Daisy took the hand held out to her and looked up into the face of the young man standing in front of her. She stared blankly. This could not be Edwin’s son. It was surely Edwin himself as she remembered him all those years ago when she was a small child. Besides, she thought illogically, he was too young. Edwin’s son was supposed to be at least her age, if not older, but this young man was only in his twenties. Realizing she was still clinging on to his hand as if it were a lifeline he had held out to her, she relinquished her grip and tried to pay attention to what he was saying.
‘I believe you knew my father, years ago.’
‘Yes, yes, I did.’ Daisy repressed a crazy desire to add, ‘He was my father, actually, so that makes you my brother’. Aware of Hazel standing by, watching her closely with a slightly puzzled expression, she went on, ‘How is your father?’
‘My father is dead, Mrs Dobbs. He died in 1937.’
‘Oh, oh, I am so sorry to hear that,’ Daisy stammered, wondering why no one had told her, or perhaps they had and she hadn’t taken it in. ‘Then my mother didn’t meet him again when she came out here?’ She was overcome by the poignancy of it, and the realization that it was her father they were talking about, her father who was dead. She shook her head slightly as if to clear it of confusing thoughts and memories.
‘He was an enormous help to my mother – well, to all of us, at the time of my father’s sudden death.’ Daisy felt a need to establish what everybody believed to be her parentage. At the same time, she wanted to quiz Timothy about his family.
‘I am afraid I never really knew him. I was only eighteen months old when he died.’ He smiled at Daisy who hoped she didn’t look as bemused as she felt. ‘You probably have more memories of him than I do?’
‘Yes, yes, I do. And I can tell you this, you are extraordinarily like him to look at. For a moment, I felt I had slipped back in time.’
‘Yes, people who knew him always tell me how like him I am. I can remember as a small boy, I used to get the family photograph album and pore over it, looking for photos of him taken at whatever age I happened to be at the time.’
There were so many questions she wanted to ask this delightful young man; how he came to be the same age as her daughter when he was actually her own brother. She contented herself with asking, ‘Are you a lawyer too, Tim?’
‘Yes, though I can hardly say I followed in my father’s footsteps as there was such a long gap between his death and me growing up. But – yes – I am in the firm that my father and his friend George Atwell formed as young men. It was Sanders & Atwell with no Sanders in it from my father’s death until I qualified and took his place.’
Daisy smiled, thinking privately that it must have been rather hard on Tim to be steered from birth onwards into replacing his father. ‘I don’t think I ever met your mother,’ she murmured, knowing perfectly well that she had not.
‘You would not have done; she was Dad’s second wife. His first wife was an invalid for many years, so you probably didn’t meet her either.’ His smile was wistful. ‘I always felt it was sad that he died before he really knew me. Sad for him as well as me, I mean.’
Daisy murmured agreement and wanted to say that at least he had known her.
‘Mum married again a couple of years ago. She was a New Zealander; she went back there for a holiday and met up with her childhood sweetheart who had been recently widowed and they sort of took up where they left off. They live in New Zealand, so I don’t see much of them.’
‘So, you are on your own?’
‘I prefer to think of it as independent,’ Tim told her, his smile cheerful now.
Daisy turned to her daughter. ‘Mention of New Zealand reminds me, I met James on the ship coming over.’
‘You mean Uncle James, who lost his leg?’
Hazel looked sharply at her mother, wondering if her casual mention of the man she had nearly married was genuine or assumed. ‘Why didn’t you bring him here? I’d just love to see him again.’ She turned to Tim. ‘He called me Nutmeg because I am Hazel Margaret,’ she told him. ‘I only reverted to Hazel when I grew up.’
‘He still asked after Little Nutmeg,’ Daisy said in a dry voice, ‘and the reason I didn’t invite him here to catch up with you is because he was sailing on to New Zealand. He was meeting his son in Auckland.’ She stressed these last words, wishing she had not mentioned James. She was grateful to Violet interrupting them to say the meal was ready.
Daisy could see that Hazel was quite at home here with her Australian relatives and was ashamed of the twinge of jealousy that caught her unawares. Hazel appeared to be part of this household as much or more than in her home in England. Tim too was obviously part of the family and though she was watching anxiously for some special closeness between him and Hazel, she failed to detect any.
Almost as if she had spoken her thoughts aloud, Tim looked across the table at her and said with a smile, ‘This house has always been a second home to me and Violet like a second mother.’
‘Well,’ Maureen chipped in, ‘that’s only fair as your grandmother was just like an extra grandmother to us. More of a grandmother, really, than Nanna Biggs, and we didn’t know Grandma Ella at all until she came to visit before the war.’
‘Your gain was my loss,’ Hazel told them. ‘I really missed Grandma and was looking forward to her getting back when the war was over, but of course, she never made it. There were no other grandmothers around for us; Dad’s mother had died before we were born and there was only his starchy old sister who was heavily into “children should be seen and not heard” and was no fun at all.’
‘You are probably seeing your grandmother through the rose-tinted spectacles of time and distance. You might not have found her so easy if she had always lived with you.’
Violet’s voice was dry, reminding Daisy how she had complained about their mother earlier. Daisy was pleased when Hazel answered, ‘I don’t think it would have made much difference. I did stay with her for quite a while when I was small, before Grandpa Walter died. We wrote to each other when she came out here. I always loved her,’ she repeated. ‘I think we were made in the same mould.’
‘Perhaps you were,’ Violet agreed after a short silence. It did not, Daisy thought, sound like a compliment.
‘I think grandmothers are important,’ Tim said quickly. ‘I spent most of my holidays with my grandmother Sanders because Mum was working and her mother, my other grandmother, was in New Zealand. Bendigo became my home town and Melbourne where I went to school, so I jumped at the chance to practise law here after I qualified.’
Daisy wondered why she hadn’t heard about him from Violet if, as Tim had said, he had always been a part of this family. But then, her sister was a notoriously bad correspondent, confining her letters to Christmas and birthdays and not saying much even then.
‘Yes,’ Daisy murmured. She remembered that when old Mrs Sanders died, she had left this house to Violet who had lived in it since she was a small child and looked after the old lady till her death. She too had spent her childhood here, so returning to it really was like coming home. She wondered why it had never occurred to her before that Edwin Sanders bringing her mother Violet and herself here was more than a quixotic action.
Tim smiled across the table. ‘You seem so familiar, I feel I know you, yet I had never met you until today….’
‘So you couldn’t have, could you?’ Daisy interrupted.
‘No, I couldn’t. All the same….’ Her brusqueness surprised him, but his voice was gentle and when he smiled and added, ‘I expect it is because I know Hazel and there is a strong family resemblance,’ Daisy felt reassured.
‘Yes, that’s probably it,’ she agreed, searching in vain for some other subject to talk about; family resemblances were not a comfortable topic.
Daisy covertly watched Tim and Hazel, searching for any sign of romantic attachment between them, but she could not find any. It seemed to her that they were excellent friends, but that was all. Violet also seemed to have an interest in them; she caught her watching them several times, and when she was not observing the young people, it seemed to Daisy that she was watching her. When she smiled tentatively back at her sister, Violet looked quickly away.
By the time the meal was over, Daisy was beginning to wonder if she was really seeing these nuances in the behaviour of other people, or if she herself was getting quite paranoid.
Daisy was shocked to learn that Edwin Sanders, the man she now thought of as her father, had died so long ago and wondered why on earth Violet had not told her. She was finding quite a lot to wonder about in her sister’s behaviour. Surely she did not really harbour a grudge because their mother had lived with her over the war years. It had not been deliberate, after all, and she had genuinely expected and wanted her to come back home. Yes, she could be difficult, but not, as Daisy remembered, that difficult, and Hazel harboured only good memories of her grandmother. She had come here nurturing rosy thoughts of coming back home, but now it seemed as if this was not her home at all, whatever memories she had. She had to admit that she and Violet had never been what might be called ‘close’ as sisters, even as young children. They had always been so different and sibling rivalry had never been far below the surface. Violet had also been very aware of her few years of seniority.
Thinking back to their childhood, Daisy asked, ‘What happened to Rosie, Violet? I remember her looking after us as small children.’
‘I doubt if you do,’ Violet all but snapped. ‘You were only a baby.’
‘I’m sure I do,’ Daisy insisted, wondering in the face of such certainty from her sister if she really did, or if she perhaps just remembered hearing her talked about. ‘Well, what did become of her?’
Violet glared at her. ‘Does it really matter, Daisy?’
‘I shouldn’t have asked if I hadn’t wanted to know.’
Violet sighed and when she answered, she leaned forward slightly towards her sister and answered in a sibilant hiss, ‘If you must know, she married our father.’
‘Married our father?’ Daisy sounded what she was – stupefied. ‘Don’t be ridiculous, Violet, our father died. Besides, he was married to our mother.’
Violet pushed herself up from the table with a look at Daisy that should have caused her to turn into a pillar of salt at the very least. ‘I am afraid you are the ridiculous one, Daisy. He left our mother and Rosie eventually joined him. As far as I know, they lived happily ever after.’
‘Why was I always led to believe he died?’ Daisy wanted to know as she followed her sister towards the kitchen where she was making a great fuss of making coffee.
‘Because you were too young, and too much of a gabble-mouth, to be told anything different.’
‘I was so young I couldn’t gabble!’ Daisy pointed out angrily. ‘But you were just the age to let cats out of bags, so why were you told?’
Violet had the grace to look sheepish. ‘I wasn’t. Not then, anyway. I found out for myself when I was older.’
‘I see….’ Daisy was somewhat mollified by this explanation but couldn’t help but wonder how much more Violet had found out – or could find out, if she put her mind to the task. She was silent for a moment, absently piling dirty dishes on to the draining board before asking, ‘Are they … well, are they still around?’
‘They moved up to New South Wales some years ago. Dad might be dead, for all I know, but Rosie is probably still alive.’
‘I thought I liked Rosie …’ Daisy murmured, but was cut short by Violet pointing out that she was too young to like anyone.
‘You were just a baby. You can’t remember her at all.’
‘Then I must remember you talking about her and saying you liked her.’
‘Yes, I did, and Mother did too. She told me she couldn’t have managed without her when she and Dad first came out here. She was on the same ship, coming out to her father, but he didn’t turn up to meet her. Never did turn up, in fact. That’s why she and Mother joined forces.’
‘I always thought I remember her looking after us after Dad …’ Daisy stopped herself saying ‘died’ and replaced the word with ‘went away’. ‘But I expect you are right that I just remember hearing about her.’
‘Well, she did stay with us for a while. I don’t know exactly what happened, but I think he came here to collect us all – there was an almighty bust-up and he left without us but with Rosie instead. Don’t ask me any more questions. I only know that much because I was awake and heard the row.’
Daisy looked at her sister, wondering what else she heard in the course of this row. ‘If all that is true, Violet, why hasn’t anyone put me straight before?’
‘What was the point?’ Violet shrugged. ‘It was better for you to think our father was dead. He is now, anyway. Divorce was frowned on in those days. Even the innocent party, as I suppose our mother was, could be the butt of gossip and censure.’
Daisy noted that Violet now said her father was dead. She let it pass; there was something else her sister had said that she had to query.
‘What do you mean, “you suppose she was innocent” – of course she was. He went off and left her, alone with two young children.’ Daisy’s voice rose indignantly.
Violet didn’t answer and she repeated, ‘Well, he did, didn’t he?’
‘Ye-es …’ Violet finally conceded in a grudging voice that grated on Daisy. Her sister really did seem to bear a grudge against their mother. Was there something else she was privy to and keeping to herself? ‘Yes, that is true, but he may have had a good reason.’
‘How could any man have a good reason to abandon a wife and two small children in a strange country?’
‘If she was … “interested” in another man, wouldn’t that be a good reason?’ Violet dried her hands on a tea towel, keeping her back to Daisy. Her voice came out as a somewhat surly mumble.
Daisy opened her mouth to retaliate then shut it again, not at all sure that she really wanted to pursue this conversation.
‘Look, Daisy,’ Violet turned and faced her sister, ‘I was fond of Dad and I don’t think that trying to apportion blame is a good idea after all these years. Let’s drop the subject, shall we?’
Daisy was about to protest that she was not trying to blame anyone in particular, merely understand what had happened all those years ago, but a glance at her sister’s closed expression made her keep silent. The last thing she wanted to do was quarrel with her so soon after her arrival and she was forced to admit they had already come perilously close.