Outback Bridegroom

Enid’s hand, mid-way to her wine glass again, froze. “Sometimes, Max, you act like I’m not Christine’s mother,” she complained. “I’ve spent the last twenty-eight years of my life being anxious about her.”

“I wonder why, Mum?” Kyall asked bleakly. “Chris has made a big success of herself, yet you and Gran spent your time trying to convince her she was an oddity, all long arms and legs. Don’t you know how cruel the two of you were to her?”

“Please, Kyall,” implored Christine, who had inherited much of her father’s peacemaker manner. “Let it drop. We’re all upset.”

“I certainly am,” Enid huffed, secure in the mistaken belief she had taken her responsibilities as a mother seriously. “My mother has only just been buried. Did any of you notice?”

“I don’t know that burying Gran is enough for me,” Kyall said with black humour. “It’s not as though she can stop off at the pearly gates. But I’m sure she’ll work out a deal at the dark end of town.”

“Kyall!” Enid’s face was shocked. “That’s dreadful!”

“Maybe, but I don’t like her chances of going to heaven.”

“If there is such a place,” Enid responded tartly. “It seems to me we make our heaven and hell here.”

Kyall and Max went off to the library. Suzanne made a quick escape to her room. And Enid signalled by an imperious gesture of her right forefinger that she wished to speak to her only daughter.

“What do you make of Suzanne?” she asked in a worried tone of voice when they were seated in Enid’s spacious study, door shut.

“Make of her? Gosh, Mum, why throw that at me? Suzanne’s family. I mean, is that any way to put it?”

“You’ve got a better way?” Enid asked, looking as if she very much wanted to hear it.

“Keep that tone up, Mum, and I’m ready to leave,” Christine promised wryly, thinking that whenever she came into contact with her mother there was confrontation.

“Good grief, Christine, I don’t want any arguments.” Enid looked genuinely victimized. “I never know how to talk to you; you’re so different.”

“That’s why I stay away.” Christine stared around the room, cluttered with trophies and photographs of her brother. She and Kyall were so alike, but being a female was her stumbling block. It was splendid to be a male of six foot plus. Problematic in a female. For years she’d been made so self-conscious it had been all she could do to cross a room without stumbling over the furniture.

“I understood you stayed away because of your grandmother.” Enid pressed back in her comfortable armchair. “God knows, she gave us all hell—but things are different now. I want to do the best I possibly can for you, and for Suzanne. She is, after all, Stewie’s child. I loved my brother. We were such lonely, largely ignored children.”

Christine, never the daughter her mother had wanted, laughed. “Join the group. Let’s face it, Mum, beside Kyall I wasn’t worth paying any attention to. Kyall was everything. It should have made him unbearable, but it didn’t turn out that way. He’s a good man. He deserves his Sarah. As for me, I was judged exclusively on my looks. I wasn’t the lovely little doll you wanted.”

“You had no interest in clothes.” Her mother made the charge as though it were important. “Except boys’ shirts and jodhpurs. I was worried you might have ‘problems’. Why, after all this time, have you decided to tackle me about it?”

“Maybe I’m trying to work off my own hurt and angry feelings, Mum. You gave me a terrible image of myself. It took me years before I could believe what everyone else was telling me. I’m among the best in the business.”

“My dear Christine, you look fine. Is that what you want to hear? Because it’s perfectly true. At thirteen, fourteen and the rest that was far from the case. You slumped badly. I was very worried about your height and your posture. I didn’t know when you were going to stop growing. That’s the first thing people notice when they meet you for the first time. Your height. And you will wear ludicrously high heels.”

“I’ve come to terms with my height, Mum. Why can’t you? It’s so trivial, anyway. I hope there’s a whole lot more to me than my looks. They don’t last forever.”

“True.” Enid smoothed her thick, glossy dark hair, which she persisted in wearing too short. “I try to do the best I can. I was never a beauty, like Mother, but I do look good when I dress up. At any rate I won your father’s heart.”

“Oh, Mum…” Christine, who loved her father dearly and was aware of his unhappiness, almost moaned. “Isn’t it time for you to make it up to Dad? He’s never had an easy time, with Gran running everyone’s life. Why don’t you two go on a world trip? Have a second honeymoon? You’ve heard of a honeymoon, haven’t you?”

“Is there something you’re trying to tell me, Christine?” Enid demanded indignantly. A few odd remarks had come to her ears of late, but she hadn’t paid much attention. Her marriage vows were set in stone as far as Enid was concerned.

Christine tried a gentle warning. “There’s just so much you can do to make things better. A lot depends on how you act from now on.”

“Are you trying to tell me your father isn’t happy?” Enid enunciated, very clearly. “That he might leave me? That isn’t his style,” she scoffed.

“You have to give him that.” Christine sighed. “But there’s no way you can guarantee the future. All I’m saying is, this is yours and Dad’s chance at a new life. How is Kyall’s marriage going to affect you? Sarah will be mistress of Wunnamurra. You were never very kind to Sarah either. She had to live with that for years. All the snobbery!”

“Sarah has forgiven me.” Enid stirred restlessly, wanting to bury her part in Sarah’s traumas. “And Kyall will still need us to help run the station. Your father and I are very involved in every aspect of the operation.”

“Kyall could easily employ staff if you wanted to do something else,” Christine suggested.

“Naturally we want to stay here. This is my home, Christine.” Enid adopted a fervent tone. “I was born here. I don’t think I could bear to leave it.”

“How does Dad feel? How does Kyall feel? And Sarah’s viewpoint is very important.”

“We haven’t discussed it.” Enid rose as if to signify that this oppressive, unwieldy conversation was coming to an end. “And you, Christine? I’m only your mother, but may I ask your plans?”

Christine lifted her dark head. “Well, I can’t say this is my home, Mum, now, can I? Any more than I can see it as poor little Suzy’s home. You’re not about to let go, are you?”

So unexpectedly challenged, Enid looked down at her daughter with a mixture of astonishment and disapproval. “Christine, you’re meddling in matters that don’t concern you. You know as well as I do Sarah is head of the hospital. That will take up all her time.”

“You don’t really believe that, do you? Things change.”

“I don’t intend to discuss it with you. You’ve never involved yourself with the running of Wunnamurra. You left the first moment you could, and I very much doubt if, for all your travels and the glamorous people you’ve mixed with, you’ve met anyone who could measure up to Mitchell Claydon. You were very foolish there, Christine. Very headstrong. You actually had Mitchell in the palm of your hand—the entire Claydon family was on side. Even mother approved the match—such a relief—but you flung it all away. For what?”

“The word’s freedom, Mum,” Christine said quietly. “Until you begin to take a long, hard look at yourself you’ll never understand that. Or me.”

“And I’ve got something to tell you, dear,” Enid retorted acerbically, well used to having the last word. “There’s a very good chance Mitchell will never forgive you.”

Christine laughed wryly. “Whenever I need comfort, Mum, I come to you. Actually, Julanne has asked me over for a visit.”

“When was this?” Enid’s dark eyes fired with interest.

“Today.”

“Then you’ll have to go,” Enid said, feeling a wave of maternal hope. Her daughter simply had no idea how she worried about her future. “Mitchell may not have lost all feeling for you after all. Though he’s got plenty of girls after him. That silly little Amanda Logan, for one. Throwing herself at him the last time I saw them together. Can’t say I blame her. Mitchell is quite a catch. My advice to you is to try and get yourself together. Decide what you want out of life. This may be your very last chance.”

Though Christine hated to agree with her mother, it seemed all at once that it was.

Kyall stopped her in the entrance hall, where masses of long-stemmed scarlet roses sat on the circular rosewood library table. Their perfume was a real force.

“Fancy an early-morning ride?” Kyall’s smile was full of sweetness and affection.

“What time do I need to get up?” she joked.

“Six okay for you, or are you played out?”

“It’s not as though I cried buckets at the funeral.” She made a sad face.

“No.” His own expression grew bleak.

“And what’s the big secret you’ve all been keeping from me?” She looked steadily into his eyes. “I know there is one. There’s more to be told than the miracle of finding your beautiful daughter, Kyall.”