The Maxwell Sisters (25 page)

Unfortunately, that's when her mother stepped into the fray.

‘But, Phee! I can't imagine you having any other type of cake but fruit cake. It's tradition.'

‘Chocolate mud cake is very nice too,' Patricia put in her two cents' worth. ‘I know a cake maker in Busselton, a friend of a friend I used to know in Perth, who does an absolutely marvellous one.'

‘We don't need another cake maker, we've got Eve! The best chef in town.' Anita's voice brooked no denial.

‘With the exception of Spider, I couldn't help but agree. However,' Patricia settled her teacup on its saucer rather coolly, ‘considering most of the cake is not going to be edible anyway, I don't think we need a full-blown chef in this instance, do we?'

Phoebe watched her mother, who was blinking rapidly, with growing concern. ‘Mum, it's okay.'

But Anita barely heard her. ‘Not edible?' she whispered, her expression disturbingly trancelike.

‘Oh yes, didn't you know?' Patricia smiled in amusement, which was possibly the worst thing she could have done. ‘Most wedding cakes these days act more like centrepieces. They are completely fake apart from the top tier, which is reserved for the bride and groom to take with them on their honeymoon.'

Anita spluttered. ‘But that's an outrage. What about the guests? Are they not to have any cake?'

Patricia's eyes widened. ‘Anita, you mustn't concern yourself. I assure you, they won't mind. It's the done thing.'

‘But I will,' her mother choked. ‘I will mind very much.'

For Anita, food was synonymous with love. Mothering, hospitality, nurturing – they were all part of feeding, of giving, of loving. Without food, how was she supposed to express herself? Phoebe could see from her mother's quivering lip that she was about to have a meltdown.

‘Mum –' she began, intending to reassure her that their wedding cake would definitely be entirely edible and every guest upon the Tawny Brooks property would be going home with a piece, when, to her great chagrin, Spider spoke up. In fact, he put out his hand and patted his mum's arm.

‘That's a fabulous idea, Mum. Besides, Eve's got enough to do without having the cake on her plate as well. Pardon the pun.'

Eve opened her mouth to protest but Patricia got in first, smiling triumphantly. ‘Perfect. Well, I'll get in touch with that wedding-cake maker I know in Busselton. We'll sort it right out – my treat.'

‘Great.' Spider nodded.

Phoebe's mouth fell open.
What the?!

As Spider returned to his breakfast, she bit her tongue. What was she supposed to do? Speak up? Go against his wishes in favour of her mother's? Put her family first again? She cringed. Hadn't she just promised to do better? She could feel her sisters' eyes on her, bringing on the guilt even more. Tash, in particular, was doing little jerky movements with her head in Anita's direction. She glanced at their mother, who was sending her a look of both pain and pleading.

Anita was expecting Phoebe to take her side, to speak up on her behalf. Gently, she shook her head, sucking in a breath as her mother pressed a hand to her chest as though she had just been stabbed in the heart.

Phoebe shut her eyes as Anita's chair scraped loudly on the kitchen tiles when she pushed it out. Standing up abruptly, her mother said, ‘Excuse me,' and left the room.

A rustle sounded as her father, who was sitting at the head of the table, folded his newspaper and laid it beside his coffee. ‘One–nil,' he murmured.

Silence followed as he raised his teacup to his lips, sipping delicately at the hot liquid. Everyone at the table turned and looked at him.

‘What?' he shrugged. ‘Somebody's got to start keeping score.'

 

The family finished the rest of the meal in relative silence before filing out to get on with their day. After a while it was just Phoebe and her father sitting there, sipping tea. He was on his third cup. The silence stretched between them and she began to grow more and more dissatisfied.

‘Something bothering you, Phee?' he asked without looking up.

She choked. ‘How can you ask that?'

He blinked.

‘Of course something is frickin' bothering me!' She gritted her teeth. ‘This is hell, Dad. And I don't mean to be insensitive, but you've put me here.'

His lips moved slightly. ‘You wouldn't know what hell is, Phee.'

‘Why? Because I'm your happy daughter? The one that never lets anything get her down? Well, I am down. I'm down and I'm out.'

He touched her hand. ‘No, you're not. You're a rock, my dear – the strongest of my children, as hardy as the vine. That's why you always stay so positive.'

She snatched her hand away. ‘Well, it's just an act because I'm not feeling positive. I'm barely holding it together. It's dreadful being the only one who knows you're leaving us. They'll need more time to adjust, Dad. Not to mention the fact that I'm desperately afraid for you.'

‘I'm okay.'

‘No, you're not
okay
,' she trembled, ‘and I'm not either. I can't keep your secret any more.'

‘So instead you'd rather rip our family apart early, three and a half weeks before your wedding? You promised me you would at least give them that. Think of your mother. Think of what this would do to her.'

She swallowed hard. ‘It's not working out, Dad. There won't be a wedding if I continue to keep Spider in the dark.'

Her father's eyes darkened. And for once she saw what her fiancé might see every time he looked into the face of John Maxwell. A genuine contempt, a hard-heartedness that knew no mercy.

‘Why do you hate him so much?' she demanded, the words catching in her throat. ‘What did he ever do to you?'

‘It's not what he did to me.' His long tanned fingers drummed upon the table. They were brown and wrinkled but they were still the hands she knew so well. Strong, capable, safe.

She remembered the feeling of her own hand tucked into his when she was no more than five years old. She'd felt as tall as a tree as he'd led her about. Nothing could touch her. Looking at those hands now though, she felt nothing but sadness and regret. There was so much she wanted to say but the words dried in her throat. They seemed so inadequate, so futile. And now, the man she wanted to marry was pitted against him. She had no idea how to deal with that. Ever since the whole wedding debacle had started, she had felt so divided. Her family on one side, her fiancé on the other. And as hard as she tried, she could not fuse them together.

‘Spider told me that you think he lit the fire that chased Eve out of town,' she began, trying to keep her voice steady.

‘Didn't he?' Her father's fingers abruptly stopped their drumming.

‘No, Dad. Of course not. He would never do that to Eve.'

‘Even to get back at me? To teach me a lesson?'

‘I have no idea what you're talking about.'

‘I told him I did not like his relationship with Eve. I told him that I thought he should end it or else. And he refused.'

‘Well, of course he refused,' Phoebe spit out. ‘You can't dictate to someone who they can or cannot be friends with. Apart from the fact that, if he's marrying me, I would hope that they continued to be friends. As I said to you a month ago, all I've ever wanted is for everyone to get along.'

He looked at her, long and hard. ‘This wasn't about friendship.' His watery eyes never wavered from hers. He didn't say another word – he didn't need to. As the silence stretched between them, doubt crept through her body like dye in water.

The words of the letter, which she almost knew off by heart now, rang in her ears.

I have been meaning to tell you this for quite some time. And now that you're here at Tawny Brooks, it seems almost like a sign that I should.

Her brain folded upon itself.

It can't be Eve. It can't be. She doesn't like him that way. She told me so!

But her gut was telling her otherwise. She voiced her worst fear.

‘You think they had an affair.'

She stood up abruptly and her father snatched her wrist. ‘Sit down, darling. Sit down.'

‘I can't.'

‘Yes, you can.'

‘Not until you tell me what proof you have of this.'

‘A note, nothing more.'

‘A note?' She pulled the crumpled piece of paper that somehow always found its way into her pocket and threw it on the table. ‘Like this one?'

He slowly peeled it apart and flattened the sheet. His eyes took it in at a glance. ‘I see you've found it.'

She turned away, biting hard on the fingers of one hand. ‘It's not proof.'

‘Nor is it innocent.'

Her mind darted all over the place, too fast to hold down one single thought. It was crazy. Utterly crazy. And sick.

Her sister and her fiancé – a double betrayal that seemed much too fanciful to be real.

‘I don't believe it.'

‘Please, Phee,' he pulled on her wrist again, ‘sit down.'

‘No.' She wrung her hands. ‘You've given me these awful thoughts about the man I love and my own sister!'

‘Then let me give you some good ones.'

Slowly, she sank back into her chair, gripping the table in front of her to stop her fingers from trembling. ‘What else is there to know?'

‘When I accused Spider of lighting the fire he denied it. And he still stands by that. He told me that he wouldn't do that to Eve and all he really wanted was to be accepted by the family. And he asked me if I could just give him a chance to prove it.'

A little ray of hope burst in her chest. ‘What did you say?'

‘I said no, at first, but then he told me he had asked you to marry him and that you had already said yes, though you were both keeping it a secret till you were ready to set a date.'

‘So when we came to get your blessing for our engagement months later, you already knew we wanted to get married?'

‘Yes,' he nodded. ‘He begged me to let him demonstrate how much he loved you and how much you loved him. So I had him on trial, darling. Watching and waiting for him to slip up. He didn't. So when the two of you came over to tell me about your engagement, as though for the first time, I gave you my blessing.'

‘Very reluctantly,' she sighed, wiping a stray tear from her eye as she remembered that day. Spider had been so tense. She hadn't thought there was more behind that than just nervousness at asking for her father's approval.

‘I do think he loves you,' her father confirmed.

‘But you don't trust him?'

‘He is weak. Only time will tell whether his love for you is greater than his own weakness.'

‘I really love him, Dad.'

‘I know,' he sighed, his face dropping. ‘That's why for your happiness's sake, I was willing to let him try.'

‘Dad, what do I do? Do I turn a blind eye? Do I confront him? Do I let him go?'

She looked into her father's eyes and she was a little girl again, waiting to be told the correct answer. All she wanted was for him to take this burden away from her. To tell her what to do because she could not trust herself to make the right choice, when her own judgement had made her nothing but blind.

Suddenly her father looked older than his sixty-four years. Greyer than when she had first sat down this morning. He choked a little, picking up his tea to take a refreshing sip.

‘I'm sorry.' She laid a hand over his. ‘I didn't mean to tax you. It's easy to forget sometimes that … but I don't want to bring you lower than I already have.'

He patted her hand. ‘It's all right, Phoebe. I'm old and I've had a good life.'

‘Not that old, Dad,' she protested.

But he was thinking of something else. ‘I remember when I first came to Yallingup, a little younger than you are. Your mother and I bought this land on the bones of our arses, mortgaged to the hilt because we had a dream.'

‘Yes, I know. You were very brave.'

‘I'm not talking about courage, Phee, because we weren't, you know.' He gave a self-deprecating laugh as he reminisced. ‘Too young and dumb to know any better. We were bullet-proof back then, invincible. Nothing could stop us. Our first big decision was what grape varieties to plant on the land.'

‘That's right,' she nodded. ‘You had enough land to choose eight.'

‘Yes, and it was a tough call because we were so green. I chose chardonnay first because that's what the market told me to do. Same with cabernet sauvignon because it was as robust as hell. Your mother wanted chenin blanc and shiraz and I chose semillon, merlot and sauvignon blanc because they were good for blending. But then I had space for one more variety. This was going to be my show-off grape. The variety I made my name with and I already had some ideas in mind. You know how big a fan I am of the lighter reds.'

She smiled. ‘Elixir for the soul.'

‘Exactly. But they are more risky commercially to grow. In any event, pinot noir was number one on my list of top ten. But your mother, bless her heart, was against it.'

‘Why?' Phoebe asked, unsure of why he was telling her all this.

‘She said most pinot noir was grown in really cold places and I needed to think warmer. That night she cooked three of my favourite meals. Spicy lamb cutlets with pumpkin and feta, duck with pomegranate couscous, and finally salmon with artichoke puree and crisp peas. And she served them with a variety of reds she had bought that day – some local, some international brands. We ate, we drank, we laughed. And, ultimately, I chose a different variety. Tempranillo to be precise.'

‘Your tempranillo is excellent.'

He inclined his head as though she'd stated a fact rather than a compliment. ‘Only because I know exactly what I'm going to eat with it.'