Flying the Coop (12 page)

‘For god's sake,' Chris frowned at him. ‘Just shove the damn thing somewhere, will you?'

‘O-
kay
!' Michael raced back outside.

‘In the boot, Michael!' Chris called after him. ‘In the
boot
!'

As the shrieks started coming from the car, Chris knew that her time for procrastinating was over. She left the house swiftly, slammed the door behind her and headed towards the car. Halfway down the path, despite the fact that the shrieking was becoming more intense, Chris turned for one last look at her house. Seventeen years of memories, seventeen years of life. One marriage, two children, one divorce. Lots and lots of water under the bridge. Some that had been calm and tranquil, some that had been a bit choppy, some that had been so turbulent they had almost sucked her under. All gone now. Making sure she had her back to the car and the kids couldn't see, Chris put her fingers up to her lips and blew a kiss.

‘Goodbye, house.'

From:
Christin Beggs

Date:
Saturday, 21st October 2006. 8.30PM

To:
Jenny Parker

Subject:
Down on the farm!

Just a quick note to let you know that the move went off relatively hitch-free. Apart from the removalist trying to pick me up, that is. I must admit I was tempted (he was
very
good-looking), but I just can't afford any distractions at the moment. Haven't met Mac yet so can't report on
his
looks. Anyway, must fly – boxes to unpack, furniture to move, etc. Love, Chris

PS I
am
doing the right thing, aren't I?

From:
Jenny Parker

Date:
Saturday, 21st October 2006. 9.30PM

To:
Chris Beggs

Subject:
Re: Down on the farm!

I'm guessing when you asked me if you were doing the right thing, you meant the farm and not the cute removalist. So – are you having second thoughts? Be
honest
– and don't worry, I won't say I told you so. I may have had reservations, Chris, but I really,
really
want this to work out for you. And maybe – I mean this in the
nicest
possible way – but you do sometimes tend to give up just a tad easily, when you're
really
capable of more. Much more. Anyway, don't start questioning yourself yet – wait till tomorrow. I bet after you're all settled in, everything'll be fine. And a huge congratulations! I shall definitely come visit next year – if only to take photos of you mucking out stables and stuff. Re here – it's all really peaceful at the moment. Stuart went back to Bundaberg yesterday – thank God. Lauren and I were both glad to see the back of him. I hope he stays there for the duration and only comes back when everything's sorted. Otherwise I'm thinking of a brief separation until this job's finished! (Only joking!)

Love from Jenny.

PS Just read through this email and realised that
I'm
not being honest either. The truth is we've definitely hit a marital low point at the moment. And what makes it worse is that Stuart simply won't talk about it – in fact, I think he's avoiding me.

PPS GOOD LUCK WITH EVERYTHING. Thinking of you all . . .

A
series of hollow, fluting birdcalls came echoing up from the nearby creek and woke Chris just before 8 am on her first morning at the farm. It was a wonderful way to wake up, gentle and melodious – and a vast improvement on Michael leaping on her bed with a tray of soggy crumpets and pink Quik. A glance at the bedside clock told her that she had slept considerably later than was her habit, but she wasn't all that surprised. Yesterday had been
exhausting
. She had already been tired before she even left Canterbury but things had rapidly become even more debilitating once they had finally arrived at the farm. Directing furniture, rejecting Sam, unpacking essentials, outlining rules, re-confiscating the dinosaur poo, laying the new rugs, delegating tasks and then doing most of them herself, rejecting Sam more firmly, paying off the removalists, getting
rid
of the removalists, replacing curtains, finding some tuna with which to feed the resident cat, hooking up the computer, convincing Michael that he could
not
sleep in the barn – and much, much more. And, all the while, trying to ignore the doubts that had lain dormant for the last few months but, now that she was actually
at
the farm, were refusing to keep their niggling little heads down anymore. Finally, at midnight,
with boxes and piles of belongings still scattered throughout the house, she had crawled into bed and immediately fallen into a sleep of utter exhaustion.

But eight hours of solid slumber hadn't seemed to make much difference. To her disappointment, she woke with the same heavy, sinking feeling that she had gone to bed with the night before, and which even the beauty of the morning birdsong did little to dispel. She lay in bed, hunched under the doona, and tried to work out what was happening. Why, after three months of excitement and anticipation, and when the culmination of all they had planned was at hand, did she feel so overwhelmingly defeatist? And so utterly daunted by all that lay ahead.

After about fifteen minutes of contemplation, Chris came to the conclusion that it was precisely
because
of the past three months that she felt the way she did: the way she had hurtled through them, fuelled by pure adrenalin, meant that she had now hit an anticlimactic wall. So all she needed to do was clamber over and ground herself, and then everything would be okay again.

But before she could even attempt any clambering, she needed caffeine in serious quantities. Accordingly, Chris sat up and stared blankly at the disaster area that was currently her bedroom. With boxes stacked by her dressing-table, and precarious piles of clothing, jumbled shoes and tangled coathangers surrounding the bed, it all made her feel exhausted before she even began. She felt like burying herself back underneath her doona and hibernating until everything was right again. The problem was that she was temporarily unsure what
was
right. Certainly, if her fairy godmother – who had been conspicuous only by her absence for the past thirty-eight years – suddenly appeared and offered her one wish, she would wish to be back at home in Canterbury with everything exactly as it had been. Before.

But as that was highly unlikely, Chris forced herself to fling the covers back, clamber out of bed and then, as the chill of the morning hit her, pull her candlewick dressing-gown over the Carlton t-shirt. Then, with the dressing-gown hanging open and its cord trailing behind her on the floor, she opened the bedroom door hell-bent on coffee. Which was why, when she actually
smelt
that coffee, she thought it was her olfactory tracts getting ready in advance. But fresh coffee was not the only delicious aroma that was evident as soon as the door opened. There was also fried bacon, and eggs, and the wonderfully homely smell of freshly toasted bread.

Now thoroughly puzzled, but increasingly ravenous, Chris headed straight up the passage, dodging around a stack of small boxes outside the bathroom, to enter the kitchen. And then stopped dead in her tracks. For there, at the stove, with her hands encased in floral oven mitts whilst sizzling bacon and eggs in a huge iron skillet, was an extremely plump older woman with salt and pepper hair who was dressed in a pair of red sneakers, black leggings and an oversized red windcheater that was mostly covered by a flouncy yellow apron.

‘Well, good morning there!' said the apparition brightly, as she dexterously flipped an egg and then pointed the spatula at Chris. ‘
Now
I see where these two Ginger Meggs get their hair from! And you barrack for the Blues, do you?'

‘What?' Chris followed the woman's gaze down to her t-shirt. ‘Oh – no. It's my ex-husband's. Um, who –'

‘What's your poison then, love – coffee? Tea? Orange juice?'

‘Um,' repeated Chris, wide-eyed, as she tried to work out what the hell was happening. She glanced across to the kitchen table, where Grace and Michael, both still in pyjamas, were seated and hoeing happily into plates piled high with bacon and eggs. Next to them was a spare place setting.

‘Morning, Mum!' mumbled Michael, spearing a rasher of bacon and waving it at her. ‘Want some?'

‘No, I mean yes. I mean – don't talk with your mouth full.' Chris pulled out a chair and sat down next to Grace, who had yet to look up from her meal. She turned back to the older woman at the stove. ‘Um . . .'

‘Allow me to introduce myself. But first . . .' The visitor slid the contents of the skillet onto a plate, added a slice of toast from under the griller, and then carried the lot over to the table. ‘Eat up. You look like a coffee person, am I right?'

‘Well, yes, I –'

‘Milk, sugar?'

‘Yes, and one –'

‘There you go.' She carried a mug of freshly brewed coffee awkwardly between the oven mitts and placed it down on the table. Then, with her mitted hands on her ample hips, she stood back to watch. ‘Why aren't you eating, love? It'll go cold.'

‘Oh – thanks.' Very conscious of the older woman watching, Chris cut off a piece of bacon and, dipping it into her egg yolk, popped it in her mouth. ‘Mmm! Delicious!'

‘Of course.'

‘Mum, this is Dot,' said Grace, pushing her empty plate away with a sigh of repletion. ‘She's from next door.'

‘Next door?' Chris, with a laden fork halfway to her mouth, stared at her visitor.

‘That's right, love. Eat up. The name's really Dorothy, but everyone calls me Dot.'

‘Well, Dot, um, pleased to –'

‘Actually, I just lied,' admitted Dot cheerfully. ‘Because nobody calls me Dot at all – except, that is, for you three now. But I was at a lecture at the community centre yesterday and it was all about . . . now, what did he call it?
Streamlining
– that's it. So I woke up this morning and thought t'myself, Dorothy,
you old stick-in-the-mud, that bloke was right on the ball – you need t'
streamline
things. Starting with your name.'

‘But how do you know –'

‘Your two here?' Dot clapped one oven mitt on Grace's shoulder and, unbelievably, was not immediately shaken off. ‘They came over t'visit me yesterday. We had morning tea t'gether in my garden. Lovely kids. Did you know –' she used her other oven mitt to wave expansively around the kitchen – ‘that this used t'be
really
nice? Bright, cheerful wallpaper – you can't
get
wallpaper like that anymore. You should have seen it, dear, you'd a loved it. I bet he got rid of it out of spite.
Bastard
. Excuse my French.'

‘Actually, I was the –'

‘But let's not let
him
ruin our morning.' Dot pursed her lips briefly and then, as if instantly consigning the memory to a mental rubbish bin, she wreathed her face in her habitual smile once more. ‘And now, if you don't mind, I'm just going t'have a little stickybeak. Haven't been in here for, oh, fourteen and a half years.' She undid the apron and, shrugging it off, revealed a windcheater appliqué that had Winnie the Pooh with his head stuck in a jar of honey. Then she plucked off her oven mitts and dropped them, with the apron, on the counter before heading through the archway into the lounge-room. ‘Good heavens! The curtains! The carpet! That
bugger
!'

Chris turned to Grace with a look of horror. ‘
That's
our next-door neighbour?'

‘She's not so bad.' Grace plucked an edge of bacon from her mother's plate and ate it. ‘And she's a really good cook.'

‘I
like
her,' announced Michael, wiping his hand across his mouth and smearing egg yolk in a pale-yellow line from chin to ear. ‘She's nice. And funny, too.'

‘But who let her in here?' whispered Chris to her daughter. ‘I mean, what was she doing cooking breakfast?'

‘I
know
! Wasn't it nice of her?'

‘Nice? Ah . . .' Chris finished off her breakfast as she thought about this unexpected turn of events. By the time she swallowed the last piece of bacon, she had developed a rather unsettling image of Dot as a permanent fixture. Hermit, my eye. So much for her imaginary neighbour who just peeped out from behind a lace curtain every now and again, perhaps with a shy wave whenever seen. Chris shuddered, and took a deep gulp of coffee to steady herself. It was delicious.

‘What're we doing today, Mum?' asked Michael, using his finger to draw noughts and crosses in his leftover egg yolk. ‘C'n we go exploring or something?'

‘Not a chance.' Chris slid his plate to the other side of the table. ‘We're finishing the unpacking today. Maybe, if you work really well, we'll go for a walk around the property later and introduce ourselves to the chooks. Now, though, you're to go and give yourself a good wash – hands
and
face – then get dressed and get stuck into your room. I want it all set up by the end of the day. Grace, have you finished yours yet?'

‘Not yet.' Grace pushed her chair back and stood up. ‘And when're we going to talk about my name? I'm thinking Dawn, coz it sort of means new beginnings and all that.'

‘Yes, but then for the rest of your life, you'll have people saying that they got up at the crack of dawn. Don't you think that'd get a bit annoying?'

‘Shit. I didn't think of that.'

‘Now off to work – and don't say shit,' added Chris automatically as she left the table to go over to the archway through which her guest had disappeared. As the two children exited the room, one towards the bathroom and the other up the kitchen stairs, she peeked surreptitiously around the corner but all that could be seen was a stack of boxes marked ‘fragile'. Sighing crossly, Chris stuck her head out even further.

‘What're we looking at?'

Chris jumped as Dot's voice came from right behind her left shoulder. Then she whirled around only to come face to face with the older woman, who was peering past her curiously.

‘Nothing,' muttered Chris, flushing.

‘Oh.' Dot gave her a puzzled glance before plucking her apron off the bench and tying it back around her generous girth. ‘Now, where should I start?'

‘You?'

‘Yes, of course me. Good heavens, what sort of neighbour would I be if I didn't chip in when needed? I'd have been here yesterday but Saturday's my day for square dancing, can't miss that. And then I had that seminar. So how about I do the washing up?'

‘Look, Dot,' said Chris earnestly, ‘it really isn't necessary. I mean, it was lovely of you to cook our breakfast but –'

‘Stuff and nonsense. Now you go along and do what you have to do and leave this t'me. Go on, off you go.'

‘But, Dot, I –'

‘I won't take no for an answer, love. You might as well give in graciously.'

Chris opened her mouth and then shut it again, because she realised that the woman was right – she
wasn't
going to take no for an answer. In fact, she had already unearthed the dishwashing liquid and was filling the sink, humming happily to herself as she did so. Chris looked around the kitchen, where the remains of breakfast seemed to be taking up an inordinate amount of space, and decided to let Dot have her way. Instead, she treated herself to a nice long shower in the avocado bathroom and then spent some time rummaging through the pile of clothing on her bedroom floor in search of suitable work clothes that didn't make her look unbearably frumpy. She finally found some jeans and a lime-green t-shirt that came
close to fitting the bill and then, feeling decidedly more human and slightly more cheerful, went to find out what the others were up to.

The kitchen, which now bore no evidence of the earlier bacon and egg breakfast, apart from a lingering aroma, was empty so Chris decided to try upstairs. She used the kitchen staircase, a plain, wooden structure that went straight up to a rather narrow passageway that ran straight ahead to the doorway of Michael's room and then veered abruptly right past Grace's room next door. Opposite the two bedrooms, with the angled passage running along two of its walls, was the boxroom, so that it was actually situated on top of the centre of the house. Just after Grace's doorway, the passage ended with the front staircase, a rather more elaborate affair than the kitchen one, with the newly polished stairs setting off the walnut balustrade beautifully. Chris decided to try Michael's room first and hit paydirt.

‘Hey, Mum,' said Michael, still in his pyjamas, bouncing up and down on his bed.

‘Thought I'd give young Michael a hand.' Dot looked up from where she was sitting on Michael's desk chair, a box full of assorted toys in front of her. ‘We'll have this room shipshape by the end of the day, won't we, love?'

‘Yep!' Michael stopped bouncing long enough to lean forward and pluck a half-man, half-wolf figurine from Dot's hand. Then he started up again, this time making whooshing noises and thrusting the figurine upwards as he bounced.

‘Doesn't look like he's doing much of the work,' commented Chris, glancing at him critically before turning back to Dot. ‘Listen, you
really
don't need to do this. We can –'