The Life Swap, page 1
About the Book
‘Don’t feel you have to stick to the safe path, Tess. Listen to Luna. She’s always been braver than I have.’
Tess is feeling burnt out from her uninspiring job and her busy city lifestyle. Even her personal relationships make her feel as if she’s drifting rather than thriving. Having tragically lost her mother a few years earlier, she knows she owes it to herself to make so much more of the precious opportunities life offers.
Her godmother, Luna, who leads a very simple existence in a rustic cottage in the North Queensland rainforest, is also at a crossroads. Keen to expand her jewellery-making business, she needs the new connections that a bustling city offers. When she suggests to Tess that the two of them might swap homes for an extended period, it seems the perfect solution.
Are they about to discover that taking great risks can bring even greater rewards?
A moving and heartwarming story by the author of The Garden of Hopes and Dreams and The Happiest Little Town.
Contents
Cover
About the Book
Title Page
Dedication
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Chapter Twenty-five
Chapter Twenty-six
Chapter Twenty-seven
Chapter Twenty-eight
Chapter Twenty-nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-one
Chapter Thirty-two
Chapter Thirty-three
Chapter Thirty-four
Chapter Thirty-five
Chapter Thirty-six
Chapter Thirty-seven
Chapter Thirty-eight
Chapter Thirty-nine
Epilogue
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Also by Barbara Hannay
Imprint
Read More at Penguin Books Australia
For anyone who wonders . . . ‘What if?’
PROLOGUE
The conversation began calmly enough, but it wasn’t long before Luna realised that her daughter was exceptionally tense and had been stewing over her question for some time.
Until that point, their afternoon had been close to perfect, with the two of them together in Luna’s workshed – mother and daughter tinkering, taking turns to use the soldering iron, then back to pliers as they gently shaped their jewellery projects. With their tasks complete, Luna had gone to the cottage to make them a well-earned cuppa – not with tea bags, but with leaves from a local Atherton Tablelands plantation, properly brewed in a pot.
They’d taken their mugs to the timber garden seat, poised just above the point where Luna’s rainforest block dropped steeply away to offer a view through a gap in the trees to distant farmland. Late afternoon was ideal for enjoying this view, when the sun gave the faraway hills a warm, rose-tinted glamour.
As they sat there, companionably side by side, chatting about their jewellery, Ebony said, ‘So I’ve been thinking . . .’ She spoke slowly, almost cautiously, but the words that came next followed in a rush. ‘I really need to know about my father.’
Luna flinched, spilling tea onto her jeans. Luckily, it didn’t burn too much, but she hastily covered the splash with her hand, hoping Ebony hadn’t noticed. Somehow she managed to speak. ‘I thought we’d agreed.’
Ebony shook her head. ‘No, Mum, we didn’t agree on anything. I just gave up asking you about him.’
And Luna had to admit she’d been extremely grateful for her daughter’s silence in this regard.
Back when Ebony was little, Luna had managed to brush aside any questions about the girl’s father. She and Ebs had been an awesome twosome, with the same long, curly hair, similar heart-shaped faces and grey eyes that changed colour like the sea.
In those days, Luna had presented her unconventional, artistic lifestyle to her small daughter as a fun, almost magical fantasy. And later, while Ebony’s questions about her father had become more of a challenge, Luna had usually managed to fob them off with vagaries. It’s complicated . . . best to leave him as a mystery . . .
Luckily, by the time Ebony had reached young adulthood, she’d turned her attention to travel and adventure, setting off overseas, just as Luna had done when she was that age.
But now, Ebony was back, and in her mid-twenties, taking her art career and her life goals seriously. She was even talking about settling down . . . perhaps, of all places, in Brisbane.
‘The only thing you’ve ever admitted to me is that my father wasn’t an anonymous sperm donor,’ Ebony reminded Luna now.
At least Luna had always been honest in this regard, even though an IVF excuse might have encouraged her daughter to give up any further awkward searching.
On this afternoon, however, Ebony was clearly restless. Setting her now empty mug aside, she launched to her feet. ‘Sorry, Mum, but I’m fed up with this.’ She threw her arms wide to emphasise her despair. ‘I have to be just about the only fricking person on this planet who doesn’t know who their father is.’ She shot Luna a sharp frown. ‘Or was.’
Luna gulped.
‘He’s not dead, is he? I know it can’t be as simple as that.’
Mentally wincing at the frustration in her daughter’s voice, Luna shook her head. ‘No, Ebs, he’s not dead.’
This was met by a dramatic eye-roll from Ebony. ‘So why the huge secret? Is he someone famous? Oh, God, please tell me I’m not some politician’s love child?’
‘No, of course not. You know I don’t mix in those circles. Don’t be ridiculous.’
Now Ebony gave a noisy sigh and let her head fall back as she stood, hands hanging loosely by her sides, staring up at a patch of sky rimmed by towering treetops. ‘So, here we go again,’ she said wearily.
‘I’m sorry, love. I wish I could —’
‘I’ve tried DNA testing.’
Luna gasped. ‘You haven’t?’
‘Of course I have, but I’ve only registered with a couple of companies so far and they couldn’t give me any useful matches.’
Oh, God. Luna realised now that she’d had her head in the sand. She should have known that any contemporary young woman might follow this route.
‘I’ll have to keep trying, I guess.’ Ebony was staring up at the sky again where threads of thin clouds drifted. ‘I want to know what he’s like, not just what he looks like – what he enjoys doing, how he talks, what he thinks about. It would be so much easier if my dear mother would just fess up with the truth.’
‘I’m sorry, sweetheart. I —’
‘Is he in jail?’ came the swift interruption. Her daughter’s gaze was intense. ‘Has he done something you’re ashamed of? Honestly, I don’t care, Mum. I just need to know.’
‘No, it’s nothing like that.’ But Luna couldn’t hold back an uncomfortable grimace. She did feel guilty. For too long she’d avoided discovering the truth. And as far as her daughter was concerned, Luna’s sins of omission could be interpreted as deceit.
‘Come on,’ Ebony pleaded. ‘Even if this guy lives on the other side of the world, it would be helpful to have a name. That’s not a lot to ask.’
‘I can’t give you a name.’
‘What?’ The word dropped in a shocked whisper. ‘You mean, you don’t actually know his name?’ Ebony gave a shaky, embarrassed little laugh as she stared at her mother. ‘What the hell happened? A one-night stand? You were both blackout drunk? Or stoned?’
‘No,’ Luna protested, although later, whenever she looked back to this moment, she almost wished that she had agreed to one of these possibilities. She could have saved them both a huge amount of heartache and stress, if she’d simply lied and said that yes, that was how it had happened.
Of course, Ebony wasn’t prepared to leave it now. Her eyes glistened with tears. ‘Not knowing is killing me.’ Her voice was tight and angry. ‘And I hate the thought that there’s a man out there who doesn’t know he’s got this amazing daughter.’ She managed a brief, rueful smile as she said this, before shooting her mother another quick scowl. ‘At least, I’m assuming he doesn’t know.’
‘No, he doesn’t.’
‘Doesn’t he deserve to know?’
‘It’s a bit hard, love. I honestly can’t give you a name. I – I mean there were a couple of fellows around at that time.’
Ebony sent another mocking eye-roll skywards. ‘My mother, the player.’
A fair enough comment. Ebony had, after all, been witness to Luna’s string of casual relationships.
Now, with a frustrated sigh, Ebony flopped heavily back onto the seat. Luna would have liked to reach out, to slip her arm around her daughter’s shoulders, but she suspected she would be roughly shrugged off.
‘You know, it’s not too late to ask the possible fathers for a DNA test,’ Ebony said.
Luna
‘You mean these guys have families?’
‘Yes.’
‘Are you telling me I’ve spent all these years as an only child when I have half-sisters or -brothers out there?’
When Luna didn’t reply, her daughter also fell silent, as if she needed to absorb this latest news. But she wasn’t ready to give up. ‘What about back when you found out you were pregnant? Or after I was born? You could have had the tests done then.’
Luna shivered, remembering the stress of that time. ‘It was already too late. Too complicated. Honestly, Ebs. I’m sorry. I understand it must be hard for you.’
‘I don’t think you do, Mum.’ Ebony was back on her feet again now, hands clenching and unclenching. ‘I don’t think you have a bloody clue,’ she cried. ‘I don’t believe you’ve ever tried to look at this from my point of view.’ And then, eyes blazing, she roared, ‘You’re a totally selfish bitch.’
Turning abruptly, she stomped off into the gathering dusk.
CHAPTER ONE
‘How could you be so reckless, Tess?’
Tess’s father had a talent for glaring and he made good use of this ability now, as he stood on the paved terrace outside his stunning new penthouse, with the lights of Brisbane spread in a glittering backdrop behind him.
His silver hair lifted in the evening breeze, rather like a coxcomb, but it was his squared shoulders, the hands on his hips and the hard flinty scowl in his dark eyes that told Tess how very annoyed he was.
No surprise there, of course. Tess had guessed this would be her father’s reaction. It was why she hadn’t shared her plans with him until now, when the arrangements were more or less settled. After all, she wasn’t a child and she had every right to make her own life choices. Besides, she’d never really expected her dad to understand.
As a wildly successful real estate agent, Craig Drinkwater was far too busy making a fortune out of the housing boom that had taken Brisbane by storm. His entire days – and most evenings for that matter – were consumed by high-end negotiations.
He certainly didn’t have time for the grumblings of a lowly website content writer – which had been Tess’s job until she’d resigned just five days earlier. Even now, immediately after Tess had dropped her bombshell, her father was checking his phone for the umpteenth time since she’d arrived. And although he slipped the phone back in his pocket, his hand hovered at the ready, like a trigger-happy cowboy in an old-fashioned movie, constantly poised to reach for his gun holster.
‘You shouldn’t have anything to complain about,’ he told Tess impatiently. ‘It’s not as if the covid lockdowns in Brisbane were anything like the weeks and months the Sydney and Melbourne folk had to put up with.’
This was true, of course, and Tess knew that her father wouldn’t be the only person to view her resignation from her supposedly nice, steady and not too demanding job as a silly, unwarranted tantrum.
He shot her another sharp look. ‘I suppose Josh knows about this?’
‘Yes, of course.’ Josh was Tess’s boyfriend and he was also in business with her father, which was how she’d come to meet him. But while Josh had probably been as baffled as her dad by her resignation – and as equally distracted by the skyrocketing pressures of his own job – he’d at least made a show of listening and offering sympathetic noises when Tess had shared her reasons for resigning.
At the time, she’d reassured herself that her boyfriend’s calm reaction to her news had not been mere indifference, although she still wasn’t sure about that. Josh had certainly given the impression that he understood her huge disappointment over the lockdown experience of working from home.
And yes, Tess was prepared to admit that she had been naïve to imagine that a break from the office might provide an interesting novelty, that it might even be fun.
Looking back on those weeks, she could scarcely believe she’d foolishly fantasised that she’d be able to stay in bed as she ‘went to work’ on her laptop, propped up by pillows, with coffee and a pile of toast at her side. At the very least, she’d imagined she’d be able to slob around the house in an old T-shirt and trackpants.
After all, her job was to write content for her clients’ websites and almost all their communication happened online. And as a keen follower of her favourite authors’ blogs, Tess knew that flexibility in dress codes and timetables was a universally accepted privilege for writers working from home. Her favourite author loved telling her readers that she got her best writing done in her dressing gown.
And, as she and Josh hadn’t moved in together yet, Tess hadn’t had a partner or kids to worry about, so she’d been really looking forward to setting her own hours without an overbearing boss breathing down her neck.
Her accountant friend Marianne’s boss had been totally happy for her staff to choose their own lockdown timetables, with any important communication coordinated by emails and an occasional Zoom session.
Sadly, Tess and her officemates hadn’t been so lucky. The lockdown had created a perfect storm for their boss, Leonard King. Mind you, Leonard had always been obsessive about working hours, never quite trusting that he had his employees’ total commitment.
He’d habitually been antsy if anyone slipped away a bit early, promising to finish a task overnight. But his lack of trust and his keen focus on timekeeping and supervision had morphed from annoying to downright tyrannical during the lockdown weeks.
For Tess, it had begun with random phone calls at any time of day, and then a sudden demand from Leonard that she share her screen, so he could check on her.
She’d quickly learned that working in her PJs in bed was not an option, but before long Leonard had taken this vigilance several steps further, demanding that all his employees screen-share their entire working hours.
Tess’s project at the time had been editing a series of blogs for an engineering firm, which meant wading through their poorly written and at times incomprehensible content, trying to make the complicated ‘engineering speak’ more reader friendly. This required serious research and concentration and it was just too disturbing to find her boss watching her every moment.
She’d never thought of Leonard as having piggy little eyes – until she’d had to put up with him watching her from the corner of her screen. So creepy.
It wasn’t as if Leonard had asked useful questions, or shown helpful interest in any of the projects the team was working on. He was too busy making them feel guilty about taking a shower, or stepping into the kitchen to put a spot of dinner on.
‘I had to resign,’ Tess told her father now. ‘I’d been hoping it would get better when we returned to the office, but the tension was still there. And I wasn’t the only one to quit. Rory and Tash have both given their notice.’
Of course, Leonard had flown into a furious rage about this, yelling at them about a malicious conspiracy.
‘I thought you’d understand, Dad. You know how people feel about their homes. Your home is supposed to be your own private space. But our boss was spying on us and micromanaging every minute of our day.’
Her father’s response was a half-hearted grunt.
Encouraged by this possible hint of acceptance, Tess drove her point home. ‘Why should I work for a guy who can’t trust me?’
‘Okay, okay,’ her dad said now, although he spoiled the moment by adding a resigned sort of sigh. ‘I accept that Leonard’s behaviour must have been annoying, and I suppose I understand why you wanted to resign.’
‘Good,’ Tess began, but then he raised a hand.
