What’s the matter?’
He looked pained and rubbed at the side of his forehead, and she wondered if he had a headache. A hangover?
‘You’ve come for the funeral.’ He spoke softly, without looking at her, almost as if he was talking to himself.
‘Well, yes. Of course that’s why I’ve come.’
He almost winced as his gaze met hers. ‘I’m sorry Kate. I’m afraid the funeral was yesterday. Yesterday afternoon.’
She stared at him in disbelief.
His Adam’s apple rippled as he swallowed.
Spinning away from him, she clutched blindly at the veranda railing. Her mouth trembled and tears stung, then spilled. How could this have happened? She’d come all this way!
‘Why—?’ She swiped at her cheeks, pressed three fingers against her lips as she struggled for composure. Took a breath. ‘Why didn’t you wait for me?’ she asked, without daring to look at Noah.
‘I’m so sorry,’ he said again and his voice was exceedingly gentle. ‘We didn’t—I didn’t know you were coming.’
‘But I said I’d come.’ She glared at him. ‘I telephoned. I spoke to someone here. I told her I was delayed, but I said I was definitely coming.’
She bit down on her lip to hold back a sob. Noah had no idea how deeply she’d always loved her uncle. And he couldn’t possibly understand that she’d sacrificed an important photographic assignment to come all this way at such short notice. Or that she’d come despite her mother’s bewildering indifference to her brother’s death.
When Kate had announced that she would attend Angus’s funeral, her mother had been predictably surprised, almost offended. ‘Darling, no one down there will expect you.’
But Kate was used to her family’s antipathy to their Australian relatives and had learned to ignore it.
Her boyfriend, by contrast, had been disconcertingly eager. ‘Of course you must go. Stay as long as you like and have a holiday.’ Not a word about missing her. Until she’d asked. And then, of course, Derek had told her she’d be missed enormously.
So, despite mild misgivings, Kate had been determined to come. It was very important to make a showing of family solidarity. She’d wanted, more than anything, to demonstrate to this tight-knit Outback community that at least someone among Angus Harrington’s distant family cared, really cared, about his passing.
And she’d wanted the comfort of ritual, of a church service and a kindly minister saying prayers. Without that, she felt as if she couldn’t really say goodbye.
But now… She’d flown all this way, had travelled more than ten thousand tedious miles—in a jet, then a tiny inland plane no bigger than a bird, and then finally in a bouncing bus over narrow and bumpy Outback roads—for nothing.
Nothing.
Fighting her gathering exhaustion and despair, she turned to Noah, her voice rising on a querulous note. ‘I spoke to a woman. I thought she was your housekeeper. I can’t believe she didn’t tell you I was coming.’
A muscle worked in Noah’s jaw. Frowning, he shook his head. ‘You can’t have spoken to Ellen. She’s been in such a state since Angus died, I sent her into town to stay with her sister.’
Kate huffed angrily. ‘Well, I don’t know who it was then. I was on my mobile and the line kept cutting out, but I told her that I was held up at Heathrow. We had terrible snow and high winds all over England, and there were twenty-four-hour delays at every airport.’
Sighing heavily, Noah stood with his hands sunk on his hips, not meeting Kate’s gaze but looking somewhere out beyond, to the faded sky that hung listlessly above the parched brown paddocks.
‘Truly, I’m very sorry, Kate. I didn’t get your message. I—I think you must have spoken to Liane.’
‘Your wife?’
‘My ex-wife. She came back for the funeral.’
‘Ex?’
‘We were divorced just before Christmas.’
Kate struggled to breathe. Not an easy task when a string of explosions was detonating inside her. She felt as if she was tumbling through the air in slow motion. Noah was no longer married and her world had turned upside down.
In the awkward silence Noah said again, ‘I’m really sorry about the funeral, Kate.’
The defeated tone in his voice surprised her. He offered no further explanation. It was almost as if he expected that his former wife would have neglected to pass on an important message. Kate had no choice but to accept that she’d missed the funeral. It was a fait accompli.
But she’d come such a long way.
Noah picked up her suitcase and said in the quiet, laconic drawl of the Australian Outback, ‘You’d better come inside and I’ll brew up a cuppa.’
Kate forced a small smile. ‘I think I could really do with some tea.’
With a gentlemanly sweep of his arm, he motioned for her to enter the house ahead of him. They went down a long passage which, she remembered, cut straight through the middle of the house to the big kitchen at the back.
‘I’ll put your things in this spare room,’ he said, ducking into a bedroom that opened off to the right.
‘Are you the only person here?’
‘At the moment, yes. Ellen will be back soon.’
‘Is it all right for me to stay here tonight?’
‘Sure.’ He shot her a puzzled glance. ‘Don’t look so worried, Kate. No one expects you to jump on the next plane back to England.’
‘I couldn’t face that.’
‘This room’s yours, for as long as you need it.’
‘Thanks.’ She looked about her, amazed by how familiar the little bedroom felt. She was sure she recognised the single bed with old-fashioned brass ends and white candlewick spread.
Faded pink curtains hung over French doors that opened onto a side veranda. A very old, silky oak wardrobe with an oval mirror stood against the far wall. Looking about her, Kate was sure it was the room she’d slept in when she’d been here all those years ago.
Yes… She recognised the photo of her grandfather hanging on the wall. With his shock of white hair, thick white moustache and erect posture, and seated in a cane peacock-chair on the homestead veranda with his faithful dog at his feet, he looked like a throwback to the British Raj.
She remembered the emotional storms she’d weathered during the summer she’d spent here, how she’d hovered on the veranda, hoping to catch sight of Noah. The blissful heights and savage depths of youthful passion and unrequited love. The embarrassment. A shiver rustled through her.
