Sitting on the stool at my kitchen bench with Tumbleweed curled up on my lap, I open my laptop. The email Matts referred to isn’t from him—it’s to him.
Dr Laaksonen,
I refer to recent telephone discussions and correspondence regarding our respective governments’ interest in the work of the Ramsar Secretariat.
Horseshoe Hill would be an excellent starting point for your research. The town is situated on the banks of the Macquarie River, a few hours by road from the Macquarie Marshes, and has not only recognised challenges posed by a changing environment, but has acknowledged the need to balance town and agricultural agendas with environmental rehabilitation and enhancement.
As the state government representative on the Horseshoe Hill Environment Committee, I am confident I speak for the rest of the committee in confirming our interest in your project. The committee meets formally twice a year (and informally every month or so). Sapphie Brown, a local schoolteacher, is the chair, and she is copied in on this email. The next meeting (happily a formal one!) will take place at the Horseshoe Hill Community Centre at seven o’clock on 20 August.
Kind regards,
Douglas Chambers, MP
Every one of the hundred reasons I could list for uninviting Matts would be personal. He told me from the start that he was here for work. The committee’s public profile is important and Matts’s interest in what we do would help to promote that.
It’s only one meeting.
The kindling in the fireplace has dwindled to ash, but the small log is still burning brightly. I pick up the tongs and lift another log onto the grate. When Tumbleweed, sitting like a sphinx, extends his claws, hooks them into the rug and inches closer, I hurriedly shut the fireplace door. ‘You’re close enough, puss. You wouldn’t want to get singed.’
Steam fills the tiny bathroom within moments of turning on the water. I lather up the sponge and rub around my neck, then gently press the sponge against my breast. My left side isn’t painful, but the skin under my arm and across my ribcage and breast is sensitive.
You’re afraid to be beautiful.
‘You might have a point, Matts,’ I mutter, lifting the sponge and allowing the water to cascade down my side and rinse the soap from my skin.
Alabaster, bleach, translucent, chalk.
Angry, magenta, vermillion, burnt.
My skin is ridged and mottled, but the doctor said I’d been lucky. ‘The burns, once healed, shouldn’t hamper your physical activity.’
I have my mother’s hair. My eyes are distinctively dark blue. I have a nicely shaped mouth. When I was at university and wanted to get my innocence over with, I had no trouble finding men to have sex with. They didn’t care, or didn’t notice, that I wouldn’t take off my top. And I only went out with them once or twice anyway.
If I ever meet someone I want to spend more than a night with, they’ll understand. Countless people have suffered much worse.
On my final visit to the hospital, the surgeon said that plastic surgery would neaten up the scarring. And if things had been different, I might have pursued that. But Mum was unwell. Gran had been moved out of respite care and into the nursing home. My father was trying to micromanage my life from London. I was a shitty teenage runaway, angry at the world.
And soon enough, I’d moved to Horseshoe. I liked Ma and Pa Hargreaves. I’d found the farmhouse. I slowly made friends. I was healthy and fit. The scarring didn’t seem to matter so much.
As I towel myself dry, my reflection stares back. I love my job at the school. I live in a community where people value and care for me. I don’t need anything else to make me happy.
Matts and I shared a childhood and adolescence.
I suspect he broke my heart.
Now it’s over.
Tumbleweed is curled up in front of the fire but the logs won’t last much longer. I rub under his chin and tuck the throw around him.
At lunchtime on Friday, I leave the staffroom and call the council from my classroom. As soon as I tell Michael, the property officer I’ve dealt with for years, that I want to renew my option, he groans into the phone.
‘I’m sorry, Sapphie.’
‘I would have paid more.’
‘I didn’t know about it until the deal had been done,’ he says. ‘The buyer went straight to the CEO. He offered a higher price that couldn’t reasonably be refused.’
‘What about the youth program?’
‘It’s a twelve-month option, but even if it’s exercised straight away, no access to the farmhouse is allowed for six months, by which time the program will have moved to the new centre.’
‘My horses?’
‘They’ve got six months too.’
I end the call and email my father.
Robert,
It appears that Mum knew about the deposit box, but we still don’t know that she did anything illegal. I don’t think she would steal information, or sell something that didn’t belong to her. I don’t think she’d risk losing me, or getting you and Inge into trouble.
You’re forcing me to do what you want because you have the farmhouse. I know you have a year to exercise the option, but I want this to be over with before that. If you promise that, within six months, you’ll tell the council you’re not going ahead, I’ll let you handle the media and pretend we’re in this together. You also have to stick strictly to the facts if you’re questioned about Mum. The drugs, the rehab, none of that is relevant.
Sapphie
Five minutes before the bell that sounds the end of lunch, my phone rings.
‘Robert.’
‘In general terms, I agree to your proposal.’
‘But you don’t want to put anything in writing. That’s why you called.’
‘Sapphire! I agree to six months, as you requested. If this can’t be contained by then, I’m unlikely to have a career worth saving.’
‘What about Mum?’
‘I’ll do what I can to keep Kate out of it. With one proviso.’
‘Go on.’
‘You’re to pretend that everything is just as it was. No one else wants the farmhouse and when you’re ready, you’ll negotiate with the council to buy it. My name is not to come up. If the matter is raised, we claim that I am holding the property on your behalf, that I wish to be of assistance.’
‘You want me to lie?’
He huffs. ‘People believe that you’ll buy the farmhouse. Don’t disabuse them of the notion.’
‘I can keep my mouth shut.’
‘When will you come to Canberra?’
‘Before the next school holidays. Early October? It’ll just be photos, right?’
‘I’ll select a location we can visit as a family.’
‘Matts said he didn’t know that you were taking out the option.’
‘He didn’t. And it might please you to know that I wasn’t in his good books. Mind you, neither were you.’
You say we have no past.