Chapter Thirty-Five

‘Rachel, there’s some mail here for you.’

Quinn’s mother had always refused to call her daughter by anything other than the name she had given her at her christening. Quinn had long since become used to it.

She had often stayed with her parents between jobs. After all, she had no place of her own. The house she’d shared with her ex-husband had been sold long ago. It seemed foolish to spend money on another house, or even a flat, when she was never there. Her parents’ home in an affluent Brisbane suburb was large enough to accommodate her visits but this was the longest she’d ever stayed between jobs and she and her mother were starting to get on each other’s nerves. They’d always had this tendency to rub each other the wrong way. Especially since Kim’s short time with them.

Quinn’s agent had come up with some ideas for her next project. He’d also suggested a couple of magazine jobs. They only took a few days and they paid well. Quinn had accepted a couple of them, just to get away for a while. She’d done her job well as she always did, but nothing had inspired her. Her agent had looked at the photographs, which were good, but lacked her usual brilliance, and suggested some time off.

She’d rented a holiday flat at the beach for a few days, just to give herself and her parents a break from each other. But that had proved to be a pretty bad idea. During the day, she had sat on the beach, looking out at the vast expanse of shining blue water, thinking about Coorah Creek and the rugged beauty of the outback. At night, she had simply lain awake in the big, empty bed, thinking about Dan.

‘Rachel? Did you hear me?’ Her mother’s voice betrayed her impatience.

‘Coming,’ she called, and unwound herself from her position on the couch. She put her laptop on the coffee table and headed for the kitchen.

‘What is it?’ she asked as she walked into her mother’s immaculate domain. Like her daughter, Margaret Quinn liked to cook. But unlike her daughter, she cooked in a restrained and methodical fashion, so that even in mid-preparation the kitchen never seemed less than spotless. She was busy now preparing food to take to a neighbour’s party. Quinn guessed that like most of her mother’s meals, this would be wholesome and well presented, but unlikely to have people asking for the recipe.

‘Here you go.’

Quinn barely glanced at the brown manila envelope her mother had placed in the centre of the table. She had been expecting this for a few days now, and wasn’t at all sure she wanted to open it.

‘Thanks.’

‘Is that your latest article?’

‘Yes.’

Quinn could feel her mother’s frustration

‘Aren’t you going to open it?’

‘Later, I guess.’ Quinn walked to the fridge and opened it, not looking for anything in particular, but rather trying to avoid the conversation she knew was coming.

‘May I see it?’

She wanted to say no. She really didn’t want to open the envelope. She knew exactly what she would see. She’d written the story and prepared the photographs soon after her return from Coorah Creek. There had been a lot of heartache in every one. Heartache that had not faded in the weeks since.

But refusing to open the envelope was not going to stop the pain.

‘Sure.’ She pulled the water jug from the fridge and went in search of a glass.

Her mother opened the envelope, her carefully manicured nails bright against the plain brown wrapper. She removed the glossy magazine and flicked quickly through the pages.

‘Oh. You’re the feature article!’

Quinn didn’t say anything. She tried to avert her eyes, but the pictures leaped off the page at her. The brumbies. Carrie and the stallion. Justin, every inch the stockman as he galloped behind the fleeing mob. And Dan …

‘Oh, my. These are very good, Rachel. But wasn’t it a bit difficult, camping out there in the wilds?’ Her mother was never happy if she was more than a kilometre from the nearest hair salon.

‘Not at all, Mum,’ she said. ‘It’s very beautiful out there.’

‘I don’t even want to think about what you had for a bathroom.’

Quinn drained her glass and rinsed it in the sink. There was no way she would ever discuss camping ablutions with her mother. Margaret would probably have palpitations.

‘The people look very nice,’ Margaret continued. ‘You talked about this girl, Carrie. And Justin. But you never said much about this ranger … Dan.’

Quinn saw the speculative look on her mother’s face. Margaret was no fool.

‘He’s a good man,’ Quinn said, trying to keep her voice sounding normal. ‘An ex-serviceman. He served in Iraq and it’s left him with some unpleasant memories.’

‘We all have those,’ Margaret said softly. ‘We just have to deal with them as best we can.’

Quinn felt her heart twist. She knew what her mother meant, but they never talked about those days. There was nothing in the house to remind them of Kim. At least, nothing that Margaret knew about. There was a small box of things among Quinn’s belongings under the bed in the room she used when she stayed. And of course, there was that tissue wrapped package in the back of her Hummer. But Margaret had removed every trace of her grand-daughter from her life. That hurt. It hurt so very much.

‘So,’ Margaret took a deep breath. ‘I was thinking, the weather is so nice; perhaps we could have a garden party.’

‘You mother means a barbecue.’ Quinn’s father entered the kitchen, pausing to kiss both his daughter and his wife on the cheek. ‘And I think it’s an excellent idea.’

‘We’ll invite all the neighbours. And Richard, you must invite that nice young lawyer from your firm. You know, the new one.’

‘Mother!’ Quinn said. ‘Don’t do this again. Don’t start matchmaking.’

‘I’m not matchmaking,’ Margaret said. ‘I just think it wouldn’t hurt for you to meet someone new. You’re still young and—’

‘Don’t!’ Quinn was starting to get angry. ‘Don’t you dare say I’m still young enough to marry again and have another family. Don’t ever say that to me.’ She was quivering with anger and hurt and surprised by the intensity of her own reaction. She should be immune to her mother’s hints by now.

‘Rachel,’ her father cut in, his voice gentle as he took on the familiar role of peacekeeper. ‘Your mother didn’t mean that.’

‘No, Richard, I did mean that.’ Uncharacteristically, Margaret shrugged off the comforting hand her husband had laid across her shoulders. ‘We have tiptoed around this long enough. Rachel, it’s time you stopped running away and got on with your life.’

Quinn was stunned into silence.

‘What happened was a terrible tragedy. But you can’t give up on happiness because of that.’ Tears ran unheeded down Margaret’s cheeks.

Keeping a stranglehold on her emotions, Quinn stormed out of the kitchen into the living room. She was so angry she was afraid she’d do or say something she would later regret.

‘Rachel. Please. You have to get past this.’

Quinn spun to face her mother, who had followed her from the kitchen. ‘Get over it? Like you did. You forgot Kim so quickly. It’s as if she never existed. Do you even remember what she looked like?’

‘Remember her?’ Margaret was crying openly now, something Quinn hadn’t seen her do since the day of the funeral. ‘Of course I remember her. How could I ever forget? I think about her every day.’

‘So do I, Mother. So do I.’

Margaret crossed the room and opened the drawer on a polished mahogany sideboard. Carefully she removed something and thrust it at Quinn. Quinn looked down at the silver frame and the photograph in it. The photo showed a mother and her child. A smiling fair-haired woman and a little girl with big beautiful blue eyes. Quinn felt tears coming. She gently stroked the glass covering her daughter’s photo.

‘It usually sits on the bookshelf,’ Richard said quietly. ‘There’s another photograph of the two of you in our bedroom. Your mother puts them away when you come to visit.’

Quinn dragged her eyes away from her daughter’s face and looked at her mother. ‘Why?’

‘At first it was because I didn’t want to upset you. Then it was because I didn’t know how to behave differently. You have been so locked away inside yourself all this time, Rachel, I didn’t know how to help you.’

In the silence that followed Quinn looked at her mother. Really looked at her for the first time in a long while. She saw the lines either side of Margaret’s brown eyes and the faint trace of grey hair that the next trip to the salon would hide. In contrast to Quinn’s work-roughened hands, Margaret’s were carefully manicured. But they were beginning to look a little fragile. Her mother was not a young woman any more. Quinn looked more carefully at her face, and saw the shadows put there by the same grief Quinn herself had suffered.

Quinn began to wonder if what she had thought was blame was simply grief. Grief that, like Quinn’s, had never faded.

‘Mum—’

‘It’s time, Rachel. You have got to move on.’

Margaret stepped forward and slowly wrapped her arms around her daughter, pulling her close. Neither spoke for a few moments, but Quinn was left with the feeling that the barrier between them was beginning to fall away.

Her father came and placed his arms around them both. Quinn could feel the dampness of his cheek. She had been so wrapped up in her own grief; she had forgotten that her parents had also suffered when Kim died.

Quinn still held the photograph tightly in her hand. She gently stroked the glass covering her daughter’s photo. She walked over to the bookshelf and set the frame down.

‘Leave it,’ she told her mother with a faint smile. ‘It looks good there.’

‘Yes. It does.’ Her mother dashed a hand across her eyes.

‘Wait here, I’ll be right back.’ Quinn darted outside to where her Hummer was parked in the driveway. She opened the back and carefully removed the tissue wrapped package from its place.

Back inside the house, she handed the package to her mother. Margaret carefully opened it. Inside was a delicate pink baby’s jacket. Knitted with care and a great deal of love. It had never been worn. Quinn reached out her fingers to stroke the soft wool.

‘This was the last thing I knitted for Kim,’ she said. ‘Can I leave it here with you?’

Margaret nodded. Ever so carefully, she rewrapped the parcel and placed it in the drawer where the photo frame had rested.

‘I’ll keep it there …’ she didn’t finish the sentence, but Quinn knew what she was going to say. Until there was another little girl who needed it. Quinn wasn’t ready to go that far yet. Neither of them was. But they had made a start.

‘So,’ Quinn said, taking a deep breath and forcing a smile onto her face, ‘when were you planning on this barbecue?’

‘You’ll come?’ Margaret asked, her eyes shining.

‘No, but I’ll stay a few days longer. After that,’ she glanced through the open doorway to the kitchen table, where the magazine lay open, ‘there’s somewhere I have to go.’

As always, Quinn was glad to be back on the road. But this time, it was a little different. She wasn’t running away from anything. She and her parents had become much closer during the past few days. They had talked about Kim. The small box of photographs and other mementos had come out from under Quinn’s bed. They had talked and shared and better understood their grief. Quinn had even talked about Dan. Now she was on her own again, but she wasn’t alone.

Once more she had everything she needed with her in her Hummer. Her cameras and laptop. Her knitting. She frowned. Actually, not so much knitting. She had finished her last project and given that to Ellen as she passed through Coorah Creek on her way home. She hadn’t started another yet. She needed to get some wool before she found herself in a place where there was no wool to be had. She knew the location of almost every yarn store for several hundred kilometres. She would get what she needed as she passed through the next town.

Quinn walked into the big room no different from a dozen others she had encountered in her travels. The walls were lined with brilliant coloured balls of yarn. Sample knitted garments hung in the window. And in the middle of the room was a large table covered with pattern books, needles, balls of wool and the other tools of the knitter’s craft. A group of women, all holding knitting needles, sat around the table chatting. One of them was heavily pregnant, and was working on a garment not unlike the ones Quinn always knitted. They all looked up as Quinn entered.

‘Hello,’ a friendly dark-eyed woman said. ‘Welcome. Can I help you with anything, or do you just want to browse.’

‘I’ll just browse, thank you,’ Quinn said.

‘That’s fine. If you need anything, I’m right here.’ The woman settled back to her knitting and her friends.

As she always did, Quinn headed for the section of the shop featuring baby wools. The colours here tended to be more pastel. The yarns were finer and softer. She didn’t pause at the patterns. She didn’t need one. She knew what she was knitting. She picked up a ball of multi-coloured yarn in cream with pale pink and green highlights. She touched it to the skin of her face. It was beautifully soft and would knit up well. She picked up a similar yarn, but this time in shades of blue and caramel. Something that might suit a little boy. She seldom knitted pink wool. As she fingered the soft wool, the conversation behind her began to filter through to her mind.

‘… never really liked a redhead, but I might make an exception for him.’

‘Trust you, Jean. The story is about the horses, not the man.’

‘I know. But there’s no crime in looking. And that’s a man well worth looking at.’

‘It’s that photo,’ said a third voice. ‘It’s almost like a love song to him. I wonder who the photographer was. Whoever it was, they obviously have a thing for him. It shows in every inch of that photo.’

‘In that case, I hope it was a woman,’ replied the woman called Jean. ‘Because if it was a man, I might have to change my mind about how gorgeous this park ranger is.’

Quinn turned around slowly. The magazine lay in the centre of the table, open to her photo of Dan. How well she remembered taking that shot. It was a wonderful portrait of Dan, the strong clean lines of his face silhouetted against the sky. Her heart did a long slow tumble. The woman was right. The photographer who took that shot was desperately in love with Dan. It had just taken her a long time to figure it out.

‘Excuse me,’ she said to the owner of the shop. ‘I think I do need some help after all.’

‘Of course. What are you looking for?’

‘I am thinking of making a change. I usually knit for babies, but now I need a pattern and yarn to knit a man’s jumper. Something that would look good on an outdoors type of man. One with red hair.’

The woman looked down at the magazine again. ‘A bit like him you mean? You lucky girl.’

‘Yes, I am lucky,’ Quinn said. ‘I’ll need a lot of yarn because where I’m headed there aren’t any yarn stores.’

A few minutes later, Quinn was packing a large bag of yarn and needles and pattern books into the Humvee. She didn’t need to consult a map. She knew exactly where she was going.