A Distant Journey Page 17

  ‘Good heavens, what a thing to ask!’ Mrs Flowers exclaimed, looking up.

  Cindy pressed on. She wanted to know. ‘What I mean is, photographs, things from the past. I’ve never seen any in the rest of the house. Not even the study. Her name isn’t even mentioned. There seems to be no reminder of Murray’s mother, Rose at all. It’s like she never existed.’

  ‘Perhaps you should ask your husband,’ replied Mrs Flowers quietly. ‘It’s not really my place to discuss it.’

  Cindy stepped forward. ‘Mrs Flowers, I wouldn’t like to put you in an awkward situation, but Murray never mentions his mother, and if I raise the subject, he gives an evasive answer.’ Cindy threw up her hands in frustration, but then she took a breath and lowered her voice. ‘I’m just curious, that’s all. I don’t understand why the topic of Rose is taboo. Were you here when she died? What was she like? What was Lawrence like when she was alive? Was he a happier person? I know it must have been a tragic event, but even so, I can’t understand why there is no trace of Rose in her own house. It’s like Lawrence wants to pretend she was never even here! I just wonder why the topic is so sensitive for Murray that he won’t even talk about it with me,

  his wife.’

  Mrs Flowers was silent for a moment, punching the dough down into the bread pans. Then she looked intently at Cindy.

  ‘There’s a reason that no one wants to talk about Rose and why Mr Parnell wants no reminders of her in this house,’ she said quietly. ‘She didn’t die. She ran away. She left her eleven-year-old son and husband and did a bunk. It devastated Mr Parnell and I’m not sure that Murray ever got over his mother’s betrayal.’

  Cindy gasped. ‘But I thought …’ She shook her head. ‘How can that be? I mean, surely a woman wouldn’t just run off and leave her son?’ she said in a shocked voice. ‘That’s so terrible.’

  Mrs Flowers’ face was hidden as she bent over to open the door of the oven. ‘They won’t talk about it, of course, so please don’t say –’ She broke off at the sound of heavy footsteps outside on the verandah.

  ‘Mrs Flowers!’ Lawrence bellowed. ‘Can you come out here for a moment?’

  Mrs Flowers slammed the oven door shut with a bang. ‘Coming!’ she called, adding in a whisper to Cindy, ‘Please don’t tell Murray I’ve told you this! He and Mr Parnell, they wouldn’t like it.’ She turned and hurried out of the kitchen, leaving Cindy standing dumbfounded and astonished by Mrs Flowers’s revelation.

  As she walked through the corridor to the front door, Cindy saw the house in a different light. The absence of any pictures or trace of Rose Parnell now made sense. No wonder Lawrence had erased her from the house. No wonder Murray never wanted to talk about her. His mother had abandoned him. But how could a wife and mother just disappear from her family’s life? This explained Lawrence’s coldness, his pent-up anger. And poor Murray! Cindy could only imagine his pain. She longed to speak to him about it, to reach out and console him, but how could she without letting on that Mrs Flowers had broken the code of silence and told her the truth? The housekeeper had been so kind to her, Cindy didn’t want to get her in trouble. Perhaps she should just let the past remain unquestioned. Would it do any good to open up the old wound? She and Murray were happy, and at last she had an explanation of sorts for Lawrence’s behaviour.

  Driving home, Cindy resolved to wait for the right moment to talk to Murray. But, as time went on, an opportunity never presented itself. Still, for a long while

  she couldn’t stop thinking about Rose, who had dis­appeared from the life of her husband and son seemingly without a trace and was bitterly, if at all, remembered.

  6

  Cindy smoothed the sheet of paper in front of her and put down her ballpoint pen. She really didn’t have a lot to tell since she’d last written to Babs. Alice and Babs always had plenty of news with all the happenings in Palm Springs, but little seemed to change around Yamboola.

  Cindy took a sip of her tea, which had gone cold. Murray had made her a pot before he’d headed out to check on some new lambs. He’d be back soon now that the sun was peeping over the horizon, ready for a hearty breakfast and full of plans for the day. Cindy had hoped her letter would be finished for him to add to the mail that Tom would take into town, but it didn’t look likely now. Sighing, she folded it and put it to one side.

  She sat and gazed out at the rising curtain of sunshine, melting the mist and shining on a new day. The early light revealed a small mob of kangaroos; motionless, tiny paws daintily poised at the chest, ears twitching, ever alert to danger. These were close to the house and would scatter, bounding away, once they heard Murray’s truck heading their way. Today would be like so many before it.

  Cindy loved this calm. She cherished the peaceful early mornings before the routine of jobs and unexpected small calamities and surprises filled the hours till sunset.

  She was content. Yes, happy too, as she’d told Babs in many letters. Adjustment had come at a price in some respects. She thought of the snakeskin she’d picked up near a fencepost, where one year’s life had been shed and a new one begun. If only it were so simple; to peel off one’s skin and start anew. Her life at college and her experiences in Palm Springs seemed now to be those of another girl, a more carefree girl, one who hadn’t waded into the conflicting emotions of deep love and a new life that couldn’t have been more different from the old one. The girl she’d once been had not envisaged having to fit into a set of deeply rooted traditions and a foreign landscape half a world away from what she knew.

  As happy as she was, sometimes Cindy still felt like an outsider. Was she destined always to feel that she didn’t quite belong?

  Sighing, she stood and carried the tea things to the sink. Cindy knew the one thing she could do that would irrevocably link her to this place was to have children.

  It had been two years since she’d married Murray, but there had been no sign of a pregnancy. Dr Forde, their family doctor in Deniliquin, had assured her that there was nothing wrong with her. She was young and healthy and he advised her to be patient, that these things happened when they were meant to, which, though she knew it to be sound advice, was of little comfort. It continued to prey on her. As she stood by the kitchen window, tears filled her eyes. Will I never be a mother? she thought. At the sound of footsteps outside, she hastily dashed her tears from her face and turned to greet her husband.

  ‘Cindy, what is it, darling?’ Murray said, concern creasing his face as he stepped into the kitchen. His kindness was her undoing and tears coursed down her face.

  ‘What’s wrong with me? I’m never going to have a baby,’ she said, sitting down and covering her face with her hands. ‘I feel such a failure. I’m letting you down.’

  Murray sat down next to her at the table and took her hand. ‘Don’t be ridiculous. Of course you haven’t let me down. All in good time.’ He wiped a tear from her face and kissed her cheek. He put his arm around her and Cindy laid her head on his shoulder. ‘Look, Cindy, what say we get out of here for a while? Give ourselves a break. Let’s go away on a holiday. And I don’t mean to

  Melbourne.’

  Cindy looked up, elated. ‘Oh, Murray, that’d be wonderful!’ She flung her arms around him. ‘Where, where? Overseas?’

  Murray shook his head, but grinned. ‘No, here in Australia. You’ve hardly seen the place. We could go to the Mornington Peninsula like Dad and I usually do, but what I’d really like is to fly up to Queensland, to Surfers Paradise. Myles and Tanya are always telling us what a great time they had there. Maybe we should see if some of our friends want to come along, too?’

  Cindy hesitated. While Murray’s friends of long standing were very pleasant and polite to her, she somehow didn’t feel she really fitted into their circle. They all had the same background, came from well-to-do stations, had been to the same schools, married each other in similar churches, and most had children. They all met at
local sporting events, cricket or football, went to the same picnics, race meetings and balls, and attended the wool sales together in Sydney or Melbourne. Cindy had found their conversations about restocking, market prices, auctions, sales, breeding, feed, rain, droughts, follow-up rain and field days interesting at first, but now it had all become monotonous. The majority of Murray’s friends had grand and long-established properties. Their homesteads ranged from solid Federation and late-Victorian houses to newer, more modern buildings. These families had ridden the wool boom for several generations and people still talked about the time when wool fetched a pound per pound. They longed for those boom days to return. Cindy still didn’t feel relaxed and comfortable in their company and couldn’t really relate

  to them.

  ‘Let’s just be together, just us,’ she said. ‘A proper honeymoon, not just a few days.’ She leaned over and kissed him on the lips, to show exactly what she meant.

  Lawrence was less than impressed with the idea when Murray told him about the proposed holiday as the three of them were sharing a Sunday night dinner at the big house a few days later. Whether it was the cost or the fact that Murray would be spending time away from the property – or both – Lawrence had pursed his lips and muttered to Murray about shirking his responsibilities. But Murray had stayed firm.

  ‘You know not much happens at this time of year, Dad. You and Tom can manage things easily,’ said Murray.

  Cindy had the impression that Lawrence considered this inconvenience to be entirely her fault, but she smiled and remarked pointedly, ‘I’m so thrilled. It was so lovely of Murray to surprise me with the idea of a break like this.’

  ‘I suppose you’ll like Surfers Paradise. Tawdry bright lights and questionable establishments, if you ask me,’ said Lawrence tartly. ‘I prefer the Mornington Peninsula myself. Don’t stay away too long.’ His sullen disapproval having been voiced, Lawrence turned his attention back to Mrs Flowers’s baked custard and tinned pears.

  *

  And so it was arranged. They flew to Sydney and then due north towards Queensland. Peering from the window of the plane, Cindy was captivated by the endless coastline, the blue sea and the never-ending beaches, the lush landscape broken only by the occasional river making its way to the ocean. As they began their descent towards the coast, Cindy turned to Murray and kissed him.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said.

  They spent their days in Surfers Paradise at the Chevron Hotel, enjoying its numerous swimming pools and tropical gardens. They had breakfast on their private balcony, swam in the surf and walked hand in hand along the beachfront. They enjoyed the novelty of eating in a different restaurant for lunch and dinner every day.

  Sitting by one of their hotel’s pools, Cindy could watch the glamorously dressed women as they paraded around the gardens and pools in glittery high-heeled sandals, flaunting their stylish beachwear: glitzy swimming costumes that never got wet, silk and chiffon cover-ups, some with matching turbans, and weighed down with heavy gold jewellery.

  ‘Fancy hanging by the pool in diamonds and full make-up,’ said Murray. ‘These women take their fashion rather seriously, don’t they?’

  ‘They’d feel right at home in Palm Springs,’ said Cindy, laughing.

  They went to Stradbroke Island for a couple of days and lazed in the sun and swam in beautiful clear water. They read books, picked at the endless array of sweet tropical fruit, enjoyed cocktails at sunset and made love beneath a softly humming fan. To Cindy it was a true honeymoon, and she found she was even more in love than ever with the man she had fallen for in Palm Springs. Here in the laidback atmosphere of Queensland, Kingsley Downs and cold, hostile Lawrence were far away. A few times recently, she’d tried subtly to raise the issue of Rose’s disappearance with Murray, but she did not want to betray Mrs Flowers’s trust, so any conversations about Rose were vague and ultimately pointless, as Murray would immediately shut down and change the subject. She briefly considered trying to talk about Rose again while they were away from the property and Lawrence, but then decided against the idea, as she didn’t want to spoil their perfect idyll. Why bring up a painful memory in such a beautiful setting? She was determined to enjoy every second of this heavenly break.

  *

  They returned home and, in a couple of weeks, Cindy felt their holiday had been a dream, for life at Kingsley Downs was as it had always been – until she discovered she was pregnant. She held on to her happy secret until she was sure, and then she told Murray, who whooped and laughed, scooping her up in an enormous hug before gently placing her on the ground again, as carefully as if she were made of china.

  ‘So now we know what we have to do next time,’ she said, laughing delightedly. ‘Take a romantic holiday!’

  Murray kissed her softly. ‘This is wonderful news! What did Dr Forde say?’

  ‘He says that there’s nothing for me to worry about. I’m extremely healthy.’

  ‘Wonderful,’ said Murray. ‘This is just wonderful.’

  Excited as she was about starting a family, Cindy was not looking forward to caring for an infant in addition to the constant grind of her normal household jobs. It was a daunting prospect. The work was hard enough to keep up with now, let alone with a baby in tow.

  As the days passed, she began to feel bloated and slow and more and more tired, finding herself nearly faint with fatigue by the end of the day. Suddenly she couldn’t bear the smell of meat, and the mere sight of freshly butchered lamb turned her stomach. But she was grateful for the little life growing inside her and at night, when she lay in bed with Murray’s arms around her, she stroked her stomach and fell asleep with a smile on her lips.

  When her first trimester was up, Cindy persuaded Murray to let her phone Babs from the big house and break the news. She had already written to her father and had promised to call him as soon as his first grandchild arrived.

  Babs was overjoyed. ‘I’ll start sewing right away. Your baby is going to be the best-dressed infant in Australia,’ she said, her voice bubbling with excitement. ‘Wait till I tell Joey. Are you going to ring Alice? She’ll be so happy for you.’

  ‘Calls to America are very expensive here, so I’ll write to her and let her know, but you can tell her if you like.’

  As she was about to say something to Murray about telling his father, Lawrence walked into the house. Beaming at his father, Murray told him the news.

  For a moment there was no reaction, and then Lawrence stretched out his hand and took Murray’s, shaking it enthusiastically.

  ‘That’s great, just great. Another boy for Kingsley Downs, no doubt. Why don’t you come over tonight, son? We’ll have a port or two to celebrate.’ He nodded to Cindy and then briefly smiled at Murray and left.

  ‘Well, he could have said something to me,’ said Cindy. ‘I’m the one doing all the work.’

  ‘But you could see he was really pleased. I haven’t seen him this excited for years. You don’t mind if I have a drink with him tonight, do you?’ asked Murray.

  ‘No, you do that. I’ll be going to bed early anyway. I’m too tired to stay up late these days.’ She hesitated a moment, then said, ‘Murray, I’ve been thinking, though, should I go to Melbourne to have the baby?’

  ‘Some women do that, I suppose,’ he said cautiously. ‘If they have families in Melbourne, it makes it easier. But most women around here manage perfectly well at the local hospital in Deni. Besides, I don’t want to be away from you when the time comes.’

  ‘Of course, I’d rather you were around, too,’ said Cindy hastily. ‘Do you think that Mrs Flowers would mind if I took the washing over to her, so that it can go through the electric washer? It would be so much easier than boiling diapers in the old copper.’

  ‘That sounds like a good idea and I bet Mrs F will be pleased to help.’

  That’s one problem solved, thought Cindy, although she j
ust hated putting herself in Lawrence’s path over at the big house. She couldn’t believe that the man was still so dismissive of her, even when she was about to present him with his first grandchild.

  ‘Murray, I’m going over to Yamboola to do the shopping straight after lunch, and I’m meeting up with Jo at the Majestic, just for a lemonade, mind. Is there anything I can get you while I’m out?’

  Murray shook his head and gave his wife a kiss on the cheek. ‘Drive carefully. We’d better fit one of those seatbelt things they’ve introduced. Sounds a sensible idea.’

  ‘If such a thing will go round me, when I’ve really grown,’ said Cindy with a laugh, patting her stomach.

  *

  As she drove towards town that afternoon, Cindy wound down the car window and let the breeze blow in.

  The heat was searing. Driving down Yamboola’s main street, she saw Joanna’s car parked out the front of the Majestic.

  Cindy was so grateful for Jo’s friendship these past years, not least because, while they both enjoyed living in the country, they were city girls at heart. They’d found they had similar interests and a shared sense of humour and they had just clicked. Now all she wanted to do was talk to Jo about her baby news.

  ‘How simply marvellous for you both!’ Jo said, hugging her friend, when Cindy told her. ‘I’m so pleased for you. How does Murray’s dad feel about the baby? He’s not exactly the grandfatherly type.’

  ‘True! I still find him so difficult, Jo, even after three years,’ confided Cindy as they sat in the relative coolness of the Ladies Lounge.

  ‘Maybe he’ll warm up after the baby comes,’ said Jo. ‘Have you started thinking about the nursery yet?’

  ‘I want things for the baby, but Murray considers a lot of items to be frivolous and unnecessary,’ replied Cindy.

  ‘Or is that what Lawrence thinks?’ Jo said, arching an eyebrow. ‘Mind you, it’s typical of most of the men around here. Property comes first, family second, even when they really love their wives and children. But of course you want things for your baby. Have you started knitting a layette?’