Page 42 of Weekends with the Sunshine Gardening Society
It’s the new woman, who is older than Lorraine and Cynthia. Her face is lined in a way that suggests she frowns more than she smiles, and her shoulders are stooped, just as Elizabeth knows hers tend to get when she’s feeling low.
‘I would say they’re all like that,’ Lorraine says, ‘but my mother is lovely to Mike – and Mike’d say the same. This is Kathy, by the way.’ She points her elbow to the newcomer.
‘Hi, Kathy, I’m Elizabeth.’
‘Pleased to meet you – and to spend time in your garden. It’s going to be lovely once we’re done.’
‘Thanks. I can’t claim any credit for it.’
Elizabeth sighs and glances around at the thick stands of flowering shrubs and the smaller plants dotted between them. Jon crammed this space with as much colour as he could, and while he was alive Elizabeth spent hardly any time out here. What a waste. What a shame. She didn’t appreciate her husband’s passion until he died.
‘I heard.’ Kathy’s gaze is direct and unsentimental, and Elizabeth likes it. She’s really sick of pity, which still appearsbefore and after church on Sundays – when she makes it there – and when some of her friends phone her.
‘Your husband had a good eye,’ Kathy goes on. ‘We’ll make sure it’s kept up to his standard. Although, of course, only you can tell us that.’ She smiles briefly then bends down to brush twigs off her pants.
‘How did you come to join the gardening society?’ Elizabeth hasn’t asked this of any of the others, but it seems appropriate given Kathy’s just shown up in her garden.
‘We co-opted her,’ Cynthia says. ‘She was walking past when we were in a park and before she knew it we’d made her a gardener.’
‘I’m new to the area,’ Kathy explains.
‘So she needs some friends. That’s the real reason she joined.’ Lorraine winks at Kathy then adjusts her hat. ‘Anyway, we should get back to it. I’m sure you don’t want us hanging around all day.’
‘Take as long as you need, honestly.’ Elizabeth feels a twinge of disappointment that their conversation is over so soon. ‘And I have lunch for you when you’re ready.’
‘That’s so kind,’ Cynthia says, tilting her head to one side. ‘You’re very thoughtful.’
‘Trying to be,’ Elizabeth murmurs, but she takes her leave before Cynthia can reply and heads back to Shirley to get her orders for the day.
JULY 1987
BROAD-LEAVED GEEBUNG
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Thebreakwater on Main Beach wasn’t here when Cynthia was a child. There was the stretch of sand starting at the Little Cove end – just around from Little Cove itself – and going all the way until … Well, some days you couldn’t see the end of the beach because it would be lost in salt haze. But it was far. Hours and hours if a person had a vehicle that could drive on sand.
On a clear day you could see Fraser Island beyond the point where the beach finished. Cynthia thinks of those weekend adventures with her father and Kit, driving – on roads – all the way to the barge then leaving the car behind. Once they were on the water it always felt like anything could happen, then they’d step off on the island and the magic really began.
They’d camp overnight and listen to the noises of frogs and birds and insects. Papa would make up stories about what all the creatures were doing. They were never scary: in his tales the frogs were beneficent rulers of a vast kingdom of lifeforms, organising communities and negotiating with the birds about who could go where at what time. He knew a lot about the trees and the plants on the island and which creatures would prefer this tree or that. It made the whole place seem alive with energy and history; it was special. And she can’t remember the last time she went there.
Now Cynthia knows those adventures were undertaken to give her mother time to herself, or with the Sunshine Gardening Society.
On the weekend, while they were in Elizabeth’s garden, Kathy had asked how long the society had been going and how many gardens they’d tended, and Shirl said something about the local council holding an oral history – transcribed – of the society. But when Cynthia asked how she might go about getting a copy of it Shirl went vague and said that she’d never actually seen the document, just heard about it.
It’s hard for Cynthia to avoid the conclusion that the Sunshine Gardening Society is more akin to the Sunshine Secret Society – and she can’t say she dislikes the idea. In a world where so many women’s lives are always on display – as they move from parents’ homes to marital homes, always serving, always observed – it makes sense that they might use good works as an opportunity to share secrets. Or to keep them. It seems the women of the society past and present might have kept her mother’s secrets, and as much as Cynthia feels indignant about that she understands it too.
Today, there’s a light morning breeze and it’s cool. Winter is here. The sunlight is paler than in spring and summer, and the colour of the water has changed accordingly. Cynthia won’t be swimming in the ocean until winter is over, even if the days are pleasant.
‘Cynthia,’ calls the voice she’s been expecting, and she turns to see Pat walking slowly across the rocks clad in a fisherman’s jumper, bermuda shorts and docksiders. Behind him walks their daughter, in a long cotton dress and an almost-as-long woollen cardigan.
Both of them seem to have dressed to have an each-way bet on what the temperature will turn out to be. Or maybe the bet is on what this meeting will turn out to be. Pat wasn’t sure if Odette would come, just said he wanted to try to bring them all together.
‘Hello, Pat,’ Cynthia says once he’s a couple of metres away, his hair ruffling in the breeze.
He’s grinning at her like everything’s fine, like Cynthia’s father hasn’t been nagging her to ‘talk to your bloody daughter’ even though, as Cynthia has reminded him, her bloody daughter doesn’t want to talk to her.
Yet here is Odette, all nineteen years and rounded belly of her, hair cropped and dyed blonde, the dark roots even longer than they were last time Cynthia saw her, eyes as big and brown as they have always been. Out here in the light – which may be more muted than in summer but which conceals nothing – it’s as though she’s seeing Odette for the first time in years. And she’s still so young. Too young to be a mother.
