When Lennie’s mother died shortly after Jenny was born, Veronica went with him and his father to the funeral. They sat together in the little church at the end of the lane, sharing long looks of understanding as the simple ceremony took place. Derwent was away again with his band and she was glad of his absence because it removed the day-to-day conflict from her life. She could spend time with Lennie and not feel guilty. She wondered if Lennie was getting tired of their platonic relationship, if he felt cheated by the frustration of being with her but not being able to have her.
She looked at him quickly but he was staring at the coffin that contained his mother’s remains, his eyes heavy and wet with tears and his heart and mind somewhere in the past. She felt guilty at once because her thoughts had been on her own needs rather than on his grief. Later they buried the old lady in the homestead garden with her forebears.
Old Nigel hired a full-time maid named Norma Mackie after that. Veronica could not spare the time from her new responsibilities as a mother to act as a domestic servant for Nigel and Lennie, and Derwent would never agree to such an arrangement anyway. But she still worked in the office with Lennie, doing the paperwork and helping with the book, which was now almost finished.
* * *
Veronica suddenly came back from the confused journey through her past. She rose from the day bed on the verandah and peered into the small cot at her child. Jenny slept peacefully; a thin film of sweat glistened on the tiny face in the heat of the summer afternoon. She went to the kitchen and made a jug of cordial, loading the drink with ice cubes; then she slipped from the house and walked across the courtyard.
CHAPTER THREE
Lennie Symons stood back to mop the sweat from his eyes and to admire his handiwork. He had chosen the highest point in the courtyard to erect his temporary wheat silo. The area was well drained and sealed with fine gravel, an important precaution if the storms came too soon. The tall cylinder of weld mesh resembled a tubular cage, with an old tarpaulin covering the gravel at the base, forming a canvas floor to protect the grain when it came in bulk from the paddock.
‘I saw you from the cottage,’ a voice said softly at his elbow. ‘You look hot, I thought you might like a cold drink.’ Lennie turned to face Veronica Byrne, feeling his chest swell and his pulse quicken as usual when she came near him. She smiled, her pretty dark eyes dancing in her tiny, beautiful face.
He looked fondly at the small, neat woman, with her thick brunette hair swept up in a ponytail away from her neck. Her brief shorts highlighted her perfect figure, and the halter-top showed the soft curve of her breasts. She had regained her figure almost immediately after the birth of her daughter, a fact that made her the wonder of most of the women in the district.
‘I’ve been watching you for a while,’ she said softly, conscious of her impact on him, feeling a kind of pleasant guilt over the way she could tease him. ‘But I had to get the little one down for her afternoon sleep. It takes ages in this heat; it’s so hard to find a cool spot in the cottage. I put her on the back verandah in the end, it’s away from the sun and there’s a little breeze.’
Lennie smiled, looking deeply into her eyes, searching her face. She flushed as she read the unasked question in his eyes.
‘He’s been good lately,’ she said. ‘There’s been no drinking and no messy arguments. He hasn’t even been to town for two weeks. It’s the harvest, I suppose, it keeps him busy. It keeps us all busy.’ Lennie nodded, his face impassive. But she sensed some disappointment; like he had hoped her relationship with her husband was in some kind of emotional freefall.
‘And after, when he’s cashed up?’ Lennie growled. ‘My old man will pay a good bonus this year for sure, what then?’ He remembered the loud quarrels that frequently rose from the cottage after one of Derwent’s drinking sprees, he even suspected that her husband sometimes struck her in his rage, though he had no real evidence of it. He knew her husband was fond of a drink and fond of other men’s wives, any woman in fact, and that seemed to him enough reason for her to leave him. Lennie could not understand how any man could look at another woman when he had a wife like Veronica, because to him she was so beautiful, so perfect and so gentle. He shook his head quickly to clear the thoughts from his mind, he knew he saw her through rose-coloured glasses and he could not trust his judgment where Veronica was concerned.
‘He may be over the violent rages now,’ she said unconvincingly. ‘He even seems to be taking an interest in Jenny. I can only pray that it will last.’ Derwent had been very quiet and loving of late and she felt a stab of guilt when she failed to give him full credit for his efforts. But she enjoyed Lennie’s attention and she did not want him to give up on her, as he probably would if he thought her marriage was on the mend.
‘Isn’t it too late anyway?’ Lennie insisted, sorry as soon as the words passed his lips because he knew his motives were selfish. ‘Surely you can’t still love him, after the life he has given you.’ Lennie had only ever had one real relationship in his own life and the woman had passed him over for another man. He was heartbroken for months, and it had made him wary about pursuing any further romance, but he had felt a painful longing for Veronica from the first moment he saw her, and he knew he took every opportunity to discredit her husband if he could, sometimes perhaps unfairly.
Certainly Byrne was a womaniser, and he sometimes became violent when he took a drink too many, but since the birth of his daughter he had been making a real effort to make his marriage work. Lennie felt his face flush as he realised he was threatened by the new Byrne, or was it just a return of the real Byrne. But he secretly hoped that Derwent would push Veronica to the limit one day, and into his own arms. She sighed, handing him the jug of lime cordial. Ice cubes clinked against the glass as he took a long drink, straining the cold liquid through the cubes.
‘He’s my husband, Lennie, and he’s been a good man in the past. He hasn’t always been the man you have seen occasionally over the last year or so. And he has been wonderful since the baby arrived, you know that yourself. I must persevere, if only for Jenny’s sake. Besides I like it here, to leave him is to leave here; and we still have to finish the book remember?’
Lennie looked at her as he returned the jug to her hands.
‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘I needed that.’ Their hands touched as she took the jug, lingering a little longer than necessary. ‘We’ll get back to the book after the harvest. I suppose it’s just that I can’t believe anyone could hurt you, or cheat on you,’ he whispered. ‘If you were mine I would care for you with all of my being.’ He wished he could retract the words as soon as they passed his lips. He did not want to appear to be trying to take advantage of her vulnerability.
She flushed again. ‘I’m not yours Lennie,’ she said, a little more sharply than she intended, but he had just crossed over a line that she had drawn in her own mind — a line that kept him near her, but not too near. Lennie flinched slightly, like he had been slapped. ‘At the moment I’m not even my own.’ She added in a lighter tone. She looked at the mesh cylinder and determined to change the subject to safer territory. ‘Anyway, what is this contraption you are building? It looks like a cage of some kind.’
Lennie sighed; clearly the topic was closed for now. ‘This,’ he said, ‘is a grain silo.’ She laughed, wrinkling her tiny nose. Lennie fought off an urge to sweep her into his arms. ‘Don’t be silly,’ she giggled. ‘The grain will run out the holes. What is it really?’
‘It has to be lined with that hessian over there before the grain is pumped in, silly,’ he said in mock sternness. ‘Bulk handling is the way of the future for grain crops, they’ve been doing it this way in America for years.’
‘How do you know that?’ she asked, genuinely interested.
‘I have researched