The Model Wife Read online

  “I know.” He kissed her cheek.

  “But I’m not sure about every desire,” she said, noting the sparkle in his eye had turned roguish again.

  He reached for a pen from the bedside table.

  “What are you doing?” Natalie hissed as he underlined the heading. She glanced around, expecting Olive to appear through the door and reprimand them. “It’s a family heirloom,” she gasped as he wrote YES with lots of exclamation marks next to the heading for Chapter One.

  “I’m giving it my endorsement.” He laughed again then gently pulled her round in front of him, resting his hand on her belly. “You weren’t honestly planning on passing this on to our children, I hope.”

  “No, but…well, it’s an antique.”

  “One that stops with us,” he said and started to nibble at her neck.

  She responded and they were soon fully entangled in each other’s arms, his lips leaving a sensuous trail down her neck. Natalie only gave a vague thought to Olive’s reason for giving the book to her as it slid from the bed and hit the floor with a thud.

  The next morning when she was making the bed she kicked it with her foot then, with a pang of remorse, she picked it up and opened it to the first chapter. Milt’s pen was still on the bedside table. She took it and glanced towards the door, once again expecting to be sprung by Olive, then drew a funny face with goggle eyes and a tongue poking out beside his YES.

  A lump of wood shifted in the pot belly with a thud, bringing her back to the present. She glanced down at the book in her hands. So much had happened since those heady days of early marriage. Some wonderful, some not so, but they’d made a decent life together in spite of the hiccups. She flicked through the chapters with their demanding headings written for women of a past era, and caught glimpses of her own writing scribbled around the edges and on the blank pages between chapters. On some pages she’d stuck photos, family snaps from special celebrations, and others had clippings, a favourite cheesecake recipe, Clem’s death notice which included their personal words of love for him. If Olive knew Natalie had turned the precious book into a crazy form of scrapbook she’d be horrified even now.

  The pages flopped open at the last chapter, ‘Family before all else’. Immediately she thought of the dark days after Bree was born when she’d believed she’d failed as a mother and a wife. Snatches of words from the page jumped out at her, children are a blessing – she’d even underlined it – keep poorly feelings to herself, not bother her husband with too much baby talk. It had been such a low time in her life. There was a name for it now, post-natal depression, but back then she had simply thought she was going mad and the insidious words had mocked her. That’s why she’d underlined children are a blessing. It had been the first time she’d written in the book since the night she’d shown it to Milt and it had felt good.

  Several pieces of notepaper and magazine clippings poked from the pages. She flicked to the page on family, opened out a piece of notepaper that had been stuck there and smiled. Written in Laura’s primary school hand was the title ‘Giraffe Soup’, then a list of ingredients and the method. As a little girl Laura would never eat pumpkin. It was the only vegetable grown on the property and they had it in abundance. Natalie had cooked up a big pot of it one day and added other vegetables. Laura had been about four and had eyed the bowl of soup, speckled with the green of zucchini and the brighter orange of carrot, with suspicion. Olive had appeared in the kitchen behind her granddaughter and had announced it was giraffe. Laura had eaten the lot and asked for more. Natalie had been grateful for Olive’s intervention and from then on pumpkin and vegetable soup was giraffe soup in the King household.

  Natalie could have thrown the recipe out, she knew it by heart, but she’d written Olive’s name in brackets after the title. That was a reminder of how helpful her mother-in-law could be and a counter for the other times when Natalie got so frustrated by Olive’s interference.

  And that was one of the reasons why she didn’t simply toss the old book away. Between its moralising pages were the mementos, mostly happy, of a different life to the one the book prescribed. Natalie’s life. Her family’s own real life. If anyone else saw Olive’s name next to the soup title they wouldn’t realise the significance but Natalie did, just like she knew the family photo she’d glued inside the front cover held special memories.

  She’d insisted on having the portrait taken before her eldest, Kate, had left home for uni. It was an informal photo. Milt was seated in the middle, Natalie leaning into him, his arm around her waist and their three daughters cuddled in behind and to his other side. The girls had hated the photo when it had arrived from the photographer. Laura had braces back then, Bree had very short hair and said her ears looked too big for her head, and Kate always said she had a silly look on her face. But to Natalie it was a precious moment in time and even though the large framed copy was banished to a hall cupboard, she’d kept this small copy for herself.

  She folded the recipe carefully back inside the pages. It was a silly book, full of rational and irrational messages and she knew her family would think her crazy for keeping it. She’d found Laura with it once, just before she left home to start her hairdresser training. Laura hadn’t got any further than groaning over the hated photo before Natalie had snatched it away. Not able to destroy the book she’d banished it to the back of her underwear drawer. She must have put it in the desk drawer after she’d stuck in Clem’s death notice.

  She dropped it back to the desk now and turned her thoughts to food. Perhaps Laura would enjoy some soup as well as lasagne. Natalie went to the fridge, dug out some pumpkin and zucchini and lost herself in the comfort of chopping and slicing.

  The soup was simmering gently by the time she glanced at the clock. Time to get some marking done before she had to start the real dinner. Soup alone wouldn’t be enough for Milt. She’d bought Atlantic salmon at the supermarket and it wouldn’t take long to cook it and throw together a salad. She got out her stickers and her favourite purple marking pen and opened the first book.

  By the time she heard a vehicle and dogs barking she’d become absorbed in the creative writing produced by her year three class and was laughing out loud at Matty’s comedic storyline. Trust him to come up with a talking tractor that saved a singing horse from a flood. She packed up the books at the sound of boots thumping on the verandah. The familiar shuddering bang of the door echoed along the passage.

  “Go easy!” Milt sounded tetchy.

  “Weren’t you supposed to fix that?” Bree’s voice was equally strained.

  “I was going to do it yesterday but I didn’t have a replacement stopper in the shed. I’ve put it on the list for your mum…” Milt stepped through the kitchen door as Natalie stood up. He was a tall man but his shoulders slumped at the sight of her and he had the grace to look sheepish. He knew she hated his lists of jobs for her to do but as he so often said, no point in them both driving into town and wasting good fuel when she went in three days a week for school. “Hello, love. Good day?” he said.

  “More what I’d call challenging. Young Leo Tanner fell and broke his arm. Thank goodness Tom was on duty and realised there was something major wrong straight away.” Natalie counted off her fingertips as she spoke. “Clancy’s mum took the corner too close and clipped the end of the school bus and Billy from my class threw up in the doorway just as we came back in from lunch.” She wrinkled her nose. At least the vomit was the only extra thing she’d had to deal with personally. It really had been a strange day. She chuckled as she recalled the new young principal, hopping from foot to foot. “Poor Paul nearly had a fit when he saw the damage to the bus.”

  “Nothing out of the ordinary then.” Milt gave her a weary smile. She wrapped him in a quick hug. Over his shoulder Bree’s smile didn’t reach her eyes. Irritation smouldered there, as it often seemed to these days.

  “What about you two?” Natalie glanced from one to the other.

  “We only had a block
ed water pipe,” Bree said. “Took a bit to fix it though.”

  On closer inspection, Natalie could see the splatters of mud on their clothes.

  “It needn’t have,” Milt muttered as he poured himself a long glass of water.

  “I’m going to have a shower.” Bree ducked away. Clumps of mud splattered her thick brown ponytail.

  “I’ll have dinner ready soon,” Natalie called after her.

  Bree tipped her head back through the door. “Thanks, Mum, but I’ve got a basketball meeting in town. I’ll have dinner at the pub.” She disappeared back into the passage.

  “Say hello to Owen.”

  There was no response. Either her daughter hadn’t heard her or she was being ignored. Owen had only recently been brought out to meet them. They’d had dinner and both Natalie and Milt had been impressed with the good-looking young man with the larrikinish sense of humour who Bree was obviously smitten with.

  Natalie looked from the empty doorway to her husband. “Everything all right?”

  Milt was sitting at the table opening the first of the envelopes.

  “Milt?”

  “Hmm?” He glanced up. “Yes, it’s fine.” He grimaced. “We might have had a few terse words.”

  Natalie swallowed her sigh. Milt had trouble remembering he was his daughter’s employer out in the paddocks, not her father. Unlike her older and younger sisters, Bree had been born with the farming genes. Her return to the family property several years earlier, after university and a stint on a farm in the south-east, had coincided with Clem slowing down and their need for an extra worker. Bree had shadowed her grandfather then, and she’d embraced it. Clem was easier on her than he’d been on his son, enjoying being a mentor.

  “You know what Bree’s like,” Milt grumbled. “She won’t listen. Thinks she knows how to do it quicker, better.”

  Natalie buried her head in the fridge. She did know. Trouble was, often Bree’s ideas were good ones and it was Milt who wasn’t prepared to listen. There was regular tension between father and daughter when it came to work, like there had been between Milt and his father. She tried to keep out of it, but lately she’d noticed a restlessness in Bree.

  “Have you seen this bill?” Milt said.

  She turned to look at the paper he was waving at her. It was apparent none of the envelopes had been opened before he got to them. “No.”

  “Fuel’s gone up.”

  “Put it in the tray. I’ll catch up with the paperwork over the weekend.”

  “Isn’t Bree meant to be doing that now?”

  “She is…will be. There’s a lot to get your head around.”

  “Did you pay the bill for the sheep?”

  Natalie turned to the calendar. “No. Has it been a week already?”

  “Yes.” Milt’s brow creased. “You’re usually on top of all that.”

  “I’ll do it after dinner.”

  He nodded and looked down again at the papers in front of him.

  Natalie set out the vegetables beside the chopping board and picked up the knife. The damned account-keeping got more and more complicated every year. Once upon a time all bills came due at the end of the month, but these days it was any time; the fuel bill one day, phone bill another and for sheep, accounts were due within seven days from purchase. She thought about the early night she’d planned. That wouldn’t be happening. Farm paperwork was one of the jobs that had been handballed to Natalie once it became computerised. Olive had been happy to hand it over and Natalie had tackled it alone for years. Milt pretended to know little about computers and Bree wasn’t showing a lot of interest. Not that Natalie blamed her. She had enough to do without paperwork as well.

  “What’s that message on the whiteboard?” Milt asked.

  “Terry from Landmark rang.”

  “What did he want?”

  “He wouldn’t say.”

  Natalie looked around as Milt took out his mobile. The Model Wife lay on the desk beside the open drawer. She strode over, slid the book into the drawer and pushed it shut a little too forcefully. Milt glanced up, a puzzled expression on his face, which changed to a frown. He jabbed at his phone. “It’s gone straight to voicemail. Surely he could tell you what he wanted.”

  “No.” Natalie shook her head. They’d had this conversation a dozen times before.

  “I’m off,” Bree called from the passage and the back door shut.

  Natalie went back to the vegetables.

  “Bree’s been on about restoring the tennis court again.” Milt’s statement sounded more like a question.

  Natalie turned and his steady gaze met hers. Bree had been on about redoing the overgrown tennis court ever since she’d met Owen and had taken up tennis. Natalie felt a chill at the thought of it. “It’d be a waste of time and money now.” The tennis court had been left unloved since the two older girls were babies and that’s how it would stay. That decision had been made before Laura had been born.

  “I said I’d think about it.”

  She took a deep breath. “But you won’t.” There weren’t many things Natalie stood her ground over but this was one of them.

  Milt’s brow was furrowed, his look determined as he watched her. “I said I’d think about it,” he repeated.

  Natalie pursed her lips, turned back to the vegetables and began to chop. Tennis had nearly ruined her life once; she wasn’t about to let that happen again.

  Two

  An hour later Bree King parked her ute on a side road in town, halfway between the sports club and the pub. She would be late for the meeting if she ate first but she was starving. Hunger churned in her belly along with the annoyance she still felt with her father and his pig-headedness. They would have got the job done in half the time today if he hadn’t been so insistent on doing it his way. She loved her dad but she was doubting her ability to work with him even more. She knew he’d felt that way about Pa but somehow they’d managed. Pa had been a different personality. Still determined but more mellow in nature. She and her dad were too much alike, according to her mother. They struck sparks off each other.

  She got out of her ute, hunched her shoulders against the cold and strode to the end of the quiet street. She passed old Mrs Bell’s place with its arches of roses and wind chimes tinkling softly in the breeze and then two original cottages with a skip bin piled high with rubbish out the front. She’d heard someone from Adelaide had bought them to do up for holiday accommodation. They’d been empty and run-down for years so a new lease of life for them had to be a positive for the town. Across the corner, the front door of the pub burst open, and a couple of out-of-towners stepped out into the chilly autumn night accompanied by voices and laughter. Sounded like a crowd inside. Unusual for a Tuesday night. She shoved her hands into the pockets of her clean jeans and crossed the road.

  “Hey, Bree.” Luke Thomas was the first to notice her. “Lucky you came here first. We’ve just decided to hold the meeting over a meal.”

  She took in the rest of the faces turned her way, smiling and waving drinks. They were all from the basketball club.

  “Bree!”

  She looked over to the other pub door and her grumpy mood faded. Here was the other reason she’d come to town. Owen Ferguson’s smile was wide as he strode towards her and took her in his arms. She gasped as he pressed his lips to hers right there in the front bar of the hotel. They’d been what her mother called an item for a few months now but mostly they were very private about their relationship. She’d only recently taken him home to meet her parents. Around them there were hoots and whistles and he let her go.

  Bree swept some loose hair back into place and tugged at the hem of her shirt. “That was some welcome,” she said, relieved that her quick glance showed the rest of the bar focused back on whatever they’d been doing before Owen had made his big entrance.

  He took her hand and leaned close again. “Let’s go outside. There’s no-one out there and I’ve got news.”

  Happy to get
away from the crowd, she followed him as he led the way to the outdoor area. Bert, the owner, called it a beer garden but everyone else called the simple paved area, with its scattered wine barrels, stools and plants, the smoking den. Even though it was outside and the air fresh and cold, the smell of stale cigarettes lingered.

  Two beers sat on one of the barrels used as tables. Owen passed one to her.

  “You were expecting me then.” She raised it to her lips. “After my day I could use this.”

  His cheeky grin turned serious. “Wait.” He put a hand out and she lowered the glass. “I said I’ve got news.”

  She studied his face, trying to guess what he was going to say. He’d only been in town a year, working as a mechanic at the local machinery firm. It was a small town and newcomers not that frequent so she’d been aware of his arrival but she hadn’t actually met him until she’d taken a truck in to be serviced. She’d been impressed by the way he’d been able to get their old farm workhorse to purr along like a real truck again. She’d offered to buy him a drink and their friendship had been sealed.

  “Mick’s going to sell me the business.”

  Bree’s heart leaped. When Owen had first arrived in town he hadn’t been planning to stay. By the time they’d consummated their relationship she knew she loved him and she was pretty sure the feeling was mutual but there was always the question of how long his job would last. Mick had gone through a series of mechanics in recent years.

  “That’s fantastic.” She raised her glass again, excited at the prospect of him putting down roots nearby.

  “Wait.” He was still studying her closely. He reached for her hand. “Before I take over Mick wants me to do a job for him.”

  Bree nodded and glanced at the beer she’d put back on the barrel. Her stomach was grumbling from lack of food and her throat was parched.

  He gave her hand a squeeze. “It’s in Marla.”

  “Marla! As in the dot on the map nearly to the Northern Territory border?”