‘Troubles?’
Phyllida paused. She knew how hard this might be for Miriam. ‘She gambled. Horses. Cards. I’m sure she couldn’t help herself.’
Miriam’s frown conveyed confusion.
Phyllida hurried on, keen to put the poor girl’s mind at rest. ‘She got herself into a bit of a state a few months before she died and told me some of it. I tried to help her sort things out, but she was dying by then, and we moved our focus to managing her pain.’
David arrived with his own cup of tea and Miriam’s face softened.
David should be at his bedroom desk, studying, Phyllida knew. He had an exam this week. But Miriam seemed to have captured his attention at the funeral and he obviously wanted to be here to comfort her. Her boy was so very clever and so kind.
‘Eat something, dear,’ said Phyllida. She couldn’t bear it. Miriam must be starving. Her stomach was concave in thatvery fitted T-shirt, and her jeans were hugging the tiniest waist Phyllida had ever seen. ‘Please, help yourself.’
‘I just had breakfast,’ Miriam said. ‘I try not to eat between meals.’
‘Leave her, Mum.’ David turned to Miriam. ‘She likes to feed people.’
He didn’t say it unkindly, but the two of them shared a knowing look.
‘I’ll get the tea biscuits,’ Phyllida said. ‘The slice is a little rich.’
In the kitchen, she wondered if she should cut up some fruit. Helena had once mentioned that she bought a lot of fruit when Miriam visited. Not that she visited, really. Perhaps only three times in the two years before Helena’s passing. But Helena had assiduously followed her daughter’s modelling career in the magazines in which Miriam often featured, holding some form of fancy handbag or beauty product. Helena even bought one of those extortionate face creams Miriam advertised. Phyllida couldn’t see any of the promised signs of reduced ageing on her friend, and Helena didn’t seem to tell Miriam of these purchases, so it all seemed a little pointless. But people had different ways of showing love, didn’t they?
Phyllida plated the biscuits. She hesitated. Perhaps savoury would be better. Yesterday she’d made a lovely zucchini slice. It was healthy, with the eggs and vegetables. Lots of cheese for calcium to strengthen Miriam’s frighteningly prominent bones. She removed it from the fridge and cut very small slices.
Outside, she put the plates in front of Miriam. ‘I thought you might prefer a less sugary option. The zucchini slice is delicious, isn’t it, David?’
David frowned. He looked from Miriam to Phyllida. ‘I was just offering to help Miriam move some furniture around. She needs to tidy up for a house valuation tomorrow. We’re going to head across the road now.’
‘The slice looks lovely,’ said Miriam. She didn’t even look at it, though. She and David both stood to leave.
Phyllida opened her mouth to speak, to urge her to stay and eat, but David was asking Phyllida something with his eyes. Begging her silence, or her agreement. Phyllida smiled, but her heart lurched at the sight of them, standing so close. Her boy, so strong and well-built at just twenty, and this woman who must be well over thirty by now. Phyllida was suddenly back in her own youth, her face as fresh as Miriam’s, and there was a different boy with her, pleading with his eyes. He was nine years old. As she stared at David now, she saw that his eyes were almost the same colour as the boy’s. Her heart pattered at the painful memory, and she blinked it away.
Miriam and David headed across the garden, and Phyllida had a sense that something significant had just occurred. She saw a thread of fate unspooling; a fraying at the edge of their story, at the very moment it was being written.
But there was nothing to be done. It was not for Phyllida to disrupt the path. She must let David’s story unfold.
11
RODDY
NOW, NSW SOUTHERN HIGHLANDS, AUSTRALIA
‘Lottie’s agreed to take you on, and I negotiated fourteen dollars an hour for you,’ says Roddy. ‘I can drop you off for your shifts if your mum’s working.’
Sienna grunts.
They are driving back to the Highlands from out past Goulburn after another antiques shopping expedition. Roddy has been driving for an hour and twelve minutes. He gave up asking Sienna to take her feet off the dashboard approximately an hour and six minutes ago.
When Donna had heard he was planning a trip to hunt down an antique hall stand, she asked if Sienna could go with him. Donna needed to take on extra shifts to help pay her mortgage, now that The Dickhead had left. ‘Besides,’ she’d said to Roddy as they sipped cold beers among the overgrown weeds of her back garden, listening to screeching black cockatoosin the scrappy she-oaks above, ‘Sienna needs a good male role model.’
Still, he was surprised when Sienna agreed to give up her Saturday to come.
‘I suppose fourteen bucks will do.’ She is silent for a while then sighs melodramatically. ‘It’s really weird how much you get off on old things.’ Sienna’s phone had just run out of battery. It is the first time she has willingly offered more than two words in a row.
‘If it’s old, it’s stood the test of time. What’s not to love about that?’
‘What’s so good about the test of time?’
