Incessant rain turns two days of work into three so I only leave Narromine early on Friday morning. And the inland route to Ballimore, narrow waterlogged roads and tight turns, keeps me well below the speed limit. By the time I take the turn-off into town, it’s almost one o’clock.
Twelve grey gums with thick silver trunks and dark green foliage line either side of Ballimore’s main street. There’s a general store and post office, a hardware and a café. Part-time health workers—a GP and a community nurse, a physio and a podiatrist—share the bottom level of a terrace house. An accountant and a solicitor occupy the office space upstairs. The Ballimore Hotel, a two-storey pub with intricate iron fretwork and a rusted corrugated roof, dominates the streetscape. The elderly owner of the pub retired last year—hopefully he and his family will find a buyer soon.
A stocky man wearing an orange vest steps out of his ute and flags me down. When I open my window, the rain shoots in.
‘Any idea where the community centre is?’ he asks. ‘Gotta check the lights in the amenities building.’
‘That’s it there.’ I point up the hill to a rose-pink building with a steeply pitched roof. ‘The toilets are round the back.’
Overtaking the ute, I drive past the yard that sells second-hand farm equipment and horticultural supplies. A small primary school, comprising the original school room and three demountable classrooms, shares a boundary with the park. An octagonal rotunda, twenty metres from the cenotaph and built at the same time as the pub, is reminiscent of the one in The Sound of Music. Paperbark trees obscure the track to the creek.
The house I lease from Douglas Farquhar, a small red-brick bungalow with twelve hectares of flood-prone land, is six kilometres south of the town. Grasping the top of the steering wheel, I stretch my arms and shoulders as I turn into the driveway. Sinclair’s shoulder is painful, but he’s fit. His chest was hard.
I slam my foot on the brake. Shut up, Prim. Opening the door and jumping to the ground, I step over a puddle half the width of the driveway and wrestle with the latch on the gate. On my right, beyond roughly fenced paddocks, is the river. To my left are hundreds of hectares of gently sloping grazing land—the eastern boundary of Douglas Farquhar’s stud.
Farquhar lied. Should I have made submissions to the board? Up against Farquhar’s lawyers and without proof, what difference would it have made? Farquhar had the resources to drag out the inquiry, to stop me working and paying my bills.
My house’s roof occasionally lets in the rain, and the largest of the two bedrooms has mould stains on the ceiling, but the kitchen, laundry and bathroom are serviceable. When I moved in, the roof was obscured not only by a peppercorn tree, but a blanket of Boston Ivy. I don’t dare light a fire because there are decades of leaves in the chimney. I shiver as I climb back into the car.
A university student on term break has been caring for my animals while I’ve been away. Bonny, seventeen hands tall, is an elderly brown and white Clydesdale with a shaggy forelock, mane and tail. His coat is naturally thick, with inner and outer layers that protect him from the cold, but as his troublesome feet prevent him from moving around too much, I rug him with a waterproof. Juniper, a thoroughbred exracehorse, has a fine black coat and wears layers of rugs and a hood. Merrylegs, at forty-four inches or eleven hands, is relatively large for a Shetland pony. In keeping with her heritage, her silver dappled coat thickens as winter approaches, but I rug her anyway. All three horses shelter in the open-sided shed to the west of the house. Harry, a medium-sized brown goat with black hair along his spine, and Darcy, a slightly smaller caramel-coloured goat, lie on straw in the lean-to at the side of the shed. Eeyore the donkey stays stoically out in the rain, backed up to the grey gum with his tail to the wind.
I grab my coat from the passenger seat and pull up the hood as I run through the rain.
‘Eeyore!’
Eeyore, ears flopping back, walks grumpily through the gate to his shelter, two sheets of corrugated iron propped up between the water tank and house. I take a biscuit of lucerne hay from a bale on the verandah and shake it into a bucket. As Eeyore eats, I rub the sodden hair between his ears.
‘I appreciate it’s a stereotype, Eeyore, but you’re a very stubborn donkey. Why won’t you share the shed with the horses?’
After trudging through the paddock to the shed, I tip a bucket of grain and pellets into Bonny’s trough, then burrow under his rug to check that he’s warm.
‘Your arthritis is playing up again, isn’t it?’
When Merrylegs bustles in front of the larger horses and buries her nose in Juniper’s bucket, I push her back, clip on a lead rope and tie her to a post before fetching a net filled with hay.
Animals happily eating, I go to the house. After fighting to turn the key in the lock, I switch on the hall light and check the floor. No leaks so far, but just in case, I position buckets under the stains in the ceiling. I dump my duffle bag on the washing machine in the laundry and then, in case the wind changes direction and blows the weather in, I roll up a towel, jamming it under the door that leads from the kitchen to the verandah.
The water in the shower has only just warmed up when I turn off the taps. I squeeze moisture from my hair and rub it with a towel, but it dampens my back as I dress in jeans and a sweater. When my phone pings, I pick it up. Phoebe has sent a message:
I hope you’re home safely. Patience and Hugo will be at the cemetery early, but Patience is still throwing up. Can you find the funeral director and check he’s okay with everything? And thank anyone who turns up for coming along? Sinn and I won’t be there until 2.45—I don’t want Lissa out in the rain. Love, Phoebe
PS. Sinn says the weather is here to stay. Dress warmly and wear your gumboots!
I park next to Patience and Hugo’s four-wheel drive, opening the door and sitting sideways on the seat to unfasten my umbrella. I’m surprised to see so many other umbrellas, mostly black, on the far side of the cemetery. My gumboots, brilliant red with tyrelike soles, crunch on the gravel as I walk around the cars. Andrew Martin, one of the most senior vets at the zoo, has a sticker of an elephant on his rear window.
A brick path, broken up by weeds that push through the gaps, threads through the original section of the graveyard. Some plots are fenced with ornate railings like miniature parcels of land. Children, mothers and fathers buried together. My father will be buried today. Should I feel more than I do? What do I feel? My sisters and I share his DNA, but he was never a part of our—
A whistle rings out.
Patience, a touch over five feet tall, must have the loudest whistle on the planet. She and Hugo share an umbrella and stand a little apart from the crowd. My sister’s fair hair is gold against the blue of her coat. Hugo, tousle haired and a great deal taller than Patience, stands behind her, his arm around her middle.
She whistles again. ‘Prim!’
‘I’m coming!’
I angle my umbrella towards the squall as, gumboots swishing through the knee-length grass, I cut across the graveyard to the war veterans’ gardens and memorial. As I skirt around my father’s coffin, raised up on a trolley, one of three identically dressed men steps forward. He wears a discrete silver name badge on the lapel of his black suit.
‘Primrose Cartwright?’
‘Prim … We spoke on the phone.’
As we shake hands, he nods deferentially. ‘I am deeply sorry for your loss.’
I smile politely. ‘Besides … saying hello to everyone, is there anything else I should be doing?’
He consults a clipboard. ‘Your sister Phoebe has completed all the paperwork.’
‘We can start … when she arrives.’
Joan, the nurse who looked after Dad before he needed fulltime care, stands under the shelter of the war memorial, a simple structure with four sturdy posts and a slate roof. She’s with three other women: two members of staff from the nursing home and Dad’s elderly neighbour, Josephine. A middle-aged man with thick fair hair and a barrel chest stands at ease close by. He has a number of medals on his jacket, so I presume he’s from the Returned and Services League. These people I expected, but there’s another group of fifteen or twenty, standing further back as if reluctant to impose. Andrew Martin lifts his umbrella and waves at a man walking towards—
Blake Sinclair.
His black coat, a long oilskin with a short cape, emphasises his height and the breadth of his shoulders. He has an umbrella, but it’s folded and under his arm. His hair is pushed back. I swallow. And swallow again.
‘Miss Cartwright?’ the funeral director says. ‘Are you anticipating other mourners? Other friends?’
‘My … sisters and I told people not to come,’ I manage. ‘Everyone here …’ I glance at Sinclair and then away again. ‘They’re … school friends’ parents, my brother-in-laws’ colleagues, Phoebe’s clients, people like that. My father didn’t have friends.’
‘Yes, of course.’
I force another smile. ‘Excuse me.’
I hug Joan and Josephine and thank the nurses for coming. Then I approach the military man. In addition to his barrel chest, he has a strong jaw and an upright stance. When we shake hands, he squeezes my fingers tightly.
‘Jock Atherton, retired army captain, at your service.’
‘Primrose or Primula?’ he asks mock seriously. ‘My dear departed granny was a Marigold.’
‘Primrose.’ I smile. ‘Did the funeral director invite you? Thank you for coming out in this … terrible weather.’
‘Excuse me, Miss Cartwright.’ The funeral director is holding an even larger umbrella than the one he had before. ‘Would you like me to escort you to the other mourners?’
‘I’m okay to go on my own.’
I’ve greeted just about everyone, smiling politely and thanking them, when Andrew Martin breaks away from Sinclair. Andrew’s son Luke and I are friends, but I don’t know Andrew well. As a local, he’d be aware of Farquhar and his accusations, but he takes my hand in both of his. He looks at me kindly.
‘Luke couldn’t make it, unfortunately.’
‘Did he ask you to come? You shouldn’t have.’
Andrew blinks. ‘Why on earth not?’
‘I’m … sorry.’ The ground seems softer than it was, unstable, unsteady. ‘Was that impolite?’
‘It was merely surprising,’ he says briskly. ‘You Cartwright girls are highly regarded in this district.’
‘We didn’t expect … so many people.’ I glance over his shoulder. ‘Did you bring Dr … Sinclair?’
Sinclair, in conversation with the man with the medals, looks up. Our eyes meet. He nods. I rip my gaze away.
‘Blake and I arranged to meet this afternoon,’ Andrew says, ‘but he arrived earlier than expected. We’re on our way to town.’
‘Right.’
‘It was easier to bring him than not. He said you were acquainted.’
‘Yes.’
‘I didn’t imagine you’d mind, or I would never have—’
‘It’s not a problem.’ Yet another stiff smile. ‘It’s okay.’
When Andrew walks away, Sinclair takes his place. His eyes are particularly dark in the rain. Navy blue. Cobalt. He’s clean shaven. A scratch, a fine red line, marks his cheek.
‘Prim.’ His hand is cool. His grip is firm.
‘Dr … Sinclair.’
‘Blake.’ His thumb sits lightly on the burn on my hand. Last time we touched, he pulled back. I’m seeing someone.
I yank my hand away. ‘I’m … sorry you got dragged into this.’
He opens his mouth, shuts it. Searches my face. ‘How are you?’
Notwithstanding my umbrella, we’re standing close together. I take a jerky step back. ‘I’ll arrange a date for the veterinary board meeting … soon.’
Eyes on my boots, I’m making my way across the soggy ground when Patience calls out.
‘Prim!’
Like her whistle, the strength of Patience’s hug is intense. But when she finally lets me go, I keep hold of her arms. She has a naturally slender frame and delicate features, but her cheekbones are sharper than usual. There are smudges under her eyes and she’s pale.
‘When are you going to get fat?’ I ask.
‘I’m only ten weeks pregnant.’ Smiling, she smooths her coat over her stomach. ‘He’s exactly the size he should be.’
‘I guess.’
Patience is delicately beautiful. Hugo, an environmental biologist who spends a lot of time in the field, is ruggedly handsome. His green eyes are unusually serious as he pushes back his dark blond hair.
‘Good to see you,’ he says as we hug.
I whisper, ‘What’s going on?’
‘Later.’ He squeezes my arm and I read his lips. ‘She’s okay.’
‘Oi!’ When Patience elbows Hugo in the ribs, he puts his arms around her and pulls her close. She smiles up at him, then at me. ‘Sorry you had to come back early. Did you get all your work done?’
‘Billy helped, even though he’s in a lot of pain. It … was good to spend time with him.’
‘The tumour?’ Hugo asks. ‘What’s going on with that?’
‘It’s a desmoid tumour, a soft tissue tumour, growing in his abdomen. It can only be removed through … surgery.’
‘Aggressive fibromatosis, right?’ Hugo grimaces. ‘It spreads into other tissues and organs. What happens after the surgery? Radiotherapy and chemo?’
‘It’s not cancer, but it’s treated like it is.’ My voice wobbles. ‘He’ll also need physio to get him up and about again. He hates the idea of … surgery, let alone everything else, and it’ll mean months away from the farm, but … we hope to get him into hospital next month.’
Patience puts a hand on my arm. ‘You’ve had a difficult start to the year.’
‘My dispute … with Farquhar is … settled. That’ll make things easier.’
‘If he gives you grief again, I’ll—’
‘Like I … said, it’s … settled. It’s over.’
‘You rent from him.’
‘He employs an agent.’
Patience looks at me suspiciously, but then, as if she isn’t pale enough, more colour drains from her face. She closes her eyes and groans, and then she turns away. Hugo shields her with his body and holds back her hair as she retches into a lavender bush. When she straightens, he’s ready with tissues and a bottle of water.
She breathes in through her nose and out through her mouth. ‘Sorry about that.’
I squeeze her arm. ‘You throw up in the afternoons as … well as in the mornings?’
She sighs as she leans against Hugo. ‘The nights are getting better.’
Hugo looks over my shoulder. ‘Phoebe and Sinn are here.’
Phoebe jumps to the ground from her four-wheel drive as if hopping off her big black thoroughbred. As she adjusts a long puffy coat and raises an umbrella, Sinn, his hair short and dark, leans into the back seat. By the time he steps away, twelve-month-old Lissa, a fur-trimmed hood covering her hair, lies against his chest.
‘She’s fast asleep,’ I whisper.
‘She doesn’t want to be here any more than we do,’ Patience grumbles.
‘We’re doing what Phoebe wants,’ Hugo says, taking Patience’s hands and rubbing them between his. ‘Try to play nice.’
My sisters and I were told by our aunt, our father’s sister, that our father became a different man to the man he should have been. A gifted mathematician, he was twenty-one and at university when he was conscripted to Vietnam, and twenty-three when he came back. Damaged. Broken. Dysfunctional. Far older than our mother, Dad was in his sixties when Mum became unwell. Phoebe was kind and responsible, the substitute mother. Patience was academically gifted but rebellious, often in trouble at school. I was simply Prim. The girl who liked animals. The smallest. The one with the stutter. The quiet one.
Not long after Mum had the stroke, a social worker sent a speech pathologist to our house. Dad, increasingly paranoid, got rid of her. I had occasional help from special needs staff at school, but mostly I relied on my teacher, a well-meaning middle-aged woman who thought it would be therapeutic to complete my reading of Sammy the Slippery Seal.
Unfinished business. It’s a happy ending.
She must have had the book on permanent loan from the library, because even after she’d listened to me stutter to the ending, it remained on the shelves in my classroom. Seeing it across the room, I imagined the marks in the pages, the stains from where it had fallen, the halo of books around Mum’s head.
Dad didn’t want us, but he didn’t want the government to take us either. Patience, being so clever at maths, was our father’s favourite. And that made her hate him even more than she would have done anyway. Like me, her dislike was straightforward. We had no affection for him, so he had little capacity to hurt us or let us down. Phoebe did the most for our father, as well as looking after Patience and me. Like our father, Phoebe was terrified we’d be taken into care. She was also terrified we’d be separated. From the age of seven, I was given simple instructions: Don’t ever say anything about Dad, or what it’s like at home. Tell the people who ask questions that we miss Mum, but we’re managing fine on our own. Don’t ever ask for help.
It was easy to say nothing about our father—I rarely said anything to anyone in authority.
Dad paid the bills and, because education was important to him, made sure we attended school and performed well, which provided a mask for what was happening at home. We became accustomed to his increasingly odd behaviour, his intolerances and neglect. Phoebe didn’t want to worry me. She protected me. As did Patience. I suffered much less from my father’s abuse than they did. He had no interest in me. He rarely said my name. I’m certain he never approved of it. Primrose. A flower.
It was only years later that I fully understood how hard it had been for Phoebe to keep us together.
When the funeral director, clipboard at his chest, waves in our direction, Hugo takes one of Patience’s hands and I take the other. The man with the medals gathers up the nursing staff, doubling back to help Josephine, leaning over a walking frame, over the bumps. As Sinn gets close, Joan and Josephine titter over the still sleeping Lissa.
Phoebe has a small bunch of flowers in one hand. The blooms are primarily white—daisies, boronia and flannel flowers—and the foliage is made up of grey-green gum leaves. In her other hand, she clasps the umbrella, holding it high to keep her daughter and husband dry. Patience and I weren’t sure about Sinn at first. He was a naval officer from Norway, and in line with his credentials and attractiveness, he came across as arrogant. Now we know him better. He’s reserved, and mostly keeps his opinions to himself, but he’s a devoted father and deeply in love with our sister.
As soon as Phoebe and I have hugged, the funeral director clears his throat. ‘Are we ready to begin?’
My chest is suddenly tight. Grief? I don’t think so. Regret? If my father hadn’t been damaged by war and illness. If my mother hadn’t been forced to leave us. If …
Like my sisters, I focus on Lissa, blissfully unaware of what’s going on. She has fair hair like Phoebe, but her lashes are dark. Her softly rounded face is framed by the white faux fur of her hood. The crowd keeps a respectful distance. Blake Sinclair stands at the back, but when Josephine perches on the seat of her walking frame, he steps forward and holds it steady.
After the funeral director says a prayer, the military man talks about fallen soldiers and recites a number of dates: when our father was conscripted; when he arrived in Vietnam; when he was injured; when he was repatriated. Even though I do my best to imagine what Dad might have been like if all those things hadn’t happened, it’d be easier to project feelings onto the funeral director. Because if my father had any good in him, my sisters and I don’t remember it.
Be quiet! We all remember that.
By the time the funeral director has manoeuvred the trolley and coffin into position, the rain has eased. One of the assistants solemnly lifts the weights from the corners of the groundsheets covering the grave. The hole is deep and narrow. Beneath the soil are layers of clay—alabaster, orange and gold. A black plastic sheet covers the base and—
Phoebe, colour leaching from her face as she stares into the grave, drops the umbrella at her feet. The flowers slip from her fingers. When Sinn, cursing under his breath, holds Lissa out, Hugo throws his umbrella and takes her.
‘Kjæreste,’ Sinn wraps his arms around Phoebe’s waist. ‘Look away.’
The funeral director and his assistants don’t know what to think. They hold their umbrellas in our direction, but don’t dare to come too close. I pull my hood over my hair. Pitter patter. Pitter patter. Like the rain that fell from the leaks in the ceiling in the house that we grew up in. The house had a cupboard in the hallway. One night, our father locked Phoebe in until morning. And when he discovered how terrified she’d been, he used her fears against her. To keep her quiet. Compliant.
Phoebe blinks, looking around wildly until she finds Lissa in Hugo’s arms. Sinn holds her close and mutters words against her cheek. She grasps his arms so tightly that the ends of her fingers turn white.
‘Breathe, kjæreste. You’re safe.’
Phoebe closes her eyes. And by the time she opens them again, the fear has abated. She takes deep breaths, smiling unsteadily as she turns to the funeral director. ‘I don’t like dark spaces.’
Even though I’d like to drag Phoebe away, she wouldn’t approve. So I hug her briefly before reaching behind her and scooping up the posy, methodically wiping dirt from the flowers before walking to the grave next to Dad’s. The headstone is modest, but the mound is well tended, seaside daisies and miniature violets.
Alfred Thomas, loving husband to Gwyneth, and adored father of Susan, Elizabeth and Michael. Much loved Grandpa to Lucy and Patrick.
Crouching at Alfred’s headstone, I tug at the tape that binds the posy, freeing the tightly bunched flowers and foliage. Eucalyptus. When I breathe in, my eyes sting and my vision blurs.
‘Prim?’ Phoebe puts a hand on my shoulder.
‘Our father … d…’ I spread the flowers and greenery over Alfred’s grave. I swipe at my cheeks as I stand. ‘He … didn’t … deserve flowers.’
Patience and I stand by the grave with Phoebe, Sinn and Lissa as Hugo walks to the larger group. Hugo is not only clever and handsome, but friendly and eminently likeable. Jock and Andrew laugh. Sinclair smiles. Josephine wags a finger. Hugo has only just got back when Patience points to Sinclair.
‘Who is that?’
It’s not surprising she asks, because Sinclair stands out. The confident tilt of his chin. His stance and build.
‘Blake Sinclair,’ Hugo says. ‘Andrew introduced us. He’s another vet.’
Josephine, Dad’s neighbour, is on one side of Sinclair and Jock Atherton, the military man, is on the other.
‘Do you know him, Prim?’ Patience asks.
‘He has a temporary position at the zoo.’
‘With his looks …’ Patience, leaning against Hugo, whistles quietly. ‘He’ll give the lions and tigers a run for their money.’
Finding a clump of grass, I scrape mud from the side of my boot. ‘You reckon?’
‘That reminds me …’ Hugo says. ‘Blake told me he didn’t want to butt in but asked me to pass on a message. He said you’re supposed to attend a meeting, but it doesn’t have to be soon. He said to take your time, not to worry about it till you’re ready.’