Changing Seasons. Winter, part 3

Winter, part 3 The sun had barely risen when Lachlan arrived at the church once again. He didn’t believe in ghosts! Especially not old lady ghosts who sounded like school teachers. He was going to be man enough to face this at least. It was stress probably. That’s why he’d been imagining things. Lachlan went boldly up to the place where he’d seen – imagined he’d seen – the ghost. There! Nothing at all! Um, no. Something! A very definite something. A rather annoyed something.
“Might I point out just how rude you were last time you came in here, young man? You came in without knocking – which you’ve done again! – and then ran off like a scared rabbit. Instead of introducing yourself. I know a fourteen year old with better manners than you…” This ghost was in a huff with him! But oddly enough, it didn’t make him feel like Marianna’s aunt had made him feel – as though he shouldn’t exist – but like his primary school teacher had made him feel. As though it was a test, but you could pass it if you thought carefully. “Um, sorry? I didn’t know anyone lived here?”
She still wasn’t mollified yet.
“And just where have you come from? Are you some kind of tourist?” She looked him over and sniffed. “Or a tramp? Because if so, you can leave right now…” “No,” Lachlan said, rather hurt by the tramp assumption. “We live here. In the old forge.”
“Why?”
Just the question he’d been asking himself since Marianna had announced they were coming here.
“I don’t know. I heard my wife – I heard Marianna – yelling at her aunt, saying ‘Don’t you dare ever say that again!’ And then she announced that we were packing up and coming here. It is ours. We do own it.”
He could see the ‘Tramp!’ look in her eyes again.
“We were going to come here, three years ago, but then the babies came…” He wound down. This was the most he’d said to anybody in months. Possibly years, actually. She looked at him as though she could see straight through him. “You, young man, are in a mess. I suggest you sit down and tell me the whole story. From the beginning and in order, please.” So he did. A bit slowly, a bit haltingly, from their courtship (her word, not his) to their marriage, their plans to set up here as artists – and then the unplanned pregnancy. And Marianna’s fight to hold on to the babies in the pregnancy, her fight for their premature lives. “And I couldn’t help.” Her sudden decision to move here, away from her aunt, and the way she pushed him all the time to do things. “But I can’t. Can’t put things right. Can’t suddenly make lots of money to sort things out.”
I am such a failure, he thought.
“Money isn’t the only thing you have to offer, you know,” the ghost said. “Think about what you can do.” And then she was gone. What did she mean, think about what he could do? What could he do? Put up a shelf. Make a little sculpture. It just wasn’t enough, was it? Was this really Euan’s house? But he’d followed Euan’s directions, and there wasn’t another house it could be. Euan spotted him from an upstairs window and came out to greet him.
“Yes, this is our p-place. It l-looked worse when we arrived!” Somehow Lachlan ended up helping with the feeding session! These babies didn’t seem to be as terrifyingly tiny as theirs had been. “How prem were they?” he asked, as he patted Joy in a come-on-and-burp sort of way.
“Not very,” Patience said. “They were very pleased with me at the hospital actually. Apparently my pelvis was the perfect shape for carrying multiple children. They all weighed in at about the five pound mark.”
Lachlan spotted the sewing machine, and used it as a handy change of topic, before she asked how heavy Fletcher had been. “How’s the sewing machine going?”
“Nicely, thank you! Of course, you fixed it didn’t you?”
“Yes, but I didn’t sew with it. I just made sure it was running smoothly.
“Well, it’s done the curtains, covered the settee, and I’m about to start on some clothes for Clara.”
Another person! This neighbourhood wasn’t quite as deserted as he’d thought it was. But where did they all live? “Where have you been!” Marianna demanded when he got home. “I woke up and you were gone! I didn’t know where you were! I thought you’d left us!”
Why was that such a big deal anyway. He was such a failure as a father…The words just fell out of his mouth.
“You’d be better off without me anyway.” She flew at him like a wildcat.
“Don’t you dare say that ever again!”
Where had he heard here say that before?
“I would not be better off without you! And neither would the children. Your children. Your sons and your daughters. They need you as well as me.”
Their voices must have carried into the house because someone started crying. It had been Fletcher who was crying. Lachlan scooped him up and held his still-hiccupping son close.
“I’ll take Fletcher to the library,” he said, calm and polite as they both always were in front of the children. “Do I need to take a bottle with me?”
“No. I’ve just fed them all. Come back when he’s hungry again.” “Clara Hayes. Nice to meet you, Lachlan McGowan. Yep, I’m afraid word gets round fast here. Especially when Minnie Wagner’s got the intel. This must be Fletcher, and yes, he does look like you! Euan was right.”
“Nice to meet you,” Lachlan said, a little limply. Gosh, she was the confident one! Especially compared to Euan. He settled down on the floor next to Fletcher. This really was nice: Fletcher’s little body snuggled trustingly against his. Clara left after a while – oddly enough, she’d been reading How to Restore Old Stonework as well. What was it about that book? Patience turned up, saying that she was waiting for her washing to do, and was this Fletcher, and wasn’t he gorgeous? Fletcher quite liked the attention! For once, they were both eating at the same time. The only downside to that was that there were only two places to sit. Lachlan got there last.
Marianna’s outburst earlier on had got him thinking. About a lot of things. Well, her outburst and what the ghost had said to him too. “I could make us some chairs,” Lachlan said hesitantly. “And a table. If you’d like that?”
“Yes. Please.” For a moment, Lachlan saw the old Marianna, the passionate, loving girl he’d married. And for a moment he felt like the strong capable man he’d once believed himself to be. “I made something else the other day. If you’d like to see it?” “That’s really neat. I’ll take it to Minnie tomorrow. And see if the other one sold as well.”
“Now come back in before you freeze out here.”
“I know – wrong clothes! But it’s so warm inside, with your stove and the fireplace.” “It sold! And Minnie says that her daughter will take anything else you make.”
“Right. But I’ve just about used up those scrap piles. I’ll take Harper to the library today as we planned, and go hunting round for more scrap tomorrow. There must be stuff round here that we can use – all these deserted buildings.”
“Can you fit in the washing as well tomorrow? We’re all getting a bit smelly.” “Hi! I’m Marcus Winter. And you must be Lachlan McGowan.”
Lachlan was beginning to get used to the introductions by now!
“But that’s not Fletcher,” Euan said. “Unless he’s had an amazing hair growth spurt. You d-didn’t say you had twins.”
“This is Harper,” Lachlan said.
“She looks like you as well. And like her b-brother too.” Marcus was reading The Winemaker’s Almanac. Well, he was a farmer. He also seemed to be impervious to cold! Must be all the hard physical work… Lachlan found what he was looking for in a disused railyard not far from their home. A massive pile of junk! This should keep him going for a while. He might find enough useable wood here to make the table they needed as well. He’d made something new from the new junk – a whale toy with moving fins and waterspout. It was Taylor who was fascinated by it, looking at it closely to see what moved and why and how, turning it over to find its secrets. “Well! Do you want to see how things work?” Lachlan has just assumed it would be the boys who would want to know that. “Are you the curious one?”
“Just because she looks like me doesn’t mean she’s not like you,” Marianna called from the other side of the room, laughing.
“Maybe you are like your daddy,” Lachlan said, laughing too. And Taylor joined in, happy because her parents were happy. This child of mine might be like me. Suddenly, Taylor was a person for Lachlan, rather than just a child they were desperately trying to keep alive. She looks like her mother, but she thinks like I do. Euan came in, popped Joy down on the mat and then did a double-take.
“That’s n-not Fletcher or Harper.”
“No. It’s Taylor.”
“So you’ve g-got t-triplets too?”
“No. Quads.”
“Four!” Euan’s jaw dropped and he pulled it shut with an audible click. “Three was bad enough. But four? How have you survived? That must have been tough. And they must have been so prem.”
Euan’s not nervous round me suddenly. His stammer’s disappeared, Lachlan thought.
“Yeah. It was tough,” he admitted out loud for the first time ever. “I think I might be able to find enough wood at that old railway yard to make a table.”
“That would be nice.”
“I’m going to go out early tomorrow morning for another look round.”
“Thanks for telling me, Lachlan.” There was a softness in Marianna’s voice that Lachlan hadn’t heard for ages. “I really liked that whale. It deserves to sell. Don’t stop making things. You’re so good at it. This time he headed to the door and knocked at it.
“Well, I’m glad to see you’ve found your manners,” said a still tart but slightly more approving voice behind him.
“Um, good morning?”
“Better still. Now. Why are you here again?”
“I need your help. Advice?” “Don’t we all,” said a voice Lachlan recognised from behind him. “You could do a lot worse than listen to Addie’s Amazing Advice.”
“Miss Kirk to you, young man.”
“He’s Lachlan McGowan,” Clara pointed out coolly. “Not ‘Young Man.’ He has a name too.” “So you can see her too?”
“Oh yes. But most people can’t, so I wouldn’t mention it to anyone. I’ll leave you two alone to talk – I’ve been invited to breakfast at the Winter place, and I’m not planning to be late.” “I need to know how to help. Help Marianna. I don’t know where to start. I can’t work this out myself.”
“Well, at least you’re finally showing some sense in asking.” Her decidedly brisk north wind tone with him had calmed down to a March breeze.
“Let’s make a list of what you can do. And you can tell me what your Marianna is like and maybe we can work out what she wants and needs as a person.” “They all seem such small things,” Lachlan said doubtfully some forty minutes later.
“And you’d like to do the big and heroic, no doubt. Well, sometimes, the heroic is in doing the many small things. Oh, and one more thing. Get your hair cut as well.”
“What?!”
“There is absolutely no need for you to go round looking like a tramp.” Miss Kirk was in full Force 10 gale mode now.
“Show your wife that you respect yourself and her. Patience will cut it for you, if you ask. She trims Clara’s hair very nicely. Shy is one thing – Euan’s shy from all Clara says – but you have taken it too far. Ridiculous hermit is totally unnecessary. You can find your way forward. Your wife is fighting for a future for you all. Join her in her fight. Together you are incredibly strong.”