Page 106 of The Vet from Snowy River
Mr Juggins was there, and Wendy from Connolly House; Sandy, the vet clinic receptionist, who she barely knew other than the fact she ordered a take home box of raspberry jam donuts every Friday for her sons’ afternoon tea. The woman who ran the op shop, the couple from the cinema who’d been so happy to promote a dinner and movie deal, and half a dozen faces from the weekly craft group all stood, solemn faced, by her aunt’s graveside.
They’d come, so many of them.
Marigold had volunteered the community hall for a cup of tea after the funeral, its doors now open to the public once more, and Vera had shaken her head. ‘There’s no need, really,’ she’d said. ‘Jill was a stranger here.’
‘Funerals are for those of us that are left behind,’ Marigold had said firmly. ‘Not for the departed.’
She still hadn’t thought a service was necessary. She wasn’t a local. And, after the notoriety of having her private shame splashed all over the community page of theSnowy River Star,she wouldn’t have been surprised if nobody showed up: to the funeral, or to darken the doorstep of her café ever again.
Her gaze wandered of its own volition over to Josh, who had turned up at her café and apartment more than once, only to be met with her stony silence.
She should never have slept with him. He’d been open and honest and asked her for her assurance that them being together was the beginning of something more … but her courage had failed. She’d scratched her way out of the mess she’d made of her last relationship with her self-esteem in tatters. She’d done it once, and it had broken her.
She couldn’t risk that again. She was a woman who made dumb choices, and he was better off finding a decent woman to hold in his arms on moonlit nights.
Not her.
She’d never seen him in a suit before. The coal black cloth, the white shirt … his hair combed so neatly it could have been cartoon hair, if cartoon did sexy. His face was drawn, though, and held none of the easy smile she’d grown so used to seeing.
He could have been a stranger, in that outfit, with that remote expression … but then, when she looked at herself in the mirror, was there not a stranger standing there, too? A chicken-hearted woman who’d had the stuffing plucked out of her.
Jill, she realised on a sob, would not recognise this pathetic worm of a woman she’d become, either.
‘May you know wholeness and peace,’ said Marigold, in a deep calm voice.
Oh, how she wished that for Jill. Her eyes burned with the simple truth of Marigold’s words. Wasn’t that the most anyone could wish for?
‘And now, our Vera is going to say a few words.’
It wasn’t until a dozen sets of eyes were looking at her expectantly that Marigold’s words sunk in. She sent the celebrant a speaking look, which was ignored.
‘We’ve not known our Vera long,’ Marigold continued, ‘and sad to say, we didn’t get a chance to know Jill De Rossi, but we would have liked to. Come now, Vera. Tell us a little something about your aunt. It’s just us and the gum trees here.’
Vera bit her lip. She felt a hand pat her back, just briefly, one quick touch of support from Graeme.
She dragged her eyes away from the rain-drenched coffin. She used to wield words to make a living … surely she could find the right words now for dear Jill.
She moved forward a step and was surprised to see Poppy standing tucked into her father’s side. Her hair was tied back in a braid, there was none of her usual eyeliner framing her eyes, and she wore a prim, old-fashioned dress that a librarian might have worn back before librarians became funky.
Poppy had tears on her cheeks, but managed to give Vera a little smile, and the sweetness of it caught at Vera’s breath. Her eyes dropped to Poppy’s feet, and there they were, those disreputable boots, and their incongruity with the dress pierced the hold she had over her emotions.
Jill would have adored Poppy. She took a deep breath as a memory she could share popped into her head.
‘There is a De Rossi family story,’ she began, ‘that when Jill was about thirteen, she told her parents, my grandparents, that she was never going to have children. Instead, she was going to be the cool, rebel auntie.
‘She was definitely a rebel. She was older than my mother, who predeceased her by nearly two decades, but she never let age stand in the way of her love of adventure. Camel trekking in the Northern Territory. Hot air ballooning over Kangaroo Island and getting blown out over the Southern Ocean. Jill could knit a tea cosy and change a spark plug in an outboard motor before breakfast.
‘But if there was one thing she loved more than adventure, it was cooking. She passed that love on to me, and …’ She paused and waited for the squeeze in her throat to ease. ‘Jill wasn’t demonstrative. She didn’t hug and pet and kiss, but she showed me she loved me when she taught me how to bake a crème caramel. Toasting coconut under a grill to sprinkle over hummingbird cake? I love you, Vera. Buttermilk pancakes with a vanilla pod scraped into the batter? I care for you, Vera. She deserved the world and she got it, mostly.’
Mostly. Until those corporate sharks in charge of the staff-to-patient ratio at Acacia View eroded her dignity.
She dragged herself back from the bitter edge. These kind people here weren’t part of that, and Connolly House had been a haven of kindness there at the end of Jill’s life. ‘I think you all would have adored my Aunt Jill. I know I did. And she really was the coolest auntie ever.’
She hesitated. Glanced at Marigold, who gave her a smile then swept her arms up so the sleeves of her apricot caftan billowed like parrot wings.
‘Go in peace,’ said Marigold.
Vera’s mumbledgo in peacewas drowned out by the sound of sods of earth being shovelled down upon the coffin.
