The Valley Read online

  But the legend she was to become was only beginning.

  Sydney, 1998

  Lara Langdon sat in the deep chair, hunched, trying to sink into the faded flower print as if she could disappear and escape what was happening around her. Hushed, concerned voices in another room. Cars arriving and leaving. A phone ringing.

  Her daughter, sombre in black, came into the room looking concerned and tentative.

  ‘Go away, Dani, please. Leave me. Just go,’ declared Lara.

  ‘Mum, you can’t stay here. You feel terrible, I know, but you have to come to the funeral,’ Dani pleaded gently. ‘It’ll be all right. I won’t leave your side for a minute.’ Her eyes were sad, her heartbreak obvious. She ached for her mother and knelt down by the chair, took her hands and gave a soft supportive squeeze.

  Lara’s mother, Dani’s grandmother, Elizabeth, had died. Dani was trying to imagine how she would feel at the loss of her own mother, crouched there in the chair, and her heart constricted.

  ‘Mum, people will think it very strange if you stay at home. At least come to the service. They’ll think you didn’t love her, respect her.’

  ‘I’ve never cared what people thought. Nor did she.’

  ‘Now that’s not true. Elizabeth cared desperately what people thought of her. She just pretended she didn’t.’

  ‘Dani, you don’t understand. I don’t do funerals!’ Lara’s eyes blazed.

  Dani almost smiled. She was glad that at last something had jolted her mother out of her inert state. But then she sighed. It was true. Lara had avoided funerals all her life. Bizarre really. She always had excuses, such as living overseas or being interstate, being bogged down in the demands of work, or faced with a domestic crisis.

  If only people knew how fearful Lara was of this event. The bright, irrepressible, strong woman who had done so much. But Lara, Dani’s mother, was unable to deal with death.

  Dani remembered coming home during university holidays to find their cat lying by the front gate, killed by a swift hit from a passing car. Lara had fled inside. And it had been Dani who’d lifted the still, soft form, cradling the cat in her arms, singing and talking to their dead pet as she walked around the garden. When Gordon Langdon, her stepfather, arrived home the two of them buried the cat beneath a pretty shrub.

  Lara had served dinner stony faced and never mentioned what had happened. But Dani knew she’d watched it all from an upstairs window.

  Several times over the past year she’d tried to help her mother face up to the inevitable, that Elizabeth was fading fast. But Lara had always brushed her comments aside – ‘Let’s not get into that. I can’t bear to think about it.’

  Lara always had a way of deflecting the unpleasant. A flick of her hand, a twist of her head, avoiding eye contact and changing the subject with a light-hearted remark. But now Lara could not make this moment go away. She was unmoving, her eyes closed.

  Dani wondered what special moments she was recalling. ‘Mum, there’ll be time to remember things . . . after,’ she said softly.

  Lara opened her eyes. ‘I was wondering about that man who said he’d fix the verandah awning. He never called back, you know.’

  Dani stared at her mother in shock, then stood up. ‘Okay, enough of that, Mum. We have to go.’ Gently but firmly she pulled Lara to her feet and steered her into the bedroom. ‘Where are your shoes and jacket? And your bag.’

  Lara stood meekly, her expression distant as if she was not participating in any of this. But when Dani pulled a dark blue blazer from her wardrobe, Lara shook her head, back in the present. ‘No, not that one.’ She took a black suede jacket off a hanger and shrugged it on, then with some haste stepped into her shoes. ‘Let’s go and get this over with then.’ She strode outside to Dani’s car.

  Dani hadn’t wanted to drive but everyone else had gone and she now had no choice.

  They drove in silence for some time then Lara asked suddenly. ‘Have you seen the will?’

  ‘No. But I know what she wanted. Surprisingly she talked about it one time. We’ve arranged what she stipulated. I told you but I know you didn’t take it in. It’ll be okay, Mum.’

  As her grandmother had requested, Dani arranged for native flowers, an Aussie poem, a few good old songs, her ashes to be scattered over a quiet backwater of Sydney’s numerous waterways. Dani knew the spot Elizabeth described. She’d promised to see this was done ten years ago when she was only fifteen years old. It had been a difficult discussion, but Elizabeth persisted for she had seen a strength in her granddaughter like her own. Lara was soft, weak, in Elizabeth’s eyes, too easily swayed by others. Dani had moral fibre and was fearless in standing up for herself. Elizabeth knew her granddaughter would see to her wishes.

  Lara was one of those women who attracted attention, caught people’s eye, made heads turn. In her youth it was because she was a very attractive woman. Later her appeal grew as she radiated a special quality in addition to her lovely looks. People were interested in her, asked who she was, wanted to meet her. There was, simply, something about Lara. Dani had long given up trying to understand what it was that drew people to her mother.

  Dani herself was more than pretty, she was striking and emanated strength and personality. Though she didn’t recognise that she had as much appeal as her mother but in a different way.

  So it was Dani who greeted, thanked all who came, and physically and emotionally supported her forlorn and vague mother during the church service and the burial ceremony. Those attending saw the lost look in Lara’s eyes, the way she turned to her daughter to answer questions and make decisions and how she hung back, seemingly disengaged from the proceedings. They felt sympathy for Lara, and all admired her daughter’s poise, strength and charm. Lara was grateful that Dani had taken the reins.

  Dani’s husband pulled her briefly aside. ‘What’s happening? You driving your mother back to her place or ours?’

  ‘Jeff, I’ll take her home and stay with her. Can you pick up the baby and bring him over with all his gear? Don’t forget anything. Call me before you leave to double check.’

  ‘Dani, this is so inconvenient. Tim’s just sleeping through, spending the night at your mother’s will unsettle him.’

  ‘Yes, it is inconvenient of my grandmother to die. But I am not leaving my mother alone. And I am not about to try and express milk.’

  Jeff saw the dangerous glint in his wife’s eyes. ‘Lara’s ex-husband is here. Gordon’s being very nice. Offered to help any way he could.’

  ‘I don’t think my mother wants to deal with her ex right now. You take him out to dinner. Just get Timmy from the sitter. I’ll see you at Mum’s.’

  Lara was waiting in the car. She didn’t care where she went, she just wanted someone else to fix things. She thought of her cool white bedroom. Since her divorce it was always kept the way she wanted. Gordon was so untidy. She hated walking in and finding his clothes dropped on the floor or over a chair, papers or folders left on the bed, damp towels in a pile, water splashed on the bathroom mirror.

  There had been so many homes. Images of houses Lara had lived in during her marriage spun through her mind. America, Asia, outback Australia, Perth, Sydney. Before that, London in her single days. And as a small girl, there was Cedartown, by the river in a valley she hardly knew. It all seemed so long ago.

  When Dani got in the car Lara shut down the fast-moving images of the past. ‘Some people wore odd-looking outfits, didn’t they?’ Lara commented as they followed the last of the funeral cars back into the city traffic.

  It was over and they were alone.

  Lara’s house was as it always was . . . clean, tidy, filled with flowers. The cat curled on its favourite cushion. Dani’s baby son slept in his travel cot by her bed. She’d checked on her mother who was sleeping, having dutifully taken the prescribed sleeping pill. The suburb outside was quiet, the house calm.

  Dani wondered if her husband Jeff was at home or out with Gordon Langdon, Lara’s charmin
g but dull second ex-husband. She rolled on her side. While she could never live at home with her mother again, it was nice to be under her roof. For so long Lara had provided a sanctuary and support for her, and been her friend. But a change in their relationship was taking place. Dani now felt the blanket of responsibility settle on her. She had a son to care for, and the mother–daughter role had shifted. And, she realised, quite clearly and calmly, that she also had to care for herself. Jeff wasn’t there for her as she had always imagined a husband would be. She’d known this subconsciously during her pregnancy. If she’d thought a baby was going to fix her marriage she now knew differently. It was comforting to know that her mother would be there to help her through the inevitable tough times ahead.

  Dani thought about how her grandmother, the feisty and determined Elizabeth, had always been supportive of her daughter Lara through the hard patches of life. And Lara had often talked about her grandmother Emily, Elizabeth’s mother. Emily was another strong-willed woman, an English rose from London who’d sailed to Australia after the Great War to marry her soldier love. They’d settled in a little country town up the coast. Cedartown. It must have been hard on Emily after growing up near the centre of one of the world’s great cities.

  Dani had never been to Cedartown where her great-grandmother Emily, her grandmother Elizabeth and briefly her mother Lara had all lived. Perhaps she should visit Cedartown one day to see where their stories began. Perhaps. One day.

  1

  Sydney, 2006

  Lara

  LARA STOOD AT THE window looking at the drooping wet shrubs and plants. They needed the rain, Sydney’s water supply had been critically low. But after nearly a week of solid downpour she was feeling housebound and bored. She felt her skin was growing mould. Come to think of it, she felt her whole life was stuck in mud.

  One year ago Lara had quit her job as a television producer of documentaries and filmed segments for various programs churned out by one of the leading commercial networks. She’d turned sixty, been divorced from her second husband for nine years and so decided to travel and have a life with her new freedom.

  Her career had been interesting in the beginning but in the last few years she felt like she had been treading water, remaking the same stories over and over. So she’d resigned and travelled overseas, visited friends around Australia and now she’d hit a wall and wondered what to do with the rest of her life. She was still employable and looked good for her age as she had so much time to devote to herself, revelling in gym, tennis and regular beauty and massage treatments, things she had no time for when she was working.

  She’d never been a morning coffee with the girls type. She’d lasted three months in a book club. She’d slaved in her garden and there was now no room to plant another thing. She toyed with the idea of taking some further education courses. It still pained her that she’d never had the opportunity to go to university. Her widowed mother, Elizabeth, couldn’t afford it in those days and Lara had dabbled in acting and modelling before getting a job on a fashion magazine. It had led to a bit of writing and helping out on fashion shoots. She’d shown a good eye for locations, unusual models, funky and different accessories and styling. She could see a story behind the superficial and was hired by a big film and media public relations firm that looked after the hot rock bands and movies in production. Finally she’d landed in television and quickly mastered video filming and editing. She had had offers to work in front of the cameras but had frozen, hating the idea of being on public show. That was a game for others to play, often under her direction.

  Lara’s first marriage to an American geologist, Joseph Moreland, Dani’s father, had meant living abroad for a short time and then being posted to godforsaken places in the Australian outback. When he relocated to the United States to lecture at a college in South Dakota she decided she couldn’t face the American way of life again. Even tinpot townships in the outback were preferable to suburban America: white clapboard house, identical to its neighbour’s, emerald lawn clipped to even up every blade of perfect grass, the stars and stripes flying above the porch. They separated. Lara moved back to Australia with their ten-year-old daughter Dani, and then she finally found her feet in television.

  When Dani moved out to go to university Lara had dashed into a second marriage to Gordon Langdon. However, Lara’s TV job with its demanding hours and her husband’s lack of work and ambition had seen the marriage wither.

  The following years on her own had been calm and, looking back, fruitful. Occasionally the fear of growing old alone in a chair on the deck plagued Lara. She hoped one day there would be a lover or a companion who was secure in his own life without moving in on hers. She just wished that person would turn up. Life was pretty dull at present.

  The front door to Lara’s house opened and her daughter called down the hall.

  ‘You there?’ Dani’s dog loped ahead of her woofing joyfully. This was its second home.

  Lara’s mood lifted instantly. Her daughter Dani’s energy burst into the house like an electricity grid being switched on. Dani was super-charged and gave off sparks of enthusiasm and laughter and a torrent of chatter. Unless she was going through some drama or disaster and then there was a power surge of wails and despair, which often swamped Lara. Her daughter would dump a current upheaval on her and was cheered, comforted or advised, then sailed off feeling better but leaving Lara emotionally exhausted.

  Dani came into the living room. ‘Why are you in here moping at the window?’

  ‘Hi, darling. I’m not moping exactly, just looking at the soggy crepe myrtle flowers and thinking that’s how I feel. Wet bones and mould growing between my toes.’

  ‘Not a good look, Mum. Come on, break out the teapot. I have news.’

  Lara looked at the spark in her daughter’s eyes. While she was a level-headed and beautiful thirty-three-year-old woman with a young son, there was a tension in the overbright voice and expression that reminded Lara of Dani as a little girl about to break unpleasant news wrapped in throwaway lines.

  ‘Okay, what have you done?’

  ‘Jolly, go outside, off the sofa! Quiet!’ Dani scooted the dog onto the covered patio.

  ‘Don’t let her back in with muddy feet.’ Lara went into the kitchen to put the kettle on and Dani followed. ‘So, what’s the news?’ She raised an eyebrow and gave her daughter a knowing look.

  ‘Can’t fool you can I, Mum,’ said Dani with a smile as she sat at the round table in the breakfast nook, normally a sunny corner looking out onto the flowers and shrubs in her mother’s well-tended if overplanted garden. ‘You know I’ve been talking about making a change, moving on with my life somehow? Well, I’ve stopped talking. I’ve quit my job. Finito. Out of there. I’m starting my real life.’

  ‘Which is?’ asked Lara as she arranged cups, milk and biscuits.

  ‘To paint. Be a full-time artist. No more dabbling round the edges. If I don’t give it a go now I’ll never know how good I can be,’ Dani said in a breathless rush.

  ‘Fantastic! Good on you, darling. Earl Grey or Irish Breakfast?’

  ‘Mum! What do I have to do to shock you?’ laughed Dani, feeling relieved. Even though she and her mother were very close and spoke openly about almost everything in their lives and had developed a relationship that was now based more on friendship than mother–daughter roles, each occasionally reverted to type. ‘I expected at least a few arrows. Like, how are you going to support yourself? How do you propose to launch yourself into the art world? Where are you going to do this messy painting business?’

  ‘I imagine you’ve thought all that through being the Virgo you are. I’m not surprised. I know how difficult it’s been and how frustrated you’ve been feeling about life in general. And I suppose graphic design must be restricting for a creative artist,’ said Lara.

  ‘So, do you want to know my plans?’ asked Dani.

  ‘Of course I do. How can I help? Where do I fit in?’

  ‘You�
��re unreal, Mum. Nice of you to offer, but I can manage my life and I want to do this on my own.’ Dani felt slightly irked. Her mother had always been supportive even through the years she worked in the madness of television, which demanded so much of her time and attention. No wonder her mother’s second marriage to Gordon had never worked out. Dani had no such excuse for the failure of her own marriage.

  Lara saw the irritation flash across her daughter’s face. Dani came across as a strong, occasionally opinionated young woman. But Lara knew there was still a needy and sometimes vulnerable young girl inside. A girl who was now a mother herself, whose life had gone down a path that was the opposite direction to what she really wanted. Lara had been able to help Dani through the stressful time of her divorce, was always there to care for eight-year-old Tim, even to help out financially. She was proud of how Dani had come through the break-up and recognised it was time for her to let Dani take control of her life again. Lara made a mental note to take a backward step.

  ‘Sounds like you’re taking control of your destiny without my help. So when do you get your last salary and do the goodbye lunch?’

  ‘In two weeks. Then I have some holidays and sick leave to use up. Most of the crew at the studio think I’m mad and I’ll come a cropper. I suppose because none of them have the guts to give it a go. A few of the computer geeks don’t see it as a big deal, art and their computer are the same thing to them.’

  ‘And the others? Are they frustrated painters rather than designers of logos and websites or whatever it is they do?’

  Dani watched her mother pour the tea into their favourite big mugs, yellow flowers on hers, blue flowers on Lara’s. ‘Hard to know really. Two of them have fine art degrees and probably feel working in a graphic design studio isn’t how they saw their art career going. Because I don’t have an art degree they think I’m a bit off the planet and reckon I’ll never make much money out of full-time painting. Like starving in a garret stuff.’