‘Mother was so obstinate.’ Violet’s voice drifted across the shade-drenched veranda.
‘She called herself “strong-minded”,’ Daisy murmured drowsily from the old cane lounge. She was finding it hard to make the right responses to her sister’s conversation. The thirty plus temperature contributed to her feeling of lassitude as did the feeling of actually relaxing in a deckchair without the movement of a ship at sea. She hadn’t expected to be in this dreamlike state when she was finally on dry land after the weeks at sea. It was hard to keep her eyes open and stay with it.
In spite of her fuzzy state of mind, she was acutely aware of her surroundings. She knew that if she opened her eyes fully, she would see the lemon tree with its yellow fruit hanging among glossy leaves. The scent of the blossom, promising yet more fruit, hung tantalizingly on the air, blending with the grass and eucalyptus smells that were so uniquely Australian. The tree was an old friend and unlike most things, which seemed to have shrunk in her long absence, it was bigger and better than she remembered.
A little further away, the sprinkler flicked its life-giving jets across the parched lawn with hypnotic regularity.
The undisciplined grapevine climbing the veranda posts and wandering across the trellis toward the roof was just as she remembered – thick and cool, giving shade at this time of the year, but in winter its leaves fell, letting in the sunlight so that the veranda was still a favourite place to sit. The lavish bunches of sweet sultana grapes were small and green now, but soon they would be ripe and honey sweet and it would be possible to sit here and reach out for a bunch.
A willy wagtail hopped about the lawn and Vi’s geriatric and rather staid tabby, stretched out on the top step of the veranda, watching it through thin slits, only the slight twitching of its tail betraying awareness.
Daisy did her best to stay focused on her sister’s voice, but the summer sounds were insidious – and hypnotic. The buzz of insects, the rhythm of the sprinkler, the distant hum of traffic, then as if it were welcoming her home, a kookaburra laughed. The sound brought her wandering attention back to the veranda and her sister’s voice.
‘If she hadn’t been so pig-headed, she wouldn’t have ended up here in Australia like she did.’
‘Mother?’ Daisy reeled in her thoughts with an effort.
‘Of course! Haven’t you heard anything I’ve been saying? You haven’t changed a bit, Daisy. You’re still a dreamer fifty years on!’
‘Well, you haven’t changed either. When you latched on to a subject, you always chewed at it like a dog with a bone!’
‘Yes, well….’
That, Daisy knew, was about the nearest her sister would get to capitulation.
‘People don’t change, not really. Here we are, two middle-aged women arguing just like we did as kids. No, people don’t change; they just get more so as they grow older. Grandma Ella may have called herself “strong-minded”, but I can tell you, when she got old, she was a stubborn, pig-headed old bat!’
‘Just like I said, once you get hold of a subject, you hang on. Why do you call her “Grandma Ella”? She was our mother, for heaven’s sake.’
‘I suppose I got into the habit of calling her that when the kids were little. That’s what they called her to distinguish her from their other grandmother, the Australian “Nanna”. Not that it was necessary; no way would she be called that.’
Daisy smiled. Impossible to imagine her patrician mother being called Nanna. ‘Did they tag her name on when they talked to her?’ she asked.
‘Heavens, no! Nothing more or less than a formal “Grandma” would do.’
When her sister frowned, pursed her lips and pushed her hair back with an abrupt gesture clearly remembered from their shared childhood, Daisy realized that she was genuinely upset. She wondered why, but the warm sun was making her too indolent to bother finding out. Closing her eyes, she let her thoughts slide back to her childhood in this house. She remembered it as a golden time of perpetual summer, and her lips curved in a soft smile.
‘You wouldn’t smile if she had lived with you until she died! You shipped her over here, got rid of her, yet with all your money, advantages and conveniences, you had the means to cope with her much better that I could!’
‘Just a minute!’ Daisy cut in. ‘First, I didn’t “ship her over” to you. She came because Walter wanted her to and when he died suddenly, she had the money to do it. She wanted to see you, but it was Walter begging her to come just before he died. He more or less died saying it. I think she felt it was his dying wish and she must honour it, plus of course she really wanted to see you and your family,’ Daisy added quickly, feeling maybe she was being less than tactful. ‘He thought she should come and stay for the duration. He actually wanted her to bring my children with her. He was very worried about the war and what it would do to “ordinary” people. I remember Mother saying that the prospect of war had literally worried him to death.’
‘Mother didn’t usually do things to please other people, but why didn’t she bring your children?’
‘You are very hard on her, Violet. I can remember her doing a great deal for others; Walter thought the world of her. So did my children, particularly Hazel. She was terribly upset when she died. The reason they didn’t come out here was that Richard would not consider it. We were looking forward to her coming back, but she was trapped here by the war, so please, no more about me shipping her off to you.’
‘I always thought you had paid her fare, just as we thought it was only for a visit.’ Violet looked surprised by her sister’s vehemence, as was Daisy herself.
‘Didn’t she tell you it was her inheritance from Walter that paid?’
‘Well, no. She never said anything much about money.’
‘So you formed your own conclusion.’
‘Well – yes. Then when war broke out, she stayed, whingeing every now and then about being stuck here, and telling us how much better everything was in England.’
Daisy snorted. ‘Not in wartime; she was much better off here. There were lots of things she loved about Australia – both of us did. It was meeting up with Walter again that made her stay, just as I stayed because I married Richard. She talked about coming back to see you and your kids every time Australia was mentioned. When Walter died, she had the money to do it and no pressing reason to stay in England.’
‘She might have gone back, I suppose, if it hadn’t been for the war and torpedoes.’ Violet sounded doubtful.
‘Well, I didn’t pay her fare. I’ve told you, she inherited the money. She knew that was what Walter wanted her to do, so she came. I am sure she would have been back if it hadn’t been for the war. You talk as if I wanted to get rid of her. I didn’t, I missed her and looked forward to her coming back.’ Daisy remembered getting the news that her mother had died out here in Australia. It had been just one more blow in the dark days of the war and its aftermath.
‘Easy to say that when she stayed here, in this house, until the day she died. Pretty difficult she made life too at times.’
Daisy could believe that. Her mother and Violet had always managed to clash. She wanted to say that she herself had never found their mother that difficult, but as she had no wish to quarrel with her sister, she closed her eyes and feigned drowsiness. ‘The trouble was,’ she murmured with a flash of insight, ‘it was so hard for her having half her family in England and the other half here.’
Violet gave another unconvincing and inelegant ‘hrrrmph’.
Daisy’s thoughts drifted to her mother. Back here in Australia herself, she realized for the first time how difficult it must have been for her mother to have her loyalties so divided. She opened her eyes a slit and looked across at her sister, so unlike herself, and wondered how much she knew or guessed about their family history.
The soothing background sounds and the warm sun were combining to waft Daisy into that vague and pleasant spot between waking and dreaming. She imagined she could hear the sounds of their childish voices arguing and laughing – plenty of both in those days. The younger by four years, she had always been aware somewhere deep down that she held a special place in her mother’s heart. She was also the one who most resembled her physically. Knowing this, she had never understood as a child why Ella also seemed harder on her than on Violet.
It was when she finally read the letter her mother left with her when she sailed on what she had originally intended as a brief visit to Australia, that Daisy had begun to understand.
She had never forgotten the look in her mother’s eyes in the moment that they said their last goodbyes. Had she known she would not return? No, that was fanciful; she was imagining this was her mother’s far-seeing at work again. She had always quashed any idea that this faculty had been passed on to her, for she could see no benefit in advance knowledge of events that usually turned out badly.
Although she could empathize to a certain extent with her sister’s simmering resentment, Daisy hoped it would not last. She closed her eyes and feigned sleep, but the effect of jet lag and the warm peace of her surroundings overcame her, and on the fanciful thought that returning to this garden was like reentering the security of the womb, she slipped into complete oblivion.
‘Hi, Ma!’ Daisy woke with a start at Hazel’s voice. Hazel was standing in front of her chair, looking down on her. ‘You always seem to be asleep. It must be a reaction from all the work of getting Giles safely married.’
Daisy opened her eyes and smiled at her daughter who, after taking a day off to meet her when she arrived, was now back at work. ‘I am certainly not always asleep,’ she began indignantly, ‘and anyway, as far as hard work getting Giles married, I didn’t have to do a thing. Susan and her family did all that.’
Hazel grinned. ‘Yes, Susan is a good organizer. Poor old Giles will be managed to death.’ The prospect seemed to please her. ‘He was always such a bossy sod, and priggish with it. It will be a just comeuppance.’
Daisy felt she should remonstrate with her daughter, but thinking of her son – so very like his father – she found she was smiling.
‘Come on now, Mum. You can’t laze here forever. Time to get dressed in your best bib and tucker. Tim is coming over tonight especially to meet you.’