The Patterson Girls (50 page)

‘Geez,' Charlie said. ‘I wish you'd confided in us earlier.'

Lucinda bit her tongue on giving Abigail a lecture on her irresponsible behaviour. Who was she to talk? It wasn't as if she'd made such a great job of her life lately either.

Abigail looked as if she were losing the battle with her emotions yet again.

‘She realised the error of her ways and forgot the whole idea,' Madeleine said. ‘She fell in love with Nigel and has been giving music lessons in London but Nigel found out what she'd planned and he … he ended it.'

‘I'm sorry.' Charlie handed Abigail the whole box of tissues. She yanked one out and blew her nose.

But Lucinda's brain was ticking. ‘How long were you trying to get pregnant?'

‘Three months.' Abigail admitted, wiping her eyes with another tissue.

‘And are you sure you were trying at the right time?'

Abigail nodded. ‘I read up on ovulation and timing and everything and even bought an ovulation kit from Boots.'

Lucinda's heart lurched at this new information. ‘I
knew
it. Surely this proves there is some truth in the curse.'

‘Lucinda,' Charlie warned, ‘I thought you'd agreed to forget about that.'

Lucinda ignored her. ‘Three of us have tried to conceive and failed. If that's not evidence enough, I don't know what is.'

‘I agree,' Abigail said, her shoulders slumping and her tone defeatist.

‘Hang on? What do you mean
three
of us?' Charlie asked. ‘I haven't been trying to get pregnant.'

‘I have,' Madeleine confessed and Lucinda couldn't help but smile at the look of shock on Charlie's face as their oldest sister explained what had happened between herself and Hugo. She continued to explain the fiasco that had gone down and had initiated her decision to return to Australia. Lucinda hadn't known about this latest development.

‘I'm sorry things ended that way,' she said, trying and failing to recall a time when Madeleine had ever sounded so broken. And as she looked at her sisters, all so dejected, her belief in the power of the curse returned with a vengeance.

Three sisters, all of them actively trying to get pregnant to no avail.

It couldn't simply be coincidence.

Madeleine reached out and snatched a tissue. ‘Turns out the curse grabbed hold of me as well. The logical part of me knows it's ridiculous, but I couldn't stop thinking about it. I didn't like the idea that if I wanted to have a baby, some ridiculous old curse might stand in my way. I'm a doctor for God's sake. So I decided to prove it wrong.' Madeleine laughed. ‘I still don't believe in it, but if there is any truth in it, maybe it isn't just a fertility curse. Maybe it's a love curse as well.'

‘What do you mean?' Lucinda asked.

‘Well, look at you and Joe.' She paused, then gestured to Abigail. ‘And the two of us made a right royal balls-up of our latest attempts at romance. And if we consider our family history, well, Aunt Mags, Victoria and Sarah were also ill-fated in that department. Maybe we are all destined to be old spinsters, living alone with a bunch of cats.'

A chill washed over Lucinda at this terrible possibility. But it made more sense than she cared to admit.

‘I quite like cats,' ventured Abigail.

‘That's not the point,' snapped Lucinda and Madeleine at the same time. Their gazes met and for the first time in her life, Lucinda knew she and Madeleine were on the same page, fear and fury bonding them.

‘So what are we going to do about it?' she asked.

‘You're the one who's researched curses,' Madeleine said, pointing her finger. ‘What are our options?'

‘There aren't many, which is why I've been so depressed about it. But the only one that makes any sense is confronting the person who cast the curse and asking them to reverse it. Of course, we can't do that because she's dead. Some people say psychics might be able to help, but I looked a few up on Google and they all charge a fortune. Besides, it's hard to tell which ones are legitimate—if any.'

‘Do you know anyone?' Abigail looked to Charlie.

‘No.' Charlie shook her head and if Lucinda wasn't mistaken she sounded a little annoyed. Her mouth opened as if she were about to say something else, but Abigail suddenly jumped up in excitement.

‘We could have a séance,' she suggested, her whole face brightening at this idea.

Lucinda immediately imagined a bunch of adolescent girls scaring themselves silly with ouija boards, and was about to pooh-pooh the idea when Madeleine suggested something else.

‘Or,' she said, gesturing for Abigail to calm down, ‘we could go and speak to Wanda. Maybe her mother told her about the curse. It's a long shot … but if we talk her around, she might know how we can get it lifted. She might even be able to do it herself.'

‘So you believe in the curse now?' Abigail asked.

Madeleine shrugged, taking another sip of her wine before she replied. ‘I have no freaking idea, but I don't see any harm in investigating it further.'

‘What if she just shuts the door in our faces?' Lucinda thought it a real possibility.

‘Then we knock until she answers it. Us Patterson girls aren't quitters, are we?' Madeleine raised her glass as if for a toast. Maybe it was the wine spurring her on but she'd never been one to admit defeat. ‘I for one am not going to let some dead old woman rule my life. Wanda, or … what did Aunt Mags say her real name was? Anyway she's the closest kin to Doris. She
must
know something. So, what do you say, sisters?'

Lucinda didn't need to think about her answer. She'd thought of little else for the past six months and the idea of doing something about the curse made her giddy. The truth was she'd contemplated visiting the old woman before but common sense had always talked her round. Right now, she felt as if common sense were hugely overrated.

She lifted her own glass and grinned. ‘Count me in.'

‘And me,' added Abigail. ‘When will we go?'

‘I'd say there's no time like the present,' Madeleine said, ‘but it's midnight and we've all had too much to drink. What about first thing tomorrow morning?'

‘I've got to do the breakfast service and then help Mrs Sampson with the rooms, but I can do after that,' Lucinda replied. ‘That'll give you girls a chance to have a sleep in if you need it.'

‘It's a deal.' Madeleine lifted her wine glass. She, Lucinda and Abigail clinked glasses and then each took a sip to seal it.

Chapter Forty-four

Despite the late night, Lucinda woke early, adrenalin rushing through her body when she remembered her sisters were home and the plans they'd made for today. After months of feeling helpless, it felt empowering to finally have a strategy. Who knew if confronting the old woman would achieve anything, but it was better than sitting on her hands, sulking about how unfair her life was. Maybe if they could really put the curse behind them, she'd be in a better place to move forward and fix things with Joe.

And having Madeleine onside made her feel justified in pursuing it because her oldest sister never did anything silly. Madeleine didn't abide fools and never wasted time on anything she didn't think worthwhile.

Lucinda all but jumped out of bed, hurried in the shower and then dressed quickly, eager to get the breakfast service over and done with. Charlie wasn't there yet when she went into the restaurant, so she turned on all the lights—this time of the year it was still pitch black outside at this hour of the morning—and went into the kitchen to get started. She switched on Rob's radio, half-heartedly listening to the ABC news while she worked, and by the time Charlie ambled in half an hour later, everything was almost ready to go.

‘You don't look so great,' she said as her younger sister made a beeline for the tea. Charlie had gone to bed earlier than all of them last night and hadn't drank as much as the others, but this morning her face was a grey-green colour. By rights, Lucinda should have the killer hangover it looked like Charlie was suffering.

‘I'm fine,' she said, but then caught sight of the bacon sizzling over the big hob stove and almost dry-retched. Lucinda raised an eyebrow. She knew Charlie didn't like cooking meat, but she always did it when necessary.

Charlie frowned and placed a hand on her stomach. ‘Actually, I am feeling a little under the weather.'

Lucinda crossed to her sister and put a hand on her forehead. ‘You're a little warm. Maybe you should go inside and lie down.'

‘Are you sure you can manage without me?'

‘Of course. You've been nose to the grindstone these last few months. Maybe you just need a day off.'

‘Thanks.'

Charlie turned to go and Lucinda added, ‘But remember, we're going to Wanda's this afternoon. Don't want to miss that.'

Madeleine woke up disorientated. It took her ten seconds to place herself. She was home … back in Meadow Brook, back where it all began. Her head throbbed more than a little from last night's drinking with her sisters but she couldn't deny it had felt good to let loose. Travelling with Abigail and then last night with Lucinda and Charlie had reminded her that, if you let them, sisters could be the best kind of friends.

Maybe it was because they were all misery guts at the moment and could sympathise with each other's feelings of woe or maybe it was something else. Something more primal. She could only imagine how things might have turned out if she'd confided in Lucinda or Abigail or even Charlie about her desire to have a baby, instead of laying it on Hugo and Celia.

What had she been thinking? Could she really have coped with a baby on her own? And at the same time maintain such a demanding career? She thought back over the past year—the shock of losing her mother and then the weirdness of finding out about the Patterson curse. Would she have even contemplated getting pregnant if it wasn't for all that?

She couldn't deny the curse had made her start thinking about her ticking biological clock. She'd always hated the idea that she couldn't have something if that's what she wanted. Her mind went to the man she'd left in Baltimore. Had that been part of Hugo's attraction too?

At that thought, she shuddered as if a red-back spider had crawled into bed with her.

It was bizarre not to have to rush out of bed, not to have appointments to get to or babies to deliver. She'd never been good at taking holidays because being idle made her twitchy. She guessed it wouldn't be very long before she was chomping at the bit to get back into some kind of work.

And no, she didn't think pouring beer in the bar or changing dirty bed linen would suffice, but she could probably handle a few days while she worked out what to do next.

Never one to lounge around for hours after waking, she tossed off her blankets and climbed out of bed, glad that for today at least she had something to do. As much as she didn't want to believe in the curse, it was like a little ticking clock in the back of her head that wouldn't shut up and she hoped their visit to the old woman would give them all something to go forward with.

*

The house was silent when Charlie snuck back inside, and thankfully, when she shut the door to the motel behind her, the stench of bacon and sausages disappeared. She took a deep breath and headed for the kitchen, hoping a cup of herbal tea and some plain toast would settle her stomach. The last thing she needed was a bout of gastro because she had her first online exam in a couple of weeks and needed all her energies to study.

Only Mitch knew about the course and he'd been a great encouragement, but she'd never been good at tests and hadn't done anything like one since high school, so maybe it was simply the stress of the unknown combined with last night's wine that was making her queasy. She thought of Lucinda's excitement when she'd reminded her about going to see Wanda and shook her head in irritation. For years her sisters had teased her about her belief in supernatural, new age-type things and now they were all gung-ho over this so-called curse.

If only she hadn't been trying not to throw up, she'd have told Lucinda she wouldn't be going with them. The others might have nothing better to do than harass old ladies but Charlie had plenty. Possibly she believed in the curse but she was philosophical about such things and didn't want to get consumed with negativity like her sisters.

They'd been so caught up in their scheming last night that they either didn't care or hadn't noticed her reticence. Probably the first—her sisters had never rated her opinion highly as she didn't have a university degree to back it up.

But had they listened to themselves?

She'd almost told them about she and Mitch, simply to shut them up. Her confession would have put an end to their ridiculous notion that this was a love curse as well as a fertility one, but something had made her hold her tongue. She didn't want to sully their love with crazy curse talk, and the way Lucinda and Madeleine had been carrying on, they wouldn't have listened anyway.

She'd always thought her sisters were smarter than her, but right now they weren't acting it. They were almost like three vigilantes, planning to storm over and confront that poor old woman. She could only imagine what Dad would say if he found out. He hadn't wanted them to know about the curse and now she understood why. Mum had been right to want it to be forgotten.

Things were getting out of control.

Shaking her head, Charlie stuck two pieces of bread into the toaster, made tea and then lathered on butter and Vegemite when the toast popped. Feeling suddenly exhausted, she took her breakfast through to Lucinda's bedroom and closed the door behind her. Unsurprisingly Lucinda had made the bed with hospital-corner precision before she'd left that morning, and it looked comfy and welcoming. The only evidence that anyone even occupied the room was the tiny packet of tampons that sat on the bed, open as if Lucinda had grabbed one before heading out that morning.