Now Angus was dead from the night they crashed the ute on the road to Curradeen, and Nick spent several months in a wheelchair. But Nick won the argument with his father to leave Wilga Park, and was following his dream.
Those final mad, tumultuous weeks had faded away when Emilia arrived for Christmas holidays, bringing a letter from Nick. As Sandra read his few words to say he’d be in Sydney to enrol at university and would visit her, she’d revelled in the idea of seeing him again, conjuring up all the old dreams… her passion for the piano; and the song for Nick that she’d struggled to compose. Shaded with colourful memories of Nick and her visit to Wilga Park, she’d called it Winter’s Day.
At last, here he was: sitting opposite her in the café, stirring several sugars into his tea, felt hat and jacket slung on the back of his chair, shirt sleeves rolled up, the corners of his mouth tipped in a smile.
Gathering her courage, Sandra took the score for Winter’s Day from her handbag, laid the pages on the table. ‘I wrote this for you.’ She gave it a little push towards him. ‘I designed the title too.’
Nick raised his eyebrows quizzically, drew the score closer. For a moment he contemplated the filigreed title, flicked to the second page, then he said quietly, ‘Thank you, Sandra. It’s very nice.’
Nice, she thought. Is that all he can say? I’ve wanted to write that song for so long. For so long I’ve had it in my head, wanted it to be as perfect as possible to give to Nick, and all he says is—
‘It’s really nice,’ Nick repeated. ‘No one ever wrote me a song before.’
That was an improvement. Pacified, Sandra tried to smile more enthusiastically, pleased that he even half-way liked it. ‘You read music, so you can play it at the college. There must be pianos there?’
Nick ran a finger along the bars, hummed the first notes. ‘I like how it begins—’
Sandra nodded. ‘It’s Wilga Park,’ she said. ‘I tried to describe the paddocks in the early morning when you ride Toffee to round up the sheep, and how the sun shines on the frost. See there…’ she pointed to the second page, ‘that repeated staccato phrase is hoof beats—’
‘It’s a pretty special present,’ Nick chuckled. ‘From the pretty piano player. You’re a clever girl.’
She laughed with delight; the old nickname he gave me – he hasn’t forgotten. Nick went on: ‘And I can imagine a day at home just like that. You know, sometimes I miss being there, working with my father – mustering the sheep for shearing, and the lambing, Dad and his precious stud books, the sale yards and his temper if the prices weren’t high enough.’
He carefully folded the score, slipping it into his pocket. ‘I’m going to order another pot of tea for us,’ he said. ‘I’m dry as a bone.’
Too soon it was time to leave – they both had study and assignments due. Sandra knew that no matter how long they sat together in a café, wherever they wandered, it always ended the same: Nick would briefly take her hand, then he’d kiss her forehead, right on the spot that had first turned her legs to jelly.
‘Goodbye,’ Nick was saying. He patted his pocket. ‘Thanks again for my song.’ And with that swift, endearing kiss, he was striding towards the bus stop.
♫
During the first year of their city life in Randwick, the quest for a job in a florist shop, perhaps even a shop of her own, had been a highlight for Sandra’s mother. Next to Angela’s armchair, the magazine rack was stuffed with gardening books and newspapers – job advertisements circled in red.
On Saturday mornings, off she would go, Herald classified pages in her handbag, to visit the possibilities. Debates at the dining table about the profitability of a fresh flower business became so repetitive, Sandra and her younger sister Prue would leave the table at the first opportunity.
However, after twelve months of fruitless excursions, Angela considered shelving the idea. Sandra’s father had originally been supportive, if not exactly enthusiastic. ‘Perhaps it’s a waste of energy,’ Don said consolingly. ‘It seems to me that jobs in a flower-shop are scarce as hens’ teeth.’ A long pause, and he added, ‘It might be best to give up on a shop of your own, dear. It’s not a financial option.’
Sandra suspected it was a relief for both her parents when Angela finally threw all her newspaper clippings into the backyard incinerator.
All this time, Don quietly worked at the bank, returning home to wander the garden in the evening, smoking his pipe on the seat beneath the peach tree. More and more, Sandra noticed that her father kept to himself. He ate his dinner almost in silence, or said, ‘Pass me the pepper, please,’ or ‘Another cup of tea, please dear?’
Later, regarding the family over the top of his newspaper, he would enquire, ‘How was your day?’ not noticing that sometimes no one said much. He’d sit on the couch with Ginger on his lap, the old cat audibly purring, Don’s eyes closed as if he dozed.
Sandra wondered, was he tired, or was he somehow lonely as the family went in different directions in their spare time. Except her father, who had nothing to do outside the bank and occasionally digging the garden with Angela. Did they spend time with each other, or was it always just passing by: knocking elbows in the kitchen, television each night, a quick kiss goodbye as her father left for work? No old friends for dinner, no afternoon tea parties like at the Curradeen bank.
Sometimes after she and Prue went to bed, she heard the mumble of their muted conversation and once, her father’s voice, admitting how he missed his regular golf at the Curradeen club and their golfing friends. They shared a bedroom, and now she was old enough to recognize they were not simply parents but grown-ups with their own private lives, quiet and hidden from view – polite on the surface, enigmatic.
If there was nothing interesting on TV and her piano didn’t beckon, Sandra went to her room to lie on the bed and read. She ploughed through the more than nine hundred pages of Forever Amber, sneaking the novel from Angela’s wardrobe – such a surprise when Auntie gave that book to her mother for Christmas – Angela’s eyebrows had shot up – all that outrageous carrying on in the days of Charles II. Condemned by the church for the many sexual escapades, the story was fascinating and absorbing and shocking, all at once, especially the terrible description of how Amber St Clair saved her lover from the plague: the disgusting oozing flesh, the cries of ‘Bring out your dead.’ Fascinating!
Feeding on the story, Sandra’s musical compositions developed a sensuous lyricism, a progression of chords that Aunt Meredith declared absolutely luscious. Mister L’estrange initially described her pieces as other-worldly and mysterious, and she liked the description.
Prue’s library books left scattered in the lounge room were of myths and legends: witchcraft and spells, vanished kings and queens, crimes and medieval torture chambers. Sandra suspected she liked the mystical side of life. She’d sprung Prue quickly hiding a book beneath her mattress, hissing at Sandra, ‘Don’t tell!’
Sandra snatched the book, holding it away from her sister. ‘Ooh, I like the title, a book of lies – that should suit you. Why is it such a big secret?’
‘You know what Mum’s like. Please don’t say anything.’
‘Don’t be such a baby, of course I won’t.’ She opened the cover, flipping pages. ‘Gosh, it’s an old book... Aleister Crowley, whoever that is. What’s it about?’
Prue looked perplexed. ‘Magic, I think. I don’t understand most of it.’ She grabbed the book from Sandra. ‘But I’m going to find out, you’ll see.’