Page 93 of Weekends with the Sunshine Gardening Society
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
AfterVon mentioned the Noosa Parks Association on Christmas Day, Kathy had wonderful intentions of contacting them and telling them about the riverside park that’s supposedly going to be bought by that developer who approached the Sunshine Gardening Society. The Sunshine Gardeners have been back in that park and heard nothing further, which makes Kathy think that Developer Vince was engaged in wishful thinking more than fact, but the more time she spends literally in this environment, the more she wants to protect it. Even if that development isn’t going ahead, there will be others. In a place like this there are always others.
Melbourne is a constant fiesta for developers – or it was, before the stock market crash. Some of them are probably licking their wounds right about now. Maybe the same thing is happening on the Sunshine Coast, except wherever Kathy goes she sees tradesmen. Someone has money. That’s usually the case even in down times – the people who have real money that isn’t made of stock-market sandcastles just carry on as if nothing’s happening. They’re coming into the restaurant for dinner, they’re booking to stay at Netanya in Noosa Heads.
Not having ever been one of those people, Kathy isn’t sure how it works. What she is sure of is that she wants to stop themusing that money to buy public land. So she looked up the Parks Association in the phone book and talked to a woman named Emma, who gave her an address in Peregian, a time and a date, and suggested she join.
‘So what were they like?’ Cynthia asks as she sits back in one of the director’s chairs that Elizabeth has set up in her garden.
They don’t call it ‘Jon’s garden’ as much as they used to – it’s Elizabeth’s garden now, and Kathy was touched when she invited the members of the Sunshine Gardening Society around for drinks in the garden that they’ve all put so much time into. The society is taking a break from gardening for January and Kathy hadn’t expected to see any of them for a month. Not that she’s seeing Shirl and Barb – Shirl is on a cruise and Barb is visiting a friend in Sydney. So there’s four of them here in the early evening. Four adults, that is, and Charlie and Simon are tearing up and down the street on their bikes.
‘They’re an interesting bunch,’ Kathy says, sipping on her soda and lime.
Over the past little while she’s found herself to be less interested in wine, which she puts down to having other things in her life and in her brain. When she’s home alone now she’s reading books and magazines about gardening and plants, which is something she never thought would happen. She’s not even sure she consciously decided to do it, either – she simply found herself gravitating towards that material in the newsagent’s and the local bookshop. It’s a reminder that life still has the capacity to surprise and that we don’t always know ourselves as well as we think. Which Kathy was aware of, obviously, given she fell in love with Jemima. She just forgets sometimes.
‘Some of them are artists,’ she goes on. ‘I didn’t know there were that many artists around here.’
‘Just look at what’s at the markets,’ Lorraine says. ‘Plenty of art. Not all of it great, of course.’
‘Von’s husband was a painter,’ Cynthia says. ‘Quite successful.’ She gestures around her. ‘I suppose there’s lots of inspiration in this area. Lots of beauty.’
‘Mmm.’ Kathy takes another sip. The evening is hot and she’d rather be inside with the air con, but she’s hardly going to leave her friends. ‘And I guess they spend so much time looking at the trees and everything that they start to care about them. Anyway, they’ve been going since …’ She screws up her face as she tries to remember. ‘Nineteen sixty-one? Sixty-two? For a while, anyway. And they know all about how to lobby council about things like that developer wanting to buy the park.’
The side gate is flung open and Charlie and Simon enter, red-faced and panting.
‘Can I have an Icy Pole, Mum?’ Charlie asks.
Elizabeth looks like she’s wavering, then she glances at Lorraine, who nods once.
‘Sure, darling. You know where they are. Simon would probably like one too.’
‘Thanks!’
The boys are up the steps and into the house before any of them can blink.
‘It’s his birthday in March,’ Elizabeth says quietly. ‘I should make a fuss this year. Last year I almost forgot it. It was so …’
‘When did Jon die – December ’86?’ Lorraine says.
Kathy wonders how Lorraine knows that.Sheshould know that. They’ve been working in Jon’s garden for months now and she hasn’t once asked Elizabeth about him.
‘Yes.’ Elizabeth sighs. ‘On New Year’s Eve.’
Kathy isn’t sure if it’s rude to ask questions about a man she will never know, but what would be ruder would be to ignore the subject altogether, since Lorraine has introduced it. She feels she knows Elizabeth well enough by now that if Elizabeth says she doesn’t want to talk about Jon, Kathy wouldn’t be offended.
‘What was he like?’ she says. ‘If you don’t mind talking about him.’
Elizabeth’s eyes meet hers and they are alight, and immediately Kathy is glad she asked the question.
‘I don’t mind at all,’ Elizabeth says. ‘He was strong, that’s the first word that comes to mind. And maybe that sounds strange, considering he died, but he didn’t want to leave us.’ Her voice catches and she glances down. ‘He tried so hard not to. In the end, though, he was too tired to continue. When cancer is in your blood, it’s not as if you can evict it. His whole body was sabotaging him.’
The boys reappear on the steps, Icy Poles in hand, then head back out to the street without a word and Elizabeth smiles faintly as she watches them go.
‘So he was strong,’ Elizabeth continues. ‘He was one of those men who can fix things and make things, you know?’
Lorraine nods vigorously. ‘I’ve got one myself.’ She frowns. ‘Had one. Damn. Now I’ll have to hire a bloke to fix things for me.’
Kathy doesn’t know much about what’s happened to Lorraine’s marriage, but Elizabeth laughs knowingly.
