Summer Read online

Summer

  By Michelle Zoetemeyer

  Copyright 2013 Michelle Zoetemeyer

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Prologue

  February 1965

  Light pierced the Venetian slats, casting horizontal planes of brilliance against an otherwise drab wall. Maggie stretched indolently. She put her hands behind her head and studied the wall intently. She knew the routine well by now. First she would silence the alarm clock, just as she had done a couple of minutes ago. Then, she would run through the list in her head, one item at a time, invariably giving herself another ten minutes in bed.

  She closed her eyes and recalled the list. The Venetian blinds were still at the top of the ever-changing register. They had been condemned for months now. As soon as she found the time to select the fabric for the new drapes, they would be gone for sure. And she wouldn’t even be sorry to see them go.

  Not like the wardrobe; it was next on the list. It was the first item of furniture Maggie and Peter had purchased together. If that wasn’t reason enough to keep it, what it represented should have been. In Maggie’s mind, the wardrobe marked the first step towards transforming the chic, but impractical designer house of Peter’s first marriage into the relaxed and comfortable home they now shared.

  Despite the metamorphosis that had taken place, it took little effort for Maggie to visualise the house that Peter had occupied with his ex-wife. She dismissed the wardrobe from her mind and waited for the familiar image to appear. When it did, she was reminded of how she had felt when she first walked through the door all those years ago. It was as though she had stepped into the pages of Home Beautiful. Every item in the room was perfectly matched and placed with the flair of an interior designer.

  Glazed chintz drapes framed a large picture window and provided the perfect backdrop for the chartreuse walls. In the corner, a tall, olive green lamp stood alongside a blonde wooden lounge suite with matching green cushions. On the opposite wall, another lamp, indistinguishable from the first, stood guard over a large, boxy armchair, also in the same green velvet. The exaggerated line of its curved armrests, inlaid with blonde veneer, gave the chair a relaxed look that defied its formal proportions. A magazine rack tastefully placed near the matching wheat coloured buffet and overflowing with a fashionable selection of Meanjin and Angry Penguins provided the finishing touch. At the time, Maggie recalled being somewhat reassured to learn that Peter was not responsible for stocking the magazine rack. As it happened, the magazines were years old and Peter had simply not bothered to throw them away.

  No sooner had her focus returned to the present than Maggie remembered the large mirror with the mosaic border that had hung above the buffet. She wondered how she could have missed the enormous looking glass that effectively created the illusion of a room twice as large as it really was. She smiled as she remembered six year old Michelle running into the backyard where Maggie stood hanging washing on the line, gleefully exclaiming that she had made millions of pretty diamonds. Maggie had been so pleased by the mirror’s demise that she hadn’t even roused on Michelle for playing with her Hula-hoop in the house.

  With the offending mirror gone, had it not been for the fact that Peter’s first wife had decorated the entire house single-handedly, Maggie would have conceded that she may have eventually grown to like it. But, since Marjorie had so vividly left her mark in every corner of the house, Maggie believed that her only option was to initiate a makeover that would to take the best part of a decade to complete. Now, much to Maggie’s delight, apart from the kitchen and bathroom fixtures, not a skerrick of the original décor remained. Even the original varnished floorboards were buried under the shag pile that was now underfoot.

  Determined to stay in bed as long as possible, Maggie cast her mind back to her list. Unlike the blinds that were destined for the tip, the wardrobe was being moved to Michelle’s room. Maggie had still not come to grips with the amount of space a sixteen year old girl needed, but she was certain the wardrobe was a step in the right direction.

  “Mmm,” Peter snuggled in close, “good morning, lazy bones.”

  Maggie gave up on the choice between barely beige and whipped cream for the walls and turned onto her side. She tucked in closer to Peter. “Who are you calling lazy bones? I’m not the one who slept through the alarm clock.”

  “Come closer,” Peter nuzzled into her neck, “you’re way too far away.”

  Maggie giggled. She felt Peter’s body molding to fit hers and regretted not being able to sleep in. She enjoyed the rare occasions they got to stay in bed past seven and considered how much damage staying in bed for just a few more minutes could do.

  Five more minutes, she told herself, as Peter ran his hand down her thigh. The warmth of his hand gave her goose bumps. She loved the way he felt. If truth were told, she loved everything about him. She often amazed herself by not being able to come up with a single thing that she would change if she could. Once she would have changed his past, but she knew it was not possible to change even the smallest thing without changing everything else. Take the kids for example; if Peter hadn’t married Marjorie, Michelle and Stephen would never have been born.

  Wishing the kids out of existence was simply inconceivable. Michelle and Stephen had been such a big part of her world for so long now that she could no longer imagine life without them. Still, as much as she loved having them in her life, she knew it was the kids that clinched it with her mother in the end. If it wasn’t disastrous enough that Maggie had fallen in love with a married man, to make matters worse, he had children as well.

  In a society that constantly reinforced the importance of the family unit and the traditional roles of mother and father as the homemaker and breadwinner respectively, divorce was viewed as a social evil not to be tolerated. Maggie had known that already. She had even expected some initial disagreement from her mother on the matter; but had naïvely assumed that, as with her decision to go to teachers’ college, her mother would eventually see reason.

 
; She had been wrong.

  Maggie had been aware that her mother had not been the same since her father had passed away, but the years Maggie spent boarding with her aunt while she attended teachers college had ill prepared her for the changes that had taken place. Her infrequent home visits had hinted at a waning benevolence, but she had dismissed her mother’s behaviour as a reaction to her father’s unexpected death. Had she not been so careless in her judgment, the dogmatic fanaticism with which she was confronted when she told her mother of her intention to marry Peter might not have come as such a surprise.

  Maggie’s mother informed her that she could not survive the scandal that would surely come once the whole church found out that her daughter – a daughter whom she believed had been bought up with higher principles than what Maggie was displaying – had taken up house with a married man. The only solution, her mother had said, was to disassociate herself from her immoral daughter and get on with her life as though Maggie had never existed.

  And that is exactly what she did.

  Maggie was devastated. She pleaded with her mother to see reason. Even her news that Peter was getting divorced and intended to marry Maggie made no difference. According to her mother, the Church did not recognise divorce. Put simply, Maggie had disgraced herself and her family and had bought shame upon the church.

  Maggie was astounded by the idea that someone’s faith in a seemingly merciless God was so much stronger than their faith in their daughter. When months went by and all attempts to re-establish contact failed, Maggie gave in and accepted her mother’s decision. What she refused to accept was that God wanted to keep her and Peter apart. Surely God was not about depriving people of the joy of being together when they loved each other as much as Maggie and Peter did? Since when had God become so mean?

  The more Maggie considered what her mother had said, the more she believed her mother was wrong. God was not mean; people were mean. If her mother could be so blinded by the church that she could not see that, then as far as Maggie was concerned, the church could go to hell; she would find spirituality elsewhere.

  Peter reached around and cupped Maggie’s breast. While she certainly had her regrets where her mother was concerned, she had none when it came to Peter. In the husband stakes, Maggie was well aware of her good fortune. She knew enough from listening to her workmates dump on their husbands to know a good deal when she saw one. And, if getting the perfect husband wasn’t good enough; she found a best friend as well.

  Rolling Maggie onto her back, Peter kissed her full on the mouth, deliberately making a wet smacking sound as he did so. The finality of his action left Maggie with no doubt that the sleep-in was over. She groaned. Going through the list one more time wasn’t going to save her now. She knew she had to get up and face the day. They had a long drive ahead of them and she still had a hundred things to do before leaving.

  “Have you got the address written down?” Peter asked.

  “Yeah, it’s on the letter.”

  “Well, have you got the letter?”

  Maggie pushed him playfully. “Are you suggesting I might have misplaced it?”

  Peter laughed. After twelve years together, Maggie’s carelessness was well known. According to Peter, she never put the effort in on the front end, she always left things to the last minute, and she almost always paid the price. She did it so often that Peter suspected she did it just to get even with him for making fun of her about it.

  Maggie lay on the bed and watched Peter walk to the wardrobe and take out a shirt. Unlike Maggie, who preferred to leave wet footprints all through the house while she scrounged around for something to wear, Peter always got his clothes ready to take into the bathroom with him. She admired his naked body. Standing at six foot and four inches, his broad shoulders and narrow hips belied his thirty-eight years. Maggie thought he was more handsome now than when she had first met him and she never missed an opportunity to tell him so.

  Noticing the time, Maggie jumped off the bed and raced up the hall. Peter laughed. “There’s no doubt about that woman, she’ll be late for her own funeral,” he mumbled.

  Maggie ran past the kids’ rooms and rapped on their doors. “Stephen! Michelle! Come on, up and at ‘em.”

  The kids were going to stay at Peter’s brother’s place for the day. Maggie had told them it was too long a drive for them, and that they would just fidget all the way. It was even true. Driving all the way from Newtown to Martinsville was a long way by anyone’s standards, but Maggie knew deep down that she was just making excuses. She was mindful of her mixed feelings about the excursion and she wanted time to organise her thoughts before arriving. A couple of hours in the car with two teenagers would leave her with zero time to contemplate anything.

  While Peter showered, Maggie packed some sandwiches for the drive. Not sure if they would be back in time for dinner, she included some Vegemite SAOs for the return trip. Then, just to be sure they wouldn’t starve, she added a pair of bananas and some fruitcake to the Esky. She left the Vegemite out for Michelle’s toast, popped two slices of bread in the toaster, and took out the Weet-bix for Stephen.

  “Hurry up, kids! Breakfast’s ready.”

  Maggie left the kids to their breakfast and exchanged places with Peter in the shower. Peter patted her bottom as she squeezed through the opening in the shower curtain, reminding her as he did so that they were in a hurry.

  “I’ll be out in a jiffy,” she reassured him, “I don’t need to wash my hair, I did it yesterday.”

  Unlike most women Peter knew, Maggie refused to fall victim to Vidal Sassoon’s vigorous marketing strategies. Rather than spend unnecessary shillings and pence on the bouffant styles, long lashes and heavy makeup that most women believed were a necessary adjunct to everyday life, she chose to wear minimal makeup and her long, dark hair pulled back in a ponytail. As far as Peter was concerned, no amount of make up or false eyelashes could improve her distinctive, ice-blue eyes and thick, dark lashes.

  Guilty of dawdling, Peter left Maggie to shower and deftly cleaned up the breakfast stuff. While he busied himself in the kitchen, he instructed the kids to tidy their rooms and put their dirty clothes in the laundry. Michelle grumbled about the unfairness of having to clean up despite not staying home and no one being there to do the washing. Peter knew that to argue with her would mean an all-out battle, so he ignored her complaints and loaded the car.

  Maggie came out a short time later looking fresh in a floral skirt and white cotton blouse. Peter smiled at her as he hurried her along with a gentle push. They had no sooner piled into the car when she remembered the Thermos of cordial still sitting on the kitchen bench and raced back in to get it. Peter sat patiently while she locked the house for the second time and took the mugs out of the Esky that was stowed in the back of the station wagon.

  Climbing into the car, Maggie put the Thermos and mugs on the floor in front of her. “There,” she said triumphantly, “who’s got the courage to call me disorganised now?”

  “Not I,” Peter admitted.

  “Uh uh, me either,” concurred Stephen.

  Michelle recognised Maggie’s question as rhetorical and did not bother expending precious energy answering it. “So Mum?” she asked instead, “when do we get to see it?”

  “Another time,” Maggie answered idly.

  “I figured that much out on my own.” Clearly, Maggie had not given Michelle’s request sufficient consideration.

  “Hey,” Peter said, “watch your tone, young lady.”

  Maggie intervened. “Honestly love, I don’t know. It’s a long way to go and your dad and I have already made two trips by train just to sort everything out.”

  “Maybe we can come at Easter time,” Stephen suggested, “you’ll have time then, won’t yous?”

  “Stephen Thompson! Please tell me I did not hear you correctly.”

  “What?” Stephen sounded confused.

  “As a school teacher, I cannot allow my son to say
dirty words like yous.” Maggie pretended to be horrified.

  Peter joined in. “Really? What would people think?”

  “I imagine they’d think he was an imbecile,” Michelle informed them. She was in no mood for frivolity.

  Peter sighed gratefully as he pulled into his brother’s driveway. He silently thanked Maggie for insisting they leave the kids with Roger and Mary for the day. Mary saw them pull up and waved from the kitchen window. By the time Peter stopped the engine, she was standing beside their car drying her hands on a tea towel. Maggie wound down her window and explained that they really didn’t have time to stop.

  Mary nodded her understanding before waving them off.

  Seeing the sombre look on Maggie’s face, Peter reached across and put his hand on her knee. “You alright, babe?”

  Maggie sighed. “I feel a bit bad about leaving the kids, that’s all.”

  “Don’t fret, they’ll be fine. Michelle will be off gasbagging with Susan by now and she’ll have forgotten all about us.”

  She knew he was right. He usually was when it came to the kids, especially Michelle. Maggie knew that Michelle’s behaviour was typical for a sixteen year old. She accepted nothing and questioned everything. Normally that wouldn’t bother Maggie, quite the opposite in fact. She and Peter had always taught the kids to think for themselves and not let others do it for them, but since her mother’s death a month ago, Maggie could feel her cloak of resilience beginning to unravel.

  As much as she had mixed feelings about the trip, she looked forward to the closure that had been denied her the past twelve years. Maggie felt certain that the visit to Martinsville would extinguish the last ember of hope she’d left smoldering all these years and allow her to finally get on with life. Despite this, she still wasn’t sure how she would feel seeing the house in which her mother had spent the last five years of her life. While the news of her mother’s death had come as a shock to Maggie, the news that her mother had sold the family home in Morisset and had relocated to the neighbouring village of Martinsville had caused her greater surprise.

  Maggie remembered Martinsville as little more than a one-horse town, miles from anywhere. And by the sounds of it, the place had not prospered since Maggie had left home. It didn’t even have its own post office anymore. According to Mr Harris, the executor of her mother’s estate, it closed down a couple of weeks ago.