Pants on Fire (38 page)

“Oh well, you know, I wouldn't want to big-note myself. Did you really like it?”

“I loved it—even before I saw your name on the plaque. It totally captures what's out there.” I nodded to the back of the house.

Margaret and Jenny were clearing away the dessert plates and I sprang up to help. Jenny practically pushed me back into my seat.

“We'll do this,” she said. “You carry on talking. Margaret is serving coffee on the verandah, when you're ready.”

Fiona and Johnny were still locked in conversation—or rather he was talking, telling all his old polo stories that everyone else had heard a million times, while Fiona gazed at him adoringly. Rory glanced at them and then back at me.

“Do you want to see around the place?” he asked me.

“Won't it be dark?” I said.

“Not very. It's a full moon.”

He took us out through the kitchen door and I looked straight up at the sky. The moon was a huge, plump disc with a butter-yellow glow. The night sky was vast and velvety and scattered with more stars than I'd ever seen. So many more than you could see anywhere in Sydney. The air had a wonderful smoothness to it, cool and caressing on my skin.

“Are you cold?” asked Rory, seeing me rub my arms, exposed in a short-sleeved cardigan.

“No, it feels nice. I think I'm having a moon bath.”

“Do you feel like a little walk? I want to show you what's at the top of the ridge. What have you got on your feet?”

I lifted my long skirt to reveal my riding boots.

“You'll be right,” he said, softly.

We walked through a formal garden with rose arbours and then went through a small wrought-iron gate. There was a dam off to the right, which Rory said was great for swimming in when it got really hot. Then we walked along a rough road, going steadily uphill.

Although it was dark and dead quiet, the country around us felt alive. I could tell there was a lot going on out there even though we couldn't see it. After a few hundred yards we turned off the road onto a path through the rough bush.

“You OK?” asked Rory. I just nodded. Words didn't seem necessary out there. As we walked the path got steeper and steeper and we fought our way through thick stands of trees and great knots of tangled bushes.

“Bloody blackberries,” said Rory. “Introduced. Out of control.”

The path was getting quite rough underfoot and I could see it was going to get even steeper near the top of the ridge. I lost my footing for a moment on a loose stone and it seemed like the most natural thing in the world for Rory to take my hand to steady me. He didn't let go of it.

When we got to the top of the ridge, I just stood and stared. The country rolled away on the other side—fold after fold of wooded land, as far as the eye could see, lit only by the full moon and the stars. There were no church spires, no pylons, no motorways and truck stops, no fast-food joints. Just endless miles of virgin earth.

“Oh Rory,” I said. “This is amazing.” I couldn't do it justice. “Look at it. It just goes on forever.”

I turned and looked at him. He was smiling softly. Smiling at me in that fond, gentle way I'd grown to know and like so much over the past few months. He was looking at me and I was gazing back, and I could sense that we were imperceptibly moving closer together. My heart was pounding. I wondered if he could hear it as his head moved slowly towards mine. Without thinking I closed my eyes, but I could still sense him coming closer, as he turned his body towards me. And at the exact moment I thought I was going to feel his lips touch mine, he suddenly took a step backwards.

I opened my eyes in shock. We just stood there, swallowing and looking at each other. He had dropped my hand and I felt brutally cut off from him. We both took deep breaths, waiting for the other one to say something and then, of course, we spoke at the same time.

“They'll be wondering . . .” I said.

“We'd better get back,” said Rory.

And without another word we turned and walked back the way we'd come. He took my hand down the steep bit again, but dropped it as soon as possible, as if it was going to electrocute him. And we didn't say a word until we were about to step into the house.

Mustering all my dignity I looked up at him and said, politely, “Thank you for showing me that, Rory. It was really beautiful.”

He didn't reply, and at that moment Fiona Clarke came bustling out.

“Where have you two been?” she asked in a piqued tone. “We've been looking everywhere for you.”

“I was just showing Georgia—” Rory started to explain, but she came and grabbed his hand and pulled him inside.

“Come on, the Brents are leaving,” she said, giving me a death stare over her shoulder.

“There you are,” said Margaret Stewart, as we walked into the drawing room. “You're just in time, Georgia. You were about to miss your ride to Bundaburra.”

Jenny and Debbie were sitting on the sofa looking tense. Debbie's eyes were a little red, but Johnny seemed to be his usual cheerful self. Fiona Clarke had both arms locked around Rory's waist and was holding on to him like he was about to take off.

“We'll be going, then,” said Jenny, standing up. “Thank you so much, Margaret, Andrew. It's been a lovely evening.”

Debbie got up too.

“Bye, you two,” she said. “I'll come back again soon. I'm sorry I got so upset earlier, but seeing Drew's old bedroom . . . you know.”

She went over to Andrew and knelt at his knees. He smoothed her hair and patted her back.

“That's alright, my pet,” he said. “You just come and see us whenever you feel like it.”

And we left, with the Stewarts standing on the verandah to wave us off, Fiona Clarke still clinging to Rory like he was a life raft.

“That Fiona's a nice girl,” said Johnny before we were even halfway down the drive.

Debbie just groaned, and Jenny turned round in her seat to look at us and shake her head.

“Oh, Johnny Brent,” she said, turning back and slapping him on the thigh. “You always were an easy lay.”

I could see him grinning happily in the rear-view mirror.

 

 

After Debbie had been in the clinic for nearly four months, Maxine told me she'd heard from Johnny (how she loved casually telling me “Johnny just called”—she was as bad as Antony). Apparently Debbie was coming out of the clinic that weekend and would be going up to live with her parents on the farm until she felt ready to return to work.

I normally visited her on Sundays but I didn't want to miss saying goodbye, so I told Jenny I'd pop over on Saturday instead. It was a beautiful November day—my first Sydney spring—and the purple haze of the jacaranda trees all over the city was a revelation to me.

It was a relief to have my sense of joyful discovery return, because Debbie had been spot on, I had been feeling really low. I'd found the winter months so blank. Sydney in August just didn't seem to have much point. It was too cool to go to the beach, but not cold enough to rug up, eat crumpets and be cosy. It had been a dready winter, not a bracing one, and I felt an intense yearning for the crispness of a frosty morning.

And, while I hated to admit it, I had been affected by the unpleasant ending with Jasper. I certainly hadn't been in love with him, but our little affair had been a lot of fun. Those things he'd said to me that last time we met had really niggled away at me until I had to admit it—I'd been using him and I was just as bad as Plonker in my own way.

On top of that I couldn't shake off a sense of disappointment regarding Rory. He always seemed so pleased to see me, but something invariably got in the way. It had felt so right that night at his parents' place, but then he'd pulled away again. He clearly preferred Fiona Clarke to me, I decided, and I was just going to have to accept it. But on top of everything else, it felt like one romantic disappointment too many.

And now I had very mixed feelings about saying goodbye to Debbie. I was delighted she was so much better, and thrilled for her parents that she'd be spending some time with them, but I had something else on my mind that made me want to weep as I hugged her for the last time in that funny little room.

“I'm so proud of you, Debs,” I said. “You've come so far. Keep on getting better.”

“No worries about that,” she said. “I'll soon be back at
Glow
to drive you all mad again—and thanks, George. You saved my life—literally—and you've been a wonderful friend. I'm going to make sure I find you the best bloody man on earth . . .” She had that cheeky look again. “Can I be your bridesmaid?”

“Oh, get out of here,” I said and left quickly, before I really started crying.

By the time I hit the car park I was bawling and had no choice but to give in to it. I was leaning on the roof of my car, my body wracked with sobs, when I felt an arm go round my waist and someone stroke my hair. It was Rory. The last person I wanted to see me all frog-eyed and snotty.

“Hey, Georgia, what's wrong?” he said, turning me round and holding me the way I'd seen him holding Debbie at the rodeo that time. The way I expected him to hold me on that hilltop at Welland. It felt every bit as good as I thought it would. His arms felt like a safe harbour. And that just made me sob even more. Lucky, lucky Fiona Clarke.

“Tell me what's wrong,” he kept saying. “You know you can trust me.”

“Oh Rory, it's just all kinds of stuff. I don't like saying goodbye.”

“But surely you're going to come up and see Debs at the farm. It's not like you're saying goodbye to her forever.”

That's what you think, I thought and started wailing some more. The nicer he was to me, the more I cried.

Just when it was starting to get really messy—I'd soaked his shoulder—I heard another pair of feet crunching on the gravel. I was too embarrassed to look up. Maybe it was one of the doctors from the clinic with a straitjacket for me.

“Jenny,” said Rory. “Georgia is really upset and I don't seem to be making it any better. Perhaps you should take over?”

He lifted up my puffy red face and looked at me intently. How humiliating.

“I'll see you later, Georgia, OK?” he said. “Or up in Walton, very soon. Promise? Scooby's dying to see you.”

Well, that just set me off some more. After kissing the side of my head—cue more hysterics, why did this man keep torturing me?—Rory let go of me and Jenny put her arm round my shoulder. Her motherly warmth calmed me down and once I'd stopped sobbing quite so violently she took me to the clinic's kitchen and made a cup of tea.

We sat outside and, as I tried to collect myself, we watched birds diving around in their mad mating dances.

“They remind me of my Sydney friends,” I said to Jenny, still gulping a bit. “Totally wrapped up with flapping around in circles, getting nowhere with a great deal of fuss.”

She smiled at me and then wisely changed the subject. “How do you think Debbie's doing?”

“I think she's doing brilliantly,” I said, between sniffs. “She must be if they think she's OK to leave. Her shine seems to have come back. And she's got those pictures of Drew up everywhere now. I think she's come a long way. What about you?”

“Same. I think she's going to be able to get over Drew better than she ever could have without help. And in the end, she's going to be a much nicer person than she was. We did indulge her terribly, Georgia.”

“Now don't you start blaming yourself,” I said. “Debbie was always going to be the centre of attention, looking the way she does.”

“I guess you're right. Like her father . . . Anyway, it will be great to have her at Bundaburra for a while and it's such a comfort to know that when she returns to work she has friends like you and Liinda to look after her.”

And it was only because I'd cried so much already that I managed to keep it together when I told her.

“I don't think I'll be there, Jenny.”

“Why not? Are you getting another job?”

I shook my head. “My year's contract with
Glow
is up in the middle of January . . .” I took a deep breath. “I'm going back to England.”

Jenny looked amazed. “Do you have to?”

“No. Maxine's furious. She's offered me the world to stay, but . . . I want to go home.”

“Really? I thought you were happy here—you seem to have made such a life for yourself. Everybody adores you.”

That did start me off again.

“Oh, Jenny, I feel like I've stuffed everything up. Coming to Australia was such a wonderful opportunity and I've just thrown it all away.”

Jenny knew exactly when to say nothing and let you vomit it all up. So I did, between snivelling and blowing my nose and sniffing and generally being mucal.

“I can't tell you how thrilling it all was when I first arrived here,” I told her. “I felt reborn. Sydney is so beautiful and everyone was so friendly—even going to buy a newspaper was fresh and new. Then I went to this great party and met all these fun people, who felt like family immediately, and I met loads of gorgeous men and everything was wonderful. Then it all seemed to fall apart. You know I came here after a five-year relationship broke up, don't you? We were engaged, actually.”

Jenny nodded. “Debbie told me.”

“I bet she did,” I said with a teary smile. “Anyway, I had this opportunity for a whole new life and I feel I've made stupid choices all over again, like I did in London. It's just that I'm attracted to such excessive people.”