Chapter 5 #3
She saw it. She saw the way I basically dropped Cormac into the pram. Clem had never set out to hide her post-natal illness from the new friends she’d made in Penwarra, but it had never seemed like a good time to raise the subject.
‘Look, I’m sorry things have been—’
‘So you should be.’ Hazel grinned, interrupting her.
‘I haven’t seen hide nor hair of you in weeks.
I know you’ve been liking my social media posts, and my gazillion photos of this little sleep thief, but I thought you’d drop by or hang out, that you’d want to see him in person.
Admittedly, the baby brain and sleep fog don’t make for wild and witty conversation but I miss you gals.
Especially with Mia away on her Gold Coast babymoon.
Did you see the videos she sent in that bikini, with little Reggie on Jeff’s shoulders at the beach?
I felt like a whale in my last trimester, but she’s got that cute preggy belly and a glow about her, don’t you think?
We should totally get together when she’s back next week. ’
Clem paused at the door to the girls’ daycare room, feeling more than a little guilty—she’d been avoiding Mia too. ‘Work’s all consuming,’ she said, signing Indi in as quickly as she could. ‘I wish I could, but it’s not easy right now.’
‘Gah,’ Hazel said, sanitising her hands on her way out. ‘You’re killing me, Clem. I suppose you’re rushing off now too?’
That had been the plan, but the desperate note in her friend’s voice softened Clem’s resolve. ‘We need more bread rolls from the bakery, I can walk and talk briefly?’
Hazel’s delight made her feel even guiltier. ‘I’ll take what I can get, then I guess I can harass the library team, see how they’re faring in my absence.’
Indi and Alma were already in the outdoor play area when they left. Both girls were so immersed in the sandpit they barely noticed Clem and Hazel blowing kisses from the footpath outside the daycare centre.
‘I need details about Love on the Land. I’m still having trouble picturing Spencer on the show.
He’s a quiet one, and that program’s usually all about buff farm guys wrestling rams, fixing tractors and sweeping the city contestants off their feet.
I wouldn’t have thought Spencer was hot enough to make the cut. ’
‘He’s hot enough!’
Hazel snorted with laughter as Clem mentally slapped her hand over her mouth.
‘If you don’t mind an age gap,’ Hazel said. ‘He’s got a few years on us and I can’t help seeing him as the dorky English teacher, not the rugged rural bachelor they usually have on that show.’
Clem clamped her lips together to keep herself from voicing her strong disagreement.
Hazel wrinkled her nose. ‘I mean, I guess we’re not talking hip replacement, puts his teeth in a glass of water every night type of old, but he’s, what, ten or so years older than us?’
A gentleman with a bulging bag of books in one hand and a basket of vegetables in the other ambled into view.
Brian Treloar was one of Clem’s cafe suppliers, and his veggies were as popular in her dishes as they were in the fresh produce stands by the front counter, where customers bought them by the kilo.
He was also one of Hazel’s library regulars, and always on for a good chinwag.
‘You make it sound like Spencer’s the same vintage as Brian.’
Hazel laughed. ‘Definitely too old for my liking, and not artsy enough either. I gave up on the men in Penwarra long ago, hence the sperm donor situation. TV is about the extent of my perving, so I hope the other farmers on this season of Love on the Land are decent eye candy. So humour me, would you really pick Spencer Hawkins if you were a contestant on a dating show? Give me a quick yes or no before Brian reaches us and we get hijacked by talk about compost and garden grubs.’
Clem wasn’t sure why the question caught her off guard.
She nodded slowly, twisting her sunflower necklace charm as she made up her mind.
‘If I didn’t have my hands full with two little girls and a new cafe, and I was actually part of the dating scene instead of far, far removed from anything even resembling dating, then maybe I’d pick him. ’
A surprised smile spread across Hazel’s face. ‘Interesting. Well, we’ll see how it plays out when it airs, I guess. Maybe I’ve read him wrong, and behind that quiet facade, he’s a guy who loves the limelight. You have to be pretty self-obsessed to go on a reality TV show, right?’
Brian caught up with them before Clem could answer.
‘I thought you were on maternity leave, Hazel. Don’t tell me they’re calling you into work with that little guy. And don’t you have a cafe to run, Clem?’
‘Just popping in,’ Hazel said.
‘Hey, Brian, I’m on my way there now,’ Clem said. ‘Clearly your garden’s having a bumper winter.’ She gestured to the bulging bags of produce he was holding.
‘It gets by,’ Brian said. ‘Now the poddy calves are in another paddock, far away from the temptation of my veggie patch, and Geraldine’s hens are free ranging in a different part of the garden, I’ve only got the wildlife to contend with, and they’re not so interested in winter crops.
There’re the cabbage moths though, you should see the size of their larvae—’
Hazel exploded into a coughing fit to cover her laughter at the way Brian’s conversation had turned so quickly in the direction she’d predicted. Clem felt her eyes watering with mirth.
‘Lucky for me,’ Clem said, trying to divert Brian’s attention from Hazel’s badly disguised laughter. ‘The black heirloom potatoes look amazing in my salads, and I’ve had three customers in the last week remarking on the colourful carrots. I’d love more in my delivery this week.’
‘Absolutely,’ Brian promised, leading the way inside the library. ‘Hope today’s papers are already out, Hazel, I want the latest update on that horrific Glenelg death. Did you hear they got the mother on CCTV?’
Wincing, Hazel lifted her sleeping son from the bassinet and pressed him to her chest. ‘So, so tragic.’
‘Who in their right mind lays a newborn on the tram tracks?’ Brian hurried to the library’s newspaper nook, shaking his head as he went.
Clem cleared her throat, tugging at her suddenly too-tight collar. It was the first Clem had heard of the Glenelg case, but if it involved a mum and baby, she’d bet her cafe that the incident was linked to an undiagnosed post-natal illness.
With a slow breath, Clem thought back to eight years earlier.
It could have been me in those headlines.
As well as anguish for the Glenelg family, she felt a familiar niggle of guilt that she’d been diagnosed swiftly. Before reaching crisis point. Before she could have done something equally dreadful.
‘The poor mum wouldn’t have been in her right mind.’ Clem spoke softly, watching Brian shuffle through the newspapers.
‘It makes me feel sick just thinking about it,’ Hazel said, hugging Cormac closer. ‘I wish I hadn’t turned the news on this morning, I just know I’ll be dwelling on that when I’m feeding at 3 am. How bloody awful, can you even imagine?’
Hazel gave a whole-body shudder, and Clem fought to keep her composure.
You have no idea just how well.
‘I’d better dash too before the bread rolls are all sold out.’ Clem made a show of checking her watch. ‘Good to see you.’
‘You too.’ Hazel smiled. ‘And let’s catch up when Mia’s home. No excuses.’
‘Sure thing,’ Clem lied, feeling like a coward as she rushed to the bakery. She’d never meant to skirt around the dark days of her early motherhood experience, but today wasn’t the day, and the library foyer wasn’t the right place for that conversation.
Besides, what would Hazel and Mia think of her when they found out she’d spent time in a psychiatric ward, against her will, for her own safety, and that of her baby’s?
She’d seen the horror on Hazel’s and Brian’s faces just then.
Burying herself in cafe and catering work was a much better option than exposing the faulty part of her that glitched around newborns and new mums.
The first few weeks of the third term were usually the sweet spot, with students returning to school after a chilled-out winter break, when the wild weather had kept most of the district indoors, and Spencer had his annual fill of wood chopping, unhurried days in the paddock and cosy afternoons inside by the wood fire, curled up with a good book.
But on a Friday in mid-July, two weeks after school returned, two weeks after his long service leave was over, and two weeks after filming had finished and he’d chosen Emily as his love on the land, Spencer felt neither refreshed nor relaxed.
Nearly every surface at South Giddi Giddi was now covered in clutter, and no matter how many times he offered Emily extra cupboard space or tidied when he got home after school, miscellaneous tractor brochures, rural crime novels, fencing supplies, hats, scarves and jumpers kept appearing.
And then there was the calendar now hanging inside the ensuite door.
Every time he stripped for a shower or used the loo, he did it with an audience of semi-naked Australian orchardists, their dignity spared by strategically-placed fruit.
And while the first fortnight of it being just the two of them had been way better than the on-camera experience, his home no longer felt like a sanctuary.
Spencer made a last-minute detour to the Sunny Cross Cafe after school, determined to make some headway with redrafting a script for the community theatre group.
He was the only one in the cafe, which he was sure wasn’t a great thing for Clem, but the quiet space suited him fine.
‘Can I ask what you’re working on?’ Clem called from the coffee machine as he set up his laptop. ‘Or will you make me peer over your shoulder like a creep when I clear the table?’
This made him laugh, and he felt it again, that zip of attraction and compatibility between them.
It’s because it’s no-stakes, he told himself.