be killing you that you’re not home to cuddle him (it’s killing me!), but I’m so pleased to hear that you’re having a great holiday. You guys really deserve it.

  I gotta say, though, just between you and me, I can’t understand how that girl could have just dumped her baby on Seth like that without any warning. After going to all the trouble of carrying him for nine months and giving birth, how on earth could she abandon her own son? It’s very strange.

  I guess that baby doesn’t know how lucky he is to have a dad like Seth.

  Keep on having fun.

  Lots of love,

  Flora xx

  To: Flora Drummond

  From: Seth Drummond

  Subject: Re: Go Daddy!

  Hi Floss,

  You ask if I know about wind. I now know more than I’d like to, I’m afraid. I’ve read just about every site there is on the internet, trying to work out the best ways to burp this windy little son of mine. I’ve walked with him over my shoulder, gently stroking his back. I’ve sat him on my lap with a hand supporting his stomach. I’ve paced the floor, I’ve jogged, I would have stood on my head and wiggled my ears if I thought it might help.

  Sorry, that’s probably too much information. Just believe me, the sweetest sound you could ever hear is not a violin played in the moonlight, but a baby’s burp and then silence.

  I read that female ears are pitched somehow to super-react to a baby’s cry, but it only took me a week to tune in to his wavelength. BC (before Charlie), you could have dropped a forty-four gallon oil drum off a ute outside my bedroom window and I wouldn’t have stirred. Now I wake at two in the morning and leap out of bed, adrenaline pumping, at the merest squawk.

  Hey, thanks for the Mozart tip. I tried playing ‘Eine Kleine’ to Charlie to soothe him, but I’m afraid he didn’t seem to like it. Must take after me, he prefers Sunrise over Sea by John Butler Trio – I don’t know what that will do for his brainpower. I’ve also downloaded a white noise app to see if that will help with getting him to sleep.

  Becoming a parent is both amazing and frightening. But he’s a good kid, really. You can tell he doesn’t really want to cry. We’ll get there.

  All the best with the orchestra. Remember in Ghostbusters when Bill Murray told Sigourney Weaver that she was the best cello player in her row? I’m sure you’re the best second violin :)

  Love,

  Seth

  To: Jackie Drummond

  From: Flora Drummond

  Subject: Welcome home

  Hi Mum,

  Thanks for your email. So lovely to know you’re back in Oz and on the home front again, ready to back up Seth on this amazing parental adventure. Now I might get to hear more deets about Charlie. Seth has been in touch, but it seems like he’s too busy to write very often.

  I’m getting pretty busy too, actually. Rehearsals are hotting up for the opera season. Glamorous as that sounds, the reality is that every night I’ll play a hundred times more notes than Oliver and I’ll be paid half as much. (Who’s Oliver, you might ask? He’s a singer, a tenor that I’ve started seeing. A couple of sopranos in the chorus are dead jealous, tee hee.) And of course I’ll be down in the pit and not up on the stage in the limelight, so I won’t get nearly as much love from the audience either.

  Don’t get me wrong, I’m not feeling sorr
y for myself, just pointing out the way things are in the music world. But I shouldn’t complain. At least I have a full-time job with the orchestra. The singers are only on short-term contracts and have to have day jobs as well. Oliver works in a bank.

  Would love to hear how things are with you guys. How’s Dad? Who’s pacing the floor with Charlie now?

  F x

  To: Flora Drummond

  From: Jackie Drummond

  Subject: Re: Welcome home

  Thanks for the welcome, Flora. It’s so lovely to be home, especially now that we’re over the jetlag.

  We’re totally in love with the new little member of our household. Charlie reminds me so much of Seth as a baby, even though he’s much fairer. I’m going to help with babysitting, of course, and I’m quite excited about that (now that I’m over the shock of instant grandmotherhood). I wish we could have been here to help Seth from the start, but your father thinks it was a good thing that Seth and Charlie had a few weeks on their own to sort themselves out. Seth’s certainly bonded with the little fellow.

  Would you believe Seth’s also talking about building his own separate cottage? I don’t suppose I should be so surprised. Your brother’s always had a mature, independent streak, hasn’t he? But building his own place will be so much extra work for him when he’s already juggling the cattle work and the baby.

  I will take your father’s advice, however, and ‘butt out’.

  Your friend Oliver sounds very interesting. I hope you continue to enjoy his company. It would be lovely for you to have a boyfriend who shares your passion for music. Any chance of a photo?

  Love,

  Mum xx

  To: Flora Drummond

  From: Seth Drummond

  Subject: Catch up

  Hi Floss,

  Happy New Year! Sorry for my silence these past couple of months, but the building project is well under way. It’s just a very simple kit home, but that’s fine for Charlie and me. Can’t believe he’s almost seven months already.

  I’ve needed a fair bit of Mum’s help with minding the little bloke. Unfortunately, you can’t really use a power drill or a nail gun with a baby slung on your back. They don’t make dust masks or earmuffs small enough.

  I’ve been putting in long hours though, and I reckon I should have this place finished in another week or so. Then maybe Charlie and I can get into some kind of routine.

  I’ve also done a little more experimenting with music, hoping to find something Charlie really likes and that helps him to sleep. ‘This Lullaby’ by Queens of the Stone Age and ‘Fear of Sleep’ by The Strokes were kinda successful, but his very favourite is Pearl Jam’s ‘Better Man’. I don’t suppose anyone’s done a study on the effect of Pearl Jam on a baby’s brainpower, but clearly, the little guy has taste!

  Enjoy Melbourne. I grin every time I think of my little sis sipping a latte, or hanging out in some trendy rooftop wine bar. After all those years of practising scales – scraping horsehair over catgut – you’ve earned a chance at the good life.

  Seth x

  To: Flora Drummond

  From: Christy Hargreaves

  Subject: Your brother

  Hi Flora,

  I hope all’s going well in Melbourne. We miss you! But it seems your brother’s making up for your absence. Several young mums saw him with his baby at the doctor’s the other day and now practically every female in Mareeba is gushing and gossiping about him like he’s one of the Hemsworth brothers. Honestly!

  They thought Seth was incredibly cute, the way he was so proud of Charlie’s weight gain, and asking the girls questions about the best cream for rubbing on a baby’s bum etc.

  Word on the street: Charlie’s mother has gone back to England to marry another guy. I suppose you’d know all about that, but don’t worry, Seth will have no trouble at all in finding someone to take her place.

  Cheers for now and enjoy the big smoke,

  Christy

  5

  Burralea, 2015

  It was still dark when Alice Miller woke and her first thought was that she was back in Brisbane at her grandmother’s house in Ashgrove. Something about that scenario wasn’t quite right though. She was too aware of the silence. There was no hum of morning traffic penetrating from the street outside. In the distance a rooster was crowing.

  Of course. How could she have forgotten?

  A wave of desolation rolled over Alice and she shivered, remembering yet again that her grandmother was dead and she was completely alone in the world.

  Surely twenty-seven was too young to be the only family member left, but that was how it was for Alice.

  Her parents and her baby sister had died tragically in a car accident when she was ten. Seven years later she’d lost her beloved grandfather. And now, after another decade, her grandmother – who for all these years had been her guardian, her provider and her best friend – was gone too. Her aunt and uncle who lived in Thailand were hardly ever in touch, so they barely counted.

  Alice lay very still with her eyes squeezed shut, determined not to cry again, but she couldn’t stop her mind from replaying the events that had marked the finality of it all. The funeral service had been held at the brick church on Waterworks Road that her gran had attended every Sunday. It had been followed by a gathering back at the house, which was mainly for the diminished circle of her grandmother’s friends: people from the bowls club, and her gran’s nearest and dearest from church – Peg Glasgow, Dulcie Forrest, Michael and Jean Brown.

  At least Alice was familiar with what her grandmother’s circle expected – cups of tea, glasses of sherry, plates of pikelets with jam and cream, fruit cake – and their messages of condolence had been sincere.

  ‘You were always so good to your gran.’

  ‘Elsie was lucky to have you to look after her.’

  ‘She was so proud of you, Alice.’

  But the group hadn’t hidden their dismay when Alice told them she was putting tenants into her grandmother’s house, the only home she could really remember, and moving away.

  So very far away, to a place her grandmother had talked about frequently . . .

  Enough.

  Alice opened her eyes.

  Already, dawn was making its presence felt. A pale grey light glimmered at the window and she could see the outline of her bed, covered by the bright rose-and-aqua Indian throw that she’d bought at a market in Cairns. In the room’s corner, a silvery shimmer gleamed from the oval mirror on the wardrobe door.

  This was her new home in Burralea, a tiny village on the Atherton Tablelands in Far North Queensland. Her new life had begun last month when she’d signed the lease for a quaint little shop with a sizeable space at the back – complete with a scarred and battered but quite usable workbench – and a small, one-bedroom flat overhead.

  Slipping from the bed, Alice could feel the hope bubbling afresh in spite of her lingering sadness. She pulled her dressing-gown on to ward off the early-morning highlands chill, and went to the window and leaned out, taking in the main street.

  The solicitor’s office was fancy and modern with plate-glass windows and sliding doors, but mostly, the shops in Burralea were old like hers. Both the chemist and the hairdresser had brass plaques over their doors proudly showing the date they were built in the 1920s.

  In keeping with the town’s tourist image, the older shops had been carefully gentrified. Now, restored and repainted, the street also boasted large garden pots on the footpaths and lampposts with hanging baskets overflowing with bright petunias and daisies and dainty blue lobelia.

  The overt quaintness and nostalgia of the town appealed to Alice. In fact, she loved it. While her friends embraced streamlined architecture and the wonders of flat packs from Ikea, Alice was a girl with one foot in the past.

  So yes, this place suited her. From her first-floor vantage, she could see clear to the end of the street, where a white mist lingered along the creek, trailing like a soft cloud through the thick t
runks of the remnant rainforest that lined the creek’s banks.

  Taking a deep breath of the fresh mountain air, she caught a hint of wood smoke from the chimney of the pink house on the corner. She heard the rooster crowing again, followed by the high-pitched call of a scrub hen, and then the softer notes of a rainforest pigeon. Soon there were other birds whistling, twittering and warbling, adding their songs to the dawn chorus.

  Alice felt her spirits lift. After such a short time in Burralea, her move to the far north still seemed like a huge and rather wonderful adventure.

  It had begun with the long and arduous three-day drive up the Bruce Highway with her little ute piled high with all her worldly possessions, including her grandfather’s precious woodworking tools. Having initially found this place over the internet, she’d arrived at Burralea and made the exciting final inspection, pleased to discover that the reality exceeded her expectations.

  She had signed the lease agreement, moved into the new flat and then had come the best part of all. The day after her arrival, she’d scoured the second-hand shops on the Tablelands for bits and pieces of furniture, both for her own use, and to restore and sell.

  This was to be her new business. She’d already hung up her shingle, a simple wooden sign that said Alice Miller, Furniture Restorer, along with her phone number. Two days ago, she’d made a circuit of the shops in Innisfail, Babinda, Cairns and Mareeba. It had been quite a long day trip, half of it spent travelling, but Alice was happy with the loot she’d collected. Now she was the proud owner of a Baltic pine chest of drawers, a mahogany wardrobe, a kitchen dresser, a milking stool and several old mirrors. The chest of drawers was for her own use. The rest she was in the process of restoring for future sale.

  She was feeling quite optimistic. With enough money to tide her over for the time being, she had planned to settle into this new life quietly. But already she’d sold one of the refurbished mirrors to Tammy, the hairdresser down the road, and there’d been telephone enquiries from people looking for unusual gifts, and walk-ins that had brought her paying customers.