The Last Time We Spoke (2 page)

Napoleon snorted and snuffled and nudged at Carla, smearing a glistening ribbon of saliva across her gumboot.

‘That’s all for now, greedy-guts,’ she said, retrieving the upturned bucket and tilting it toward the pig. ‘Look, nothing left.’

Napoleon stuck his snout in the pail, gave a resigned grunt, then reversed into Carla, jamming her between his bristly body and the railing.

‘After a cuddle, eh?’ she said, patting the kunekune’s rotund belly. Then, with the swing of a leg, she hoisted herself over the fence. ‘Got to get on, old fella. Lots to do.’

At the backdoor she pulled off her gumboots and padded into the kitchen. The aroma of caramelised tomatoes enveloped her. She peered into the oven; the lasagne was browning beautifully. Another ten minutes and it would be done.

As she scrubbed her hands in the sink, Carla gazed out of the open window, the breeze riffling her blue-black hair, the evening light airbrushing her weathered complexion. There was nothing exceptional about the vista, framed first by the rectangle of window and then the line of weeping willows bowing into the scene. Yet she never tired of it – the sweep of lawn, the copse, the grey-green pond.
She loved how the land fell away, unfolded and breathed, the view transforming with each season as the year tinkered with its canvas.

When she looked carefully, she could just make out Kevin’s silhouette on the far knoll, shadowing the herd as it lumbered down the slope ahead of the closing day. 5:50 p.m. She smiled. Perhaps, after all these years – twenty-seven to the day – she had finally succeeded in making her husband punctual.

Carla gave an involuntary shiver and slid the window shut. Jack would be arriving shortly too. How she looked forward to these brief pockets of time when she could play at being Mum again and fuss over him until Kevin would chide, ‘Give the poor lad some space. He’s a grown man, for Pete’s sake.’

Untying her apron, Carla found herself for the second time that day heading down the hall to her son’s room. It was just as he’d left it almost a year ago, complete with George Benson posters and model airplanes. Even his tennis racquet still stood at ease in the corner. She and Kevin had planned to convert the room into a study of sorts – a place where she could guiltlessly leave out her sewing machine, and Kevin, his piles of paperwork – freeing up the cluttered dining room for its original purpose. But they hadn’t got around to it. To change the room was to admit that a phase of life was over. While Jack’s corkboard remained cluttered with scribbled memos, exam timetables, and sporting certificates, the promise of his return remained real.

She tugged at the well-worn duvet, straightening a ridge of the creased brown fabric. Then she opened Jack’s wardrobe, and in a
Narnia
moment, the smell of her boy – cricket greens, Blue Stratos, earth, and leather – drifted out, rewinding time.

The ringing phone trespassed on her reverie.

‘Carla, Deirdre here. Not interrupting dinner, am I?’

‘No. Not for a while yet, Dee. Kev’s still out on the farm.’

‘I received your message and—’

‘Yes. Look, thanks for returning my call. I was just wanting to ask whether there were any teaching positions coming up.’

‘At long last, Carla Reid! So it’s taken an empty nest to finally woo you back.’

Carla laughed. ‘Actually, it’s … Well, we could use a little extra cash right now.’

‘Couldn’t we all,’ replied the school principal. ‘Look, we’ve no permanent posts available at present, but I’ll put your name down on the reliever’s list in the meantime; something more long-term is bound to come up.’

Carla felt the muscles down the back of her neck loosen.

‘It’ll be good to have you back, Carla. Really good.’

Carla replaced the receiver. Dusk was falling fast, robbing the kitchen of light and wrapping a faded evening around the homestead. There wasn’t really sufficient time to achieve much before tea, despite the growing list of jobs that challenged her from the refrigerator door, so she decided to pour herself a drink instead.

She positioned a stool against the kitchen cupboards, clambered onto it, and reached for a glass on the uppermost shelf. Kevin hadn’t taken into account her height, or lack of it, when he’d installed the kitchen.

Her hand found the last surviving tumbler from a set of eight she and Kevin had collected on their only trip abroad together – a trek around the Yucatán Peninsula twenty years earlier. It was a chunky blue thing with bubbles of clear glass trapped in the thick cerulean rim. They’d lugged the set around Mexico for six weeks, Kevin cursing her impetuous purchase all the way.

Carla twisted the ice tray and frozen cubes clattered onto the bench, one sticking to her fingers and tugging painfully at her skin as she shook it off. She unscrewed the bottle of whisky and poured,
ice blocks crackling and screeching as she drowned them in the amber liquor.

She was about to take her first sip when she heard footsteps behind her. She swung round, the drink slipping from her grasp. Shards of blue glass and whisky sprayed across the room.

‘Jack!’

Her son was standing in the middle of the room, his head bowed under the low ceiling beams, his eyes wide with alarm. In his hand was a bunch of purple irises.

‘The door was open. I wanted to surprise you.’

Carla sucked in a warbled breath. ‘Well, that you certainly did, son!’

He screwed up his face apologetically. ‘Sorry, Mum. I’ll get the dustpan.’

‘No, leave it! I’ll do it in a minute.’ She grabbed him by the hand. ‘Now, let me take a good look at you, my handsome boy.’

He looked so grown-up in his jacket and tie, no resemblance to the grubby youngster she’d battled for years to keep clean, the streams and paddocks his playground.

He grinned and wound a lanky arm around her, pulling her in. She inhaled his sophisticated city scent.

‘Happy anniversary, Mum,’ he said, handing her the flowers.

It was just like Jack. He’d always been such a considerate kid, even as a six-year-old spending his pocket money on trinkets for her at the Ag Day fair. Years flashed before her – the emptiness and heartache, then the giddy news, the hope, and finally, unbelievably, a baby. That first night in the maternity ward, Kevin asleep in the La-Z-Boy beside her, their child moulded to his chest and a tall vase of deep purple irises on the windowsill.

The sound of barking dogs intruded.

‘Seems Dad could use a hand,’ Jack said, glancing out of the window.

‘You’ll want to get out of that suit first. Have a shower.’

‘Later, Ma,’ he said, peeling off his jacket and hooping the tie over his head as he made for the back door.

Carla stood watching as her son made his way across the paddock, the half-light smudging his outline till he’d been erased altogether. Reluctantly, she bent down and began picking up the fragments of glass, a thread of disquiet ruching her mood. She felt the loss of the tumbler more acutely than she’d have expected. In a strange way, it felt as if some tie with the past had been severed.

Suddenly a sharp pain sliced through her ruminations and a bubble of blood sprang up on the heel of her palm. She cursed and hurried to the bathroom, leaving a thin crimson trail behind her.

Dinner had been in the warmer for some time when she finally saw father and son, with their identical gait and tall-man stoop, sloping towards the house. Jack now had at least two inches on his dad. They appeared to be in earnest conversation when both stopped a short way off from the back door. At first Carla thought they were merely catching their breath – that incline could be punishing at the end of a long day. But the men remained there for longer than a breather, till even the bantams nearby had resumed their foraging.

Kevin spotted her at the window and gave a quick smile, spreading out a hand to say they’d be in in five.

Father and son had always got on well, despite their quite different personalities. Kevin was all Anglo-Saxon – a man of few words and even fewer emotions. Like a trusty old tractor, he had a quiet consistency about him. There were no surprises or breakdowns, but no glamour either. Jack was more volatile. He had a touch of Carla’s Italian heat in him – his impulsiveness landing him in trouble on more than one occasion. Fortunately, his charm usually won out. Now he had a serious girlfriend – surprisingly his first – however, he hadn’t yet introduced her to them. From what Carla could glean, the
young woman was training to be a speech therapist and shared Jack’s passion for tramping and the great outdoors. Not surprisingly, Jack’s phone calls home had dwindled of late.

Therefore shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall cleave unto his wife
…
1
Sunday’s sermon echoed in Carla’s head. Their son had been lent to them; a daughter was for keeps.

Lately, Carla hadn’t been able to keep this undertow from sweeping her thoughts to that taboo place in her mind, the place she’d successfully kept buried for so many years. What if Gabby had lived beyond those few thin weeks? Carla and Kevin would have a grown-up daughter now too.

The light had drained out of the day when the three of them finally sat down to eat. Carla was glad for the early autumn nightfall, the darkness lending the dinner a more formal tone. She’d lit the candles and drawn the drapes, swathing the old kauri room in a cosiness, and had even folded the napkins into the shape of fans, just as they did in restaurants.

‘Any chance of thirds, Mum?’ Jack asked, eyeing the last burnished square of lasagne.

‘It’s for you to take back to the flat,’ she said, moving the dish out of his reach.

‘You’re a hard woman,’ he teased. ‘How’d you put up with her all these years, Dad?’

Kevin smiled, but his eyes held onto a more sombre expression. Carla wondered what he and Jack had been discussing out in the yard.

‘Keep some space for dessert,’ she said, uncovering the apple pie. ‘Ay! Fingers out of it!’

Jack was scraping the last of the custard from the little red jug when he stopped and looked up at his parents, his brown eyes
unexpectedly earnest. ‘Dad. Mum. I’ve been thinking. About the farm and all. It’s a lot of work for the two of you.’

Kevin cocked his head to one side and looked at his son from under a heavy brow. ‘Bit a work never did anybody any harm, boy.’

‘I know. But you and Mum … You aren’t getting any younger.’

‘Thanks very much!’ Carla said with a chuckle. ‘I’m not in a wheelchair yet.’

‘I just mean that you don’t want to be getting up at four in the morning for the rest of your days, do you?’

Jack had grown his hair longer since leaving home, allowing the natural wave to reveal itself. He reminded Carla so much of her own father, with his liquorice-black eyes and caramel complexion, his drive and determination, his stubbornness. Her father hadn’t been much older than Jack when he’d hidden from Mussolini’s Blackshirts in the sewers of Turin before escaping with his bride on a boat bound for New Zealand.

Kevin clicked his tongue. ‘It’s not as hard as you make out. Rangi and Rebecca are good value. In fact, they’re the best share milkers we’ve had. Anyway, won’t be long before I can sleep in till six,’ he added, ‘and you’ll be doing the hard yards.’

Jack slid his hands under his thighs, his neck sinking between hunched-up shoulders. ‘See, Dad, the thing is … I’m not sure that’s what I want to do any more … I like living in the city.’

Kevin put down his fork and wiped his mouth with his serviette. He stared at the placemat in front of him. Carla shut her eyes.

Jack swallowed. ‘I don’t know if I want live on the farm for the rest of my life. The bank’s offered to sponsor me to go to uni next year, get a degree in finance.’

She opened her eyes and looked across at Kevin. Jack’s job at the bank was only meant to be a stopgap, a way to earn some money for his big OE. The ‘Overseas Experience’ was a rite of passage
for so many Kiwi kids – a way to see the world and satisfy their wanderlust before settling down. Jack was supposed to return to the farm. That had been the five-year plan: come home, work beside his father, one day, take over.

‘University,’ Kevin repeated slowly. ‘Well, that’s … I mean, if that’s what you want. So they’ve offered to sponsor you, eh?’

Jack pressed on, as if getting a rehearsed speech out of the way. His words were tentative and his demeanour strangely wooden, as if his audience was foreign to him. Jack playing at being an adult, thought Carla. She wanted to reach out and shake him. Reverse the years. Rewind his words.

‘It got me thinking about you guys and the farm. I’ve been wondering whether you should consider diversifying. Say, get into ostriches or alpacas? They’re a lot less work than dairy, you know.’

Kevin swayed back and forth on his chair, his forehead creasing into deep ruts, his sunburned arms pushing back against the table.

‘And when they’re established, you could downsize the dairy side of things.’

Oh, Jack! Carla rolled a thumb over the back of her other hand, stretching the skin till it hurt.

But Jack kept going, words now sliding off his tongue with careless ease. ‘You’d have time to travel a bit. Mum’s always talking about wanting to go to Italy. You guys should enjoy life a bit, instead of always working so hard.’ He shot her a sideways glance.

Carla sat back, allowing the evening to wash over her and packing her disappointment away carefully. Jack had been gone only a handful of months and already she missed sharing in his world, an intimacy she imagined his new girlfriend now enjoyed. The plan for his return to the farm had made the emptiness tolerable.

She looked over at Kevin, her rugged man who worked the land, cared for his family, and shunned the draw of the city.
Beneath that tough carapace lurked a sensitive and shy Kiwi bloke who even enjoyed listening to poetry, and who desperately loved his son, though would never tell him. Jack’s decision would be unfathomable for him.

‘The bank, eh,’ Kevin said, with a sigh, pushing his thumb and forefinger into the corners of his eyes.