The Ripple Effect (21 page)

Joelle told him in their last phone conversation she’d employed Mel part-time in the Garden of Earthly Delights.

“She’s going well at the moment. I think she’s on her best behaviour,” she said. “The customers seem to like her which is the main thing and I know she’s honest. That’s one thing about Mel, she’d never steal anything from anyone.”

“That’s great you’ve given her a job,” said Shay. “It’s good for her self esteem. I don’t think she’s as self-confident as she pretends.”

“No, I’ve realised that too. She’s trying so hard to be responsible for her baby.”

“Any word on the father? What did you say his name was?”

“Luke. No, she hasn’t mentioned him again. I’m not game to push it any more.”

Shay settled himself more comfortably on his couch. His feet were up on the coffee table. “I wish Easter would hurry up,” he said. “I want to show you off to my parents.”

“It’s only a fortnight. You sound like a little kid waiting for his birthday.”

Her voice sounded warm and intimate in his ear. Shay laughed softly. He already had his present. Joelle. “They’ll love you,” he said. “Lisa and Ben are coming home too, to meet you. Evan wasn’t sure where he’d be but he said he would come if he could swing some leave. He’s in the Navy.”

“I’m amazed they want to travel so far just to see me. Hope they’re not disappointed when I turn up and they see how ordinary I am.”

“You’re not ordinary at all. You’re my sister, how could you possibly be ordinary?”

“How indeed, Mr Wonderful?” Joelle laughed. “It’s still so odd. You don’t seem like my brother even though I know you are.” She paused and said hesitantly, her voice husky, “You seem…” The words trailed away.

“How do I seem?” Shay leaned forward pressing the receiver close to his ear. He realised he’d lowered his voice and it was husky too, like hers.

“I don’t know,” she whispered. “Not like a brother.”

Shay’s chest tightened and his throat suddenly clogged. He closed his eyes. He could hear her breath feathering against the phone. Those gold blonde tendrils of hair would be falling about her smooth cheeks, her brow would be furrowed as she concentrated on—him. Hot blood surged through his body.

They mustn’t do this!

He hardened his tone deliberately and sat up straight. “It’s because we’re comparative strangers,” he said. “We didn’t grow up together. We find each other fascinating, that’s all. It’ll wear off and we’ll end up treating each other the way we treat our other brothers and sisters.”

He heard a swiftly indrawn breath, followed by a split second silence, followed by a shaky, “I suppose so.”

“When can you get away at Easter?” he asked. “I’d like to leave on the Thursday to beat the traffic. Can you manage that? It’d be best if you came here on Wednesday night and we left first thing the next morning. Back on Tuesday.”

“Yes, I think I can organise that. Mel can do full days and Tracey can come in. They’ll manage.”

“Great.”

“I have to go, Shay, someone’s at the door and Mel’s out.”

“Okay. Talk to you later.”

Shay hung up with a broad smile. Five whole days together. Stan would love her. Shay couldn’t wait to see his face. And Olive’s. In fact, most of Birrigai knew the story. Joelle was almost a celebrity but he wasn’t telling her that, she was nervous enough as it was. Silly girl. She was gorgeous, sweet and loveable and he’d never been so proud of anyone in his life.

Late that night the phone rang. Shay, mostly asleep, groped about with one hand, knocked his book to the floor, tangled his other arm in the doona and at the same time struggled to sit up. Doctors had to get used to these midnight calls he supposed but it would take him a long, long time. Twelve thirty-one. Cripes.

“Lo,” he grunted. He reached over and flicked the reading light on.

“Shay?”

“Joelle.” He blinked widely and rubbed a hand over his face. “Anything wrong?”

“I’m—not sure—I needed to talk to you. Tonight when I had to answer the door? Remember?”

“Yep.”

“It was Dad.” Her voice was flat. He couldn’t tell what she was thinking. Can’t have been an easy meeting.

“How did it go?” he asked.

“I didn’t say much. He came to see Mel. He was terribly upset; he didn’t know where she was after she left the group house.”

“Didn’t she tell her parents she was with you?”

“No.”

Shay sighed. Joelle hadn’t told them either. The family was being ripped apart.

“It’s partly my fault,” he said sadly. “If I hadn’t turned up the way I did you could have been a buffer between them. Helped.”

“It’s not your fault at all,” she cried fiercely. “It’s not. It’s theirs. And I am helping Mel. They turned her away and I took her in.”

“So what’s happening now?”

“Mel was out when he arrived. I had to sit there. I could barely look at him, Shay. I really didn’t want to be in the same room but I had to wait for Mel to come home. I couldn’t refuse to let him see her. Luckily she’d only gone to the video shop. When she got back I left them to it.”

“So they’ve sorted it out?”

“I guess. Mel and Dad have, at least. She told me Mum doesn’t know he was looking for her. They haven’t learned a thing, Shay. Can’t he see they need to tell each other everything? Can’t he see that it’s these secrets that cause all the trouble?”

“People work out their own way of dealing with things. They have a strong relationship regardless of what someone else may think of how they resolve their problems.”

“When I get married I want complete honesty. I don’t want my husband keeping things from me,” she said defiantly.

“I agree. It’s the way I was brought up.” A pang of such intense jealousy shot through him he almost gasped. The idea of a husband sharing the intimacy he had with her made him sick to the stomach. He drew his knees up and wrapped his free arm around them, drawing the doona closer.

“You were lucky,” she said.

Defiance replaced by resignation now. It hadn’t escaped him she’d used Mum and Dad to refer to William and Natalie where previously she’d either not referred to them at all or called them by their first names. On the whole he thought it probably a good thing she’d seen William and also seen his attempt to make amends with Mel.

“So were you,” he replied gently. “They’re not monsters, Jo. Just confused human beings like the rest of us.”

He heard a heavy release of air as she sighed. “I know.”

Shay lay back down. He stretched out and pulled up the covers.

“Are you in bed?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“Did I wake you?”

“Yes.”

“Sorry.”

“It’s okay. We missed out on things like this when we were kids.”

“Midnight snacks and stuff, you mean?” She giggled softly. “Bridge and I got into awful trouble once because we ate half a chocolate cake in the middle of the night. We’d been reading Enid Blyton’s Famous Five books. In that, kids were always doing things like that. Secret meetings and midnight raids on the kitchen. Lashings of ginger beer.”

“We used to do midnight raids on Mrs Lowe’s strawberry patch. And we accidentally let out Morton’s bull once on one of our nocturnal excursions. It scared the daylights out of Beryl Skinner when she went to put her washing out in the morning and found this gigantic jersey bull under her washing line.”

“What did she do?”

“Grabbed the garden rake and whacked it on the nose. It got such a fright it shot straight through her trellis and left an enormous bull shaped hole just like in the cartoons.”

“You’re making that up,” gasped Joelle when she stopped laughing enough to speak.

“I am not. You can ask her when we go to Birrigai.”

“I will.”

“Just don’t let on who let the bull out.”

“I thought honesty was your thing,” said Joelle.

“It is but I’m not stupid,” he retorted. “No-one ever asked me. If they had I’d have owned up. There were three of us anyway and that bull was always getting out.”

Joelle left for Sydney immediately after closing the shop on the Wednesday before Easter. In the parking area, ready to wave goodbye, Mel shook her head sadly and told her she was mad heading off in peak hour, but Joelle insisted the heaviest traffic would be leaving the city not entering the way she was.

“Why don’t you go after dinner?” Mel asked plaintively.

Joelle couldn’t wait a moment longer. She’d almost cracked and taken off at lunchtime except she knew Shay wouldn’t be free until at least five-thirty. They planned to have dinner together, eating at home, preparing and cooking stir-fry chicken in his kitchen. She felt like a child waiting for Christmas or a birthday, bursting with impatience at the snail-like passage of time.

“Shay wants to get away early in the morning so we don’t want a late night,” Joelle said. But how would she be able to sleep in Shay’s house with Shay in the next room?

“You just can’t wait to go, can you?” asked Mel with a grin and went straight on. “I wish you’d let me come.”

Joelle sighed. Mel tagging along was the last thing she wanted, much as she loved her. “It’s only because you’re here at the shop I can go,” she said. “You’ve done really well, you know that, Mel?” she added looking her sister in the eye so that she knew the truth of the words.

Mel looked away and shrugged ever so casually. “I like it,” she said. “And it’s not exactly rocket science.”

Joelle laughed softly and handed Mel the keys to the shop. “Thanks. Take care of yourself.”

Surprisingly, Mel stepped forward and hugged her tightly. “You too,” she said.

“I’m glad you’ve sorted it out with Dad,” said Joelle as she released her hold. “He’ll fix things with Mum, you’ll see.”

Mel opened the door of the Beetle. “I wonder,” she said and paused, watching as Joelle slung her handbag on to the passenger seat. Joelle thought she’d finished—that she was referring to her own comment about their father—but she continued, “why Mum is so touchy about the whole baby thing.”

Joelle frowned. She slid behind the steering wheel and clipped the seat belt. “I don’t know—maybe because she couldn’t have a child?”

“But she did have babies. I mean, touchy not just about me, but you, too. Why was she so adamant that you not be told? Dad wasn’t the problem. She was.”

How did Mel know? They’d been discussing her that night and perhaps subsequently. Talking behind her back. The family discussing the ‘other one’—the ring-in. A bubble of rage began swelling inside. Joelle clamped it down, firming her lips into a straight determined line. Of course, they’d discuss her. Mel wouldn’t let that topic go untouched for long. Her sister was a terrier, a heat-seeking missile where information was concerned and she’d taken Joelle’s situation to heart.

Joelle stared up at Mel’s anxious face peering at her through the open car window. “I don’t know, Mel, and I really don’t want to talk about it now. Here.”

“Okay.” Mel straightened and stepped back a pace. “You go and do your thing with Shay. Have fun.”

“Hope so.” Joelle started the engine. “Mel?”

“Yup?” Her sister bent down again.

Joelle managed a wispy, weak little smile. “I’m really, really nervous.”

“They’ll love you, Joey.”

“Don’t call me Joey,” returned Joelle with a brave attempt at fierceness but Mel just laughed.

“Go on, get moving,” she cried and slapped her hand on the roof of the Beetle.

Shay glanced at the clock again. Twenty past six. Too early for Joelle to be here yet. He couldn’t reasonably expect her before seven. Maybe he should nip over the road to the pub for a bottle of white wine in case she preferred to drink white instead of red with her dinner. He grabbed his keys and wallet. Chardonnay or Sauvignon Blanc? Or a Riesling? Which would she like?

Ten minutes later, he was back clutching a bottle of Chardonnay in one hand and a Riesling in the other. Now he had everything covered. They’d decided on a Chinese style stir-fry. He’d had the chicken strips marinating in sweet chilli sauce, garlic and ginger for half an hour already. She wanted to help prepare the vegetables so he’d stopped himself from peeling and slicing, which left him with empty time and space and a fidgety, nervous body.

Was her room ready? Had he vacuumed and dusted thoroughly enough? Shay ran up the stairs to the spare room. He stood in the doorway and studied the preparations. Bed made with blue and white patterned linen, his newest set. Clean blue towel folded neatly on end of bed. Bedside table cleared of dust and other accumulated mess. Reading light in place. Working? He clicked the light on and off. Yes. Space cleared in cupboard. Yes, but she probably wouldn’t need to hang anything, she’d only be here a matter of hours.

The bathroom? Clean enough for a woman? He’d scrubbed the toilet twice to make sure—not that he was messy in that department. Quite the opposite. Shay ran back down the stairs to check he’d placed extra toilet paper rolls on the shelf and new cakes of soap in the basin and shower.

Fine. Everything in order.

He stood in the kitchen and ran his hands through his hair and down over his face. Calm. Down. Joelle was his sister. He wouldn’t carry on like this for Lisa. She’d laugh herself silly if she could see him at the moment.

The doorbell rang. His heart almost leaped from his chest.

She was even lovelier than he remembered. Sweet smiling face framed with soft golden curls escaping from tortoiseshell clasps and pins. Wide blue eyes of that deep sea ocean blue. Lips parted, mouth trembling slightly. She was as nervous as he.

Shay leaned forward and kissed her gently. She placed her hands lightly on his shoulders and clung for a moment. They stood poised on the top step, cheek to cheek. His eyes closed as he breathed in the scent of her, his fingers resting on her waist registering the warmth of her body through the cotton t-shirt.

“Hello,” she murmured. Her breath tickled his ear. The softness of her skin sent starbursts of delight shooting through those nerves already stretched taut with anticipation.

“Hi,” he muttered, almost choking on the word. He couldn’t release his hold. His lips longed to seek out her mouth. His fingers wanted to explore, patrol the curves spread so enticingly beneath the thin fabric. But he couldn’t. He mustn’t.