No one could take it from her, she’d thought over and over as she’d washed teats, adjusted cups, released one cow after the other and given each an affectionate pat as they ambled off towards an evening of grazing the lush pasture on the cliffs around the house. Home. At long last the threats to her security-her father and her cousin- were gone.
Marcus had given this to her. It was a huge gift. Vast.
She stared down at the plain band of gold on her finger. Marcus had insisted they each wear one for a year-‘Let’s do this right.’
He’d done it right.
And she’d sent him off to Aunt Hattie’s.
Maybe he’ll like pink, she told herself, and grinned to herself as the cool water streamed over her. And at least he’ll be comfortable.
And he’d be away. Separate. Life could get back to normal. From this day…
‘Peta?’ Harry was yelling for her and she poked her head out of the shower.
‘Mmm?’
‘Marcus and me have made dinner. It’s ace. You gotta hurry before it gets cold. Marcus says hurry.’
He waited for her, jigging up and down with impatience as she hauled on clean jeans and a T-shirt. ‘Come on. Come on.’
So much for eating toast on the veranda and getting her head together. ‘Didn’t you want to have dinner just with me tonight?’ she asked.
‘Are you kidding?’ Harry demanded, amazed. ‘Marcus is ace.’
‘Yeah, but…’
‘And you should see what we’ve cooked.’
Curry.
Peta walked in the back door of Aunt Hattie’s little house and stopped in astonishment. Curry! She’d never smelled such a thing in this house. It’d take three cans of air-freshener for Hattie to lose it. Hattie would never tolerate it.
Then Marcus appeared in the doorway and she stopped thinking about Aunt Hattie.
She’d never seen him like this.
The first time she’d met him, Marcus had been dressed formally. He’d been wearing a business suit. For the wedding he’d gone even more formal, and he’d worn a suit on the way out here on the plane. He’d looked an experienced business traveller and Peta had been vaguely self-conscious beside him.
No. Peta had been
But now… He’d changed. Transformed. He was wearing jeans that were almost as faded as hers, with a plain T-shirt that stretched tight across his chest and showed the muscles rippling down his arms. His deep black hair was tousled as if he’d run his fingers through it often and often. There was a smudge of something orange on his cheek.
He was wearing a pinny.
It was one of Aunt Hattie’s pinnies, she thought. Pink. Frilly. With a bow attached.
She stared. She’d come prepared to be stiff and formal and polite-welcoming to a guest but here to have a fast meal and then say a formal good night and get away.
Stiff, formal and polite didn’t get a look in. One glance and she was lost. Laughter bubbled up and exploded.
‘What?’ he demanded, mock offended as she whooped. ‘What? Don’t you like my apron?’
‘It’s…’ She fought gamely for control but lost. Another whoop or two and then she tried again. ‘It’s a very nice pinny. Did you tie the bow?’
‘I tied it for him,’ Harry said behind her. ‘He had his hands all covered in yuck stuff and said “find an apron” and that’s all Auntie Hattie had.’
‘It’s a very nice apron,’ she managed. ‘It’s a very nice bow. Well…well done, boys.’ She fought a bit more for control. ‘Um… Is that curry I can smell?’
‘It is.’ Marcus beamed at her as if a protegee had just proven herself incredibly clever. ‘Harry said he liked curry.’
‘How… Did Auntie Hattie have curry powder?’ She was fascinated.
‘You don’t make curry out of curry powder,’ he told her.
‘No?’
‘No. You really don’t cook, do you, Mrs Benson.’
Mrs Benson…
The label came out unexpectedly and hung. She bit her lip and tried desperately to ignore it.
‘When I was eight years old, I had a very sensible grade teacher,’ she told him. Somehow. ‘Mrs Canterbury was Yooralaa’s answer to Emily Pankhurst. One day she took us girls aside and said if we were ever to amount to anything we should never learn to type, never learn to sew and never learn to cook. I followed her advice to the letter.’
‘Well done, you,’ he said faintly, obviously bemused. ‘And here you are, amounting to lots. But hungry. Curry powder, huh?’
‘So how do you make curry without curry powder?’
‘You take the little bottles of herbs Hattie has in a collection labelled Gourmet Delight. It looks as if it was bought for decoration rather than use but she has everything. Coriander, cumin, turmeric, cardamom, you name it. Nothing’s ever been opened so it’s still good. Then you lift the cute little ornamental chilli plant off the veranda where it’s obviously been placed because it clashes with pink. You pick two chillis. You take a hunk of frozen lamb, a can of tomatoes, a few lemons from the tree outside, and
‘
‘Of course it’s Indian. And absolutely it’s for delicious. Hungry?’
Was she hungry? She smelled again and the smell did things to her insides she found extraordinary.
No. It wasn’t just the smell, she thought. It was the whole experience.
A man in Hattie’s house.
A man in her life!
There were enough men in her life, she told herself desperately. She had four brothers whom she loved. She’d coped with a neglectful father and a violent cousin. Six men. She didn’t need any more. Ever.
But Marcus was holding the chair for her to sit. No one had ever held a chair for her. Marcus was smiling at her. No one had ever smiled at her…
Was she crazy? Of course people had smiled at her. All the time!
No one had ever smiled at her like Marcus.
She was home, she told herself. Life had to get back to normal. This was some crazy two-week aberration-a man cooking for her-a man acting as if he cared. It’d go away. He’d go away and then her life could go on as normal.
Could it?
They sat across the table from him, Peta and her little brother, and they ate his curry as if they’d never eaten such food. They savoured every mouthful.
Marcus’s cooking was his secret pleasure. His mother had never cooked. For the first few years of his life he’d lived on hamburgers and Coke. Then one of his mother’s boyfriends had wooed her by hiring a chef for the night. Marcus had been sent to bed while the two had a romantic
The result had left him delighted. It had been the start of a skill that until now had never been shared. But sharing…
It was great, he thought. His food was being consumed with total enjoyment and it added to his satisfaction tenfold. Peta and Harry discussed the curry with absolute fascination; they ate every scrap and the three dogs under the table were left to eye each other disconsolately.
