Chapter 9
Chapter Nine
Later that evening, Augi sat at the dinner table, wishing she hadn’t come. As much as she loved Kate, she couldn’t bear scenes, and it looked as though another tense situation was developing at the MacLeod household.
The past hour had been spent uncomfortably for two reasons.
One, Augi was seated between Kate and Dan around the table on the verandah at the rear of MacLeod’s Cottage.
She hadn’t intended to put herself in his way so soon after she’d warned him off.
And yet here she was, trying to avoid his gaze which told her clearly that he’d been pondering her warning and it had seemed to intrigue rather than deflect his interest. To explain her presence she’d blurted out to him that she had news for Kate about the house.
She sighed and glanced up at the second reason she felt uncomfortable.
Oliver, Lucy’s problematic boyfriend, or friend — no one could seem to figure out whether they were together or not — had been invited round for dinner by Lucy because it was his birthday.
Augi half-wished she hadn’t informed Lucy it was Oliver’s birthday.
Although seeing Lucy with him, Augi knew that Lucy would have found another reason to track him down.
At least the dispute over the Old Colonial Hotel had been settled.
Oliver was no longer going to demolish it.
Lucy had won that argument, but there was still an underlying tension between them.
Now, after an intense discussion about Oliver’s family, a hush had fallen and Lucy suddenly jumped to her feet.
‘More wine, anyone?’ she asked, despite the fact she hadn’t touched her own glass.
‘Yes please, dear,’ said Kate, obviously taking pity on Lucy because she had a full cup of tea sitting in front of her.
Augi caught Dan’s eye before he turned away and watched Oliver walk over to Sam down by the garden wall where it edged the sand dunes.
The two men stood talking quietly together, their silhouettes navy against the darkened beach.
Dan turned back to her with a grim shake of his head.
Augi couldn’t help but admire the fact that Dan had no time for Oliver.
It showed how much he cared for his sister and that his morals weren’t as complicated as Oliver’s.
But it also suggested a lack of forgiveness and ability to understand beyond what he could see.
She looked away quickly. And that reinforced her thought that, after he’d learnt the full truth about her, he wouldn’t understand it, let alone like it.
Because, unlike Dan, she hadn’t supported her loved one — hadn’t even been aware of what was happening before her nose — until it was too late.
Dan wouldn’t be the only one not to forgive her.
How could he, when she couldn’t forgive herself?
But whether Dan could forgive her or not, Augi knew she couldn’t stop the process which had already begun of opening up to people in a way she hadn’t in ten long years. And Kate’s random comments had made her face what she already knew — she couldn’t carry on repressing her secrets.
Being aloof, keeping herself separate from everyone, had been useful at first — it had helped her survive.
But she needed more than mere survival now.
She wanted to live, breathe and maybe even love again.
And to do that she needed to break her silence.
She knew this, but what she didn’t know was when, how, or whether she’d be able to.
When Lucy emerged from the kitchen she kissed Kate’s cheek.
Kate turned to her with a smile. ‘And what was that for?’
‘For being the loveliest mother who ever lived,’ said Lucy going back to her seat.
Dan rolled his eyes.
‘What?’ Lucy said, glaring at him.
‘You!’ he said. ‘I didn’t have you pegged for being so soppy.’
‘I’m not soppy. No one can ever accuse me of being soppy. I’m merely being truthful.’
Kate leaned in to him, and tapped him lightly on the knee. ‘Daniel, you know you think that, too,’ she said with a crooked smile.
He sighed and grinned, because of course Kate was correct. He did think she was a wonderful mother. He got up and wandered over to Sam and Oliver.
Augi swallowed and looked away. She remembered doing something similar to her mother so many years ago that it seemed she was remembering a different person.
She guessed that was a by-product of opening up — feeling the pain of memories.
She’d have to get used to it. She sat there, savouring it, looking at the pain instead of clamping down on it like concrete over a nuclear leak.
‘You must think we’re a bit over the top,’ said Lucy, leaning in to talk quietly to Augi, so only she could hear.
Augi shot Lucy a grateful smile. ‘Not at all. I was thinking how… lucky you are. To have each other.’
‘We’re not always this well-behaved,’ Lucy said. ‘We’re improving with age.’
Augi’s smile faded as memories cascaded in on her.
Of helping her mother-in-law in the kitchen, of her father-in-law joking with her, and then later of their terrified faces and worse still, their disownment of her.
‘Sometimes families don’t improve,’ she said eventually.
‘Sometimes they drift apart, and they don’t come back. Sometimes families are complicated.’
‘Is that what happened with yours?’ Lucy asked, in her usual direct manner. ‘Did they drift apart?’
Lucy’s words sent a ripple through her gut of something like fear. It seemed the time had arrived to open up a little.
‘I was raised by my mother.’ Her voice sounded rusty and she cleared her throat. ‘She died. When I was nineteen.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Lucy in a hushed voice so unlike her usual tone. Augi shot her a grateful smile, encouraged to continue. Just a little. Just enough to explain her comment.
‘But it was my parents-in-law to whom I referred. Once I was close to them, a part of their family, but I am no longer.’
‘What happened?’ asked Lucy. ‘I’m sorry, I hope you don’t think I’m prying, but I’m curious.’
‘That’s OK. A lot of things happened. Some of them caused by economic conditions, social conditions and…
’ She swallowed again. ‘Other things were more personal.’ She looked into the mid distance, determined to finish what she wanted to say.
‘These things were not understood sometimes, and other times, understood too well but not forgiven. As I say. Complicated.’ She hated how the last word broke a little.
‘Oh, Augi,’ said Lucy, reaching out to her. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to bring up—’
‘Augustini,’ said Dan in a gentle voice. ‘I apologise for my sister. She talks first and thinks second.’
Augi looked around, shocked. She hadn’t heard him return to the seat beside her. He must have heard every word. But it wasn’t only that which shocked her. So few people used her full name.
‘You used my full name,’ she said.
Dan rubbed the back of his neck. ‘Do you mind? I can call you Augi—’
‘No,’ she said quickly. Then, softer, ‘I like hearing it. I haven’t heard it spoken like that in a long time.’
‘It’s too beautiful not to be used,’ Dan said, and then seemed horrified that the sentence had come out of his mouth.
Augi’s smile flickered again. ‘It sounds even better when you pronounce it the Greek way, like you did.’
Lucy stared at her brother. ‘Do you know Greek?’
‘God, no. It’s too hard. I tried it once after a holiday there, but gave up pretty quickly.’
‘Then how did you know how to pronounce Augi’s name?’
Dan looked mutinous. ‘YouTube,’ he muttered.
The thought of Dan practising pronouncing her name with the help of a YouTube video got to Augi like nothing else.
It made her forget her warning to him to stay away, made her lose her thoughts altogether.
Dan shot her an embarrassed smile which she responded to with a wide one of her own.
She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
It felt such an intimate thing he’d done. A revelation as to his inner thoughts.
Dan cleared his throat, retreating to safer ground. ‘Anyway. Augustini was just telling me she has news. About the house.’
Lucy raised her hand to catch her mother’s attention. ‘Mum! Did you hear that? Augi has some news for us.’
Augi had been waiting until later to tell Kate. Because she wasn’t sure how Kate would react. But it seemed Dan’s diversionary tactics had landed her in it.
‘That’s exciting!’ said Kate. ‘What have you found out?’
‘I have a name,’ Augi said.
Lucy leaned forward. ‘Augi, don’t keep us in suspense.’
‘I believe the man in your photograph is a John Kowalski.’
‘John Kowalski.’ Lucy repeated, rolling the syllables around on her tongue. ‘Wow. I guess he’s no longer Johnnie the Mysterious Marine.’
Jen picked up the photo from the table, where it had obviously been the subject of earlier discussion.
Jen’s son Liam had found it in a box of photos, tucked under the eaves in the attic some months earlier.
‘The name makes it all the more real. John was a real person, with a family, and parents who cared for him. And he was also a man who was in love with someone who was taking the photo.’
‘And that someone must have been Ngaire,’ Lucy said, taking the photo from her sister. ‘Who called him Johnnie.’ She turned it towards Kate. ‘This man — Johnnie Kowalski — was in love with your grandmother.’
Kate frowned, practical even now. ‘It’s a link to Ngaire, yes.
But I still don’t see how it connects to the cottage.
I just can’t figure out,’ she continued, ‘why a brief wartime romance — if that’s what it was — led to an anonymous trust. We’re getting some of the pieces to the puzzle but they’re not forming any kind of coherent whole.
I mean why would a boyfriend of my great-grandmother set up a trust to enable her to live in her old family home? He couldn’t have been here long.’
‘I found that out, too,’ said Augi. ‘He was here about seven months in 1942,’ she said. ‘There’s no record of him returning afterwards.’