‘You don’t want me to carry it to your room?’
‘Peta sleeps on the veranda,’ Harry volunteered. ‘Out the back, out of the wind.’ He pushed the dogs aside, rose and turned to playing host. ‘There’s only one bedroom and Peta makes me sleep in that.’
‘Peta sleeps on the veranda?’
‘It’s…cool,’ Peta said.
‘I bet it is,’ he said, stunned. ‘In winter I bet it’s really cool. You sleep out all year round?’
‘We all had to sleep on the veranda until Dad died,’ Harry told him. ‘Us boys had a really big bed, and Peta had a littler one at the other end. When Dad died the big ones made William and me move inside so I can hardly remember. But I think I liked it.’
‘It’s unbelievable.’
‘It’s none of your business,’ Peta told him. Her face shut him out as best she could as she attempted to move on. ‘But if you’re thinking Harry wasn’t looked after, he was. When he was a baby he slept with me. Now… There’s basic groceries at Hattie’s. There’s food in the freezer and long-life milk and juice in the pantry. I’ll go shopping tomorrow for whatever else you need. But meanwhile…’
‘What are we eating for dinner?’ Marcus asked.
We.
The ‘we’ hung in the air, halting conversation. It was a push in the direction of sharing.
Was that wise? Probably not, Marcus thought, but the idea of calmly driving to another house and foraging in the freezer alone was really unappealing.
‘We’ll be eating sausages,’ Harry volunteered. ‘Peta always cooks sausages. She burns them, too.’
‘Will there be sausages in my…in Hattie’s freezer?’
‘Sure,’ Harry said expansively. ‘Peta buys millions of sausages.’
‘Okay.’ Marcus smiled down into his bride’s confused face. ‘Then I’m cooking. Dinner’s on at my place. In, say, an hour?’
‘You don’t even know what’s there,’ Peta said faintly.
‘How far away are the shops?’
‘Fifteen minutes by car.’
‘No worries, then. Job’s done.’
‘You can’t cook!’
‘Who said I can’t cook?’
‘Can you really?’ Harry demanded, suspicion and hope warring on his adolescent face. ‘Really?’
‘Really.’
‘Not stuff like…sushi.’
Marcus grinned. ‘I doubt even
‘Ace,’ said Harry, deeply satisfied. ‘Isn’t it ace, Peta?’
Her face said it was anything but ace. ‘I need to milk the cows.’
‘What, tonight?’
‘I’m not paying anyone to milk tonight. If I don’t milk there’s no income.’
‘Can I help?’
‘I like milking alone,’ she said stolidly. ‘You concentrate on your sausages.’
‘Your ankle…’
‘Is fine. You’ve done enough,’ she told him. ‘I don’t want you to help.’
The joy had faded. It was still there, he thought, but there was discomfort, too. As though she’d realised that the joy had to be paid for.
And the price was…him.
The second farmhouse was like a doll’s house. In much better condition than the first, it had obviously been built for one very fussy woman.
It was pink. Very pink. The outside was a demure brick but the moment Marcus walked inside he was assaulted by pinkness. Pink walls, pink paintings, pink doilies…
‘Auntie Hattie liked pink,’ Harry said by his side. Peta had abandoned them, leaving Harry to do the honours.
‘I can see that she did,’ Marcus said cautiously and then he looked down at Harry’s bland face. ‘It’s horrible.’
‘It is,’ Harry said, blandness making way for mischief. ‘Our place is better, even if it’s falling down.’
‘I don’t understand.’ Marcus stared around him. ‘How come this place is so much better than yours?’
‘Better?’
‘Well, if you ignore the pink…’
‘Oh, you mean money,’ Harry said with just a trace of scorn. ‘Aunt Hattie always had more than us.’
‘Can you tell me why?’
‘Easy. My grandpa was fair.’
‘Fair?’
And Harry was off, all too ready to tell a story of an injustice he obviously felt strongly about. ‘My grandpa had two kids, my Dad and Auntie Hattie. Auntie Hattie had a baby when she was a teenager-that was Charles-but she stayed living here. Grandpa built her this little house. My Dad married my Mum and had five kids. When Grandpa died, he left the farm half to Dad and half to Hattie, even though our family did all the work. Peta says Dad was really angry. She says that’s another reason why Dad hated women.’
‘So…’
‘So all the income from the farm had to be split into two. Half to Hattie and half to us.’
‘Who works the farm?’
‘Peta, mostly. We help.’
‘Did Hattie help?’
‘Hattie never worked.’ Harry gazed around the little house and grimaced. ‘Except to paint things.’
‘That seems unfair on Peta,’ Marcus said thoughtfully and Harry nodded.
‘Yeah, it is, really unfair, but Charles always said we had a choice-do it like that or we could leave the farm. My Dad never wanted to leave the farm-he couldn’t be bothered and as long as there was enough money for his drink…’ He bit his lip at that, and suddenly looked very young. ‘I guess I shouldn’t have told you about Dad drinking. It’s what Daniel told me. But Peta would growl.’
‘I won’t tell her.’ Marcus frowned. ‘So… Peta stayed and worked the farm. Why did your brothers leave?’
‘Peta made them.’
‘Why?’
‘She said there was never going to be enough money for us all to be farmers and they were going to have careers if she had to drive them off with sticks.’ His grin returned. ‘When Peta gets bossy no one can argue with her.’
‘I guess you’re right at that.’
‘Are you really going to make sausages?’
‘Not if I can help it. Where’s the freezer?’
‘I’ll show you. Hattie used to go to the city sometimes and buy gourmet stuff. There might be something interesting. But…not too interesting.’
‘Let’s go look,’ Marcus told him. ‘Can you cook?’
‘No!’ Harry told him, startled.
‘Then you’re about to learn.’
By the time Peta came in from the dairy she was tired. Good tired, she thought though, as she showered. Great tired. The cows-her girls-were all fit and healthy. They’d swivelled their great bovine heads as she’d appeared at the gate to lead them up to the dairy; there’d been gentle moos and, moving among them, she felt she’d come home.
Home.
