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He glanced at Marc again and Pippa intercepted the look. ‘What?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Why were you looking at Marc?’
‘I was wondering why he was dark when you’re a redhead.’ He knew the relationship but it didn’t hurt to check.
‘Pippa’s not related to us,’ Marc told him. ‘She’s our friend.’
‘Pippa’s our aunty,’ Sophie volunteered, but Marc shook his head.
‘No, she’s not. She and Mummy were friends and Pippa promised she’ll look after us, just like a real aunty. But she’s not our real aunty.’
‘I wish she was,’ Claire whispered.
‘I’m just as good as an aunty,’ Pippa said stoutly. ‘Only bossier. More like a mother hen, really.’ She was staring across the table at him as she spoke, her voice…challenging? Max met her look head-on. Had she guessed why he was here?
He had to tell her, but let it come slowly, he thought. It’d be easy to get a blank no, with no room to manoeuvre. Surely the poverty he saw in this place meant he’d at least get a hearing.
Meanwhile…‘Where’s this wet-weather gear?’
‘I’ll show you.’ Pippa produced a battered purse and handed over two notes and a couple of coins. ‘Our budget for the rest of the week is thirty-two dollars, fifty cents,’ she told him. ‘Can you buy fish and chips and bread, jam, some dried pasta and a slab of cheap cheese? Spend the change on dog food. The cheapest there is.’
He stared down at the notes and coins in disbelief. ‘You’re kidding,’ he said finally, and she flushed.
‘We’re momentarily broke,’ she admitted. ‘Our vats were found to be contaminated. It’s only low level—we’re still drinking our milk—but it’s bad enough to stop sales. We need a week’s clear testing before the dairy corporation will buy our milk again.’
‘But we can’t afford new vats,’ Marc interjected. ‘Pippa says we’re up the creek without a paddle.’ He sounded almost cheerful but Max saw Pippa wince and realised there was real distress behind those words.
‘That’s not Mr de Gautier’s problem,’ Pippa said, gently reproving. ‘But we do have to pull in our belts. Mr de Gautier, I’d appreciate if you could do our buying for us, but that’s all we need. We’ll be fine.’
‘Will you be fine without fruit?’ he asked, staring at the list in disapproval. ‘What about scurvy?’
‘No one gets scurvy if they go without for only a week.’
‘No, but…’ He searched her face for a long moment, seeing quiet dignity masking a background of desperation. What on earth was she doing here? She seemed to be stuck on an almost derelict farm with three kids who weren’t hers and a dog who’d seen better days. The investigators said there was no blood tie. Why hadn’t she walked away?
Until now this had seemed easy. He’d expected to be back on a plane by the end of the week. With Marc. Maybe with Pippa as well. It could still happen, but that jutting chin prompted doubts. The little girls prompted more. Plus the way the dog was draped so she was touching everyone’s feet.
Enough. He squared his shoulders and accepted an umbrella. Doubts had to wait. He had to go shopping.
CHAPTER TWO
TANBAROOK was tiny. The place consisted of five shops, a pub, two churches and a school. Most of them looked deserted, but there were three cars lined up outside a small supermarket. A Tanbarook crowd, Max thought wryly and went in to join it. He sloshed through the door and four women stared at him as if he’d landed from Mars.
The ladies were at the checkout counter, one behind the register, the others on the customer side. He gave them what he hoped was a pleasant smile. ‘Good afternoon.’
‘Good afternoon,’ four voices chorused.
He grabbed a trolley and turned to the shelves.
‘Can I help?’ the woman behind the register called.
‘I’m fine, thank you. I have a list.’
‘Your wife’s given you a list?’ Heaven knew how long it had been raining, but this group looked as if they’d been propping up the checkout counter for years.
‘No,’ he said discouragingly, but it didn’t work.
‘Then who gave you the list?’
‘Pippa,’ he said, grudgingly.
‘Phillippa Donohue?’ Four sets of eyes nearly started from four heads. ‘The woman on Kettering’s farm,’ one of them exclaimed. ‘I didn’t think she had a boyf—’
‘He’ll be a friend from when she was nursing,’ another interrupted, digging her friend in the ribs. ‘Maybe he’s a doctor.’
Four sets of eyebrows twitched upward and he could almost see the assembling of symptoms. ‘Are you a doctor?’
‘No.’
Four sets of brows drooped in disappointment, and they turned their backs on him. ‘Maybe he’s a friend from university,’ one said. ‘That’s where Gina met Donald. He was doing a course on farm bookkeeping. One weekend was all it took for them to fall in love. Wham.’
‘Did Phillippa go to university?’
‘Of course she did. Nurses have to go to university these days. She went and so did Gina. Not that Gina ever worked as a nurse. She married Donald instead. I remember just after they were married, Phillippa came to visit. Gina was really excited. She said Phillippa was clever. She could have been a doctor, Gina said, but of course there wasn’t any money. But she had a really good job. In operating theatres, Gina said. Mind, you wouldn’t think she was clever now, holding on to that farm against all odds. Stupid girl.’
The lady giving the information was wearing hair curlers and some sort of shapeless crimplene frock. She had her arms crossed across her ample bosom in the classic stance of ‘I know more than you do’. She practically smirked.
‘She should go back to nursing,’ she told her friends. ‘Why she insists on keeping that farm…It’s just an impediment, that’s what it is.’
‘But she likes the farm,’ another objected. ‘She told me so. That’s why she won’t sell.’
‘Honestly, would anyone like that dump? And she’s standing in the way of progress.’
‘She says it feels like home.’
‘It might be the children’s home,’ Crimplene conceded. ‘But if Phillippa wasn’t there they’d be put up for adoption. Which would probably be for the best, and the sooner she admits it, the better. They’ll be starving soon.’
‘But if she’s got a boyfriend…’ They turned as one to inspect him again. ‘If she’s got a boyfriend then maybe she’ll have support.’ It didn’t seem to be an idea they relished.
‘You’re French,’ one of them said, obviously replaying his voice and discovering the accent.
‘No.’ He might be interested in what they had to say about Pippa, but the last thing he wanted was an inquisition about himself. He redirected his attention to his list. Bread, pasta, dog food. Ha. And the thirty-two dollars and fifty cents had to be a joke. Good coffee was eight dollars a pack. Three packs, he decided, and tossed in another for good measure.
What next? Tea? Surely. And the kids really should have decent hot chocolate—not the watered-down stuff they were drinking now. If Marc was to end up where he hoped, it was time he learned to appreciate quality. He found tubs of chocolate curls with pictures of decadent mugs of creaming hot chocolate on the front. Two tubs landed in his trolley.
He’d turned his back on his audience. They didn’t like it.
‘Phillippa can’t afford that,’ the lady behind the checkout snapped. ‘Her vats are contaminated.’
‘My vats aren’t,’ he retorted, inspecting the range of chocolate cookies and choosing four packets before moving on to confectionery. What was hot chocolate without marshmallows? Would six packets be enough?
Then there were more decisions. Did they like milk chocolate or dark? Three blocks of each, he decided, but the blocks looked a bit small. Okay, six of each.
On then to essentials. Dry pasta. Surely she wasn’t serious about wanting much of this. It looked so…dry. The meat section looked much more appetising. The steaks looked great.
But then, this wasn’t just about him, he reminded himself. The steaks looked wonderful, but maybe kids liked sausages. He replaced a couple of steaks, collected sausages, and then thought of Dolores and the great big eyes. He put the steaks back in his trolley.
Then he discovered the wine section. Australian wine. Excellent. And fruit? He wasn’t as sure as Pippa about the scurvything. That meant fresh produce. Bananas. Oranges. Strawberries? Of course strawberries. Would they have their own cream or should he buy some?
But there was more to shopping than food.
‘I need wood,’ he said, and discovered the ladies were staring at his trolley as if they’d never seen such things. ‘Where can I find fuel for a woodstove?’
‘You can’t cut wood in weather like this.’
‘That’s the problem,’ he said patiently. ‘And Pippa has a bad back.’
‘We know that,’ one of the ladies said, starting to sound annoyed. ‘She hurt it last week. The doctor told her to be careful. I expect all her fires are out by now.’ She sounded smug.
‘They are,’ Max said shortly. ‘No locals thought to help her?’
‘She’s not a local herself,’ another of the ladies said, doubtfully now, maybe considering that they might be considered remiss. ‘She only came here when the children’s parents died. And she won’t sell the farm. We all tell her she should sell the farm. It’s a huge problem for the district.’
‘Why?’
‘We want to put a new road in. There’s ten outlying farms—huge concerns—that have three miles or more to get into town. If Phillippa agreed to sell her place we could build a bridge over the creek. It’d be a lot more convenient for everyone.’
‘I see,’ he said slowly. ‘Would that be why her vats have been found to be contaminated?’
‘Of course not,’ Crimplene snapped, but she flushed. ‘But it’s nothing more than we expected. She has some stupid idea of keeping the farm for the children. As if she can ever keep it as a going concern until they’re adult. It’s ridiculous.’
‘So she doesn’t qualify for help when she’s hurt?’ He caught himself then. What was the use of being angry—and what business was it of his? Pippa was nothing to do with him. He just needed to do what he had to do and move on.
It was just she looked so…slight. David against Goliath. Or Pippa against Crimplene. He’d prefer to take on Goliath any day, he thought. Crimplene made him feel ill.
‘Where can I buy some wood to tide us over?’ he said, trying very hard to keep anger out of his voice.
‘We have barbecue packs,’ the checkout lady said. She also seemed unsure, casting a nervous glance at Crimplene as if she was bucking an agreed plan. ‘We sell them to tourists at a big…I mean for premium prices. There’s ten logs per bundle at five dollars a bundle.’
Max thought back to the enormous woodstove and he thought of Pippa’s fingers, tinged with blue from the cold. He looked at the four women in front of him. They stared straight back and he felt the anger again. Sure, he was a stranger, and it was none of his business, but he remembered the shadows under Pippa’s eyes and he couldn’t stop being angry.
Anger achieved nothing, he told himself. He was here on a mission. He had to focus.
‘How many bundles do you have in stock?’ he asked.
‘Forty maybe.’
‘If I buy them all will you deliver?’
There was a general gasp. ‘That’s wicked waste,’ Crimplene started but the checkout lady was seeing dollars.
‘Sure we will,’ she said. ‘When do you want them?’
‘You can’t,’ Crimplene gasped but the checkout lady was looking at a heady profit.
‘Now,’ Max told her.
‘I’ll get hubby from the back,’ she said, breathless. ‘For that amount Duncan can get his backside off the couch and I don’t care if it is against what you want, Doreen. Your precious road can wait. It’s uncivilised, what you’re doing to that family, and I don’t mind who I say it to.’ Then as Crimplene’s bosom started to swell in indignation she smiled at Max and gazed lovingly at the very expensive produce in his trolley. ‘Do you want me to ring these through?’
‘Not yet,’ Max said, moving further down the aisle, away from the women he wanted suddenly—stupidly—to lash out at. Pippa was to be neglected no longer, he thought. If he bought the entire store out and the population of Tanbarook went hungry because of it, then so much the better. Vengeance by Commerce. He almost managed a smile. ‘I’ve hardly started.’
‘Go tell Duncan to start loading wood,’ he told the ladies. ‘Now do you know where I can buy fish and chips? Oh, and a clothes dryer?’
‘He’ll probably abscond with my thirty-two dollars and fifty cents.’
Back at the farmhouse, the kids and Dolores were out on the veranda waiting for Max’s return and Pippa was starting to think she’d been a dope. What if he never came back? She hadn’t even taken the registration number of his car.
Who was he?
Max de Gautier. The royal side of the family.
Pippa smiled at that, remembering Gianetta’s pleasure in her royal background. Alice, Gina’s mother, had tried to play it down, but Gianetta had been proud of it.
‘My great-uncle is the Crown Prince of Alp d’Estella,’ she’d tell anyone who’d listen. After the old prince died, she’d had to change her story to: ‘I’m related to the Crown Prince of Alp d’Estella.’ It didn’t sound as impressive, but she’d still enjoyed saying it.
But it meant nothing. When Alice died there’d been no call from royalty claiming kinship. Gina had married her Australian dairy farmer, and, storytelling aside, she’d considered herself a true Australian. Royalty might have sounded fun but it hadn’t been real. Her beloved Donald had been real.
Marc came in then, searching for reassurance that Max would indeed return.
‘I don’t know why he’s so long,’ Pippa told him, and then hesitated. ‘Marc, you remember your mama showed us a family tree of the royal family she said you were related to?’
‘Mmm,’ Marc said. ‘Grandma drew it for us. I couldn’t read it then but I can now. It’s in my treasure box.’
‘Can we look at it?’
So they did. The tree that Alice had drawn was simple, first names only, wives or husbands, drawn in neat handwriting with a little childish script added later.
Marc spread it out on the kitchen table and both of them studied it. Marc was an intelligent little boy, made old beyond his years by the death of his parents. Sometimes Pippa thought she shouldn’t talk to him as an equal, but then who else could she talk to?
‘I wrote the twins and two thousand and two and stuff when I learned to write,’ Marc said and Pippa hugged him and kept reading.
‘Etienne was your great-great-grandfather,’ she told him, following the line back. ‘Look, there’s Max. His grandpa and your great-grandfather were the same. Louis. I guess Louis must have been a prince.’
‘Why aren’t I a prince?’
‘Because your grandma was a girl?’ she said doubtfully. ‘I think princes’ kids are princes but princesses’ kids aren’t.’ She hesitated and then admitted: ‘Actually, Marc, I’m not sure.’
