The Paris Wedding, page 4
“It’s not. It’s ordered by year. Vintage patterns and buttons and trims, plus the fifties’ Vogue.”
“This old thing?” Tess flicked through the battered magazine. “Ugh, these clothes are hideous.”
Rachael winced. “They are not. Put it back!”
They could have been children again, fighting over something of Rachael’s that Tess wanted to play with.
When Tess didn’t move, Rachael scooped up the spilled contents and retreated to the sewing table, re-sorting the items from memory. When she was finished, she returned them to the footstool, slammed the lid, and pushed it underneath the table.
“Fine,” Tess said, as if she’d given up. “Be like that. I’m going to pack. We can take the mail to the post office when we leave.”
Later, while Joel and the children were in the kitchen fixing snacks for the drive, Rachael walked past her mother’s bedroom and saw the door ajar. Prepared to rouse on Tess for rifling through their mother’s things after all, she opened the door to find her sister sitting on the central ottoman inside the walk-in wardrobe. The ottoman had a red embroidered silk cover, a shock of color against the pale carpet. Tess was half turned toward the three sides of hanging rails, an old sweater of their mother’s hugged to her body. She was rocking, silent despite her obvious anguish. Rachael didn’t have to see her face to know she was crying.
Surprised, and unsure what to do, she backed out. Maybe Sammy was right and Tess wasn’t as iron-hearted as she seemed. In that moment, Rachael forgave her sister all the pushy intrusions. Tess had lost her mother too. They were both hurting. Tess might have left with their father twenty years ago, and a gulf had grown between them because of their separate lives, but they were still sisters. They should talk. Maybe, just maybe, they might find some common ground.
On this last point, however, Rachael’s hopes proved unfounded. Tess emerged with dry eyes and jovial spirits, and soon had the kids and bags loaded. She and Joel were just a dust cloud on the horizon before Rachael could even formulate a way to broach a discussion.
* * *
Their departure left Rachael with a long list of farm work—weed control had to be done, and the south paddock prepared for a crop rotation—but first she had two packages to deliver personally.
She drove into town along roads lined with baled straw, the sky daubed with painted clouds. When she pulled up outside Bernie’s and Beverley’s twin weatherboard cottages, all seemed tranquil. She could almost hear classical music playing. The right-hand house was freshly painted in buttercup yellow with the trim in clean cloud white. Its walls floated in a manicured garden that was divided with low hedges and busily decorated with intricate scenes: garden gnomes, concrete casts of oversize frogs on lily pads, and several water features on timed rotation.
In contrast, the left-hand house’s only nod to gardening was a large maple tree on the front lawn, though the house itself was neat in dark green and corralled from the street by a low picket fence. The fence that ran between the two cottages, however, was eight feet high, its palings crammed together so barely an atom could squeeze between them. Beneath the maple, Rachael could see Bernie Collins, still in his baker’s white shorts and shirt, the latter stretched over his belly. He was busily raking leaves from the lawn and tossing them over the high fence into Beverley’s yard.
Rachael grabbed her first package and got out. Only then did she realize that classical music really was playing, at high volume from somewhere inside the houses.
“Bernie,” she called.
Bernie, caught midtip, glanced up. He might have reddened, but Rachael couldn’t tell through the permanent pomegranate flush across his cheeks.
He pulled out a pair of earbuds. “Rachael, love! Are you here to see Sammy?”
“No, I have something for you. Thought I’d catch you before you turned in.”
In keeping with his early work hours, it was well known in Milton that Bernie took a long afternoon nap.
He glanced at the large package in Rachael’s hands and gestured grandly toward the house. He had flour stuck in the creases of his knuckles, but despite starting work at three in the morning, his winged DA hairstyle was perfect, matching the bakery’s logo of Elvis—in full Jailhouse Rock dance pose—stitched on his shirt.
Happy barks greeted them at the door.
“Go on, Presley, outside, boy,” Bernie said, shooing the dog into the yard and ushering Rachael past the life-size Jailhouse Rock poster in the hall and into a sitting room that paid all homage to the King. The classical music intensified, at odds with the walls crowded with framed Elvis movie and concert posters. Even the cushions on the brown settee were printed with his image. It made Rachael’s package all the more fitting.
“This is from Mum,” she said simply, handing it across during a lull in the music.
Bernie raised a questioning eyebrow but wasted no time in breaking the parcel open. He shook out the quilt: a masterpiece of tiny black-and-white patterned squares that, when viewed from afar, formed an image of Elvis on stage.
“Oh, Rachael. Goodness, look at that. I remember your mum making it for the festival years ago. Got so many admirers, it did. She really wanted me to have it?”
“She couldn’t think of anyone better. There’s a note too.”
The envelope looked the size of a business card as Bernie turned it in his thick fingers. “You want me to read it now?”
“Later. It’s for you,” she said. She wasn’t ready to hear her mother’s words today, even if they were for someone else.
Bernie tucked the envelope in his pocket and returned to admiring the quilt. He shook his head. “I don’t know whether to put it on the bed or frame it!”
A soprano voice pierced the room, a long note on high C. Rachael winced. Bernie seemed unmoved.
“I didn’t think you’d like opera,” Rachael said.
“I don’t.” He carefully refolded the quilt, then opened a door and beckoned Rachael into the kitchen, where the volume swelled appreciably. “That’s Bev’s latest trick—leaving that blasting across the fence from her bathroom window. But if I close this door and keep the earphones in, it doesn’t worry me.”
“That’s very tolerant of you,” Rachael said carefully, thinking how she wanted to shake them both.
“Can’t betray she’s had an effect. Besides, she’ll have more to worry about when Presley’s finished in her garden.” Bernie laughed.
Rachael leaned out the window to see Presley racing about in Beverley’s yard, his wagging tail knocking gnomes like skittles.
“Bernie!”
“Don’t look at me like that. You don’t know what she did last week.”
He launched into an account of Beverley’s latest misdeed, but after “called the police,” Rachael didn’t hear any more because on Bernie’s breakfast bar was a stack of opened mail, and there was no mistaking the envelope crowning the pile with its creamy card and calligraphied address. So Bernie had been invited too.
This fact was still in Rachael’s mind as she drove around the block to Milton’s main street, where a small run of businesses crowded together. The service station was at the far end, and the community hall alongside it, rather in need of paint. The old surgery was next, and then a truck lay-by. The busiest two buildings were at the end of the row: Bernie’s bakery, Blue Suede Choux, whose awning sported a life-size cartoon King singing into a breadstick, and the post office where Beverley was queen. A tour bus had pulled into the lay-by—part of the stream of year-round visitors to the bakery that kept Milton alive. Otherwise, Parkes would have taken over the post years ago and the town would have effectively closed. That the post office was still able to provide a personal and dedicated service to the remaining residents and surrounding farms solely because of Bernie was something Beverley would never openly admit.
Rachael found Beverley writing Christmas cards behind the counter, which was draped in enough tinsel and fairy lights to sink a cargo ship. The stripes in the carpet’s pile and faint lemon scent betrayed recent vacuuming. The sparsely stacked shelves were all so neat, the place could have been a museum. Rachael thought of the similarly immaculate gardens around Beverley’s house and tried and failed to think of something to say about ending the stupid feud with Bernie.
Beverley accepted the parcel and read the accompanying note with gravity, then briefly clasped it to her chest. “Bless your mother, Rachael. She was such a good friend.”
Rachael could only nod.
“How are you holding up now Tess has gone home?”
“All right,” Rachael hedged.
Beverley was staring at her intently, as if trying to discern truth from her response by pure confrontation. Seemingly satisfied, she pushed her hands before her on the counter.
“I wasn’t sure whether to tell you this today,” she said. “Because I know you and Matthew Grant were very close once.”
Rachael heard a ringing in her ears, like she was in a movie where a bomb had just gone off. She knew exactly what Beverley was going to say.
“You got an invitation too?”
Beverley plucked the creamy envelope from under the counter. It had been opened with a single surgical incision along the top edge. “I’d understand if you found this a bit difficult,” she said with a great deal of compassion. “I remember you had the same envelope in your post.”
Rachael laughed, but even to her it sounded high-pitched and wrong. “Not at all,” she lied. “We broke up years ago.”
“Good for you,” Beverley said, brightening. “It’s a windfall, then. I must say, it’s very exciting. An all-expenses-paid trip to Paris. I always dreamed of going there, but my ex-husband never wanted to travel overseas. I was always very jealous of all the places your mum had been. I’m so looking forward to it—I’m sure we’ll have a wonderful time.” Beverley’s face had lost ten years, the pinch around her mouth smoothed out, her eyes distant with imagining.
“I’m not sure I’m going,” Rachael said quickly. “I’d have to leave the farm, and it would be right around planting time.”
“Wouldn’t Tess and Joel be able to help out again?”
“Maybe, but I’m thinking of going to uni,” Rachael said, casting around for excuses. “I always wanted to do journalism,” she added, but it did nothing to fill the hollow in her chest.
“Good for you, darling. Your mum would be proud.” Beverley paused. “But this trip is only for a week. Your timetable should allow that, shouldn’t it?”
Rachael shrugged. “Don’t know yet.”
“I’m sure you’d be able to make it work. A holiday is a marvelous thing. Goodness knows, I’m keen to get away for a little while. Is that rotten tour bus still outside?”
Rachael leaned toward the window, her heart pounding. The bus was still there, its disgorged passengers either inside the bakery, posing for photos against the facade, or standing around the picnic tables wolfing their purchases.
“The whole place will look like a shambles when they leave,” Beverley said. “Paper bags escaping the bins, stones kicked out of the garden. Takes me an hour after I close to set it right. Does Bernard ever thank me that his shop is always neat and tidy? No!”
Rachael didn’t mention that Beverley would probably arrive home to find her garden in similar disarray, or that there would be no Parisian respite from Bernie.
“And that’s not the worst thing,” Beverley went on. “Did you know Bernard wants to move the bakery to Parkes? Move the bakery! That would be the death of this town. However untidy the tourists are, we need them, Rachael. Who wants to go all the way to Parkes for their mail?”
As surprising as this news was, Rachael’s worries were far more immediate. All she could think was that her private anguish over the invitation was about to become very public. For if Bernie and Beverley had been invited, others would be too, and all of them would wonder why Rachael had decided not to go.
Chapter 3
Rachael tried very hard to ignore Christmas and New Year’s. In the lead-up, Beverley was particularly persistent in her attentions, promising to leave Rachael a full turkey dinner before going to visit her brother in Bathurst. On Christmas Day, Rachael eventually took the phone off the hook as Beverley’s Country Women’s Association friends called every ten minutes to see how she was. At least Bernie didn’t make a big deal of his concern, just stuffing extra bread rolls in her bag along with a wrapped copy of Elvis Presley’s Christmas Duets.
Rachael left the Christmas tree boxed in the attic, and with it the memories of good-natured arguing over whether lights or tinsel went on first, and putting the star on the top. The star was one Rachael had made in primary school, its points curling now and nearly all the glitter long ago shaken off into the carpet. Tess had one exactly the same. Rachael’s mother had loved the idea that they were somehow connected by that star no matter how far apart they were. So after Tess called on Christmas Day, uncharacteristically without any remonstrations, and wished Rachael a happy day and said the children were missing her, Rachael went and got the star out and put it on the windowsill so the gum tree on the rise could see it. Then she went back to work.
Sammy tried to encourage Rachael to go to the Parkes Race Meet on New Year’s Eve. Rachael refused, saying she was too busy, and promised she would go to the Elvis Festival in January instead.
It was an almost-truth. She had plenty to do on the farm, and was looking up information about journalism courses. She’d begun the latter task with enthusiasm but had encountered a problem: she could read about a course for only a minute before she found her fingers had opened a new browser window. A few seconds later, photos of Bonnie Quinn would be splashed across the screen.
Bonnie was tall and leggy, her skin smooth and fine, and she was stylish, whether in a pair of jeans by the beach or on a red carpet. Rachael kept coming back to note the details that made the elements of her outfits work together. Bonnie became burned onto her retinas.
In one particular photo she was wearing a very smart and very fitted white jacket that Rachael spent a long time ogling. It had three-quarter sleeves, rounded corners, a nipped waist, and covered buttons—classic fifties’ style. It was the sort of jacket that would be paired with a fitted skirt, but Bonnie wore it with three-quarter trousers with an upturned cuff and simple white pumps, crossing the eras. Her blond hair was twisted elegantly behind her head, with a subtle finger wave through the front that said she knew exactly what she was doing. Her only accessory was a burnished gold clutch in her left hand, the same color as the wheat fields in the summer sun.
In many of the photos Bonnie was standing in front of a wall of logos—at a premiere or a high-profile benefit; in others, her arm was linked with an older man who had a sizable paunch but still managed to look powerful and expensive in his tailored suits. This, Rachael discerned, was her father, Walter Quinn, billionaire businessman.
Rachael told herself that all this Google stalking was simply because she was curious. She wanted to understand who this woman was. But as she looked and looked, she realized she was searching for a flaw in Bonnie, something she could point to and say, there, Matthew chose wrongly. But the consolation never came. Bonnie was always smiling directly into the camera, seeming serious and classy and intelligent. She was never bending one knee or putting a hand on her hip like a ditzy model, despite being photographed alongside Hugh Jackman and a bunch of other celebrities.
The crisis point finally came when, after nearly two weeks of this, Rachael stumbled across a rare picture of Bonnie with Matthew. The photo had been taken at some distance, and Bonnie was partially obscuring his face, but it was unmistakably Matthew. He was smiling. The knot that had formed in Rachael’s chest when the invitation had first arrived pulled tighter. Her heart thumped as if she’d run all the way from the swimming hole.
She dropped her searching habit after that, hoping the dull ache behind her breastbone would ease. It didn’t. It reminded her of the dead-arm craze in primary school when kids had punched each other in the shoulder until the limb went numb. The next day it came up in technicolor bruises that took ten days to fade. Her chest felt like that now, except her heart was the muscle being pummeled. She didn’t know how long it would take the bruises to fade, if ever.
And there was a deeper problem. Rachael couldn’t concentrate on this potential uni course, couldn’t concentrate on anything, while she kept thinking about Matthew. Running the farm with her mother had always given her a bone-tiring satisfaction, but that wasn’t enough now. She needed to know what was next. Needed to be able to plan for it.
She pushed out of her chair and through the back door, facing the fields and sky. It was as though the two parts of her life that she’d sacrificed ten years ago—her future career and being with Matthew—were inextricably linked. While one remained unresolved, so would the other.
She paced down the verandah until she stood over the milk can. Several small creatures scuttled away from her hand as she dug inside. She brought out the crumpled invitation and smoothed its pages on the bench. Maybe she had been thinking about this all wrong. Maybe this wedding was the solution.
* * *
The day of the Elvis Festival, as promised, Rachael fought her way into Parkes to meet Sammy and Marty. The footpaths were swimming with people of all ages in costume and Elvis-flavored sights. The scents of atomized frying oil and hair spray filled the air with carnival excitement.
Rachael had organized to meet Sammy outside the Parkes Country Motor Inn, which was in full view of the main stage across the road in the park. When she arrived, a tribute act was belting out “Viva Las Vegas,” but there was no Sammy. After waiting for fifteen minutes and failing to raise her on her phone, Rachael trekked across to the park and poked her head inside the Blue Suede Choux stall. Bernie, in full Vegas jumpsuit and sunglasses, as though he was due to perform any minute, was serving the tail end of a rush.
“Saw her over by the main stage,” he called when Rachael asked.
