Birds of a Feather, page 1
praise for Tricia Stringer
‘“Masterful” is used a lot in reviews, but Tricia Stringer really is. With Birds of a Feather, she firmly takes her place as one of Australia’s most accomplished writers.’
—Better Reading
‘A book you can’t put down … Stringer’s skill is in weaving the experiences of different generations of women together, with sensitivity and familiarity, gently showing how context can shape women’s decisions … A moving, feel-good, warm read about strong, loving women … the exact book we all need right now.’
—Mamamia on The Family Inheritance
‘… a polished family saga … all delivered with intelligence, wit and emotion in equal measures … Perfection!’
—Better Reading on The Family Inheritance
‘Tricia Stringer is an intuitive and tender-hearted storyteller who displays a real ability to interrogate issues that affect families and individuals. The Family Inheritance is another gratifying read from Tricia Stringer.’
—Mrs B’s Book Reviews
‘This book is the equivalent of a hot bath or a box of chocolates, it’s comforting and an absolute pleasure to immerse yourself in … If you enjoy well-written family sagas, look no further. The Model Wife is perfect.’
—Better Reading
‘Tricia Stringer’s The Model Wife is a beautiful multi-dimensional family saga.’
—Beauty and Lace
‘Tricia Stringer excels at two things: strong, empathetic characters; and finding an experience or emotion shared by many, then spinning that small kernel of commonality into an engaging novel. The Model Wife is no exception … Stringer’s prose is warm and friendly. She pulls you in with an easy and flowing writing style that quickly has you absorbed by the action. It’s easy to read, but that doesn’t mean it’s shallow.’
—Other Dreams Other Lives
‘[A] heartfelt saga.’
—Herald Sun on The Model Wife
‘I would highly recommend this novel and hope that readers will gain what I have from it. The Model Wife is a beautiful story with familiar challenges and a strength of a family who are connected via their life experiences together.’
—Chapter Ichi
‘A well-written, engaging story of the everyday challenges of life and love … a wise, warm, and wonderful story’
—Book’d Out on The Model Wife
‘Delivers a gentle satisfaction that makes it a great choice for a lazy Sunday afternoon read.’
—Books + Publishing on Table for Eight
‘A witty, warm and wise story of how embracing the new with an open heart can transform your life.’
—Herald Sun on Table for Eight
‘… a moving, feel-good read … a warm and uplifting novel of second chances and love old and new in a story of unlikely dining companions thrown together on a glamorous cruise.’
—Sunday Mail on Table for Eight
‘A wonderful story of friendships, heartbreak and second chances that may change your life.’
—Beauty and Lace on Table for Eight
‘Stringer’s inviting new novel is sprinkled with moments of self reflection, relationship building, friendships and love.’
—Mrs B’s Book Reviews on Table for Eight
‘… a really moving tale … This truly was a delightful read that left me with that feel-good happy sigh … be enticed by this tale of love and laughter, trauma and tears, reflection and resolution.’
—The Royal Reviews on Table for Eight
‘This winner from Tricia Stringer … is a light-hearted and easy-to-read novel with twists and turns along the way … enjoyable and fun.’
—The Black and White Guide on Table for Eight
‘Tricia has no trouble juggling a large cast and ensuring we get to know and connect with them … captivated me start to finish; if it wasn’t the wishing myself on board for a relaxing and pampered break from reality, it was connecting with the characters and hoping they managed to find what they were looking for. Definitely a book I didn’t want to put down!’
—Beauty and Lace on Table for Eight
‘A heart-warming novel that celebrates friendships old and new, reminding us that it’s never too late to try again … If you enjoy stories that explore connections between people and pay tribute to the endurance of love and friendship, you will love Stringer’s new novel. Table For Eight is a beautiful book … If you’re looking for a getaway but don’t quite have the time or funds, look no further – this book is your next holiday. Pull up a deck chair and enjoy.’
—Better Reading on Table for Eight
about the author
TRICIA STRINGER is a bestselling and multiple award-winning author. Her books include Table for Eight, The Model Wife and The Family Inheritance, and the rural romances Queen of the Road, Right as Rain, Riverboat Point, Between the Vines, A Chance of Stormy Weather, Come Rain or Shine and Something in the Wine. She has also published a historical saga; Heart of the Country, Dust on the Horizon and Jewel in the North are set in the unforgiving landscape of nineteenth-century Flinders Ranges. Tricia grew up on a farm in country South Australia and has spent most of her life in rural communities, as owner of a post office and bookshop, as a teacher and librarian, and now as a full-time writer. She lives in the beautiful Copper Coast region with her husband Daryl, travelling and exploring Australia’s diverse communities and landscapes, and sharing her passion for the country and its people through her authentic stories and their vivid characters.
For further information and to sign up for her quarterly newsletter go to triciastringer.com or connect with Tricia on Facebook, Instagram @triciastringerauthor or Twitter @tricia_stringer
Also by Tricia Stringer
Table for Eight
The Model Wife
The Family Inheritance
Queen of the Road
Right as Rain
Riverboat Point
Between the Vines
A Chance of Stormy Weather
Come Rain or Shine
Something in the Wine
The Flinders Ranges Series
Heart of the Country
Dust on the Horizon
Jewel in the North
www.harlequinbooks.com.au
For Margie and Mandy
Contents
Praise
About the Author
Also by Tricia Stringer
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
Twenty-One
Twenty-Two
Twenty-Three
Twenty-Four
Twenty-Five
Twenty-Six
Twenty-Seven
Twenty-Eight
Twenty-Nine
Thirty
Thirty-One
Thirty-Two
Thirty-Three
Thirty-Four
Thirty-Five
Thirty-Six
Thirty-Seven
Thirty-Eight
Thirty-Nine
Forty
Forty-One
Acknowledgements
Book Club Questions
one
1988
Eve Monk would never forget where she was and what she was doing the day she got the call to say her husband had been killed. She’d been packing the car, the bright orange Torana she and Rex had bought just after they were married. It was sixteen years old and Rex had bought several cars since but she loved the Torana. All that morning she’d been loading it with as many of the boys’ things as she could fit, along with a few items of her own. She’d gone back inside to get the washing basket from the laundry. It was full of dirty clothes but they were mostly school uniforms and the boys would need them.
The phone was ringing at the other end of the house. She hesitated, not wanting to answer, but she always worried it would be the school. There’d been plenty of calls from both her sons’ teachers over the last two years. No doubt after today those calls would become frequent again but it couldn’t be helped.
“Eve!” a voice bellowed at her down the line.
“Spiro?” Her heart skipped a beat at the sound of her friend and business partner’s voice. The trawlers had only gone out the previous night for the first fish of the season. She wasn’t expecting them back for a few days. She glanced at the sky through the big kitchen window. There was no sign of bad weather.
“What’s up?” She tried to keep the panic from her voice. She wasn’t ready to face Rex. She’d hoped to have time to talk to the boys, explain why they were leaving their father and settle them in to their alternate accommodation before he returned.
“Eve,” Spiro said again, this time more a moan followed by a shuddering sob. “Eve, I’m so sorry.”
“Why? What’s happened?”
“There’s been an accident.”
“Are you all right?”
“Yes.”
“The boat?”
“It’s fine. It’s … Eve, it’s Rex.”
“Rex?” But Rex was invincible, always escaping harm although often creating it for others.
“We had some trouble with t he winch and it fell. Eve, I’m so sorry. Rex was under it. The full force hit him on the head. There was nothing we could do.”
Eve sagged to the stool beside the kitchen bench. “Are you telling me …”
“He’s dead, Eve.”
“Rex is dead?” The anger that had fuelled her mad packing spree all morning trickled from her as if she were a sieve full of holes, leaving behind tiny grains of sorrow bumping against the numbness inside her.
“We’re over the other side of the gulf. The police are coming.”
Spiro’s voice went on and on but Eve could only hear the loud rushing sound in her head. Then Spiro was saying her name again.
“Eve? They’re here. I have to go. I’ll call you back soon.”
“Okay.”
“Should I phone Pam? You shouldn’t be alone.”
“I’ll be okay.” She ended the call and hung the phone back on the hook. Then reached for it again. She’d have to call Rex’s parents. Their only son, their pride and joy … they’d be inconsolable. She put the phone back. Not yet. She had to give herself a moment.
Today she’d finally made up her mind to leave her duplicitous husband but instead he’d left her. A strange sensation burbled deep inside her and rose up. She clapped a hand to her mouth but the force of it was too strong, squeezing between her fingers and erupting – a crazy cackling noise. She took a deep breath and forced herself to be calm.
Spiro had said something about a winch falling. Had he given her more detail? She hadn’t heard everything. Once more she reached for the phone and once more she stopped. She had no idea where Spiro had been calling from.
She looked around the kitchen. The old navy jumper Rex wore around home was draped over the back of his chair and a packet of his cigarettes lay on the desk among piles of papers and envelopes. A bottle of rakija sat on the bench. A sticky ring remained beside it. He’d overfilled her glass and she’d had to lean down and suck up the first mouthful. Little signs of Rex were everywhere. Before Spiro’s phone call she’d been stoically ignoring them, avoiding Rex’s things and grabbing as much of hers and the boys’ as she could. She’d wanted to be gone, well before he returned.
She hadn’t been moving far away, just to a friend’s beach shack, a temporary stopgap until she could sort things out with Rex. It was the washing that had finally done it. After the boys had gone to school she’d begun the mountain of washing that had been languishing around the house. She’d do anything needed if it related to their prawn fishing business but housework bored her. When she’d come to the pile of shorts and jeans she’d carefully emptied pockets. Arlo often had paper folded in his, covered in his scribbled diagrams and workings out, and Zac had his usual assortment of string, empty lolly wrappers and a plastic fishing float.
It was what she’d found in Rex’s pockets that had sent her head spinning and her heart thudding. In one was a crumpled receipt from a motel in a town further up the coast. The date was from two nights earlier. The night he’d said he was spending on the trawler, getting it ready for the start of the season. He’d paid cash. And in the other pocket was a set of earrings wrapped in a scrap of paper. They were gold loop earrings for pierced ears. Eve didn’t have pierced ears. There was a phone number scrawled across the paper. She dialled the number. A woman answered. Eve gasped.
“Hello?” the woman said again.
“Who is this?” Eve asked but in her heart she already knew.
“Eve?” The voice was little more than a whisper now.
Eve dropped the phone back on its cradle. Bile rose in her throat as she ripped the paper to tiny shreds.
Then she’d gone to their bedroom and started pulling things out of his drawers. Tucked at the back of one she found a box of condoms, open, with several missing. Eve had had her tubes tied a few years after Zac was born. They never used condoms.
All of the horror of two years prior had come rushing back.
The discovery that Rex had had an affair then had nearly destroyed her. The town had buzzed with gossip. The woman had been the wife of a local businessman, and friendships and families had been blown apart as everyone took a side. Rex had sworn it was a mistake and he’d never do it again. He’d begged Eve to take him back. Spiro had stood by them both, not taking sides but making it clear to Rex what a fool he was and to Eve that he would support whatever decision she made. The woman had left town and in the end Eve had stayed with Rex. They had two sons and a business together. She wasn’t giving it up easily.
Time had eased her pain and she’d almost felt like they were a proper family again. Three nights ago they’d toasted the success of the new prawn season with two glasses of rakija. Rex’s enthusiasm for the fishing season ahead had been infectious – his fervent mood had warmed her as much as the alcohol. They’d talked and laughed together and taken to their bed like young lovers. And the next night he’d been with someone else.
Discovering fresh signs of deception, realising he’d been with another woman, and who knew how often – it was too much. Eve felt old beyond her thirty-seven years. Already she was building another wall around her heart, cocooning herself from the hurt of his betrayal. It came easily, probably because deep down she’d never truly forgiven him.
But none of it mattered now, she realised. Rex was gone, and with any luck this latest treachery would be buried with him. Eve thought of Arlo and Zac and her heart ached. She had to protect them. It was bad enough they’d lost their father – at least they wouldn’t know about this latest affair. They had good friends to see them through. Her best friends, Pam and Eric Paterson and Gert and Tom Belling, had stood by her last time and would help her again. Their children were all friends. Pam’s two, Heath and Julia, and Eve’s boys were especially close. She knew Heath looked out for Arlo, and Julia did her best to stop Zac spending too much time alone.
Eve rose from the stool and quickly sank back to it as her legs refused to support her. Her heart thudded in her chest. She sucked in a breath and then another as her lungs screamed for more. Her fingers gripped the edge of the stool and she forced herself to take deep, slow breaths. She’d felt like this after Rex’s first affair too, but she couldn’t afford to panic now.
The desk caught her attention and she focused on it like a lost traveller would a light in the dark. Built into a nook off the kitchen, it was their office. Beside it was the filing cabinet, one drawer half open and a pile of files stacked on top of it. Rex had a life insurance policy. She slapped her hand over her mouth as the realisation hit – Rex was dead and suddenly her financial situation was stronger than if she’d left him.
Between the insurance and the fishing she could continue to support her family financially. Eve did the books, the cooking for the crew, mended nets and generally filled any role needed. That could continue. They’d have to employ someone to take Rex’s place. The measured deep breaths had succeeded in slowing her racing heart. Panic was useless. She had to think of her boys and their future.
She dragged herself from the stool and went back to her bedroom. She paused at the door, seeing the jumble she’d created – first from digging through Rex’s things, and then the chaos she’d left as she’d wrenched her own clothes from the cupboards. Her lips trembled at the sight of his belongings strewn around. She’d been so angry, yet a small part of her had hoped if she left him he’d come to his senses, want her back, work harder to make them a family again. Now that could never happen. Rex was never coming home. Tears brimmed in her eyes. She stiffened and batted them away. What good were tears? She’d cried enough of them over Rex. She had to be strong now, for her boys and for the business that was their future.
Eve swallowed the lump in her throat and lifted her chin. She strode forward, tidied the mess and tossed the condoms in the bin. Then she unpacked the car, put everything back where it had been and, instead of preparing to tell her sons they were leaving their father, she prepared to tell them he was dead.
two
Present day
Every Thursday morning Eve drove her Holden Torana coupe into Wallaby Bay. She parked it in the shade of the massive pines on the edge of the supermarket carpark and walked the length of the street to do her jobs. Because she did it at the same time each week, she knew who she would and wouldn’t meet. She always called at the post office first, to check her mailbox and pay bills, and the supermarket last, so that her dairy and meat items would remain cool in the esky for the ten-minute journey home. Not that the temperature was a worry today. The first week of June had been cold, a sudden prelude to the winter that was to come.
