Seduction And Sacrifice

Gemma’s head inevitably turned towards her father’s bed against the far wall. She’d long known about the battered old biscuit tin, hidden in a hole in the dirty wall behind the headboard, but had never dared take it out to see what was in it. She’d always suspected it contained a small hoard of opals, the ones her father cashed in whenever he wanted to go on a drinking binge. It took Gemma a few moments to accept that nothing and no one could stop her now from seeing what the failed miner had coveted so secretly.

Her heart began to pound as she drew the tin from its hiding place and brought it back to the table. Pulling up her rickety chair once more, she sat down and simply stared at it for a few moments. Logic told Gemma there couldn’t be anything of great value lying within, yet her hands were trembling slightly as they forced the metal lid upwards.

What she saw in the bottom of the tin stopped her heart for a few seconds. Could it really be what it looked like? Or was it just a worthless piece of potch?

But surely her father would not hide away something worthless!

Her hand reached into the tin to curve around the grey, oval-shaped stone. It filled her palm, its size and weight making her heart thud more heavily. My God, if this was what she thought it was...

Feeling a smooth surface underneath, she drew a nobby out and turned it over, her eyes flinging wide. A section of the rough outer layer had been sliced away to reveal the opal beneath. As Gemma gently rolled the stone back and forth to see the play of colour, she realised she was looking at a small fortune. There had to be a thousand carats here at least! And the pattern was a pinfire, if she wasn’t mistaken. Quite rare.

She blinked as the burst of red lights flashed out at her a second time, dazzling in their fiery beauty before changing to blue, then violet, then green, then back to that vivid glowing red.

My God, I’m rich, she thought.

But any shock or excitement quickly changed to confusion.

Her father had never made any decent strikes or finds in her various claims he’d worked over the years here at Lightning Ridge. Or at least...that was what he’d always told her. Clearly, however, he must have at some time uncovered this treasure, this pot of gold.

A fierce resentment welled up inside Gemma. There had been no need for them to live in this primitive dugout all these years, no need to be reduced to charity, as had often happened, no need to be pitied and talked about.

Shaking her head in dismay and bewilderment, she put the stone down on the table and stared blankly back into the tin. There remained maybe twenty or thirty small chunks of opals scattered in the corners, nothing worth more than ten, or maybe twenty dollars each at most. Her father’s drinking money, as she’d suspected.

It was when she began idly scooping the stones over into one corner to pick them up that she noticed the photograph lying underneath. It was faded and yellowed, its edges and corners very worn as though it had been handled a lot. Momentarily distracted from her ragged emotions, she picked up the small photo to frown at the man and woman in it. Both were strangers.

But as Gemma’s big brown eyes narrowed to stare at the man some more, her stomach contracted fiercely. The handsome blond giant staring back at her bore little resemblance to the bald, bedraggled, beer-bellied man she’d buried today. But his eyes were the eyes of Jon Smith—her father. They were unforgettable eyes, a very light blue, as cold and hard as arctic ice. Gemma shivered as they seemed to lock on to hers.

Her father had been a cold, hard man. She’d tried to be a good daughter to him, doing all the cooking and cleaning, putting him to bed when he came home rolling drunk, listening to his tales of misery and woe. Drink had always made him maudlin.

There were times, however, when Gemma had suspected it wasn’t love that kept her tied to her father. It was probably fear. He’d slapped her more times than she could count, as well as having a way of looking at her sometimes that chilled her right through. She recalled being on the end of one of those looks a few weeks back when she’d mentioned going to Walgett to try to find work. He’d forbidden her from going anywhere, and the steely glint in his eyes had made her comply in obedient silence.

A long, shuddering sigh puffed from Gemma’s lungs, making her aware how tightly she had been holding her breath. Her gaze focused back on the photograph, moving across to the woman her father was holding firmly to his side.

Gemma caught her breath once more. For the young woman appearing to resent her father’s hold looked pregnant. About six months.

My God, she realised, it had to be her mother!

Gemma’s heart started to race as she stared at the delicate dark-haired young woman whose body language bespoke an unwillingness to be held so closely, whose tanned slender arms were wrapped protectively around her bulging stomach, whose fingers were entwined across the mound of her unborn baby with a white-knuckled intensity.

So this was the ‘slut’ her father refused to speak of, who had died giving birth but who still lived within her daughter’s genes. Gemma’s father had told her once that she took after her mother, but other than that one snarled comment she knew nothing about the woman who’d borne her. Any curiosity about her had long been forcibly suppressed, only to burst to life now with a vengeance.

Gemma avidly studied the photograph, anxious to spot the similarities between mother and daughter. But she was disappointed to find no great resemblance, other than the dark wavy hair. Of course it was impossible to tell with the woman in the photograph wearing sunglasses. She supposed their faces were a similar shape, both being oval, and yes, they had the same pointy chin. But Gemma was taller, and much more shapely. Other than her being pregnant, this young woman had the body of a child. Or was it the shapelessness of the cheap floral dress that made her look as if she had no bust or hips?

‘Mary,’ Gemma whispered aloud, then frowned. Odd. She didn’t look like a Mary. But that had been her name on Gemma’s birth certificate. Her maiden name had been Bell and she’d been born in Sydney.

A sudden thought struck and Gemma flipped the photograph over. Written in the top left hand corner were some words. ‘Stefan and Mary. Christmas, 1973’.

The date sent Gemma’s head into a spin. If that was her mother in the photograph, pregnant with her, then she’d been born early in 1974, not September 1975! She was nearly twenty in that case, not eighteen...

Gemma was stunned, yet not for a moment did her mind refute her new age. It explained so much, really. Her shooting up in height before any other girl in her class. Her getting her periods so early, and her breasts. Then later, in high school, the way she’d always felt different from her classmates. She hadn’t been different at all. She’d simply been older!

Distress enveloped Gemma as she stared, not only at the date on the photograph, but at the Stefan part. Stefan had to be her father’s real name, not Jon. Lies, she realised. He’d told her nothing but lies. Why? What lay behind it all?

Gemma conceded she’d always suspected her father’s name of Jon Smith might be an alias. He’d been a Swede through and through, with Nordic colouring and a thick accent. But the opal fields of outback Australia was a well-known haven for runaways, mostly criminals or married men who’d deserted their wives and families, all seeking the anonymity and relative safety of isolated places. People did not ask too many questions around Lightning Ridge, not even daughters.

But the questions were very definitely tumbling through Gemma’s mind now. What other lies had her father told her? Maybe her mother hadn’t died. Maybe she was out there somewhere, alive and well. Maybe her father had stolen her as a baby, changed his name and lied about her age to hide them both from anyone searching for them. Maybe he—

Gemma pulled herself up short. She was grasping at straws, trying to make her life fit some romantic scenario like you saw on television, where a long-lost daughter found her mother after twenty years. Life was rarely like that. There was probably a host of reasons why her father had changed his name, as well as her age. He’d been a secretive man, as well as a controlling one. Maybe he’d thought he could keep his daughter under his thumb longer if she believed she was younger. Or maybe he’d simply lied to authorities about her age that time when they’d tackled him about why he hadn’t sent her to school yet.

Gemma could still remember the welfare lady coming out here to see her father. Despite her being a little girl at the time, and dreadfully shy, the visit had stuck in her mind because the lady had been so pretty and smelled so good. It was shortly after the social worker’s visit that Gemma had been sent to school. Her ‘birth certificate’ had surfaced a few years later when she had wanted to join a local netball team.

Gemma was totally absorbed in her thoughts when suddenly the sunlight that was streaming in and on to the table vanished, a large silhouette, filling the open doorway of the dugout. She froze for a second, then quickly shoved the photo and opal back and snapped the lid of the tin shut.

‘Anyone home?’ a familiar voice asked.

‘Oh, it’s only you, Ma,’ Gemma said, sighing as she stood up and walked forward across the dirt floor.

Her relief was unnervingly intense. For a split second, she’d been afraid her unexpected visitor might have been someone else. Which was silly, really. It had been six years and he hadn’t come near her, hadn’t even spoken to her when they’d passed on the street. There again, her father was no longer around to act as a deterrent.

And neither was Blue, she realised with a sickening lurch in her stomach. Oh, my God, was that who had poisoned her dog?

‘Come in and sit down, Ma,’ Gemma offered, trying to keep her steady voice while her insides were churning. ‘You’re just the person I need to see.’

‘Really? What about?’ Ma bulldozed her bulk over to the table and plonked down in a chair, which protested noisily.

‘I was wondering if you’d mind if I slept in your caravan tonight. I feel a bit nervous staying here on my own.’ Which was a huge understatement at this moment.

‘Do you know, that’s exactly what I came over here to see you about? I was thinking to myself that Gemma’s too good-looking a girl to be stayin’ way out here on her own. There are some none too scrupulous men living around these parts.’

Gemma shuddered, her mind whisking to one particular man, a big brute of a miner who had large gnarled hands and had always smelled of body odour and cheap whisky.

‘Well, I wouldn’t say I’m God’s gift to men, Ma, and I could certainly lose a pound or two, but, as you say, some men aren’t fussy.’

‘Lose a pound or two?’ Ma spluttered. ‘Why, girl, have you looked at yourself in the mirror lately? Maybe a few months ago you might have had a layer of puppy fat on you, but you’ve trimmed down this summer to a fine figure of a woman, believe me. And you’ve always had the prettiest face, though you should start usin’ some sunscreen on it. Mediterranean brown is all right for legs and arms but not for faces. You don’t want to wrinkle up that lovely clear skin of yours, do you?’

Gemma didn’t know how to take this welter of compliments. It wasn’t like Ma to rave on so.

‘You make it sound like I’m beautiful or something,’ she protested with an embarrassed laugh.

‘Or something just about describes it,’ Ma muttered. ‘You’ll have to watch yourself when you get to Sydney, my girl. City men are vultures.’

‘I’m not much interested in men at the moment,’ Gemma replied stiffly. God, she’d thought she’d got over that other business. But she hadn’t at all. It had been there lurking in the depths of her mind, waiting to be dragged up to the surface again, just as he had been lurking, waiting for the opportunity to assault her again.

Ma reached out to pat her on the wrist. ‘Stop thinkin’ about him, dear. He isn’t worth thinkin’ about, you know. Men like him never are.’

Gemma gaped a moment before the penny dropped. Ma wasn’t talking about him. She was talking about her father. ‘What do you mean by men like him?’

‘Cruel. Selfish. Mean.’