Page 26 of Thursdays at Orange Blossom House
‘Why?’ she says, trying to remember that he hasn’t been that little boy for a long time. ‘What’s wrong with what you have?’
‘Nothing! But what’s wrong with wanting more?’
‘Because it’s greedy. You make a living here. You don’t want for anything. The land supports you. If you buy more land, you may findyou’resupportingit. And that’s never a good position to be in.’
‘You sound like Granddad,’ Tom says softly.
‘He knew what he was doing,’ Grace Maud says, her blood rising. ‘He wasn’t the world’s most adventurous man but he kept us all for years.’
She stops short of calling her son ungrateful but she feels that he is, because it’s almost as if he’s saying everything her father and she worked for over the years isn’t enough. To work hard and have a good life – to feel at the end of the day that you’ve taken care of the people you love – aren’t enough. There has to bemore. More land, more money. Will they bring more happiness, if that is the goal? Grace Maud has yet to see the evidence.
‘We thought you wouldn’t like the idea,’ Tom says.
‘So why did you tell me?’
‘Because we’ve already spoken to the Pontis about buying their place.’ He says it quietly and firmly, as if it’s final. ‘And I didn’t want you to hear it from anyone else before you heard it from me. From us.’
This time Grace Maud feels it in her lungs: a sharp intake of breath that goes nowhere, like she’s stopped inside time. The seconds, the minutes, the hours are moving on without her and she’s still, not breathing, not thinking. It’s shock. She’s felt it before. The shock of betrayal.
‘Mum?’
Finally she exhales and turns to look past the kitchen, out the window that shows her the road that leaves the property. The road that will take her the hour and a half back to Cairns. Back home, she supposes. Her home is there now.
‘How could you?’ she says, her voice quiet but steely. She can barely look at Tom.
‘What do you mean?’ He frowns.
‘How could you involve …strangersin our business before you’ve even spoken to me?’
He blinks. Viv appears to be holding her breath.
‘Because I wanted to find out if they were interested first,’ he says, almost sarcastically, as if she should know this. ‘No point talking to you about it if they weren’t.’
‘Have you told anyone else?’ She doesn’t really have words to describe why she’s feeling so let down. Perhaps it isn’t logical. Except it feels logical to her.
Tom shifts in his seat and glances at Viv. ‘The bank,’ he mumbles.
‘The bank? Our bank?Mybank?’
Grace Maud stares at him. She’s had an account at that bank since she was a child. Her father did all of his banking there. That bank knows all the financial details of their lives, yet clearly whomever Tom spoke with didn’t feel the need to ask him if his mother should be part of their conversation. The mother whose name is still on the title of the property. Tom has power of attorney – a practical necessity – but everything remains in her name.
She glances down at her hands, which are shaking. It’s not old age causing it. They’ve never shaken before.
‘We worked this place together for years, Tom,’ she says, wishing she didn’t have to look him in the eye but it would be cowardly not to. ‘You and me. We made decisions together.’
‘I know.’
‘So … what? Now that I’m old and you’ve sectioned me off to town, I’m not the first person you should talk to about something like this?’
‘What are you really upset about, Mum?’
He sounds terse. Angry, perhaps. Angry with his own mother who has always tried to support him. Who will always love him.
‘It’s still my place, Tom,’ she says, her volume going up. ‘It’s still my family’s farm. My father’s. His father’s. It’s stillmy business. And theneighboursand thebankknow more about it than I do?’ She puts her cup and saucer on the table, and pushes herself out of her chair. ‘I think I should leave.’
‘Come on, Mum,’ Tom says, irritated. ‘It’s not that big a deal.’
‘You are not the one to decide whether or not I think something is a big deal.’
