North Star (12 page)

‘Do we have to have a birthday before I can cook a roast dinner?' Kate protested, buying time. She wasn't ready to make the announcement until they were seated around the table like a normal, happy family. ‘This is ready to serve up now, so bring me your plates and we'll dish it up.'

Although still sceptical, the children did as they were told.

‘I've got some news,' Kate said, taking her seat at Gran's kitchen table. ‘Jenny, Nathan and I are going to start a business.'

‘Doing what?' Liam asked, taking a wedge of mashed potato and peas from his fork.

‘I'm going to lease the land on North Star to them so they can breed cattle, and I'm going to make the rest of the property a holiday place for people who want to stay on a real working farm.'

‘Wow,' Liam breathed, his mouth full. ‘Can I get a horse
now
?'

‘You have got to be kidding me,' Georgia fumed.

Kate took a breath and counted to ten.

‘You promised!' Georgia shouted, standing up and pushing her chair away from the table, almost toppling it over. ‘You promised we'd go back to the city!'

‘Georgia, just calm down and listen to me.'

‘I will never forgive you for this, Mother—never!'

‘Sit down and eat your dinner, and let me explain it to you,' Kate tried again, keeping her voice calm.

‘There's nothing to explain—you never intended to go back. Dad was right, you always make sure you get your own way.'

Kate's eyes widened in surprise at this remark. ‘I'm trying to make a safe life for you and your brother.'

‘No, you're not—you just brought us out here to keep us away from Dad, so you could control us.'

‘That's not true!' Kate snapped, losing any remaining hope of salvaging the situation peacefully. She saw Liam's lip quiver and groaned internally. ‘Georgia, that's enough. Either sit down and talk sensibly or go to your room until you calm down.'

‘Gladly. I'd rather be anywhere but stuck in here with you. I hate you!' Georgia stormed out of the kitchen and slammed her bedroom door shut, making Kate and Liam jump.

‘It's okay, sweetheart,' said Kate, trying to summon up a smile. ‘Georgia's just a bit upset. She'll calm down in a while and forget what she was even angry about.'

Liam blinked at her solemnly. ‘Did you really bring us out here so we couldn't see Daddy?'

Kate had to fight hard to keep her voice neutral. ‘No, of course I didn't. You know Dad isn't real well, but one day when he's gotten help, you'll be able to see him whenever you want. This isn't going to be forever.'

‘I miss him.'

‘I know you do, sweetheart,' Kate said, feeling wretched.

They struggled on with dinner until eventually Liam put down his cutlery and asked to be excused. Watching him walk outside to find Fergus—the now clean and thoroughly spoiled ginger cat—Kate wondered why, if she'd made the right decision, did she feel so utterly miserable?

For Kate, the next few months passed in a blur of renovating, painting, building, council inspections, building permits, paperwork and headaches. It was also school holidays and if Kate heard one more ‘Mum, I'm bored' she was going to scream. Nathan and Jenny were also neck deep in all the red tape they needed to get through to make North Star suitable for organic accreditation, but at least things were beginning to take shape. Kate had made contact with a few people from her previous life, in the hope they might be able to help out with bookings. One woman she'd known from the kids' former school P & C owned a travel agency in the city and Kate asked her to promote her farm-stay package, promising to send her a pile of brochures once they were printed.

Although their plan was coming together, there were certain obstacles that needed to be overcome. For starters, they needed animals; after all, what was a farm stay without animals?

There was a chook pen behind the back garden but, as was the case with everything around the property, it was in need of some long-overdue TLC. Kate tackled it one morning, digging out the accumulated years of chook poo and spreading it out in her newly dug kitchen garden close to the to and fro. After spending most of the day trudging to and fro, she stood back proudly and admired her day's labour. A sense of accomplishment flooded through her tired body.

This life was so far removed from the life she'd had before her divorce back in the city, yet the sense of achievement she felt from a simple task like recycling old chook poo was enough to make her day.

Tired of the patronising tone of the men from the farmers co-op, she'd become an avid reader, devouring farming journals and how-to books, determined to make the locals eat their words.

She'd ordered twenty-two-week-old chooks through the co-op, and when the chook pen was ready she went into town with Jenny to pick them up. She still hadn't traded in her little sedan for a more practical vehicle, which was becoming an inconvenience because she had to ask Jenny to drive her into town if she needed to pick up anything that wouldn't fit in her car.

‘Jen,' Kate asked as she stared out the passenger window at the patchwork paddocks of crops rushing by, ‘do you have any idea where this stupid curse thing came from?'

‘You don't believe it, do you?' Jenny said disbelievingly.

‘The more I learn about the Campbells, the more I wonder about it. What if it is real? We're about to start a business.'

Jenny's brow creased as she thought it over. ‘The Campbells were at the top of the pecking order for a long time. From what I've heard, they were always generous. They helped establish a lot of Widgerry. You'd have to do something pretty nasty to have someone curse you, I'd have thought.'

Jenny glanced over at Kate and gave her a sceptical smile. ‘And as for affecting the business—you're forgetting that you have my wonderfully capable husband as a partner—no curse will be able to throw that man, I can assure you. Anyway, think about it, Kate: Ella's four boys were killed in the war, and then Henry's brother drowned—life was pretty hard back then. The war wiped out a whole generation of men in some towns. You have to put it into perspective.'

‘I suppose so,' Kate conceded. ‘But then there was Henry and my mother, and even my gran had a miserable life.'

‘People are what they are. Your mother was brought up in a violent household and escaped it by using drugs—that has nothing to do with a curse, it's just human nature. It's the same with Henry—no curse made him become an alcoholic and abusive husband.'

Kate nodded, but inside she wasn't so sure. North Star had a long history and might have once been grand, but it also held secrets. Secrets the old girl had guarded for a long time.

When the advance from the lease came through, Kate finally had money in her account, and after sitting down and working out a budget for all the renovations, she was pleased to find she still had enough to buy something decent to drive. So, early the next Saturday, Kate, Liam and Georgia went on an impromptu trip into Goondiwindi—a four-hour drive away.

Their first stop was a car dealership, and after a surprisingly straightforward trade-in, Kate became the owner of a second-hand Hilux ute.

The main street had a large selection of shops and Georgia begged to take a look through the racks of clothing out on display. They had to wait a while for their new car to be tidied up; besides, Kate couldn't deny that she'd missed the odd spot of window shopping herself.

Aware that race day was approaching, she was keeping her eye out for a suitable dress. She stopped in front of a trendy boutique and a ruby-red dress in the window caught her eye. She'd been looking for something sensible, nothing at all like this one. This was far more . . . well, just
more
. Dismissing the silly notion, she surrendered to the children's complaints of being hungry and treated them to Macca's, something Widgerry definitely didn't offer. But as they went back to pick up the car from the dealership, they walked back past the boutique and something dared her to go inside and try on the red dress. With the elegant silver-embossed bag in hand, they left the dress shop and went in search of groceries.

They spent the next few hours stocking up on the little luxuries they couldn't get back home, like their favourite shampoo and cheaper priced fresh fruit than was available in the much smaller store in Widgery. After buying what looked like a month's worth of groceries, they made the long journey home.

Gradually, over the following weeks, they acquired more stock for the farm stay: ducks and a few sheep, along with a milking cow that Nathan had picked up courtesy of a farmer who had no further need of her.

Betsy was the saddest-looking creature Kate had ever seen. Big, soulful brown eyes stared unblinkingly into hers as Kate took in the cow's protruding hip bones and sagging udders.

‘Didn't he ever feed this animal?' she asked Nathan, outraged.

‘That's how she's supposed to look, Kate. She's a Jersey.'

‘Well, she doesn't look too happy to me.'

Nathan muttered under his breath as he closed the back of the trailer. Then he turned to Kate, ‘I'll put her in the stockyards until I come back first thing tomorrow morning and show you how to milk her.'

‘I still don't see why we actually need a milking cow,' Kate said, eyeing Betsy doubtfully.

‘Because all city folk want to learn to milk a cow,' he said dryly.

‘I think our research was slightly off on that one. I can't say I've ever had a burning desire to get my hands on a set of udders.'

Nathan chuckled as he lightly slapped Betsy on the rump, sending her into the yards and closing the gate. ‘There's nothing like it.' He winked.

The sound of Betsy's low mooing brought back vivid memories as Kate lay in bed that night. She remembered that when she was very little Gran had had a cow that she milked every morning. Kate had vague recollections of the scent of warm cow poo and milk, and her breath coming out in little white puffs in the early mornings. She'd even helped sometimes and could remember the soothing feel of the teat in her small hand, and the sound of milk filling a tin bucket. But between Kate leaving North Star with her mother and returning a few months later, the cow had died and for some reason Gran hadn't wanted to replace her.

Early the next morning, dragging two protesting children out of bed, Kate trudged out to the shed for their first milking lesson.

‘Why do we have to be out here learning how to milk a dumb cow?' Georgia complained, blinking against the early sunshine.

‘Because I'm going to need you guys to pitch in and help show guests how to do things around the place.'

‘Show them how to do things?
We
don't even know how to do things!'

‘Georgia, I haven't had my coffee this morning—do you
really
want to argue right now?'

She took the roll of her daughter's eyes as a no and they walked the remainder of the way to the yards in silence. It was just a cow—how hard could it be?