When I arrive at the Coach House at nine on Sunday morning, Juniper and Bonny look over the fence while Merrylegs, her forelock almost touching her nose, looks through it. Blake has let my horses out of their stables. Before he did that, he would have fed them. He’s changed their rugs from night rugs to day rugs.
His four-wheel drive has already gone.
The hours pass slowly. After clearing out the stables, I scrub the floors and replace the straw. I clean out the feedlot and sweep the barn until dust fills the air and I sneeze. I sit on a crate to eat my lunch and watch the clouds roll in, before curry combing the horses and cleaning and conditioning their feet. I rake and sweep the gravel and concrete paths and paving, scrub water troughs and refill them.
The gate to the yard is wide open, but Eeyore stands at his favourite spot for most of the day. Pushing and shoving, I encourage him to walk into the barn so I can clean the yard. He sighs dramatically as I tie him to a ring.
A car door slams. A woman’s voice. I can’t see the Coach House from here, but tyres crunch on the gravel as the car does a three-point turn. Within a few minutes, there are other sounds. The screech of a cockatoo. Steps on the gravel.
‘Prim.’ Virginia’s dark jeans and sapphire blue silk shirt are a country-city mix. ‘Blake brought me back early. May I come in?’
I’m standing next to Eeyore on an upside-down crate. ‘Of course.’
‘Blake and Angus will be back soon.’
‘Where have they gone?’
‘Another drive.’ She props a foot against a railing. ‘Is this one of your rescue animals? Is it injured?’
‘Eeyore was a circus donkey, and forced to carry … weight too young.’ I run a hand along the middle part of Eeyore’s back, the lumbar vertebrae. ‘It permanently damaged his … spine.’
‘How awfully cruel.’
‘He’s a loner, but I think he’s happy now.’
‘Is he in pain?’
‘Not if the inflammation is kept under control.’ I hop down from the crate, take Eeyore’s head in my hands and kiss his nose. ‘I monitor his weight, he has acupuncture and a physio. He responds … well to medication.’
‘Do you rescue animals regularly?’
‘I’ve always done it, ever since I was a child. Back then, I lost a lot of my patients.’
‘How distressing.’
‘No one else … would take them on.’ When Eeyore shoves his nose into his trough, I pull up his head and brush stalks from his nostrils. ‘Don’t eat so quickly, Eeyore. No one will take your dinner away.’
‘I presume he’s named for the Winnie-the-Pooh character?’
‘My … sister read me all the books in the … series.’
‘One of Blake’s nannies recommended them.’ A brief hesitation. ‘You mother didn’t read to you?’
‘W … w …’ I turn away, talk to Eeyore. ‘What has Blake … said?’
‘He said that your mother was a brilliant mathematician, but was unable to look after you or your older sisters after she had a stroke.’
‘Right.’
‘I hope you don’t mind that we spoke of her. As a neurosurgeon, brain injuries, their impact, are something I’m entirely familiar with.’
‘Yes.’ My voice is too loud. I lower it. ‘I …’ Deep breath. ‘Yes.’
‘Blake admires your mother. He answered the questions I put to him. Nothing more.’ She considers her words. ‘Your speech delays. You have triggers, don’t you?’
‘It’s unpredictable, but … some things … set me off.’
‘I’m sorry I have that effect on you.’
‘It’s a family trait.’
Her smile is brief. ‘My son thinks a great deal of you.’
‘Can … we talk about something else?’
A firm nod. ‘Blake took us to the zoo.’
‘He’s very… well respected there.’
‘Yes.’
‘Why did you come back early?’
‘To rest. They insisted.’
‘Yesterday …’ I pat Eeyore firmly on the neck. ‘You didn’t look well.’
Holding out her hands, she considers her neatly trimmed nails.
‘Had this happened in the fifties or sixties, I would have been diagnosed with a nervous breakdown. The prescription? Valium and possibly gin.’
‘Oh.’
‘Indeed. I’m fifty-four years old. I’m perimenopausal and, according to my extraordinarily expensive psychiatrist, I have situational depression. I shall, apparently, survive both conditions.’
I pick up the crate. ‘Would you like to … sit down?’
‘What a practical response.’ She smiles. ‘I believe I would.’
As Virginia, after positioning the crate against the wall, sits back, I lean against the railing. Eeyore puts his head over the top bar and rubs his ear on my shoulder. The shadows lengthen as the cloud cover thickens.
‘Pooh was a bear of few words,’ I tell Virginia.
She laughs. ‘So I’ve been told.’
‘You didn’t read the Pooh books?’
‘Blake’s nannies read them on my behalf.’ She lifts her brows. ‘He had a number of nannies, most of them French. He speaks French fluently. Were you aware of that?’
‘He told me he … went to boarding school.’
‘Immediately he was of an age to do so. I barely saw my son. I delegated to others.’
‘Blake had a father too.’
‘Angus had worked hard to get into medicine and support himself through his studies.’ She turns her wedding ring around. ‘He was ill-prepared for fatherhood, certainly, but a paragon of virtue in comparison to me.’
‘Blake … wasn’t planned? Is that right?’
‘He’s confided in you.’ Her hand goes to her forehead, she rubs faint frown lines. ‘That’s a good thing.’
‘He… said you could have terminated the pregnancy but didn’t. He appreciated what a difficult decision that must have been.’
‘I wanted to terminate. I intended to.’ Her voice slides up and down a scale. ‘My mother discovered I was pregnant. She convinced me to keep the child.’
For the first time this week, rain pelts on the roof. ‘You don’t have to tell me this.’
‘I want to.’
‘Do you think Blake would mind?’
‘It’s my story too.’ Virginia, her face pale with grief, sits even straighter on the crate. ‘Do you mind hearing it?’
‘No.’
‘I bled through my final exam.’ A slight frown. ‘It was a three-hour written exam. Clinical Problem Solving.’
‘You thought you were losing the baby?’
‘The foetus,’ she corrects. ‘But I must have had the tiniest twinge of guilt about the abortion I’d booked for the following day, because I was relieved it had happened naturally. I comforted myself with the old gem: “It wasn’t meant to be.”’
Juniper puts his head over the stable door as if he’s listening too.
‘For better or worse,’ Virginia says, ‘I was wearing a yellow dress. One of the invigilators, a well-meaning woman in her seventies, insisted on calling an ambulance. Sirens and lights. It was quite the display.’
Thunder, long low rumbles, rolls in from the west. ‘Is that how your mother found out?’
‘I haven’t worn yellow since.’
I stroke around Eeyore’s eyes. ‘What happened?’
The crate scrapes on the concrete as she sits forward, traps her hands between her knees. ‘My mother knew what I wanted—to continue to work and study full time so that I could specialise. I had bled, certainly, but the foetus’s heartbeat was strong. If the child survived, my mother assured me she would take an active role in raising it.’
‘She didn’t do that, did she?’
‘Mother had money, but a very busy social life. And as it turned out, she was no more committed to raising a child than his own parents were. We catered to Blake’s physical needs through delegation. His emotional needs were a different matter. The nannies did their best. His family let him down.’
‘He cared about his grandmother.’
‘After he was weaned and toilet trained, after he could eat with a knife and fork, there was much for my mother to appreciate. Against all odds, Blake was a friendly, attractive, engaging little boy. “An absolute delight,” my mother always said. As a teenager, he excelled academically; he was a sportsman. Mother took an interest while regularly pointing out to him that I did not.’
‘You didn’t challenge her for undermining you, did you? Or tell Blake about it? You didn’t … want him to think less of her.’
She points a finger. ‘You, Prim, have a natural inclination to see the best in people. Blake values that.’
‘I’m right, aren’t I? You didn’t want to hurt him.’
‘Any more than I already had, no.’
‘Blake told me you didn’t … want more children.’
She leans against the wall again. ‘Many years after his birth, when we were established in our careers, Angus was keen. He thought we might get it right this time—not in terms of the child, because we’d clearly produced an exceptional child already, but in terms of parenting a child. I said no.’
‘Why?’
‘Angus and I had been given a boy.’ Her eyes fill with tears. ‘A perfect and innocent boy. And look how we’d treated him. We didn’t deserve a second chance.’
‘Blake had his grandfather.’ My voice wavers. ‘He loved him.’
‘Despite the godforsaken place where Cameron lived, the way in which he lived, surrounded by dogs and beasts …’ She shivers. ‘Blake loved Cameron above all others.’
When a clap of thunder sounds, Juniper whinnies and Bonny, in the adjacent stable, whinnies back. Merrylegs’s nose appears above the door. Even Eeyore lifts his head.
‘His grandfather’s farm … Why did you sell it?’
‘Blake, I believe, is unsure of your affection. Even so, you know a great deal.’ Her brow creases. ‘Why is that?’
We’re learning to trust one another. ‘It … wasn’t only because the farm would be a distraction for Blake, for his studies, was it? There … was more to it than that.’
Virginia keeps a hand on the wall as she stands. ‘As much as Blake adored that farm, Angus despised it. When Angus was twelve, he won a scholarship to a prestigious boarding school in Edinburgh. Has Blake told you about that?’
‘No.’
‘Cameron was bitterly opposed to Angus accepting the scholarship, arguing he should finish his education at the local village school, an opportunity Cameron had been denied by his own father. Angus had to fight tooth and nail to get Cameron to sign the papers.’ Her brows lift. ‘The scholarship, you see, was Angus’s golden ticket.’
‘He could leave the farm behind.’
‘Not only the farm, but the pile of stones his father called a castle, and the reputed connection to the Earl of Caithness. Angus had never had an interest in the so-called Sinclair legacy, and he bitterly resented Cameron’s belief that he should.’
‘Yet you sent Blake to his grandfather.’
‘When Blake was too old for a nanny, ferrying him to Cameron was a useful way to keep him occupied. Later, to his discredit, Angus had a bee in his bonnet about entitlement. Blake had been given opportunities Angus had only ever dreamt about. He believed sending him to the highlands, even though he’d hated it there himself, would make him more appreciative of his privileged life.’
‘It didn’t … work, did it? Blake liked it there.’
‘The simplicity. The livestock. The responsibility. He loved every minute of it. So much so that, if we didn’t permit him go to Scotland in term breaks, he’d misbehave at school. In his midteens, he threatened to leave school altogether.’
‘He must have done well to get into medicine.’
‘When he achieved that goal, Angus and I hoped it might make us, our ambitions and choices, more relatable.’ Her eyes close briefly. ‘That was not only foolish, but arrogant.’
‘Did Blake want to be a doctor to please you?’
‘He wanted to be a doctor despite our professions. He was desperate to study medicine.’
‘You didn’t approve of him becoming a vet.’
‘Why would we? When the only reason he’d changed his profession was to get back at us for selling the farm?’ She sits forward on the crate, links her fingers tightly. ‘In leaving medicine behind, he took away the one thing he believed we valued in him.’
‘He’s a good vet.’
‘He sailed through four years of medicine, the theory and practice. He would have been an exceptional doctor. He was passionate about medicine, entirely committed to it.’
A perfect and innocent boy. ‘You hurt him.’
‘We lost him.’ She wipes tears with the tips of her fingers. ‘We had one precious child and we lost him.’
Virginia follows at a distance as I feed Eeyore and the horses, watching closely as I give Merrylegs a carrot before lifting her mane to inject antibiotics.
‘When my rental property flooded, Merrylegs … was stuck in the rain and mud. She lost her footing and her head went under the … water. Ever since, she’s been struggling. In her most recent blood tests—Blake organised them—the pathologist identified yet another bacterial infection. We’re trying a new kind of antibiotic.’
After tentatively touching Merrylegs’ nose, Virginia looks towards the door. ‘I hope Angus and Blake haven’t come to blows.’
‘You said they went for a drive. Where to?’
Her half-smile reminds me of Blake’s. ‘That’s a confidence I’d best keep to myself.’
‘Ginny!’ Angus shouts.
‘Finally,’ she says.
After I close Merrylegs’s stable door behind me, Virginia steps closer, puts her hand on my arm. ‘Thank you for talking to me. For listening.’
‘Thank you for keeping me company.’
Her smile is sad but genuine. ‘Given your friendship with Blake, I feel you should dislike me more than you appear to.’
‘When I found out you gave Blake the cufflinks, I assumed you were acknowledging you’d done the … wrong thing. After today, I know that for a fact. You’re … sorry.’
‘My son’s affection for you is entirely unsurprising.’
‘I don’t know … what … will happen.’
‘At weddings and funerals, we’ve met quite a few of Blake’s girlfriends. They were pleasant young women, invariably besotted, but it was clear there was no real attachment on Blake’s part. In this, you’re unique.’
I brush straw from my jeans. ‘You should get to Dubbo before dark.’
‘Ginny! Where are you?’
‘Angus!’ she shouts into the rain. ‘Stop making such a fuss!’
Blake and Angus are metres apart as they walk towards us. Angus is under an umbrella, Blake isn’t. His face and hair are wet. His shirt sticks to his skin. When he reaches me, his touch on my hand is light and brief. Expression grim, he searches my face.
‘Prim.’
‘Is everything all right?’ I ask.
He looks away to glare at his father. ‘I’ll take them back to their car.’
Blake maintains a frosty silence as Angus, courteously if awkwardly, makes polite conversation and asks questions about my practice. It’s a relief when he turns to his wife.
‘Are you ready to go?’
‘Can you wait in my car?’ Blake asks. ‘I won’t be long.’
Virginia kisses my cheek. ‘I hope we meet again.’
After shaking my hand, Angus gives Virginia the umbrella and tells her he’ll catch up. As she walks away, he turns to his son.
‘We need to settle this now,’ he says gruffly. ‘You’ll be in Kenya next month. It’s only eight hours from Nairobi to London. A few days in London, that’s all I ask. I’ll pay for your flight.’
‘What will we talk about? Three exams and two placements? I have no interest in finishing medicine.’
‘Forget what I said.’
Blake smiles insincerely. ‘That’s a given.’
‘Blake!’ Angus brushes raindrops from his jacket. He lowers his voice. ‘Come to London. See your mother.’
‘I’ve already said no.’
After Angus walks out, Blake grasps my hand firmly and stalks to the feed room. I tug free before standing on two biscuits of hay so we’re the same height. I smooth his collar.
‘Did you argue with your father the whole time you … were out?’
‘You should—’
‘Prim! Drop it.’
‘When your mother … was … with you, did she talk? Did you listen?’
‘I spent the weekend with my parents.’ He speaks through stiff lips. ‘I did that for you.’ He takes my hand and kisses it, rubs his cheek against my fingers. ‘You want to make this better. You can’t.’
Longing and pain. I know about those things. ‘If you spend more time with your mother, you might understand her better.’
‘I only want you.’
‘But—’
‘More than I’ve ever wanted anything. Isn’t that enough?’
I swallow. ‘Oh.’
‘Oh? What the fuck is “Oh”?’
‘You’re brave.’
‘I’m desperate.’
I return to his collar, smooth it again. ‘Early tomorrow morning, I leave for Obley, you know that already. Millie Honey … will be looking after my animals while I’m away. She’ll be arriving at the cottage any minute. I have to show her around.’
He sighs. ‘I’ll help with the horses and Eeyore.’
‘I wish I could … stay but …’
‘You need the work.’ Even in the dimness, his eyes are brightest blue. ‘You’ll be at Denman, won’t you?’
‘I’ll go there straight from Obley. Billy is getting a lift … with his friend George.’
‘Blake!’ Angus calls. ‘It’s getting late!’
Blake presses his cheek against mine. ‘I’ll see you on Friday.’